Two weeks later, as Ivan sat at the bar after work, he heard Sadiq bemoaning how bad it was getting with Herakles.

"He hasn't been home for over a month," he said, putting his head in his hands. "He spent Valentines with his drunk relatives and Kiku, and he said it was more fun that he'd ever had with me," he whined, voice muffled by his arms.

""You want a smoke, man?" Lars offered, pulling out his pack of cigarettes from his inner pocket.

"I can't. I told Herakles I'd give it up," Sadiq said, staring at the pack longingly despite his words.

"Whatever," Lars retracted his offer, back into his pocket.

"You know, Sadiq, you may benefit from seeing other people for a bit," Arthur suggested.

Sadiq responded with some groan or complaint. Ivan zoned out, instead focusing on how peculiar Lars had been acting the last two weeks.

He didn't speak as much, and his cough hadn't gone away. He was smoking a bit less, too. He often took sick days. Antonio said that he was at the doctor's a lot, trying to figure out what his cough was all about.

Ivan didn't know what to think. Lars had still been avoiding Ivan. Yao hadn't said a word about Lars since Valentines.

Sadiq gave in to Lars' cigarettes the second time they were offered and the two went outside for a smoke.

"Come over here, will you chap?" Arthur beckoned Ivan closer to the bar as soon as the other two were out.

"What?"

"Yao hasn't talked to me since Valentines and you know why, right? I think it's ridiculous."

"What? No, I have no idea why that would be."

"Didn't he tell you about Lars? No? Well then."

"No, he didn't. He said he'd tell me later. Why's Yao mad at you?"

Arthur sighed. "I didn't tell him Lars worked here now, so when he found out he felt betrayed and has only called me once since, to yell at me."

"Oh."

"But see, all Lars wants is to talk with him. He explained everything to me. That's why I've been trying to help him. And he has to do it rather soon. You don't think you could try to talk to him, do you?"

"Uh," Ivan said dumbly. "I don't know? I don't know anything about this, so I don't know if I should take sides."

"Go ask Yao about it then, okay?"

Ivan nodded and was slightly nonplussed by being told what to do by Arthur.

"You want a scotch? I know I need a drink right now."

"Vodka, I suppose."

Arthur poured drinks and took a large gulp of his first thing.

"Tino says that Peter likes a girl at school, now. The little squirt."

"Ha, that's cute."

Arthur chuckled and shook his head. "He asked Tino and Berwald for girl advice. Poor Tino had no idea what to say. He'll have to learn not to ask two gay men for girl advice in the future."

Ivan laughed. He could imagine Tino panicking and putting it on Berwald to answer.

Arthur sighed and looked down at his hands.

Ivan understood why he was bringing this up, now.

"You miss him?"

Arthur raised his eyes to Ivan's. "It's just weird that he's not only part of my family any more, you know? Like for a couple weeks I saw him every day. Then he's gone and he's got parents now and-" Arthur sighed again, more irritably. "And I'm really frustrated with how Yao's acting, too. He's not overreacting, but he's got the memory of a horse. If you ever do anything wrong, he will never let it go."

"I never even noticed anything was wrong, aside from whatever's going on with Lars."

Arthur shrugged.

They had a second or third glass before Lars and Sadiq came back in.

"Yeah, come down to my shop sometime. I've got great Cuban cigars."

"I really shouldn't. But I might."

Lars grinned triumphantly.

"You know, I used to go to Hookah bars with my cousins. I'm pretty sure I was high when I first met Herakles," Sadiq laughed.

Ivan rolled his eyes. He really was sick of hearing about Herakles from Sadiq.

"Well, I've got to get going," Ivan said.

"See ya, Ivan."

Yao texted Ivan late the next night.

I can't sleep ):

Ivan hadn't tried to ask about Lars yet, even though he'd had all day to do so, but now he knew he wasn't going to ask that day. Not once Yao started talking like this.

What's up?

I don't know. Can I call you?

Sure.

Ivan answered the call as soon as it came up on his screen.

"Hello?"

"Hi Ivan. I am so tired, but Kiku's still in the living room and I can't bake without him being all suspicious. How was your day?"

"It was fine. You do sound tired. What have you been doing?"

Yao scoffed, "Well, Arthur's been texting me all day. Do you know that I haven't spoken to him? He lied to me about something really important and was surprised when I found out. He said it was 'awkward' to tell the truth. Pfft, what a friend, huh?"

"Hm," Ivan thought it was strange that Yao's story differed so much from Arthur's explanation. "Well, what are you doing now?"

"Trying to sleep."

"Is it your... anxiety? Like you'd said before."

Yao sighed. "Yeah."

"And you don't want to ask Kiku for help." Ivan already knew this.

"No! He'll think I'm stupid."
"I see why you've turned to me, since I have no idea what's bothering you and cannot call you stupid."

"Gosh, I will tell you, okay? Let's not talk about it right now. Tell me about your day."

"Oh, I didn't really do anything. I went to the corner market and the cashier must've been Ukrainian because when she heard my accent she refused to ring me up and cursed at me in a strange accent in Russian."

"What? I didn't know Ukrainians felt that way about Russians?"

"It's more complicated than that, but oh well. There's a difference between the general culture of eastern and western Ukraine. Complicated."

"Wit, so because she didn't like your accent, and she spoke Russian means that she's Ukrainian?"

"Well, she looked Ukrainian, too."

"What? What's the difference between Russians and Ukrainians?"

"Oh, it's hard to explain. A lot of them have slightly different hair and eye colors, and, uh yeah. I don't know, you can just tell. Or I can."

"Huh, that's interesting. What else did you do?"

"Um, well I tried to find who Natalya's friend Toris is. He's Lithuanian. That's all I really found," Ivan sighed.

"Oh? Does being Lithuanian have a connotation, or?"

"No, he's literally just Lithuanian. I knew his name didn't sound Russian. I hope she's not dating him."

"Why not? What's his name, let me look him up on Facebook. How do you spell it?"

"T-O-R-I-S. His last name's Laurinitis, but I can't remember how to spell it."

"I found him. Aw, he's a cutie."

"Whoa, whoa, you're not supposed to say that. You always call me cute."

"You're right, you're the cutest. But he looks like a sweetie. Why shouldn't she date him? Who are the other boys ins his profile picture?"

"Er, I don't know? One of them is probably Eduard- I think he's the older one."

"They look like dorks."

Ivan hummed.

"Since I'm looking here, what are some of your old friends' names? I want to look them up, too."

"Ah..." Yao knew how awkward Ivan was, and he still assumed that Ivan had friends back home? "Well, I worked a lot for the last couple years, you know, so I can't really remember any of their names..."

"Hm, well okay. I think I'm going to sleep now. Maybe I'll drop by your place tomorrow morning. Is that okay?"

"Oh, sure."

"Bye."

"Bye," Yao hung up. He sat on his bed and smiled for a moment before tiptoeing down the hallway, into the bathroom. He took out his bottle of sleeping pills and tapped two into his hand, filling a glass of water and throwing the pills back.