Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kinich wakes up before the sun, though he barely has any sleep at all.

His room is half-packed. Not in that efficient way of packing that is usually done in preparation for a fresh start in life, but rather that slow disjointed packing that happens when someone keeps stopping midway: sitting down, picking up, putting it back. 

The windows are open. It’s cold. The box by the door has a jacket draped over it that he meant to fold hours ago. He passes it without noticing. Passes a shoebox too, taped but unsealed, the corner of an old photo sticking out from under the lid.

He’s moving next week. He hasn’t told many people. Only the ones who’d notice if he vanished.

It’s a fieldwork post. So remote that the only visitors are those who have a reason to be there. It’s the kind of job that takes you to a blank slate, a place where you can let go of the contours of your old life, as long as you don’t glance back too often.

He tells himself it’s a good opportunity.
He says things like I’ll finally have time to focus.
He doesn’t say I need to go somewhere she’s never been.
He doesn’t have to say I can’t breathe here anymore.

Before he leaves, there’s one more thing he has to do. One thing he’s been avoiding, even though the date’s been creeping toward him for weeks.

He brushes his teeth in the dark, the faucet running too long before he remembers to turn it off. By the time he makes it to the kitchen, the water’s cold and the coffee has gone bitter. He drinks half of it anyway, spilling a little on the counter, but he doesn’t bother wiping it up.

The apartment feels like it’s holding its breath.

He dresses slowly, standing in front of the closet for too long before reaching in. His hands hesitate, drifting past the shirts he actually likes, settling instead on an old button-down that still carries the faint scent of ocean air and detergent.

He puts it on inside out. Doesn’t notice until the second button. Fixes it. Misses a loop. Fixes it again.

His fingers don’t feel clumsy, only tired.

He folds the cuffs, then unfolds them. Tucks in the tag, flattens the collar. Stares down at his shoes for a long time before bending to tie them. One loop, then the other. Then undone, then tied again.

It’s not out of habit or comfort. It’s something to do with his hands.

When he steps outside, the light hurts more than it should. Not bright, only too clear. The sky’s wide and unsympathetic, washed out in that way that never makes it into photos. The air smells like grass and warm pavement. It should be overcast. It should feel heavier, he thinks to himself.

The bouquet’s already in the backseat.

Marigolds, for remembrance. Cornflowers, for hope. Snapdragons in soft pink and gold — the kind she used to point out on roadside walks, insisting they looked enchanted. One small white rose in the center.

He gets in the car and closes the door.

And still, for a long time, he doesn’t start the engine. His hand rests on the wheel. His jaw tenses. He blinks once, slow, then again.

Today is Mualani’s death anniversary.

He picks up Kachina next.

She’s already waiting by the curb, hands buried in her sleeves, windbreaker zipped up to her chin. Her hair’s still damp near the temples. She doesn’t look up when the car pulls in, only opens the door and gets in, moving gingerly.

There’s a plastic container on her lap, held tightly against her ribs. A folded note peeks from her pocket.

“I made muffins,” she says after a pause, voice scratchy with sleep. “T–They’re not… as good.”

Kinich glances at it. “Blueberry?”

“They were supposed to be.” She frowns at the lid. “I think I used salt instead of sugar.”

Her gaze doesn’t move from the window. The glass reflects a slanted version of her — older at the edges, softer in the middle. Her knees draw in slightly, sneakers tapping once against the foot mat. “Do you think she’d eat one anyway?”

The light turns green. He presses the gas. They pass a mailbox with chipped paint. A yellow dog on a leash. Someone watering a row of begonias.

“She’d pretend to like it,” he says, finally. “Because you made it.”

“Right?” Kachina huffs, though it doesn’t carry. “And then blame the oven, like she always did.”

The kitchen smells like sugar and something faintly burnt. A bowl sits half-sunk in batter on the counter. The screen door creaks whenever the wind shifts. There’s flour on the floor, near the fridge. Not enough to be a mess — only enough to prove she’d been there for a while.

“D—Don’t eat that one!!” Mualani says, waving her arms frantically, but without much hope. “Wait—wait, just wait, not that one!”

Too late.

Kinich bites into it, without hesitation. The outside is warm. The inside collapses in his mouth — too soft, doughy, wrong.

He chews once.

Then stops.

The salt builds slowly. It doesn’t sting. It just sits and settles on his tongue. 

He says nothing. His shoulders lower, like the air’s gone out of him.

Mualani is already wincing.

“You put salt in this.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You did.”

She walks over and tears one in half. Steam rises, curls away. The inside is pale, nearly raw. She presses a thumb into it, frowns, then tastes.

She blinks once. Then again. “Okay,” she mutters. “Maybe I did.”

He dumps the rest into the sink and rinses his hands. The water runs too long. He doesn’t bother drying them.

She leans back on the counter, arms folded loose. “They were supposed to be blueberry.”

“I figured.”

“They looked better before they went in. I swear.”

“...Some people say that about roadkill.”

She exhales through her nose. Picks a single blueberry from the top of one muffin, pops it in her mouth without looking away from him.

The stairs creak.

Kachina appears in the doorway, barefoot, a notebook pressed flat to her chest. She squints into the kitchen, nose wrinkling. “Why does it smell like burnt soap?”

“Don’t ask,” Kinich says, without turning.

Mualani doesn’t answer. Her silence is already guilty, it’s even everywhere on her face.

Kachina pads over to the tray, eyeing it with suspicion. She leans in, pencil out like a surgical tool, and pokes one of the misshapen things in the center. “I–Is this cooked?”

“Define ‘cooked,’” Mualani mutters.

“Well, she used salt instead of sugar,” Kinich adds, deadpan.

Kachina tilts her head. “Again?”

Mualani groans, dragging a hand down her face. “The labels are confusing.”

“They’re literally labeled.”

“I have dyslexia.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I could.”

Kachina picks one up and sniffs it first, stalling for a second. Her nose crinkles. Then, like someone who’s been double-dared and can’t back out, she takes a bite — slow, reluctant, already regretting it halfway through.

Then sets it down again, gently, as if it were a bomb that might detonate.

“…It tastes like the ocean is punishing me.”

Mualani lowers her head to the cabinet door and presses her forehead there, muttering something that none of them bother asking her to repeat.

No one says they’ll try again. No one throws the rest away.

Back in the car, Kachina shifts the container in her lap. Her knees are drawn up slightly, angled toward the door. She presses her thumb along the seam of the lid, dragging it back and forth like she’s smoothing something invisible.

The windows begin to fog outside.

In the backseat, the bouquet leans against the seatbelt. One petal has fallen, caught in the fold of the upholstery.

Kachina doesn’t look over.

Softly, she says, “I probably should’ve brought better flowers.”

“They’re fine,” he admits. “She isn’t too picky.”

She nods once, too fast.

Her shoulders inch forward with a breath that doesn’t quite make it through. She pulls the container in close, pressing it to her stomach, knuckles clenched around the lid. She keeps it there — not like she’s holding it, more like she’s holding onto it.

The cemetery sits on a quiet slope, surrounded by low trees and the hum of wind in the grass. They take the longer path, the one that curves past the tall stones and faded benches, because neither of them says otherwise. The gravel crunches beneath their shoes. A crow lifts off from a nearby branch and disappears into the gray.

Kinich parks by the gate but doesn’t cut the engine for a while. Kachina doesn’t move either, her hands still around the container. The bouquet lies between them now, cradled on the seat with its ribbon slightly askew.

When they step out, the cold air bites way sharper than expected. Kinich reaches into the back and straightens the flowers. Kachina hugs the container closer to her chest. The gate creaks as they push it open.

She walks half a step behind him, not out of hesitation, but as if she’s giving him space to arrive first.

The headstone is easy to spot. Mualani’s parents still visit often — it’s always clean, always with something fresh left behind. Today, someone’s placed white gardenias in a jar.

Kachina kneels first. She sets the container down slowly, adjusting the lid again though it hasn’t moved. Then she pulls the folded note from her jacket pocket and places it beside the flowers. Her fingers hover, unsure if that’s the right spot.

Kinich stands behind her for a moment longer, bouquet still in hand.

Then he crouches, brushing a few leaves aside from the edge of the stone. He doesn’t read her name. He doesn’t have to. His eyes settle somewhere between the dates.

He lays the flowers down, then adjusts them. Once. Then again. His hand hovers for a moment before falling back to his side.

Kachina speaks quietly. “I meant to bring sunflowers. But they didn’t have any.”

“She didn’t even like sunflowers,” Kinich says.

She looks at him. “Really?”

“Back on a trip, we once saw a sunflower field. Then not even a minute after, she pouted at me, saying they were cocky. Always turning away from her, acting like they revolved around the sun.”

“I–I mean, that’s the point. Don’t we also—”

“Exactly.”

That pulls a small laugh from her — short, breathy. She looks down right after, thumbing at a loose thread on her cuff.

The wind tugs at the hem of Kachina’s sleeves. She wipes her face quickly, eyes red, but doesn’t turn away. Kinich doesn’t look at her, but he moves slightly closer.

Kinich doesn’t speak. He doesn’t blink much either. His gaze stays fixed near the base of the headstone — not on the name, not on the dates, but somewhere much lower. The grass there is damp, bent from rain. One of the petals from the bouquet has already curled in on itself.

Beside him, Kachina shifts. Her knees sink into the dirt. It’s soft, a little uneven, but she doesn’t bother to complain. The note she brought is resting next to the gardenias. One corner’s damp. The ink has started to bleed into the paper.

Kinich doesn’t answer right away. His jaw shifts a little, like he almost says something but thinks better of it. He looks at the gardenias, then at her note, where the ink is starting to run. After a second, he pulls at his sleeve, fingers curling into the fabric.

“I know,” Kachina adds quickly. “She just… she always wanted things to be okay. Even when they weren’t. She always helps out everyone whenever she can.”

A gust of wind slips through the trees, brushing past the leaves like fingers through hair. The grass shifts gently, patchy in places, a little overgrown. In the distance, a wind chime stirs once before going still.

“Do you ever think,” he says quietly, “about how long it’ll be before there’s no one left who remembers the sound of her voice?”

Kachina looks at him. Her eyes linger for a second before she glances down again. She hadn’t expected the question — not from him of all people.

“There are days I forget the sound of her laugh,” she whispers admittedly. “And then I’ll hear something close to it, and—” Her throat tightens. “And it doesn’t sound right. It’s not her, but I almost believe it is for a second.” 

She lays her hands on her knees to keep still. A single tremor runs through her shoulders. Then nothing.

“It’s stupid. I know.”

Kinich shakes his head. 

His hand, the one closest to her, curls slightly against the grass. Only enough to remind himself that he’s still here. He needs the reminder. This isn't a nightmare. She’s really gone. He knows that, but some part of him still waits for her voice. Still listens for her footsteps. And that part hasn’t let go.

“I tried recording her once,” she murmurs. “For fun. I asked her what her favorite fruit was and she said mango, but only the ugly ones. Because they taste better.”

Kinich lets out a breath. Almost a laugh.

“I can’t find the recording anymore,” Kachina adds. “I think I deleted it by accident.”

A pause settles again.

“Do you still remember the sound of her voice?” 

“I don’t know,” he says. “She had that thing — where she’d laugh mid-sentence and you’d miss whatever she was trying to say. And then she’d refuse to repeat it.”

A soft breeze lifts Kachina’s hair. She doesn’t tuck it back. “I miss her.”

“I do too. She would've hated this.”

Kachina sniffs. “T—The flowers and all?”

“No, well, not just the flowers,” he says. “All of it. Us being this quiet and all serious.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” she lets out a sound that almost resembles a laugh. “She’d be making fun of us.”

“She’d say we looked like two wilted ferns.”

“And then cry with us anyway... or well, me.”

Kinich doesn’t deny it. 

The church smelled like lilies. Too many of them. Sweet and cloying, the kind of scent that stuck to the back of your throat. The kind of scent you’d associate with her now, even though Mualani always hated being assossciated with lilies. She said they looked smug and a flower like that would fit someone else.

People filled the pews in soft colors and wrinkled handkerchiefs. A few old classmates, neighbors who hadn’t seen her in years, relatives Kinich didn’t know. Kachina sat near the front, shoulders trembling, a crumpled tissue clutched tight in her fist. Mualani’s mother wept openly, her face buried in her husband’s chest.

And Kinich sat still.

His hands were folded neatly in his lap. He couldn’t remember deciding to do that. He stared at them for a while — the way his knuckles pressed white, the crescent marks his nails left in his palm. A numb weight had settled over him, thick and unrelenting. He felt like he was underwater.

People stood to sing hymns he didn’t know. Someone read a letter aloud. He didn’t hear most of it. The words felt far away, like a conversation happening in another room. His eyes drifted to the casket. White. Simple. She would’ve made a joke about it. “Couldn’t even spring for something with personality?” she might’ve said.

His throat felt tight, but no tears came. Not then. Not even when they lowered her down, the ropes creaking soft as the earth made room.

Why couldn’t he cry? 

And oh, the days after, were worse. It felt like hell.

Grief had formed a shape now. A lump caught in his throat he couldn’t swallow down. A restless, sick sort of nausea that curled in his stomach and sat there, unmoving. Food tasted wrong. Sleep came in brittle, broken ways.

The world carried on. Cars passed outside his window. Radios played love songs. The sun rose and set, unbothered. 

And Kinich still didn’t cry.

He couldn’t. Not at the funeral. Not when the first condolence message arrived. Not when he found her hair tie still looped around the gear shift of his car.

But the lump stayed.

Every time he tried to say her name, it pressed harder, like a fist in his throat. He started sleeping with the window open. He didn't know why.

It was like his body remembered something his mind wouldn’t let him say.

And when the sickness wouldn’t leave, when the air felt too thick, when he caught himself reaching for his phone at midnight with no one to call — he realized this was it. 

Mualani truly is gone.

His breath leaves him slower this time. He leans forward, brushing a brittle leaf from the stone with the back of his hand. His fingers pause there.

Kachina watches him from the side, her gaze not quite focused, like she’s looking through the moment instead of at it. She stays still, the cold working its way into her sleeves, but she doesn’t shift away from it. Doesn’t speak.

The wind quiets. The leaves stop moving. Even the chime in the distance falls silent, like the world is holding its breath with her — just for a second. As if it, too, is trying to remember Mualani.

But it won’t last.

The breeze will return. The birds will keep singing. Somewhere, someone is laughing. Somewhere else, someone is late to work. The world never really stops. Not for anyone. Not even for her.

She blinks once. Then again, slower. When she exhales, it shudders at the end.

Her hand lifts toward her face, stalls halfway, then falls again. Her fingers curl loosely into her jeans. The crying doesn’t come all at once. It builds slowly, like something remembered too late, something that had been waiting for the right silence.

She leans forward, shoulders folding inward, chin tucked against her chest. Her voice shakes as it leaves her.

“I–I didn’t think it would be this hard.”

Her knuckles press against her mouth, as if she can keep it all in — the breath, the break, the sound. But it doesn’t hold. The tremble slips and breaks through anyway. The tears come soft at first, then quicker, harder.

Grief, once given an opening, forgets how to stop.

“She said she was tired. She said she’d be okay. She always said that.”

She draws in a breath that barely makes it past her ribs.

“I believed her. That’s what hurts the most. I believed her.”

She wipes at her face with the heel of her hand. It doesn’t help. Her other hand stays clenched against her leg, trying to ground herself in something, anything.

“I wrote her a letter the night before,” she says, voice raw around the edges. “I almost threw it away. I didn’t. It’s still in my drawer, buried under dumb things I thought didn’t matter. I was supposed to give it to her for my next visit.”

Her eyes are redder now. She doesn’t hide it.

“She never got to read it.”

She leans forward again, placing both hands lightly against the grass, fingers brushing the edge of the headstone.

“Dang it, I miss her so m–much every day,” she whispers. “And I still don’t know if she knew. If I said it enough... I...”

This time, she cries without holding back.

Kinich watches her cry and doesn’t know what to do with it.

He was never good at this. Not like Mualani. She would’ve known. How to tilt her voice, where to place her hand, what joke to crack to make it bearable for just a moment. She would’ve made space for the crying without making it feel like a burden.

But she’s not here.

And Kachina is crumpling right next to him, shoulders drawn in tight, face hidden in her hands like she’s trying to muffle it all. Like it’s shameful, this kind of grief. Like it should’ve gotten quieter by now.

He looks down at the ground. At the note she left, corner bleeding through with ink. The grass pressed flat beneath her knees. The container of muffins she still hasn’t let go of.

He doesn’t know what to say.

All that comes to him are things that feel wrong. Too soft. Too sharp. Too late.

Kinich stands frozen outside the door, the soft, muffled sobs threading through the sterile silence. The beeping machines and distant footsteps fade into the background, swallowed by the weight of her grief. 

His breath catches, shallow and uncertain. For a long moment, he just listens, then gingerly, he pushes the door open.

Inside, the pale hospital light washes over her. Mualani lies in the bed, smaller than he remembers. Her skin, once sun-kissed and warm, now seems fragile. Almost translucent under the harsh glow. Shadows pool beneath her eyes, dark and deep, carved by exhaustion and pain. There’s a thin plastic tubing running from her arm, taped carefully to her skin.

Her hair, once wild and vibrant, is tangled, lifeless against the pillow. Her lips tremble as quiet tears slip down her cheeks, unchecked now that no one’s watching.

Kinich’s chest clenches so fiercely it feels like his ribs might crack. Words die in his throat, swallowed whole by the ache that knots his stomach and blurs his vision. He stands there, frozen and helpless, swallowed by a silence heavier than any he’s known. Because he knows there’s nothing left to say that could reach her pain.

When she notices him standing there, her eyes widen in surprise. She blinks fast, then hurriedly sweeps her hand across her face, trying to wipe away the tears and the evidence of the cracks of vulnerability that had just surfaced. Her chest rises and falls unevenly, breath catching as she fights to steady herself — an attempt to hold onto the strength she’s been pretending to have all along.

“S–Sorry you had to see that, Kinich,” she says, voice cracked but trying to sound light and cheery. “I was just... having a moment, that’s all.”

Her attempt to be brave breaks something in him.

He stands frozen, the plastic bag of mangoes slipping from his fingers, falling softly to the floor without a sound. His breath catches, unsure what to do next.

She blinks at him, cheeks still wet, eyes wide with surprise. “Kinich…”

He swallows hard, the dryness in his throat spreading down his chest like a heaviness he can’t shrug off. For a long moment, he watches the way her shoulders rise and fall with uneven breaths. The faint scent of antiseptic and something faintly sweet clings to the air between them. His skin prickles, the noise of the hospital machines filling the silence.

His feet shift slowly forward, unsure if he’s crossing a line or simply closing the space she needs. His hands tremble when they hover near her shoulders, fingers twitching like they don’t know whether to reach out or pull back. 

The quiet gets too heavy to carry, and eventually he moves, slow and unsure but gentle. His hands settle softly, like he’s touching something so warm and breakable, afraid that if he presses too hard, it might brittle.

She freezes for a heartbeat, then leans in. The tension in her shoulders softens, though her breath still catches unevenly.

His mind races, scrambling through thoughts, but everything slips away the moment he tries to speak. The right words hover just out of reach, stuck in his throat, tangled in the panic and silence pressing in from all sides.

But it comes to a stop when he feels the rough fabric of her hospital gown beneath his fingertips, the subtle quiver in her body against his palms. 

The quiet sobs still tremble beneath her breath.

“I’m scared, Kinich.”

Eventually, he stands. Not quickly. Not all at once. His legs shake as he pushes himself up, joints aching from staying still too long. He takes a breath, steadying himself.

Kachina follows, wiping her hands on her jacket, the fabric damp from sweat and dirt. 

No one says goodbye. 

There’s no need to. Not to someone they keep carrying.

As they walk back to the car, Kinich glances once over his shoulder. The flowers are still upright. The note too. The headstone sits half in shadow now, the name barely visible in the fading light. He looks for a moment longer, then turns away.

And continues walking.

They drive with the windows cracked open. The air slips in, carrying the scent of grass, sun-warmed pavement, and the faint sting of engine oil. The sound of tires on asphalt fills the quiet space. 

Neither of them says much. After all, there isn’t much left to say when it’s all done.

At the stoplight, his thumb thuds softly against the steering wheel. A second tap follows. The car hums around it, the silence hanging heavier than the noise.

“I’m sorry for crying. T–That was embarrassing of me.”

“Don’t apologize,” he says, soft but certain. “You don’t have to hide that from me.”

She nods, eyes still red, lips pressed together. The words don’t come, but something in her posture eases, just a little.

“Did you ever also wonder,” Kachina says after a while, “that maybe she knew?”

He doesn’t answer immediately.

“Knew…”

“That she wouldn’t be here this long.”

The light turns green. The car rolls forward.

“Now that I think about it, she did everything fast,” Kachina explains softly. “Plans, trips, all of it. Always chasing something, like she was on a clock she never told us about until it was too late.”

Kinich’s grip shifts on the wheel. His knuckles don’t tense; his hands just hover for a second, unsure, then return to their place like the moment passed before he could make sense of it.

“She just wanted to leave something useful behind. Something that might outlast her, even if it wasn’t perfect. She always said: forget perfect. If it helps someone, even a little, that’s enough.”

Kachina folds her arms around the container and sinks deeper into her seat.

“I think she left a lot of things,” she murmurs.

He agrees.

They pass the street where she used to linger after hangouts. The turnoff slips by in a blink. Kinich keeps driving, hands fixed on the wheel, eyes forward — like slowing down might make the image of her real.

They both don’t want to look out the window too much.

The sky begins to cloud over, pale and heavy. Light dulls on the pavement, the trees lose their edges. The air feels still, the kind that clings to your skin. Distant sounds go quiet. Even the road looks farther than it did a moment ago.

They pull into Kachina’s driveway. The engine ticks as it cools. For a while, neither of them moves. 

“Until now, I... uh, I write her letters sometimes, I don't send them anywhere. I just… put them in a drawer out of comfort.”

Kinich nods once. Not as a response, not really. Just to show he heard.

“That drawer’s getting full,” she adds, with the smallest curve of a smile — one that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

He doesn’t tell her to stop nor does he reach out, try to soften the moment with comfort or advice. He lets her feel it, all of it, without stepping in. 

When he finally speaks, his voice is quiet but firm. “Good.” 

Nothing more. Nothing less.

She opens the door slowly. The air slips in around her ankles, cooler now, brushing against her skin. She stays seated, one hand still on the handle, eyes on the ground outside. For a moment, she just breathes.

“You’ll tell me when you’re leaving, right?” she asks.

“I’m telling you now.”

Kachina nods. A quiet, long sort of nod. She steps out and closes the door with care, the sound barely there. Then she pauses. Her voice follows a beat later, low and unsure, drifting in through the open window.

“I know how much you loved her, Kinich.” 

A thin pause follows.

“I’m sorry.”

Then she turns and walks away.

Her figure stays in the side mirror a moment longer, framed in the fading light, before the door closes behind her.

Kinich stays in his seat, hands unmoving on the wheel. The engine gives off a faint vibration beneath him, barely there but enough to remind him he hasn’t turned the key. 

Warm air clings to the inside of the car, touched with the scent of dust and old fabric. He doesn’t look back, and watches the road ahead, blurred slightly by the light. A thought stirs, aimless, unfinished. He breathes in, then finally shifts into gear and starts to drive.

He doesn’t take the highway home.

Instead, he decides to drive the long way — through the streets they used to walk after evening group, past the corner store where she’d linger too long by the snacks, through the tunnel that echoes when you laugh too loud.

He rolls the window all the way down.

The air that comes in isn’t cold, not exactly. It’s the kind of in-between warmth that doesn’t cling — it only brushes past, light and temporary.

He passes the hill where she once raced Kachina downhill barefoot and won. The scrape on her knee turned purple by morning. She laughed about it for a week.

The old mural's still on the underpass wall — chipped now, faded around the edges, but the colors are still there if you know where to look. Mualani once claimed she could see a dragon in the swirls of it. Kinich still doesn’t. He slows anyway.

The tunnel’s next. He doesn’t speed up for it.

The car smoothly enters the tunnel, enveloped by the chilly embrace of concrete walls. The light begins to fade, gently muted by the encroaching shadows. Sounds wrap around him — a soft, constant hum that’s not loud enough to grab attention, but when it disappears, its absence is strikingly clear and noticeable.

His fingers tap once against the wheel. Not to a rhythm. Just to check that he still can.

He flicks the radio on, more out of habit than choice. Drives like this were routine for him and Mualani. Naturally, she’d beg him to turn on the music.

Static, at first. Then the song comes through. Not at the start — somewhere in the middle.

“…I love you, baby…”

It’s so clear it almost feels rude.

Sunlight pours through the cracked car window, soft and golden, catching on the curve of Mualani’s cheek. Her eyes are closed, head tilted back just slightly, lips moving in time with the song playing low on the radio.

Kinich glances over, and for a second, the breath catches in his chest — not from the music, but from her, bathed in light like the world remembered how to be kind.

“And if it’s quite alright, I need you, baby!” she sings fully off-key, head tipped back, eyes closed as if she holds the whole world in that moment.

Kinich watches her out of the corner of his eye, a slow smile creeping up beneath the weight in his chest. For a second, her joy feels like a lifeline, pulling him back from the edge of everything he’s been holding in.

“You really love this song,” he says.

She opens one eye, grinning like she knows exactly what he’s thinking. “You can’t help but move to it! Only the best ones make you feel like you’ve got a second chance. This one forgives everything.”

The road slips by outside, a gentle blur of color and motion. But inside the car, time seems to hold still.

Mualani’s laughter bubbles up as she leans over, nudging his shoulder. “Come on, you have to sing this part with me.”

He groans, shaking his head, but he’s already smiling. “Over my dead body.”

“You snooze, you lose, Kinich!” she says, already turning the volume up, already dancing in her seat that it starts to feel like a moment that could go on forever. On loop.

Without hesitation, he turns the music off. The silence slips right back in.  

His eyes drift to the passenger seat, and it’s empty. 

Just the indentation where she used to sit, the seatbelt still slightly twisted from the way she always buckled it too quickly. 

The air feels untouched, and the faint sweetness of her vanilla perfume is long gone — replaced by the neutral scent of dust and old upholstery. 

“…What’s your name?” he asks, still not looking at her.

They’re first-years at the time. Same class. Not friends, but familiar in the way people are when they keep showing up in the same places — always in the convenience store after school, always at the same aisle, reaching for the same drink.

There’s a pause — then, softly,

“Mualani. It means heaven .”

She gives a small, almost sheepish shrug — like it’s something she’s told people too many times, but still never quite knows how to explain. “My mom picked it. Said it was a name for good things. Safe things.”

Kinich nods slowly, rolling the word over in his head. Like the word might mean more if he’s careful enough.

“It fits you,” he says eventually, without realizing it slipped out.

She glances at him, the smile not quite reaching her eyes. “You?”

He hesitates. Then: “Kinich.”

She repeats it softly, like trying it out. “Kinich… It sounds similar to Kimchi. ”

He blinks. “It doesn’t.”

“It does a little,” she insists, biting back a grin. “You just don’t want people to think of fermented spicy cabbage when they say your name, don’t you?”

“Do people usually say your name and think of clouds and angels ?”

She pretends to think. “Sometimes waves. Or skies. But mostly, they just ask me to say it again.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “Mmhm, guess it sounds made-up if you’re not from around where I’m from!”

Kinich doesn’t ask where it belongs, but he decides to tuck the word away.

“Mualani,” he repeats once.

She notices it but says nothing, watching him closely, like she’s still trying to figure out if that was the first time he’s let something soft slipped through.

“You’ll remember it, right?” she asks, half-joking.

He nods. “Yeah. I don’t forget names. Not when someone tells me themselves.”

Mualani exhales. Then, quietly, almost to herself: “Good.”

Kinich’s car is parked outside, sitting idly by the old convenience store — the same one he and Mualani used to visit without thinking. Back then, it was just a stop for snacks, a break from the road, something easy: laughing about snack choices, stealing moments between aisles.

Now, just pulling into the lot makes his stomach knot. The windows glow against the dark, casting soft light across the pavement, and the sign above the door flickers, same as always. The buzz is faint, but he hears it too clearly, like it’s pressing in.

He shifts in his seat, fingers flexing once on the wheel. The scent hits next. Oil from the road, something sugary wafting out when the door opens for another customer. It used to make him hungry. Now it turns sour in his throat.

Everything looks the same. The way the light pools beneath the awning. The old trash bin by the door. Even the faded poster in the window hasn’t been replaced. But the air feels different now.

He stays in the car, staring at the entrance, chest tight. It’s just a store. A parking lot. A Tuesday.

She nudges the Hello Panda bag between them. “You gonna share or what?”

He raises an eyebrow. “...You insulted the drink I picked today. You don’t get to judge my snack choices too.”

“Fine,” she says, smirking. “I’ll just steal them.”

He slides the bag a little closer.

“These taste way better than I remember,” Mualani says, letting out a soft, delighted hum.

Kinich raises an eyebrow, glancing over as she pops another biscuit in her mouth. “You sound like you haven’t eaten in a week.”

Mualani grins mid-chew, covering her mouth. “I told you I was hungry. Plus, nostalgia makes everything taste better.”

He leans back slightly, watching the way her legs swing beneath the stool. The air smells like soy sauce packets and warm plastic.

“You ate these as a kid?” he asks.

She nods, still chewing. “Mmhm. My mom used to bribe me with them. Doctor visits, dentist, long car rides. Always these ones. Never the pink one though.”

Kinich tilts his head. “I guess they worked.”

“Obviously,” she says, holding up another biscuit like a prize. “They were sacred. Limited edition joy, even.”

He snorts, barely. “That sounds dramatic. You can get these pretty much almost anywhere.”

Mualani leans her elbow on the table, chin in her hand now, gaze drifting to the glass. “Maybe. Or maybe it just doesn’t take a lot to make something feel like home.”

Kinich doesn’t answer right away, instead, he carefully watches her face — the way her expression softens in the quiet, the reflection of him in her eyes.

Then he offers, a little quieter, “Want another pack?”

She turns to him, mock-serious. “Are you seriously trying to win me over with chocolate panda biscuits?”

He blinks. “Is it working?”

Mualani grins. “Maybe.”

She leans forward to toss the snack wrapper into the nearby bin, but the motion tugs something loose from her cardigan pocket — a small, folded slip of paper that flutters to the floor near Kinich’s foot.

He catches it before it drifts too far, bending to pick it up.

The paper’s been handled so often the edges have gone soft, the folds creased into habit. Ink has bled faintly along the corners — not just words, but tiny doodles in the margins: a shark with a little grin, stars scattered like confetti, a wave curling into the edge of the page.

He doesn’t read it and simply passes it back.

Mualani lets out a quiet breath of a laugh, reaching for it with a sheepish smile. “Oh — my bucket list.”

“Bucket list?” he echoes.

“Yeah. Probably dumb,” she says, smoothing the fold with her thumb before tucking it back into her pocket. “Just a list of things I want to do before… I don’t know. Before everything gets too quiet. And maybe serious.”

Kinich raises an eyebrow. “And carrying it around helps?”

Mualani leans back in her seat, stretching slightly. “It reminds me,” she says simply. “That there’s still stuff worth wanting.”

“I see.”

“You ever made one?”

“A bucket list?”

“Yeah.”

He thinks about it. “No.”

She grins. “Then maybe I’ll let you borrow mine.”

Kinich scoffs. “That how it works?”

Mualani shrugs. “Depends. You any good at not losing things?”

His eyes drift to the window, For a second, he doesn’t answer.

“…No,” he says quietly. “I don’t think I am.”

She watches him. Doesn’t press. Just lets the silence sit for a moment before nudging his knee gently with hers — not too playful this time, but warm.

“Then I’ll keep it,” she says. “For now. It’s the kind of list you have to hold close, anyway. Before life gets in the way, or you forget why you wrote it.”

Kinich crosses his arms. “I didn’t think people still made bucket lists.”

Mualani’s fingers tighten around the paper in her pocket. “Not many do anymore,” she says softly. “But I’m not like people.”

Her voice is calm, but there’s a hint of something beneath it. Hope? Whatever it was, it was something fragile and important to her.

Kinich turns slightly toward her, studying the way her eyes catch the light. “Have you crossed anything off yet?”

She smiles, small and a little shy. “A–A few. The little things mostly.”

He watches her for a second longer, then nods slowly. “Maybe I should make one too.”

Her smile widens. “I’ll help you with it.”

“I don’t know if I’ll make one any time soon.”

Mualani laughs under her breath. “That’s okay! Not everything on mine is urgent either.”

Kinich glances at her. “What’s one of them?”

She hesitates, then reaches into her pocket like she might pull the list back out — but doesn’t. Instead, she just says, “Swim somewhere no one’s ever swum before.” 

“...Is that even possible?”

“I like to think so,” she says. “There’s always some place untouched. Even if it’s just for a moment. Even if no one remembers after.”

She taps her fingers against the table. “Or I don’t know, maybe it’s less about the place, and more about... feeling like it’s new. Like you were the first person. Even just for a second. I’d like to experience that kind of surreal and serene feeling. It’s… so otherworldly.”

He just continues to observe and watch her again — the glint in her eye, the way her thumb still hovers near her pocket like she’s keeping that list close on purpose.

After a moment, he mutters, “Sounds lonely to me.”

“Not really!” Mualani says brightly with a lopsided smile. “Since technically, it’s impossible to be alone. We’ve got millions of cells, bacteria, microorganisms just hanging out with us 24/7, whether we want them or not.”

“Oh.” Kinich gives her a look, somewhere between confused and amused. “That’s… comforting.”

She laughs, a small, bubbling sound as she shrugs one shoulder. “Depends on how you think about it.”

He’s quiet for a moment, then says more slowly, “I didn’t mean it that way. Alone and lonely aren’t the same thing, really.”

“I know,” she replies. The humor fades, not completely, though. Her fingers fidget absently with the hem of her sleeve as she looks past him. “Even when you’re surrounded by people who say they love you... it still feels like no one sees you.”

She doesn’t say it with sadness exactly. More like she’s saying something true and a little tired.

Kinich watches her, then turns back to his drink, unsure what to say to that.

“Anyway,” Mualani says, a bit more lightly now, brushing dust off the edge of a thought. “Where are you going after this?”

She nudges her empty drink can with the tip of her finger, watching it spin slightly on the table before glancing back at him.

Kinich leans back a little, eyes drifting to the window. “Just home,” he says after a pause. “I live in an apartment by myself.”

Mualani hums, quiet. “Must be peaceful, yeah?”

“Sometimes,” he says.

She watches him a moment longer, a faint crease forming between her brows, but she doesn’t push.

“What about you?” he asks, finally.

“I’m staying at my parents’ tonight,” she says, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Just for a bit. My mom likes to guilt-trip me into dinner and it’s hard to say no whenever she pulls the I gave birth to you card.”

Then she adds, half-laughing, “She says the house feels too quiet when I’m not around.”

When she isn’t around? Does she mean she stays in one of the dorms? He thinks to himself.

Kinich’s mouth tips into a small smile, more to himself than to her. “That’s good,” he says, almost gently. “You must have nice parents.”

“What about your parents? Since you live in an apartment, don’t you miss them sometimes?”

It slips out casually — the kind of question people ask without thinking. But the shift is immediate. Kinich’s expression doesn’t change much, but something behind his eyes pulls tight, like a door quietly shutting.

Mualani catches it too late. Her lips part, as if to take it back.

He doesn’t answer right away. Just exhales through his nose and looks down at the table, at the empty can between them.

“I don’t really… talk to them,” he scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. “Haven’t for a long time.”

“Oh,” Mualani says, her voice softer now. “I didn’t mean to— I’m sorry. I should’ve known.”

Kinich shrugs. “It’s fine,” he says, and there’s truth in it, just not all of it. 

The bell over the door rings as he walks in. Not much has changed. The floor’s still a little uneven near the freezer, the same dim hum from the ceiling lights, the same tired scent of plastic wrappers and fryer oil drifting from the heating rack near the counter. The shelves are too full in some places, half-stocked in others. Someone’s left a shopping basket turned sideways near the drinks cooler, and the sticker on the freezer door still peels at the corner.

Down the third aisle, second shelf from the end — they’re still there. The red box catches his eye before anything else. Cartoon pandas, those ridiculous little faces printed across the packaging like it’s something joyful. It shouldn’t hurt to see it. But it does.

He reaches for a box, then hesitates. The first one is slightly crushed at the edge, so he takes the one behind it instead. Turns it in his hand. Checks the expiration date, even though he knows it doesn’t matter.

He adds a second box to the counter without thinking.

The cashier doesn’t say anything, just scans and bags it. Kinich doesn’t look up. He slides a few bills across the counter, nods once, and leaves without waiting for change.

Outside, he opens a box and shakes one biscuit into his hand. The panda face is slightly smudged. He takes a bite anyway.

It’s sweet. A little dry. Crumbles fast. The chocolate inside tastes exactly like it always did, but the memory hits faster than the flavor that makes something stir in his chest.

When Kinich gets back in the car, he sits there for a moment before starting the engine.

He sets the box on the passenger seat, right where she used to sit. The seat’s empty, same as always, but putting something there makes it feel a little less so. The box shifts slightly as he pulls away from the curb, the plastic rustling with each turn.

He drives with the window cracked. The air outside is still warm — not enough to be uncomfortable, just enough to remind him how long the day’s been. At the stoplight, he opens the box and eats one of the biscuits. It crumbles in his mouth, sweet and familiar. He chews slowly, reaching for another without thinking.

He eats a few more as he goes, not really counting. The box stays open on the seat beside him.

Eventually, he turns down the road to her house.

He hadn’t planned it exactly, but he figures he should visit. It’s been a while. Her parents still live there. They were kind to him. It feels like something he should do.

He doesn’t know if they’ll be home, and even if they are, he doesn’t know what he’ll say.

But he keeps driving.

He remembers how he first met her parents back in their second year of high school. There were a few months where they dated — a soft, unspoken sort of thing. Nothing too serious. Puppy love, maybe. But real enough at the time.

She was slightly taller than him back then, enough for her to tease him about it every time they stood side by side. She used to lean in when they took photos, resting her chin lightly on his shoulder like she was doing him a favor. He’d roll his eyes. She’d grin like she’d won something.

Her house smelled like rice, coconut soap, and the faintest trace of something floral. He remembered standing awkwardly in the hallway, shoes lined up too neatly by the door, clutching a small container of polvoron he brought because Mualani told him to. 

“Just be normal,” she whispers when her mom calls from the kitchen.

“I am being normal,” he hisses back.

“You’re standing like you were forced to be here.”

“But I was forced to be here.”

“Exactly. Stop looking like it. You’re my boyfriend.”

He adjusts his posture without meaning to, shifting the container of polvoron in his hands. It’s wrapped a little too tightly in cling wrap. She insisted on bringing something — said it was polite. Said her mom would ask questions otherwise. He hadn’t argued.

From somewhere deeper in the house, footsteps approach. Mualani straightens, too fast to be casual. A moment later, her mom steps into view — apron dusted with flour, hair pinned back with a pen, face already warm with recognition. The smile she gives him is instant, like she’s already decided he isn’t a threat. She says something about how skinny he looks, asks if he’s eaten, then calls toward the kitchen for her husband without waiting for an answer.

Her dad appears soon after. Quieter, more reserved, but just as warm. He offers a nod and a firm handshake. Kinich doesn’t quite know what to do with himself until Mualani nudges him forward, and somehow he ends up sitting in a too-soft chair while they ask him about school, his classes, whether he’s eating enough, whether his parents are strict.

Mualani kicks his foot under the table every time he answers too stiffly. He kicks her back once. She only grins wider.

They stay for dinner. He doesn’t mean to — it just sort of happens. Mualani pulls him into the kitchen to help set the table. She hums while she stacks the plates. Tells him not to mess up the forks. Puts extra rice on his plate like it’s some kind of inside joke.

By the time they’re walking home, it’s already dark. The air smells like detergent and dust from the sidewalk. Mualani swings her arms a little as they go. Her hair’s still damp at the ends from helping with dishes.

“You called my dad ‘sir’ three times,” she says, breaking the quiet.

“I panicked,” he mutters.

She laughs. “He didn’t mind. He thinks you’re polite. Said you sit like someone who was raised in a military base. Good posture and all.”

Kinich glances at her. “Oh.”

“Mmmhm.”

She shrugs, hands tucked into her jacket pockets. Her shoulder brushes his. He doesn’t move away.

“You’re lucky they liked you,” she adds.

“They did?”

“Obviously.” She grins. “My mom already asked if you were coming back next week.”

He looks at the sidewalk, then at her.

“I could,” he says.

She smiles again, and this one reaches her eyes.

“My dad said you had good posture.”

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

“It is to him.”

She bumps his shoulder with hers. He lets it happen.

And somehow — without thinking, without talking much after — their fingers find each other.

The latch clicks as he lets himself in, and the garden looks neater than he remembers. The stepping stones are clean, the vines on the trellis trimmed back, and someone’s planted new things along the path — low shrubs, a few flowering ones. It doesn’t feel cheerful exactly, but it feels cared for. Like someone still gets up in the morning and tries.

He takes the porch steps slowly. For a moment, he thinks about leaving the box on the mat.

But before he can decide, the door opens.

It’s her mom.

She blinks, caught off guard for just a second, but recognition settles quickly across her face. Her hair is tied back like it always was, streaked now with more gray than he remembers. Her eyes soften. Her shoulders shift, not quite a sigh — more like an exhale she’s been holding for a while.

“Kinich,” she says. Not a question. Not even surprised. Just his name.

He looks at her a moment longer.

Mualani has her smile.

“Come in,” she says steadily. “You always take your shoes off, don’t you?”

He does. Slips them off by the door and lines them up neatly, like he used to. She waits for him without rushing.

The house smells familiar, though a little less like food and more like something clean and quiet. The furniture hasn’t moved. The photo frames are still in the same places, some slightly tilted on the wall. The ceiling fan clicks softly as it spins. There’s a pair of slippers by the couch that look like they haven’t been worn in a while.

She leads him into the dining room. The table’s already set — two mugs, two plates, a folded napkin resting under a spoon. A bowl of cut fruit sits off to the side, still cold with condensation. Something on the stove gives off a faint, comforting heat.

“I made too much,” she says, adjusting one of the cups like it needs to be straighter. “I always do. He doesn’t finish anything unless I sit down and watch him.”

There’s a softness in her voice that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

She calls for her husband without raising her voice, and a few seconds later, he appears in the doorway, rubbing his hands dry on a dish towel. He’s older than Kinich remembers. A little more hunched at the shoulders. But when he sees him, there’s no pause. He crosses the room and pulls Kinich into a hug without saying a word.

It’s not tight, and it’s not long. Kinich lets it happen. He breathes into it.

When they pull apart, her father studies him for a moment, then says, “You haven’t gotten thinner, have you?”

It’s said plainly, not as a joke, but not as a worry either — just something someone says when they’ve seen you grow up. Kinich almost says you look the same , but swallows the thought. He gives a quiet smile instead.

“I brought something,” he says after a moment, holding a box out with both hands. “Her favorite. I bought one for you two.”

Her mother’s eyes fall to it slowly. When she sees what it is, something changes in her face.

“She always wanted those,” she chuckles. “Even when she was too sick to eat much else. We tried to hide them from her near the end.”

Her voice stays calm, but her hands waver slightly when she reaches out. She takes the box with care and carefully places it on the table.

“Sit,” she says, turning toward the kitchen. “I’ll make tea.”

Kinich doesn’t argue. He takes the seat closest to the window, where the curtain breathes lightly with the breeze. Her father sits across from him, not speaking yet, just watching the steam rise from the pot on the stove.

Then her father shifts, leans back slightly in his chair.

“She used to sit where you’re sitting,” he says, not looking at him. “Always opened that window too wide because she said the house smelled too soapy.”

Kinich doesn’t smile. He doesn’t know what to say to that. So he nods once and rests his hand on the edge of the table, fingers lightly curled, just to keep them still.

“She didn’t tell us how bad it was until it was already…” He trails off. His voice isn’t rough, but it’s thin in a way that makes Kinich look up. “We thought she was doing better. She said she was. Even joked about traveling again and that she wanted to see a whale shark.”

“You’re so much better than that boyfriend she had.”

Her mother’s voice cuts across the room as she enters, setting a bowl of soup down between them. Kinich startles slightly — not from how loud she says it, but from the sharpness of it. She doesn’t say it like a compliment. More like a fact she’s kept quiet too long.

He gulps, caught off guard. “I… don’t know about that.”

“I do,” she says, wiping her hands on a towel. “He was fine, I suppose. Polite. But he didn’t know how to keep up with her. Not the way you did.”

Kinich doesn’t look up right away. He stares at the bowl in front of him, at the steam lifting off the surface. It smells like ginger and something warm, familiar.

“It was a long time ago,” he says, voice low.

Her mother sits across from him, her fingers wrapped around a cup she hasn’t touched. “I know. I just don’t understand why you two had to break up.”

Her husband shifts slightly, but doesn’t interrupt.

Kinich exhales through his nose, slow. “We were young. I think… I think she wanted more than I knew how to give her back then.”

“She never said anything bad about you,” her mother adds. “Not once. Even when I asked.”

He nods, because what else is there to say?

“She kept the letters you gave her,” she continues. “The silly ones. The ones you probably don’t even remember writing. They’re in her drawer. She never threw them out.”

That lands heavier than anything else. Kinich doesn’t answer. He just looks down at the table, at the reflection of the ceiling light warping slightly on the spoon beside his bowl.

“She loved you,” her mother says, softer now. “Even when she moved on. Even when she was with someone else. It wasn’t a secret. Not to us.”

There’s a silence after that, and no one tries to fill it.

Eventually, her father leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. He’s quiet for a moment before saying, “She wouldn’t want you blaming yourself.”

“...I’m not,” Kinich says. But it’s half-true. Maybe less.

He presses his thumb into the curve of the ceramic bowl, grounding himself. The soup’s still too hot to touch, but he doesn’t pull away.

They’re sitting behind the gym, the usual spot after class. The sun’s still out, too bright, too hot. Kinich has his back against the wall, earbuds tangled in his lap, phone out but not playing anything. Mualani’s sitting cross-legged a few feet away, picking at her shoelaces. She hasn’t said much since they got here.

He doesn’t notice right away. He’s halfway through some dumb meme he’s been trying to show her, scrolling too fast.

She interrupts him.

“Do you even like me anymore?”

He glances up, confused. “What?”

“I’m serious,” she says. Her tone isn’t playful. It’s quiet, flat. It sounds like she’s already thought about this a hundred times before asking.

“Of course I like you.” He says it fast, as if pointing out the obvious, like that should be enough for her.

She stares at him. “Then why don’t you act like it?”

He groans, leans his head back against the wall. “Why are you starting a fight over nothing?”

“It’s not nothing,” she says. “You ignore me half the time. You cancel plans without telling me. You forget everything I say. You haven’t asked me how I’ve been in weeks.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is.”

Kinich exhales, slightly annoyed now. “So what? You want me to text you every five minutes? Is that it?”

“I want you to care.” Her voice cracks on the last word. Just barely.

He goes quiet.

She wipes her palms on her skirt, trying to keep her hands busy. “We’ve been together two years, Kinich. Two years. A–And I feel like you still shut down every time something matters.”

“That’s just how I am,” he mutters. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I know. You don’t have to apologize.”

He doesn’t say anything else. He stares at his phone screen like it might save him from having to respond.

She stands up slowly, brushing dirt off her legs. Her shadow falls across his lap.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

He looks up, squinting against the light. “...You’re breaking up with me?”

“I’m tired,” she says. “I feel like I’ve been dating a wall.”

He scoffs, like she’s being dramatic. “Okay. Fine. If that’s what you want. Find someone better.”

She flinches, like the words land harder than he expected.

“That’s not what I want,” she snaps. Her voice catches, then softens. “I don’t want better. I want you to be better.”

“I–I’ve been patient,” she adds. “I waited for you to meet me halfway. I kept thinking maybe next month, maybe after exams, maybe when you’re less tired. And—”

He says nothing. His face is a blank wall.

She nods like that silence is her conclusion. 

“Take care of yourself, Kinich.”

She stares at him for a long second. She’s trying to memorize this version of him — stubborn, unreachable, pretending not to care. Then she turns and walks off across the field.

He watches her go, still leaning against the wall, still pretending he doesn’t feel anything.

He tells himself she’ll get over it. That they’ll talk again in a week. That this isn’t real.

He won’t realize until much later — much too late — that she meant it.

“Let’s just... stop this and go back to normal.”

“She used to come home crying,” she says. “Back when you two were still together.”

Kinich nods, slowly.

“I figured,” he says. “I wasn’t… I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“You were young,” her father says gently. “So was she.”

“I thought I’d get a second chance,” Kinich admits. “At some point. After school. After we figured ourselves out. I really thought we’d circle back.”

“She used to think that too — for a while.”

That sinks in heavier than anything else.

Her father shifts slightly, then adds, “She wasn’t waiting for you. Not in the end. But she forgave you long before that.”

Kinich glances down at the mug between his hands. His fingers tighten slightly around the handle, then loosen.

“…How was her boyfriend?”

The question comes out quieter than he expects.

Her mother doesn’t respond right away. She glances at her husband, then back at Kinich.

“He was kind,” she says eventually. “She didn’t talk about him much, but we sort of liked him at first. He helped around the house. Made her laugh sometimes. He stayed through a lot of the hard parts.”

“...He was?”

His phone rings at 3:12 a.m.

The sound slices through the dark, high and sudden, and for a second, he doesn’t move. Just lies there, confused, one arm over his face, the other pinned under his blanket. The ringtone keeps going. It's not saved in his contacts. Just a number, unfamiliar at first glance, from a city she mentioned once — months ago, maybe.

After the fourth ring, he fumbles for it on the nightstand, barely awake, the screen bright in the dark. He answers on instinct.

“…Hello? Who’s this?”

No response. Just breathing.

He props himself up on one elbow, still groggy. “Hello?”

A sound finally comes through — quiet, muffled, a shaky inhale like someone trying not to cry.

And then, her voice.

“Kinich?”

He straightens instantly, sleep leaving his body all at once. “Mualani?”

She remains silent. Or perhaps she can’t. Her breath falters on the verge of a breath, the kind of silence that tricks someone into thinking they are holding it together and failing miserably instead.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, sharper now. “What happened? Are you in danger? Do you need me to pick you up—”

There’s a moment of silence that stretches on, making him wonder if the call has dropped. But then he hears her voice — not really audible words, just that soft, broken sound people make when they’ve given up on pretending everything’s fine.

“He left,” she says. “I told him about something and he just— he left.”

Kinich’s heart stutters, but he doesn’t quite understand yet. “Wait. Who? Who’s he?”

She breathes out, shaky. 

“M–My boyfriend. I thought he could handle it. I gave him time. I didn’t even tell him everything at first, just the beginning… just what I knew. And he said he needed to think.”

Her voice catches. She swallows.

“And then tonight, he said he couldn’t do it. That he couldn’t be with someone who—” She cuts herself off.

“…Who what?” Kinich asks. He’s fully sitting up now, the blanket falling off his lap, phone pressed tighter against his ear.

“Someone who doesn’t have a future,” she says.

The room is silent except for the soft hum of his electric fan. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know how to. The weight of those words doesn’t land immediately and it lingers for a while. It’s somehow worse because of how calmly she says it.

He opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. All he can manage is:

“…Why aren’t you using your real phone number?”

There’s a pause on the other end. Then she answers, voice soft but laced with a faint, dry humor.

“I didn’t want you to think I was trying to get back together.”

It’s the kind of thing she would’ve said months ago, half-laughing, tossing a joke to deflect something too heavy.

His chest tightens.

“You think I’d care about that right now? Where are you?”

She’s quiet for a moment.

“My room.”

“I’ll come.”

There’s a pause. “Y–You don’t have to.”

“I know. Just let me.”

Kinich lifts the cup with both hands. It’s not hot anymore, but it’s still warm enough to feel good against his fingers. He takes a sip, quiet and unhurried.

He doesn’t usually like tea. But this one’s subtle. Ginger, maybe. Something earthy underneath.

He swallows, then clears his throat gently.

“The tea is wonderful,” he says.

Her mother looks up from her seat across the table, surprised for half a second. Then she smiles.

“I’m glad,” she says. “She used to say it tasted like boiled laundry.”

Her husband huffs softly, not quite a laugh. “She only said that when she was in a mood.”

“Love, she was always in a mood,” her mother murmurs, but her eyes soften when she says it. 

He takes his time finishing the tea, cradling the cup in both hands until it cools down. When he finally sets it down, he lingers for a moment, resting his palms flat against the ceramic surface.

He keeps his eyes on the cup. Then speaks, without looking up.

“Would it be alright if I went upstairs for a bit?”

There’s a pause. Her mother sets her own mug down gently and folds her hands in her lap.

“We haven’t changed much,” she says. “Some of her things are boxed, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to clear it all.”

Her father nods beside her. “You can take your time.”

Kinich nods back and stands. His hands hover at his sides for a moment before he quietly pushes the chair back in, more out of habit than thought.

They don’t follow him as he leaves the room.

The hallway hasn’t changed a bit. It’s still a bit cramped, with faint scuff marks along the baseboards where backpacks used to drag on weekends. He moves slowly, making sure his footsteps don’t echo too loudly. It’s not that anyone has told him to be quiet; it’s just that the silence here feels precious, something he doesn’t want to disrupt.

At the top of the stairs, her door is slightly ajar, with light spilling through the crack.

He reaches for the doorknob and hesitates, his fingers resting lightly against the metal. Then, without making too loud of a sound, he pushes the door open and steps inside.

The room looks almost the same.

He hasn’t been here in a year. Not since she died.

He takes the long way to her house without meaning to.

It’s instinct — the route he always used to take, looping around the side streets, ducking behind the same fence with the loose post, staying out of sight even though no one would really care at this hour. 

When he reaches the corner of her street, he pauses for a second. Not because he’s unsure, but because it’s been a while since he’s done this. The house is dark, her parents probably asleep. Only the porch light is on.

He makes his way across the lawn with care, sticking to the grass and steering clear of the loose gravel on the path. His body remembers the route instinctively — how to shift his weight, where the ground feels softer, and when to pause before reaching the tree. It’s been some time, but that familiar rhythm is still with him. Not really gone at all.

The tree is still there, exactly as it was. The trunk is just as knotted, the bark worn smooth in one spot from years of climbing. 

His fingers trail across it, catching slightly against the grooves. He remembers the first time — how she dared him to sneak in through her window and he tripped over her carpet, crashing into the nightstand so hard he knocked over a lamp. She laughed until she couldn’t breathe, face buried in a pillow, trying not to wake the whole house.

He climbs without thinking, even if it’s slower now. Less graceful than it used to be. The bark scratches the side of his hand when he slips, but he doesn’t stop. He keeps going, pulls himself up onto the branch and crouches low, steadying his weight before reaching for the window.

It’s unlocked.

She actually left it open for him.

The room inside is dark except for the glow of her phone on the blanket. She’s curled on her side, knees drawn in. From here, he can see the tear tracks still drying on her cheeks.

He taps once against the glass.

It’s light, barely audible, but she hears it.

Her head lifts slowly from the pillow, her face caught in the soft glow of her phone screen. She blinks a few times, slow and disoriented, like she’s wondering if this is a dream. Her body doesn’t move much beyond that — not yet. She just watches the window, half-asleep, half-expecting it to disappear.

Her body stays curled under the blanket, barely shifting as she watches him from across the room. There’s no smile, no surprise. Just a tired kind of recognition, like her brain already filled in the gaps before her eyes caught up.

He stays crouched on the branch for a moment longer. Then, carefully, he pushes the window open, bracing a hand against the frame so he doesn’t make too much noise. The hinges creak, but she doesn’t flinch. She just leans forward, instinctively steadying the ceramic pot on the sill as he climbs through.

His feet land soft on the carpet, just beside the nightstand. The air in her room is warm and quiet, filled with the faint scent of vanilla lotion and laundry detergent, like the kind he used to smell on her sleeves when she leaned in close to whisper something during class. Nothing in here looks different. The same tangle of fairy lights. The folded clothes on her desk chair. A half-finished bottle of flavored water on the floor near her slippers.

She doesn’t say anything right away.

Neither does he.

She pulls the blanket up a little, tugging it closer to her chest, and shifts to make space without asking if he’s staying.

“I didn’t think you’d actually come,” she says after a while. Her voice is hoarse, almost calm, but not completely. “It’s late.”

“I know,” he says.

A long pause follows. He finally looks at her — really looks. Her legs are drawn up beneath the blanket, arms tucked in, like she’s still bracing for something. She’s in pajamas, the loose kind she always wore when she didn’t plan on going outside. 

Her hair is unbrushed, strands falling unevenly across her face and shoulders. Her eyes are red. Not from crying just now, but from earlier. The circles beneath them are dark and hollow, carved out by more than just one night of not sleeping. She looks tired in a way he’s never seen before.

“You look like a mess.”

His voice is soft, almost too soft to be teasing, but she hears it anyway. She narrows her eyes, half-offended, half-relieved, and grabs the nearest pillow without breaking eye contact.

“I called you at three in the morning,” she says, “and this is what I get?”

Before he can react, the pillow hits him square in the chest.

He coughs out a laugh. It escapes before he can swallow it down.

“You deserved that,” she mutters, slumping back against the headboard.

“Probably.”

She shifts beneath the blanket and pats the open space beside her — once, then again. The gesture is easy, almost habitual. She doesn’t look at him when she does it. Says nothing. Leaves the offer where it is, between them.

Kinich hesitates.

Not because he doesn’t want to move, but because something about it feels too familiar. It shouldn’t matter. But it does. More than he expects.

She doesn’t say anything else. She looks serious.

And that silence makes it harder to ignore.

He moves toward the space she’s left open and sits beside her, careful not to shift the mattress too much. His hands rest in his lap. He doesn’t look at her right away.

Eventually, her breathing softens, slow and even now, her head still resting against his shoulder. Neither of them moves.

He doesn’t remember what they talked about, or if they even spoke at all. But he remembers touching her hair. Running his fingers through the strands slowly, smoothing them out.

He stays beside her until the light shifts at the window.

He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath.

Kinich runs a hand through his hair, slow and absent, and lets his eyes drift across the room. He doesn’t move much. 

Some things are exactly as he remembers. The bookshelf by the window, still half-full. The cracked corner of the mirror on her closet door. The faded stickers on the light switch she always said she was too lazy to peel off.

Other things have shifted. A few boxes now sit stacked in the corner. The blanket on her bed is folded with too much care. The desk is cleared except for a pen, a small notebook, and a mug turned upside down to dry.

The air still smells faintly like her — something clean and soft, a little floral, a little vanilla, worn into the walls in a way that doesn’t feel deliberate. The kind of scent that stays even after you’re gone.

His eyes settle on the edge of the bed. The sheets are different, but the shape is the same. The slope where she used to curl up. The space she made room for him without needing to say anything at all.

And that’s when he remembers the hoodie.

An old one — dark gray, frayed at the cuffs, the collar stretched from being yanked over his head too many times. He used to wear it everywhere. And then, one week she got sick — sore throat, shivering, curled up in the nurse’s office — and he gave it to her without thinking.

She never gave it back. 

He crosses the room and opens the closet door. Her clothes hang neatly on one side. Sweaters. Uniforms. A few dresses he vaguely remembers her trying on once and twirling in. The smell hits him again — stronger here. Laundry softener. Old perfume. Something warm underneath it all, like sunlight on cotton.

He swifts through the hangers gently, checking each one. He doesn’t find the hoodie.

But on the top shelf, tucked behind a stack of scarves and notebooks, there’s a box.

Cardboard. Light pink. A little worn at the corners. And on the lid, written in pen, are the initials:

K + M.

His breath catches.

He pulls it down slowly, fingers tense around the edges. The lid lifts with the soft pull of tape that was peeled back once before and never stuck down again. Inside — photos, notes, scraps of wrappers, little things she kept without ever telling him. Things he didn’t know she remembered.

But near the bottom, beneath a folded piece of notebook paper with glitter stuck to the corner, he sees two envelopes.

Both sealed. Both yellowing slightly at the edges.

One has his name on it. The other is in his handwriting.

He remembers it now. The lazy afternoon on her bedroom floor, a year into dating, their legs tangled while music played too low to hear the lyrics. She was reading some quiz about compatibility from a teen magazine and halfway through, she looked at him and said:

“Let’s write letters to our future selves. Ten years from now.”

He told her it sounded dumb. She shrugged and ripped a page from her notebook anyway.

“Seriously. Just in case we forget who we were,” she said. “Or something happens. Like, I don’t know. We drift. Or one of us moves away. Or dies dramatically on a boat.”

“Why a boat?”

“Just feels poetic.”

He rolled his eyes, but he wrote one. And when he was done, he sealed it, slid it across the floor to her, and said, “Don’t open it unless something actually happens.”

She handed hers to him too. “Same rule.”

He didn’t think about it again. Not really. Not until now.

He sits down on the edge of her bed, the box balanced on his lap. The envelope with his name on it feels light in his hands. 

It’s sealed, barely. The flap has yellowed a little, but the fold is clean. The way she kept it — tucked away, protected — makes his throat tighten.

He opens it carefully, not all at once. Peels the edge open. He’s afraid of what’s inside. The paper slips free, folded in thirds, creased but untouched. His own handwriting stares back at him — blocky, rushed, half in print, half in script. He remembers sitting cross-legged on her floor, chewing the back of her pen while she filled out some quiz, telling him to stop copying her answers.

The memory is far. The paper is close.

He reads:

Hey.

If you’re reading this, something probably happened. Or maybe you're bored. Or worse, maybe you got nostalgic.

You probably forgot writing this. I almost did, and it’s only been like twenty minutes.

I don’t know what to write. I still have a ton of schoolwork. I probably should’ve picked a different day to do this. 

Anyway.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to a version of me I haven’t met yet. I guess… I hope you're not still as angry as I am now. I hope you figured some of it out.

And uh, I hope you told her the truth, at least once. That you liked how she laughed when she wasn’t supposed to. That she noticed things you didn’t think anyone saw. That being near her made everything quieter. Not in a boring way, but in a way that made it easier for you to breathe in this world.

I hope you told her that.

And if you didn’t, then I hope you remember it now.

Though considering how crappy we can be, we probably might just ruin it.

You’re not Dad, though. You don’t have to become him to survive.

She told me that you can be angry and still be good.

— K

The letter shakes a little in his hand, but he doesn’t fold it yet. His eyes trace the last few lines again, slower this time, like the meaning might change if he reads it differently.

You’re not Dad.
You don’t have to become him to survive.

He sits still for a long time, the paper resting lightly against his thigh. The edges are warm now, creased slightly from where his fingers held on too tight.

He doesn’t know what he expected from an edgy teenager. 

Kinich leans forward and places the letter back in the box. 

His eyes fall to the second envelope.

Her handwriting.

He gazes at it for what feels like an eternity. Not because he’s hesitant, but because he knows that once he opens it, everything changes forever. She’s already gone and this is the last time she’ll speak to him without a past tense in the way.

He picks it up and carefully, he breaks the seal.

Archons, this is long. 

Kinich,

You’re probably rolling your eyes already. Don’t lie! I know that exact face you make.

He smiles to himself. 

I wasn’t going to write one of these. It felt cheesy. A little too romantic. I knew I didn’t have anything to say to my future self even though I suggested such a thing. But then you started writing, and I changed my mind in the end.

I didn’t want to forget this.
I didn’t want to forget you .

If you’re reading this, I hope it’s because we’re laughing about how dramatic I was. I hope it’s been ten years, and we’re still us. I hope you’re somewhere warm, drinking something terrible from a convenience store, and thinking of me. Or better… I hope I’m there with you. I hope we’re still tangled up in each other’s lives, still arguing over dumb things and making up over coffee.

But in case we’re not, in case life does what it always does and turns when no one’s ready, I want you to have this.

Because… I already know I won’t make it.

I don’t say that to scare you. You probably already know, or you will soon. I’m not writing this to talk about the end. You’ve already lived through it by the time you’re reading this.

I’m writing so you won’t forget the middle.

You make me feel safe. When you walked me home and didn’t say much, but stayed close anyway. When you remembered my tea order even though I changed it every week. When you got mad at the guy who cut in front of me in line and then pretended it wasn’t a big deal.

You always noticed.

Even when you pretended not to, even when you acted cold.. you saw me. And you made space for me in that quiet, stubborn heart of yours.

I know you’re going to beat yourself up about things. I know you’ll blame yourself in ways that don’t make sense. So let me say this clearly:

There’s nothing you could’ve done differently and there’s no version of this where you loved me better and I lived longer.

You gave me everything.

And I would’ve married you.

No hesitation. No second thoughts.

I would’ve married you in a heartbeat.

You were home.

I wanted to say more, but it’s hard to fit everything into a letter without making it too heavy.

So I left something else for you.

You’ll know where to find it.

— M

The letter rests in his lap, edges softened from the way his fingers held too tightly without realizing.

He doesn’t fold it nor does he move it and look away.

The room is silent, but it doesn’t feel empty. Something lingers in the air — not her scent, not her shadow, but the way her words settle and stay. Like she’s still here finishing her sentence.

His thumb drags lightly over her name, written in the corner. The ink’s faded just slightly, but it’s still hers. Still careful. Still neat. He remembers the exact way she curved her M’s. Always looping too far, like she was in a rush but still wanted it to look nice.

He closes his eyes.

Her voice is still there in the words. The rhythm of how she would’ve said them. He hears the little laugh she didn’t write. The breath she would’ve taken between thoughts. The pause before the last line.

He leans back slightly, arms loose at his sides, letter still unfolded on his knees.

He doesn’t cry.

He doesn’t speak.

His eyes skim the bottom of the page again. He wasn’t expecting her to write anything else. 

But then, tucked beneath the final line, after her name, after the space where the letter was supposed to end—

P.S. check my laptop! the password is the day we met :)

It’s almost careless, it makes him scoff. A smiley face like she used to doodle on the corners of worksheets.

He stares at it for a long time.

He plugs the charger into the side of her laptop, the cable still looped carefully the way she used to wind it. The screen takes a second to respond. A slow flicker. Then it glows to life.

The log-in field appears.

Kinich types in the password. 0828.

August 28.

His fingers move without hesitation. He doesn’t need to remember what the date means. He’s known it for years.

The desktop fades in gradually. It’s them.

The wallpaper stretches across the screen — it’s a photo he remembers but hasn’t seen in years. She must have set it as the background without telling him.

It’s not framed well. The angle is off. Her face is too close to the lens. His is half-turned, caught in the middle of looking at her. Neither of them is smiling properly. It wasn’t posed. It wasn’t meant to be saved.

But she did.

He’s wearing that hoodie — the old gray one, fraying at the cuffs. Her arm is thrown around his neck. Her hair’s a mess from the wind. She looks like she’s saying something just before laughing. He looks like he’s listening.

There’s nothing extraordinary about it. No filters. No edits. Just the two of them, caught in a moment that lasted longer than they realized.

When his eyes finally drift to the center of the screen, there’s only one folder. No name. No icon. Nothing calling attention to itself. It’s barely a presence at all.

He clicks it.

The folder slowly opens. Inside — a single file.

MOV_0045.mp4

No title. No notes. No instructions. Just the file, sitting there, as if it’s been waiting this whole time for him to be ready — though she must’ve known he never would be. Kinich moves his hand toward the trackpad, but stops just before touching it. 

He braces himself and clicks.

The screen fades to black.

No sound. No image. Just a long moment of nothing — long enough to wonder if it’s broken.

And then the video begins to play.

It starts out crooked.

The camera must’ve been balanced on something — maybe a stack of books or the edge of her desk, and for a few seconds, it wobbles. A soft rustle. The frame goes left, then right, as her hand reaches forward and adjusts the angle. Too close. Too far. She curses under her breath — not loudly, just enough for him to hear the frustration in that way she always muttered when she thought no one was listening.

Then it settles.

She blinks into the lens again, then laughs under her breath — almost like she’s embarrassed to be doing this at all. Her hand rises instinctively to push a strand of hair behind her ear, even though it’s already tied back. Her fingers linger there, brushing the side of her face once before falling back to her lap.

Kinich doesn’t move.

She made this six months before she died.

The thought comes uninvited.

Did she plan this video?

Her voice draws him back.

“Okay. I feel dumb already, and I haven’t even said anything yet…”

She smiles again — soft this time, like it’s just for him.

“I didn’t want to make this too serious. But I guess… there were things I didn’t want to forget to say.”

Kinich leans forward without realizing, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the screen. 

“I know we said we could write letters, and I did. But I wanted to leave something with my voice, too. I didn’t want the last time you heard me to be in a hospital room or over the phone or… whatever. I waited for years until I can make this video because I know I’m running out of time.”

She tucks her legs under herself as she settles, hands resting in her lap. Her smile wavers a little now, like she’s unsure how much to say.

“I don’t know how much I’ve told you. Maybe I was honest. Maybe I wasn’t. I think I was trying to protect you, but… it’s weird how protecting someone can start to feel like lying.”

She pauses, glancing off-screen, as if gathering her words before returning to the camera.

“I’ve had this heart condition since I was born. CHD. They caught it early. Surgeries, tests, all that. I got used to it. Learned how to live around it. Learned how to laugh when people said I didn’t look sick. My parents were so worried.”

A breath.

“And for a while, I was okay growing up. Really okay. I did normal things. School. Surfing. Falling in love with you. You made it easier. Even the bad parts. I was scared all the time, but you made me feel like I could be a person again. Not just someone waiting for the worst thing to happen.”

Her voice dips there — not dramatic, just a little quieter, like it still matters more than she meant it to.

“But it started getting worse. Little things. Fatigue. Chest pain. The kind you don’t talk about unless you want someone to worry. So I, uh… I didn’t.”

Another pause.

“I didn’t want to be the girl you had to take care of. I didn’t want you to look at me like I was fading. So I kept pretending. Even when I knew.”

She runs her fingers over the hem of her shirt, something small to keep her grounded.

“They told me it’d get harder. That there weren’t many options left. And I thought about telling you right away, I did. But I also wanted one more normal week. Then another. And another.”

“I was selfish, maybe. But I wanted to be yours — not someone’s diagnosis. Not someone preparing you for the end.”

A pause. She tilts her head slightly, like she’s picturing him.

“If I’m not there anymore, take Kachina to the ocean. Don’t forget sunscreen. Let her pick the music on the drive. And don’t argue with me, I know you will, but please eat something that isn’t instant noodles.”

She laughs, small and lopsided. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“And um… I was going through my desk the other day and found this dumb old bucket list I made. You remember that? That summer you were obsessed with mint chocolate and I kept making you rewrite your handwriting. I forced you to make one too.”

She exhales through her nose — not quite laughing, not quite crying.

“For me, number sixteen was: ‘kiss someone in the rain without caring who’s watching.’”

A pause. Then softer:

“Number twenty-eight was: ‘get over the fear that I’m too much to love.’”

She holds up the list in her hand. It’s folded, worn at the corners. The camera struggles to focus.

“I think you helped me cross twenty-eight off.”

The screen freezes.

Her hand still raised. The list still in her fingers.

Her mouth half-formed around whatever came next — a thought she never got to finish. Words he’ll never hear.

The silence hums in the room, hollow and too full at the same time. The kind that comes after something irreversible.

Kinich doesn’t move.

The laptop fan clicks once, then slows. The video doesn’t loop. It just stays there — frozen on her face, mid-smile, like she’s still waiting for herself to finish.

He stares at it until his eyes burn, until the breath in his chest starts to ache from holding too long.

Then, slowly, he reaches forward and lowers the screen until it clicks shut.

It’s a little past three in the afternoon when he gets to the hospital.

He’s carrying a paper bag in one hand — two mangoes, slightly bruised from the ride, and a red box of Hello Panda tucked beside them. Her favorites. He’d even checked the expiration date this time, just so she wouldn’t tease him about it again.

The hall smells like antiseptic and overripe fruit from the nurse’s desk. Fluorescent lights buzz faintly overhead. He knows the route by heart now — left at the vending machines, second hallway, room 317.

He reaches the hallway and turns the corner.

And stops.

There are too many people outside her room.

Two nurses. A man in scrubs moving fast. A crash cart wedged near the wall. One of the monitors is beeping — sharp, insistent, shrill in a way that doesn’t match anything he’s ever heard on her floor before.

“She’s crashing— move, we need to—”

The door to 317 is half-open. Someone steps in. Another person steps out. A clipboard clatters to the ground.

He doesn’t register it at first. His brain is still catching up, still trying to convince him he’s got the wrong room, the wrong floor, the wrong moment.

Because he was just here. Two days ago. She was tired, yeah, but she laughed at his dumb story about the kid in the elevator. She was okay.

She was okay.

The bag is still in his hand.

Someone brushes past him — a nurse, maybe — telling someone else to page the attending again.

He moves forward before he thinks about it.

But as soon as he takes a step, someone turns. It’s one of the doctors. Eyes sharp. Hands raised slightly like she’s used to blocking people without touching them.

“I’m sorry, you can’t be in here right now.”

He doesn’t speak.

He looks past her, toward the sliver of the room he can see — machines clustered too close to the bed, wires hanging like overgrown roots, white coats shifting in and out of frame. It’s all going too quickly, he can’t catch up.

 And then, through the gap, he sees it — her hand, small and familiar, curled tight around the bed rail. It holds there for a second too long, knuckles pale with effort, like she’s anchoring herself to the world. 

…Then it slips. Fingers loosen. The hand drops, quietly, without pause or resistance. No one notices. No one catches it. The movement doesn’t stop.

 But something in him does.

He doesn’t remember how long he’s been in the waiting room.

The mangoes are still in the bag, skin warm through the paper. He hasn’t touched them. The box of Hello Panda sits beside him on the bench, the corner still dented. He doesn’t look at it.

No one says anything for a while. He sees nurses move past him, quiet and fast.

Then, finally, someone calls his name.

He doesn’t react at first.

The nurse has to repeat it — softer the second time.

“...You can see her now.”

The walk back to her room feels longer than before. His steps aren’t loud, but they echo. Someone opens the door for him.

She’s awake.

She’s curled on her side, knees drawn slightly toward her chest, a blanket tucked up under her chin like she’s trying to disappear into it. Her shoulders shake in uneven intervals. The sound that comes out of her isn’t loud — it’s the kind of crying you do when you’re already too tired to keep doing it.

She doesn’t see him at first.

He doesn’t speak.

He stands there for a second too long, hand tightening around the bag.

Then he moves to the chair beside her bed.

Very quietly, he says her name.

She looks up.

Her eyes are red. Her lips press together like she’s trying to stop crying but can’t. There’s a small crease in her forehead that wasn’t there last time.

She doesn’t say anything. Just looks at him like she doesn’t believe he’s real.

Then she says, voice cracking: “I thought I wasn’t going to see you again.”

He carries her up the last few steps to the rooftop, arms hooked beneath her knees, her head resting lightly against his shoulder. The stairwell is dim, paint peeling in one corner, and her hospital gown shifts with every movement.

“We could’ve used your wheelchair,” he mutters, adjusting his grip slightly.

“It’s more fun this way,” she breathes, not quite smiling, but close. “I wanted to go up to the rooftop and actually breathe something non-artificial.”

He doesn’t respond, but she feels the quiet huff of air against her hair — almost a laugh, almost not.

At the top landing, he nudges the door open with his foot. The rooftop isn’t much — gray tiles, a low wall, one rusted bench with uneven legs — but there’s air. Light. The kind that doesn’t feel like it’s from a bulb.

He sets her down gently, the way you place something you're scared to drop even though it’s already breaking. She stays close, one hand still loosely curled in the fabric of his sleeve.

“Better,” she says, squinting into the sun. “Smells like dust and rainwater. Still better than floor three.”

He pulls the paper bag out from under his arm and offers it to her without a word.

She peeks inside, then glances up at him.

“You brought mangoes?”

“And Hello Panda,” he says.

“You’re getting soft.”

He sits beside her and starts peeling one, slowly, like he's got all the time in the world.

The mango’s overripe, juice already gathering at the edge of his thumb. The skin slips off in thick golden ribbons, sticky and warm. She watches him with her chin propped on her knee, legs drawn up, blanket still draped over her lap like she forgot it was there.

“You’re doing it wrong,” she says.

He glances at her. “How?”

“You’re wasting the good part near the seed.”

He raises an eyebrow, holding up the half-peeled fruit. “You want to do it, then?”

She reaches out, slow but sure, and takes it from him with both hands. Her fingers are thinner than he remembers. Not shaky — not yet — but tired. The way she holds the mango feels almost careful, like the fruit’s heavier than it is.

“Watch and learn,” she says.

She peels back the rest in one clean motion, then bites straight into it, juice dripping down the corner of her mouth. She doesn’t bother wiping it.

He watches her chew, quietly.

“You didn’t even slice it.”

“That’s for people who don’t know the true meaning of joy.”

A breeze rolls over them, carrying the smell of concrete and something faintly green from the trees beyond the fence. She leans back on her hands, eyes half-lidded against the light. For a second she just breathes.

Then, without looking at him:

“I really thought I was gonna die this morning.”

He doesn’t respond right away.

He’s still staring at the mango peel in his hands. His fingers are stained orange. One drop trails down the inside of his wrist.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “Me too.”

She turns to him.

He’s not crying. He hasn’t even blinked. But his jaw’s tight, and there’s something in his throat that won’t go down.

She nudges his knee with hers.

“You can cry if you want.”

“Not while you’re eating like a gremlin.”

“Wow. Rude.”

But she smiles. Really smiles. Teeth and all, even with mango stuck to her lip.

She’s halfway through the mango when the first drop lands on her wrist.

She blinks at it, then looks up. The clouds are heavier now, darker around the edges. She tilts her face toward the sky like she’s testing something.

Another drop hits her cheek. Then her collarbone.

Then his knee.

They don’t move.

The rain comes in soft at first.

She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing mango juice into the water already sliding down her arm.

“You forgot to check the weather.”

“You said you didn’t want to eat indoors.”

“...Well–”

“And you’d still beg me to carry you upstairs.”

A pause.

The rain starts falling harder. Her hair’s beginning to cling to her neck. His sleeves are starting to drip.

Still, neither of them makes a move to leave.

He leans back on his hands, letting the water hit his face.

She sets the mango peel down between them and tips her head against his shoulder.

“Kind of romantic, huh?” she murmurs.

He glances at her, then away. A second passes.

“We should go back,” he says. “You’re shivering.”

She doesn’t answer right away.

Instead, she moves closer, her temple resting against his shoulder like it belongs there. Her breath is slower now. Rain beads along her lashes, trails down her cheek. She blinks it away like she doesn’t feel it.

“There’s no point,” she murmurs. “Let’s just stay.”

And he doesn’t bother to argue. He stays.

He shrugs off his jacket, though slightly damp, and carefully drapes it around her shoulders before nudging the door open with his foot.

She blinks at him, lips parting like she’s about to say something smart, but thinks better of it.

“Don’t argue,” he mutters.

“Wasn’t gonna.”

She stays dry under the fabric. Or mostly dry. Her hair still sticks to her cheeks in strands, damp from the air, and a few drops trail slowly down the line of her neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his jacket. 

She leans into him, her head finding its place just beneath his jaw. The shape is familiar. Her weight was barely noticeable. But it steadies something in him.

Then, softly, almost like she’s asking for something she doesn’t expect to be allowed:

“Can I kiss you?”

He doesn’t speak.

But she already smells like him — the inside of his jacket carries that scent, faint and familiar, and it’s folded over her like an answer.

He nods once.

She shifts to face him, knees pulled up, a small blanket slipping slightly down her legs. She pushes the wet hair from her face with one hand, the other still tucked in the oversized sleeve. Her eyes search his, but not like she’s looking for permission — like she’s looking for him , the version of him that used to smile easier, softer.

Then she leans in.

The kiss is slow, and it feels like she’s not sure if she has the strength to finish it. Her lips are cool from the rain, and she tastes like mango — warm, sweet, just slightly overripe. He feels her hand rise, gentle, fingers brushing the side of his neck, trying to make sure he’s real. His eyes close when she touches him.

He kisses her back, gentle and uneven. He’s afraid to press too hard. Like he knows if he moves wrong, she’ll vanish. He holds the back of her head lightly, fingers slipping into her damp hair, and tries to remember every detail — the shape of her mouth, the breath she takes in between, the faint tremble in her jaw when she lets go.

She tastes like a life that should’ve been longer.

When they part, she stays close — forehead pressed to his, their noses almost touching, breath shared between them like a secret. She’s shivering now, whether from the rain or the weight of it all, he doesn’t know. But she’s still wrapped in his jacket. Still small in his arms.

She closes her eyes and stays.

He knows this is the closest he’ll ever get to forever.

And it still won’t be enough.

When he carries her back to her room, neither of them says anything about the kiss. Or the rain. Or the mango peel they left on the bench. Her arms stay loosely around his neck the whole way down, her weight warm and steady against his chest. By the time they reach the hallway, her hair’s nearly dry again, his jacket still wrapped around her shoulders.

He sets her down gently on the edge of the bed, pulls the blanket over her legs again. She doesn’t meet his eyes, but she doesn’t move away, either.

Then, as he turns to grab the bag of fruit from the side table, he hears it — a soft rustle. A pen cap clicking. The faint sound of something being scribbled onto paper.

He glances over.

She’s leaned slightly to one side, notebook resting on her knee. Her fingers move quickly, precisely, like she’s done this a hundred times. And then, just as easily, she draws a single line across whatever she just wrote.

One clean strike-through.

He doesn’t want to press and ask what she’s doing. So he turns back toward the mangoes and pretends he didn’t see it.

He didn’t know what it was at first — not really — not until the video. The drawer. The mess she left behind like a map, carefully disordered in only the way she could manage. He’d almost forgotten about it entirely because of how much time has passed.

She never wanted him to read the rest of it. She didn’t need him to.

But when he sees the small, battered notebook in this shared box she left, he reaches for it anyway.

Because before she died in that hospital bed, she asked him for one last thing.

“When you feel better,” she said, “finish my list for me.”

He flips past doodles. Little sharks. Suns with too many rays. A lopsided whale. Notes to herself in the margins like buy tape and tell Kachina the plum story. And then — the list.

The numbers run down the page.

He reads them slowly.

One by one.

Some are crossed out. Thick, messy lines that sometimes loop into hearts or stars. Some have dates beside them. One has "KINICH WAS TOO SCARED!!! :(" scrawled next to it with an angry arrow pointing to Ride the haunted riverboat attraction .

He keeps going. 22. 25. 28.

Then there —
30. Feel okay about disappearing someday.

It has no line through it.

He stares at it for a long time.

His thumb brushes over the ink, as if he could warm it back into life. The line she never crossed out. The one she never got to.

And somehow, that’s what breaks him.

Because she had tried. With all the bright, foolish courage in the world, she had tried. She filled the pages with plans, with little joys and silly dares and impossible places — and still, at the end, this.

He closes the notebook slowly, his hand lingering on the cover.

Then, without thinking, he pulls a pen from the drawer beside her bed. The same kind she used — blue, a little dried out, but it still writes.

Right beneath her last entry, in his small, crooked print, he writes:

31. Find a way to cross off 30.

Downstairs, her parents are waiting at the door.

“You found something?” her mom asks softly, glancing at the notebook, but not prying.

He nods once. “Yeah,” he says, voice quiet. “I think I’ll take this with me.”

Her father doesn't question it. Instead, he steps forward and pulls Kinich into a steady hug. “She would’ve wanted that.”

Her mother follows, arms wrapping around him briefly but tightly. “Take care of yourself,” she says. “Wherever you’re going — carry her with you, but don’t let it weigh you down, dear.”

He nods again.

“Where are you off to?” her father asks.

“Fieldwork post,” Kinich says. “Remote. Quiet. I figured… it might be time for me.”

Her parents exchange a glance. No sadness, no hesitation — only something close to pride.

“Then go,” her mom says. “Go live something she would’ve wanted to hear about.”

As he steps outside, the air is warmer than before — not by much. The wind brushes past him softly, being merciful and less cruel, less sharp around the edges.

Above, the sky is wide and open, and for the first time in a long while, it doesn’t feel like it’s pressing down on him.

He gets into the car, the door clicking shut. The notebook rests on the passenger seat, its cover worn at the corners, the pages slightly bent — like it’s been held too often or not enough. It sits there in silence, same as him.

“...I’ll do the rest for the both of us.”

Because Mualani didn’t fix nor change Kinich. She reminded him that he was whole.

She named things in him that he hadn’t yet discovered,
She called them beautiful before he had the courage to.

While he was still learning the shape of his own shadow,
She spoke to the light he didn’t know he carried. 

His grip tightens around the notebook.

He leans forward, eyes shut, shoulders drawing in as the feeling crests and catches — not a sob, not quite — just enough to shake something loose.

When he lifts his head again, nothing is fixed. But something has changed.

He starts the car. The road ahead is quiet. But something in him feels lighter than before.

The future doesn’t feel so far.

“Thank you, Mualani,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “For giving me another chance.”

If he could turn back time, he wouldn’t change a thing. Not the hard parts. Not even this ending.

Because it was real. Because it was hers. Because it was theirs.

And if the universe ever asked him to live it all again —
in another life, another body, another name —
he knows he’d find her.

And he’d inevitably fall in love with her.

Each time.
Every time.