Brownish print. Bare sternum. The unmistakable glint of a navel piercing when the light hit just right.
Ling didn't recognize her.
Not consciously.
Her eyes slid past and kept going.
Because if she had recognized her, something inside her would have snapped.
Rhea stumbled slightly, catching herself on the rhythm instead of the floor.
She lifted her glass again.
The liquid burned less now. Or maybe she didn't notice it anymore.
She drank anyway.
Her eyes drifted unfocused, heavy-lidded until they landed on a familiar silhouette.
Tall. Still. Unmoving.
Her breath caught.
No.
Her mind laughed at her.
You're drunk, it told her.
Of course you're seeing her.
Ling Kwong didn't come to clubs anymore.
Ling Kwong didn't stand like that still as a threat, even in a crowd.
Rhea blinked hard.
The figure didn't disappear.
She squinted, leaning slightly to one side, trying to see around a passing group.
The face sharpened.
The jawline.
The posture.
The way the shoulders carried space like ownership even without motion.
For a second, the music dropped out entirely.
Ling Kwong.
Standing there.
Black shirt. Stillness that cut through chaos like a blade.
Rhea's breath caught so hard it hurt.
"No," she whispered, almost laughing. "No way."
Her vision swam. The lights warped. The drink burned down her throat as she lifted the glass again, eyes never leaving Ling.
Hallucination.
That had to be it.
She blinked. Hard.
Ling didn't move. Didn't look around. Didn't look at her.
Rhea's chest tightened.
She laughed again thin, broken. "Great," she murmured. "Now I'm seeing her."
Zifa shouted something near her, but Rhea didn't hear it. She lifted the glass and drank again, faster this time, like she could drown the image.
But Ling didn't disappear.
Rhea's heart began to race panic and longing colliding.
Her mind filled in details her eyes might be inventing:
The way Ling stood like she owned space without trying.
The stillness that made everyone else look frantic.
The familiar distance cold, controlled, devastating.
Rhea shook her head, strands of hair sticking to her cheeks. "You're not real," she told the image silently. "You can't be."
She drank again.
If Ling was a trick of her mind, then fine she would let it play out.
Better that than the truth.
She kept dancing, movements looser now, unanchored. Men brushed past her, hands fleeting, meaningless. Her gaze kept snapping back checking.
Still there.
Ling didn't turn.
Ling didn't notice.
Ling didn't see her.
Which somehow hurt worse.
Rhea's lips trembled as she lifted the glass again, eyes glossy, fixed on the one thing she wasn't supposed to want anymore.
"Stay," she thought bitterly. "If you're fake, at least stay."
She drank until the edge dulled, until the room softened, until the sight of Ling Kwong felt less like a knife and more like a dream she could float inside.
She laughed under her breath broken, disbelieving.
She lifted the glass again and drank longer this time eyes never leaving Ling.
"If you're a hallucination," Rhea whispered, voice lost to the music, "you're cruel."
The glass emptied.
She set it down. Immediately reached for another.
Zifa was nowhere near her now.
The crowd closed in again.
Rhea kept watching.
Ling felt it before she understood it.
That sensation like pressure at the base of her skull. Like being watched by the only person who could unmake her.
Her gaze sharpened slightly, instinct kicking in before reason.
She looked left.
Then right.
Nothing.
Rhea's heart slammed painfully against her ribs.
Across the floor, Ling stood exactly where she was unaware, untouched, oblivious.
The music shifted slower, heavier the kind that pressed into the body instead of asking it to move.
Mira stepped closer to Ling.
Possessively.
Carefully.
Ling felt her before she really registered her warmth at her side, a presence easing into her space the way Mira always did when she wanted something without demanding it.
Mira leaned in, voice low, almost lost to the bass. "You're not even pretending to enjoy this."
Ling didn't answer.
She didn't step away either.
Mira took that silence as allowance.
She reached for Ling's hand first not intertwining fingers, not gripping just guiding. She placed Ling's hand at her own waist, slow enough that Ling could pull back at any second.
Ling didn't.
Her hand rested there, heavy, unmoving.
Mira's other hand lifted, fingertips brushing Ling's jawline, thumb grazing just beneath her cheekbone. Familiar. Controlled.
Their noses brushed barely. An accident that didn't feel accidental.
Ling stayed quiet.
Her face gave nothing away. No tension. No hunger. No rejection.
Just stillness.
From a distance through bodies, lights, distortion
Rhea saw everything.
Her eyes locked onto them as if her body had decided for her where to look.
Ling's hand on Mira's waist.
Mira's fingers at Ling's jaw other on Ling's waist.
The closeness. The ease.
Rhea's breath stuttered.
"Oh," she whispered, the word tearing out of her chest.
This wasn't imagined.
This wasn't a hallucination.
This was happening.
Her vision blurred instantly.
So this was it, then.
She left me.
The thought crashed into her harder than any drink had.
She moved on.
She's comfortable.
She's letting someone else touch her.
A tear slid down Rhea's cheek before she even realized she was crying.
She wiped it away angrily then another fell.
Her chest tightened so hard it felt like it might collapse inward.
Of course it was Mira.
Someone safe.
Someone known.
Someone Ling didn't have to fight herself to be near.
Rhea lifted her glass with shaking fingers and drank again faster, deeper.
The burn didn't hurt anymore.
It barely registered.
Her gaze stayed fixed on Ling like it was punishment she deserved.
Ling wasn't smiling.
But she wasn't stopping it either.
That hurt most of all.
Rhea laughed weakly under her breath. "Wow," she murmured, voice slurred. "That didn't take long."
She drank again.
The room tilted.
Men brushed past her, hands grazing her arms, her back she didn't notice. Didn't care.
Her eyes never left Ling.
Mira leaned closer again, lips near Ling's ear, saying something Rhea couldn't hear.
Ling's head tilted a fraction listening.
That was enough.
Rhea's knees buckled slightly as jealousy ripped through her sharp, feral, humiliating.
More than anger.
More than sadness.
Possession without permission.
Tears spilled freely now, streaking down her face as she swallowed another mouthful of alcohol.
"I'm happy for you," she whispered bitterly, to no one. "Really."
She stumbled as she turned, nearly colliding with someone. Laughed it off. Kept moving.
Another drink appeared in her hand. She didn't remember asking for it.
She drank.
Her steps grew unsteady. Her balance betrayed her.
Behind glass and shadows, Ling stood with Mira quiet, distant, allowing touch without responding to it.
Across the floor, Rhea was unraveling convinced she was watching the end of something she had already lost.
The jealousy didn't fade.
It curdled.
Her tears kept falling hot, unstoppable her chest tight with something too big to name. Anger burned through the alcohol now, sharp and reckless, stripping away the instinct to protect herself.
She didn't want comfort.
She didn't want sense.
She wanted numbness.
A man stepped closer too close. The kind of presence that pressed instead of asked. His eyes lingered where they shouldn't have, his smile crooked with intention.
Normally, she would've snapped.
Normally, she would've shoved him away.
But tonight—
She didn't.
He moved behind her, hands settling at her sides as the music thudded on. His body followed the rhythm, invasive, claiming space that wasn't his.
Rhea froze for half a second.
Then she let it happen.
Not because she wanted him.
Not because she felt anything for him.
Because she was angry.
Because she was drunk.
Because part of her wanted to punish herself for still caring.
He pulled her closer, swaying with her like it meant something.
It didn't.
Tears slid down Rhea's face silently, disappearing into the chaos around her. The lights hid them well. The noise swallowed the sound of her breathing hitching.
Her eyes stared forward, unfocused.
Ling's hand on Mira's waist flashed again in her mind cruel, looping.
So this is fine, Rhea thought bitterly. This is what letting go looks like.
The man laughed near her ear, saying something she didn't hear.
She didn't respond.
She just kept moving because stopping felt worse.
Her shoulders shook slightly, but the crowd didn't notice. To them, she was just another girl dancing too hard, too late.
Inside, something was cracking.
The man leaned in closer.
Too close.
His lips brushed along Rhea's jaw not gentle, not loving, just careless contact born from noise and darkness. His breath was heavy with alcohol, his grip firmer now, possessive in a way that made her chest tighten.
Rhea's tears fell faster.
She didn't wipe them.
She didn't turn away.
Her head tilted slightly only because her body was swaying, not because she welcomed it. Her hands hung uselessly at her sides, fingers trembling as the music thundered through her bones.
Why does it still hurt this much?
She cried silently, shoulders shaking, mascara smudging as the man murmured something meaningless against her skin.
Across the floor—
Ling's gaze drifted.
At first, it was instinct. A scan of the crowd. A habit she'd never fully unlearned.
Then her eyes stopped.
A girl dancing.
Bare midriff catching the strobe lights.
A glint of metal at her navel unmistakable.
The curve of a familiar waist.
Ling's breath stalled.
She couldn't see the girl's face yet hair falling forward, head lowered but something in her chest recognized before her mind did.
Her jaw tightened.
The sight clawed at her for reasons she couldn't name. The piercing flashed again as the girl moved, and Ling's fingers curled slowly at her side.
Why does that—
Her eyes narrowed, focus sharpening despite the chaos.
The man's silhouette behind the girl shifted. Too close. Wrong.
Ling took a step forward without realizing it.
On the floor, Rhea squeezed her eyes shut as another tear slipped free, her heart breaking quietly while the lights kept flashing like nothing was wrong.
Ling stared.
The girl's face finally turned under the lights.
Rhea.
Ling's breath cut off so sharply it felt like being punched from the inside. The world narrowed until there was only that bare waist she knew by heart, the familiar navel piercing catching the strobe, the way Rhea's shoulders trembled not from dancing, but from something breaking.
And the man.
Too close.
Hands where they had no right.
His mouth pressing harder now, careless and forceful, his face buried against Rhea's jaw and neck.