" You came as early as expected." The guy who'd punched him slid in from behind, hooking an elbow over Yohan's shoulder.
"No need to thank me—I already paid out your gift for being late. Be honored."
"Yeah, Sorry, Danny—I forgot that you never forget bets." A relieved sigh followed.
"It's Daniel! I swear if you called me Danny again."
"My bad, Danny." Yohan replied flatly.
"Okay...You're doomed after the farewell." Daniel walked on, flicking a hand for Yohan to follow. "Let's grab chairs."
Yohan followed Daniel without a second thought.
Then his eyes caught something. His heart skipped a beat. Breath jammed in his throat.The room smeared into blur; his body froze.
'She... F**k! She's here too.'
He tore his eyes away from her and walked faster, chasing Daniel's back like nothing happened.
He sat beside him, and soon the event rolled on.
Speeches blurred together. Games broke out in the crowd. Laughter, dumb skits, dances that actually deserved the claps. In between it all, Yohan caught familiar faces—people he thought time had erased, now resurfacing like memories he never meant to keep.
"You crying?"
Daniel out of nowhere stood in front of Yohan cradling a can of drink.
"Eh… no! What—no way. What are you even saying?" Yohan stammered, caught off guard.
"Haha, I'm kidding bro, you're so easy to prank. Whatever, let's grab something to eat, then we're going somewhere. Farewell's almost over."
"Wait, what do you mean by somewhere?" Yohan asked.
"Just come Yoh, you'll know." A chuckle slipped through Daniel.
"You are not allowed to abbreviate my name by the way." Yohan stared, eyes half lidded with unimpressed face reserved for stupid moments.
They devoured the food with primitive haste, like starving apes from another age, then stumbled outside. Neon was already there—waiting, watching, clearly done with their savage devotion to eating. Yohan tried to ask where they were headed, but the thought never made it out.
Another group of students merged into them, voices colliding, momentum stolen. He was carried along with the crowd, silent, compliant, until a cinema hall rose ahead—bright, glassy.
Daniel finally confessed the scheme—there was a movie planned that he hadn't told Yohan because Yohan would've refused. So he'd dragged him here instead. But there's another reason Yohan followed without questioning anything.
The reason was that person in the group that joined them — wearing a soft pink gown clinging to her—light, flowing, touched with sheer ruffles and faint floral embroidery along the bodice. The skirt fell in layered waves, shorter at the front, trailing behind her steps. Her long black hair curled and spilled down her back, dark and slow, like ink drifting through water.
Everyone entered the hall and settled into their seats. Neon and Daniel slipped into the lower rows without a word, leaving Yohan alone up top, and before he could even process that, the girl he was trying to ignore and at the same didn't want to, climbed the steps and sat right beside him.
His thoughts convulsed. Standing up now would look rude, staying felt dangerous, yet he stayed.
His body went rigid. He started micromanaging himself—how he breathed, how straight he sat, where his hands rested, how much space was acceptable between two strangers. His eyes glued themselves to the massive screen — the movie rolled on, scene after scene. No interval came to save him.
He existed only as tension, fear, and restraint, stuck in that familiar state where he tried desperately not to make anyone uncomfortable, not to be noticed, not to be misread.
To his relief, the movie finally drifted into its last act, where a lone oathless knight—straight out of old fantasies— endured countless trials, stood against a chaotic world and fought an entire empire by himself to reach the one he loved. The story turned heavy, almost cruelly tender, each word and scene pressing on the audience's chest, leaving the hall soaked in quiet, shared heartbreak.
Then a voice—soft, sudden, almost unreal that Yohan just always daydreamed of—cut through his forced stillness, snapping the fragile, self-inflicted trance he always fell into around people he didn't know how to face.
Yohan turned his gaze at her at last, with a boggled face, as if he needed to confirm that the voice he'd heard hadn't been another wish stitched together by his own loneliness.
She was still facing the screen, its shifting light reflected in her eyes, a quiet gleam resting there, accompanied by a faint smile he couldn't decipher.
"I said," she spoke softly, unhurried, "would you come for me like him?" She tilted her chin toward the knight on the screen. After a brief pause, gentle but resolute, she added, "I'll be waiting."
Then she turned to him.
Her eyes met his, warm and unguarded, and in that single moment something long abandoned stirred within him—a fragile, aching hope he had buried.
He barely held the tears at bay, knowing they'd spill—raw and helpless, like a child breaking down after losing a hard-earned treasured toy, or an athlete collapsing into tears when a long-denied medal finally rests in trembling hands after years of quiet suffering and almost-giving-up.
His head had gone blank. He opened his mouth, then halted—caught between hesitation and a frantic search for the right words. Seconds stretched thin. Finally, he mustered his thoughts.
"I… I really want to," he said, voice unsteady. "I want to come for you. I want to—" He faltered, swallowed. "But we both know how inconceivable it is or... I... want to be with you… and I want you to be with me. Yet I don't know... H-how!"
The words came out trembling, fragile—like a child trying to prove his innocence for a crime he never committed.
Without another word, she held his hand firmly and led him to the rooftop terrace while Yohan followed quietly.
They sat on the same bench as the sky faded to pale blue and the sun bled vermillion while sinking between buildings like it was slipping into a hidden seam of the world. Windows caught fire one by one, reflecting the light back in quiet defiance, while long shadows stretched across streets far below. The air cooled, carrying the distant murmur of traffic and life, but up there it felt suspended—timeless. For a moment, the city stopped being loud or cruel or restless.
They watched without speaking, breathing the moment in, as if trying to preserve it somewhere inside themselves.
Yohan knew—quietly, painfully—that this was the best moment he had ever lived. He also knew it would be the last. Somewhere deep within him, the certainty settled that after tonight, they might never meet again.
As the sunset grew softer, more fragile in its beauty, a thought slipped loose. Eyes fixed on the dying light, he whispered, quivering, "...The sunset is beauti—"
"Hey."
She tightened her grip on his hand, sharp and urgent, stopping him mid-breath. He turned. Her eyes were filled with distress and disbelief—as if she were begging him not to say these words.
"I'm sorry...sorry." He spoke with a flat calm, eyes heavy, unfocused and glassy with unshed tears that cling to the lower lids like they're afraid to fall.
She just nodded and smiled gently and slightly uneven, eyes half-lidded and shining, like she's holding onto a warm moment before it fades.
The sun sank and the sky followed, gold fading into violet, then into a deep, endless blue. One by one, city lights awakened below, and the world softened as night settled in—quiet, cool, and heavy with unspoken feeling.
They left the building and reached the wide main road just as a bus hissed to a halt before them. They boarded in silence, without exchanging a word and took the last vacant seat at the back.
Yohan knew it instinctively—once the bus lurched forward and stopped at the next stand, their brief, bizarre story would end there, with no adequate conclusion.
He leaned his shoulder against the cold pane watching the city smear into motion. After a while, she tilted toward him, resting her head on his shoulder, her breathing soon evening out, as if sleep had claimed her.
A thought surfaced in his head—something important, something remembered too late, something he was always willing to ask—but seeing her so calm, he let it sink back into silence.
Carefully, almost reverently, he lifted his arm and let it rest around her shoulders, his palm barely touching his opposite sleeve, as though afraid to disturb the fragile reality of the moment.
He closed his eyes.
After an indeterminate stretch of time, Yohan softly opened his wistful bleak eyes and felt his one arm lay draped across his own weightless, empty, torso.
"F**k these dreams..." A tear slipped down from the corner of his eye — gazing at a familiar ceiling.