Somehow, even late at night, Kai sounded happy. He whistled a little song as he went along. It was the tune from Snow White, the whistling of the dwarves as they headed off to work. He seemed to have no idea where he was going, sometimes entering little alleys only to come out in a second. Other times, he walked around one street multiple times. All the while, the song never ceased. After an hour or so of meandering, he started walking in the direction of a place I knew well. My elementary school.

He stopped when he got to the school’s playground, a dumpy sandbox with a broken see-saw and swings so rusty they would barely move. He sat down on the swing, and then his tune changed.

“Simple Simon met the pie-man going to the fair

Said Simple Simon to the pie-man, ‘Let me taste your wares’…”

A song of a simple minded boy.

“How does the rest go?” he asked, suddenly stopping. I knew then that he knew I was there.

"Then said the pie-man, 'Simple Simon show me first your penny'" I said, not missing the smirk on his face.

"Not bad. You're off tune though."

"I said the words. I wasn't singing," I said, coming out from the shadow of the school.

“Hopefully, you're better at singing than stalking people.”

“I wasn’t stalking you.”

“Following a guy around in the dark for more than an hour?” He was teasing me.

“I was worried.”

“You didn’t need to be. I told you I’d be fine.” He stretched out the word fine, the way some people stretch a string of cheese off a slice of pizza. “Well, whatever. You heading back now, then?”

He was giving me a choice. Not the “You should go home now” that my brother would have given me.

It was cold out. There was school the next day. It was late. The school was a perfectly safe place for him to spend the night. There were plenty of reasons for me to leave, and yet, I didn’t want to.

“I want to stay here for a while.”  

I wanted to stay and hear him say something silly, or whistle something funny. Or even just to sit and know that there was someone close to me.

And Kai said one word that made the cold night warmer.

“Sure.”