He woke to the ceiling fan ticking.
The sound was the same one that had spun above him every night since he was a child—metal blades pushing humid air through the dark, the chain clinking against the glass light fixture with each rotation. He knew the rhythm. Knew how many ticks passed before the next clink. Thirteen. Always thirteen.
The room was dark. The door half-open, a stripe of dim light from the hallway cutting across the floor. It caught the edge of his desk, the corner of his mirror, the shoe he'd kicked off before collapsing into bed. He tracked the light without moving his head.
His throat was dry. His eyes felt raw, like he'd been crying in his sleep.
He turned his head slowly, the pillow crunching under his ear, and found Siyh asleep in the desk chair. Her head was tilted back, mouth slightly open, her long black hair falling in a straight curtain past the armrest. She'd pulled her knees up, feet hooked on the edge of the seat, arms crossed loosely over her stomach. She looked small like that. Smaller than she ever let anyone see.
He watched her chest rise and fall.
His hand moved before he told it to—sliding across the mattress, fingers brushing the cold sheet where a body should have been. The fabric was cool. Empty. The indentation from his own weight was the only shape in the bed.
Pond's side was empty.
The ache in his ass was a dull, grounding thing. A reminder of the storage room. The flour dust. Pond's hands on his hips. The way he'd whispered Phuwin's name like it was something he was terrified to lose.
And then the way he'd walked out.
Phuwin stared at the empty sheet. The moonlight striped it in pale lines, bleeding through the blinds, and he watched his own fingers press into the fabric. Cold. Cold. Cold.
He didn't know if Pond was coming back.
The thought sat in his chest like a stone dropped into still water—sinking, slow, sending ripples he couldn't stop. He'd watched Pond leave. Seen his back disappear through the bakery door. Heard the Rolls Royce engine turn over and pull away.
And he'd told his friends about Soònào.
He hadn't said her name out loud in months. Hadn't told anyone the whole truth—not the way she died, not the things he'd said to her, not the last sound she'd made before the line went dead. He'd held it inside his ribs like a locked room, and tonight he'd opened the door and let them see inside.
His chest felt hollow now. Cleaned out. Raw.
He turned onto his back, staring at the ceiling fan as it cycled through its slow rotation. Thirteen ticks. Clink. Thirteen ticks. Clink.
The photo on his desk caught the streetlight—the silver frame Godji had bought at a market years ago, the glass slightly dusty, the image inside faded at the edges. Soònào's smile, unchanged. She was squinting in the sun, her hair blowing across her face, one hand raised to block the light. She'd been laughing when he took it. He remembered. She'd said he was being annoying and to put the camera down, and he'd said she looked like a goblin when she squinted, and she'd thrown a flip-flop at his head.
He remembered.
He remembered everything.
His phone was on the nightstand. Screen dark. Face-down. He reached for it slowly, his fingers finding the edge, pulling it into the space above his chest. The glass was cool against his palm.
He unlocked it. The brightness made him squint, and he lowered it to thirty percent before his eyes adjusted.
Messages. He scrolled without thinking, past the group chat, past Siyh's last text asking if he was okay, past Pond's name— Pond 💪 with a flexed bicep emoji that Taehyung had changed it to as a joke—and kept going. Further down. Older. Buried under years of other conversations.
Soònào🦋
His thumb hovered over the name.
Three years ago. The last thread between them.
He opened it.
The messages loaded in reverse, the most recent at the bottom, and he scrolled up past the fight, past the nice things, past the middle-of-the-night voice notes she'd sent him complaining about a boy who'd ghosted her. He found the conversation they'd had about Hawaii.
His own words stared back at him:
i bought the tickets. i spent my savings. i got something special for both of us and you're just going to say no.
Her reply:
yea.
He remembered the rage that had flooded through him when he'd read that. The heat behind his eyes. The way his fingers had shaken as he typed back.
we couldn't go as children because no one had time for us. i made time. i worked from high school. i made money for you and me to live out our dream and you're just going to walk away. you're so cold. like everyone else.
He remembered sending it. Remembered the satisfaction of hitting send—the vicious little thrill of hurting her back.
His thumb trembled as he scrolled to the very last message he'd sent her.
i hope you fucking suck one of those guys dicks since you're so close and can't spend time with me…. because i'm fucking done with this bullshit.
He bit his lip.
A tear slid down his cheek, catching the light from the screen before it dropped onto his collarbone. Then another. Then another.
He watched them fall. Didn't wipe them away.
His chest hitched once, a sound he couldn't contain, and he pressed his free hand over his mouth to keep the rest inside. Siyh shifted in the chair but didn't wake.
He closed his eyes.
The darkness behind his lids was immediate, total—and then the images came, unbidden, rising like water through a cracked floor.
He was seven. Soònào was ten. They were at the playground near their old apartment, the one with the rusty slide and the swing set where one chain was always a little loose. She'd climbed to the top of the jungle gym and spread her arms wide, declaring that she was the queen of the castle and he was her knight. He'd bowed so dramatically he'd fallen off the platform and scraped his knee. She'd climbed down, kissed it better, and told him knights don't cry.
He was twelve. He'd told her about a girl in his class he liked. Then—Chain, a boy with a gap-toothed smile who'd lent him a pencil. She'd teased him mercilessly, calling Chain his "first crush," and he'd chased her around the living room while she laughed, holding the pencil above her head like a trophy.
He was a baby. Barely walking. He saw himself from above—small, unsteady, reaching for Soònào as she carried him across a room. Godji was there, her hands guiding, her voice warm. Soònào's arms were thin and strong, and she was laughing as he grabbed at her hair.
He was fifteen. He'd taken a photo of her picking flowers in the sun. She'd smiled so brightly it had made his chest ache.
She'd told him he looked more like a lady than a man. That he got all the beauty from their mother. That she was brave and strong and so beautiful. He'd rolled his eyes and said she was being dramatic, but he'd saved the voice note. Still had it somewhere.
The images shifted. The light changed.
He was twenty. They were screaming at each other through the phone. His voice was raw, his throat burning. He couldn't remember what started it—something small, something stupid, something that had built and built until the only thing left was the need to hurt her.
He cursed at her. Told her to fucking die. Told her to fall into the depths of hell.
Not even two minutes later—
He heard it.
He heard it in the dark behind his eyes, the way he always heard it, the way he would hear it for the rest of his life.
Her scream. A car screeching. The sound of impact—heavy, wet, final. Bones cracking. Her phone hitting concrete. Gasping. Coughing. Her cries. Her screaming his name. Spitting blood. Bones snapping. Her voice breaking as she begged for the people beating and kicking her to stop. Saying it hurts. Saying it hurts so much.
And then nothing.
He'd sat in his room. Fuming. He'd thought she was playing around again—faking, the way she sometimes did when she wanted him to feel bad. He'd called her name into the phone. No answer.
He remembered the silence stretching. Remembered the slow crawl of realization.
He'd checked her location. A street thirty minutes from Godji's house.
He'd ridden his bike, cursing under his breath, convincing himself she was fine, she was fine, she was just being dramatic, he was so fucking tired of her playing in his face like a bitch.
He'd stopped the bike. Jumped off. Screamed her name.
He saw her body.
Bloody. Cuts. Her neck broken, her head at an angle that was wrong in every way that mattered. Her phone cracked on the street. Her bag on the other side. Her leg snapped, ripped in half but not fully off, the bone visible in the streetlight. Her long hair bloodied and matted, sticking to her clothes and her skin.
He'd screamed. He'd fallen to his knees. He'd tried to touch her face and pulled his hand back red.
Godji had come. She'd called the police. She'd held him while he shook, while he cried, while he tried to crawl toward his sister's body and couldn't make his legs work. She'd kissed his head over and over, saying she was sorry, she was scared, she was sad too. Her hands had trembled against his back.
He'd sat on the street until the ambulance came, and then the police, and then the people who took her away. He'd sat until his legs went numb and his voice went hoarse and there was nothing left inside him but a cold, empty silence.
He opened his eyes.
The ceiling fan. Thirteen ticks. Clink.
His breathing was heavy, uneven, his chest rising and falling like he'd been running. The phone was still in his hand, the screen still open to the messages. He stared at his last words to her— i hope you fucking suck one of those guys dicks —and felt the tear tracks cool on his cheeks.
He closed the app. Didn't look at anything else. His thumb moved on its own, opening the photo gallery, scrolling past the screenshots and the memes and the pictures of food until he found it.
The photo from their date. Him and Pond, kissing.
He'd taken it himself, holding his phone out, capturing the moment their lips met in front of Godji's bakery. The streetlight had caught them both—Pond's jaw, his closed eyes, the way his hand had cupped Phuwin's cheek. Phuwin remembered the kiss. Remembered the warmth. Remembered thinking, this is real. this is happening. this is mine.
He stared at it now. At the version of himself who didn't know what was coming. Who didn't know about Dice, or the messages, or the way Pond would walk out hours later without looking back.
He pressed the phone to his chest.
The screen was warm. His heart beat against the glass—fast, uneven, too loud in the quiet room.
He sniffled, the sound swallowed by the fan's hum. His breath came in shaky pulls, each one catching somewhere in his throat. He didn't wipe his face. He let the tears fall, soaking into his pillow, tracking down his temples into his hair.
The room was quiet. Siyh's breathing, slow and even. Santa's somewhere deeper in the house. Tai and Jungkook on the floor, their shapes barely visible in the dark.
He had told them tonight. He had opened the door and let them see.
And Pond had walked out before he could.
The thought hit him again— I don't know if he's coming back —and this time he didn't try to stop it. He let it settle. Let it sit in his chest beside the grief, beside the guilt, beside the photo pressed against his ribs.
The fan ticked. The light from the hallway didn't move.
Phuwin lay in the dark, his phone against his heart, and breathed.
One breath. Then another. Then another.
Thirteen ticks. Clink.
He didn't close his eyes again. He just stared at the ceiling and waited for morning.