The group began the descent in twos and threes, voices bouncing off the pine trunks as the trail dropped into shadow. Pond's hand stayed in Phuwin's for the first switchback, their fingers laced, the ring catching what was left of the afternoon light through the canopy. Then the trail narrowed, and Pond had to let go to let Santa pass, and then Taehyung was calling something about a rock formation ahead, and suddenly Phuwin was walking alone at the back of the line, his boots finding purchase on the loose gravel.
The air here was different. Cooler. Thick with the smell of damp earth and crushed needles. The summit had been all wind and sky, but the descent felt like descending into something — a quiet room where the trees held their breath and the only sound was the scatter of pebbles underfoot.
He let himself fall further behind. Jungkook and Taehyung were ahead, shoulders brushing as they navigated a tight corner. Santa had stopped to point at something in the canopy, his glasses catching light. Siyh was a few paces ahead of Phuwin, her dark hair swinging as she checked her phone, then pocketed it again.
Phuwin stopped. Just stopped, in the middle of the trail, and let the silence settle around him like a coat.
His hand came up without thinking. The diamond on his ring finger caught a shaft of light that cut through the pines, and he turned it slowly, watching the way the stone fractured the beam into colors. Blue. White. A flicker of gold.
The wind moved through the trees. Not the summit wind — that had been sharp, insistent, a voice with edges. This was softer. Curious. It lifted his bangs off his forehead and touched his cheek like a hand he couldn't see.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again.
"Soònào."
The name came out raw, scraped from somewhere deep. He hadn't said it aloud since the summit. Since before. Since the phone call that still lived in his chest like a second heartbeat.
Above him, the branches swayed. The wind circled, then settled.
"I know you're here." His voice cracked on the last word, and he pressed his lips together, forcing the next breath to stay steady. "I told you I'd be okay. But I need — " He stopped. Shook his head. "I need you to tell her it's okay too."
Footsteps behind him. Soft. Deliberate.
"Phuwin?"
Siyh's voice. He didn't turn around. He couldn't, not yet, because his eyes were wet and he didn't want her to see until he'd found the words.
She stepped up beside him anyway. Shoulder to shoulder. Her shoulder brushed his, and she didn't pull away.
"Who were you talking to?" she asked, but her voice was low, like she already knew.
Phuwin dropped his hand. Let the ring fall back to his chest. "Her."
Siyh went still beside him. The way the body goes still when it's bracing for impact — shoulders locked, breath held, everything waiting.
"Soònào," he said, clearer now. "She's — " He gestured vaguely at the air around them, the light through the trees, the quiet that had settled between one gust and the next. "She's here. On the mountain. I don't know how I know. I just — I know."
Siyh didn't laugh. Didn't tell him he was being dramatic. She just stood there, her shoulder against his, and after a long moment, she said, "Yeah." Her voice was hoarse. "I feel it too."
Phuwin turned to look at her. Her profile was sharp against the green of the forest, her jaw tight, her eyes fixed on nothing. She was holding herself together the way she always did — spine straight, expression controlled — but her hands were shaking at her sides.
"She wants to talk to you," Phuwin said.
Siyh's breath caught. Audible. A small, broken thing. "What?"
He didn't repeat it. Just watched her face as the words sank in, watched the crack spread across her careful composure like ice on a frozen lake.
"She's been waiting," he said. "I think she's been waiting for a long time."
Siyh's face crumpled. Not the dramatic kind — no sobbing, no wail. Just a slow, quiet collapse, her expression folding inward, her shoulders dropping, her hands pressing against her mouth. She made a sound. Small. Strangled. Like she was trying to swallow it before it could escape.
Phuwin reached out. His hand found her wrist, and he held it, feeling the pulse jumping under her skin.
"Talk to her," he said. "She's right here."
Siyh shook her head. Rapid, tight, like she was refusing something. "I can't — I don't — " She stopped. Drew a breath that shuddered through her whole body. "I don't know what to say."
"Then say that."
She looked at him then. Really looked, her eyes red-rimmed and wet, her mouth pressed into a thin line. And then she turned to face the trees, the light, the air where the wind had gone still, and she spoke.
"I miss you."
Her voice cracked on the second word. She pressed on anyway.
"I miss you every day. I miss the way you laughed. I miss the way you'd steal my fries and pretend you didn't. I miss — " Her voice broke. She covered her mouth with her hand, breathed through it, started again. "I miss the way you'd look at me when I was being dramatic. Like you were annoyed and amused at the same time. Like you couldn't decide whether to roll your eyes or kiss me."
A beat of silence. The wind stirred the pine needles at their feet.
"I loved you." Siyh's voice dropped to barely a whisper. "And I never said it. Not properly. Not when it mattered."
Phuwin's throat closed. He knew this. He'd always known it, somewhere in the background of their friendship — the way Siyh's eyes would get distant when Soònào's name came up, the way she'd change the subject too quickly, the way she'd held him after the funeral without saying a word.
Siyh took a shaky breath. "I'm sorry I couldn't pick up that night. I saw your call. I was at the library studying for some exam I don't even remember, and I thought — I thought I'd call her back. I thought there was time." Her voice broke again, splintered. "There wasn't time."
The tears were streaming down her face now. She didn't wipe them away. She just let them fall, her hands hanging at her sides, her eyes fixed on the air in front of her like she could see something Phuwin couldn't.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so sorry. I should have been there. I should have picked up. I should have — "
The wind shifted.
It came from nowhere — a gust that swept up the trail, warm and soft, carrying the smell of sun-baked pine and something else. Something that made Phuwin's chest ache. Flowers. Jasmine, maybe. The kind Soònào used to tuck behind her ear.
The gust hit Siyh full in the face, lifting her hair off her shoulders, pressing against her wet cheeks like a hand cupping her face.
Siyh's breath stopped. Her whole body went still, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open.
"She heard me," she whispered.
The wind stayed. It didn't pass. It wrapped around them — warm, insistent, patient — and Phuwin felt it in his bones, the way you feel a note that's too low to hear.
"She heard me." Siyh's voice broke into something raw and young, like a child waking from a nightmare. "She — she said it's okay. She said — "
She couldn't finish. The words dissolved into a sob, and she turned and crushed Phuwin in a hug so tight he staggered back a step.
Her arms locked around his neck. Her face pressed into his shoulder. She shook against him, great heaving sobs that tore out of her chest, and Phuwin held her, his own tears falling now, silent and hot, into her hair.
"She was there," Siyh gasped against his collarbone. "She was really there. I felt her. I — " Another sob. "She forgave me. She said she forgave me."
Phuwin held her tighter. His arms wrapped around her back, his fingers digging into the fabric of her jacket, and he pressed his cheek to the top of her head and let himself cry.
They stood like that in the middle of the trail, two figures tangled together, the warm wind moving around them in slow circles. The pine needles stirred. The light shifted. Somewhere above, a bird called once and then fell silent.
"Thank you," Siyh whispered. Her voice was muffled against his shoulder, but he heard it. "Thank you for bringing me here. For letting me — " She swallowed. "For letting me say goodbye."
Phuwin shook his head. "Not goodbye." He pulled back just enough to look at her, his hands still on her shoulders. "She's not gone. She's just — somewhere else now. And she's going to be at my wedding." He laughed, a wet, broken thing. "She promised."
Siyh laughed too. A sob-laugh, messy and beautiful, her face streaked with tears and her nose running and her eyes swollen. She looked terrible. She looked alive.
"You're getting married." She said it like she was tasting the words. "You're actually getting married to the biggest idiot on campus."
"He's not — " Phuwin started, then caught himself. "Okay. He's an idiot. But he's my idiot."
Siyh laughed again, and this time it was cleaner. Louder. It echoed through the trees, and somewhere ahead, someone called back — Taehyung's voice, distant and questioning.
She wiped her face with the back of her hand. "I must look insane."
"You look like someone who just talked to a ghost." Phuwin wiped his own face with his sleeve. "Same as me."
Siyh looked at him for a long moment. Her eyes were still red, still wet, but there was something steady in them now. Something that hadn't been there before.
"Thank you," she said again. Simple. Whole.
He nodded. "She loved you too, you know."
Siyh's breath hitched, but she didn't cry again. She just nodded, once, and turned to look at the trail ahead — the way the light fell in patches, the way the trees opened up to show glimpses of the valley below, the way the path curved and disappeared into green shadow.
"Come on," she said. "They're going to send a search party."
They walked the next switchback in silence. Not the uncomfortable kind — the full kind, the kind where everything that needed to be said had been said and the quiet was a resting place. Their shoulders brushed occasionally. The wind followed them, a warm presence at their backs, nudging them forward.
When they rounded the corner, the rest of the group was waiting on a flat stretch of rock that jutted out over the valley. Santa was sitting on a boulder; Jungkook and Taehyung were standing close together, their shoulders touching. Pond was at the edge of the rock, phone in hand, looking down the trail with a furrow between his brows.
The moment he saw Phuwin, the furrow smoothed out. His whole face changed — from worried to warm, like a lamp being turned on.
"There you are." He pocketed his phone and walked toward them, his boots crunching on the gravel. "We thought you got eaten by a bear."
"We were talking," Phuwin said.
Pond's eyes flicked to Siyh — her red eyes, her wet cheeks, the smeared mascara. He didn't ask. He just nodded, the way you do when you understand something without needing it explained, and slid his hand into Phuwin's.
"Come sit," he said. "The view is insane."
Phuwin let himself be led to the edge of the rock. The valley spread out below them, green and gold in the late afternoon light, the river a silver thread through the middle. The wind lifted his bangs again, and he felt it — that warmth, that presence, curling around him like an arm around his shoulders.
He leaned into Pond's side. Felt the solid warmth of him, the steady beat of his heart, the way his arm came up automatically to settle around Phuwin's waist.
Behind them, Siyh sat down on a mossy log, and Santa shuffled over to sit beside her. She didn't say anything. She just leaned into him, her head on his shoulder, and let the wind dry her tears.
The sun was beginning to sink toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of gold and rose. Phuwin watched it, his ring catching the light, his hand in Pond's, and thought about his sister.
She'd been here today. On the summit. On the trail. In the wind that had wrapped around Siyh like an embrace. She'd heard them. She'd forgiven them. She'd told them she was okay.
And Thursday was coming. The hearing. The questions. The possibility of expulsion.
But right now, on this rock, with the valley spread out at his feet and Pond's arm around his waist, Phuwin felt something settle in his chest. Something quiet and steady, like a stone finally finding its place at the bottom of a river.
He looked up at Pond. "I think I can do Thursday."
Pond looked down at him, his dark eyes soft. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." Phuwin's voice was small, but it didn't shake. "I think — with her watching — I can do anything."
Pond didn't answer with words. He just pressed a kiss to Phuwin's temple, his lips warm and lingering, and held him tighter against the cool mountain air.
The wind stirred one last time. Phuwin felt it across his face, soft and familiar, and he smiled. A small one. Private. For her.
I'm okay, Sissy. We're both going to be okay.
And somewhere on the wind, he could have sworn he heard her laugh.