After several attempts to see or talk to Pavel, Sulu just goes over to his room and knock on the door. Pavel has an idea of who it is, but lets Scotty answer the door anyway. Scotty lets Sulu in and Pavel smiles at him, as if he's a little surprised to see him, and hasn't been trying to blatantly avoid him.
"Hey, I haven't seen you in ages."
"Yeah," Pavel agrees, deciding not to point out it's because of Veesa.
Sulu pulls up a chair next to Pavel's desk. "How's your study going? Every time I ask you to go somewhere you always say you're studying."
"I feel more behind this semester I guess…"
Scotty looks at him from across the room. He knows Pavel is lying, Pavel knows Pavel is lying, and yet somehow Sulu still doesn't.
"Want to go hang out now then if you're not too busy…"
Pavel can't put into words how much he wants to spend time with Sulu. Just the two of them, like old times.
"Is Veesa coming?" He asks, knowing that she'd probably go with them, just to make Pavel uncomfortable or to gloat even.
"No, no, why would she be coming? Never mind, get your stuff, I've got something cool to show you."
Pavel gets changed and follows Sulu through the twilight San Francisco. Seeing the city in the gentle orange light of the sky reminds Pavel what made him want to come here in the first place. The city is so different from Russia in its own beautiful way. He still has a worn out postcard of the Golden Gate Bridge from his father pinned up beside his bed. Sulu grew up in America so he seems mildly less impressed by the city. That's the one thing Pavel has always liked about space – no matter how longs he's there, he can never get bored of the scenery.
Sulu brings him into a small café in a back alleyway where the owners seem to recognise him as soon as he walks in the door. One of the owners has a few purple highlights through his hair and starts speaking to Sulu in Japanese. Pavel wasn't actually sure if he could speak Japanese. Sulu pulls him out to the back of the café, where there's a small outdoor garden with fairy lights.
"I didn't realise you spoke Japanese," Pavel says, smiling a little as he looks around at the tables lit with little tea light candles in jars.
"Not well," Hikaru laughs. "My mum always spoke it to my siblings and I when we were kids but I always replied in English. Do you have any brothers or sisters?"
"No. It's just me," Pavel replies. He'd always wished he had a younger sister or older brother to keep him company as a child.
"Lucky," Hikaru replies. "My sisters especially always annoyed me. They'd dress me up and paint my nails and stuff."
Pavel laughs and the waiter, who also seems to know Sulu, passes them a menu each.
The waiter says something to Hikaru in Japanese and he seems to dismiss the comment.
"They don't have any English menus at the moment so I guess I'm going to have to translate. My Japanese reading is terrible so bear with me okay?" Sulu laughs. Pavel nods and looks at the menu. He hasn't seen a printed menu in ages. All the ones nowadays are holographic and often have a language selection option. Pavel got used to setting the menus to Russian to save him time with reading the English. Sulu reads through the menu slowly and eventually, helps Pavel choose something. It's some basic teriyaki chicken dinner set thing but Sulu insists it'll be amazing and he's right. It comes with so much food that they can only just finish it.
Pavel tries to give him some money towards dinner but Sulu refuses to accept it.
"To be honest," Sulu smiles. "The guys there are my friends, and they said my 'date night' was on the house."
Pavel starts blushing. "Really? Where do you know them from?"
"Just family friends. My cousins used to run the business years ago and they're the new owners. I spent a lot of time with some of them as a kid. My sister was dating the purple haired guy actually."
The Russian enjoys learning about Sulu, not just about his family but about him as a person. It only makes not being with him harder, but it's something he can't help. Sulu starts asking Pavel about his family and he answers the questions in as little detail as possible. As a whole, the topic of family is kind of a danger zone for him. Sulu seems to get the idea and doesn't question the sudden change in topic.
(A/N)
If anyone here uses Wattpad I've posted up to chapter 21 on that. Thank you so much for the reviews, they're so in-depth and helpful and I really appreciate them. I just reached 53K on my word count for the whole story so yes plenty more to come. Thank you so much xxx