Loop 21 began with a whiteboard.
Lingling had stolen it from her studio. It now lived in her apartment, covered in color-coded marker:
33 – MAX SHARED LOOPS 20 – CURRENT 13 – REMAINING 0 – TIMES WE'VE SAID "I LOVE YOU" OUT LOUD WITHOUT THE TAPE SMOKING
Underneath, in Orm's handwriting:
Goal: make the zero a three before the counter hits 33.
They turned love into a production schedule.
Morning ritual: 9:00 a.m. After You, read notebooks, update whiteboard, kiss in whichever order felt right that loop.
Afternoon ritual: one new experience never repeated. (Loop 21: cooking som tam in Lingling's kitchen until the walls smelled like fish sauce and lime. Loop 22: sneaking into a closed cinema to watch a sunrise that would vanish. Loop 23: getting matching tiny cassette-tape tattoos on their ankles, the artist none the wiser that the design would disappear at reset.)
Night ritual: 11 p.m. check-in. Each person must say one true thing they felt that day.
Loop 24, 11:02 p.m.
Orm: "Today when you both looked at me like I was the only song in the world, I wasn't scared anymore."
Miu: "I'm starting to forget what being alone felt like."
Lingling, voice rough: "I want to wake up tomorrow and still have you both of you. I'm greedy like that."
The tape stayed cool.
Loop 26 they broke the first sub-rule.
They were on the rooftop again, city glittering below like spilled jewelry. Orm straddled Miu's lap, kissing her slow and filthy while Lingling knelt behind Orm, mouth on her neck, hands under the sunflower dress.
The tape in Lingling's pocket began to warm.
They froze.
Miu gently pushed Orm back. "Not yet. Not if it costs tomorrow."
Orm's eyes filled. "I hate this curse."
Lingling kissed the tear that escaped. "Then let's love louder."
They spent the rest of the loop holding each other, fully clothed, whispering every tender, terrifying truth they had.
Loop 28 the counter changed.
Orm wrote in huge letters:
1 – Miu said "I love you" first (to both of us, 3:17 a.m., crying because the moon was beautiful).
Miu was).
Loop 29 Lingling added:
2 – I said it back. Tape stayed cool. I think it's listening.
Loop 30 Orm danced around the apartment screaming:
3 – I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU TIMES INFINITY TAPE DIDN'T EVEN GET WARM WE'RE WINNING
Only three loops left.
They celebrated by buying a blank cassette and recording their voices over the cursed one, three tracks layered:
Orm laughing like summer. Miu whispering "aishiteru" and "rak na." Lingling's low "Drive safe, little ones."
They played it back. The original voices were gone, replaced by theirs.
For one shining hour they thought they had won.
Then the tape erased itself, leaving only leader tape flapping.
The whiteboard gained a new line in Miu's handwriting:
Love is not enough. It has to be simultaneous. It has to be final.
Loop 31 they didn't speak much.
They just held each other in the dark and counted heartbeats.
Loop 32 the city started forgetting their names.
Loop 33 was tomorrow.
They spent the night preparing like soldiers before battle: notebooks updated, Polaroids printed, metal box buried deeper under Wat Arun tree.
At 11:55 p.m. they stood in the record shop where it all began, holding the last three cassettes in a triangle.
Orm looked at the counter.
13 loops ago they had been almost. Now they were everything.
"Ready?" she asked.
Lingling and Miu nodded.
Miu raised the Super 8 one last time.
"Take thirty-three," she whispered to the lens. "No more almosts."
The red light blinked steady.
Outside, the city held its breath.
Inside, three hearts beat in perfect, terrible sync.