Chapter Text
Summer always begins in an unusual way. Film, adjusting the lightweight cardigan on her shoulder, feels the warmth in the air with every fiber of her being and opens the windows of her house, which sits above a small roadside pharmacy on the second floor. The pharmacy itself isn’t open yet. Film is waiting for something. She listens to the slow ticking of the clock and inhales exactly three times.
First — dust.
Second — the remnants of last night’s pizza delivery.
Third — something new, something foreign.
Today, it’s the scent of rain. The clouds have been circling the sun for days now, but still, they refuse to weep.
Film’s fingers find the lock faster than her brain can remember that the key is in the right pocket of her skirt, not the left. The metal is cold, even though it’s already early June. As she turns the key, she hears something fall outside. Not glass — something soft. Maybe a box, or maybe someone’s shattered soul.
Film stands in front of the door for a few seconds — photosynthesizing, as Love calls it — then steps back inside, counting her steps. Five to the counter. Three to the left — the light switch. A click, and the lamps above the register hum like bees. She can’t see the light, but she feels its warmth on her face. Or maybe it’s just the remnants of stray sunbeams.
"You moved it again…" she mutters as her cane bumps into the box of lost things.
Her pharmacy is more than just a shop for bandages and pills. It’s a workshop. Here, she and her friend Love fix everything that can be fixed. And what can’t be fixed— they take and transform into something else, something more meaningful. And so, like every morning, Film bumps into the box of those lost things, straightens it, and moves on. It’s routine now, pushed in her brain like the shards of a windshield once were in her eyes.
She takes off her glasses — thick, tinted, without prescription. Just glass. Just a shield. She sets them on the counter as usual and inhales. She smells iodine again, something sterile, safe, familiar. A scent her brain has grown so accustomed to that it no longer registers others. To her, the fragrance of flowers, chocolate, or expensive perfume holds no meaning, no thrill. The smell of glass or rubbing alcohol is far more vivid — because it carries history. It carries people's souls.
Out of old habit, ingrained deep in her bones, she starts rearranging things behind the counter. It doesn’t matter what — only that it’s something Love left there yesterday, as if knowing that morning-Film would feel compelled to organize it all, surrendering to her instincts. Her fingers trace keychains, bandages, cassettes, and scraps of paper. Some are unusually rough — not the kind Love usually brings. Not so empty and torn.
Film freezes at the counter, her fingers still gliding over the trinkets and papers Love brought. The rough texture reminds her of old classroom wallpaper — the same kind she and Love once pressed their paint-dipped hands onto. "Friends forever," Love had written back then. "Till death do us part," Film had added. That gesture had bound their lives — fragile, rough, and seemingly insignificant, like school wallpaper and a box of junk behind a pharmacy counter.
The pharmacy door creaks softly, slow and cautious, as if someone small and barely alive is stepping inside. Probably a ghost, wandering the neighborhood and haunting the residents of nearby houses.
"You’re like a sleepy fly today," comes a familiar voice.
It’s just Love. No one else. Her steps are unmistakable — she always takes a longer stride with her right foot, as if limping, though she’s spent her whole life denying any issues with her legs. Film sees it as a kind of ritual dance, something too dreamy and celestial for ordinary mortals to understand.
Film doesn’t turn around. As if she’s still completely alone.
"You forgot to put away the box of found things. Again."
Love laughs — hoarse and lifeless, like she’s just chain-smoked a pack of her mom’s slim cigarettes. Though neither Love nor Film had ever touched a cigarette in their lives. Never hid behind school like their classmates, never inhaled that acrid smoke. But Love’s voice creaks like the pharmacy door, as if fused to her very core in some strange, magical way.
"And you forgot it’s Tuesday," Love murmurs quietly, as if trying to hide the fact from Film. Or maybe just forgetting, once again, that her friend has lost the lip-reading superpower she’d honed in high school sign language classes.
Film’s fingers — no longer as nimble — find the edge of the counter.
Tuesday.
The day Love brings another trinket for the box of lost things — a book she found in a public mini-library and read aloud in the middle of a busy park, a new tea she concocted by mixing every herb in her kitchen cabinets, or just a funny little thing picked up under a graffiti-covered lamppost.
"I didn’t forget," Film lies, frowning as she inhales the scent clinging to Love. Mint, orange, herbs, spices. That smell is more vivid now, more ingrained in her memory than Love’s face, which in Film’s mind will always be nineteen.
After exactly eight seconds of silence, a warm mug touches Film’s palms.
"Mint. With honey. Like in school," Love says. Her fingers linger on Film’s wrists for a moment — right over the pulse. An old check-in gesture, born from the first injuries, the first surgeries, the first attempts.
As if one was asking:
"You're still alive?"
And the other was answering:
"Yes, still alive."
A code of friendship and support, understood only by their wounded souls.
Film takes a sip. The taste explodes with memories—the hospital room after the accident, when Love sneaked in with a cup of the same tea. "Drink. You have to stay." Nights with open windows, Love lighting fires below the hospital window and leaving keychains on the counters. Days of being hooked to IVs, wheeled into operating rooms. It all feels so close, as if it happened yesterday, not six years ago.
"What are you putting in the box today?" Film asks, cutting off the flood of memories. Her brows furrow slightly, her eyes growing warm in a way that’s uniquely hers — though they remain glassy, lost, as if forever imprinted with the horror of the crash.
Love rustles some paper, shifts her weight, and clears her throat with a childish cough.
"A piece of a mirror. Found it by our door." She places the cold shard in Film’s palm. Film’s fingers immediately close around it, as if trying to warm it, to accept it like a stray kitten. "It’s pretty. Shaped like a heart."
Film runs her finger along the sharp edge. She knows Love is lying — the mirror is ordinary. But this is Love. She always finds a way to make their finds special. Like the day they found a cracked cup by the dumpsters, and Love said, "Look, it’s a map of an unknown country!"
Something in Love’s mind is always more beautiful than reality. In her head, there’s a whole kingdom — filled with magical creatures, tea, sweet-smelling flowers, and an impossible kindness she shares with everyone she meets. It’s baffling. But in a way, it keeps Film alive.
Outside, the rain begins to fall. The first summer rain. The pharmacy fills with sounds — the ticking clock, the rustling of paper, Love’s steady breathing. Ordinary sounds. Living sounds. And with them, the workday begins.
The pharmacy wakes up slowly. Film moves around the counter, navigating obstacles that weren’t there six years ago — the box of broken porcelain mugs by the wall (Love collects them for a mosaic), the stack of medical journals (no one reads them, but Love insists that "the pharmacy has to look professional"), the old radio they only turn on in the evenings. It feels like a ritual. But no — she’s just trying to put everything in its place, arranging the important medicines and first-aid kits on the counter so she won’t have to dig through distant drawers when the first customers arrive.
"It’s Tuesday," Love says, shuffling papers and notebooks, reciting their daily plan — unchanged for years. "So we unpack the delivery and check expiration dates."
Film nods, wrapping her dry hands around the mug. The warmth seeps into her skin, reminding her of other mornings— the school locker room where they hid from class, the hospital room after the accident, their first day in this pharmacy when Love led her by the hand and said, "This is where we’ll live." There’s something more in this warmth than just good tea. Or maybe Film is just losing her mind.
They work in silence. Film sorts pills onto shelves, memorizing their positions by the shape of the packaging and the number of steps from the register. Love fills out inventory logs, occasionally muttering to herself or humming — Radiohead, maybe. Or Joy Division. Film never understood music much. Time in the pharmacy flows slowly, like cough syrup from old glass bottles.
"Remember in school when we…" Love starts when humming gets boring and talking to herself becomes too dull.
"...dyed our hair blue and said it was a chemistry experiment," Film finishes, as if reading her mind. A smug smile spreads across her face — proof that the weird ideas were always hers.
They laugh at the same time, freezing the moment, forgetting everything that came after, everything from the darkest days. Then Love stands and walks to the left — toward the window. Exactly seven steps. The floorboard by the window creaks, groggy and stubborn, as if tortured for hours.
"The rain stopped," Love croaks. Film’s ears perk up. She listens to the world outside and nods when she no longer hears drops hitting the pharmacy windows.
Film steps closer to Love, slowly reaching her hand out of the window. Residual raindrops from the wet roof strike her palm—cold and sharp. Like tears on the day they stood on the school roof and swore they’d only die together.
Love stares at Film in a strange way. Right into her motionless face. Film feels the weight of that gaze—too intense, as if Love is checking for a pulse, for breath.
Still alive.
"You haven’t changed your mind?" Love suddenly asks, so quietly the post-rain silence of the city nearly drowns her out.
Film just smiles and flicks the droplets from her palm. Then, with that same warm, living hand, she finds Love’s small fingers.
Film squeezes them — Love’s left hand is always colder than her right. As if breathing new life into them, trying to reach the nerve endings that haven’t given up yet.
"Never."
And the pharmacy becomes their world again — small, fragile, but theirs. A place where Film doesn’t need eyes, and Love doesn’t have to explain why she sometimes freezes mid-day, staring at nothing. Where Film doesn’t have to justify flinching at male voices, and Love doesn’t apologize for dropping things. Where they can just be. Can live. As long as the other lives.
Love’s fingers tighten around Film’s hand — as hard as she can. Film barely feels it. Suddenly, the pharmacy goes quiet. Too quiet. Film realizes Love has frozen, staring at something.
"What is it?" Film asks, turning her blind eyes toward the sunlight breaking through the clouds.
"Listen—" Love’s voice sounds strange. Unfamiliar, but joyful. Sincere, like she's a child again.
Film leans toward the window, counting seconds by tapping Love’s trembling wrist. And then—
"Are they… singing?"
Film barely hears anything beyond the twang of out-of-tune guitar strings and bright laughter somewhere nearby. But it’s so quiet, as if someone else is sharing secrets, living in their own little world. As if someone else is just like Film and Love.
Then Love nods carefully, as if Film could see it. "Yeah... They are."
Film nods back. As if she really can see. She squeezes Love’s hand tighter, feeling the scar on her wrist—the one from the broken window when they ran from the school janitor.
Film takes a deep breath.
First — dust.
Second — tea.
Third — the orange scent that always clings to Love.
Then she leans even farther, her head past the window frame. It creaks in protest but holds, as if knowing Film is doing this for the first — and probably last — time.
Film freezes, tilting her head toward the sounds. The guitar is out of tune, the strings ring unevenly, slightly melancholic, but not hopeless. As if singing about a better future. Tomorrow will be better than yesterday. And then the laughter… It reminds her of something. Something important. Something alive.
"Tell me…" Film whispers toward Love. She wants to see. And Love is her eyes.
"They’re on the flower shop’s doorstep…" Love speaks slowly, as if solving a riddle. As if there’s something more in the scene before her. "Two girls. One’s wearing glasses, a blue shirt. Holding a guitar—" Her voice cracks. "Covered in stickers and photos, like your school notebook."
Goosebumps prickle Film’s skin. She knows that melody, that guitar. The same one that played from the next hospital room when someone screamed in pain and despair in the sterile halls. The one that helped everyone, even if it sounded a little off…
"And next to her…" Love continues, warmth seeping into her voice. As if she’s seeing something familiar. "Another girl. Also in a blue shirt, but hers is grayish, plaid. She’s drawing in a notebook. So slowly, like she’s deciding where to place the next stroke."
Film smiles. They really do seem familiar.
Suddenly, the guitar strings screech — a sharp, pained sound, as if someone plucked them too hard. The laughter cuts off. Silence. The world stops for a second.
Then the laughter returns, flooding the neighborhood. Film smiles. So does Love. Film can feel it even with her back turned.
Unconsciously, Film raises a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. Even her blind eyes find it too bright. Her fingers tremble as a new sound reaches her — soft, barely there.
"What now?" she whispers, still holding Love’s shaking hand.
Love holds her breath. As if processing information like an old computer.
"She’s… tearing the drawing. But she’s not mad. Just… folding the pieces into something new. Like—"
"—like us with porcelain shards?" Film finishes, laughing softly. Love nods and smiles. It’s as if an inexplicable thread connects them — a lifeline that lets them understand each other even without words, without sight.
Outside, a raindrop falls. Then another. The rain starts again, but now it sounds different — rhythmic, in time with the quiet singing of the girl on the flower shop’s porch. Film imagines droplets sliding down the guitar’s neck, trembling on its grieving strings… And for a moment, it’s like she can see again.
"They’re leaving," Love says, her voice tinged with something like sadness and hope. As if she, too, wanted to listen and watch a little longer. "But… they left something behind."
Film doesn’t ask what. She already knows — tomorrow morning, they’ll find some new trinket by the door. A forgotten guitar string, a pencil, scraps of a torn drawing. A piece of those two strangers who seem so much like Love and Film in spirit. And in a week, a month, a day — they’ll return. They’ll bring the smell of the sea, they'll bright pencils and paints, the sound of tearing paper and ringing strings. And then…
But that’s for later.
For now, Film tightens her grip on Love’s hand, listening as the rain washes away the traces of strangers’ footsteps. Somewhere in that sound is the beginning of a new melody — still quiet, still unsure, but alive.
Film runs her fingers along the wooden window frame. It’s warm, almost breathing. Somewhere deep in that wood, that strange melody still plays — softly, like a half-remembered dream. Somewhere in that wood, the memory of those two strangers, the June sun, and another summer in the Pharmacy will stay forever.
The rain suddenly grows heavier, drumming on the roof like fingers on an old piano. Film understands — all of this is happening for a reason. Or maybe she just wants to believe it.
For now, Film and Love return to work.
For now, they remain within the walls of the old Pharmacy, in a small Thai town, surrounded by warmth, tea, and piles of old, lost things. They’re bound by routine — the kind that heals their wounded souls and broken bodies.
They’re home.