NIKKI & JOE, CASUALLY | updates every monday

15: birds of many feathers

            'This is vegan?' Joe asks for the third time. Unlike most people awake at this hour on a Friday night, she isn't drunk, but she might be tired enough for it to amount to a few units of alcohol based on the way she eats her "fish" like it's a personal gift from whatever god she may believe in. 'How does it taste so real?'

'It's the nori,' I whisper.

Golda and Saanvi are in constant competition with every other chip shop in the country; it were only after I'd been coming here for three years that they finally answered me when I asked the exact same question. I've been vegetarian since I were nine so it's not like I remember what fish tastes like but as someone who has tried every vegetarian version of fish and chips in Manchester, I can vouch that this one is the best.

The shop is a hole in the wall with a singular picnic table on the street that we were lucky enough to seize, having left Spectrum earlier than normal. Though there's always a minimum of three people waiting for their takeaway, the queue will be a mile long an hour from now. Golda and Saanvi's chippy is open until six am on Fridays and Saturdays to reap the benefits of Manchester's nightlife and I've no doubt that the weekend alone earns them enough revenue to open a bigger space if they wanted.

'So how're you liking Manchester, Joe?' Eilidh asks, dipping a chip into curry sauce (menace). 

Eilidh is a personal trainer and volunteers as a swim coach; the walk here were enough to sober her up. Caleb has more or less passed out against her shoulder, rousing only to eat the chips she feeds him.

'It's okay, I guess.'

'So you hate it.'

Joe laughs, though drops her eyes and nibbles on a chip. 'It's not that. I just had a very romantic idea that moving away would solve all my problems and now I'm having to confront adult reality... Also, one of my neighbours is just awful. Every time I bump into him, he ruins my day.

'Either way, now that I'm single, I can't live anywhere within a fifty-mile radius of my mother or she'll start pairing me up with eligible Kittian bachelors and I'm not that desperate. My mum loves the "I carried you in my womb for nine months and was in fifteen hours of labour and you can't even do this one thing for me of going on a date with this complete stranger" card.'

Parker snorts. 'Classic.'

Joe leans around Allan to look at me. 'Are you parents like that?' My alarm must be etched into my face because she tacks on, 'Caleb said you're single so...'

My glare cuts to Caleb who lifts a hand, too tired to move more than the wrist off the table beside his takeaway box. 'It came up.'

'Bet it did.' It's not hard to imagine Caleb sauntering over to Joe, going "by the way, Nikki's single, in case you were wondering about that for any particular reason", and walking away immediately.

He sticks his tongue out. 'You can't hold me responsible for my actions: that's ableist. And transphobic. And you also hate Asians.'

I roll my eyes as visibly as I can before I force myself to glance at Joe. 'No, my parents aren't like that. They don't care who I date.' I shove the rest of my vegan fish into my mouth before she can ask me more about it.

It takes a second for the true meaning of her question—of my response—to dawn on the others. Caleb jerks upright. I didn't think his eyes, comically large from drag makeup, could get any bigger but they do when he shoots me "what the fuck" look. Rishi kicks him under the table and he rearranges it into a smile before Joe can notice.