The staff hosed Tsuyoshi down in all his clothes at the facility before they let him leave. He barely remembered the plane ride, a blur of movement from one place to the next. A blink later and he was enduring a long car ride, looking out the window, seeing almost nothing.

Tsuyoshi had always wanted to visit France when he grew up. He no longer remembered what for.

When they finally reached the farm Zelko had to guide him out of the car with a hand on his elbow. Tsuyoshi didn't have the energy to argue.

Tsuyoshi couldn't think over the buzzing in his ears. Sophie ran to meet him when he walked through the door, and as she exclaimed and embraced him with a hug he stayed frozen, unable to look anywhere but the distant wall.

"How old are you now?" Zelko asked.

Sophie unwrapped her arms from Tsuyoshi's shoulders. "I turned 18 in May."

She was taller and sharper in the face, and there was no pink left in her hair. Tsuyoshi wasn't sure how he recognised her.

Zelko made small talk with Sophie's father, Mohamed, a wiry man with weathered skin who barely looked anything like Sophie.

Tsuyoshi stood there, feeling like his head was underwater and it would be a bad idea to breathe.

*

The house itself was small but the land was big, open, the fences too far away for Tsuyoshi to see. Someone steered him to the room he would be sleeping in, then Zelko told him to shave off his mountain man beard, and at some point he ate, sat down, shivered all over to ward off sleep.

Mohamed handed him old clothes so he wouldn't have to wear the same outfit he'd been wearing for nearly three weeks. Tsuyoshi put them all in a pile at the end of the bed he'd been given and picked random pieces to take with him into the bathroom.

Once he shook off that damp, dirty thing he'd been stuck in he felt small, diminished. He wanted to burn those old clothes, but before he finished sitting in the shower while the water flowed over him until it got cold, they'd disappeared to who knew where.

None of the clothes Mohamed had given him fit. Tsuyoshi had to roll up the hems of the jeans and the ends of the sleeves.

Ibrahim used to do that, roll up his sleeves all the time, but that was because he didn't feel the cold. Tsuyoshi didn't understand that, still. Tsuyoshi was the one from Canada who should have been able to take any temperature, no matter how cool, but he spent so much time shivering in Ibrahim's presence. It was like Ibrahim carried a heat within him that couldn't be put out. And his hand had been warm on Tsuyoshi's face.

Sophie's family gave him small chores at first to structure his days. Mohamed gave the orders most of the time, because Sophie didn't like to order Tsuyoshi around. She still got a little shy like that, though she seemed to have no problem scowling and pointing at Zelko.

Sophie's stepmother never talked to him, and whenever Tsuyoshi asked Sophie always said, "Oh, Manon is on a conference call right now," or, "Manon is doing a phone consultation." Tsuyoshi had yet to figure out what it was that Manon actually did. To be fair, he didn't directly ask.

Instead he slowly cleaned the dining room with a damp towel until he wasn't sure which bits of the room he hadn't yet touched, and looked out of the window to the darkening sky and the clouds roaming all over. Clouds, he'd forgotten what they were like. He watched the sky until it was fully dark, then made his way into the living room where all the people were.

When he got there the TV was on. Sophie flicked through the channels, fingers restless.

News and bad sitcoms and news again. An English language channel so Zelko could understand.

An earthquake in Iran. Fears of another American civil war. And then a news update about South East Asian politics and Tabitha's funeral, and some English voice said something about a powerful symbol of reconciliation over a video of someone giving a speech, and Tsuyoshi stood up and walked out of the room.

He forgot, in the corridor, where he was. He searched through the rooms for where he was supposed to sleep.

When he found the right place he stood in the middle of the room, clutching at his chest while he tried to remember how breathing worked. His head was tired and heavy. He fell on to the bed and put an arm over his eyes to block out the light. He thought, I'm such a shit, taking up space in Sophie's house for no good reason, just a gigantic lump of nothingness. I'm black bile and pond scum and the dirt beneath someone's shoe. All I can do was destroy things. The thoughts circled tighter and tighter around his body until all he could think was that he was wearing shoes on the bed, getting dirt on the covers like a complete failure as a Canadian, and then he was crying and couldn't stop and didn't know why.

*

That last week in Zapville before he left

In the distance Tsuyoshi saw Angharad with her friends, her arm around Tabitha's waist as they slowly walked.

He knew when Ibrahim came up behind him by the feeling of warmth prickling up his back. He still didn't understand why Ibrahim was such a furnace, throwing heat wherever he went.

"It's okay to be sad," Ibrahim said.

"I'm not sad," Tsuyoshi said. "And if I was, I wouldn't need your approval of my emotions."

"Come back inside if you're cold," Ibrahim said.

When he stopped wallowing for the day and went back into the cabin Ibrahim was in the middle of a conversation about film language and beautiful cinematography.

"You're so educated," Tsuyoshi said to him, and it wasn't a compliment.

"I didn't study film, my friend. While I confess to having no particular preferences with film, Milo has a fondness for Tarkovsky. Which are your favourites?"

"I always liked French movies. Artsy," Tsuyoshi said, with a wink.

"That surprises me, my friend. I wouldn't have expected you liked the art of film," Ibrahim said.

Tsuyoshi rolled his eyes. "I like plenty of art. I just don't like reading."

"Then what is it that appeals to you about French cinema?" Ibrahim asked.

"For a start, men always get their dicks out, but I can still tell uncle Tim it's not actual porn." Tsuyoshi smirked as he said it, not at Ibrahim but at Milo who sat on the other bunk across the room, mending a sock. Milo didn't make much in the way of facial expressions but Tsuyoshi could still tell he thought Tsuyoshi was tedious. Mission accomplished.

"Well, that's..." Ibrahim cleared his throat. "I suppose I can see how that is relevant to your special interests."

"Are you blushing?"

"Ah, well..." Ibrahim waved Tsuyoshi away and turned his face down, shy. What a strange thing to see in such a dangerous man.

Tsuyoshi leaned over and whispered a quote in Ibrahim's ear.

Milo slammed something down on the side table and stood. "Let me remind you, unlike your friend Zelko I can actually speak French."

*

Now at the farm Zelko seemed to be picking up a word or two. Practising sounds and word recognition with Mohamed. Attempting a word or two with the amused mail person.

"Is there nothing I can keep for just me?" Tsuyoshi mumbled to himself.

He could feel himself falling behind. Zelko was going to end up knowing every language in the world, and Tsuyoshi was going to be stuck with only two. And no skills, nothing to offer.

"Bonjour," Zelko said to him in the hallway, face bright.

"It's too late in the day to use that," Tsuyoshi said.

But he turned around and stomped into the spare room before Zelko could say anything more.

Lying on the bed in that room, looking at the ceiling – it felt nothing like doing the same in that shitty place they'd come from. There were sunny fields outside and a whole world for him to explore. So why he couldn't move on and do anything else?