Ziri sits on the edge of the bunk bed to take his meds and I do my best not to frown. It makes him feel sick when he takes them before eating and I feel a little sick that I've put him in a situation where that's necessary.

When we descend to the kitchen, everyone but Iris is gathered at the table with breakfast plates already empty. Ông reads the paper whilst Má is bent over her phone and a notepad, looking frazzled and don't notice us come in. There's a chill in the air between her and Bà. Have they already argued? It's eight-thirty.

Ziri wishes them good morning with more pep than I can even think about mustering. Still, he stays at my heels as I beeline for the kettle to make coffee in the largest mug available.

'Did you sleep alright?' Bà asks.

Ziri turns around to face the table. 'Yes, thank you.'

He tugs at the sleeves of his jumper, crocheted by Sonia like all our jumpers. This one depicts a flock of sheep grazing on a hill that looks a little like the Windows XP background. It's loose on him, like all our clothes. Ziri still insists on us sharing a wardrobe even if I'm almost two sizes bigger than him now. He always wore baggy clothes anyway.

'It's cold though. I thought I might get frostbite.'

The laughter he sows into his voice is manufactured but, shockingly, Bà laughs too. She's trying. Maybe they will learn to like him.

I place a mug of tea in Ziri's hands and his discomfort melts as he looks at me. He shifts his head and I know he's about to kiss me, then realises where he is and says thank you instead.

I drink several gulps of coffee even as it scalds my throat to get enough energy to open the fridge. There's a container of leftover chicken which I take out to fry for sandwiches along with some spinach. I hand Ziri, who still hovers at my side, an Activia yoghurt to eat while I make the food. It's important for him to eat a balanced breakfast for his bipolar. He never skips it, even when he's running late.

'Anh ba sent me a list,' Má says to no one in particular. 'He's done most of the shopping last week but we still need some ingredients he forgot and fruit and flowers for offerings.'

'We'll go.' I volunteer before the question can land and the back of my neck burns. I make myself busy with breakfast. 'Just, we've a car and we need to go t'shops anyway to make summat without pork.'

            Ziri stares at the woman as he holds open the door to Bao & Hussain's Asian Market for her and her walker. After thanking him, she goes on to compliment his braids, then comments on the lovely weather we're having because it's the first day in a month that the sky has been so perfectly blue.

'Say summat,' I nudge him but when he don't, I turn to the woman with an apologetic grimace. 'Sorry, he's southern.'

Understanding dawns on her face. 'Ah. Well, love conquers all.' She pulls her bobble hat lower over her greying hair and hunches lower over her walker as stars down the street.

Ziri scowls her retreating back. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Nowt.' I prod him through the open door into the shop before we owe Bao and Hussain their entire electricity bill. He takes a basket and walks dutifully beside me as I look through Má's list though his glower don't budge and I cave. 'Just, it wouldn't kill ya to say hello to a stranger every once in a while.'

'Unless the stranger was a serial murderer, innit. In which cause it would.' Ziri speaks with the kind of dramatics that make the braids in front of his ears swing. Somehow he widens and narrows his eyes at the same time.

'I doubt that elderly woman with a walker is a serial murder.'

'That's exactly what she wants you to think– Oh! Can we get some lokum?' He takes a packet of authentic Turkish delights from the shelf, holding it above the basket as he waits for permission and though food is not summat we'll we wanting for — if there's one positive side to being around my family, it's food — I nod.

It takes us a while to find everything on the list. I haven't been to Bao & Hussain's for years and I've lost the muscle memory I once had. Fresh eyes make the lack of logic unavoidable: foods aren't sorted by country or type, but, apparently, by what fits on what shelf. Má is very particular about buying Vietnamese brands even if the product would be identical from China and I don't need to give her another thing to be upset about this weekend. Besides, I'd rather spend three hours doing a scavenger hunt through this shop than go back to the house.

'Found it!' Ziri smirks as he reappears beside me with a packet of dried shrimp and waves it much closer to my face than necessary.

I try to feign disappointment at losing this unofficial competition but his smile melts any resolve I have. 'You want a kiss reward?' is what I say instead.

'Yes, please.'

He leans his face closer to mine and I'm more than happy to oblige. We don't normally make out in grocery shops but it's either that or my grandparents' house which is much worse. When he pulls away, there's a glint of excitement in Ziri's eyes. Maybe Iris is right and we really are boring.

I don't have the chance to voice the thought before someone speaks from a metre away. 'Miles? Mate. What're you doing here?'

I look up and freeze.

When we lived in Leeds, we lived in Middleton whilst Bà and Ông Nội live in Whinmoor; the risk of bumping into someone didn't even cross my mind. But Bao & Hussain's is downtown. I stare at the ramen packets piled in Jacob's arms and all I can think is he's not Asian! What's he doing here? Even if I'm perfectly aware he always shopped here; Irfan and I dragged him along enough times in primary school. Where else would he shop, Tesco? Soba Cup Noodles are manky.

I stammer out a string of hey, hi, hellos like a scratched CD but don't manage owt else.

Jacob beams at me. Though he's grown a beard and his hair is long enough to tie back, he's easy to recognise. He has the same round cheeks that are always red, the same hazel eyes, and the same smile. A smile so similar to Dominic's that a shiver yanks at the base of my spine.

'What're ya doing up here?' he asks again, though don't let me answer before he spots Ziri. 'Who's this?'

I'm still unable to process Jacob's presence. You're not Asian! You're not s'posed to be here. It starts the way it always does: a prickling at the soles of my feet until it seizes my calves and my whole body fills with the need to run. Literally.

I'm panicking. Then I'm panicking about the fact that I'm panicking. I'm going to freeze up again just as I do every time someone asks. Guilt floods in preemptively and it's exactly that that seals my fate.

'We work together,' Ziri lies effortlessly. Have I forced him to become such an excellent liar? 'We've got a conference in Leeds so we're here for the weekend.'

'Right.' Jacob buys it without any hesitation. He's never been that sharp. Which is probably why we were friends. He turns to me, still beaming like I've volunteered to buy his nan a BMW. 'I didn't know you were coming up. Why didn't you phone or summat? We could've had a cal and that.'

It's difficult to hear him through the gush of guilt in my ears. Ziri deserves better than this, better than me.

When I manage to shove words out of my throat, they have the kind of unnatural tempo that GPS voices do. 'I've not got any of your numbers. I've lost em.' It's true because I don't have Jacob's number, or Irfan's or Freddie's, though I've never intentionally deleted any of them.

'Could've sent a Facebook message.'

'I'm no good at the social media and that.'

'What decade are ya in?' Jacob asks with a chortle and Ziri masks his own laugh with an entirely unconvincing cough. He always makes fun of me for being so bad at technology — "because you were born in the eighties". 'Well, good seeing ya, mate. Send me a message next time you come up.'

Jacob leaves.

As panic disperses, the shame that waterlogs my brain stays. I hang my head and turn to Ziri's Converse on the grimy linoleum floor. The corners of my eyes burn but no tears soothe them.

I hate that I've regressed back to this. I hate how I regress back to this every time we're further than ten kilometres from Brighton centre. I've attended Pride four times now but what pride have I ever had?

'I'm sorry.'

Ziri drops his head back with a groan, exaggerated so I know he's not actually frustrated. 'It's calm, Kilometers. I don't need you to tell every person you've ever interacted with that we're dating.' When I don't look up, he squeezes my hand with the one that isn't carrying the basket. 'Honestly. It's calm, hayati.'

            I wish I were still a kid who got lucky money rather than an adult who has to hand it out. Every tenner I deposit into a red envelope as I sit at the kid-size desk that my knees threaten to lift off the ground wrenches my heart a little. Not that I don't love my family but I could get a new tattoo with this money instead. I'm just lucky that Ba were an only child and I only have cousins from Má's side of the family.

'Do I look stupid in this?'

I turn to Ziri and my heart somersaults.

He studies his reflection — well, what he can see of it in the decorative wavey mirror that's barely three inches wide — with a frown. Any concerns over my bank account evaporate.

Ziri wears a brand new yellow áo dài, stunning against his dark skin. Since this is the first time I've brought him to a family event, he has never worn Vietnamese clothing before and the sight fills me with sunlight.

'You look handsome.'

I'm wearing a red áo dài that's a little tight around my biceps. I should've bought a new one but this fit fine last year and I didn't think about trying it on at home. Guess lifting boxes for forty hours a week still builds muscle after three years.

Ziri turns from the mirror. 'You're sure it's okay for me to wear this?'

'Course, it's okay.'

He reads the question from my tone and drops his gaze to his unicorn socks. 'Your family don't like me.'

My joy hardens to a rock and drops through my stomach.

The worst part is that he's right. Maybe they would've been more accepting if I dated a Vietnamese man. Then again, probably not. I shouldn't've brought him here, but what were I s'posed to do? Never letting him meet my family were upsetting him too. He thought I'm ashamed of him! As if I could ever be ashamed of him. It were a lose-lose situation.

The only silver lining is that the first day of Tết fell on a Sunday this year and tomorrow I'll get him back home.

I stand and pull Ziri into a hug. I can't come up with owt to say. I wish I could come up with summat to say, to insist that they do like him and it's just his anxiety playing tricks. All I say is, 'I love you.'

Ziri leans heavy against me. There's no one on Earth that hugs the way he does: with his entire body weight. An awkward hug is an oxymoron in Ziri's world where people offer their hearts to anyone patient enough to take them. In Ziri's world, the heart is an infinite thing, an orange that never runs out of segments.

'I love you, mon lapin.'

My breath cuts off. The floor sinks under my weight and darkness sizes my periphery.

Before I can understand the sensation, it's gone and everything's normal. Ziri pulls away, planting a kiss on the corner of my mouth. There's a knock on the door and Má's reminder that we're leaving for Bác Trai's in ten minutes.

            I didn't think it were possible for me to love Ziri more than I do but as I watch him play bầu cua cá cọp with Ông Ngoại and Iris, love somehow finds room to grow. In Ziri's world, the heart is an infinite thing, not the last orange a family has to share during war.

Ông Ngoại always spoke broken English and since his stroke, it's difficult to understand even his Vietnamese, but Ziri waits patiently and repeats Ông's sentences to ensure he deciphered them right and don't touch his wheelchair to move him around at his convenience, don't stare at his amputated legs. It's so low a standard that it shouldn't surprise me, shouldn't fill me with appreciation, but it does.

Ông's smile reaches his eyes when he starts to tell a story — that Iris, judging by her groan, has heard at every family gathering. She reminds Ông that it's his turn to bet. I can't hear a word over the bustle in the lounge, four different games going on at once, but the way Ông smiles feels like he's offering his blessing to our relationship.

He didn't say owt when I told him about Ziri and, at the time, I feared it were because his impaired speech stopped him from expressing his disapproval but maybe he's fine with it. I think Bà Ngoại would've been fine with it.

'Oh, you're reet smitten, aren't ya?'

Diu elbows me and I realise I've been holding the jug of lime juice for five minutes. Ears burning, I place it on the end of the serving table currently holding up a buffet that could feed an entire village but I make no effort to deny the accusation. Of course I am.

Má is the middle of five children but she had me when she were nineteen which makes me one of the oldest cousins and Diu is the only one who keeps me sane at family gatherings.

'How come you've not brought him round earlier then?'

'You know...'

Diu grimaces and, as we return to the kitchen, glances at Bà Nội who helps with the cooking even though this ain't her family. It never tastes the same as Bà Ngoại's food did.

Since the only family Ba had in England are his parents, we always attend celebrations on Má's side. We bring Bà and Ông Nội because the only family they ever had in England were Ba, but it's always painfully awkward.

Bà Nội seems to go out of her way to make it awkward. As we re-enter the kitchen, she's in the middle of criticising how Má's carrot slices are too thin and they'll go soggy in the stir-fry whilst Má stares at the knife like she's wrestling the urge to stab someone with it. Bà or herself?

I drag myself to the hob to check the stuffed bitter melon soup before I help Diu with the summer rolls.

'So are you gonna get married when it's made legal?' she asks.

'If,' I correct, miserably. 'If it's made legal. And I dunno. We've not talked about it.' We have a silent agreement not to talk about it, not to get our hopes up. Cameron could always change his mind.

'You're planning to get married?' Má's voice is shrill.

'I don't know. I just told ya we've not talked about it.'

'But... why would you need to get married?'

The rice paper tears as I fold a summer roll with more aggression than necessary. I go to respond that we're in love, ain't that normally why people get married, but Bà cuts over me. 'What I don't understand is, if you're going to be with someone who is so close to being a woman, why can't you just date a woman?'

I'm so dumbfounded I can't help but turn around and stare at the side of her head. 'That's not how any of that works.'

'You told us that you're gay,' she says with a generous dose of skepticism. She slides vegetables into a hot pan and raises her voice over the crackle of oil. 'That means you fancy other men. How can he be attractive to you?'

'He's beautiful,' Diu says.

'He is beautiful,' Bà agrees. 'But women are beautiful.'

'It's not the same.'

'If you can love him, surely there are women out there you could love. Maybe you didn't try hard enough.' The vegetables sizzle as Bà moves them around the pan. 'Maybe if you and your mother didn't coddle him so much as a child, Hue, we wouldn't be in this situation. D'you see any other men in the kitchen right now?'

All the smoke from the stir-fry absorbs into me, burning hot. Before I can snap that it's not Má's fault and how dare she bring Bà Ngoại into it, on Tết of all days, a hand falls on my arm.

'Please don't argue with her.' Má whispers so that Bà can't hear it over the frying and the fan. 'Cause that reflects badly on me, don't it? Please, Thỏ. She's your grandmother.' Have some respect.

The smoke fades and my thoughts clear with a twist of my gut. Why am I acting like this? 'I'm sorry.' I press on the freshly opened wound in my thumb nail fold. 'But it's not your fault, Má.'

She hugs me. With her a head shorter, she almost hangs from my neck.

'I just don't want you to rush into owt, Thỏ. You don't have to get married the moment it's legal.'

'Cô, didn't you and chú get married when you were eighteen?' Diu asks and Má's ears turn pink.

'Aye, maybe Dean shouldn't've rushed into things with you,' Bà interrupts. 'Married and pregnant before he could finish one year of university — there were so much left for him t'see.'

I allow my eyes to fall out of focus as I watch Diu make summer rolls with the efficiency of a machine. It hypnotises me as my consciousness climbs into the attic of my mind where even I can't fully reach it.

I snap myself out of it before it gets too far. 'I just... need a second,' I whisper to Diu. She mouths go, relieving me of my summer roll duties.

I end up in the backyard where the air nips at my skin. The sweat brought on by cooking for the last three hours has already evaporated when I shove snow off the garden bench to sit down. Clouds have rolled in since this morning, compressing the sky with a dense overcast. I stare at the grey...

The door opens and I snap out of a trance I didn't realise I sunk into, but the numbness of my cheeks means I've been out here for a while. My chest wrenches as I watch Ziri giggle at the way snow crunches under his Converse.

Fuck.

'I'm sorry. I just ditched you in there.'

He shoves the snow off the remaining half of the bench to sit and smiles. 'It's calm.' He's dressed in his bobble hat, scarf, and mittens along with his coat and still hugs himself against the cold but I can't even muster a comment about how southern he is.

I hunch over with my forearms on my knees, hands wrung, and shake my head. 'I shouldn't've brought you here. I'm sorry.'

'It's calm, Miles. I wanted to come. I'd have to meet them eventually...'

He says it like he never had hope this would go any better.

'Your grandad's nice. He was telling me how he met your grandma in Vietnam, how he'd buy mangos from her every week even though he's allergic. So romantic... Why didn't we meet like that?'

'Cause you looked like you wanted to chuck up every time you saw me.'

'Maybe if you brought me mangos, I'd've warmed up to you faster,' he sasses and a smile tugs at my mouth. 'I wish I got the chance to meet her...'

'She would've liked you.'

She would have. Bà Ngoại used to beam every time she got to crush autumn leaves under her wellies or jump in puddles, just like Ziri does. She'd buy us Twister ice lollies when she picked me up from school even though Má didn't want me to eat too much sugar. Whenever there were a storm, she built a pillow fort and we stayed awake all night as she told me fairytales set in Vietnamese villages.

I don't remember being afraid before we established this tradition. In hindsight, Bà were obviously soothing herself by soothing me because sometimes lightning sounds like a bomb. Can the fear of storms be learnt?

I don't tell Ziri about the way she kept every receipt and every piece of junk mail until we had to rent a storage compartment for her to stack them in. I don't tell him how after she passed, we found the lifetime supply of sugar and rice she had been building in the basement. We had to drive to seven different food banks to be able to donate it all. I don't tell him about the time she took me on a train all the way to Saltburn and Ba called the police because he thought I'd been kidnapped. Bà told me we had to hide from the soldiers.

I do tell him how we used to cook bánh tét together every lunar new year and listen to Doan Chuan and borrow Before Sunrise on VHS from the library. Things Bà Nội would never let me do.

My fingers rake into my hair as I hunch over again. 'My mum and grandma argue all the time. I just... wish I knew how to fix it.'

Ziri sighs. 'You're such an elder brother. You don't gotta fix everything all the time. Who are you, Bob the Builder?'

Even as I hold down the lid of the box in my brain with both hands, it's already too late. The jingle squeezes through the gaps and there's no putting it back in. Bob the Builder, can he fix it? Bob the Builder, yes he can!

'Fuck you.' I groan as Ziri laughs. 'No, seriously, fuck you. Now when we go to sleep, all I'll hear is that fucking song on repeat.'

'Not my problem. I've got pills for that, innit.' He basks in his own comedy, then shifts closer on the bench. 'Seriously, Kilometres, it's not your responsibility.'

'It got so much worse after I came out so maybe it is... Maybe I shouldn't've done it, it were selfish. I just wanna fix it.'

Ziri takes my cold hand into his mittened one. 'I know you do but, mon amour, I don't think that's something you can do. They're grown women; if they wanted to fix it, they'd fix it. That's not on you. Honestly, maybe your dad should've put more effort into fixing things between them–'

'How the fuck d'you know what he did and didn't put effort into?'

His gaze shifts to the silk tassel bush quivering against the fence. 'You're right. I don't know. I'm sorry.'

Fuck. Why am I yelling at him now too? There's summat wrong with me today. I've never been trigger-happy.

Ziri scoops snow into his lap and claps it into a ball. For several minutes, the sound of his mittens shaving snow is the only thing that joins the wind in the garden. Then his hands appear in my vision, holding a snow heart, offering it to me like a truce.

I take it though my hands are numb from the cold. The left side is bulkier than the right but I wish I could keep it forever.

'I wanna have sex with you.'

My head snaps to him. 'What?'

'Not now. Or here. When we get back home, I mean.' My brain has whiplash and Ziri exhales a laugh. 'Now that I've experienced all sorts of awkward moments with your family, I feel like we might as well be married. I know it sounds a little ridiculous; how could I suddenly be ready overnight? But that's what happened, so.'

I continue to stare at him, struggling to process that we're talking about sex when a minute ago, we were talking about my dead dad.

'So... Um... What about you?'

'Huh?'

'Do you want to have sex? With me. Cause if you wanna have sex with someone else, we've gotta break up.' Ziri tries to laugh but he fiddles with the zipper pull tab of his jacket the way he would with his cross necklace if he could reach it.

'Course, I do.' My frozen cheeks ache as a smile but a gentle flame kindles in my chest. 'You know I do.'