Chapter Text
NEVER THE CURE
Sua never meant for it to escalate that quickly.
She had only wanted to warn her.
That was all.
She had asked Mizi to stop smoking, asked her to think about what she was doing to herself, asked her—perhaps too many times, perhaps with too much desperation—to put the cigarette down before it became another thing the industry could take from her.
In Sua's mind, there had been nothing cruel about it, nothing malicious; she was only looking after Mizi, the same way she always had.
The problem was that Sua no longer knew where looking after Mizi ended and controlling her began.
She stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at her own reflection beneath the harsh white light.
The wound on her cheek was still there, faint but unmistakable if someone looked closely, a tender patch of skin left behind by the force of Mizi's palm.
It wasn't deep, but every time Sua's fingers hovered near it, she could still remember the sting.
Mizi had slapped her.
The thought should have angered her. It should have made her furious, should have made her ask herself how Mizi could possibly raise a hand against the person who loved her more than anything.
Instead, Sua simply lowered her eyes and swallowed the ache in her throat, because a small, humiliating part of her knew she had once given Mizi permission to do exactly that.
Ten years ago, perhaps more, Sua had told her that whenever she was angry, whenever she couldn't control herself, she should hit Sua instead.
It had sounded almost harmless back then, something Sua could offer without consequence—a way for Mizi to let out whatever hurt had nowhere else to go.
She had even been happy when Mizi finally did it, because at least she had stopped pretending she felt nothing.
But it hurt.
God, it hurt more than Sua had expected.
She pressed two fingers carefully against her cheek, then immediately pulled them away when the soreness flared beneath her touch.
Her eyes stung, and for a moment she hated herself for being affected by something she had practically invited into their relationship, as though pain stopped being pain simply because she had once asked for it.
Maybe that was the problem with Sua.
She always gave Mizi pieces of herself before realizing that she had nothing left to give.
Her gaze drifted toward the bathroom door, half-expecting Mizi to appear behind it.
Maybe she would come back. Maybe she would sigh, sit beside her, apologize, and let Sua hold her until everything became quiet again.
Sua wanted that so badly that her chest ached with it, but somewhere underneath that desperate hope was a colder realization she could no longer push away.
She didn't recognize Mizi anymore.
Years ago, Mizi had been bright enough to make every room feel warmer.
She had laughed without worrying about whether anyone was watching, smiled until her cheeks hurt, and thrown herself into things with a kind of reckless happiness that made Sua's heart feel unbearably full.
Sua remembered those moments with almost painful clarity—the sound of her laughter, the way her eyes softened when she looked at her, the warmth of being loved by someone who seemed so alive.
Where had that girl gone?
Sua closed her eyes.
Perhaps she hadn't disappeared at all.
Perhaps she was still somewhere underneath everything—the schedules, the cameras, the expectations, the endless pressure to smile when she wanted to scream.
But Sua couldn't reach her anymore, and every time she tried, her hands seemed to close around something that wasn't there.
All she could see was an empty shell wearing the face of the girl she loved.
And somehow, Sua still loved that shell.
That was the most selfish part.
She knew her love had become ugly. She knew it wasn't fair to demand that Mizi remain the same girl she had been years ago simply because Sua had fallen in love with her that way.
Mizi had changed, and she was allowed to change; she was allowed to become tired, bitter, distant, angry, even someone Sua couldn't understand.
But Sua wanted the old Mizi back.
She wanted the golden girl who used to look at her as though nothing else in the world mattered.
She wanted the laughter, the warmth, the softness, the version of Mizi who didn't make her wonder whether she was still loved.
She wanted it so desperately that she had started trying to drag it out of her, piece by piece, until she couldn't tell whether she was saving Mizi or simply trying to resurrect someone who no longer existed.
Sua's fingers curled against the edge of the sink.
Was that love?
Or was it possession dressed up as devotion?
She didn't know anymore.
That uncertainty frightened her more than Mizi's slap ever could.
For so long, Sua had convinced herself that if she loved Mizi hard enough, carefully enough, completely enough, she could somehow protect her from everything that had changed her.
She could be the person who pulled her back from the darkness, the person who reminded her of who she used to be, the person who stayed when everyone else demanded something from her.
But what if Mizi didn't want to be saved by her?
What if Sua was another thing Mizi needed to escape?
Her throat tightened.
She thought about the argument again, replaying every word until they became unbearable. Mizi's voice had cracked beneath the anger, her hands trembling as she gripped her hair.
"What the hell... Are you jealous now that I'm famous?!"
Sua could still see her face.
"We're supposed to be together on this, but why am I the only one...?"
That was the moment Sua had noticed it.
Mizi's eyes had glowed.
For the first time in what felt like forever, there had been something alive behind them. Anger, hurt, frustration—anything was better than that vacant emptiness Sua had grown terrified of seeing.
And even then, even while Mizi was yelling at her, even while Sua knew she had pushed her too far, something warm and shameful had bloomed inside her chest.
She was happy.
Mizi was feeling something.
Mizi was finally showing her something.
How pathetic was that?
Sua had stood there with tears threatening to spill, staring at the girl she loved as though that anger were a gift.
She hadn't even realized how wrong it was until Mizi's expression changed, until the fury drained from her face and left behind something much colder.
"Don't talk to me again."
Then she had left.
And Sua had remained where she was, frozen, listening to Mizi's footsteps disappear.
Now, hours later, the silence felt worse than the argument.
Sua reached for her phone and stared at Mizi's name.
Her thumb hovered over the screen, trembling slightly, instinctively wanting to type Are you okay?—then I'm sorry—then Please come back—then a dozen other desperate things she knew she had no right to say.
She deleted the message before sending it.
For once, she stopped herself.
That realization nearly broke her.
Sua slowly lowered the phone into her lap, staring at the floor as tears finally slipped down her cheeks.
She wanted to chase Mizi, to apologize until her voice disappeared, to beg her to look at her again, but for the first time, she wondered whether loving Mizi meant knowing when to stop reaching for her.
Maybe that was the thing Sua had never learned.
How to stop.
She had never known how to loosen her grip once she had decided someone was worth keeping.
She had held onto Mizi through every change, every argument, every silence, every version of her that became harder to recognize, because the thought of letting go terrified her more than anything else in the world.
And maybe that was her biggest flaw.
Not that she loved Mizi too much.
But that she had forgotten Mizi was a person separate from her.
Sua covered her mouth as a sob escaped, shoulders trembling beneath the weight of everything she had been refusing to admit.
She had spent so long believing that her love could be Mizi's shelter, only to realize that perhaps she had built the walls herself.
Her gaze returned to the mirror.
The girl staring back at her looked exhausted.
She looked small.
And for the first time, Sua didn't see herself as Mizi's protector.
She saw herself as someone Mizi might need protection from.
The thought was unbearable.
Yet somehow, it felt true.
Sua wiped her tears with the heel of her palm, though more immediately replaced them.
She hated herself for thinking it, hated the part of her that still wanted to run after Mizi and beg, hated the selfish little voice screaming that she couldn't possibly leave after loving her for this long.
But another voice, quieter and infinitely more painful, whispered that maybe she had to.
Because Mizi deserved to breathe.
And if Sua's presence had become another hand around her throat, then perhaps the most loving thing she could do was finally remove it.
Even if it destroyed her.
Even if Mizi never came back.
Even if Sua had to spend the rest of her life wondering whether leaving was the final thing she could do for the girl she loved.
She lowered her head and cried silently.
The cure was once her.
Maybe it was time Sua accepted that she could no longer be it.
Sua let out a long, shaky sigh, the kind that seemed to drag everything inside her chest upward before collapsing uselessly from her lips.
Her fingers tightened around the sleeves of her shirt until the fabric twisted between them, and for a moment she thought she might scream, throw something against the wall, anything that could make the unbearable pressure inside her finally break.
But she couldn't do it.
She never could.
So she simply sat there.
Her arms wrapped tightly around herself, shoulders trembling as the first sob tore through her.
Then another followed, and another, until she was crying so hard that breathing became difficult, burying her face against her sleeves as though the fabric could swallow the sound.
She cried like no one could hear her, like she had finally been given permission to fall apart after spending years holding herself together for someone else.
Maybe she needed this.
Maybe she had needed it for a long time.
Just this once.
Please.
She needed to get it out of her chest before it suffocated her.
Her tears soaked into the sleeves beneath her face, warm and embarrassing, and Sua didn't bother wiping them away.
She let herself shake. Let herself whimper. Let herself be miserable without immediately trying to turn that misery into something useful for Mizi.
Because she finally knew what she had to do.
And knowing made it hurt even more.
She had to leave.
The realization settled inside her with a horrible kind of calm.
Was this the price of loving someone so completely that they had become part of the structure holding you upright?
To know that the person you built your entire world around could wake up one day and decide they didn't need you anymore?
Sua's stomach twisted at the thought.
It hurt.
God, it hurt.
She wanted to crawl out of her own heart.
For one delirious second, she imagined tearing herself open just so Mizi could finally see what was happening inside her, as though giving Mizi her own eyes would somehow let her witness the things Sua could never explain.
Look at me, she wanted to scream. Look at what you've done to me.
But the thought quickly turned sour.
Maybe Mizi wasn't refusing to look.
Maybe Sua was simply no longer someone Mizi wanted to look at.
Her sobs quieted into uneven breaths.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed now, staring blankly at the floor as though she had never seen it before.
The apartment around her felt strangely unfamiliar, despite having been hers for so long; the walls, the furniture, the dim light filtering through the curtains—all of it seemed detached from her, like she had been dropped into somebody else's life and forgotten how to leave.
The argument at the park kept replaying.
Mizi's voice.
Her expression.
The anger in her eyes.
The slap.
And finally—
"Don't talk to me again."
Sua's stomach lurched.
She swallowed hard, suddenly feeling sick. Her mouth filled with saliva and nausea climbed into her throat, but she forced it back down, pressing a trembling hand against her stomach.
She didn't want to throw up.
She didn't want to lose control of anything else.
She already felt like she had lost everything.
Sua lowered her head.
Maybe this was it.
Maybe it really was time.
She had promised Mizi she would never leave her.
She had said it so many times that the promise had become almost indistinguishable from her identity.
Through every change, every hardship, every moment where Mizi seemed unreachable, Sua had stayed because leaving had never been an option.
But what if staying was hurting her?
What if Sua's presence had become another weight Mizi had to carry?
Her lips trembled.
And, worse—
What if Mizi didn't even want her anymore?
Sua squeezed her eyes shut immediately.
No.
She didn't want to hear the answer.
She couldn't.
Because if Mizi said yes, if Mizi truly wanted her gone, then what exactly had Sua spent all these years fighting for?
And if Mizi said no...
Then perhaps Sua would never have the courage to leave.
So maybe silence was easier.
Maybe leaving without saying anything would spare them both another conversation that would end with Mizi hurting and Sua begging.
Maybe she could disappear quietly enough that Mizi wouldn't have to watch her fall apart.
She could go somewhere else.
Spain.
The Philippines.
The United States.
Italy.
France.
Anywhere.
It didn't matter.
She could pick a country at random, pack a suitcase, change her number, find a small apartment somewhere no one knew her name.
Somewhere there were no photographs of Mizi plastered across buildings, no advertisements glowing above streets, no posters reminding her that the girl she loved was everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Because staying here would destroy her.
Every street would remind her.
Every billboard would hurt.
Every song would make her wonder whether Mizi was somewhere listening to it too.
And perhaps Mizi would hurt less without her.
Sua laughed once through her tears, but there was nothing happy about it.
"Maybe this is my final act of love."
The words sounded beautiful for half a second.
Then they sounded unbearably selfish.
Her smile disappeared.
Was she really doing this for Mizi?
Or was she simply running because she couldn't stand being unwanted?
Sua stared at her hands.
She knew herself too well.
She could dress this up however she wanted—sacrifice, devotion, protection, love—but underneath all those pretty words was a terrified girl who didn't know how to exist without Mizi.
Maybe leaving wasn't noble.
Maybe it was simply another way of controlling the situation.
If she disappeared first, Mizi couldn't be the one to abandon her.
The realization made her chest tighten.
"Oh..."
The tiny sound escaped her before she could stop it.
That was it.
That was the ugly truth she had been avoiding.
She was still thinking about herself.
Even now.
Even after everything.
She wanted to leave because she wanted the pain to stop.
She wanted to run somewhere Mizi couldn't reach her because she couldn't bear waking up every morning wondering whether she was still loved.
She wanted distance because distance might finally silence the part of her that was constantly begging for reassurance.
How selfish.
Sua covered her face with both hands.
She hated herself for it.
But then another thought came, quieter this time.
Perhaps being selfish didn't mean she had to stay.
Perhaps she was allowed to save herself too.
Her hands slowly fell into her lap.
Mizi had once needed her.
Maybe she still did.
Or maybe that was simply another memory Sua refused to let die.
The person who needed Sua most might have been the Mizi from years ago—the girl who laughed with her, clung to her, trusted her, and promised that they would face everything together.
But that girl had changed.
And Sua had changed with her.
Only she had been too frightened to admit it.
She stared at the empty space beside her on the bed.
For years, she had thought love meant holding on regardless of how badly her hands hurt.
Maybe she had misunderstood.
Maybe sometimes love meant opening your fingers.
Even when every instinct screamed to close them again.
Sua's lips parted, but no words came.
She simply cried again, quieter this time, curling inward beneath the weight of her own decision.
She didn't know where she would go.
She didn't know how long she would stay away.
She didn't know whether Mizi would notice.
And perhaps the most painful question of all was one she refused to answer:
Would Mizi come looking for her?
Sua pressed her face against her knees.
She didn't want to know.
Not yet.
For tonight, she only wanted to let herself grieve the person she loved, the person Mizi had become, and the version of herself that had spent so many years believing that devotion alone could save them both.
Maybe leaving really would be her final act of love.
Or maybe it would be another selfish choice made by a girl who had finally reached the end of what she could endure.
Sua didn't know.
She only knew that she couldn't keep pretending she wasn't breaking.
GOODBYE?
A few hours later, Sua finally made up her mind.
She was leaving—she had to, because if she allowed herself another night to think about it, another hour to stare at Mizi's name and convince herself there was still something worth salvaging, she knew she would crawl back to the same place she had been trying to escape.
The decision sat heavily inside her, not like relief, but like a stone she had swallowed and could feel every time she breathed.
Her bags were already packed.
She had folded every piece of clothing with almost obsessive precision, tucked away the things she knew she would need, and emptied every drawer until there was nothing left for her to come back for.
The apartment had been cleaned from corner to corner, every surface wiped down, every little possession sorted and packed, leaving the rooms strangely bare beneath the dim light.
It didn't look like someone had just decided to leave.
It looked like someone had erased herself.
Sua lay on her bed with her hands resting loosely over her stomach, staring at the ceiling as though it might give her an answer if she stared long enough.
The familiar cracks and tiny imperfections above her suddenly felt important, stupidly so, because she found herself memorizing them without meaning to; perhaps some part of her was already turning this place into a memory.
She swallowed, her throat still sore from crying, and listened to the silence surrounding her.
Two in the morning.
Her phone told her the exact time in the corner of the screen.
The Grab she had requested earlier would arrive in less than thirty minutes, and because ordering a ride at this hour would have been difficult, she had quietly used one of her connections to make sure someone would come.
Everything had been arranged before she had even allowed herself to fully understand what she was doing.
There was no more excuse to stay.
And yet she stayed on the bed.
Sua slowly turned her head toward the phone beside her pillow.
The screen lit up beneath her touch, and immediately, there she was.
Mizi.
Her wallpaper was a photograph of them together, one she had chosen because she remembered how Mizi had complained about it being embarrassing before secretly setting the same picture as her own wallpaper.
The memory came so suddenly that Sua's lips almost curved into a smile, but it disappeared before it could fully form.
She unlocked the phone.
The gallery opened.
Sua froze.
Thousands of photographs stared back at her.
Not literally thousands, perhaps, but enough that it felt like an entire lifetime compressed into little rectangles on a screen.
Every version of Mizi was there—the girl with shorter hair, the girl laughing so hard she had to cover her mouth, the girl leaning against Sua after exhausting rehearsals, the girl who had kissed her cheek while someone behind the camera laughed at how red Sua's face had become.
Her thumb moved slowly.
One picture.
Then another.
And another.
There was Mizi on her first stage, visibly nervous but trying desperately not to show it.
There was Mizi hugging her from behind, her chin resting over Sua's shoulder, both of them looking so young that Sua's chest tightened painfully.
There was one where Mizi wasn't even looking at the camera because she had been looking at Sua instead.
Sua stared at that one for a long time.
She remembered exactly what had happened after the picture was taken.
She remembered the warmth of Mizi's hand.
The way she had laughed.
The stupid little argument they had over what to eat afterward.
How could something so ordinary become something she would someday have to mourn?
Her finger hovered over the delete icon.
She couldn't.
The thought of watching those photographs disappear one by one made her stomach twist. It felt less like cleaning out her phone and more like taking a knife to the only evidence that those years had ever happened.
If she deleted them, would the memories become less real?
Would she eventually forget the exact shape of Mizi's smile?
Would she forget how her voice sounded when she was half-asleep?
Would she forget the way Mizi used to look at her before the world became so complicated?
Sua's eyes filled again.
"No..."
The word slipped from her mouth before she even realized she had spoken.
She was twenty-three.
Twenty-three years old, and she was sitting on an empty bed, unable to delete photographs because she was terrified that moving forward meant betraying everything she had once loved.
She almost laughed at herself.
Almost.
Instead, she opened her cloud storage.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she created a new folder.
Mizi.
She stared at the name.
It looked unbearably simple.
Then she began transferring the photographs.
One after another.
Mizi smiling.
Mizi sleeping.
Mizi laughing.
Mizi kissing her cheek.
Mizi holding her hand.
Mizi looking at her like Sua was the safest place in the world.
Each file disappeared from the phone and appeared inside the folder, safely stored somewhere beyond the reach of the empty gallery she was about to create.
Sua watched the progress bar move across the screen, feeling strangely sick at the absurdity of what she was doing.
She was leaving Mizi.
But she couldn't leave the photographs.
Maybe she would never open them again.
Maybe she would forget the password someday, lose the account, or let the folder sit untouched for decades until it became nothing more than digital dust.
Or perhaps, somewhere deep inside her, she was already imagining herself retrieving them years later, sitting alone in another apartment and staring at the girl she once loved.
That possibility frightened her.
Because it meant some part of her still believed there would be a later.
The transfer finished.
Sua stared at the folder.
Her finger lingered over it.
Then she closed her eyes and deleted every photograph from her phone.
One tap.
Then another.
Gone.
The gallery became painfully empty.
She opened it again, almost expecting the pictures to return.
Nothing.
Her chest tightened.
She had saved them somewhere else.
She knew that.
They weren't truly gone.
But the act still felt like ripping something out of herself and hiding it somewhere she couldn't reach.
What was the point?
Why save them if she was trying to move on?
Why delete them if she wasn't ready to lose them?
Sua rubbed her face with both hands.
She didn't know anymore.
Maybe she was simply too afraid that one day she would regret destroying everything.
Maybe she needed the comfort of knowing that, somewhere, Mizi was still smiling at her.
Even if it was only a photograph.
She changed her wallpaper next.
Mizi's face disappeared.
In its place was a picture of a lop-eared bunny.
Sua stared at the ridiculous little creature.
For a second, silence.
Then a tiny, broken laugh escaped her.
"Seriously?"
Her voice cracked halfway through the word.
She covered her mouth, but the smile was already gone, replaced by that familiar ache crawling back into her chest.
It was almost insulting how ordinary the new wallpaper looked compared to what it had replaced.
Her entire world had just changed.
And her phone had a bunny on it.
Sua shook her head and set the phone down.
Her social media came next.
One account.
Then another.
Then another.
She didn't linger long enough to reconsider.
Every account that connected her to the outside world disappeared from the screen, taking years of photographs, conversations, comments, and fragments of a life with it.
She didn't want to wake up tomorrow and see Mizi's face somewhere she wasn't expecting it.
She didn't want to accidentally see a new interview.
A new photograph.
A new smile.
She didn't want to know whether Mizi looked happier without her.
So she removed herself first.
But there was still one thing.
Her phone number.
Sua stared at it.
Her current number had always been more important than she liked to admit.
Mizi had it, and that had been enough for Sua to keep it all these years; even when she changed phones, even when she changed providers, that number remained because somewhere in her mind it represented a door Mizi could always open.
Hia had given her another number before.
A spare.
One Sua had never bothered using because there had never been a reason.
Now there was.
She took the new SIM between her fingers.
Her hands were suddenly cold.
If she changed her number, Mizi wouldn't have it.
And if Mizi didn't have it, then calling her would become difficult.
Maybe impossible.
That thought hurt.
It shouldn't have.
It was the entire point.
Sua looked down at the screen, feeling an odd emptiness settle over her.
For years, she had been terrified of being unreachable to Mizi.
Now she had deliberately made herself so.
Only one thing remained.
The message.
Sua opened Mizi's contact.
Her name appeared at the top.
Mizi.
Just four letters.
Yet her heart reacted as though someone had reached into her chest and squeezed it.
She stared at the empty message box.
A goodbye letter felt too dramatic.
Too pathetic.
Too much like she was trying to make Mizi feel guilty.
She didn't want that.
At least, she told herself she didn't.
Her thumb hovered over the keyboard.
I'm leaving.
She deleted it.
I'm sorry.
Deleted.
Please take care of yourself.
Deleted.
I love you.
Her finger froze.
She didn't delete it immediately.
For several seconds, Sua simply stared at those three words.
She still loved her.
That was the cruelest part.
Even after the slap.
Even after the argument.
Even after Mizi told her not to speak to her again.
Sua still loved her enough that leaving felt like tearing out something living.
She finally erased the words.
No.
She couldn't make this about love anymore.
Not tonight.
She needed something simple.
Something that wouldn't make Mizi feel responsible.
Something that wouldn't sound like a final desperate attempt to drag her back.
But as Sua began typing, she realized something.
She wasn't entirely innocent in this.
She knew exactly what sending this message would do.
It would give her an excuse to wait.
An excuse to wonder whether Mizi would reply.
An excuse to keep her phone beside her and stare at the screen during the entire journey.
An excuse to hope.
Sua's lips parted slightly.
A faint, almost bitter smile appeared.
"How cunning are you, Sua?"
She whispered it to herself.
She knew what she was doing.
She was leaving, yes.
But she was also leaving the smallest possible door unlocked.
Just in case.
Just in case Mizi realized she was gone.
Just in case Mizi cared.
Just in case those years had meant something to her too.
Sua lowered her gaze to the message she had finally written.
Her thumb hovered over send.
The car would be here soon.
She could still delete it.
She could still stay.
She could still throw the suitcase out of the apartment and crawl back into bed like none of this had happened.
But she knew herself.
If she did that, she would wake up tomorrow and repeat everything all over again.
So Sua took one trembling breath.
And pressed send.
A GAME?
Mizi stayed awake long after the city had gone quiet.
Her apartment was enormous compared to the cramped little house she had grown up in, almost offensively so.
Marble floors, expensive furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a sea of lights—everything she had once dreamed of having when she was younger, everything she had convinced herself would prove that she had escaped that pathetic life she used to hate so much.
And yet, lying alone on her couch at two in the morning, Mizi had never felt more trapped.
The cigarette between her fingers burned slowly.
She took another drag despite herself, letting the smoke settle bitterly in her lungs before exhaling toward the ceiling. Sua had told her not to smoke.
Of course she had. She could practically hear that familiar voice already, gentle at first, then increasingly worried when Mizi ignored her.
Please, Mizi.
Just put it out.
You're going to hurt yourself.
Mizi clenched her jaw.
"Fuck."
She hated this.
She hated the cigarette.
She hated that Sua was right.
Most of all, she hated that she had slapped her.
The memory came back with sickening clarity—the sudden movement of her hand, the sound it made against Sua's cheek, and then the silence afterward.
Mizi could still remember the way Sua had stared at her, stunned, one hand slowly rising toward the place where she had been hit.
That look.
God.
Mizi shut her eyes.
She wanted to take it back.
She wanted to rewind the entire evening, grab Sua by the shoulders before she said anything, apologize before that stupid anger could spill out of her mouth.
She wanted to pull her into her arms and kiss the hurt away like she had done so many times before.
But she hadn't.
Because pride had gotten there first.
It always did.
And besides, Sua wouldn't leave.
Mizi knew that.
She knew it with the kind of certainty that had never once required proof.
Sua would stay.
She always stayed.
No matter how many times Mizi pushed her away, no matter how cold she became, no matter how ugly her words got, Sua always came back.
She would be there the next morning with tired eyes and that painfully soft expression, asking whether Mizi had eaten, whether she had slept, whether she needed anything.
Sua couldn't leave her.
She wouldn't.
The thought should have comforted Mizi.
Instead, something deep in her chest twisted painfully.
Because lately, she had begun to wonder whether that certainty was actually a curse.
Every time Sua looked at her with those worried eyes, Mizi felt something inside herself crack. She wanted to hug her.
She wanted to apologize. She wanted to bury her face against Sua's shoulder and admit that she was scared, that she didn't know who she was anymore, that sometimes she hated the person she had become.
But then that awful pride would rise again.
So instead, she pushed Sua away.
Again.
And again.
And again.
As if hurting her first would somehow prevent Sua from getting hurt later.
It was stupid.
Mizi knew it was stupid.
She told herself she was keeping Sua away because Sua deserved better than this version of her.
Better than someone who had been chewed up by an industry that demanded everything and gave nothing back.
Better than someone who had learned how to smile for cameras while feeling absolutely nothing behind it.
She told herself she was protecting her.
But what kind of protection required hurting someone?
Mizi stared at the cigarette burning between her fingers.
She remembered the way Sua's face had fallen when she yelled at her.
What the... Are you jealous now that I'm famous?!
The words had been cruel.
Crueler than she intended.
And when she saw the tears forming in Sua's eyes, she had wanted to swallow every single word.
Instead, she had made it worse.
We're supposed to be together on this, but why am I the only one...
Mizi's throat tightened.
She hadn't even finished the sentence.
She couldn't remember exactly what she had wanted to say anymore.
Only that she had been angry.
Tired.
Scared.
And then—
"Don't talk to me again."
Mizi lowered her head.
"God, I'm fucking stupid."
She pressed her palm against her forehead.
She could still imagine herself walking back to Sua.
She could practically feel the warmth of her body.
All she had to do was apologize.
Just say I'm sorry.
Just once.
But her pride wouldn't let her.
And perhaps that was the part that frightened her most.
Because underneath all that anger, Mizi knew something she didn't want to admit.
She didn't feel like she deserved Sua anymore.
She had become someone Sua had to worry about constantly.
Someone who made promises she couldn't keep, someone who hid behind cigarettes and rehearsed smiles, someone who kept telling herself she was fine because admitting otherwise would mean admitting how dependent she had once been on the girl beside her.
Mizi had spent years escaping the idea that she needed anyone.
She would not become that pathetic girl again.
She would not.
She'd rather let herself burn than admit she needed Sua to keep her from falling apart.
Mizi stood and walked toward the balcony.
The cold night air brushed against her face as she stepped outside, carrying the stale smoke away from her. She leaned against the railing and stared at the sky, her expression becoming distant.
The cheerful girl was gone.
Or maybe she had been buried so deeply beneath everything that Mizi no longer knew where to find her.
The industry had taken her apart.
Rebuilt her.
Polished her until she was something beautiful enough to sell.
She had learned how to smile on command, how to stand where she was told, how to become whatever the audience wanted to see. Sometimes it felt like she wasn't even a person anymore.
Just a product.
A pretty face.
A voice.
A body that could be packaged and sold.
A breeding money stock.
The thought made her stomach turn.
Yet she had made peace with it.
Because this was still better than being that girl again.
The weak one.
The desperate one.
The girl who needed someone else just to feel whole.
She would rather destroy herself than become dependent.
Especially dependent on—
"Sua."
The name slipped from her lips before she could stop it.
Mizi frowned.
Come to think of it...
Why hadn't Sua messaged her?
She should have.
By now, Mizi expected at least ten messages.
Are you okay?
I'm sorry.
Can we talk?
Something.
Anything.
But her phone had remained strangely quiet.
Mizi stared at the screen.
"How stra—"
A notification interrupted her.
She grabbed the phone immediately.
Sua.
Her profile picture appeared on the screen.
But, what caught Mizi attention was the wallpaper.
It was an old photograph—a stolen one, apparently, because Mizi remembered the exact moment it had been taken.
Sua had been somewhere in the crowd during one of her tours, holding one of the lightsticks she had secretly taken during soundcheck, cheering like her life depended on it.
Mizi stared.
A laugh escaped her despite herself.
"Idiot."
Sua didn't even know Mizi had taken that picture.
She looked adorable.
So painfully, ridiculously adorable.
Her smile was huge, her eyes bright, and there was something about the way she was looking toward the stage that made Mizi's chest ache.
That was the Sua she knew.
The one who looked at her as though she were the most important person in the world.
Mizi's smile slowly disappeared.
How had she managed to hurt someone like that?
How had she taken something so gentle and kept pushing it until it bled?
She hated herself.
She fucking hated herself.
Mizi looked down at the message beneath the photograph.
Her eyebrows knitted together.
What was this?
She opened it.
Sua: "Let's play a game, Mizi ^^. I'm so sorry for upsetting you earlier, and maybe a little game will help ease the tension."
Mizi blinked.
"A game?"
She stared at the message with disbelief.
Seriously?
After everything that happened?
She was sitting here feeling like the worst person alive, and Sua wanted to play a fucking game?
Mizi almost rolled her eyes.
She didn't have time for this.
Then another message appeared.
Sua : "A game of strenght. Well, let's just say... I dare you to ignore me for a week. If you do, I'll have a prize for you. Mhm? You are a good girl after all, please play it with me?"
Mizi froze.
Her face heated instantly.
Her ears turned red.
"...Fuck."
That was exactly what she meant.
This girl had an absurd effect on her.
Mizi could be furious one second, ready to swear she would never speak to Sua again, and then Sua would say something stupidly affectionate and suddenly Mizi would find herself wanting to crawl back into her arms.
"Good girl."
Mizi bit the inside of her cheek.
Why did those words have to affect her so much?
She hated it.
She loved it.
She hated that she loved it.
Her fingers moved before she could overthink it.
Mizi: "Deal. And what's the consequences if I lose?"
The reply came quickly.
Sua: "Oh... Easy. A punishment, of course. But I won't tell you what it is."
Mizi stared at the screen.
A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
Of course.
Of fucking course Sua would make it mysterious.
She shook her head, letting out a quiet laugh as she leaned back against the balcony railing.
"You're unbelievable."
For the first time that night, the tightness in her chest loosened.
Sua was still Sua.
She was still here.
Still teasing her.
Still finding ways to pull Mizi back toward her even after a fight.
Mizi looked at the photograph again.
That certainty returned.
Sua wouldn't leave.
She couldn't.
She had never left before.
So Mizi allowed herself to breathe.
She didn't know that the game wasn't really a game.
She didn't know that Sua had already packed her bags.
She didn't know that the apartment was empty.
She didn't know that her girlfriend was sitting alone somewhere, staring at a new phone number and a suitcase waiting by the door.
And she certainly didn't know that the girl who had spent years promising never to leave had finally reached the point where she was preparing to disappear.
Mizi smiled faintly at the screen.
"One week, huh?"
She had no idea what she had just agreed to.
OUT OF YOU
Meanwhile, Sua stared at Mizi's reply until the words began to blur together.
For a moment, she simply sat there in the back seat of the Grab, her phone resting loosely in her hand, listening to the quiet hum of the engine beneath her.
Then, despite everything, a tiny laugh slipped from her lips—soft, breathless, almost disbelieving.
Of course Mizi agreed.
Of course she did.
That was the cruelest part.
Sua looked down at the conversation again, her thumb hovering over the keyboard.
There were so many things she could have said, so many things she wanted to tell her, but in the end, she only sent a single heart.
Sua : "❤️"
She stared at it after it appeared beneath their conversation.
A tiny thing.
Almost meaningless.
Yet it felt like the last piece of herself she was leaving behind.
Sua locked the phone.
Then she turned it off completely.
Her fingers lingered over the device for another second before she opened the SIM tray. The old SIM card came out between her fingertips, absurdly small for something that had connected her to Mizi for so many years.
She looked at it.
Then slipped it into the pocket of her coat.
The new SIM went in.
With that, the number Mizi knew was no longer attached to her.
Sua leaned her head against the window.
The car continued through the sleeping city.
She didn't know where she was going yet.
That was the strange thing.
She had packed.
She had cleaned.
She had erased her accounts.
She had changed her number.
She had made the decision.
But she hadn't decided where she wanted to end up.
Her passport rested against her thigh, its edges digging faintly into the fabric of her pants. She had brought it almost instinctively, as though some part of her had known that she wouldn't be satisfied with merely moving to another apartment or another part of the city.
She wanted distance.
Real distance.
Somewhere Mizi's name wouldn't be plastered across every street.
Anywhere was better than here.
The city passed outside the window in streaks of light.
Street lamps.
Traffic signals.
Convenience stores that were still open despite the hour.
Office buildings glowing against the darkness.
Advertisements towering above the roads.
And then—
Sua saw her.
She instinctively turned her head toward the window.
Mizi's face covered an enormous billboard.
Perfectly lit.
Perfectly beautiful.
Perfectly untouchable.
Sua stared.
Her breath caught somewhere between her throat and her lungs.
She didn't look away.
The car continued moving, but Sua twisted slightly in her seat, watching the billboard become smaller behind them. Mizi's face disappeared behind another building, then reappeared on another screen further down the road.
Another advertisement.
Another photograph.
Another version of her girlfriend that belonged to everyone.
Sua swallowed.
She wondered how many more times she would see her before she finally left the city.
So she watched.
She memorized.
The curve of Mizi's cheek.
The shape of her lips.
The way her hair framed her face.
The expression in her eyes.
Every tiny detail Sua had already memorized a thousand times over, yet suddenly she was terrified that one day she wouldn't remember any of it.
She wanted to keep looking.
Just a little longer.
The billboard disappeared behind them.
Sua turned her head back toward the road.
Her reflection stared back at her from the darkened window.
Puffy eyes.
Red cheeks.
An exhausted expression.
She barely recognized herself.
"Hah..."
Her breath fogged the glass.
She smiled weakly.
She was going to miss her.
God, she was going to miss her so much.
The realization didn't come with another breakdown this time.
It simply settled inside her.
Heavy.
Permanent.
Like something she would have to carry no matter where she went.
She would miss Mizi's voice.
Her laugh.
Her stupid habits.
The way she complained when Sua nagged her.
The way she used to fall asleep beside her.
The way she would reach for Sua without even thinking whenever she was tired.
She would miss all of it.
And maybe that was the price.
Sua lowered her eyes to the passport resting in her lap.
She had spent so long believing that loving someone meant enduring everything for them.
Maybe she had finally reached the point where she couldn't endure it anymore.
Maybe that made her weak.
Maybe it made her selfish.
Her fingers tightened around the passport.
"Maybe I am."
The words were barely audible beneath the engine.
Maybe she was selfish.
Maybe she was running because she couldn't stand being unwanted.
Maybe she was disguising her own need for escape as some noble act of love.
Maybe she was leaving Mizi because she wanted to spare her.
Or maybe she was leaving because she wanted to spare herself.
Sua closed her eyes.
She didn't know anymore.
And for once, she didn't have the energy to decide which answer was the right one.
The car continued farther into the night.
Behind her, the city grew smaller.
Somewhere in that city was Mizi, probably still sitting on her couch, probably still believing that Sua would be there tomorrow.
That thought hurt.
It hurt more than Sua wanted to admit.
Because Mizi was waiting for someone who had already left.
Sua opened her eyes.
The city lights blurred into soft streaks across the glass.
She watched them disappear one by one.
Maybe someday she would come back.
Maybe she wouldn't.
Maybe she would wake up in another country and realize she had made the biggest mistake of her life.
Maybe she would finally breathe.
She didn't know.
All she knew was that staying had become unbearable.
And somewhere behind her, the girl she loved was waiting for her to come back.
Sua pressed her forehead against the cool window.
"I'm sorry, Mizi."
A pause.
Her voice cracked.
"I really am."
Then she looked forward again.
She didn't turn around.
Not this time.