Archive of Our Own

Mei was fairly certain that onions shouldn’t smell like a burning fire. So unless she had miraculously bought an onion hybrid, that was pretty much an impossible thing to smell on her cutting board. 

Surprised and mildly concerned, Mei pulled her knife away from the board on her kitchen counter and looked at the handle. Nothing was smoking next to her hand, and the half-diced onion looked perfectly normal. She sniffed, partly due to the rising smokey smell in her apartment and the tears that sprang to her eyes due to the food in front of her. 

And then Mei looked up, and realized that there was a discolor to the fridge and the air all around her. Dark smoke that was almost black in color curled in front of her. 

She immediately covered her mouth and nose with the collar of her shirt. She pinched the bridge of her nose to keep it in place and ran out the door after placing the knife carefully in the middle of her counter. The clamor of her apartment neighbors grew louder the closer she came to her door, and it bursted in front of her face when she wrenched it open. 

Men, women, and children ran in the same direction, almost running each over in their rush to find the exit. Thankfully, Mei was on the fourth floor, and there was no reason for her to panic just yet. There was no active fire that she could see, but the smoke was definitely a concern. 

Mei stepped out of her apartment and shut the door as snugly as she could manage, and then began to nudge the slower runners to pick up the speed. From the looks of things and how confused their faces looked, no one looked as if they knew what was happening. It meant that it could easily be a false alarm, a fire in a local kitchen stove perhaps, but Mei didn’t want to take her chances. 

Now that the flow of people was beginning to falter in numbers, she could rest easier now. She could hear the honks of the firefighters beneath her feet, as well as the yelling outside from residents that were forced to camp out in their commotion. The smoke stung her eyes, but they weren’t nearly as bad as she thought they would be. It only tinted the colors of the hallway in a slight silvery cloud. 

“Mei! Are you alright?” 

Himeko ran up to her with a clipboard tucked under her bicep and a deep crease in her forehead. She touched Mei’s forearm to garner her attention, and Mei was quick to bob her head to shake off her landlord’s worry. She could still hear the ruckus of the people around her, demanding answers for an impromptu evacuation. If she extended her arm in any direction, she was sure to bump into someone.

“I’m fine,” Mei said, and Himeko’s facial features relaxed to some degree. “What happened in there? What’s wrong?”

“We don’t know,” Himeko said with a grimace. She tapped her lower lip with a ballpoint pen, her other hand on her hip. “The fire alarms wouldn’t go off, so now I have to— hey, no pushing—! Deal with that in a bit. From the looks of the electrical gauges, someone probably just overloaded an outlet.”

“No one got hurt?” Mei pressed. 

Himeko put a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. “Of course not. ‘Think there might’ve been some minor injuries in the panic to get out here, but I’ll make sure they’re taken care of. Are you sure you’re fine? I know you make lunch right around now.”

Mei laughed a little at that. “I’ll just pick up a sandwich at a convenience store on the way to work,” she promised. 

“Good to hear.” Himeko bobbed her head. She stroked the side of her neck for a minute, looking up at the corner of the sky in thought. Her eyebrows lowered in dejection, and she added, “I… was meaning to warn you, though, that—”

Himeko swiftly cursed under her breath and removed her hand, and then pivoted on a heel to blow a whistle (had that always been there?) at a group of kids trying to jump a fence. “That’s private property, boys!” she roared. “Get down! Now!”

Unsure of what to do, Mei just stood there. Himeko looked back at her briefly, and then said, “I’ll update you later. The smoke will clear in a bit and you can head back upstairs.” She left after the last syllable left her mouth, leaving Mei in a sea of confused, disoriented neighbors. 

She looked around for an opening to remove herself from the crowd. There wasn’t much space to move, but she did manage to shimmy between a couple to find the edge of the apartment building. True to her word, the smoke was finally clearing, and the firefighters near the entrance of her building were already beginning to usher people back inside. It must have been a false alarm after all. 

She caught a glimpse of white in the corner of her eye. 

Her breath sucking straight out of her ribs, Mei flicked her head over her shoulder in shock. She searched with her eyes for a long, long second, before it landed on the side of a woman’s head. 

White hair pulled into a ponytail with bright red cross earrings and a leather jacket that had her hands stuffed into them, Kiana Kaslana didn’t look as if she aged a day. 

And she looked just as bright and sunny as the night they last saw each other.

She felt like she couldn’t breathe. 

Kiana’s name uttered from her lips as the same moment a barrel-chested man walked in front of her, and a woman began to pardon her way through her to get back inside. She began to be pushed along by the crowd, and Kiana was nowhere in her sight any longer.

Her alarm clock flashed brightly in her face, almost as jarring as the noises of the sirens outside of her window. 

Groggily, Mei turned to her side and hit the alarm clock with the side of her fist. She rubbed at her left eye, feeling her ears fill with the screech of the nearing police sirens. They were way too loud to be just passing by. 

She frowned, suddenly worried. The evacuation was only a couple days ago— surely, everything had been sorted out by then. 

That was, unless, there was a serial arsonist living in her apartment building; or worse, a murderer, a burglar, a motivated serial killer or—

Without a moment to lose, Mei pulled the covers off of herself and ran to put on her shoes. It felt uncomfortable without any socks on, but there could be people in danger in her building! Socks were the least of her worry. 

A jacket from her sofa thrown clumsily over her shoulders, Mei ran out of the hallway with the dull thuds of her shoes. She managed to get to the bottom of the floor and into the array of red and blue lights about a minute later, her lungs hot with adrenaline.

She had never seen so many cops outside of her apartment in her life. The only time this ever happened was last February, when a couple accidentally set their sheets on fire with the candles the wife had put around their bed frame. 

A charred microwave was hauled down from the steps of the apartment building by a poker faced cop, and Mei winced. 

It seemed as if her apartment was going down in flames with its reputation.

She couldn’t spot Himeko anywhere among the sea of uniforms. A few of them had even approached her to go back to her room, as none of it was her concern, but she simply brushed them off with a hand. This was the second time that something like this had happened this week, and she knew that it was time to get to the bottom of it. Was it the same person? If it was, what idiot would do something like this?

And then Mei saw her. 

Her face was shrouded in the on and off colors of red and blue, but the agitation was clear on her face. She was waving her hands around, babbling something that Mei was too far away to hear, and the cop that stood in front of her had his arms crossed over his chest with a look that suggested that he was less than impressed with her. 

Something about the way he looked down at Kiana made her blood boil, even in the cool chill of the midnight air, and Mei’s legs started to work again. 

She walked towards them with motivation in her steps, and she stopped directly beside Kiana. Kiana, who hadn’t noticed her until she was only a few feet away, dwindled in speaking until her words ceased and became sealed away in her lips. She lowered her hands, looking at Mei in utter awe. 

Like Mei was something intangible. 

Mei was sure that she looked the same way when she saw Kiana for the first time.

Mei cleared her throat, and then said, “What’s going on here?”

“Ma’am—” the cop started, a hand pushed out from his chest. 

Mei interrupted him. “I’ll get back to my apartment in just a minute,” she said, and then glanced back at Kiana. Kiana was still looking at her, her mouth slightly agape. She looked as if someone had shocked every nerve in her body, and it almost made Mei giggle. But still— “She’s my friend, so yes this concerns me.”

The cop sighed. He looked bleary-eyed, and Mei finally understood that he just simply didn’t want to be there. “I was just asking this young lady about what happened in her apartment,” he explained, gesturing sullenly in Kiana’s general direction. “But she seems to be having… trouble.” He sounded bitter.

Mei turned her head to Kiana. She didn’t need to ask; the answer was already written all over Kiana’s face. 

Her fingers were jittery as she intertwined them together over and over, and the nervous tick in the corner of her mouth and her deer in the headlights look suggested that she was just, simply, exceedingly caffeinated. 

Kiana used to do that a lot in St. Freya. At midnight, before she went to bed, she would down a large mug of her “Kiana specialty” that was pumped with too much caffeine for any other human being to bear. It was her body’s way of settling down, Mei supposed, but there was always a brief period in time between her glugging and her sleepiness where she was bouncing off the walls with energy. She didn’t have to guess too hard to know that this was it. 

“Two deep breaths,” she instructed Kiana. She put her palm up and over her own sternum, and demonstrated breathing in deep so that her diaphragm contracted. And then she exhaled outwards, slowly, and Kiana mirrored her every action. “There you go.”

Slowly, Kiana’s jittery movements ceased, and she could finally speak again. 

“They told me not to plug so many things in one outlet and I agreed,” Kiana began, and the cop looked as if he wanted to drop to the floor and kiss the ground that Mei walked upon. “I didn’t know a microwave had that many watts! I thought plugging in just two more things with it would be fine.”

The cop rubbed his nose, looking both exasperated and impressed with the unfolding situation in front of him. “So you’re saying this is an accident?”

“Yes sir,” Kiana said solemnly. She drew an X over her chest with her forefinger. “Cross my heart.”

The cop stared at her for a moment, scrutinizing her candor. Then he sighed, brought his hand behind his back to pluck out the small notepad there, and scrawled out something onto a random page. “I’ll get a detective to check your apartment in the morning. But if what you’re saying is true, I doubt you have anything to worry about. Most of your consequences are at the mercy of your landlord, anyway.”

Kiana perked up at the mention of the landlord. Mei was sure the people listening in to their conversation were wholly confused, just as she would be, if she didn’t know that the landlord in question had a scarcely concealed soft spot for the little troublemaker in question. 

She wondered why Himeko didn’t tell her about this sooner.

But then again, had the roles reversed, Mei doubted that she would be any better.

Be that as it may, she could use that guilt on Himeko for a late future deposit.

With a little more chatter about Kiana's situation with the man in charge, Kiana and Mei thanked the officers for coming to check in on them. One of them warned Kiana never to do it again, and that she was lucky that all that had happened was a faulty electrical circuit on her apartment floor. It meant that the people on her floor wouldn’t have power for half the day, and Kiana only grinned sheepishly and promised that she would go door to door apologizing to everyone for the inconvenience.

With that out of the way, it left Kiana and Mei alone in the sea of blue, red, and white. And, of course, Kiana’s burnt down microwave.

“That was a gift from Seele,” Kiana mourned. She sighed and crouched down to look at the microwave, and then prodded it with a stick. The corner she poked fell off. “I guess that’s why warranty exists, right?” she joked.

Mei indulged in a small laugh. She crouched next to Kiana to inspect the microwave with her. 

A silence fell over them like a warm jacket. It didn’t feel as awkward as she imagined it to be, when she spent the past few nights and days dreaming of coming up to Kiana with the same air as strangers, but it also didn’t feel… all the way there. 

They were back to square one, but even the first day they met hadn’t been so unfriendly and formal. Now was no different. 

That was just how Kiana rolled. 

“When did you move here?” Mei murmured. She didn’t look Kiana in the eye, too afraid to break the bubble of amiliability that they created for the night. She was too scared to know how long it would last, and if this was the last time it would ever happen. 

Kiana hummed at that, in the way she always did when she was trying to do math in her head. “About five days ago. I’m still getting settled in. Clearly.” She poked the microwave to enunciate that point, and one of the poor buttons fell off in black dust. Kiana only smiled at it, though, probably finding some sort of whimsical entertainment in seeing a kitchen gadget in tatters outside of their apartment complex.

“What about you?” Kiana asked. 

Mei had to force herself out of her stupor to answer that. “I’ve been here the—” She wrestled with the correct wording, and then settled for “—the entire time. What made you want to move here?”

She didn’t have to raise her voice in pitch for the connotation to set in. What are you doing here?

Kiana shrugged at that, unbothered. Mei didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or shout or walk away. “I don’t know.”

Mei didn’t know why she expected something different, something long and something more than Kiana’s tendency to be spontaneous and to always want to come to where she was. 

But how could she judge her?

Mei stayed just the same too. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Mei told her, albeit quietly. She almost expected it to be lost to the wind. “I didn’t know whether you wanted to see me or not.”

Kiana looked downright appalled by that. She stopped in the middle of her quest of evaluating the remains of her microwave to stare at Mei. By then, Mei couldn’t recognize the look on her face, and it made her feel a thousand emotions all at once.

“Are you kidding me?” Kiana asked her, and her voice was oddly faint. As if they were words only for Mei. “I thought I was dreaming when I saw you.”

“Kiana,” she said, only because she didn’t know what else to say.

Kiana shook her head, all in disbelief. “I mean there’s no wonder why I felt so energized when I finally got here,” Kiana continued, and her grin stayed just the same as it was in St. Freya, despite the new mature set of eyes on her face. “You’re here!”

Getting home from work was always one of her favorite times of the day.

The sun was always setting by the time she took off her shoes in her apartment, painting her windows in beautiful shades of pink and gold that swirled around one another. Even with her shoulders aching and her legs throbbing with the labor of the day, there was nothing like unwinding with good tea and delicious warm food. 

Mei put her coat in her closet and replaced her outfit with an apron that tied securely in her back, and she got to work. She pulled out the ingredients and tools from her fridge and drawers, the crackle of the oven welcoming her home from a productive day at the office.

Where some people had the gym or yoga or tennis, Mei had her clean, sweet-scented kitchen. 

She flicked on the radio with an absentminded finger, listening to the talk show host list the weather for the week and the songs that were coming in after the ads. 

The first song began to play once Mei had successfully cut all her tomatoes into rings, and she put them into a large salad bowl for later. She was craving spicy curry for dinner. She didn’t fully understand where the craving stemmed from, but she had a slight suspicion that it came from the tastes of a certain apartment neighbor.

There was a dull knock against her door seconds before she could crackle open another stovetop. 

She squinted at the door for a moment to ponder who it could be. Did she order anything? No, she would get called down to the lobby. Was she expecting anyone? No, Raven had left for the day (and a huge mess, to the surprise of no one). 

With another knock, Mei quickly wiped her hands on a kitchen rag and pulled off her apron. She ran to the other side of her apartment to check the peephole.

A large flower bouquet cluttered her vision. It was full of bright colors, and the vase was a beautiful deep purple. 

And it was so large, in fact, that Mei couldn’t see the person on the other side of it. 

Making a judgment that a flower bouquet would be harmless to open her door to, Mei unlatched her door. Almost immediately, the flowers rustled, a few of the petals fell to the floor, and Kiana’s head poked out from the side of it. She put on a lopsided grin, and Mei's heart fluttered. 

“Hey there, neighbor!” Kiana chirped. She raised the bouquet a little to highlight its presence, though there was really no need for it. “I brought you a little gift to say thank you for helping me the other day. I don’t think it would’ve gone so smoothly without you.”

“It’s the… least I could do,” Mei told her, and she mentally slapped her forehead for the awkward wording. 

Thankfully, Kiana barreled on. “I also got these for you to say sorry,” she continued, and she put down the vase to let the flowers tickle the underneath of her chin. Her smile stretched into something apologetic, and for a moment Mei didn’t know how to breathe. 

Just half a second too long for her taste, Mei wrangled herself to speak. “What are you sorry for?”

“The power,” she explained. She jutted her chin to the lights above them, and then looked back at Mei. “I’m not sure if it reached all the way to the end of the hallway, but we live on the same floor and I wanted to make sure you knew I had no intention in setting the electricity up here on fire. It makes a bit of a lousy neighbor, honestly— and first impressions matter! So…”

She thought of two things at the same time. 

One, Kiana had moved in on her floor. Just on the other side of the building, in fact. 

Secondly—

“You gave everyone on the floor a bouquet?” she asked, and she cleared her throat out of embarrassment for her outburst. She hoped she didn’t sound accusatory, or worse.

To her credit, Kiana only chuckled at that. “I’m not exactly the daughter of a CEO to get that kind of money,” Kiana teased, and Mei hung her head slightly. “I just came up to them to say sorry. But, on second thought, I should get something huh…” She stared off to the sky to think. 

Mei cleared her throat. “Would you—” Her voice cracked slightly then, and she had to clear her throat a second time. “Would you like to come in? It must be tiring going door to door.”

When Kiana smiled then, it was small, but so very much Kiana. “Lucky for you, you’re my last stop,” she said, and something in her voice was so gentle that Mei felt her heart squeeze. 

Mei ushered her inside without a moment to spare. She was too scared to let a moment go by, one where Kiana might have second thoughts and walk out of her life forever, for a second time.

At her discretion, Kiana put the vase down on Mei’s coffee table in the living room. Meanwhile, Mei stepped into the kitchen to make them some tea.

Kiana put her hands on her hips and looked around. Mei could see her gawking around her apartment, and she tucked her hair behind her ear in slight embarrassment. She tried not to say anything, leaving Kiana to do as she pleased around her home. 

“I like what you did with the place,” Kiana told her sincerely. She came into the kitchen to watch Mei strain the tea. “It’s very you.”

“I’m not even going to try and ask you what that means,” Mei said, and Kiana laughed at that. She watched as Mei pulled out two mugs from her cabinets and flipped them over to pour the tea in. Mei could feel her intense gaze on the side of her face as she continued to pour it, and while she added the milk that Kiana loved to have with her tea.

There was a comment on Kiana’s lips and they both knew it, but neither wanted to have it spilled. 

Mei led her to the small dining table in her kitchen. They sat across from each other with their warm tea, and finally, finally, the awkwardness settled in like an unwanted guest. 

Kiana drummed her hands against her mug, her thigh shaking underneath the table and her eyes darting everywhere and yet refusing to meet hers.

Kiana was nervous, but Mei could hardly blame her. She was just as nervous, if not more so than her.

“So…” Kiana began uncertainly, and Mei jolted her head upwards to look at her. “How’s life been?”

The question was so awkwardly Kiana that Mei broke into a genuine smile. “It goes on,” she settled on saying, because it was true and there wasn’t a better way for her to say it. “My father has been training me to take over the company for when he retires. But since that’s a good few years away, I’ve been working at the cafe down the street.”

Kiana’s eyebrows shot upwards. “The cafe?” she parroted, and then rubbed the side of her jaw. She looked genuinely interested in what Mei had to say, and it was something that Mei had missed so dearly about her. “That’s great! I’m sure you make the best pastries and espressos there. I should swing by sometime.”

“You should,” Mei encouraged, and she surprised herself with how truthful it was. “But how about you? I don’t want to talk about myself the entire time.”

Kiana’s eyes twinkled at her like she just said something funny. When Kiana finally put her drink back down, she said, “I’ve done… a lot of things. I did professional stunting for a while, and then I did some photography and detective work and fitness training anddd—” She counted all of her careers off on her hand, and she stuck out her tongue to think of some more. “—I’m sure there’s more in there, but you get the gist.”

“I do,” Mei assured her. She continued to swirl her tea in her mug. “You’ve been very busy. How’s Bronya?”

Kiana lit up at the sound of her name. “Good! Really good actually. Like terrifyingly— have you seen the billboards in the city over? They have her face all over it! No wonder she could beat me in every video game, she knew how to work with them,” she said with a playful repugnant look, and she shook her head with a sigh. “We haven’t been able to hang out as much recently because of it, but now that I live ten minutes away from her, I made her pinky swear to hang out with me soon.”

“Ten minutes?” Mei said, and the words felt almost bittersweet on her tongue. With the way Kiana was looking at her now, she knew that Kiana wanted to say something, to tell her that she could come with and that everything could be as they did when they were in high school, but Mei changed the subject before Kiana could beat her to it. Not because she didn’t want to, but because— well, it was embarrassing, but she wanted to keep Kiana to herself just for a little while longer. 

Wasn’t that something she could have?

“How about your family?” she asked Kiana, and just as she suspected, Kiana’s entire face lit up like a Christmas tree. Her body language began to shift too, and her nervous ticks washed away for her excited chatter. “How’s Bianka and Sirin? Are they still…?”

“Bianka goes to the gym with me now!” Kiana exclaimed, and she was so excited to say it that she almost spilled her drink. Mei held out her hand instinctively, and then drew it away when Kiana held her mug close to her chest to prevent it from any more spillage. “She has a membership there, I think, so she just added me to her billing so that we could go together every morning.” 

Mei propped her chin on her hand and nodded encouragingly. When it came to her friends and family, Kiana was like a force to be reckoned with. She was a train with no stops, and Mei knew better than to anticipate the ending tunnel for it. 

Kiana went on and on about getting used to the gym in the city again, and that she challenged Bianka for a rematch in the boxing ring for the weekend. Sirin, their younger sister, was the same as always: scowly and pretending she didn’t like Kiana, but Kiana knew otherwise. Her parents were on vacation somewhere far away for an anniversary too, and somehow that made Mei feel better. She didn’t have to see them any time soon, and there didn’t need to be any more meetings than she could tolerate for the next week, month, and year for that matter. 

Finally, Kiana’s train of thought began to dwindle down, but the brightness in her face continued to prevail. She gestured to Mei and asked, “What’s Hua doing these days? And your other friends?”

Mei was more than surprised to hear that Kiana could mention them so casually. 

“Well, you know Elysia. And Raven,” she mused, and Kiana just raised her eyebrows over her mug in amusement. “Aponia and Eden are at a venue for the entire week. Fu Hua opened a flower shop just last year, I’m not sure if you knew that.” Mei tapped the table and pursed her lips. “You could always get your flowers there next time.”

She wanted to pour the tea all over herself for saying that. She shouldn’t have implied that, she shouldn’t have said that at all. 

Thankfully, Kiana’s smile only widened by a bit. 

Then, Kiana leaned over the table, sipped more of her tea, and said, “Tell me more about your day.”

By the time Kiana had to bid goodbye to pack away the rest of her things, the sun was almost down. Mei wished she had the backbone to offer to help, but she knew that spending more time with Kiana all at once would be too much for her head to handle. 

So, as she sent Kiana on her way at the door, Mei sat back down at the kitchen table where they had spent hours just talking and laughing, as if nothing had ever come between them, and stared at the remnants of her cold tea. 

About an hour later and her gloved hands deep into the sink water to wash her dishes, Mei swore she could smell burnt toast all the way from her apartment. 

The knocking at her door was frantic and relentless, and Mei forced herself awake from it. She shot up from bed after her groggy mind recognized the muffled shouts on the other end, and she sprinted as fast as she could. 

She almost ripped the door out of its hinges with how hard she forced it open. Still disoriented, Mei looked at the panicked Kiana in front of her and asked, “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“Okay, right, so uh—” Kiana played with her hands in front of her. Mei briefly looked behind her to stare at the clock while Kiana continued to babble on. It was almost two in the morning. She mourned her precious sleep for the next day. “What do you usually put in cookies? The chocolate chip kind? I don’t know if chocolate chunk cookies are different, but I’m pretty sure the packaging said I had chocolate chips.”

Mei blinked owlishly at her. She was stunned by the question, and even more stunned by the panic on Kiana’s face that happened to be about cookies, of all things. “I put butter, brown sugar, salt, and baking soda,” she said, as if they were having a conversation over brunch. “Sometimes walnuts and vanilla extract, depending on my cravings or the person I’m giving them to.”

“Oh! Okay!” Kiana bobbed her head so fast to her words that Mei was afraid it would fall off her neck. “See, I thought so. That’s exactly what the recipe Bronya sent me told me to do too. It also told me to use white sugar, is that fine? I think it is, but I found that kinda weird, I mean why would you use two different kinds of sugars in one recipe? And, get this, it told me to use semi sweet chocolates, what kind of person would—”

“Kiana,” Mei interrupted. 

Kiana stopped in her tracks immediately, and she tilted her head at Mei as if to go, “Hmm?” 

Mei took a deep breath. And then she asked, “What’s wrong? Do you need anything?”

She wasn’t necessarily angry at Kiana for waking her up in the middle of the night for cookies, and Kiana had done worse when they were in St. Freya, but the sweat beading on Kiana’s temples and forehead was beginning to make her feel uneasy. 

And she was right, when Kiana finally admitted that “Yeah! I mean, yeah. Well. My stove is on fire.”

Mei’s eyes widened. Her sleepiness was knocked out of her in a heartbeat of a moment, and she ran as fast as she could out of the door. 

She didn’t care how stupid she looked in her shorts and bunny hoodie that Elysia had gotten her a few months back. Mei sprinted so fast down the hallway that her vision blurred, and all she could feel was the presence beside her that matched her frantic pace. 

She reached the end of the hallway with Kiana, her rapid breathing making everything blurry in the corners of her vision. Realizing her mistake and her eyes widening in a flurried panic, she turned to Kiana and asked, “Can you get the—?”

“I got it!” Kiana said, and she held up the large red fire extinguisher that had been in a case in the middle of the hallway. How Kiana had gotten it out of its glass container and still matched her pace to her apartment, Mei would never know. 

Still, Mei took the extinguisher gratefully and burst through Kiana’s apartment door. 

She blinked back the tears in her eyes from the smoke and squeezed the fire extinguisher. It sizzled and then roared loudly in her ears, and Mei had to wrestle with it in her arms to hold it down.

Thankfully, the fire that Kiana made wasn’t as big as she thought it would be. It was a small trickle of a fire that poured out from the oven where her crisped cookies laid, but it was manageable. In fact, it was probably small enough that they didn’t need to call anyone, as long as Kiana kept her door shut and her windows open with the fans at high speed. 

Mei squeezed another steady stream towards the oven, just for good measure.

She squinted at the oven to make sure that there weren’t any embers left to ignite another fire, and confirming that there was no more, set the fire extinguisher down to prop against the counter and sighed. 

Kiana stared at the oven. So did she.

The door to the oven was blackened to ashes, and only its slight tint helped them peer into the cookies within. They didn’t even look like cookies anymore, only blackened blobs that were bubbling with its poor heat on top of a crisp, now brown, oven tray. 

And then they began to laugh. 

They laughed so hard that they had to rely on each other’s shoulders to keep up their weight, and when even that gave out, Kiana led her to the couch that she had across from her kitchen. 

They crashed onto it, bouncing on the cushions with the sudden weight. They continued to laugh even then, and laughed harder when Kiana almost fell off from the bounce of it. 

It was like being in St. Freya all over again. 

“You could’ve just used those pre-made frozen cookies from the market,” Mei pointed out to her, once most of their laughter subsided. 

“I thought about it,” Kiana said, and she looked as guilty as charged. “But I don’t think pre-made cookies would help with a five hundred degree oven.”

“Five—?” Mei sat up from her seat on the couch so fast that she almost fell over. She shook her head, and then settled back against the couch. “Nevermind. Do you think you’d need some help cleaning out your oven?”

Kiana looked at her with a puffed out cheek and a squinted look. Her way of connoting confusion, naturally. “You don’t have work tomorrow?”

“I do,” Mei confessed. “But it’s already two in the morning. What’s another hour of cleaning?”

“Well, if that’s the case,” Kiana declared, and she clasped her hands together to rub them. “I owe you dinner tomorrow. Deal?”

Mei laughed at that. It was softer this time, as if she couldn’t believe what Kiana was saying. And she didn’t, not really. In truth, she couldn’t believe she was here in the first place. 

But life had its ways, she supposed. 

So, she answered, “Yes. Deal.”

And all she could think of was the sandwich deals they would make at lunch in St. Freya. 

Work had been hell for Mei. Not only did the coffee maker stop working about two hours into her shift, but there were too many customers for her and one other person to handle at such a spiked hour of the day. Her tips were scarce, and her father hadn’t exactly been making it easier on her by asking if she could come into the office for a few minutes (translation: hours) to look over some paperwork with him. 

To his credit, he had no idea what kind of hellish day Mei had, but nevertheless— Mei wished she was back home for every second of her day.

Now that she was finally, finally, back at her apartment building, Mei couldn’t be more thankful for the thumps of children running above her and the smell of something burning that was always frequent with Kiana as her floormate. Even though she had to take the long route through the other side of the hallway due to the construction on the other side, Mei couldn’t fathom being more thankful in her entire life. 

Mei faltered near Kiana’s door. 

The tenant in question was at her door, fumbling with her key and knob with shaky hands that looked so obviously fatigued. 

Kiana also happened to be sporting a sweaty sports bra, as well as a large orange and white gym bag over her shoulder. Mei tried her best not to stare (which was a feat, really, when Kiana looked sweaty and looked ready to burst into flames from both her weariness and the strain of her muscles). 

And, most notably, Kiana’s stomach grumbled loudly enough for her to hear it a good six feet away from her. 

So Mei did the only sensible thing that she could do: she cleared her throat.

Startled, Kiana almost dropped her key and snatched it up in a tight fist at the nick of time. She looked over her shoulder in surprise, and her facial features relaxed when she saw Mei standing there quite awkwardly. “Mei!” she said, and Mei still couldn’t believe how full of life her name sounded on Kiana’s lips. “What are you doing here?”

Before she could open her mouth and say something, Kiana pivoted on her heel (with her gym bag smacking against her door) and continued, “Wait, don’t answer that. You live here.” She laughed. 

Seeing Kiana suddenly go from a hunched over gym rat neighbor trying to get into her apartment to as energized as she was now was a sight to behold. She wondered if her being here had anything to do with that, but she chastised herself for being so optimistic.

“I thought you went to the gym in the morning?” Mei supplied instead. She clutched her handbag at her side just that more tightly. She resisted the urge to ask if something had happened, again, but she didn’t want to sound rude. 

“I do, I do,” Kiana agreed with a few bobs of her head. “But Bianka asked if I wanted to stay and watch a kickboxing match with her today so I said yes. I didn’t really think she also meant getting in the ring too.” But when she grinned, Kiana didn’t look at all bothered by that fact. 

Mei did the math in her head. “Why on Earth would you choose to be at the gym all day?” she asked, and gawked at Kiana. She wasn’t judging her like that, of course not, but Kiana’s mental and physical strength still surprised her, and she was honestly astonished that Kiana continued to have as much energy as they did as teens. 

Kiana shrugged at that, but she seemed to preen at Mei’s unspoken compliment. She adjusted the straps of her gym bag as she answered, “I dunno. I felt like it.”

The beads of sweat were still evident on Kiana’s face (not to mention everywhere… else) and Mei made her decision right then and there. 

“Would you like to come in with me?” she asked gently, and she nudged her head left to where her apartment was in front of them. “I could fix you up with something to eat.”

Kiana scrunched her brow. “I mean, are you sure?” she said, incredulously, unbelieving of the words that Mei had said to her. “You’re probably really tired from work. I don’t want to impose or, um, anything.” She said the last part so awkwardly small that Mei pursed her lips. How did they ever get to this point? Kiana used to jump with questions about when dinner would be ready. 

Oh, how she would do anything to get back to that point. 

“You need all the energy you could get if you’re going to work out so much,” Mei told her, and she tried to suppress the heat that was beginning to tickle at her ears for saying that. “And, if you don’t mind me saying, Kiana, I think it’s time you learned how to make cookies that aren’t rockhard.”

And she knew she made the right choice when Kiana smiled so wonderfully big back at her. 

Mei led her back to her apartment and instructed her to lay her gym back on a lone reading chair to pick up later. She also offered Kiana a sweater from her closet because she had her air conditioner going (and that was the only reason, of course, not for anything else), and Kiana took it gratefully.

She got to work just like that, and all exhaustion that had been in her body had dissipated into the smoke that came from her the boiling rice that she washed and put on the rice cooker. 

Kiana’s presence in her kitchen was a welcome one, and a familiar one. 

It was like having a ghost move back into her apartment, a presence that she craved all those years ago that was finally back by her shoulder and arm. 

Putting out a spoon of whatever she was cooking to the side of her while she cooked was always welcomed by dead air and the pressure of heartbreak that always cracked her chest open. 

She was so used to having Kiana by her side that she couldn’t exactly remove her from every habit in her life, and it proved to continue when Mei absentmindedly grabbed a spoon from the counter and dipped it in her chicken noodle soup and held it out to her side. 

She almost pulled away in shock from the shameless habit, but she felt Kiana lean down and blow lightly on the spoon before putting it in her mouth. 

Kiana made a noise of approval, giving Mei her enthusiastic thumbs up. 

“Your cooking never disappoints, Mei!” she marveled. 

Mei only cleared her throat, and then tucked her hair behind her ear. She continued to instruct Kiana to do simple things around the kitchen. 

Kiana was right by her shoulder each time, never straying farther than an arm’s length. It was considered a kitchen hazard by staying so close together, but Mei didn’t really have the heart to tell her that. Besides, having Kiana here now was like having the world’s oldest muscle memory. She and Kiana weaved around each other in the kitchen like it was an unspoken dance. They bumped into each other on more than one occasion, displaying the rustiness of their dance, and Mei had stiffened every time. 

With the soup done and dessert baking in the oven (it left flour and sugar all over her counters, but she didn’t really mind), Mei pulled out the eggs from her fridge and set them down beside her pan. 

She instructed Kiana how to make the perfect omelette by pointing at the pan and the eggs with a spatula. 

Kiana put her arms on the counter and leaned on it while she spoke, and her forearm pressed against hers. The pressure was light, and welcome, and was most definitely there. It was deliberate, that’s all she knew.

So Mei began to relax.

Once, they caught each other coming home from work at the same time. They walked back together and chatted about their days the whole way there, and Mei listened intently to Kiana complaining about being only an inch shorter than Bronya, but still being subjected to all of the teasing from everyone else. 

Kiana invited her out for coffee with Bronya after they played together at a gaming cafe, and Mei respectfully declined. She couldn’t explain it, but she wasn’t ready to merge their worlds like that again. Soon, but not yet.

Kiana’s smile was wistful, but she agreed. 

When Mei crashed back against her chair to read a book off her shelves, she began to smell the familiar bitter scent of something burning. She only snapped her book closed and plucked the jacket off the back of her chair to walk briskly to Kiana’s apartment. 

Kiana was grinning sheepishly at her, holding up a burnt down lamp. 

Mei went with her to apologize to every tenant on their floor for the smell, but not before she noticed the picture frame in Kiana’s living room behind her with the two of them, plus Bronya in the middle, sitting nicely where her burnt lamp had once been. 

Mei texted Bronya’s number that night, at least the one she knew Bronya had last, and Bronya was quick to respond. 

They texted about Kiana’s latest antics for an hour before she went to bed, and she fell into a dreamless sleep with a smile on her face. 

Maybe she would take up that cafe invitation after all.

Kiana’s kitchen burned down.

Mei had to find out through the news that played in the background of her washing the dishes at work, and she requested for one of her coworkers to turn up the volume. She put down her hands and turned off the sink to listen closely. 

According to the news report, an apartment building on the fourth floor had a plug that short-circuited; at least, that was what the police had told the media. It set something on fire in the kitchen, and though the fire was put out before it had gotten too bad, every resident in the building had to be evacuated out for a few hours.

The news anchor reported that it was the second time that that particular apartment building had a fire related accident, and fire safety was being scrutinized at that very moment. 

Mei sighed. She wondered how much yelling Himeko was doing at Kiana, and if Kiana was doing that sad look she always gave Himeko to get her “get out of jail” card. Sometimes it even worked. 

Her manager let her go home early in lieu of the news. Mei thanked her profusely, and then made it back home about two hours earlier than she usually was. 

The fourth floor was being monitored by police and firefighters, and she was ushered in after a long line that made her feet ache. Mei had intentionally gone on the other side of the hallway to find Kiana’s apartment first, and it was a feat that proved to be slightly more difficult than if she had chosen to go the other way. 

Kiana was a few feet away from her taped up apartment door with her father. They were talking, both with musing looks on their faces, and Mei took a hesitant step forward. She didn’t know if it was okay for her to engage with them, or to even walk past them.

Before she could walk away with her inner turmoil, Mei’s dad caught sight of her. His eyebrows shot up high, his attention now away from Kiana while she continued to talk on and on about something that Mei couldn’t hear over the chatter. 

Siegfried smiled at her. It wasn’t just a polite smile, it was warm and friendly and a smile that Mei had seen on his face whenever she came over to his and Cecilia’s house for dinner. 

Siegfried put his hand on Kiana’s shoulder and patted it a couple times. He said something to her and then dismissed himself, waving at Mei before doing so. 

Kiana turned around with searching eyes, and when they landed on her, they brightened. Mei almost turned away with the blush that was beginning to slink at the back of her neck. She held her ground though. 

Mei came closer to her almost instinctively, and she saw how tired Kiana looked just as she was close enough. A second interrogation must’ve exhausted her beyond belief.

“Hi,” she said, almost breathlessly. “How are you doing?” It was a stupid question to ask, but she would rather hear it from Kiana. 

“Tired,” she complained, and then folded her arms over her chest and rested the side of her face against the wall. “They wouldn’t let me sit down. They think I did it— and well, sure, if I were them I would’ve thought so too, but you know I wouldn’t do something like this, right? I wouldn’t—”

“I believe you,” Mei assured her. “I’m sure they were just getting all the facts right. Are you okay now? Are they still coming back to ask you for more?”

“They told me they’d call me tomorrow,” she said, and she grimaced. “But for now, I think I’m in the clear. I was just talking to my old man about crashing at their place for a while, just in case. They told me my bedroom’s fine, so I could probably stay there when the smoke clears, but the… renovations are gonna take a good week. Or month. Depending on what kind of impression I made on them. And I really don’t wanna deal with jackhammers at six in the morning.”

“They probably loved you,” Mei told her gently.

“Easy for you to say!” Kiana quipped, and she stuck out her tongue at Mei just as Mei’s heart did a big flip.

Mei cleared her throat. “Your parents are already back from vacation?” she asked, deflecting from their prior conversation. 

Kiana laughed abashedly at that. She rubbed the back of her neck as she replied, “Well… they were supposed to come back in a few days, so I kinda cut their vacation off a little short.” And then Kiana straightened up and grew a little serious. “Before you ask, I bought my mom an apology basket,” she continued, as if Mei would have had the audacity to question her about her parental obligations. 

Mei cracked a smile. “Come back to my apartment,” she said, and the invitation was no longer an unsure question. “You can take a nap there if you’d like.”

She knew she hit right where the crack in Kiana’s armor was. Too exhausted to argue, Kiana heaved a big sigh and nodded her head. 

Kiana followed Mei like a mellow cat, and Mei immediately felt awful about her situation. She had already felt some sympathy for her while watching the news, and though while being unsurprised, it was different from seeing Kiana looking so sullen up close. 

Once Kiana made herself feel at home, Mei told her that she could stay at her apartment while the renovations were worked on. She didn’t know what spurred her on to say it, but she had no regrets once it came out of her mouth.

Kiana whipped her head from gawking at the trans flag hanging in her living room to gawk at her. She was quick to reject Mei’s offer, but Mei insisted. 

And continued to insist, over and over, when Kiana’s stubborn streak shined through all the way through dinner. 

“Are you sure?” Kiana asked for the fifth time. “Are you sure you’re sure? Because I know Bronya’s ten minutes away, and if—”

“She’s ten minutes away by car.” Mei gave her a pointed look over her shoulder. “A car that you don’t have. And it’ll be fine. You’re only here for the night, at least until your apartment gets cleared out from the smoke.”

“Right! Right. The smoke.” Kiana’s head bobbed up and down so fast that Mei was half afraid she’d get dizzy and puke on her floor. Like she used to, right before an exam and she ate too many of the French toasts she made. Mei looked away. “I’ve said it a thousand times, but thank you, Mei. Seriously.”

Mei’s stove crackled to life. She cracked an egg, and the pan sizzled in its presence. She could feel Kiana looming next to her shoulder, and it almost made her shiver. A ghost of its memory was more than enough to make her feel so cold. “I wouldn’t be a good neighbor if I didn’t offer.”

Without looking behind her, she could feel Kiana’s hesitation. “First time my apartment almost burned down though,” she mumbled instead, and Mei let out a little laugh. 

She risked the burning of her eggs to turn to look at Kiana. “You burn something in there at least twice a week,” she answered pointedly, and Kiana’s sheepish grin made her heart sputter. “It was only a matter of time. But how you managed to pull that off, I really don’t know.”

Kiana laughed while she continued to tend to the eggs, still less than two feet away from her. “Well. You know me.”

Did she really? Because the Kiana she knew would never have triggered that many fire alarms in a month, just because she wanted to “try a hand in making almond cookies” and that “there was a new pie recipe online.”

But then again, she never let Kiana cook with her around. No wonder the poor woman almost blew up the entire apartment complex. 

“I do know you,” Mei said instead. She slapped Kiana’s knuckles away from the cooling pancakes on the counter. “And I know it’s a miracle you haven’t killed someone in a fire by now.”

Kiana shrugged, rubbing the back of her hand with the other. “You live right next to me. I know I can get a little reckless—” Mei let out a snort, “—but I’d never put you in danger! I mean it.”

Mei glanced at her. The stubborn, bold look in her eyes, one that sparked Kiana’s whole face and made Mei’s breath hitch ever so slightly, made her have to look away. She looked down fast enough to watch the egg crackle in the oil. “Right.”

Which was a sentiment that was hard to live up to, when apartment number 423 was always on fire, and Mei always had to pick up the pieces. 

“Sit down,” she said, and her words came out surprisingly calm. “Your food’s almost ready.”

She didn’t dare turn to look at the beam Kiana shot her way. She already knew it was there— there was no need to burn herself up on the inside.

Kiana decided to play with her radio instead. Mei didn’t mind, not really, even when Kiana began to fiddle with the dials and the soft, quiet music that she played grew louder and flipped back and forth between static, rock music, a talk show host’s loud laughter, and finally, an oldish song that made Mei start to bob her head along while she poked at the eggs with a spatula. 

And then Kiana’s voice joined in. 

Loud, uneven, and incredibly out of tune, Mei had never been so welcoming to such a beautiful voice in her life. 

She laughed when Kiana grabbed a wooden spoon from her drawers to use it as a microphone, waving it around like she was in front of an audience. Mei laughed encouragingly, clapping slightly while Kiana twirled around her kitchen with the makeshift microphone still clutched tightly to her chest. She knew they had to deal with the already disgruntled neighbors in the morning, but she didn’t have the heart to make Kiana stop. Nor did she want Kiana to stop. 

Kiana held out her hand near the end of the song. 

Mei shook her head frantically, an excuse on her lips about needing to watch her eggs. But Kiana was more persistent than she was, as she always had been, and Mei offered her hand. 

Kiana tugged her in, her voice getting louder while she continued to belt the music. 

It was stupid and foolish and all sorts of silly things to be dancing like this in the kitchen with the sun dipping outside of her window and a smokey atmosphere, but she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

They continued to dance in the kitchen, and after a few moments, it began to smell like food and home. 

It was also the first and only time Mei had ever burnt her eggs. 

“Mei.”

Mei groaned. Her head was foggy from sleep, and she could barely register the feeling of someone shaking her shoulder. 

“Mei. Mei. MeiMei MeiMei—”

“What is it?” she slurred, and turned on her back to blink groggily over at Kiana. She could make out Kiana’s happy look in the near darkness of her room. “Are you okay?”

“One hundred percent,” Kiana answered, and she could hear the pride in her voice. 

Curious as to why that was, Mei rubbed at her eyelids and propped herself up with her elbows. Now that she was mostly awake, she squinted at Kiana in the dark and noticed the grin on her face. “What did you do?” she asked suspiciously. In all honesty, she felt a little nervous. 

“I made cookies.” Her voice was boastful. 

Mei quirked an eyebrow at her. 

Kiana continued by saying, “Cookies! That are edible.”

“Edible cookies?” Mei echoed. “Did you happen to get the recipe off Himeko?”

“They’re chocolate chip cookies,” Kiana explained, slightly offended. “They didn’t burn this time! I know, because I checked the oven and they were all gooey and good and…” She trailed off, smacking her lips and probably thinking about the delicious cookies that she was going to consume sooner or later. 

Mei checked her alarm clock. It was three in the morning. 

But that didn’t really matter, not really. All she could think about was how endearing it was that Kiana was so excited to tell her about making cookies that weren’t rock solid for once. She even forgot to grumble to Kiana about the late hour. 

“That’s amazing, Kiana,” she said honestly. Kiana’s smile grew that much brighter in the dark. Mei paused, mulling over Kiana’s words in her head. And then she asked, “Did you turn off the oven before coming to tell me?”

Kiana’s smile dropped. “Oh.”

In a flash, Mei pulled her covers off of herself and ran to the kitchen. Thankfully, the fire was small and contained only inside her oven. She neutralized it in less than five minutes, with Kiana standing behind her shoulder with many apologies hot on her tongue. 

Mei grabbed her oven mitts off the top shelf and pulled out the burnt cookies. She placed them on the counter and peeled off the mitts, staring in horror at the blackened cookies before them. Only the inner cookie had a semblance to what chocolate chip cookies usually looked like, so at least all hope wasn’t lost. 

Mei sighed, and Kiana didn’t know what to say now that every form of apology had been said.

And then Mei turned on her heel and opened the pantry, pulling out ingredients without so much more than a blink. She looked at Kiana over her shoulder with a pointed look.

“Aren’t you going to help me?” she asked. Kiana tilted her head in confusion and pointed at herself. “We’re making real cookies.”

Kiana’s eyes flamed into something golden. 

Thankfully and luckily for her, Kiana didn’t set anything else on fire in her apartment after that. 

There were minor incidents, like her tire bursting into flames when Mei walked by her motorcycle in the parking lot and Kiana’s sleeve emitting a small light while she was in Mei’s cafe to pick up a small iced coffee. 

There were the notable ones too, where Kiana had burnt the eggs and bacon in the morning because she wanted to surprise Mei, or the fact that somehow her sock in the other room lit on fire in the laundry basket while Mei was busy worrying about her father in the hospital.

It made them both laugh each time, and Mei was beginning to welcome the smokey scent of her apartment. 

And each time, Mei was there to pat it down and gain Kiana’s big grin as a reward.

It only took two weeks for the construction company to call Kiana while they were watching a movie on her couch. They informed her that her kitchen was almost done, and though Kiana’s soul looked as if it were being seeped through a straw when they gave her the quote for the price, Kiana hung up the phone with a relieved sigh.

Kiana was quick to catch her up to speed, and then she excused herself to grab some things for them for dinner. Mei bid her a safe trip, and she was alone in her apartment for the first time in weeks. 

It made her heart shiver at the feeling, like being dragged back into a life where Kiana hadn’t set a foot in her apartment complex, but she tried to push on. Mei plucked more popcorn out of her bowl while waiting for Kiana, the movie they were watching still on pause. She opted to read a book instead. 

She tried not to think about Kiana and the fire that she had set in her heart in that timespan. 

With her mind still wrapped around the words in her novel and the songs on Kiana’s lips during dinner, someone knocked at her door. Mei closed her book and slid off the blanket off her legs, stretching her arms up high before opening the door.

Kiana was in her doorway, her hair still in her ponytail and her jacket still smelling slightly of a wildfire. Kiana’s grin was as she expected it to be, and yet it still continued to hit a big drum in her chest. 

“I got some lemons for dinner like you asked,” Kiana said happily. She raised the grocery bag to show Mei, but Mei zeroed in on the drink carton next to her hip. Kiana noticed. “Oh! I also got us some wine to celebrate.”

Mei blinked. “Oh, but I don’t—”

“I gotcha.” Kiana grinned as she turned the drinks to show off Mei’s favorite juice from the market.

The table was set without a moment to spare. Two wine glasses flourished out of her cabinet, and Kiana got the wine bottle open without hitting either of them in the eye with the cork. 

They got the movie playing again, but it was only set as the background for their conversation. 

They talked about anything and everything and all of that in between. It was a languid, chatty conversation; they talked as if there was no barrier between them anymore, and for that, Mei was most grateful. Kiana even laid her head on Mei’s lap at some point in the conversation, and there was no pause to indicate that either of them noticed, nor cared.

The sky outside turned into a rich plum color by the time Kiana was midway through the bottle and Mei was almost done with her juice. By that point in time, Kiana was on the topic of her sisters and the clothes they were stealing from each other, and her head was heavy on Mei’s lap. Mei continued to run her fingers through her scalp as she spoke, and Kiana’s words began to slur. From the alcohol or the fingers in her hair, she couldn’t tell. 

Mei confiscated her wine once it was 3/4th empty. Kiana complained about it for a moment before she got distracted by something else in Mei’s living room, and Mei was most thankful for her short attention span. 

Tipsy and giggly, Kiana ran over to her automatic night light in the corner of her living room that Eden had given to her about two birthdays ago. It projected a million stars onto her ceiling, coating the living room in brilliant colors of gold and red and purple. 

Kiana sat in front of the projector with curious eyes. She held out her hands experimentally, and cackled gleefully as the stars stuck to her hands rather than the ceiling above. Mei crouched beside her to watch, just as captivated. It was something about Kiana’s easygoing happiness that drew her in like a moth to the light. 

“Mei,” she said in astonishment. Kiana’s eyes stayed glued to the stars in her hands, illuminated and colorful and full of radiant replicas of the twinkling dots outside of the window.

Mei made a small hum to signify her observation. 

Kiana turned to look at her, and somehow the stars in her hands couldn’t compare to the ones in her eyes. “I think I have the universe in my hands,” she whispered, as if she couldn’t believe it herself.

Mei put her elbow on her knee and propped her chin with a hand. She laughed as Kiana said so, and put her hand out to try it herself. Even though the little gimmick had been in her house for a while, it never crossed her mind to do something like this. It was simple, and maybe a little silly, but it was fun and charming and only something Kiana would lead her to. 

“I think you do,” Mei said to her, with all the sincerity in her heart.

Kiana frowned, then. She shook her head at Mei, and Mei tilted her head in curiosity. Kiana had been so adamant in believing that she was holding the fate of the universe in her hands just a mere second ago. 

And then Kiana put her unsteady hands away from the projector, letting all of the stars refill the ceiling in all of its glory, and then put her hands on each side of Mei’s face, gently and lovingly. 

“Now,” Kiana said, with a small giggle. “I do.”

And Mei wanted to kiss her so, so bad.

Kiana removed her hands from her face, her thumbs brushing against the sides of Mei’s lips as if they wanted to leave last, and Kiana stood up to her full height to stretch. She almost stumbled into Mei while she did so, the wine from earlier still making its way through her digestive system. Mei held out her hands just in case. 

“Can I…?” Kiana began, and she seemed to trail off as she tried to figure out a way to ask her question.

Mei was already ahead of her. She was coming around her kitchen counter to grab some water for Kiana, and a glass for herself as well. The night was still young, and if Kiana wanted, she would have loved to spend the rest of it with her— by talking into the void of the night, playing board games, watching a movie, she really didn’t care as long as it was with her. 

Mei passed the glass of water onto Kiana. They were sitting on the couch again, and Kiana was looking through the catalog on her TV to find a suitable thing to watch. It seemed as if Kiana had made up her mind about an activity to do, and Mei wasn’t one to complain.

She put her head on Kiana’s shoulder. 

Kiana didn’t seem to mind at all.

Halfway through the movie, with Kiana’s arm slung around her body and Mei’s head resting fully on Kiana’s shoulder, Kiana piped up with a suggestion.

“So I was thinking— we have an almost empty wine bottle,” she mused. 

“Yes…?”

“And do you know what people can make with empty wine bottles?” She paused for effect. “Molotovs.”

She said it with so much contemplation and conviction that Mei craned her neck to look at her with a laugh on her lips. “Wha—? Kiana!”

“I’m kidding! Kidding,” Kiana said hastily. And then she paused. “Unless—?”

“No!”

After weeks and days full of phone calls and stressful negotiations, Kiana’s kitchen was finally renovated. Her entire family came over to the apartment complex to celebrate, including some of their friends. Fu Hua gave Kiana a bouquet from her flower shop to celebrate, as well as whispered something in her ear that made her blush a slight scarlet red and for her eyes to wander to Mei for a split second before ripping right back onto Fu Hua. Bronya was Bronya, with a scolding on her lips for Kiana and a side hug for Mei. 

Mei had already helped her move everything back the day before, and it felt slightly bittersweet to pack away Kiana’s side of the bed with her clothes and personal belongings out of her apartment like she was going away for good. She did her best to hide the sentiment though, and she did well enough. 

She continued to smile and wave at all of their friends and at the Kaslanas, ushering them into Kiana’s new and improved apartment with a kitchen that was augmented for optimal safety and fire hazards. 

The small get-together lasted for hours, in true Kaslana fashion. It started when the sun was beginning to set over the horizon, and only ended when the moon was bright and full in the sky above them. Kiana was still full of energy by the time the last person bid their goodbye out of the door, and she crashed onto her couch with a sigh and a new can of soda crackled in her hands. 

Kiana let out a yell when Mei grabbed one of the plates in her sink, and Mei turned to look at her in surprise. 

“You don’t live here, what are you doing!” she said, and she sounded incredibly appalled that Mei would even think to do the dishes in her apartment. “I’ll do that later. Jeez, Mei, my mom would twist my ear if she caught me letting you do that.”

Mei laughed, partly because it was true and partly because she found it, well, funny. It was undoubtedly funny to think about it, considering that she picked up the dishes thinking that she was in her own apartment. 

There was something about being in Kiana’s apartment that made her feel warm all over, as if she’d been here before; as if Kiana hadn’t just moved in only slightly more than a month ago. 

“Sorry,” Mei said after the last of her giggles subsided, and she dried her hands on the towel near the dishes. She turned to look at Kiana still sitting on the couch, watching her every move like she was expecting Mei to pounce on the dishes and do them for her when she wasn’t looking. Which might have happened, but Mei wasn’t about to tell her that. 

“I should be heading back now,” Mei said again, her eyes straying to the clock in the corner. “Will you be okay here?”

Kiana’s smile almost looked ironic. She wondered what she said for Kiana to look at her like that. “I’ll be okay,” Kiana confirmed. She sat up straighter on her couch. “Would you maybe like to come back over? Tomorrow? To show me how to make that cheesecake you made today?”

“You liked it?” Mei asked in surprise. It was so busy in her apartment that she didn’t notice. 

One side of Kiana’s lips tilted upwards in amusement. “Do you really think I wouldn’t eat anything you make? You’re stabbing me right in the chest.” And she fell sideways on her couch in a dramatic reenactment. 

Mei snorted, then tossed her a towel for the inevitable spill of her drink. 

“I’ll be a few doors away if you ever need me,” Mei said sincerely. 

Kiana turned on her back to look at her through her elbow, the one that was thrown over her face in her dramatic attempt to make Mei feel bad. “Good to know,” she teased, though there was a hint of honesty to her words. “Mei?”

Mei hummed as she picked up her coat near the front door. 

“You’re the only reason I got my fire going,” Kiana said honestly. 

Surprised and a little confused, Mei turned her head to look at her with a silent question. 

Kiana sat up on the couch properly, and then shrugged. “You know,” she said, and she fished for the proper wording before answering. When she couldn’t, she just shrugged again, and then slumped in her seat. She waved her hand dismissively. 

“You know what I mean,” she answered, but she sounded defeated. 

Mei didn’t know what to say. She just nodded, and then said, “I feel the same way, Kiana.”

Kiana looked like she wanted to stand up and say something else to her— but she only slumped back against her couch. She only bid Mei a goodnight. 

She couldn’t describe it, nor could she place the feeling in her chest, but Mei felt somehow… disappointed.

Even more so when there was no fire-related emergency for her to run to in the middle of the night or in the parking lot, but she supposed she had to count her blessings.

The thought of Kiana plagued her mind for the rest of the week. 

While she was cooking or vacuuming the floors or even at work taking orders, she couldn’t take her mind off Kiana even for a full minute. 

Was she eating enough? 

Did she remember to turn off the oven this time? 

How about preheating?

What if her entire apartment burned down while she was taking a nap and she couldn’t find the latch to let herself out of her room in time?

Mei had to shake every thought away with a scolding to herself. Kiana was an adult, just as much as she was. She knew how to take care of herself. In fact, they saw each other everyday, either for cooking lessons or to hang out or both, and they texted and called in between those times. Kiana was fine. 

And yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing, that something was wrong. 

That there was an empty fireplace in her heart that hadn’t been lit up yet, and she couldn’t figure out how to find the match.

She almost bumped into someone on the way home. She apologized profusely and reminded herself to keep her head up high to make sure it didn’t happen again. 

Her scolding proved to be useful when she almost bumped into someone else, but though this time it had almost been intentional. 

Kiana was waiting for her near her apartment door with her hands behind her back, and she sprang up to greet Mei the moment they saw each other. Mei wondered briefly why Kiana hadn’t just let herself into her apartment, but it was Kiana she was thinking about. The woman would’ve fought her on inviting herself indoors without her say so even if she gave Kiana twelve spare keys and left the door wide open. 

“Were you waiting long?” Mei asked her worriedly. It was almost five in the afternoon, and Kiana often ate her meals much earlier than this. 

Kiana shook her head to dispel her worry. “And I had lunch with Hua,” she said, reading her mind about her worry. “How was work?”

Mei thought about it. “The same as always,” she settled on saying. “And your day?”

“Kicked Bianka’s butt at the gym today, that’s what,” she said with a cheerful, lopsided grin. “Anyway— I have a surprise for you.”

“You do?” Mei said, and she couldn’t help feeling surprised. 

“Yup.” Kiana bobbed her head a couple times. She presented the present that she was hiding behind her back, a tupperware full of cookies along with a small bouquet from Fu Hua’s flower shop that, on closer inspection, looked as perfect as the cookies from the bakery down the street. At first, Mei had thought that was exactly what they were, until Kiana added, “I made them today! For you.”

“For me?” Mei echoed. She took the container from Kiana, and then looked at them from the side. They looked like… cookies. Perfectly baked cookies without an imperfection in them. Hell, if Kiana had given her cookies with the underside burnt to a crisp, she knew she would’ve still eaten them. But this? 

This was a big surprise indeed.  “I don’t know what to say.” Because she truly, truly had no idea what to say.

“Do whatever you want with them,” Kiana told her. She peered into Mei’s eyes with an expectant smile, her hands still behind her back as if she was inspecting every inch of Mei’s reaction. 

“Thank you, Kiana,” Mei finally said, and she blinked. She put the cookies down to hip level, and then said again, “Thank you, really. But how did you…?”

Kiana looked ready to answer it. “Practice,” she said with a proud look. “I used your recipe— which, by the way, tasted really good— because I thought it would make you happy.” And then she scratched the side of her neck in slight embarrassment, and Mei finally noticed the fresh bandages on her hands.

“Oh.” Mei blinked. She didn’t know why the idea of Kiana spending hours and hours in her kitchen trying to make the perfect cookies just for her made her heart flutter so much, but it did. “Would you maybe like to come in?” she asked, and she also didn’t understand why her words came out so shy. 

Mei forced her to unwrap her bandages once they were settled in. She replaced them with a first aid kit in her closet just in case, and released a sigh of relief when she realized that they were only first degree burns. Maybe Kiana had tried to lift the tray out of the oven without mitts before realizing.

“At least you didn’t set something on fire this time,” Mei joked, and she snapped her first aid kit closed. 

“I almost did,” Kiana said thoughtfully, and Mei shot her a look. She only smiled back sheepishly. “But I didn’t,” she added quickly.

Mei got up from the table to put the kit away. But then Kiana’s hands wrapped around her wrist and tugged her back gently.

“Sorry,” Kiana said hastily, and she removed her hand off Mei like Mei had burned her. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” Mei answered, and she turned her body to look at her to give all of her attention.

“If I were in the middle of a burning fire, would you come save me?”

Mei thought she misheard her. “What?”

Kiana laughed at that. “You heard me,” she teased, and Mei only raised her eyebrows at her. 

She really didn’t need to think about it, so she answered, “Of course I would.”

“You wouldn’t be scared?” Kiana pressed. 

Even though Kiana’s question probably laid in something fun and nonsensical, Mei couldn’t help but answer honestly. “No,” she said firmly. “I would do anything for you, Kiana. Fire and all.”

“Okay.” Kiana’s smile looked so gentle on her face. It wasn’t the reaction Mei was expecting, especially from such a joke like that. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Yes,” Mei said, and she braced for something serious. 

“Can we order spicy food today?”

Kiana’s fire tendencies seemed to dwindle for the next few days. There were no oven fires, no pan fires, not even from the stir fry she would make nor the cheesecakes that they would whip together for cold Wednesday nights. 

It made Mei relax, little by little, but there was still something odd about the entire thing. She knew she shouldn’t, but it was how she felt. Had Kiana enrolled in a fire safety class and didn’t tell her? Knowing her, it was in the realm of possibilities, but still. Kiana told her everything— including fire safety classes.

Which was probably why she wasn’t so surprised when Bronya shook her awake sometime in the evening, and that apparently Kiana had accidentally set a fire off near Fu Hua’s flower shop.

She pulled off her covers and put on her clothes in record time, just like a firefighter, and ran to her car without a second thought. She didn’t even think to ask Bronya how she had managed to enter her apartment, or why Bronya had even come down personally instead of calling her, because all she could think about was Kiana and her stupid, stupid metaphorical question that somehow had come to life thanks to karma or whatever Kiana had jinxed herself with. 

Mei sped through traffic so fast that poor Bronya was holding onto dear life at her side. Everything was a blur by the sides of her vision, and all she could zero in on was the lone flower shop that was at the end of the road. 

Her car drifted painfully to the side of the parking lot, and Mei clipped off her seatbelt without a second thought. She ran out of her car, despite the uncharacteristic frantic shouts from Bronya, and she kept running until she felt the familiar pinpricks of embers on her skin and the smell of smoke right under her nose. 

Fu Hua and Kiana were behind the flower shop, fiddling with a gas tank and seemingly arguing over it. There was already a trail of it behind Kiana’s ankle, and there was a small fire starting at the elbow of her jacket. 

Mei didn’t think, for once. 

She only ran, sprinting towards Kiana until both Hua and Kiana turned to look at her and shouted something that Mei could barely hear from the pounding in her head. 

Mei tackled Kiana to the ground, her hand beating at the jacket until the fire went out. 

And then, her chest coming in with short breaths, they stared at each other with noses only inches apart. 

“Hi there,” Kiana finally said, and she looked just as shocked as Mei. “I was gonna uh… Bronya didn’t tell me you were that fast.”

“She told me you were on fire,” Mei said, shocked and now incredibly confused. Her hands were still on either side of Kiana’s face, and there was a roar of heat that tickled her face. She looked up to see that Hua had started a fire in a small fire pit, shrugging at her helplessly when Mei caught her eye. Mei looked back down at her. “What did you do?”

“Don’t look at me!” Kiana said defensively. And then she deflated and laughed a little, and said, “Actually, yeah, that was me. Reflex. From Sirin.”

“What did you do?” Mei repeated, more pressingly, and she looked between her and the fire a few feet away from them. Hua and Bronya were nowhere to be seen.

“So, you’re not gonna believe this,” Kiana said with a wry laugh. “I was trying to… be romantic.”

Mei stared down at her blankly.

“The fire thing you told me last week gave me an idea, so I begged Hua and Bronya to help me and they agreed because they just wanted me off their backs, but you know, I’m actually starting to think they have a soft spot for me, because—” Kiana wheezed when Mei sat back on her lap in unamusement, and then she relented. “Right! Right. Um. I was trying to spell out ‘will you go out with me?’ on that wall over there—” she waved helplessly at one of Hua’s brick walls, “—but Hua kept trying to convince me to pick something shorter and I thought ‘Nooo, that wouldn’t look good!’ so we kept going back and forth, and then apparently you drove here like a maniac so now all of that is gone and I guess all I have to say is that—”

“—yes,” Mei said frankly.

“That… come again?” Kiana, still on the floor, tilted her head at her like Mei had told her that she won the lottery. 

“Yes, I’ll go out with you,” Mei said again. 

Kiana’s eyes widened so comically big that Mei couldn’t help but let the laughter bubble out of her chest. “Like— like getting coffee?”

“If that’s what you want,” Mei laughed. “As long as it isn’t burning hot.”

“You mean like you?” Kiana replied, and she said it so naturally with splitting amusement that Mei had no choice but to cup her face and kiss her senseless to wipe that grin off her face. 

All of her burning passion was pulled into one kiss, and from the way Kiana kissed her back, with her arms thrown around Mei’s waist and a fervor that she knew would make her dizzy to think about even days after, Kiana was doing just the same as she was. 

“Can I tell you something else?” Kiana said against her lips, and she was panting so hard that Mei wanted so badly to pull her into another kiss.

But she supposed that had to wait. She pecked Kiana’s lips once to satiate herself for the time being, and then hummed her affirmation. 

So Kiana told her that she had been burning things on purpose. 

Not everything was on purpose, including her kitchen and the first time she had moved in, because they were honest mistakes (Kiana had even crossed her heart). But most, including the sock that had combusted into flames in her room when she was feeling down or the time Kiana had woken her up in the middle of the night to show her some burnt desserts in the oven, were 100% all Kiana Kaslana’s street ingenuity in nudging Mei to spend more time with her. 

And Mei loathed how much it worked. 

So, as an act of revenge, Mei pulled her in for another ardent kiss, a fire thundering in her heart.