Chapter Text
Highway outside Bangkok. Late afternoon. Golden hour light—the kind that makes everything look cinematic, even impending doom.
The car is a white Honda. Emi's car, technically, but Bonnie is driving. Emi asked her to.
"I can't focus right now." What she meant was I can't look at the road while knowing where we're going.
The manila envelope sits in the back seat like a bomb. No seatbelt. It slides sideways when Bonnie takes a corner too fast.
Neither of them speaks.
The silence has weight. It's been building for months—weeks of one-word answers, of sleeping on opposite edges of the bed, of pretending not to notice when the other cries in the bathroom with the fan on.
Bonnie's knuckles are white on the steering wheel. She stares ahead. Jaw tight.
Emi stares out the passenger window. Her reflection shows the road rushing by, but also her own face—pale, eyes red-rimmed, mouth pressed into a thin line.
She's been like this for 20 minutes. Quiet. But not the angry kind of quiet. Something else.
Her hands are in her lap. Twisting together. Opening, closing, opening again.
Bonnie notices. Bonnie always notices. That's the problem—she notices everything, but stopped knowing what to do about it months ago.
She's probably thinking about what comes next, Bonnie thinks. Who gets the apartment. Who gets the friends. Who gets to say "I told you so."
The bitterness tastes familiar. She's been swallowing it for weeks.
Emi's mouth opens.
Bonnie tenses.
Emi's voice comes out rough—like she hasn't used it in hours, which she hasn't.
"Before we do this..."
She stops. Swallows.
Bonnie waits. The car hums beneath them.
Emi tries again. "I need you to know—"
And Bonnie—exhausted, scared, armor up—cuts her off.
"Don't."
The word hangs in the air.
Bonnie's voice is flat. Tired. The kind of tired that comes from months of the same fights, the same silences, the same hopeless loop.
"Just... don't. We're almost there. Let's just get it over with."
Emi's mouth closes.
Her hands stop twisting.
She turns back to the window.
Something in her chest goes quiet. The words she was going to say—I don't want this. I never wanted this. I love you. Please just fight for me—die in her throat.
Fine, she thinks. If that's what you think of me.
The silence returns. Heavier now.
Bonnie takes a breath. She's already regretting it. The words I'm sorry are right there, on her tongue—but pride is a hell of a drug. Or fear. Or both.
She doesn't say it.
The road stretches ahead.
One second: empty road, trees, the distant blur of oncoming traffic.
The next: a deer. It comes from nowhere.
Not a majestic one. A scruffy, panicked thing, shooting out from the treeline like something's chasing it. Eyes wide. Legs scrambling on asphalt.
Bonnie screams.
Emi screams.
Bonnie wrenches the wheel to the left—and the world becomes a symphony of disaster.
Tires screech. The car fishtails. Emi's hand shoots out on instinct—reaching for Bonnie. The same hand that hasn't held Bonnie's in months.
Their fingers brush.
Then the ice cream truck appears.
It's coming from the side road. A small delivery road, barely visible. The driver never stood a chance. The truck's music box is playing—a distorted, cheerful jingle that becomes a death rattle as Bonnie's car slides directly into its path.
Mister Softee. Of course, Emi thinks, absurdly. We're going to die to Mister Softee.
The last thing she sees is Bonnie's face—terrified, beautiful, reaching back toward her.
Then: metal. glass. Silence.
Bangkok General Hospital. 7:42 PM.
View is running.
Not literally—she's too composed for that. But her heels click against the hospital floor at a pace that borders on undignified, and for View, that's basically sprinting.
She got the call 20 minutes ago.
Car accident. Your client. Emergency contact listed. Please come.
Your client. Bonnie. Bonnie.
View's stomach has been in knots since she hung up.
She rounds a corner and almost collides with someone.
"Sorry, I—"
She stops.
June is standing there.
June—Emi's lawyer. Emi's best friend. View's... colleague. Rival? Friend? It's complicated. They work at the same firm. They've spent the last three months representing opposite sides of the same divorce. They've spent the last three months not talking about how much it sucks.
June looks as wrecked as View feels.
"View."
"June."
They stare at each other.
June speaks first. "You got the call too?"
"Bonnie."
"Emi." June's voice cracks on the name. She clears her throat. "They said... car accident. They didn't say—"
"I know." View's voice is steady. It's always steady. That's her thing. "Have you seen them?"
"Just got here. They're in emergency. I was looking for a nurse, or—"
A doctor appears. Mid-50s, tired eyes, clipboard. He looks between them.
"Family of Bonnie and Emi?"
"Friends," View says. "Lawyers. Emergency contacts."
"Both of them?"
"Yes."
The doctor—Dr. Harrison, according to his badge—blinks. "They have the same emergency contact?"
"They're married," June says flatly. "To each other."
Dr. Harrison looks at his clipboard. Then at them. Then at his clipboard again.
"Right," he says slowly. "Well. They're both stable. Concussions, some minor lacerations, but nothing life-threatening. We're running scans. However..."
He hesitates.
View's stomach drops. "However?"
"They're both showing signs of retrograde amnesia. It's too early to say how extensive, but... they're awake. Confused. Asking questions we can't answer."
June steps forward. "Can we see them?"
Dr. Harrison nods. "Briefly. They're in the same room—we moved them together. They were... insistent."
View and June exchange a look.
Insistent.
That could mean anything.
The door opens.
View walks in first. June follows.
And then they both freeze.
The room is standard hospital issue—white walls, beeping monitors, the smell of antiseptic. Two beds, pushed together for some reason. Bonnie in one. Emi in the other.
They're holding hands.
Not just holding—gripping. Like letting go would kill them.
Bonnie's face is bruised, a bandage on her forehead. Emi has a cut above her eyebrow, already stitched. They look terrible.
They also look... glowing?
Bonnie is staring at Emi like she's never seen her before. Like she's the most beautiful thing in the universe. And Emi—Emi is staring back the same way, tears streaming down her face, smiling so wide it must hurt.
"Oh my god," Bonnie whispers. "You're real. You're here."
"I'm here," Emi whispers back. "I'm not going anywhere."
"I love you." Bonnie says it like a confession. Like a prayer. "I love you so much. I've loved you since—since—" She stops, frustrated. "I can't remember when it started, but I know I love you."
Emi sobs. Actually sobs. "I love you too. I asked you out. I remember asking you out. Did I—did I do it right? Did you say yes?"
"You asked me out?" Bonnie's eyes go wide. "YOU asked ME out?"
"Yes! In the library! After class! You were reading and I—I just—I had to—"
"I said yes," Bonnie says, absolutely certain. "I must have said yes. Look at us. We're here. We're married."
"We're MARRIED." Emi says it like she just won the lottery. "We're married and I don't remember any of it and I don't CARE because I'm married to YOU."
View turns to June.
June turns to View.
Neither of them speaks.
Bonnie notices them first. "Oh! You have visitors." She squeezes Emi's hand. "Teerak, look, it's—" She squints at View. "I know you. You're... View? From... class?"
View's brain short-circuits.
Teerak.
Bonnie just called Emi Teerak.
Bonnie hasn't called Emi Teerak in eight months.
"Bonnie," View says carefully. "What do you remember?"
Bonnie's face scrunches up. "I... we were in class? Together? And Emi asked me out, and I said yes, and—" She frowns. "And then... nothing. It's just blank. Like someone erased a movie after the best scene." She looks at Emi, panicked. "Is that bad? Is that normal?"
Emi squeezes her hand. "Me too. Same blank. I remember asking you out, and then—" She snaps her fingers. "Nothing. Just now."
June finds her voice. "You don't remember anything after that? Anything at all?"
They both shake their heads.
"How long... how long have we been together?" Emi asked with her lovesick smirk.
View and June exchange another look. This one is longer. More desperate.
"You've been together for seven years," View said, the words tasting strange in her mouth.
Bonnie's jaw dropped.
"SEVEN YEARS?!" Emi's eyes went so wide. June instinctively reached for her phone—not to be cruel, but because this was the most genuine expression she'd seen on her friend's face in months. She snapped a photo. Emi didn't even notice.
"Married for two," June added.
"MARRIED FOR TWO?!" Bonnie this time.
They looked at each other. And then it happened—the smirks, the smiles, those heart eyes that View had almost forgotten existed.
"WE'VE BEEN MARRIED FOR TWO YEARS AND I DON'T REMEMBER?!" Emi said, half-panicked, half-delirious with joy.
"Seven years," Bonnie breathed, the numbers settling into her chest like something precious. "I got seven years with you."
"Two years married," Emi whispered back. "I married you. I actually married you."
"I MARRIED MY CRUSH," Bonnie announced to the room, to the hospital, possibly to the entire world.
Emi burst out laughing. "I MARRIED MINE FIRST."
"That's not how it works."
"IT'S HOW IT WORKS TO ME."
They dissolved into laughter. And tears. And holding hands like they'd done it their whole lives—which, View supposed, they had. Just not recently.
View felt like she was watching a nature documentary about a species she'd never encountered. Here we observe the mated pair in their natural habitat: completely oblivious to the last seven years of their existence.
June cleared her throat. "Emi. Bonnie. There's something we need to—"
The door swung open.
A nurse walked in. Mid-40s, done with everything, her expression suggesting she'd already worked a double shift and was running on pure spite.
"Visiting hours end in ten minutes," she said flatly. "Patients need rest."
"But we just woke up!" Bonnie whined.
"Then you need more rest."
Emi cleared her throat, straightened up as best she could in a hospital bed, and pointed at Bonnie with their joined hands. "Can she stay? She's my wife. We're married."
The nurse looked at them. Looked at their hands. Looked at the chart. Her face didn't change.
"They're both patients," she said. "You're staying in the same room. You'll survive ten minutes apart."
She left.
Bonnie turned to Emi, utterly devastated. "Ten minutes without you."
Emi's face crumpled into matching devastation. "I'll count."
"I'll count faster."
View and June were still standing there. Frozen. Witnesses to something they couldn't quite process.
Bonnie noticed them again. "Oh! Right. Sorry. We're being rude." She smiled—a real smile, warm and open, nothing like the tight, exhausted expression View had gotten used to over the last year. "Thank you for coming. You're good friends. I don't remember everything, but I remember... I remember you matter. To me. To us."
Emi nodded vigorously. "Yeah. Thank you. For being here."
View's throat closed. June looked away, suddenly fascinated by the wall.
"Hey, before you go—" Emi grinned, that big smile that made her eyes disappear into happy crescents.
"Can you tell us everything? About the seven years? Our wedding? Our first date? Everything? We want to remember SO BAD."
Bonnie's thumb started drawing slow circles on Emi's hand. "But also don't tell us. We want to discover it together. Like a mystery!"
Emi's eyes lit up. "Ooh, yes. A love mystery."
"We're detectives now," Bonnie mumbled, blushing.
"Hot detectives." Emi giggled, lifting Bonnie's hand to press the lightest kiss against it before winking.
Bonnie's blush deepened. "Who are married."
"To each other."
They giggled. Actual, ridiculous, schoolgirl giggles.
View backed toward the door.
June followed.
They made it into the hallway before either of them spoke.
View leaned against the wall. June stared at the ceiling.
For a long moment, neither said anything.
"They don't remember." June's voice was quiet. Flat. Like she was testing the words to see if they felt real.
"No." View's answer came just as quiet.
"They don't remember the last seven years."
"No."
"They don't remember the fighting. The separation. The—" June's voice dropped. "The divorce papers."
"No."
June was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice had gone soft. Sad. "They think they just got together. They think they're in the honeymoon phase."
"They're holding hands, June."
"I SAW."
The silence that followed was heavy. Loaded with everything neither of them knew how to say.
"We have to tell them." View's expression was conflicted—the words of a lawyer, the face of a friend.
June sighed. A long, exhausted sound that seemed to come from somewhere deep in her bones. Damn it. She should have chosen the medical field. Doctors just had to deliver bad news. They didn't have to decide whether to deliver it at all.
"I know."
"They need to know the truth. About the divorce. About why they were in the car. About—"
"I KNOW."
View looked at June. Really looked. June's face was pale. Her hands were shaking slightly.
"Hey." View's voice softened. "You okay?"
June let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-sob. "No. Are you?"
View considered the question. Really considered it. "No."
"They were so happy." June's voice cracked. "I haven't seen Emi smile like that in a year. A year, View. She's been... she's been so sad. And now she's glowing. She's glowing and she's holding Bonnie's hand and they're calling each other teerak."
View swallowed. "I know."
"We have to take that away from them."
"We have to tell them the truth."
"DO WE?"
View stopped. June was looking at her now. Eyes bright. Desperate. The kind of desperate that came from watching someone you love fall apart and then, inexplicably, miraculously, put themselves back together—only to realize you might have to be the one to break them again.
"Do we HAVE to?" June's voice was urgent now. "They're happy. They're actually happy. For the first time in months. What if... what if we just... let them be happy? For a while?"
View opened her mouth. Closed it.
Ethically? Legally? As a lawyer, she knew the answer. Clear as day. Clear as the divorce papers sitting in that hospital safe.
As Bonnie's friend—Bonnie's friend who watched her cry in office bathrooms, who listened to her whisper "I think she stopped loving me" over and over, who held her while she shook apart after every fight—as that friend?
She didn't know.
"I..." View started. Then stopped.
"Yeah." June's voice was soft now. Defeated. Understanding.
They stood there. Two lawyers. Two friends. Two people who had absolutely no idea what to do next. Down the hall, through the closed door, they heard it. Bonnie's laugh. Bright and real. Emi joining in. A duet of joy that neither of them had heard in far too long.
Then Bonnie's voice—yelling, like she never did, like she'd forgotten how to hold back—cut through the quiet.
"JUNE! VIEW! Before you go—what year is it? We forgot to ask!"
View and June looked at each other.
"I'm not answering that." June pushed herself off the wall and started walking toward the elevator.
"Same." View fell into step behind her.
"We're terrible people."
"The worst." View's voice was barely a mumble.
Through the door, more laughter. Louder this time. Happier. It followed them down the hall, chased them toward the elevator, wrapped around them like a question they couldn't answer.
And somewhere deep in View's chest, something cracked open. Just a little.
What are we going to do?