Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When young student Hua had to move overseas for her new school, she was presented with three housing options. Find someone looking for a roommate, a stranger, and pay them half the rent to live together, rent out her own tiny place and struggle with her limited budget, or live with her certified-doctor cousin who she'd known since childhood (and his other roommate) in a double-storey house with no need for rent at all.

Obviously, she went for the third option.

What she did not expect was that the 'other roommate' would be the most insufferable man she'd ever met.

Now, Hua, since childhood, had been praised by all her teachers and mentors for her outstanding patience and ability to remain calm and rational. It had been said that she was leagues above her age-fellows in terms of self-restraint.

Never had she thought she'd see the day where one white-haired office worker would take any semblance of 'restraint' and 'patience' right out of her and leave her seething, wishing for his downfall during every moment in his presence.

She thinks back to the day she moved in, of the child that was unaware of the resentment and struggles to come.

She rang the doorbell and it took only a moment for a gray-haired person to answer. She recognized him immediately- of course she did, they'd been so close once, and he recognized her just as well. "It's been a while, Hua," he greeted her, a gentle smile on his face, "it's good to see you after all this time."

She gave a small nod- "It's good to see you too, Su."

They walked in and he showed her around the house, hours passing in ordinary proceedings. She got familiar with the area and put her luggage in her room; the copybook move-in day.

And it's not like a white-haired man, few centimeters shorter than her cousin, stumbling through the front door with a briefcase in hand exactly ruined everything, but she sure was surprised when Su introduced him as not just his roommate, but his childhood best-friend and close acquaintance.

They introduced themselves to each other and shook hands. He didn't seem particularly interested. She wasn't either, only taking note of his name and his common profession.

—If only she'd known.

Su had spared the time to cook fried chicken for lunch that same day, perhaps as a way to commemorate her arrival.

Hua had her eye on the wing piece before the plate was even placed onto the table– it'd been her favorite since she was little. She doubted that would change anytime soon.

However, Kevin snatched up not one but both the wings (alongside a few other pieces) and dropped them into his plate before she could even raise her hand.

'That's okay,' she had thought to herself, 'it's only a piece of food. It's not like it had my name on it or anything, either.'

It'd be petty to get upset over something so little, but this was the event that marked the start of many tragedies to come.

She made herself some food a few days later, once she'd had some time to settle in. Following an online recipe dutifully, she spent hours in the kitchen bringing her half-experienced inner chef out to make a decent dish.

She was happy with how her dumplings turned out, and of course she didn't eat them in one sitting. She pulled out a disposable container, wrote her name on it, placed the dumplings in and slid it into the fridge. 'Food for later,' she thought, 'it'll be great.'

And it really would have been great if one Kevin didn't pick them up an hour or two later and eat them all. He didn't spare even one. She walked into the kitchen. saw him with the familiar container, and said,

"That's mine."

He rotated the (now empty) container around until he spotted the name, very neatly written near the base. "I didn't see it."

She remembers having to take a deep inhale and exhale to calm herself down. 'It's not his fault he didn't see it, and I can just make some more.' Hua really, really tried her best to not let her disappointment show. She was looking forward to eating that.

Another few days later, or maybe even a week:

Su had cooked lunch again, noodles this time. Hua was nothing but excited when she saw the steaming bowls that had been placed on the counter to cool down.

She helped with setting the table before taking her seat, scooping up some noodles from her bowl and blowing lightly to cool them down.

She didn't expect the sudden spike of flavor on her first bite, nor the sudden tears in her eyes.

Hua was bad with spice to the point where even a sprinkle would feel a bit much for her, but these noodles were so spicy to the point where it felt that they were just ghost peppers sliced up and boiled.

The period of time between her choking on deathly-spice noodles and ending up on the couch draped in a blanket, sipping a cup of cold milk was quite a blur; mainly because her vision was a blur too.

What she does remember is Su scolding Kevin profoundly, and his guilty face. She remembers finding out what happened too, which was ridiculous:

Kevin had swapped their noodle bowls around, the only reason being that his had vegetables in it. What was he, five? What he did not know was that the noodles were made specifically to his preference, which was very very spicy, and that Hua could not handle spice.

Thankfully he didn't get away scot-free. An earful from her cousin, a lot of new chores, and an apology to her was his punishment. 'That wasn't exactly okay,' Hua mused, 'but at least he's sorry.'

(Su tried to apologize to her too, but she stopped him.)

Another day, when she had recovered from the Incident and was able to once again eat noodles without initial suspicion and having to do a taste-test, she was doing her homework.

When she was almost done, she committed the terrible mistake of leaving her papers on the table for the sake of a bathroom break.

They were missing when she'd come back, replaced with the presence of one Kevin fucking Kaslana.

"Where," she asked, slowly, "Where is my homework."

He looked her dead in the eye. "Su told to me clean the table. I must have mistaken it for rubbish."

'It's my fault for leaving my papers at the table,' she thought, purposely ignoring how her tolerance was cracking at the edges, chips forcefully taken from perfect porcelain. She was disappointed, and rightfully soL she was almost done with that work, and now she all had to do it all over.

But it couldn't be helped.

She remembers having a conversation in the quieter hours of the night, when they both couldn't sleep and there was something baffling her.

"How do you put up with him?"

"Kevin, you mean?"

She sighed, burying her head further in her arms on the desk. "Yes."

Su rolled the question over in his mind for a few moments, humming as he thought. "To be honest, I'm not too sure."

She raised her head slightly, just so she could catch the expression on his face. "What?"

"He can be a bit much sometimes, and he did land us in the principal's office a few times in highschool-"

"He what?"

"He wasn't exactly a good student, but he is a good person. You'll be able to see that... sooner or later."

She put her head back in her arms, doubting his words.

Her cousin wasn't usually wrong about things, but this matter must have been an exception.

(Or maybe not, because she'd seen how that ordinary office worker would pick up her cousin when he'd come home too late from work, exhausted, and had fallen asleep on the sofa- he'd scoop him up and carry him to bed.

Maybe Kevin was a good person, but that didn't change the fact that she couldn't put up with him.)

But then, the next day, Hua walked into the living room and was greeted with the horrific sight of Kevin attempting to (badly, very badly) flirt with Su, and she decided it had to end no matter the cost.

Should she hang an anvil on top of his doorframe? No, simply because she didn't have the pocket money necessary to buy an anvil.

What about pushing him off the balcony? Would a two storey fall inflict enough agony upon him? She didn't know. She'd never fallen from that height.

What about murdering him in his sleep? No— she didn't want to kill him. Also, it'd upset Su. Why was she having murderous thoughts anyways?

Oh- an idea pops into her mind, like a switch turned on, and she lights up.

She eyes the boiling pile of... something. It looks like mud now. Sloppy, bubbling, poisonous mud in a pot. She stirs it once more for good measure. She does not taste test it under any circumstances.

She's thrown in so many things that she couldn't even list them all, but she made sure none of them complemented each other, they all tasted horrible, and were borderline edible.

Now that she's come so far and her witch potion is almost done, she's starting to have second thoughts. The first one being 'how am I even supposed to get Kevin to drink this thing?'

It was an unneeded worry, though. Present food to A Kevin and it will be eaten, the only exception being if the food has vegetables visible. Hua has to stop herself from wincing when he takes a spoonful with no hesitation, not even doubting the putrid smell– she wonders if she even needed the excuse of 'taste testing a new dish'.

She watches him eat, for a few moments, before growing concerned– not as his reaction, but the lack of it. No running off to the bathroom, no gag, no expression, he doesn't even put the plate down– did he just take another bite?

Hua begins to doubt herself. Did the soup really taste as bad as it looked? She didn't know. She hadn't tried it, in fear of food poisoning, but seeing how Kevin didn't move an inch and completed his 'taste test' flawlessly she must have not made it badly enough.

He gives Hua a thumbs up. Her eye twitches.

She needed to work harder if she wanted to shake him. It was a bit hard to not resort to the fighting skills she'd learned from her father's dojo.

Crossing out all options that included violence left her devoid of any ideas, until an opportunity arose. Kevin put a chocolate pudding in the fridge and she thanked whatever gods above had given her this golden chance.

It was simple, but sure to piss him off, and he'd eaten her food once before too. And hers was homemade whereas the pudding was store-bought. It was fair. She wanted to believe she was in the right as she microwaved his pudding and ate it.

She also made sure to time her snack so that she'd be finishing off the pudding the moment he got back from work. For the sake of emotional impact.

However, to her disappointment, he did not show much emotion.

"That pudding..." he pointed at the now-empty cup in that same aloof manner, and his voice was so agitatingly stoic-

"Sorry, was it yours?"

Surprisingly, he shook his head. "I bought it, but it was supposed to be for Su."

What?

Now she felt bad.

"I'm sorry," she said, more genuinely than she would've ever in an apology to him. She tried to reassure herself in her mind, saying it was an apology to Su, because she never would've eaten the pudding if she'd known it was his. Should she buy another?

"It's fine," he said, and simply walked off to put away his things from work.

That backfired. But Hua wasn't giving up. She would find more ways to annoy Kevin and ensure she didn't indirectly inconvenience her cousin in any way.

That resolution of hers was shattered when Su declared, at the dinner table, that they needed to have A Talk.

"Two people in this room have not being getting along very well with each other," he started, and Hua wondered why he was going about it in such a roundabout manner when there was only three of them at the table.

"Who?" Kevin asked, and Hua would've thought he was being sarcastic had she not already established that he was 'not very intelligent'. (read: 'An Idiot').

Su had to hold back a sigh. "You. And Hua."

"Me, and Hua... we haven't been getting along?"

Hua couldn't hold herself back. "How didn't you notice?"

"What?"

"I gave you the most horrible tasting soup—"

"That soup? I didn't say anything because I thought you tried your best."

" What? "

"It wasn't as bad as my own cooking." Was he bringing himself down or trying to reassure her?

Su gave a light 'ahem'  to stop the conversation from spiraling into an argument– "So, what's the problem between you two?"

"Maybe it's because of the noodle incident-"

"I'm over the noodle incident."

Kevin stared at her quizzically. "Why, then?"

"Because-" How was Hua supposed to find the words for her inner turmoil? 'You've ruined so many of my meals, and you tried to hit on my cousin,' would be an honest answer but Hua felt that saying it out loud and confessing to holding childish grudges would be shameful.

So she held her silence.

Kevin blinked. "So you... hate me for no reason? Is it a teenager thing or-"

She slammed her fist on the table. "Su," she pointed at Kevin, "I hate him."

Su finally let out the sigh he'd been holding in the entire time, knowing that this was going to be a very long and difficult talk.

Chapter Text

It has been a few months since she’s moved in with Kevin and Su now. Hua has gotten used to the white-haired man, as insufferable as he may be. Most of his actions stem not from ill-will, only clumsiness, and she is not so childish as to hold grudges.

The only other issue is how he’s painfully pining after her cousin, but it’s not like Su would ever love him back. There’s not a single loveable thing about him. He can’t cook, can’t clean, has the most basic job, zero personality, and the face of an ice cube. Her cousin deserves much better. She finds absolutely no need to worry.

So she can’t begin to describe the shock she felt that day.

(“Hua,” Su starts at a lunch- normal as any other, “There’s something I should inform you about. Since it’ll probably affect you too…”

Her mouth was stuffed with food so she settled on a small ‘ hmm ’ to indicate he should go on. 

“Kevin and I have decided to start dating.”

Hua chokes.)

Even just looking back at the memory makes her shudder. It’s painful to continue recalling it, but she gathers all her courage to keep trekking on. To embark on a mission, one must first know why they fight.

(“Why?” She asks, once she has stopped choking and has lost all of her appetite.

“Well, when two people like each other, in the romantic sense-”

“No, I’m not asking why people date. I’m asking why you’d date him .”

Su tilts his head slightly like he doesn’t really understand the question. Which means she has to elaborate, which she will gladly do. She already has an elaborate list of all of Kevin’s negative traits organized in order of most to least bothersome stored in the back of her mind.

Patience is something Su excels at, an excellent show of it being in how he waits for Hua to finish her presentation supplied with examples taken from scenarios that happened in real life- which takes almost an hour- before speaking. “I understand that you don’t like him, but…”

“I don’t understand why you do like him.”

“Kevin has positive qualities too.”

“Such as?”
She really doesn’t mean to sound like a detective interrogating a suspect, but she can’t help it when faced with such an incredulous situation.

Su stares at the table almost vacantly, clearly in thought- she’s unsure about how long- and then turns his gaze to the side. Hua doesn’t miss [much to her absolute horror] the red on the tips of his ears as he makes up an excuse about 'work starting soon' and leaves the room. She stares after him as he leaves, swearing an oath to herself that she must stop this madness no matter the cost.

She’s not one to involve herself in other people’s romantic relationships but just the thought of walking around at home unable to escape the sight of her dear cousin holding the hand of some absolutely worthless man makes her feel queasy. She won’t allow this.

But what is she supposed to do, anyway? Walk up to the two of them, tell them “No,” and expect them to give her a thumbs up and go back to the way things were before-

Wait. The way things were before . The. The scenes she had blacked out in her own mind for the sake of her sanity suddenly unveil themselves before her, the dreadfully obvious mutual pining that had obviously been going on much longer than before she moved in now showing itself in clear view. Oh god. This was going to be a lot harder than she had originally anticipated. 

Still, she had to keep going. For the restoration of balance, for peace to once again return to these wretched lands. She can keep ignoring their pining but she can’t ignore them actually dating. But. Another thought enters her mind.

She doesn’t mind Kevin suffering but what if this would upset Su too? She’d hate for that to happen. The main reason she was doing this was to stop him from settling for someone who may be the most undateable person on Earth.

She weighs the possibilities in her mind, placing scenario one- ‘Su ends up marrying someone who can’t even cook and gets stuck with him for life’ on one plate of the scale of severity, and scenario two ‘Su suffers minor heartbreak, recovers soon after realizing he could do much better than Kevin anyways’ on the other.

The former plate plummets to the floor and she makes her decision, the lesser of two evils for an overall happier lifestyle in the long run.)

That’s why she’s now pretending to read a newspaper on a bench with a pair of sunshades, a hat, mustache and strictly no Piyo merchandise. It looks very suspicious, but she’s not really doing anything too strange . Just watching Kevin and Su enter a cafe on the opposite end of the street. 

It’s necessary in times like these. And it’s not like she’s breaking any laws, she reassures herself as she slips into the cafe through the staff entrance and pulls out her uniform. She’s not breaking any laws. She really does work here. 

She then heads to the front counter while still wearing her sunshade-disguise (Even though the people she’s chasing already know she works here) and finetunes her ears to hear their conversation.

It’s not stalking.

It’s definitely not stalking.

Right, if they didn’t want her to know they were going on a date then Su shouldn’t have asked her for outfit advice first thing in the morning.

(“Hua, is this outfit alright?”

“For what?”

“My date with Kevin.”

“Your what?”

Breakfast was barely enjoyable after that.)

He shouldn't have asked her for good locations either.

(“Do you know any good places around here?”

“For what?”

“A date.”

Hua drops her fork on her plate. Can’t she have one good, uninterrupted meal in this household? 

“Well, um.” She begins to think, constructing a masterful plan and seizing the opportunity to plant its first seed. “The café I work at is nice.”

“Okay, thank you.”)

“The weather is nice today,” Kevin starts– snapping her out of her memories.

Hua’s judging him. What a horrible way to start a conversation. Weather? Couldn’t he find something more engaging to talk about? What did Su see in him?

“Yeah.”

Wow, Hua thinks, this conversation is going nowhere. 

“What do you want to order?”

“I think I’ll just get a coffee.”

If it was Kevin saying this, Hua would be back to judging why he’d prepared and come out just for one coffee but (unfortunately) it is not him so she does not think this.

“I’ll get the same, then.”

What a stupid choice. What a bland conversation. Hua has seen plenty of couples on a date from her spot at the register but none of them have ever been as hopeless as this. She is unwilling to admit that she has never paid attention to any of those other couples, so her claims lack evidence.

…

“And they just kept talking, but it was the worst conversation I’d ever seen. And I had to listen to all of it, and it was horrible. Horrible.”

“Wow, that sucks,” her coworker responds. 

“Yeah.” She then looks up, locking eyes with the other. “I don’t remember seeing you work here before.”

She shrugs. “I just got hired.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I walked in through the back and all of a sudden someone pink was gushing about me being the new worker, so I went along with it.”

“...Oh.” Hua isn’t sure what to think of the unprofessional hiring strategy, but her boss runs by a strange philosophy of ‘just hire cute girls for a successful business’ so it isn’t all that surprising. “What’s your name?”

“Pardofelis! And my shift’s starting, so I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“...Right,” Hua nods, waving out at her. Now that she’s spent a good three minutes explaining her current crisis to a stranger, she’s well prepared to continue her task; now following after the couple as they exit the café.

She’s content to trail them at a distance, stealth that of a professional detective; cloaked in the shadows of buildings, hidden by her fake moustache, agility granted by the cookie she snacked on during her shift. 

Alright, safe. Taking off her glasses and air of surreptitiousness, she let out a sigh…

—And ducks into the nearest alley barely a moment later, hand pressed to her mouth and breathing held.

“...?”

“Su, are you alright?”

“I’m okay, I just thought I saw…”

Oh god. She did not expect him to turn around so suddenly- what if he saw her? Was there a way to melt into the shadows instantly? Should she run? Ah, no, this alley was a dead end. She’s screwed, isn’t she?

“...Nevermind. Let’s go home, Kevin.”

The others turn away and she takes a deep breath in relief, doubling to calm her racing heart.

Whatever god had graced her, she would forever be in their debt. Also in the debt of her excellent reflexes– a moment later and she’d have been spotted and would have a lot of explaining to do.

Despite the risks- she lets out another sigh- she learned a valuable lesson today, gained the most insightful of insights, a crucial piece of knowledge.
Knowledge being that this relationship was hopeless and doomed and would never, ever, ever in a thousand universes work, not as long as Kevin fucking Kaslana was involved.

Even so, despite today’s endeavors, she hasn’t discovered the answer to the most important question of all-

‘How exactly do I put an end for this?’

…It seems she’ll have to keep working.

Kevin thinks that maybe Hua will stop hating his ass if he tries some bonding activities. Try to get to know her better. Something like family games should work.

“I am not playing Monopoly with you.” The first try never works, does it?

“I’m not playing charades either.” It’s okay, third try’s the charm.

“Put away the Scrabble board.” God, what does she like to play? Kevin barely has any family game ideas left. He wonders what he should try next as he watches Hua go back to her fighting game.

Game… Oh, video games. That’s what is ‘in’ with the kids these days. “What about an arcade?” He asks.

Hua finally pays him some proper attention. “I’ll pay,” he adds, to which she agrees at long last.

-

“Su, I’m going to the arcade with Hua.” He tells him rather proudly, satisfied with his accomplishment. This will be the first and largest step in improving their relationship.

Su, however, does not seem pleased. “Arcade… with Hua?” Actually, he seems quite worried.

“Is something wrong?”

“Kevin…” Su places a hand of reassurance on the other’s shoulder. “Good luck.”

Kevin has lost 25 games in a row so far. His arms ache like hell from carrying bags stuffed with prizes won from crane machines and the only thing he’s earned is the knowledge of the secret behind how Hua can afford to stuff her room with so many plushies. He’s a bit jealous of her skills since he’s only won a crane prize once in his life (it was a poorly made turtle) but won’t admit it since this is supposed to be a bonding activity. And, as a grown man, he can't admit he's jealous of a teenager. That's just... Kevin has some pride too.

Yes, bonding activity. Kevin’s arms hurt and he’s a loser and all his hopes and dreams and self-esteem (alongside bank account balance) has been crushed by one teenager but at least the teenager seems to be enjoying herself. 

The teenager who’s currently— Wait, where’d she go? 

Kevin stares at the unoccupied floor in front of him. He swears Hua was standing here a moment ago. He looks around and only sees crowds of strangers; Hua is hard to spot amongst all the heads since she is somewhat short.

Oh shit, he lost her. Su is going to kill him.

Kevin immediately begins his lost child search; walking around, trying to spot her, but the only thing he succeeds in doing is walking in a circle— Then he spots a Piyo crane machine. He doesn’t recall playing this one, and knows Hua would never pass up any chance for Piyo merch… so he decides to stand next to it and wait for her to appear.

It works like a charm because he doesn’t even have to wait. He spots Hua already using the machine as soon as he walks close enough. “Why did you run off?” He asks her.

She doesn’t even spare him a glance, immersed completely in her Piyo-grabbing game. “I’m trying to focus.”

“You almost made me panic.”

“I’m not a kid. I can take care of myself.”

‘Okay,’ he thinks, not really believing it, relenting and staring at the claw as it closes in on one plush. Hua seems to be praying under her breath right now. Kevin’s not sure if it’s necessary because- from what he’s observed- Hua is way too good at crane machines.

The Piyo slips as the claw’s moving to the exit. Looks like her horrible luck cancels out her skill sometimes… but she’s persistent and won’t give up so easily, pushing another coin into the slot.

Six or so tries later, she’s got the Piyo she was aiming for so stubbornly. She lifts it up to Kevin’s face, and he understands why she picked this one; The leaf-thing on the tip of its head is green and it wears an expression resting somewhere between ‘calm’ and ‘sleepy’. “It looks like Su.”

“Yeah.” She places it into a bag, or she tries to, but it’s a very big plushie and the bags are already full so she settles on carrying it instead. But it’s still a very big plushie and Hua definitely stands out in the crowd now that she’s 50% plush.

At least Kevin won’t lose sight of her again. Or maybe he will. The plushie made her more noticeable, but not taller. 

He’s not going to tell her that, though. No need to give her another reason to hate him- “Wait.”

Hua stops- thank goodness- a few paces away from him and turns back. “What,” she asks, and it’s amazing how she sharpens even a question into an insult… somehow.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

Oh. That makes sense. It’s not like they have any free arms to keep playing games with.

---

On their way back, despite himself and his aching arms, a flower shop catches Kevin’s eye. 

Hua notices a few moments later, once she’s walked ahead far enough to notice that Kevin isn’t following behind her anymore. Walking back, she eyes the flowers he’s looking at, and says- somewhat absentmindedly- “Su likes those ones.”

The speed he turns his head at indicates absolute shock. “Which?”

“The white ones.”

Oh, wow. Hua actually told him something to help him in his pathetic romantic endeavors for once. He can buy flowers for Su. The bonding activity must have worked. As if sensing his thoughts, she turns towards him, and her eyes widen- the realization of what she’s said and the importance of the information she departed settling down on her shoulders with the weight of a thousand mountains.

How. How did she slip up this bad. How does she salvage this. ‘Actually, I lied,’ she blurts out- or tries to. A futile attempt. The other’s already entered the flower store, acting like the flowers would disappear if he waited for even one moment.

He returns shortly, and Hua doesn’t know how he manages to hold the delicate little flowers carefully alongside every other bag he has, but. He does. She doesn't commend him on it.

“Let’s go,” He says, like it’s not obvious. Hua’s eye twitches. How could it turn out like this. The last thing she wants to watch today is Kevin giving flowers to her cousin- not that he doesn’t deserve them, he deserves that and the world and more, the thing that doesn’t deserve him is Kevin.

But Su likes Kevin.

What. What the hell.

“...Are you… alright?” Kevin asks after a few moments of Hua’s eerie silence and stillness, not usually one to notice if it wasn’t for the fact for that he’s now quite the distance away while the other hasn’t moved an inch.

She doesn’t hear him. He walks back. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t like you,” Hua says, like Kevin hasn’t come to know that in the last few months they’ve lived together. 

It still takes him by surprise to hear the fact so suddenly, and he blinks. Hua doesn’t usually outright say she dislikes him. She’s a more actions-than-words person. He considers saying ‘Okay’, and then ‘I’m sorry,’ and settles on, “Because of the noodle incident, right?”

“I’m over the noodle incident,” and every word is punctuated in a way that shows that she is still not over the noodle incident. They’ve noticed how she’s had to cautiously taste-test their noodles before enjoying them since.

Instead of insisting upon it- perhaps to either placate her or not piss her off- he leaves the topic behind and moves on. “Why?”

“Because,” and she pauses. Right. It always comes to this. Hua hates him but he really can’t figure out why. He’s noticed, though, that she’s been more hostile to him ever since…

“Is it because of Su?”

“--What about him?”

“Didn’t he tell you? We’re dat-”

“-I know.” Wow, she’s getting increasingly pissed off. Maybe this really is why she’s mad at him, Kevin reckons, or maybe it’s because he is so wrong that she thinks it’s stupid. One or the other.

“So is that why you’re mad?”

Hua doesn’t deem him worthy of an answer. Actually, it’s not that- she just doesn’t know how to respond now she’s put on the spot. How did he notice? He hasn’t noticed a single thing in his life up until now. He was deemed, not only by Hua (this time), the most aloof individual in the household, so how did he-

“Is this like one of those shows where I have to prove my worth as a suitable bachelor?”

What the hell is wrong with him. “Kind of.”

“...Do I have to go on a quest-”

“-Are you a child?”

“You’re the child.”

“I’m not.”

Kevin raises a brow. “You’re legally a minor,” he says. Like he’s some kind of law expert now.

Their conversation- more of an argument- correction- childish bickering continues until they reach the doorway of their home. And then they stop, a silent and tactic agreement to not argue in front of a certain someone. He doesn’t want to see them fighting again, and they don’t want to disappoint him- more accurately, they don’t want to be scolded.

They’ve had more than enough of that in the last few months. Su is scary when he’s sick and tired.

“So,” Su sets his cutlery down with grace, “Did you two enjoy yourself today?”

The way he says it is laced with concern, like he’s already expecting a certain outcome. 

He doesn’t get an answer at first because everyone else is still eating. It takes a few moments, within which ensues something resembling a race as the speed of chewing increases, a race of who gets to answer Su first-

“We got a plushie that looked a lot like you,” Kevin says.

“-I got that plushie and you did not contribute in any meaningful way,” Hua corrects.

“I got you flowers,” Kevin moves on.

Su chuckles. “That’s nice.”

“I-” Hua stops herself. She will not fall further into this hole than she already has. The fact she accidentally gave Kevin flower-advice remains, but not if she doesn’t acknowledge it. She gets two slightly confused looks in return. “I… like the food.”

Kevin looks down at their noodles. “Oh, so you are over the noodle incident.”

“Of course?”

“I’m glad you two are getting along better.”

Two voices, for the first time and possibly the last, ring out in an equal surprise and cadence- “We are?”

Chapter Text

Hua is preparing for finals. It’s one of the biggest times of the year, so she can’t afford to slack off in even the slightest. Revision is a necessity. Focus is a must. The mind and body are honed to attain success.

There are seven days left before she has to sit the exams. Despite knowing this, having checked it thousands of times over, Hua looks up to her calendar for confirmation.

She drops her pen. Her eyes widen at a circle, penned in red, one which does not represent the day of her exams.

Fuck. Su and Kevin’s anniversary is in five days!! That meant it’d been one year. One year! How had they not broken up yet? How was Su still putting up with Kevin? Wasn’t a year enough to see his incompetence? Had all her efforts, as consistent and persistent as they were, proved futile!? Almost a year and they were still dating! Almost a year she’d had to exist in the same space as Kevin Kaslana!!!

Normally, she’d never react so strongly to something this… trivial. Hua was a calm person.

You couldn’t blame her, though. She was absolutely fed up, worn out, the last string of her patience burnt away with naught remaining, probably since the first month he’d got here, and now it’d been a whole year— Honestly, she deserved to be commended for not having gone insane—

Hua takes a deep breath. She cannot push Kevin off the balcony right now, she reasons with herself. It would be far too crude and ill-mannered of her.

Also, from what she’d observed over the past year, the man was immune to all sorts of life-threatening events (ate poison, survived; was caught in a house-fire, survived; got into a car accident, survived; etc. The list is never-ending, its only rival in length being the list of the reasons Hua wanted him gone) and thus she doubted that a two-storey fall would be enough to kill him… or even leave him hospitalized for a week.

Normally, she’d never wish for another’s demise so strongly.

Yet somehow he was an exception to the laws of nature, strongly a nuisance, and so she had to adapt and respond, had to face the tribulations of life and persevere.

She was not only doing this in the best interests of her sanity but, more importantly, for Su. She still failed to see what he saw in Kevin. There was nothing to see.

She has to find a way to drag sense back into this household and fast, for she feared that in the blink of an eye the one-year anniversary would transform into the three-year anniversary and before she knew it she’d be attending the most dreaded wedding of her life—

Hua hastily cuts off the train of thought. She’s overthinking, she tells herself, she still has plenty of time to sort this out. That’s right. The night is still young. She spares a glance to her clock to reassure herself.

The effect is the opposite- she almost jumps, hearing her world shatter- It’s two am!?

When did it get this late? Oh, she hadn’t noticed the time, not at all- and she’d still so much revision to do, so many notes to look over, so much supplementary material to cover, so many last-minute text messages begging her to lend them her notes to respond to– with a no, of course, as she’d learned the consequences of such seemingly innocent kindness in her early years– and she had to devise machinations thorough enough to drive out the unconquerable force that was Kevin godaccursed Kaslana!

Overwhelmed with the amount of work she has to do and the childish dramatization of her own thoughts, Hua buries her face in the nearest available Piyo plushie. Unfortunately, she discovers it’s the one she brought home from the arcade previously, the time she went with Kevin, the plush that looked like Su— Damn everything!! She couldn’t have a moment of peace, not even with her comfort plushies!

She reminds herself to breathe. Deep breath in, deep breath out. This was nothing to get upset over. Timetabling her tasks would save her. Focus only on the task at hand, channel all your attention towards one focal point. Clear your heart and leave your mind as serene as a river.

There. All better. Now she could work.

Hua wakes up in a rather awkward position. Cheek pressed against her notebook, arm outstretched, holding a pen that had drifted in its course to leave a few marks against the desk, mild headache, back aching–

She quickly pieces together what happened. She fell asleep… right on her desk. She returns her pen to its case with shame coating her heart, swearing silently that she’d learned the consequences of attempting an all-nighter with no source of caffeine. If she was to attempt this in the future, she’d have to deal with smuggling coffee or energy drinks past Su’s ever-watchful eyes. Or both. She could try smuggling both past Su.

…Oh, Su. Right. She wasn’t living alone. That explains the strange clatter of background noise, its source most likely the kitchen. Or the living room. Not that the two were far apart enough for it to matter.

Hua straggles her way down the stairs and into the living room, rubbing her eyes to rid them of sleep. Her headache is getting worse. She finds enough awareness of her surroundings to realize that the sun’s only begun to rise, casting a faint and tranquil glow upon the room. Good, she didn’t oversleep.

“Good morning,” a familiar voice greets. “Did you sleep well?”

“Good morning, Su,” she returns, trying to ignore the figure behind him- Kevin, with his arms around the other’s waist and head buried in his shoulder- a sight horrendous enough to wipe sleep away from her mind entirely. First thought: What happened to public decency. Second thought: Why is he, of all people, awake so early. And here.

To be fair, it was their house, but she’d been here for over a year now so it was her house too. Not by law, but by how she regarded it as home. Yes, Hua, focus on the house technicalities, not on the aggravating presence, not on– “I slept fine.”

“...You’re sure? I don’t mean to pry, but you don’t look all that well.”

“I’m.” Hua swallows. She doesn’t want to lie to Su, nor is she particularly skilled in the art of lies (or maybe he’s just too perceptive) to even get away with it. “Hungry.” She settles on another type of truth.

Su chuckles warmly. “Is that so? I’ll prepare breakfast, so you can go and freshen up.” While saying so, he raises an arm to ruffle the hair of that guy stuck onto him like a leech, who grumbles something in return. Hua tries to pay the whole situation no mind. She really tries, hoping her eye doesn’t betray her with a twitch as she nods and turns to head back to the washroom.

—

When she returns, her headache has mostly receded. Thank goodness. Su is still making breakfast. Thank goodness indeed, because this means she can make good use of the morning and continue reviewing her notes. Never waste a moment.

However, her usual early-morning focus is diminished by a certain something.

Even as Su works in the kitchen, moving between cabinets and counters flawlessly, Kevin follows a singular pace behind him. He doesn’t even say anything, just trudges behind him and ruins the overall mood of the sacred workspace dubbed the kitchen.

At this point Hua thinks he’s developed some sort of attachment issue. “Are you… okay?”

Kevin turns to her at the question, eyes widened, pointing a finger to himself to silently ask, ‘Who, me?’

To that, Hua can only internally mull over his stupidity, not even being able to glare at him as Su had turned to face them too, deeming the situation suitable for his interest.

“Not out of concern. You’re just acting… strange today.” She clarifies.

“I’m okay. Rough night. Thanks for worrying,” Kevin says, despite how Hua just very clearly clarified she wasn’t worrying.

Noticing that he really does look like he hasn’t slept a wink, she decides to bestow a sort of mercy by not arguing with him.

A mercy just for today, she reassures herself, turning back to the table to continue reviewing her notes. And her schedule. In a while, she has work, and then…

?

Hua’s phone lights up— a text. She checks it. She closes it immediately and puts the phone down as if it were something contagious.

Hua’s phone buzzes with numerous more texts.

—

Finals are just around the corner, so the studious efforts of Hua and all those around her have increased tenfold- this makes sense. How they ended up hosting a two-person study session at her place, however, is a total mystery to her. The other person beside her just worked her magic.

It’s not like she doesn’t need the one-on-one help, though. God knows how Kiana is still in this school despite failing half of her exams. Hua fears her self-proclaimed ‘charms’ won’t be enough to keep her from getting expelled if she flunks the next tests too.

Luckily, Su seems fine with it, resigning himself to his study after making sure the two were accommodated for, leaving an arrangement of both homemade and store bought snacks on the table, and a notice to come find him whenever needed. (“Wow, class prez, your brother’s the best. I wish my siblings were this nice to me,” Kiana had commented, and Hua found that she had so much appreciation for the statement that she forgot to correct her- Su was her cousin. Not that it made much of a difference).

Kevin is not home, so his opinion on her activities were not collected.

Hua finds that she couldn’t care less. If he has a problem with her inviting friends over, good. He can move out if so.

However, the most unexpected thing happens when Kevin, adorned with his usual aura of a Dead Corporate Slave, opens the door and walks in.

Him walking in is not the surprising bit. The surprising bit occurs when Kiana jumps up from their table, points at him, and yells, “Grandpa!?”

Hua, for lack of better words, is sent reeling, questioning her reality. How did a middle-aged man have grandchildren-

“Oh, class prez, he’s not my real grandpa. He’s my uncle. I just call him that since he’s got that grumpy-old-man look to him.”

-Oh, fair enough.

Kevin blinks dazedly and closes the door as if nothing just happened. “Where’s Su?”

Bold of him to assume that Hua would answer him– “In the study.”– Damn it, his assumption was right.

Kiana watches as Kevin puts his luggage away and trudges up the stairs with wide eyes, as if she’s unlocked a great secret. “My dad is soooo gonna love hearing about this.”

“Perhaps, but you won’t be able to tell him if you don’t finish these exercises within the next hour.”

“You sound like you’re going to hold me hostage if I don’t, class prez. You shouldn’t be so serious about everything, y’know…” Kiana finally settles back into her chair, grabbing a cookie from the table and munching down on it. She has the decency to swallow before speaking, a notable improvement from when Hua first met her. “Though I feel bad for you. I can’t imagine having to live with that guy. He’s so stoic that he pretty much freezes the air around him.”

Oh, there’s actually someone in the world who understands her…

For a few long moments, she doesn’t even know how to respond. Eventually, when the silence starts to cause concern, she forces out a simple “Yeah.”

“Yeah…” Kiana repeats, sensing her struggles. “Don’t worry. I’ll annoy him extra for you. Now that I know where he lives, it’ll be easy.”

“You didn’t know where your uncle lived until now?”

“Weellll…” Kiana averts her gaze awkwardly, the way she always does when caught red-handed stealing snacks or something similar. Something to accrue guilt. “Don’t look at me like that! I love my family tons! He’s the problem! With the way I see him twice a year, you’d think he’s estranged! He’s not! He’s in the family group chat and everything, but he never talks there, even when I see him in person, he just stands there and–”

“That’s enough, Kiana. I understand. Please stop yelling.” She doesn’t want to bother Su if he’s working.

She points to herself with a pout. “But you see how I’m not guilty, right?”

“You’re not guilty,” Kiana launches a fist up in victory. “Now keep working.” Kiana droops in defeat. “Please.”

“Mm, Okay,” Kiana looks down at her paper. Her eyes seem to glaze over her sheet, half-done, and she stares. She looks back up. “Woah, look at the time.”

“You have finished half a page when we were meant to finish three-”

“It’s so late.”

“It can’t be that late.” Hua looks up to the clock. It’s half past ten. “Nevermind. Just finish this page quickly, at least…”

“It’s so late that I’m feeling drowsy. I can’t focus. Don’t you feel tired, class prez?”

Now that she mentions it… Hua is feeling quite dizzy. Not that she’ll admit that. “You haven’t been able to focus this entire time,” she points out.

Kiana pouts again, crossing her arms, rebellion evident in her posture. Hua can feel the headache she had in the morning threatening to reappear. Maybe she’s more tired than she thought.

“See, even you look exhausted. Let’s call it a night?”

She only managed to get Kiana to finish half a page of work in this entire session- how does this girl not worry? Is she immune to exam season stress? Hua thinks about it, eventually relenting. No good would come out of mulling over it any further, and no benefit would come out of trying to teach Kiana. “Fine.”

“Alright! Now let’s snack and–”

“Go home.”

“What? You’re no fun, class prez!”

“And I’m telling Mei you slacked off.”

“What!? Class prez, no! Please! Please! Plea–”

Kevin enters the study. “I’m back,” he greets.

Within the sea of files, Su is barely visible. “Welcome back.”

Kevin picks up the paper closest to him. He attempts reading it, but puts it down when he can’t comprehend the first sentence. He looks at all the other papers scattered haphazardly across the desk and decides that he needs to clean this room soon.

“How was work?”

“The usual.”

“Mm.

“Su.” He starts, then pauses as if wondering if he should continue. He decides to. “I feel like… Hua’s been acting strange recently.”

Su doesn’t look up from his desk, as if this certain complaint was an everyday occurrence. It was. “Did you do something to upset her again?”

“No, it’s not that. I feel like, um… how do I put this… nevermind. Kids her age have mood swings all the time, right?”

“Kevin,” Su represses a sigh, yet his exasperation shows through his tone. At long last, he turns around. “Have you ever considered that attitude might be one of the reasons she doesn’t like you?”

Kevin blinks, looks to the side, then meets Su’s gaze once he realizes what he’s talking about. “You see her as a kid too, though.”

“Yes, but not as a… toddler or whatever you’ve got going on. I don’t continuously point it out and treat her like she can’t… ah, where do I even start with you.”

“What am I supposed to do? She’s like,” Kevin raises a hand so that it barely reaches his shoulder, “This tall.”

“Do you treat everyone shorter than you as children? Kevin, that’s quite the issue.”

Now, that’s not the case, and Kevin feels somewhat misunderstood, but he’s not that good at expressing it, leading him to say “I’ve had to get jars off the top shelves for her dozens of times.”

“It changes nothing.”

“...Okay. I’ll stop treating her like a kid.”

“Good.”

“She’s still a kid though.”

“Yes.”

“But I won’t treat her as… Okay.”

“Kevin, I’ll help you understand better. Remember when we were in highschool?”

“Yeah.”

“How would you feel if one of our seniors came up after you lost at basketball and said ‘it’s alright because this happens to kids all the time’?”

“In highschool… I’d probably have to stop you from punching them in the face.”

“Kevin. The point.”

“Oh, right. I get it.”

“Good. It’s a good thing you’re trying to understand her, but you’re not going about it in the best way.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“So don’t go around asking things like ‘is this a teenager thing’ again.”

“Ok.”

“She still won’t like you, though.”

“What?”

“There are a dozen other problems,” Su says, like the one they just addressed was the most minor out of all of them. It probably was. “Also, why does the girl downstairs look exactly like you?”

“Hua?”

What? Why would that sentence be about Hua? “Hua’s friend. Kiana.”

“She’s my niece.”

“Ah. Thinking of it, you should invite your family over sometime.”

“I’d,” Kevin gulps, “rather not.” Su levels him with a deadpan stare. “You don’t understand what they’re like.”

Su sighs. “Maybe I would understand if you invited them over.”

Kevin wants to argue. He can’t. How is he supposed to explain the Cake Incident? And the Hairdye Incident? And the Kitchen Incident which occurred dozens of times, and probably still does regularly? And the many others… The list was as long as Hua’s infamous list of reasons to have him evicted…

—

“It was lovely having you. Feel free to come back anytime,” Su waves.

Hua stands beside him with a headache, scrutinising his statement in her mind. Was it really lovely having her?

“Thank you! And Hua, thank you too! Bye!”

Hua waves too, although not as energetically as Kiana does. “Bye, Kiana.”

Kevin stands to the side and doesn’t say much, or do much. Kiana stares at him. He stares back. ‘You really would think they were estranged,’ Hua thinks. She didn’t have many family members, but she regularly contacted and kept in touch with all of them, regarding it as common decency. And so– The audacity of this guy.

Kiana waves at Kevin too before leaving. He waves back. With absolutely minimal energy. The audacity of this guy.

“You should bring friends around more often,” Su comments, turning to look at her. “And head inside. You’re awfully pale.”

Is she? “Alright.” She doesn’t know about the ‘bringing friends over more often’ part, though. She barely got any work in today. Should she pull another all-nighter to make up for it?

—

She ends up pulling another all-nighter. This time, she’s stocked with a few energy drinks to keep her going, ones she managed to sneak into her room inconspicuously (or so she hopes). They have plenty- Su and Kevin drink them all the time before work, during work and after work- so they wouldn’t notice a few missing. Hua’s never tried one. Realizing this, she opens one and sips it cautiously.

Oh. That tastes horrible. She puts the drink down. Well… she’ll have to endure it. She needs this.

And so Hua begins her relentless pursuit of knowledge, Piyo plushies and Piyo stationery and Piyo-themed desk lamp accompanying her in her journey. She studies, jotting down notes & highlighting in lighting speed & so on… until about fifteen minutes in, when her concentration begins to waver.

Impossible. Was Kiana’s short attention span contagious?

She tries to push through, but her mind drifts off every other second as if she were cursed– Water. A drink of water would help her. Right.

So she exits her room and walks to the kitchen. Surely nobody would suspect anything if she just said she was thirsty. Reaching the hall, she… oh.

Oh- that’s. That’s Kevin pulling Su by the waist and leaning in dangerously close towards him, whilst Su raises a hand to press it to the other’s mouth and hiss something about being ‘impatient’ and ‘not out here’—

If Hua was holding any sort of item right now it would drop to the floor helplessly to announce her presence with a proper bang. As she lacks such an item, the only thing to announce herself is her stunned silence, which serves its purpose faithfully as the two snap their heads toward her-

Su curses under his breath. Kevin, close enough to hear it, takes it as a warning to back off.

It’s too late, though. Hua has already seen. She feels like she should say something, but her voice has been frozen in her throat. Oh, so this is what shock tastes like. A memory flashes before her eyes, her last straw for Kevin and the first time she witnessed him openly trying to flirt with Su– Ah, it was in this same place…

“Hua. Hua.”

It’d been a year since then. A year… And she was still there, just as she’d been the first time, frozen in the corridor and thinking nothing at all whilst simultaneously questioning every single decision she’d made in her life that’d led to this point… maybe she should move out… Oh, but rent…

“Hua!”

The proximity and tone of the other’s voice is enough to startle her out of her stupor- “What?”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m. Um.” How is she supposed to answer.

Su’s the one talking to her, Hua notes groggily by the feel of the back of his hand against her forehead– Kevin must have read the room and appropriately fucked off, then. Great. “No fever,” Su murmurs, which is enough to ground Hua entirely.

“I’m not sick.”

“You looked as if you were about to pass out just a moment ago. Take it easy.”

Oh, was it really that bad? “I’ll go back to bed.”

“Good. Want me to come with you?”

“No.” She thinks about it. There are two people that Su can currently accompany in this house, and the other person besides her is– “Actually, yes. Please. If it’s not a bother-”

“—Hua. It’s fine.”

Yes, it actually is fine. She knew they were dating, she reasons with herself, and this isn’t even that big of an incident, but she froze up anyways and made the other worry. Maybe she should take a step back and get a grip, you know, reassess the situation and work towards her goal in a more reasonable manner… maybe stop interfering with another’s romantic life entirely— oh, when’d she reach the bedroom?

Chapter Text

Hua wakes up with a fever. That explains a lot. She wasn’t feeling dizzy last night because of shock– alright, maybe it was partially due to shock– still, the point- oh, there’s a hand on her forehead. It’s quickly replaced by a wet towel. Her thoughts fizzle out under the coolness.

Noticing she’s awake, a voice calls out to her, somewhat hushed as not to startle. “How are you feeling?”

“M… Okay.”

“...?”

“Don’t you have work today?”

“I have the day off.”

“Oh, okay,” she replies automatically. Then she thinks about it, albeit slowly– Su, you’re-the-best-doctor-in-this-hospital-so-you-should-work-allthetime-Okay-I-will, that Su, having a day off— “How!?”

She jolts up, and he smoothly catches the towel as it falls off. “I took a sick day.”

“You’re sick?”

“No, you’re sick.”

“But–”

“Don’t worry, I handled everything in regards to my work. Now lie back down. You need rest.”

She does as told, the towel re-applied to her forehead moments later. This time, the coolness serves to clear her thoughts and allow for another realization– “I have to go to school!”

“No, you don’t. You’re sick.”

“No, I do– There’s a council meeting today and I can’t miss it-”

Su only sighs, like he’s never had a patient so willing to uphold their responsibilities no matter the cost. “I’ve already called your school and told them you won’t be coming. There’s no need to worry abou–”

“I brought apples.”

They stare at Kevin. He stares back from the doorway. True to his words, there’s a place of (poorly) sliced apples in his hand– “Who said you could just walk into my room?” Hua responds instinctively.

“Oh, sorry.” He closes the door. He knocks.

Normally Hua would consider leaving him hanging, but perhaps today the illness is clouding her mind, resulting in her making decisions like this; “You can come in now.”

He opens the door. Noting the light that seeps in as he does so, Hua questions, “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“I took the day off.” He places the plate of uneven slices of apples on her bedside.

“You what—”

“Well, sort of. There’s plenty of work I can do from home.”

“Oh. You’re still working. Good.”

“Hua,” Su starts, taking the fork and picking an apple slice with it, “Sit up. And don’t fret over whether we’re working or not— Kevin, go get a glass of water— for now, just focus on getting better. Alright?”

Hua’s still worried about her student council meeting, but she wouldn’t be able to contribute anything in this state anyways, so… the doctor’s right. Unsurprising. “Alright.”

“And from now on, don’t try pulling all-nighters to study.”

“Fine– wait, you knew?”

Kevin returns with the glass of water, giving it to Su, who gives it to Hua, who drinks it. “Su used to do that too back when we were in school. It might as well run in the family. He never got sick because of it though-” he pauses- “nevermind, he did pass out once. In the middle of class.”

She can’t say anything because she’s drinking water, only hoping her silence is enough of a response. Su gives Kevin a look, to which he only half-heartedly raises his hands in surrender.

“You tell her all about the stupid things I did in highschool too,” he reasons, making a fair argument for the first time in all the time Hua’s known him. Probably the first time in all his life. Su doesn’t respond, maybe because he can’t make a rebutta or because there are more pressing matters at hand.

Hua passes her empty water cup to Su, who hands it to Kevin, who exits to leave it in the kitchen.

“Am I… supposed to simply stay in bed all day?”

“No,” Su says, raising the apple slice to Hua, “You’re going to rest all day.”

“I can feed myself,” Hua says, taking the fork and stuffing the slice into her mouth.

She chews.

She finishes chewing. “And resting just means staying in bed all day.”

“You can rest on the couch once you’re feeling slightly better.”

“It’s the same.”

Su sighs, knowing this conversation will get them nowhere unless they cut to the heart of it. “What’s the problem?”

The problem? There is a huge problem. Finals are coming. Finals are coming and she’s not ready.

“Hua,” Su starts, as if he was able to read her mind, “You’ll do just fine on your exams. If you focus on getting better quickly, you’ll have more time to study than you would if you pushed through now only to end up getting worse.”

Hua cannot admit anything except that he is completely right.

“So take it easy and rest,” he finishes, and she can only relent, even if it doesn't sit well in her heart.

“I just can’t understand why… I had to fall sick just before exams.”

“It is strange,” Su admits, “Somewhat… Were there no symptoms before this?”

“No,” Hua says while trying to remember any. She remembers. Headaches and dizziness. “Actually…”

“...” Su doesn’t look upset, just slightly concerned. And maybe disappointed, but he doesn’t show it, nor does Hua pick up on it.

“...Um. Sorry.”

–

…Is this really rest, though?

“There’s something wrong with you,” Su says, staring at a Kevin kneeled over a puddle of orange juice.

Finally! Finally! Su has been enlightened! He’s seen the truth! “That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time,” Hua exclaims.

Kevin does not move from his spot. He stays there for a bit. A bit longer. Finally, he speaks up, voice hardened by his failures; “I really don’t know what happened.”

“You tripped,” Su explains helpfully, “on your own feet.”

“I don’t know how it happened.”

“You’ve said that already,” Hua says. He hasn't, actually, but her fever is making it really hard for her to focus on finer details like those. Let her be.

Kevin tries his best to defend himself. “I…”

“I don’t even like orange juice,” she adds.

“I thought it helped with fevers,” he explains.

“Who told you that?”

“Some things never change… Kevin, go clean this up,” Su sighs. “And be more careful next time.”

“Okay,” Kevin says, but Hua can’t really believe him. This is not the first thing he’s dropped today. He tried to bring some soup earlier only to drop that, and later some milk. And cookies. Every single time, Su told him to be more careful.

Did he? Was he more careful? No. Was he simply incapable of it? And why was Su letting him off the hook every time?

Thank goodness nothing got on any of her Piyo merch. If it had… not even Su would have been able to stop her, probably…

Speaking of Su. “I brought you another glass of orange juice.” He’s been cleaning up after Kevin’s mistakes all day. Maybe even all his life– the very thought makes Hua feel like she’ll get even more sick, so she avoids it. For now.

“You don’t need to do all this.”

“Mhm,” Su says, placing a hand onto her forehead again. “Your fever has gone down quite a bit.”

“...I’m fine. Surely you have better things to do than trouble yourself with…”

“I don't,” he says, not skipping a single beat.

“Oh. Okay.” Hua pauses. And then thinks about it. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“O… Okay.” It seems strange. Su almost– no, never has nothing to do. It’s an impossible occurrence. Or it was– until now. “I think your phone is ringing.”

“It’s nothing important,” he says, ignoring it. It keeps ringing. Since Hua’s concern only grows by the moment, he eventually decides to pick it up. Hua doesn't miss the slight furrow of his brows when he spots the contact.

Whatever emotion that was, it disappeared in a moment, too fleeting for Hua to assess. “I’ll be back soon,” he says.

“Okay.” Hua lies back down.

.

.

.

…She’s awfully bored.

Truth be told, despite being told to rest, she hasn't been able to lay down properly. It’s not that she didn’t try. Things just keep happening. A majority of which wouldn't happen if Kevin Kaslana just stayed still. Right, it’s all Kevin’s fault. Everything is Kevin’s fault. Especially– Oh no, the anniversary!!!

She’d forgotten completely, amongst all the exam stress and the fever-induced haze, about the impending, looming, reproachful anniversary!

She needs to get rid of Kevin. She needs to get rid of Kevin fast. Right on cue, he walks in.

“Leave.”

“Okay.”

Kevin is gone. Hua sighs in relief.

Kevin is not gone from the house. Hua tenses, then remembers that Su told her to relax. She tries.

Faintly, she overhears… “—the hospital can run without one person!” And a beep. Wow, she sure wonders what that was about. Su walks back in.

“What was that about?”

“Nothing,” Su says. His phone starts ringing again. He pulls it out, declines the call, blocks the number, and leaves it be, each act swift as if pre-planned.

Hua doesn’t believe him, but she trusts him, and that’s enough. “Okay.”

And now there’s nothing more to do. A few beats of silence follow, ones in which she would- under normal circumstances- wonder if it was really nothing. As things are, Su speaks up again before she gets a chance to. “I’ll leave you to rest now. Tell me if you need anything, alright?”

“Okay.”

–

She isn’t really able to rest for long because (of course) Kevin comes back. He wields a box of fever medicine. Five paces into her room– Hua counts– he drops it.

“Sorry.” He picks it up. Thank god it’s a box and not another damned bowl of soup… Now that she thinks about it, where did that soup come from? Who cooked it? Kevin isn’t capable of making anything. There’s only one conclusion she can think of, and Hua is doomed to oblivion by her own skills to connect the dots: this fool spilled the soup Su made.

Now he’s giving the box of fever medicine to Hua. She opens it to find some pills inside, and notes that he didn’t even bring water for her to swallow it with. Even if he did bring water, though, she wouldn’t take the pills. Su gave her some barely an hour ago. Therefore, Kevin’s presence here is nothing more than useless. She doesn’t bother explaining herself to him. “The medicine won’t make me feel better.”

“...I see.” Kevin turns away, preparing to leave again.

“You know what would make me feel better?”

Kevin turns back to her a bit too quickly. “What?”

Now, it’s important to note that Hua is feeling quite feverish. She would not normally make such ludicrous requests, nor try to drive him out of the house in such a ridiculous manner if she was thinking with a clear mind. She is a patient, rational and calm person. But she’s lost her patience with Kevin, her rational thought with the fever, and her sanity over the last year.

“If you jumped out of that window.”

They’re on the second floor. Hua knows this can’t kill him. She knows. The man in front of her is too great of a force to be stopped by a measly two-storey fall. Despite this, she keeps her pointed finger up. It’s not like he’ll actually do it, anyways.

Kevin looks at the window Hua’s pointing to, looks at her, and then to the window again. When he meets her gaze, he questions her in a tone that makes it seem like a declaration, “Are you serious?”

“I’m dead serious.”

Kevin starts walking towards the window.

“What?”

He stops. “You said you were serious.”

“I am, but what sort of lunatic would actually–”

“It won’t kill me.”

“That’s. Not. The point here!” With each word, she seems to be more exasperated, completely dumbfounded by the other’s clear lack of a sense of self-preservation– or of any sense at all.

By a miracle, or maybe because he sensed Hua’s growing distress from a few rooms away, Su opens the door. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Kevin says, strained. Liar. Liar. Liar.

“Su,” Hua starts, voice cracking– she points to Kevin– “Why is he here?”

“Kevin, get out.” Su walks towards Hua’s bedside. “You’re upsetting her.”

“Sorry,” he says, making his way to leave.

“Su, should I move out?”

“Hua.” He doesn’t bother answering her question, gently placing a hand on her forehead for the nth time today, “Your fever has risen. Lay back down.”

Hua does as he says. “I don’t get it. I really don’t. There’s nothing good about Kevin. Why haven’t you broken up yet?”

“Hua, you’re sick.”

“I’m sick of this house.” Su frowns at that, more concerned than upset– actually, he’s barely upset at all, though Hua seems to misunderstand that. “Sorry. Not you. Never. Kevin.”

“...Rest, will you?”

Hua is now riddled with guilt. She didn’t mean to say that. She’s grateful for this house, dreading the mere idea of having to pay rent. She really didn’t mean… Ah, no wonder Su’s so insistent on her getting some rest. If she keeps this up, she’ll just end up saying more things that she’ll regret.

She can always figure out how to get rid of Kevin tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Hua finds herself in the middle of the night lurched over the bathtub.

She has… well, to put it bluntly, vomited out pretty much everything she ate today. Well. The orange juice wasn't that good anyway. She isn't too bothered.

Actually, she is bothered. Her headache has worsened, the pain makes her feel like she’s being eaten alive from the inside, and she’s left to wonder how she even managed to make it to the bathroom. The sickening feeling of nausea still bubbles in her throat, and if another round of throwing up is what it takes for it to be over and done with, so be it— is what she’d like to say, but she doesn't think her body wants her to do it again. Yet.

She was supposed to get better after resting, not worse. Maybe she’d feel better if she blamed it all on Kevin. After all, it was mainly his fault she hadn't rested to the fullest.

She leans on the side of the tub, a meager attempt at seeking comfort, and the coolness provides some relief from the searing feeling eating at her from the inside out. She should fetch Su. She’ll feel horrible for waking him up, but she already feels horrible enough as is, meaning her regrets can be bottled away and saved for later. Simple. She should fetch him, but his (and Kevin’s, but she doesn’t want to even think about Kevin right now) room is upstairs, and forget walking up the stairs: Hua isn’t even sure if she has the energy to make it back to her own room.

She has to, though. She has to persevere. She can’t stay slouched against the bathtub on the bathroom floor all night. It’s cold, and she detests the stark contrast between the heat of her insides and the biting feeling on her skin. Simply considering it makes her headache worse. Ah, she’s tired…

…She made it all the way to the bathroom. Surely she can make it back. Hua musters up the strength to stand up and start walking somehow, even though she’s not sure how long it takes her. She trails alongside the walls to keep her balance as she goes, praying that Su isn’t the type of person to sleep through a phone call.

She really, really can’t manage to make it upstairs if he is.

Each step back to her room leaves her feeling slightly heavier and lighter at the same time, but by some miracle, she makes it back. The first thing she does– after almost tripping over one of the Piyo plushies that fell off the shelves, only catching herself on the wall at the last moment– is reach for her phone, haphazardly shove in her password, and pull out Su’s number. Then she drags her trash bin to her bedside.

God must hate her because, after two rings, Su doesn't pick up his phone. Something worse happens. Kevin picks it up. “Hello.” She didn't think her headache could get any worse, but it just did. Again. “...Are you okay?”

Her head hurts so much that she can’t even think of a rebuttal. “No.”

“Wait. I’ll wake Su up. We’re coming.” At that, the pain in her head subsides just slightly, and she feels herself relax. Not that she’d admit it to him. “Hang in there,” he says, as if he’s worried that she’s on the verge of death. Really, she’s not. It feels like she might be, though.

—

It takes a few horrible minutes before some hurried knocks sound on her door, announcing their presence in mere courtesy before entering. If it weren't for the pain, she thinks she’d be half-asleep already. It’s strange. She spent all day resting, but she’s exhausted. Probably threw up all the energy she accumulated throughout the day earlier.

“How are you feeling?” Su’s voice is quiet in the night– more than a whisper, less than clear speech. She can't help but focus on it amidst the fuzziness in her head. She feels like she’s been stuffed full of cotton.

“Bad. I vomited.”

He mutters something to the side, something she doesn't catch. Kevin leaves a split-second later. He probably told him to go get something, but she clings on to the unrealistic hope that he told him to get lost. “Anything else, Hua? Any pain anywhere?”

“My head hurts… and stomach too, now that I think about it.”

“How bad is it?”

“I think the last time I felt this horrible was when I was five.”

“Pretty bad, huh? Don't worry. You’ll be alright.” She doesn’t have the energy to keep her eyes open, so she doesn't. “Do you mind if I sit next to you?”

“Please.”

He sighs, as quiet as a passing breeze, and then she feels the weight of the bed dip next to her. She hates it: the way a minor ailment has her near-incapacitated, useless and vulnerable. She wonders what her classmates would think, seeing her like this, and the very thought is enough to elicit a shudder. Before she can dwell on it any further, there’s a hand combing through her hair. The same as when she was little. Familiar; reassuring.

“We need to get you checked. Some stronger medication…” Su murmurs, so quietly that it doesn’t seem intentional. Hua doesn't have the energy to try and hear what he says, and doesn't think she’ll understand even if she does.

“You’re a doctor.” Who invited this guy back into her room?

“Kevin, I don’t have the tools to properly diagnose nor treat her at home. That being said, the only place open at this time is the emergency ward, and that hellish place will have us waiting for at least six hours just to send us home with a pack of pills…”

“...There’s no choice but to wait until the medical centres open, then.” As Kevin says this, he and Su both turn to Hua apprehensively, looking at her for a few moments before turning back. “You’re sure there’s no other option?”

“I’m sure. Where's the thermometer?”

“Here.”

“Sorry, Hua, but I’ll need you to raise your arm. Just a bit… there.”

“Will she be okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” Su says, but there’s an odd quality to his voice that makes him sound like a liar. The thermometer beeps. Hua removes it and hands it to him, not bothering to read it herself. “It isn’t too bad.” Some tension is relieved when he sees it– she can tell by his voice.

“Then…”

“We’ll wait until morning to get her checked. Hua, is that alright?”

“Yes. I want to sleep.” Speaking up makes her throat itch. Her voice probably sounds horrible, frayed and cracked, but she doesn’t have the energy to care.

“Mm, sleep. I’ll stay here,” Su assures.

“Kevin can't stay.”

Kevin sighs, half-expecting this already. “Then I’ll see you in the morning.” She doesn't respond to him. She usually never does, but this time it’s purposeful… no, wait, all the other times were on purpose too. It’s different this time because… because it was warranted during all other times. Wait. With someone like Kevin, whose mere presence had made living in her home nigh unbearable, wasn’t it always warranted?

Wow, even thinking about him was exhausting. Su should dump him. She wanted to go to school.

Her thoughts become more random and more fragmented, the haze overtaking her head as she drifts off to sleep.

–

When Hua wakes up the next morning, she's resting on a pillow on Su’s lap. Which isn't exactly uncomfortable, but she has no idea how she ended up there, and it also makes her feel like a child again, which is somewhat embarrassing. Correction: really embarrassing.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” she replies, half a yawn. The moment sleep begins to uncloud her mind, she notices… that she's feeling quite magically rejuvenated.

The human body really is strange, huh?

It’s a good thing, though. She has work today. And exams are coming up. Exams coming up in… she does a mental count… Four days?

There are four days left?

Four days?

What?

“Should we head to the doctors’ now, or do you want to eat first?”

“Oh, there’s no need for the doctors’. I’m completely fine now.”

Su looks at her like she’s insane, eyes wide and brows furrowed. It's a little insulting. He wasn't even this surprised when Kevin somehow turned a bowl of rice into a bowl of ice without even touching the fridge.

“We are still going to the doctor’s office to get you checked.” His tone is neutral, but still makes it clear that there isn't any room for her to argue.

Normally, she wouldn’t even consider opposing him, but exams are in four days. She doesn’t have the time to go out… “I’m really fine.”

“Hua, please.”

…Then again, it wasn’t like she’d caused him– and Kevin, but God, who cares about Kevin— any small amount of trouble. She should return the favour by doing this at the bare minimum, at least to put him at ease if nothing else. “Okay.”

Kevin opens the door. He closes it. Knocks. Opens it again. Sees Hua resting on Su’s lap and drops the box he was holding immediately. It hits the floor with a small thump.

“But you didn’t let me do that,” he exclaims, all the breath knocked out of his lungs.

Su’s brows furrow at him in confusion. “...Do what, exactly?”

“No. Nevermind.” He’s a grown man. He can't be jealous of a teenager, he reckons to himself, recovering from the momentary lapse in his… near-expressionless demeanor. “...Is she feeling any better?”

Hua gets up. “I’m fine now.” Not mentally, though; she’s got exams in four days. Four.

Kevin looks at her like she’s insane. That’s very insulting.

Su places the pillow back to the side. “We’ll eat before heading to the doctor’s office.”

–

True to his word, Su ensures they all eat before heading to the doctor’s office.

The visit is, to put it simply, a grandiose waste of time. They have a consultation, get Kevin to wait outside, and then are told that they don’t know what caused her illness or if she’s alright now, only that Hua should run some tests. Then the office makes a fuss about taking blood samples or something from a minor while her legal guardian isn’t present, to which Hua puts her father on the phone, and then they start another fuss about God-knows-what. Su talks that out with them. The peace he establishes doesn’t last for long, because the lady at the front desk walks up to them with yet another issue, which is, by Su’s words, “bullshit”.

She doesn’t think she’s ever heard Su curse at someone before. Scratch that, she’s never heard Su curse at all.

…It all worked out in the end. The doctors said she was fine, and that she should come back for another consultation once the results from her tests were back. They didn’t look like they meant it, though, glancing at Su in apprehension the entire time.

It all worked out in the end, and they got out of there. That’s all that matters. “Load of crap,” Su mutters from behind the wheel. Um. Wow. “I should have just brought her to the hospital I work at.”

“Um. Su.” Kevin narrows his eyes nervously. “I thought you told me not to swear around…”

“Hm?”

“Nevermind.” He turns back to staring out of the window. Hua, in the back, isn’t all too sure why, but it isn’t like she cares; all she cared about was getting that visit out of the way. Now she can finally go home and bury herself in textbooks until she drops.

–Actually, that’s probably a bad idea. She doesn’t want to get sick again.

Lucky for them, Su is a calm driver even when he’s incredibly pissed. They stop for some lunch on the way back. At a Mediterranean restaurant. They can’t feed fried food to a freshly recovered patient. Kevin ends up eating her portion of the breadsticks. Accidentally. It’s something she’s used to by now, the thousandth time he’s messed up like this, but that only makes it worse. Su offers her his portion. She rejects it. In the end, it was just another event to add to the list of reasons to get him evicted. They reach home without any further notable incidents.

“I’m going to study,” Hua says, making a beeline for her room instantly. She reaches her desk, brushing her fingers along its surface, the very feeling of smooth wood under her fingers calming her to the core. Finally. Finally! She can work! Oh, how she missed the feeling of pens and cramps in her hands after writing for too long and the feeling of accomplishment of finally solving a math problem on the fifth try!

What should she start with? Science? English? Math was the first exam on the schedule, was it not? It’d be better to start with that. She checks her phone for the timetable just in case, finding herself stunned by the sheer amount of messages from Kiana begging for help. They’re accompanied by a set of messages from Mei saying that she shouldn’t help her and that Kiana should face the consequences of her actions. Bronya is calling her a fool in the class’ group chat. There’s also a message from Elysia, asking why she skipped work today— oh, she completely forgot about that. Better respond as quickly as possible… Done. She can work now.

–

Why has the sun already set? Why is it seven in the evening?

Hua has barely finished covering two topics. Why is it seven already? She still has so, so much work to do. Why…

“Hua, dinner.”

“Why are you here?”

“We ran out of eggs, so Su quickly went out to fetch some.”

She really doesn’t understand why he didn’t go instead. Has Su not worked enough these past few days? What was his problem?

“I can bring the food to your room if you want,” Kevin offers, having the audacity to look somewhere between nervous and concerned. His hand is still on the doorknob, as if he was expecting to be told to leave as soon as he entered. “Su cooked,” he adds helpfully.

Well. That doesn’t leave her with much of a choice. “I’ll come and eat.”

And so she does, but eating becomes suffocating when one Kevin keeps looking up at you apprehensively, torn between a choice and its consequences. She tries to ignore the nervous glances at first, but at some point it simply becomes too much to bear, and she spits, “What is it?”

“Well.” Really, Hua doesn’t know what he’s so worried about, but how bad can it be? She takes another bite of her food. It’s good. Things taste different after you recover from an illness. “Hua, would you be opposed to the idea of having me as your brother-in-law?”

Hua chokes. She chokes more than she’s choked in her entire life, to the point that saying she’s just ‘choking’ is a massive understatement. It’s even worse than how she choked during the noodle incident. She’s coughing so much that it transcends the boundary of choking to create an entirely new verb just to describe the intensity of how badly she– ow, ow ow, ow ow– she can’t breathe, this is– why did he have to ask this while she was eating in the first place?

–

“Why would you ask her that while she was eating?”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry won’t cut it, you–” Su takes a sharp breath in. He holds it for a second, and then exhales slowly. Calmly. Anyone who hadn’t known him well would think he’d regained his usual composure, but both Hua and Kevin know that isn’t true; they can see his fists clenched by his sides. Kevin is on insanely thin ice right now.

He knows this. His eyes dart between Su’s expression and his fist nervously. “...Please don’t punch me like you did to that guy in highschool.”

“Who do you think I am? Everything in highschool was self-defense. And you haven’t answered my question. What were you thinking?”

Hua is cuddled on the sofa with a blanket around her and a cup of warm milk in her hands. She’s quite comfortable. This reminds her of the aftermath of the noodle incident, except this time there’s even a Piyo plushie here. And Su is finally turning on Kevin: she’s waited for this for a long, long, painful and long time. She expected some sort of elation from this type of scene. She isn’t feeling it. Maybe it’s because her throat is still sore. She squeezes her Piyo thoughtfully.

“She barely recovered from that fever a day ago and you’re already…”

“Su, I really am sorry.”

“And why would you even ask if she was okay with you being her brother-in-law anyway? It’s…” Su trails off, raising a hand to his face as he realizes something… “You…”

He looks down at Kevin, who’s still sitting on the floor and boring a hole into it. Quite adamantly now, Hua might add. Su’s staring at him, but he’s outright refusing to meet his gaze.

“...Were you going to ask her for proposal advice or something?”

Hua squeezes her Piyo plushie with a bit more force than she would ever normally treat Piyo with.

“I.” Kevin starts. He pauses. Su stares at him expectantly. He continues. “I’m so sorry.”

Kevin thought it’d be fine. Yes, sure, Hua hated him, but from his observations that didn’t disqualify him from aiming for the position of her brother-in-law– or more accurately, Su’s husband, because that was his ultimate and main goal in all this. He’d seen Sirin and Kiana fighting over the last cookie or the hairdryer or how long one was taking in the bathroom or the like way more times than he was bothered to count. He’d seen them bickering at every turn, with Bianka walking in bright-faced to boast about how good the chocolate pudding her girlfriend made for her tasted, adding naught but (unintentional) fuel to the fire. He had learned that family relationships weren’t always amiable: rather, they were more often hostile than not, and that Su and Hua were actually the strange ones in getting along so well.

But he really had to admit he really didn’t think this one through. If he said that to Su right now, he’d ask something along the lines of ‘have you ever thought anything through?’, and- although his words would be bitingly harsh (which wasn’t anything new, seeing how he was back in highschool)- Kevin wouldn’t be able to refute him. He hadn’t thought when he told Su he was in love with him either; he’d only gone with the flow of the moment and blurted it out.

If he had given it some thought, it would have been obvious that Hua would have reacted so intensely. It was an open secret that she despised Kevin– it wasn’t even a secret with how she’d given numerous presentations to him and Su in their living room on why it was a good idea for Kevin to move out— and the question was sudden. Of course it’d take her off guard worse than spicy noodles did. He should have expected this. Su’s anger with him is thus completely warranted, although it doesn’t make Kevin feel any better about it. He’s been worrying enough as of late, staying up late into the night with Hua being sick and all, and the last thing Kevin wanted to do was make him more upset than he already was.

Su’s fists clench. And then unclench. For a while, he doesn’t say anything. It’s a tense silence, one that Hua takes to wonder if she’s ever seen Su this angry before, if the time at the doctor’s clinic compared to this, or if this situation warranted this type of anger out of him at all. Well, in her eyes, it was something she should feel grateful for: Su was no longer turning a blind eye to Kevin’s foolishness, repeated mistakes, and numerous other horrible qualities.

It was something she should feel grateful for, but she still felt uncomfortable with the tension in the air. Maybe it was just the unfamiliarity of it all, she reassured herself. Actually, it was probably because Su felt upset. She didn't want to see that. She did want him to dislike Kevin, though. It was sort of contradictory.

Actually, maybe she should re-evaluate this. She didn't want Su to dislike Kevin; just to break up with him. They could be friends- Hua could tolerate that- and Su could date someone who was able to pass through one day without causing a disaster of any scale.

Right; she was only upset because Su was. Kevin was only (finally) receiving his just desserts. With this, at least his plans to surprise Su with the proposal were ruined.

That should be a good thing, too. Proposing after just a year of dating was a bit too fast, in her opinion, and she believed her opinion was valid even if she had no experience in the field of romance. She didn’t need to worry about getting Su to realize Kevin’s faults before their anniversary too. It all worked out, in a way, even if that way was… uncomfortable.

“I acted too harshly. I’m sorry.” Huh? Wait. No. No? Su’s not meant to be saying that. Things were finally going the way Hua wanted them to. Why is he apologizing when he was perfectly justified in being upset? Actually, from Hua’s point of view, he should have grown tired of Kevin a long time ago.

“...So, you’re not mad at me anymore?” What? What? Things aren’t meant to be playing out like this. Why are they reconciling so quickly? Hua hasn’t even had a chance to celebrate her victory yet—

“No. Remember, I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” Su tilts his head to the side, in Hua’s direction and Kevin turns his head to her slowly enough to indicate apprehension. This means Su won’t forgive Kevin until Hua does. Will Hua ever forgive Kevin? That’s just impossible now, isn’t it? Surely Su knows that. Does that mean Su will never forgive Kevin? There’s a victory to be seen yet!

Now she just needs to ignore all his flimsy attempts at apologizing to her and this will all be over and done with.

—But man, is he persistent.

Chapter Text

It is a beautiful sunny day.

“Hua,” Kevin starts.

It is no longer a beautiful sunny day.

Due to an emergency call from work, Su isn’t home, leaving Hua and Kevin alone at the table with instant noodles for breakfast.

Hua herself doesn’t know why she bothers to respond to him anymore, why she bothers to acknowledge his existence at all. “What is it?”

“Do you remember what I asked you a week ago?”

This time, she does not respond.

“I asked for your opinion on me… um… proposing to Su.”

Again, she doesn’t respond.

“I felt like I should clarify some things to you. First, I’m serious about this. Secondly, if I hurt Su in any way, shape or form, please feel free to kill me.”

She already wants to kill him, though.

“Thirdly, if you’re against this because I can’t even cook, I will learn to cook.”

“Even if you learn to cook, there’s plenty of other things you can’t do,” she argues.

“I can learn to do those too.”

“You can’t learn how to not be annoying.”

“I guess so.”

“So. I’m not giving you my blessing.”

“Worth a try.”

Kevin gets up from the table and leaves, heading into his room. Um. That was surprisingly easy? He’s usually a lot more stubborn than this, Hua has noted, especially when it comes to Su.

Hua was right. Kevin is stubborn. He comes back 8 minutes later.

He sits back down at the table. “Do you like amusement parks?”

“I don’t like you.”

“What about the arcade again?”

“Why?”

“I still need to apologize to you for what happened last week.”

Oh, that. She kind of forgot his side objective was getting him to forgive her before he proposed. “I will never forgive you.”

“Are. Are you sure?"

No, actually, Hua doesn’t really mind. The thing is, if she forgives him, there’s nothing stopping him from proposing, and nothing stopping Su from accepting, and nothing stopping them from getting married, and– God, she doesn’t want to think about that.

“I’m sure.”

Kevin stares at him as if he isn’t sure how to continue. Hua stares at him as if challenging him to continue. The house is quiet for them to hear the clinking of the door lock- the door lock? The door opens.

“I’m home,” Su says, one handle still on the doorknob. The fatigue on his face is instantly replaced with worry when he spots Hua and Kevin at the same table. “Not again.”

“We are not arguing,” Hua clarifies.

“Oh, thank you.” He then makes his way to and collapses on the couch.

“Su, bed…” Kevin protests, but Su’s already asleep. He can’t even sigh. “I’ll carry him.”

Hua wants to tell him to go to hell, but that’s quite disrespectful. Maybe she says it without realizing, though, because Kevin looks at her like she’s predictable enough and says, “Okay.”

After carrying Su to bed, Kevin comes back to the table. Why… Why does he have to be so persistent? “Hua.”

“No.”

“Su prefers gold, right?”

“I don’t know,” she lies.

“I need to select an engagement ring.”

“No you don’t.”

“I do.”

“You don’t. You. Are not proposing to Su. I still haven’t forgiven you.”

“I figured that I could look at rings while working on that-” Hua slams the table with the exact amount of force required to make a bang, but not enough to actually cause any damage- “Oh.”

“I have already told you,” she says through gritted teeth, “that I am not going to forgive you. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not after you buy the ring. Never.”

“But does Su prefer gold?”

Hua glares at him, unsticks her palms from the table, and promptly storms off to her room. She considers slamming her door shut as she’s walking there, but ultimately decides against it. After all, Su is sleeping upstairs… at 8am in the morning… well.

Hua closes the door gently and burrows her face into a Piyo plushie on her bed. Internally, her mindscape is a raging whirlwind of emotions, her heart experiencing the greatest unrest. She needs to calm down. Meditate. And then she can figure out a plan to stop Kevin and save the world. Well, Su’s world.

Hua does not- She swears, she is at her limit- she does not know how she ended up at the jewelers on a Sunday with the reprehensible Kevin, helping him look for engagement rings. She really doesn’t. Doesn’t have a single idea. Every moment of her life leading up to this was a dizzying, rushed blur, one that made her feel so lightheaded that she wondered if she was on the verge of falling sick again. Maybe she was. Maybe this was all a fever dream. Come to think of it, it was strange for her to recover overnight. Maybe she really was still sick.

Actually, she did have a slight idea. She had been planning to somehow get rid of Kevin while they were outside, away from Su’s observant gaze. She just hadn’t found an opportunity yet. There weren’t any rivers around. Or anvils— Oh, she really should have just dropped an anvil on him when he first moved in. That would have saved her so much trouble.

“What do you think about this one?” Kevin asks, pointing to nothing short of the worst ring that Hua has seen in her entire life.

…Well, if she has to do this, she’d best do it in a way that won't end up disappointing Su. “The gem is too big.”

“What about this one?”

“Tacky.”

“This one?”

“You… Are hopeless. You know what kind of jewelry he wears, right? Didn’t you give him those earrings he wears all the time?”

“Earring styles are different from rings, though.” Oh, that’s the logical point he only makes once per month.

“But you should have a general sense of what’s… well… a general sense to choose one that can be considered, at the very least.”

“...Actually, I got some help from my coworkers when I picked out those earrings.”

Hua blinks. “Why aren’t you getting their help again? Why me?”

“You see… Some of them have too much on their plate already, and others might go and hint to Su that I’m planning to propose. Others don’t normally use budgets…”

“What’s your budget?”

“Two thousand.”

“Okay.” Hua turns back to the jewelry display, looking at every single sparkle on the rings, and going through them systematically. One by one, she inspects the rings, and eventually comes to the horrifying conclusion that none of these really suit Su’s tastes.

“...We can try another store,” Kevin suggests.

“I suppose that’s a good idea.”

And they try another store, only to find nothing there, and another, only to experience the same thing. By that point, Hua starts feeling as if she’s the only one truly contributing anything to this exploration, so Kevin checks out the next store by himself after buying her some ice cream.

Only whilst eating her ice cream and sitting on a bench does Hua realize that this is not going the way she wants it to. In the best-case scenario, Kevin should be stuck on a plane to another country by now. In the worst-case scenario, he should be trying to swim out of a river. Instead, he’s buying rings, and she is out here comfortably lounging on a bench, relishing in the gentle breeze. She’s taking a break. She shouldn’t be taking a break until she gets rid of Kevin.

She tears her eyes away from the bright blue sky, reminding herself what’s truly at stake here. She has so much to lose. Strengthening her resolve, she wolfs down the rest of her ice cream and stands up with determination, fists clenched.

Back to the mission.

That being said, Hua and Kevin are now intently gazing into the ring display at the fifth jewelry store.

“That one,” Kevin points.

“No.”

“Then that one.”

“No.”

“What about that…”

“No.”

This conversation repeats ad infinitum. Eventually, Kevin relents, places a palm to his forehead, and sighs deeply. Hua takes some offense at that.

“You can do this yourself if you’d like.”

“No, sorry. Thanks. You must be more exhausted than I am.” Hua does not need his gratitude. Kevin will be gone soon, and she has a few dozen different plans to ensure it. Reassuring herself with the thought, she turns back to the ring display.

Her eyes widen in surprise at the first ring she spots. “Oh, he’d like that.” It’s an elegant ring with intricate patterns, but not too elegant. Sparkly, but not too sparkly. And it’s gold.

Kevin follows her gaze and finds himself pleasantly surprised. “Oh, he would like that.” He takes a closer look at the price tag and visibly winces.

“If you can’t afford that, you don’t deserve him.” Although, in her expert opinion, he doesn’t deserve him even if he can.

“Hua, Su makes almost double my salary.”

“And?”

“...I guess this is something too difficult for students to understand.”

“You could just get a jeweler to recreate it, no?”

“Huh?”

Hua tilts her head at him. “I’ve heard that’s a cheaper option as long as you have a good jeweler. And then you can customize it, too, possibly making it more practical to wear.”

“That’s… Actually a good idea. Thanks.”

Hua does not need his gratitude. None of this is for his sake. It’s for Su’s. That isn’t even advice from her, it’s from her classmate. Carole loves jewelry, and Hua likes listening. She still isn’t allowing this proposal to happen. She only helped him select a ring because she didn’t want to see the horrible sight of Su- in the dire case that the proposal did, somehow, happen despite her best efforts- being presented with an unseemly ring. Making Kevin’s wallet suffer was an added bonus. This suggestion also means it’ll take longer for him to get the ring and subsequently for the actual proposal to happen. And now she needs to kill him.

“Do you know of any rivers nearby.”

“There’s one ten minutes away from here.” Why did he just tell her that? Did that question not raise any red flags? It’s as if Hua never asked him to jump out of a window.

Hua opens her mouth to continue, and then closes it. She takes a step away from the ring display. She raises her hands shakily and stares down at her palms. She cannot seriously be considering murder. Her father raised her to be a moral, rational, patient person, and most importantly, taught her to never use the skills she’d learned in the dojo to harm others. But Kevin was a menace. He had to be taken care of. But- what would he think of her? What would Su think of her? What would she think of herself?

“What do you think of a trip overseas?” She corrects.

Yeah, she should stick with Plan D (version IV) and just get him stranded in another country.

“I could probably only go for one when I get some leave from work.”

“When’s that?”

“Hm… After it’s less busy, so… Probably in a few months.”

Hua cannot wait that long. Looking at how quickly Kevin’s progressing from deciding to propose to purchasing a ring, he might as well be proposing tomorrow. Or the day after that. Whatever it is, he’s going to act soon, and she needs to act even faster.

“What are all the questions for?” He asks. Damn it. She hadn’t expected him to catch on.

“Nothing.”

“...Okay.” Okay. Safe. “I’ll look for a jeweler tomorrow. Probably by asking my coworkers. Do you want something to eat, or should we head home now?”

“We’ve been walking for ages. Let’s go home. Won’t your coworkers catch on?”

He shrugs. “They won’t know I need one for a ring.”

Well, that checks out.

By the time they get home, Su’s awake, his energy completely replenished, his fatigue completely wiped away. His sleep schedule is another matter. “You two were gone for ages,” he comments. He’s right.

“Um. Arcade,” Kevin lies blatantly.

“Arcade,” Hua follows. After the words leave her mouth, she instantly begins contemplating. Why did she follow in Kevin’s footsteps? She should have just sold him out. Also, since Kevin returned home safely…

…She totally failed her mission.

She reckons she should have been more steadfast in… ensuring the ring wasn’t purchased at all. Oh. Why, why, why, why, why did she give him that idea? Why did she help him? What is wrong with her? This shouldn’t be happening!

Of course, Hua only realizes this all the next day in the storeroom at work, and the weight of it slams into her like a bus loaded with explosives. She didn’t even manage to get rid of him!

If only there was a way she could stop this. “Pardofelis, where did you get that stash of…” She gulps tentatively, “Money?”

“Stole it,” Pardo responds easily, flicking through the cold hard cash in her fingers. Counting. “Wow, good haul!”

“...Again?” Yes, this wasn’t the first time, and Hua had rising suspicions that Pardofelis was some sort of kleptomaniac. Though she had to give credit where it was due: Pardofelis was an awfully skilled kleptomaniac.

…Wait. Skilled. Stealing. Steal. Dots connect in Hua’s head and form a constellation of hope. “Is there anything you can’t steal?”

“Your heart?”

“What?”

“What? Haha, there’s nothing I can’t steal!”

“Then, Pardofelis.” Hua feels as if the ember of life within her that had dwindled over the past year has finally been re-ignited with hope. Pardo, somehow sensing this, draws closer from her spot on the crates. Her eyes are fixed on Hua’s as if they were sparkly gems. “Can you steal rings?”

“Rings? You bet I can steal rings.”

Now, theft is a crime. Hua knows this. But it’s better than murder— But Kevin’s stolen her sanity, which is worth much more than… um… a little more than a thousand dollars. That’s actually quite a bit of money. Should she really go through with this? Hua, a natural-born stickler for the rules, everyone’s nightmare in the school halls, the teacher’s fabled favourite, becoming a criminal? It was unheard of.

She feels like she’s some character in a story who was being written as to slowly progress into something beyond crime and short of- but close to- insanity. No, no, she was sane. She wouldn't steal. She couldn't. But then she realizes:

She either steals that ring or Su gets his life stolen from him (by marriage).

And oh. She has to steal that ring.

“There is a man,” she starts, “A tall man, with pale blue eyes and white hair.” Pardofelis stares at her in full interest, head slightly tilted. If she had a tail, it would be swaying. “He looks like he could beat you in a fight, but doesn't actually have any martial arts training like I do. In a week or two, he will have a ring. I need you to take it.”

“Can I keep it?”

“You can keep it,” she sighs, and the cat(?) breaks out into a cheshire grin.

“Consider the job done,” she says proudly, and Hua is just about to thank her when Elysia calls her back out to the front.

“Tell me when you want me to get him!” Pardo calls reassuringly, waving as Hua heads out to serve their customers and… actually do her job, which Pardofelis rarely does.

“How was your shift?”

“Exhausting,” she replies, idly tapping at her mobile game. One of the elite enemies just respawned. She should go for it and get that buff. After that, she can kill the boss. Then she needs the other elite enemy, and she can go for a few smaller ones on her way to her teammate. She has to be careful about it, though, because she just spotted one of the enemies heading in her direction. And after that…

“...”

“...”

“Focusing that intensely on a small screen can’t be good for you,” Su comments.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says, pulling his eyes away from the spot where she’s sprawled on the couch and taking a slow sip of his tea. Hua can smell it, faintly, noting that it has a more floral scent than the usual. “How were your exams?”

Round cleared. Hua shuts her phone off, leaving it in her lap. “They went well. I was worried for nothing.”

“I told you, didn’t I?”

“Mm. But it’s better to prepare too much than to not be prepared enough.”

“Not all the time.”

Well, she can’t argue with a doctor. Hua wants to play another round. Su can’t do more than watch fondly as she snatches her phone and loads back in, a slight degree of confusion on his face, probably wondering what it is that Hua sees in these games.

“Where’s Kevin?” she asks, eyes glued to her screen. Not because she wants to know, but in games it is crucial to know the position of all your opponents at all times.

Surprisingly, Su shrugs. “He said he had something to do. Made about three separate excuses and then ran out, but I don’t know where he really is.”

Hua pauses. Her character loses half her HP within three seconds. She tries to run, but it’s already too late. The enemies chase her and kill her like she’s a fly. “He didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

Hua has lost the game.

No, she can still save it. Use an item— Use a skill. She still had one ace up her sleeve, and the name of that ace was Pardofelis.

It was time to send a text.

…

Hua’s phone buzzes two seconds later. That was quick, she notes happily, carefully looking up to ensure Su’s focused on something else before checking the message.

Oh we stealing those rings 2night baby!!!!!!! <

What the hell is this reply?

> I don’t know if he actually has the ring, Pardo.

> I just thought I’d let you know in advance.

No worriesss! ♡ im ready whenever!!!!!!! <

> Good to know.

> Once again, thank you for your help.

(•˕ •マ.ᐟ <

anyone ever told you that you text like a grandma? <

Astute observation.

A glass enters her field of view. She looks up. It’s Su. “Thank you,” she says, taking the glass. It’s full of something that looks like porridge, but is a lot thinner, and also has some bits of… she takes a cautious sip… nuts?

“It’s good for you,” he says, sitting back onto the sofa.

Last time, it was soup. The time before that, it was slices of the most bitter fruit Hua had tasted in her entire life. She doesn’t understand. Why do the healthiest things always taste the worst?

Despite her heart’s pleas, she takes a deep breath and gulps down the concoction as quickly as she can, though perhaps a bit a bit too quickly, because she almost gags. Despite how speedily she drank it, the taste is still lingering on her tongue. Her efforts really never pay off, do they?

“...”

“...”

She needs a glass of water to wash the taste off her tongue. She heads into the kitchen as discreetly as she can and takes one, though it doesn’t help much. Oh well.

“Su, how was work?”

“Mm, wonderful. If things keep progressing this well, I’ll be discharging a few of my patients soon.”

“That’s great.”

“You’re graduating soon, right?”

“Yeah. In…” Hua blinks. “A week.”

“...”

“...”

Su chuckles. “Time sure flies.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“I’ll make sure that I can come.”

“No, you don’t have to…” she tries to argue, but she recognizes that it’s futile when she spots that familiar determined glint in his eyes.

“It’s your graduation. Why shouldn’t I come?”

Fair point, she supposes, slouching further into the sofa in defeat. She pulls her phone out again and decides that she should finish reading the class’ group chat. They had been discussing what they should all do when they graduated, and she hadn’t gotten to respond…

Unfortunately Hua sees Kevin the next day at breakfast, a cruel reminder of the horrors of her reality. Yesterday’s peace was shattered in an instant, fleeting as a passing breeze.

“I’m going to work,” she declares, hurriedly picking up her bag.

“Yeah, me too,” he replies, sliding his laptop into his own bag.

She’s about to leave without another word, until— “Wait.”

“Hm?”

“Yesterday.” She looks at him over her shoulder. “You were out for the ring, weren’t you?”

He nods. With her suspicions clarified, Hua narrows her eyes at him before turning away and leaving.

“Stay safe,” Kevin waves. Without looking back, she gives him a wave in common courtesy. She might be planning to rob him, but she isn’t going to be rude about it.

On the way to work, Hua’s phone buzzes. Her eyes light up when she sees the message.

hey, hua <

saw the person u were talking about… :3 <

guess what!! i got his ring!!! <

emote_56 <

ദ്ദി/ᐠ｡‸｡ᐟ\ <

on the way to work? <

> Yes I am, Pardofelis

> Thank you. I’ll see you there.

hehe! see you! <

That was fast. She wasn’t used to succeeding this easily, and hence couldn’t lead herself to accept it— There had to be some sort of catch. This was too good to be true. Maybe… fate loved her after all.

As she nears the cafe, she spots someone rather… odd outside. He’s flailing about near the entrance, putting on a dramatic show of being distraught. Well, that’s sure to scare away their customers.

“My wedding ring!” The tall white-haired man with pale blue eyes who looks like he could take you on in a fight cries. “My wedding ring has been stolen! Oh, Cecilia… Cecilia…!”

What the hell? Wait. That’s not Kevin. Is that... Hua has met this man... That is Kiana’s father. Hua pauses, gulps nervously, and hurriedly makes her way to the cafe’s back door, bursting into the storeroom.

“Pardofelis, you stole the ring from the wrong person!”

Pardofelis jerks her head to Hua so quickly that she almost falls over from her perch atop the crates. “Wow. Well. Crap.”

They stare at each other. Hua can still faintly hear the man’s cries, and by this point, their boss Elysia is probably outside, trying to make him calm down. What would she do if she found out that she was the reason he was so distraught? She’d get fired, wouldn’t she?

“You have to give it back, Pardo,” Hua begs.

“Stealing something is a lot harder than secretly returning it, y’know!”

“Then I’ll do it,” she offers earnestly, and Pardo leaps down the crates and approaches her, clasping her hand.

“You can’t, Hua! They’ll have you behind bars!”

“Not if I…” She inhales deeply as Pardofelis clutches her hand even tighter, the color on her face draining by the second. “Lie.”

“You can’t lie to save your life!” Pardo exclaims. Unfortunately she is correct.

“I can do it,” she insists. Everything in her life had led to this moment. She couldn’t manage to get Kevin evicted, couldn’t manage to stop him from buying a ring, and couldn’t kill him. But maybe she could do this one thing… maybe she could turn it all around in one clean swoop. Maybe… There was still hope.

Pardo sighed, reluctantly releasing Hua. “Fine.” She presses the ring into her palms. “Take it. If you end up in jail… I’ll try to break you out. Maybe.”

“Thank you, Pardofelis.”

Hua exits the storeroom, makes her way past the counter, and heads to the front door. She can see the man and Elysia outside, her heart pounding faster with each step. She musters all the courage in her to grab the door handle, twist it, pull the door open, and exclaim with all her might—

“I found your ring!”

—presenting it to him with an outstretched hand.

Elysia freezes in her tracks. Kiana’s father stares at her, his eyes wide as saucers. He takes the ring from her carefully, inspects it, and then falls to his knees. “Oh, thank you! You really are a hero! Cecilia… Cecilia…!”

Oh, that went much better than she thought it would.

She waves goodbye to the man alongside Elysia. He waves back over his shoulder, the ring safely in his pocket. “Come over to meet Kiana again sometime, kid. I’ll make my special pizza toast for you.” Kiana has told Hua about her father’s cooking, and now she’s not too sure if she’d like to taste it, but it’s the thought that matters.

Elysia giggles. “Who would have thought our little Hua had a skill for finding lost things~? You’d make such a cute detective.”

No, Hua is a thief. She clears her throat lightly, averting her eyes from Elysia’s. “Thank you.”

“Mhm! We should get back now. This cafe won’t run itself!”

“How was your shift?”

“Chaotic. A man lost his ring and…” Hua looks up so that her face isn’t buried in the pillow anymore. “Um. Su. Is Kevin not home again?”

“No.”

“Oh. Do you know where he is?”

Surprisingly, Su’s grip on his cup tightens by a fraction of a fraction. “No.”

Well, if it wasn’t another reason to kill Kevin.

“Okay… Um… It’s nice that you’re home on time today, too.”

“It really is. There’s been a lot less work lately,” he smiles.

She smiles back. “That’s good.”

“Very.”

Silence falls over them again. Hua realizes she hasn’t done her dailies yet, so she pulls out her phone. Su has a book that he’s reading.

They continue to sit in peaceful silence for a while.

Their peace is ruined when Kevin bursts into her house.

Mind the wording here: not his, not theirs, but her house. Just to clarify, she still doesn't pay rent. He is visibly out of breath, panting, as if he’d just run five consecutive marathons. There is mud smeared on his face. Why is there mud smeared on his face?

“Kevin, what happened to you?” Su asks, concerned.

“I got- Is Hua here?”

Hua stares at him. He stares back for a brief moment, wide-eyed, sighs in something resembling relief, and then starts, “I got jumped by a teenager on the street.”

What?

“You what?”

“She looked exactly like Hua, too.”

“I did not jump you on the street!”

“I’m not saying you did. I mean, her eye color was completely different. But man, my wallet…”

“Kevin, you got your wallet stolen from you by a teenager?” Su questions.

“She had a— A brick and all.”

“A brick? Did you go to the police?”

“Yes.”

Hua stares at him, wide-eyed. “I have a doppelganger who robs people by threatening them with a brick?”

“Yes.”

Oh, okay. Hua was expecting Kevin to be a victim of theft today, but Pardofelis doesn't seem like the type to dress up like her and then attack people with bricks. She’s far more discreet. Well…

…Wait. Kevin doesn't have his wallet anymore.

He can’t buy a ring.

All is well if it ends well.

“Yay!”

Oh, she just said that out loud. Kevin and Su are both staring at her in nervous concern, eyes darting worriedly between her and each other.

“Hua, just to make sure…” Kevin starts, “You didn’t jump me on the street, right?”

“She’s been with me ever since she finished her shift,” Su defends. “And she wouldn't do that.”

Yeah, she wouldn't. Right?

“I didn’t. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I… I mean…” Hua looks down, ashamed at herself for taking joy in someone else’s… misery… Wasn’t it a little too late for that? “I’m very sorry. It wasn’t me.”

“I… I’m sorry, Hua. I wasn’t trying to accuse you,” Kevin explains. “I know you’d never steal from anyone.”

Is he really sure about that?

“What’s done is done. I’ve already locked my credit cards and reported it.”

“Let’s get that mud off your face,” Su says, walking to the bathroom for a towel. He returns with one in record time. “Come here.”

“Maybe I’m glad I got robbed,” Kevin thinks aloud.

Su looks at him with even more shock than he did when Hua cheered.

“I didn’t mean that,” he clarifies, to which Su relaxes. Although he still looks concerned.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do now but leave it to the police,” Su sighs, wiping at Kevin’s face. “You aren’t hurt, are you?”

“No. But my heart’s still racing.”

Hua is staring at Su with Kevin’s face in his hands from her spot on the couch, which she has adamantly refused to move from. She swallows a comment about how it might be racing for another reason. Well, if it wasn’t another reason to kill Kevin.

“We should do something to calm you down,” Su says.

Kevin has to be cheating at Monopoly. There’s no other explanation for this, none at all, not a single one– it is impossible for her to be continuously landing the worst rolls possible (she’s been to jail a good five times already, I kid you not) whilst he, of all people, he repeatedly achieves the opposite.

It is, she argues, very impossible for a person to have such good luck with dice. He must have rigged it somehow. If only she could find some solid proof to expose him right here and now. Alas, the time she needs is not granted to her as her musings and investigation alike are interrupted when it is her turn to roll.

She hopes. She rolls. She wonders why she even hopes in the first place while moving her piece along to its impending doom.

“Twenty dollars,” Kevin says, extending a hand.

‘Like I’d ever give you twenty dollars,’ Hua muses internally, ‘I’d rather give you twenty reasons to leave this household’.

She passes him the twenty dollars.

Normally she wouldn’t even entertain the very notion of playing with him, but the situation warranted. At least the game worked to distract him from the fact he was mugged by some teenager on the street. The only reason Hua can put up with this game is because it was Su who wanted them to play together, and because he’s winning right now. Of course, Kevin’s absurd luck is meaningless when met with his lack to put it to proper use.

Hua stares at her dwindling stack of cash, and then at Kevin, and comes up with an uncharacteristic idea. “So, Kevin.” She starts with a dangerous glint in her eyes. “Where were you today?”

“Out shopping,” he says, a bit too quickly. Hua can spot the sheen of the beginning of nervous sweat on his forehead. She cheers. Internally, this time.

“Shopping for what?” Su says, sorting through his assets.

He’s sweating a little more profusely now. “Um.”

Su looks at him. His expression doesn’t betray any sort of emotion.

“Um… It’s a secret,” he says, turning away.

“This is the seventh time now,” Su says. Hua freezes. The seventh? Not the second? She… needs to pick up her game. “You’ve been running off every day.”

“I swear I’m- It’s–”

“Forget it. You don’t have to tell me.”

“No, Su… I promise I’ll tell you.”

“Don’t worry about it, Kevin.” Su shakes his head gently. “I trust you unconditionally. I’d just appreciate it if you spent a little more time at home.”

“Mm. I will. Sorry, Su.”

Hua stole some of Kevin’s money while he wasn’t looking. After a sin has been committed once, it becomes impossibly easy to repeat. Once a line has been crossed, one cannot help but cross it again. The forbidden fruit only tastes sweeter with each bite. Hua really wants to kill Kevin.

“Actually, how about we go out tomorrow? I’ll make it up to you.”

Yeah, Hua’s not letting that happen.

“Hua can come too.”

?

“I don’t want to,” she declares.

“Why not?” Kevin questions. “You’re done with your exams. Wouldn’t it be a good opportunity to relax?”

“Taking breaks is important,” Su agrees in half a murmur. “This will be good for you.”

He would never come up with an idea like that under normal circumstances. Hua’s blood cools as she realizes he’s probably planning to do something— probably planning to propose— and then boils at the thought. Going with them would probably increase her chances of being able to stop this, wouldn’t it?

“Fine,” she says. “Only because Su wants to,” she quickly adds.

But what was Kevin going to propose with? His wallet was gone, and so were his chances at buying the ring, unless- Hua starts nervously fidgeting with her Monopoly cash- unless, by some miracle, the ring wasn’t stolen, or if he’d already paid for it and just had to pick it up.

“By the way, Hua, it’s your turn to roll the dice,” Su points.

“Oh, okay.” Though she doesn’t think much will change no matter how she rolls. The gap between the three of them is too big to defeat unless a miracle happens. She’s totally losing this, but it’s fine… at least Kevin isn’t coming first…

“I’m going to propose to Su tomorrow.”

“I’m going to sleep!”

“Sorry,” Kevin says, but his words aren’t reflected by his actions. If he was really sorry, he’d be exiting Hua’s room and then exiting the house and never coming back. “I’ve been looking for a good place to do it for the past few days, and I think I’ve finally found one. It’s a little far from here, but it’ll be worth it.”

Kevin hasn’t seemed to notice, but Hua doesn’t care.

She does, actually, she cares quite a bit, but she doesn’t care on hearing it from him because there’s no way that he’ll be able to propose, not once in fifty thousand years, not as long as she’s around.

“...You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“I’m coming,” she declares. Her face is buried in her pillow, muffling her words to the point they’re barely legible. Despite that, Kevin seems to get the idea.

“Alright, then.” He nods. “See you tomorrow.”

“Wait.”

Kevin looks back at Hua, who’s finally lifting her head off the pillow.

“How will you propose?”

“Well. We’ll walk around a bit, see everything and have lunch… After I make sure he’s enjoying himself in the gardens, I’ll surprise him with the ring and…”

To Hua’s greatest surprise, his plan isn’t half bad. It could be better, but it could also be worse— No, Hua isn’t here to assess that. Or offer him suggestions. Hua is here to figure out how to entirely thwart this plan in one swoop.

She buries herself back into her pillow. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, goodnight.”

“Actually, I don’t think we should go on this trip.”

Kevin stares at her from the kitchen, having the audacity to look half-betrayed, eyes wide. She stares him back and takes another measured bite of her breakfast. A wordless challenge.

“Are you feeling alright, Hua?” Su asks.

“Yes. It’s just that I think we could do much better things.”

“No,” Kevin says.

“More meaningful and enjoyable things.”

“No,” Kevin repeats. “We’re going out.”

“We are not,” she declares, placing her fork down.

He narrows his eyes at her. “I made the restaurant bookings already.”

“It’s just a trip, Hua. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Su offers helpfully.

It’s not helpful enough. “You shouldn’t go either.”

“...Hm?”

“...”

“Is there something you want to tell me?” He asks.

She looks down sheepishly, unsure of what to say.

“I can send Kevin away if you want to talk to me.”

“I haven’t even done anything,” Kevin points out. ‘Not yet,’ Hua thinks, and she’s going to make sure he isn’t able to do anything. At all.

“It’s nothing,” she says, unable to conjure any excuse which isn’t the truth. Even if she could, Su would be able to tell that she was lying. She is always fighting a losing battle.

“Would you like to go, then?”

Hua would grit her teeth if the others weren’t looking at her. She wouldn’t slam her fist on the table, but she feels like it.

“Fine,” she says calmly. Kevin breathes a small sigh of relief. Yeah, sure, feel relieved for as long as you can, Hua thinks, because you won’t be able to feel that at all soon.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t go to the gas station?”

“Hua, you’re probably not able to read it from the back, but it says right here that the tank’s almost full.”

“Are you sure you can read a meter?” She questions further.

“Hua, he’s not wrong,” Su assures. He’s in the passenger seat beside him, absently staring out of the window. Hua does not argue further, silently lamenting her new failure.

They continue her ride in silence. Kevin must feel that it gets too awkward at some point, seeing how he turns the radio on when they reach a red light. He flicks through the channels until a classical singer comes on, and then settles back into his seat.

“Nice,” Su comments. Now Hua can’t criticize his choice of song. Not that she genuinely would be able to. She doesn’t know much about music, but even she can tell that the singer is skilled from the smoothness of her voice.

Hua is really hoping that the roads on their route have been closed due to some urgent repairs so that they don’t have any choice but to turn back. She wishes for it as hard as she can, but…

…They reach their destination anyway. Would Lady Luck not look her way even once in her life?

She hates to admit it, but the place that Kevin picked is rather nice. She’s getting a great view of the lake and the ocean in the horizon just from the parking lot, leaning against the railing to get a better look at it. The breeze is fresh, reinvigorating, and even she can’t help but feel in place as she breathes it in.

“Su,” Kevin calls, hurrying up to him after locking the car. “Should we head down to the docks first, or the gardens?”

“Mm. Hua,” he turns, “What do you think?”

“Um…” For a moment, she almost insists that he pick, but then realizes that was what Kevin wanted. And today, she couldn’t let Kevin have a single thing that he wanted. Should she pick the docks or the gardens? She can recall that Kevin wanted them to go sightseeing before proposing in the gardens. In that case…

“The gardens sound nice.”

Kevin just stares at her. He keeps doing that until Su turns back to him, to which he hurriedly says, “Sure. Let’s go.”

She loathes to admit it, but the gardens are really wonderful. Though they’ve only seen the beginning of it. The area they’re in right now is a collection of palms. They’re spending an average of seven minutes at each one, because somehow Su knows much more about them than what’s written on the small information panels.

“They have the largest seeds and leaves in the plant kingdom,” he finishes at their eighth palm.

Hua’s pretty sure he’s said that already, but it’s fine. She happily listens anyway.

“That’s amazing, Su,” Kevin says, his gaze fixated on him as if he’d never heard the word ‘tree’ before, as if trees only existed when Su spoke about him, as if there’d never been anything more wondrous in the world than these trees. Hua needs him gone.

“Do they have poisonous plants here?” She asks.

“I don’t think they would. They would probably be hazardous to visitors. But they do have a herb garden,” Su says, pulling out the map they picked up at the entry. “Filled with aromatic scents…”

Hua can’t remember the last time she saw him this excited. She has to hand it to Kevin: this was a good idea. She nudges his arm with her elbow in approval. He gives her a questioning look. Without looking back at him or elaborating, she follows Su as he heads to the next palm that’s piqued his interest.

“They have rose gardens, too… And a glasshouse… Several fountains… Oh, this place is huge. I don’t think we’ll manage to cover all of it.”

“They have rose gardens?” Kevin asks.

“You’re the one who wanted us to come here. Did you not know what it had beforehand?” Hua questions. Kevin chooses to maintain his silence.

“Roystonea oleracea…” Su looks up, his gaze filled with admiration, a lifetime of longing being realized. “It’s amazing…”

Now, knowing Kevin, Hua’s starting to worry that he’ll become jealous of trees. She carefully eyes him, only to find that– to her absolute surprise– he’s too busy being occupied with his own thoughts to feel anything. Hm, okay.

Then Kevin takes in a deep breath and gets down on one knee. Hua’s eyes widen. “Su… I-”

“Want pizza,” Hua finishes.

“What?”

“He is on his knee because he is hungry,” she explains, pointing at him, beginning to feel beads of nervous sweat forming. Kevin attempted much earlier than she expected and, unprepared, she panicked and blurted out a flimsy excuse. “We have walked too much.”

Unfortunately, Hua is a terrible liar. As if to prove it, at that exact moment, her tummy rumbles. She drops her pointed finger and tries to not look too embarrassed.

Su smiles gently. “If you were hungry, Hua, you could have just told me.” Well, that isn’t all she was lying about, but. Um. Sure. This works out for her.

“Oh. There’s restaurants near the docks,” Kevin says, standing up and dusting himself off. Hua’s surprised that he knows that.

“It’s a shame that we didn’t get to see the rose gardens,” Kevin comments.

Hua knew what he was going to try in the rose gardens and she wouldn’t have allowed it to happen. She expresses this by glaring at him while taking another bite of her pizza.

“Um. Is the pizza not good?” He asks.

She munches and swallows. “It’s amazing,” she replies, still staring daggers into him.

“We still have enough time to go back there after we eat,” Su points out.

“It’s almost sunset, Su…” Kevin says, before inspiration strikes. The rose gardens at sunset… “But we can do whatever you want,” he quickly adds.

Rose gardens at sunset… Hua didn’t like that idea. She glared at him further.

“Mhm. Now, I’ll excuse myself for a moment,” Su says, rising from his seat and leaving for the bathroom.

Kevin watches Su walk away and then turns back to her. “Hua. Thanks for earlier.”

She does not stop glaring. “What have I done to deserve your gratitude?”

“You stopped me from proposing earlier because you thought it wasn’t the right time yet, didn’t you?”

…?

Now Hua’s too confused to glare.

Is he really that dense? This is exactly why she can’t let him marry Su. Su did have enough intuition to cover both of them, but it was simply unfair to leave all the intellectual heavy lifting to him. There was no excuse for incompetence.

“I suppose it was too early. He seemed to like the setting quite a bit, so I supposed it was the right time, but I guess I was wrong,” he explains further. Hua’s eye twitches. “Thanks.” She doesn’t even know what to say.

“No, Kevin, I…”

“...”

“...”

“...?”

She looks down at her lap. How was she going to explain herself? Wait, should she even be having to explain herself? She plainly and obviously told him that she wouldn’t let him marry Su from the very beginning. “I was trying to–”

“I’m back,” Su says.

“–Welcome back.”

“Are you alright, Hua? You’re pale again,” Su observes whilst sliding back into his seat. “If you’re feeling sick, we can go home. It isn’t a problem.”

“I’m fine,” she quickly says. Only after the words come out does she realize that she just lost a golden opportunity to end this accursed trip. Oh, but she’d caused enough trouble the last time she was ill, so lying about it would only worry Su further, and that was the last thing she wanted… She could find another way to end it. With her determination and resolve, it was possible.

Kevin clears his throat. “Su, I–”

“–Need to tell you something.” Hua gets up from her seat, the chair legs screeching against the floor, grabs Kevin by the arm and shoves him behind the corner– into the corridor leading to the bathrooms. “Shut up,” she hisses.

“Why are y–”

“You know, if you weren’t so insistent on going after Su…” She grabs Kevin by the collar of his coat. “We might have been able to get along. It’s a shame.”

“What are y–”

“On second thought,” she curls her fist, “it isn’t a shame at all.” She then raises it.

“Hua.”

She immediately releases Kevin, takes two steps away from him, and then puts her hands behind her back as to pretend they never existed at all. Su only levels her with an unimpressed stare, arms folded.

“We should all have another talk tonight.”

Hua can’t remember the last time she broke out into a nervous sweat. “How did you…”

“We were just around the corner. Of course he’d find us,” Kevin points out, as if anybody asked for his input. Hua knew perfectly well where she was and where she’d taken Kevin. She knew they were too close to Su, but she didn’t have the luxury of time to take him any farther. Also, with each step away, Su’s suspicion of her would only grow, but… In the end, despite all the precautions she’d taken, she was caught.

“Hua, I really need you to stop trying to kill Kevin,” Su says, a growing fatigue evident in his voice. “I thought you’d come to understand that he was just clumsy, and never meant to eat any of your snacks, or poison you, or… Well, he’s done quite a lot, but…”

“It’s more than that.”

Su tilts his head, offering a chance for her to explain. From the side, she can feel Kevin’s gaze boring into her. Should she just say it? Her throat feels unusually tight. Maybe Su was right. After all, he was much more experienced than her. He knew what he was doing with his life, and probably didn’t need her help. No– Hua shakes her head to dispel her thoughts— love blinds people. She will never, never in ten, a hundred or a thousand years accept Kevin Kaslana as her brother-in-law. It takes a lot more than ‘love’ to sustain a marriage. Su would– probably wouldn’t— might wake up one day and find out he was stuck with someone who was utterly useless, absolutely annoying, and… and named Kevin. And then they could get a divorce, but that would be a hassle in itself, and then he’d be heartbroken. A terrible thought. Terrible, absolutely terrible thoughts.

“I…”

Kevin is still staring hard enough to drill holes into the side of her skull.

“...Just…”

“...”

“Need a break,” Kevin finishes. Hua turns towards him so quickly it leaves her dizzy, only to find Su’s arm in front of her. She looks up at him with a frown. Meeting her eyes seems to make him feel guilty, so he looks away, staring at Kevin instead. When faced with his gaze, Kevin puts his hands up in a show of surrender. “You snapped at me all the time before graduation, too.”

“I did not.” Su argues by reflex, before thinking about it for a moment. “...Did I?”

Kevin shakes his head. “‘Snapping’ was an exaggeration. You were slightly more irritable, that’s all. She’s probably stressed too.”

“I am not stressed,” Hua declares. She actually is– she’ll have to get a job, and her whole life will be different, and every single thing she’s used to will be gone in an instant from homework to morning assemblies, leaving her with no choice but to adapt as quickly as she can– but she doesn’t want to admit that. Kevin is just trying to use this as a point to distract Su from catching onto his plans to propose. She won’t let him succeed.

Unfortunately, neither Kevin nor Su seem to believe her. Why is her hatred for Kevin being twisted into a result of her circumstances? “I’d still try to punch Kevin if I wasn’t graduating soon.”

“You were going to punch me?” Kevin asks. Hua stares at him, wide-eyed– not in anger this time, but in shock. She had her fist in his face. How did he not know?

“I thought you two were getting along better, but I suppose we’re back to square one. No, we’re behind square one,” Su sighs, lowering his arm. “This is getting out of hand.”

“You and Kevin are getting out of hand,” she declares.

“We should attend family therapy.”

“I don’t… Um, family therapy?”

“Family therapy?” Kevin questions.

“It’s either that or you two promise me something.” Su ensures he has both of their entire attention before he continues. “No murder attempts and no violence.”

“Sure, I promise,” Kevin says easily. Really, it wasn’t even necessary for him to make this promise.

“And no attempting to jump out of windows, or any other ridiculous request.” Oh, he needs that one.

“Sure, I promise.”

Su smiles at him and then looks towards Hua. She looks down at the floor.

“...I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“I’ve caused you a lot of trouble. I didn’t mean…”

“I don’t mind. I won’t say that your arguing is entertaining sometimes–”

“–It is?” Kevin exclaims.

“--But at the end of the day, I want you two to… Well, if getting along is too much, just tolerate… no, don’t hurt each other.”

“Can we enact this from tomorrow?” She asks. Yes, she feels bad about it, immensely guilty about it, but she needs today to stop Kevin before he commits something that can never be undone.

“No. Now.”

Hua doesn’t really have any choice. “Fine,” she says. “I promise.”

Su holds up his pinkie finger.

“...I’m not a child anymore.”

He hums. “But you’re still my younger sister, no?”

“Aren’t you two cousins?” Kevin questions. They ignore him.

Hua, although embarrassed– she can’t help but feel like a child being consoled after throwing a fit– links her pinkie with Su’s. It reminds her of old times, back when they were both little, playing in the garden behind the Dojo where she didn’t have to worry about his horrible future boyfriends and marriage prospects. Those were simple times.

“Do you do this with your patients, too?” She asks.

“Yes.” That doesn’t really make it any better, but surely knowing it served some purpose. “How about we finish our food now?”

Luckily, they return to their table without any further incidents. “I’m going to get some fresh air,” Su says. “You two can meet me outside after you’re done eating. Please don’t start arguing. We’re in public.”

“Okay,” Hua says, waving him off.

“Stay safe,” Kevin calls.

Su smiles at both of them before leaving.

As soon as the door closes, Kevin turns to Hua. She can see the determination in his eyes, a look that pulls out the roots of her unease, exposing her anxiety at its peak. He stands up, and Hua nervously watches him.

“I’m going to propose,” Kevin declares. He then starts running. By the time Hua opens her mouth, he’s already past the door, and she– too shocked to even yell his name– darts after him. Propose? Not on her watch.

“Come back!” She yells.

Kevin continues running, refusing to lose pace, although he seems to consider it while he runs. Ultimately, he decides, “No.”

Hua tries to run faster, but– Damn it, is this guy actually faster than her, or is his height giving him a genetic advantage? Don’t taller people usually run slower?

“Su!” Kevin sprints to the docks with all the force he has in him, channeling remnant stamina from his basketball days, and Hua’s short damned short legs aren’t really helping her here- she’s running with all her might, yet despite that, with every passing moment, the distance between Kevin and her is increasing. He’s getting closer to Su, and Su is looking at him, the sunset highlighting his figure, and Hua outstretches her hand but they’re so far away– Kevin trips, and Lady Luck must love him just as much as she hates Hua, because he lands on his knees rather than his face. Breathless, he fixes his posture and pulls out his ring, and time itself seems to slow— “Please marry me.”

“Oh, so that’s what this is about… Okay, sure.”

Hua finally catches up to them, takes a few moments to catch her breath, and then looks up. “He’s not surprised,” she observes.

“He’s not surprised? I worked so hard to… Wait, did you just say yes?”

“You… Were going to ask Hua for proposal advice. Of course I knew.”

“Oh, right.”

“You did do that,” Hua recalls, a familiar rage itching at the corners of her mind. There is deep water right next to them right now. She really shouldn’t have made that promise.

Kevin gets up from the floor, somewhat shakily. Su offers a hand to him, which he takes, sliding on the ring wordlessly. He stays there, staring at Su’s hand in his before Su’s other hand comes up to cup his face.

He gently redirects Kevin’s gaze to meet his. They stay like that for a few moments, and thankfully Hua can’t see Kevin’s face. However, she can see Su’s, and the look is in his eyes is enough for her to doubt everything she’s been fighting for up until this very moment. Su tears his eyes away from Kevin and looks at Hua.

“Hua, close your eyes.”

This is the closest Hua has been to crying ever since she was nine.

“Close them.”

She turns away entirely.

“...”

“...”

“You can look now.”

She doesn’t want to.

“She isn’t,” Kevin points out. The sound of his voice makes her want to jump into the ocean right here and now, but she wouldn’t. She was rational. But this situation was simply irrational, but now it was really over, but… “So…”

“No,” Su says. Kevin mutters something which gets blown away by the wind. Speaking of the wind, sunset is nearing its end, and the breezes near the ocean are getting much chillier. They aren’t colder than the remnant ashes of Hua’s hope, though. “...It’s been a long day.”

“I thought you wanted to see more of the rose gardens,” Kevin says.

“We can always come back here. For now, I just want to go home,” Su sighs, and something in Hua tells her that she should be glad that she’s still facing away.

“Mm, okay.” Hua is pretty sure she just heard the sound of a kiss. She shudders. “Whatever you want.”

“Hua.” She only looks up when Su takes her shoulder. He looks happy, if that’s anything, a gentle smile with slightly rosier cheeks than usual. “Let’s go.”

“...Okay.”

The ride back is the worst one in all of Hua’s life. She contemplates every single decision she’s ever made during it.

“Put the pillow down, Hua.”

“Break up with him!”

Kevin interlocks Su’s fingers with his, bringing his hand up to admire the ring. “We’re really engaged now…”

She throws her pillow. Kevin catches it. Well, she has more. And if she runs out of pillows, she has Piyo plushies.

“Why? Why him, of all people?” She chokes out.

“We’ve gone over this already, Hua.”

Hua throws another pillow. Kevin catches it and sighs. “I have to say, after all of the outbursts you’ve had, this one reflects your age the closest.” Hua’s next pillow lands on his face.

“I am not childish,” she states.

“Don’t worry, Hua. Kevin’s a lot more childish than you are,” Su reassures.

At that, the rage inside her momentarily quells, the tides of her mind stilling. That doesn’t last for more than two seconds, after which she’s picking up her next pillow. “Then why would you accept him as your fiancé!?”

“You’ll understand someday.”

No, she doesn’t think she will.

“We aren’t even that far apart in age,” Kevin defends. Sure, they’re only apart by a few years, but that doesn’t change the fact that he has way more real-world and job experience than she does. Hua’s pillow completely misses its mark. She ought to be more careful about this before she ends up hitting Su. Actually, maybe Su deserves one pillow. It might knock some sense into him.

“Kevin. Let go. Of his hand,” she says hoarsely, her tone spelling out threats that were better left unsaid.

Kevin stares at her for five seconds before complying. Hua can’t help but sigh in relief. Then she throws another pillow at him.

“I’m never forgiving you, Kevin.”

“For what?” He asks, dodging the pillow.

“Everything. And for making me choke last time.”

“Oh, I forgot about that.” She did too, but she won’t admit it because she has to use it against him.

“It’s awfully late now. You should go to sleep,” Su says, showing no reaction when Kevin has to duck to miss the next pillow and ends up slipping.

She’s going to wake up the next morning to their marriage. She just knows it. The thought sickens her. Maybe she’s exaggerating a little, yet the point stands.

“I agree,” Kevin declares, standing up again– why does he always stand up again? Would it kill him to stay down for once? He was just as determined as she was. He then leans in closer to Su. “After she falls asleep, let’s discuss when we should get…”

“Get out!”

Fortunately for Hua, Kevin leaves the room. Unfortunately, Su leaves with him. Oh, she doesn’t have the energy to put up with this anymore. She’s really reached her limit. She flops onto her bed lifelessly.

…Just how did everything turn out like this?