Chapter Text
By seven in the morning, the penthouse already smelled like lemon and butter.
Light spilled in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, soft and pale against polished concrete and pale wood.
Thirty-two floors below, Bangkok was still stretching awake below—traffic a low, steady murmur, sky a washed-out blue that would turn harsh later. For now, the city felt almost gentle.
Joss stood at the marble island, hands dusted in flour, rolling dough into even sheets. The kitchen was too big for one person, but he moved through it like it was built to his exact measurements: open the fridge, close it without letting the door slam, pivot, line the tray.
He didn’t need the glasses on his nose to see what he was doing. He wore them anyway. Without them, the mirror sometimes showed an edge he didn’t feel.
He cut the dough into neat discs, each one the same thickness, then lined them on the tray with almost obsessive spacing. Not almost. One circle sat a fraction off. He nudged it to match the others, even though no one would notice.
He noticed.
The oven beeped softly behind him. He slid the tray in, checked the temperature again even though he’d already checked it twice, then wiped the already-clean counter with a cloth.
His ring turned under his thumb. Silver, simple, resting against the familiar groove on his finger. He twisted it once, a small, controlled motion, then stilled his hand deliberately.
Enough.
He set a timer on his phone—twenty minutes—and crossed the wide living space to the floor-to-ceiling windows. From this height, the city looked organized. Rivers of cars. Grids of buildings. The river cuts through like a clean line on a page. Patterns.
He preferred it like this.
The penthouse was quiet. His parents were abroad again, as usual; business trips that blurred into each other. That left the place to him and, recently, his sister.
Joss glanced at the closed door down the hall. No sound. If she was awake, she was scrolling in bed with the curtains half-drawn.
He checked the time. If he started showering now, he could be dressed and back in the kitchen just as the cookies needed to come out.
Efficient.
He moved.
The mirror in the bathroom was already starting to fog when he wiped a hand across it. His reflection sharpened: damp hair pushed back, clean jaw, his resting expression that always made him look more annoyed than he was, even if he wasn't.
Without glasses, his face looked… different. Harder. The kind of face people mistook for cold.
He turned the shower on hot, stepped under the spray, and let his mind go blank for exactly sixty seconds.
Then, as always, it tried to fill itself.
Deadlines.
Group projects.
Baking workshop on Saturday—updated ingredients list.
Knoa.
He shut the water off before the list got longer.
When he came back, the timer was blinking on his phone, and the oven had filled the space with warmth. He slipped oven mitts on, slid the tray out, and set it on the cooling rack.
Sixteen lemon shortbread cookies. Edges pale gold, centers lighter. One cracked at the edge; he ate that one immediately. Quality control.
Crisp, soft, just enough lemon.
He exhaled.
Acceptable.
He packed eight into a small white box, lined in parchment. The box looked almost too delicate against his hands; he tied it with thin linen twine, the knot neat and tight.
Then he slung his bag over his shoulder, tucked the box under his arm, and stepped into the hallway.
The penthouse layout was simple: open kitchen and living area in front, their bedrooms down the hallway, doors facing each other. His was half-open, bed made, desk cleared. Hers—of course—was closed.
He hesitated for three seconds, then knocked twice.
"Come in!" her muffled voice called.
He pushed the door open and stepped into organized chaos.
Her room had the same bare bones as his, but everything else was different. Where his room was all clean lines, Knoa’s looked lived-in. Sweatshirt over the back of a chair, a half-open suitcase she’d never fully unpacked, a stack of skincare bottles on the vanity, textbooks stacked in precarious towers on the nightstand, fairy lights half-strung but not turned on.
She sat cross-legged on the bed in an oversized T-shirt, hair twisted up in a loose clip, phone in hand. The glow lit her face, catching on cheekbones they shared and an expression they didn’t—hers softer, more open.
She looked up when he entered.
"You’re domestic again," she said, eyes dropping to the box. "I can smell it from here."
"You say that like it’s a bad thing," Joss said. "Try one and then tell me you don’t need breakfast."
He held the box out. She reached for it, fingers brushing his for a second, warm and familiar. She undid the twine without ceremony.
"You know there are grocery stores for this, right?" she teased, lifting the lid.
"Grocery stores don’t calibrate their ovens properly," he said.
"You need therapy." But her voice went soft when she saw the cookies. "These are cute."
She picked one up, inspected its perfectly round shape with exaggerated seriousness, like she was doing him a favor.
"What’s the occasion?" she asked.
"Tuesday."
"That’s not an occasion."
"It is if you decide it is." Joss watched her take a bite. "How is it?"
Her shoulders dropped a little on the first chew.
"Okay, fine," she admitted around the crumbs. "You win. Worth the early morning neurosis."
He allowed himself a small smile.
"They’re not burned this time," he said.
"You burned them once." She held up two fingers. "Two years ago. You have to let it go."
"It was traumatic," he deadpanned.
She laughed, and the room felt lighter.
Her phone buzzed against the duvet. She didn’t look at it right away, finishing the cookie first, licking a crumb from her thumb.
Buzz.
Buzz.
The screen lit up with each vibration, facedown beside her knee. Joss caught the reflection of a name in the vanity mirror—just a flash, not enough to read—before it dimmed again.
"You’re leaving early today," Knoa said, reaching for a second cookie. "You have studio?"
"Seminar," he corrected. "Then library. Then I need to finalize my prep for Saturday. The baking workshop moved venues."
"Of course you already checked," she said. "Isn’t that three days from now?"
"Yes."
"Normal people panic the night before."
"Normal people burn their cookies."
She made a face, conceding.
The phone buzzed again, more insistent this time. She glanced at it, just for a second, before flipping it over with a quick motion so the screen faced down again.
Joss noticed.
He didn’t say anything. Not yet.
"How’s your semester?" he asked instead. "Still convinced uni was a mistake?"
"The professors talk too much," she said, groaning lightly. "Some of the students talk even more. People here really like hearing themselves ask questions. And there’s always that one guy who thinks reading the first page counts as deep analysis."
"Welcome to higher education," he said. "You’ll adapt."
"You didn't adapt," Knoa replied. "You just learned how to ignore them without looking rude."
"Selective hearing is a skill," he said.
She snorted, but her fingers were still resting close to the phone.
It buzzed a fifth time.
This time, the screen flashed just long enough that he caught three words in the preview before it died: still alive?. A second chat bubble: you’ll be late.
Whoever it was, they were persistent.
"You have an alarm now?" Joss asked lightly.
Knoa followed his gaze, then made a face. "Just a friend."
"A very concerned friend," he said. "It’s not even eight."
"You’re concerned at five in the morning when the oven isn’t preheated properly," she shot back. "You don't get to judge."
"That’s different. The oven can’t text me."
"You stare at it like it might betray you," Knoa said.
He almost smiled.
"Is this friend from your faculty?" he asked.
"No," she said, too fast. Then, more carefully: "Arts. Music, I think."
"What’s his name?" Joss asked.
"Wow," she said. "No warm-up? No ‘how are you, sister I adore’? Straight to interrogation?"
"It’s early," he said. "My social skills start after nine."
She rolled her eyes, but there was a hint of a smile.
"He’s just… someone I met on campus," she said. "We kept running into each other the first week. It stuck."
He.
Joss filed the word away.
"Is he older?" Joss asked.
"Probably," she said. "Why? Are you planning a background check?"
"I was considering a spreadsheet," he said.
Her eyes narrowed.
"You’re not funny," she said.
"I’m consistent," he said.
She knew him well enough to hear what he wasn’t saying.
"He’s fun," she added, like that answered anything.
Fun.
The word landed like a stone in a glass of water, ripples pushing out.
His ring turned under his thumb, once.
"Fun how?" he asked.
"Just fun." She shrugged, trying to sound casual. "Easy to talk to. He makes everything feel less... heavy."
He heard the subtext and let it land.
"Does he know you hate coffee?" Joss asked.
"He thinks it’s a character flaw," she said, amused despite herself. "But he still walks me to the juice bar instead of the café. So yes."
He could already imagine it: some arts boy with a guitar case, teasing her about coffee while buying her pressed juice.
The image slotted neatly into his mind. He disliked it immediately.
"How long have you been talking to him?" he asked.
"A while," she said. "Since orientation. We kept bumping into each other and then… didn’t stop."
A while.
He didn’t like that his stomach tightened.
"Is it—" he chose his words carefully, "—serious?"
She knew exactly what he meant.
"No," she said. "Not like that. He was honest from the start. He doesn’t want anything official right now. No names, no pressure. Just… whatever this is."
She said it like she was quoting.
No names. No pressure.
His thumb pressed hard into the ring before he consciously stopped.
The phrase clicked into place with fun and he and persistent morning texts.
Joss’s jaw worked once before he relaxed it.
"And you’re okay with that," he said. It wasn’t quite a question.
"I’m not stupid, Joss," she said quietly. "I know what that usually means. I’m not expecting a wedding. I just…" She exhaled. "I like talking to him. I like how I feel around him. I don’t have to think ten steps ahead."
That slid under his ribs in a way he didn’t like.
"You say that," he said, "but you’re still expecting me to think ten steps ahead for you."
Her mouth flattened.
"You’re doing it again," she said.
"Doing what?" he asked.
"Turning my life into a risk assessment," she said. "You’re not my advisor."
He went still; the familiar rhythm of their banter knocked half a beat off.
"That’s not what I—" he started.
"It is, a little," she said, but softer. "I know you mean well. You just make me feel like I’m about to get graded."
He opened his mouth, closed it again.
"That’s not what I want," he said.
"Then don’t make every question sound like a test," she replied.
He exhaled slowly.
"I don’t want you to get hurt," he said, stripped of logic.
"I know," she said. "But you can’t stand in front of everything sharp."
Joss let the corner of his mouth twitch. "You know I’m not trying to control you."
"I know," she said. Her gaze softened. "You’re trying to protect me. You just forget I’m not twelve anymore."
He remembered very clearly the twelve-year-old who’d come home with red eyes and a cracked voice, crying over a group chat she shouldn’t have been in. The fifteen-year-old who barely ate for a week. The seventeen-year-old who forced a smile and said she was fine when clearly she wasn’t.
He didn’t say any of that.
"You’re allowed to make questionable choices," he said instead. "Just not ones that wreck you."
"That’s not how questionable choices work," she muttered, but some of the defensiveness had gone.
Her phone buzzed again. This time she picked it up and typed a quick reply, thumb flying.
He watched the way her shoulders eased by degrees.
Joss saw enough to recognize the casual rhythm of it. No name, just a chat window overflowing with short messages.
He didn’t need to see more.
"I have to go," he said, adjusting his bag. "Eat at least two more of those before you leave."
"Yes, sir," she said, saluting him with her phone. "Thanks, Joss."
"Don’t be late," he said.
"Tell that to my friend," she murmured, thumbs moving over the screen.
He stepped back into the hall, closing her door softly behind him.
The sound of her laugh—lighter now—slipped through the gap for a second before the latch caught.
The penthouse felt too big again.
The elevator ride down was smooth and mirrored, his reflection following him from three angles: navy quarter-zip, dark jeans, clean sneakers, bag slung over one shoulder, cookie box in his hand.
He looked like the version of himself everyone expected.
On the ground floor, the lobby staff greeted him with familiar nods. He returned them with his small, standard half-smile. No more. No less.
Outside, the heat was already waking up. He stepped into it, adjusted his glasses higher, and walked.
It was a ten-minute walk to the station. The sidewalks were already full of people chasing schedules—suits, students, a few who looked like they were just now going home.
Street vendors were already hauling carts into position, setting up. Somewhere, a radio played an early 2000s rock song—the guitar line bright even through tired speakers.
He paused for half a second.
Somewhere on campus, apparently, there was a boy who lived in that sound.
He pushed the thought away.
He didn’t know the boy’s name yet.
He just knew three things:
Fun.
Nothing official.
Persistent enough to blow up his sister’s phone before eight.
His ring turned once under his thumb. He flattened his hand against his bag strap.
Control what you can, he reminded himself.
He had a seminar to get through. A Starbucks stop to make. A puzzle to finish. A baking workshop to prepare for.
The rest, he can deal with when it crosses a line.
He hadn’t decided yet where that line started.
But he knew this: if that "someone" became a reason for Knoa to come home with red eyes again, he would not stay theoretical for long.
The Starbucks near campus was already half-full when Joss stepped inside, the line humming with low conversation and the grinding whir of the espresso machines. The smell of coffee hung heavy in the air, hitting him like it always did—too strong, too bitter.
By the time he reached their usual table by the window, there was a ham-and-cheese croissant and a bottle of orange juice waiting for him.
Spencer was already there, headphones around his neck, iPad on the table.
"You’re on time," he said as Joss sat.
"You’re predictable," Joss replied.
"You’re welcome," Spencer replied, then pushed his own iced coffee away from Joss’s side of the table, like they’d done this a hundred times.
They had.
Joss slid the cookie box across.
"You’re enabling my sugar intake," Spencer said.
"You bring me food at ungodly hours," Joss replied. "This is balance."
Spencer opened the lid and inhaled.
"Okay, yeah," he said. "Keep enabling."
They fell into an easy quiet. Spencer opened his iPad, headphones still around his neck, listening with half an ear to some raw track. Joss took out his puzzle book, eyes scanning the partially filled grid.
Spencer wrinkled his nose as he sat down across from Joss, pushing his hair out of his eyes.
He drank his own drink—some iced caffeine monstrosity—and a blueberry muffin, then leaned back, eyes drifting towards Joss's puzzle.
"You’re still on that one?" he asked.
"I finished it last week," Joss said. "I’m redoing it without looking at the picture."
Spencer blinked. "Why?"
"To see if I can."
He considered that, then nodded like it made perfect sense. With Spencer, it usually did.
"Hey," he said suddenly, still looking at his screen. "Have you heard about that band everyone keeps talking about?"
"There are about thirty of those," Joss said.
"The one with the tall guitarist who looks like he’s stuck in 2005," Spencer clarified. "Converse, wired earphones, Snoopy stickers on his instrument. That one."
Joss raised an eyebrow. "That’s specific."
"He was in the studio wing yesterday," Spencer said. "Half the music kids wouldn’t shut up about him. Apparently he’s good. And an ass. In a charming way." He frowned a little. "Zaylee said he’s trouble."
"Zaylee says everyone’s trouble," Joss murmured.
"No," Spencer said slowly. "She likes most people. She just thinks they’re messy. This one she called…" He searched for the word. "A walking red flag with good hair. I think."
Joss’s pen paused over the page.
Fun.
No names.
Red flag.
"What’s his name?" Joss asked, casual.
"Gawin something," Spencer said. "Casey? Cawiskey? I didn’t really listen. I was trying to fix a snare." He shrugged. "You’ve probably seen him around. He’s hard to miss."
The name lodged somewhere behind Joss’s ribs.
He slid his glasses a little higher up his nose and went back to the puzzle, even though the numbers had stopped making sense for a moment.
Theoretical.
For now.
By the time his seminar started, the idea of Gawin—whoever he was—had faded to the background. The business building’s glass façade, the cold lecture hall, the precise lines of text on his tablet—all of it wrapped around him like armor.
Slides. Case studies. Discussion.
He spoke when the professor asked, answered cleanly, dismantled a classmate’s messy argument in three sentences and a diagram. Professors liked him. Classmates depended on him. He met those expectations without thinking about it too much.
Joss will know.
Ask Joss.
What does Joss think?
He didn’t ask for that. He just refused to perform less than what he knew he could do.
After, as the room emptied, Talin jogged up the steps towards him, breath slightly caught.
"Joss. Hey," he said.
"Hey," Joss said. "You’re late."
"My sister borrowed my sneakers and then disappeared," Talin said miserably. "I had to run here in slides."
Joss glanced at his feet. "That’s tragic."
"It is," Talin agreed solemnly. "Are you still going to the baking workshop this weekend? The one in Thong Lo?"
"Yes." Joss zipped his bag. "Why?"
"I got in," Talin said, smile breaking wide. "They had one last slot and my sister pushed me to apply. It’s the same one you showed me."
"Good," Joss said, and meant it. "You’ll like the instructor. She’s strict."
"You say that like it’s a good thing."
"It is," Joss adjusted his glasses. "I’ll send you the updated ingredients list. They changed the flour brand."
"Of course you noticed that," Talin muttered, amused. "Thanks, Joss."
"As long as you read the list, you're good," Joss said.
Talin grinned. "Yes, sir."
They split in the hallway. Talin went right, toward the gym; Joss went left, toward the arts wing, cutting through to the library.
Control was easy here.
It wasn’t until he was crossing campus later—cutting along the edge of the arts complex on his way to the library—that the armor thinned again.
A guitar line floated out from an open rehearsal room, sharp and playful, notes sliding into each other with practiced ease. Laughter followed—unrestrained, bright.
"Again," a girl’s voice said. "Less show-off."
"This is me being humble," a boy answered, laugh threaded through the words.
Joss kept walking.
He didn’t look in.
He didn’t have to.
He just felt, very clearly, that somewhere a few metres away, the theoretical boy had a body.
Long sleeves under a T-shirt, probably. Cool jeans. A guitar.
He thought of Knoa’s screen lighting up. No names, no pressure. A walking red flag with good hair.
He adjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder, straightened, and kept going toward the quiet of the library.
He told himself it was just another sound.
For now, that was still true.
But if there was one thing he’d learned from puzzles, it was this:
Pieces that looked random at first always turned out to belong somewhere.
He just hadn’t decided yet what he was going to do when this particular piece clicked into place.