Phuwin sat in the grass with a stalk of broccoli in his hand, the florets bumpy against his thumb, and he wasn't entirely sure why he'd grabbed it from the kitchen counter on his way out. It had been there, cool and damp from the fridge, and his fingers had closed around it like a cigarette he didn't smoke anymore.
The flies found him anyway. One landed on his knee. He swatted without looking.
"You're doing it on purpose," he said, not quite to the fly. His head was tilted, his eyes tracking a patch of air beside him that held no visible weight. "You're bringing them here."
A pause. A laugh—his own, but not quite. It came out surprised, like someone had pushed it out of him.
"I am not talking to myself," he said. "You're the one who's dead. I'm just—" He gestured with the broccoli, scattering frass. "—sitting here. With a vegetable. Because you distracted me."
The dark was settling around him slow and patient, the way it did in Godji's backyard—the string of bulbs above the picnic table already buzzing yellow, a single moth orbiting the nearest one like it had nowhere better to be. The grass was damp against his jeans, seeping through at the knees, and the air smelled like citronella and cut stems and something floral that might have been the neighbor's jasmine vine climbing the fence.
Or might not have been.
That scent was thin tonight. Present but shy, like Soònào was standing just far enough back to let him speak first.
He swatted another fly, missed, and let the broccoli fall into his lap.
"Ma looked at me," he said, quieter now. The words came out clean, no crack in them, which surprised him. "Like—actually looked. She held my hand over the ring. She said she was happy for me."
His throat tightened anyway. He swallowed through it.
"I didn't think she'd ever look at me like that."
The air beside him stirred. Something in the grass shifted—not the wind, not the flies. A weight settling into the space next to his thigh, close enough that he could feel the absence of warmth where warmth should have been.
He didn't look. He kept his eyes on the clouds instead, the last of the daylight draining out of them, turning them from grey to something closer to bruise.
"She talked to him," he said. "Pond. She talked to him like they were normal. Like she wasn't—" He stopped. Started over. "Like she was just his fiancé's mom. She held his hand too. I saw her."
The broccoli in his lap was getting warm from his skin. He picked it up again, turned it over, examined the stem like it held answers.
"You were there," he said. "I felt you. When she touched the ring."
A beat. His head tilted, listening.
"Don't say that." His voice went thinner. "I wasn't crying. I was—" He gestured vaguely with the broccoli. "—having a moment. There's a difference."
Something brushed his shoulder. Light. Brief. The scent of jasmine flared and softened, and he felt the ghost of a laugh against his ear—warm, fond, the way Soònào used to laugh when she caught him being stubborn as a kid.
His eyes burned. He blinked hard, focusing on the clouds, on the shape of one that looked like a cat stretching.
"Okay," he said. "Maybe I was crying. A little. But it was—" He bit his lip. "It was good crying. She looked at me, Nao. She saw me."
The word hung in the air between them. Saw. Like that was the miracle. Four years of avoiding her gaze, of being the ghost she wouldn't look at, and then—
She'd looked.
He pressed the heel of his palm against his eye. The broccoli stem left a damp print on his jeans.
From the patio, Godji watched. Her tea had gone cold fifteen minutes ago, the ceramic mug balanced on her knee, steam long since surrendered to the humid evening air. She didn't drink it. She just held it, letting the warmth seep into her palm, watching the shape of Phuwin in the grass—the way his head tilted, the way he paused mid-sentence, the way he laughed at something she couldn't hear.
She'd seen him do this before. In the weeks after Soònào died, he'd sit in this same spot, talking to the air, asking questions no one answered. Back then it had broken her heart—the sight of him alone in the dark, speaking to a sister who couldn't speak back.
Now it was different. Now he was listening.
She watched his shoulders drop, watched the tension bleed out of his spine, watched him pick at the broccoli like it was the most interesting thing in the world while his lips moved in a conversation she couldn't hear. And she felt it—that shift in the air, that warmth that didn't come from the bulbs above her head, that scent that shouldn't have been there in November.
The jasmine. Faint, but there. Like someone had walked through the kitchen with a handful of petals and left the door open behind them.
Godji took a breath. Held it. Let it out slow.
She's here, she thought. And it didn't scare her the way it should have.
Phuwin laughed again, louder this time, and Godji saw him shake his head—that familiar gesture of you're impossible that he used to aim at Soònào when she was alive, when she'd tease him about a crush or steal the last piece of his dessert.
"I'm not that dramatic," he said to the air, and then paused, and then— "Okay, maybe I am. But you made me this way."
Another pause. His smile softened into something smaller, something private.
"You were there," he said. "When she touched the ring. I felt you."
The broccoli dropped from his fingers. It landed in the grass, a pale green star against the dark, and he didn't pick it up. His hand stayed where it was, half-open, like he'd forgotten he was holding anything at all.
"She asked if I was happy," he said. "Ma. She asked if Pond made me happy."
His voice cracked on the last word. Just slightly, just enough for Godji to hear from the patio, and she felt her own throat tighten in response.
"I said yes." He swallowed. "I meant it."
The air beside him shifted. He felt it—that cool brush against his shoulder, that weight of presence that wasn't quite touch. He didn't look. He kept his eyes on the clouds, on the shape of the cat stretching into something longer, something that looked almost like a hand reaching.
"She looked at me, Nao," he whispered. "She really looked."
And the jasmine swelled, warm and full, wrapping around him like an answer he didn't need to hear out loud.
He sat with that for a while. The jasmine settled around him like a blanket pulled up to his chin, and he let himself be held by it, let himself be small and quiet and still. The flies had given up on him. The broccoli lay abandoned in the grass, a forgotten witness to a conversation no one else could hear.
Above him, the clouds had gone dark. The cat-shape had dissolved into something formless, just grey on grey on grey, and the first star was blinking through a gap in the canopy—pale and tentative, like it wasn't sure it belonged there yet.
He pointed at it with his chin.
"That one's you," he said. "The shy one."
A breeze curled around his ear. Warm. Almost laughing.
"I'm not being sentimental. You are shy. You always were. Remember when you made me order for you at the boba shop because you didn't want to talk to the cashier?" He smiled, small and crooked. "You were nineteen and you made your seventeen-year-old brother order your taro milk tea."
The air beside him rippled. He felt it—that shift, that near-audible hum of I did not.
"You absolutely did. I have witnesses. Santa was there."
A pause. The jasmine flickered, sharp and playful.
"Okay, fine. I offered. But you didn't say no."
He picked a blade of grass from beside his thigh, rolled it between his fingers, let it fall. The motion was aimless, a way to keep his hands busy while his chest did something complicated—that ache that wasn't quite grief anymore, that warmth that wasn't quite joy, that space between them that had stopped feeling like a distance and started feeling like a room they both lived in.
"Do you think she meant it?" he asked, quieter now. "Ma. When she said she was happy for me."
The air stilled. The jasmine softened, like she was listening harder.
"I know she said it. I know she held my hand. But I keep thinking—" He stopped. His jaw worked. "I keep thinking about all the years she didn't. All the birthdays she missed. All the times I looked for her in the crowd and she wasn't there."
His voice dropped, barely above a whisper.
"What if she's just saying it because she feels guilty? What if she doesn't actually—"
The air beside him moved. Not a breeze—something firmer, something with intent. He felt pressure against his shoulder, cool and definite, like a hand pressing down to stop him from spiraling.
He stopped.
The jasmine flared. Not soft this time—insistent. Almost impatient. And he heard it, not with his ears but somewhere deeper, somewhere behind his ribs: She meant it. I was there. I saw her face.
His breath hitched.
"You saw her?"
A pulse of warmth against his shoulder. Yes.
"She really meant it?"
Another pulse. Stronger. She really meant it.
He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes and stayed there, breathing through the sting, feeling the pressure build and release behind his lids. The jasmine didn't leave. It wrapped around him, patient and steady, like Soònào was sitting beside him with her hand on his back, waiting for him to come back up.
When he lowered his hands, his eyes were wet. He didn't wipe them.
"Okay," he said. "Okay. I believe you."
The air hummed. Satisfied. Good.
From the patio, Godji watched the shape of him in the grass—the way his shoulders had curled forward, the way his hands had pressed against his face, the way he was sitting now with his arms wrapped around his knees like he was holding himself together. Her tea had gone cold an hour ago. She didn't care.
She watched the space beside him, the way the grass bent slightly where no one was sitting, the way the light from the string bulbs seemed to thicken around that spot, warmer and softer than it had any right to be.
She'd never seen a ghost. Not really. But she'd felt Soònào in this yard before—in the sudden warmth of a room that should have been cold, in the scent of jasmine that appeared and disappeared like a held breath, in the way Phuwin's face softened when he was talking to someone she couldn't see.
She believed him. Every word.
Phuwin shifted in the grass, uncrossing his legs, stretching them out in front of him. His jeans were damp at the knees, dark patches spreading against the denim, and he didn't care. He leaned back on his palms, looked up at the sky, and let out a breath that carried the weight of years.
"So," he said. "The wedding."
The air beside him perked up. He felt it—that shift, that readiness, like Soònào had been waiting for him to bring it up.
"Godji says we can do it in the spring. When the jasmine blooms." He paused. "I thought that might be—you know. A good time. For you."
The warmth beside him deepened. A yes. A thank you. A you're paying attention.
"I haven't told Pond yet. About the spring thing. He said he'd marry me tomorrow if he could, so I don't think he'll argue about the date." A small smile tugged at his mouth. "He's easy like that. Easy to please. I could say I want to get married in a parking lot and he'd show up in a suit."
A laugh, soundless, against his ear. Warm. Familiar.
"What?" He turned his head toward the empty space beside him. "You think I'm joking? He would. He'd bring flowers and everything. He'd probably cry."
The air shimmered. He definitely would cry.
"He cried at the proposal. Full-on tears. I had to wipe his face with my sleeve while we were drinking."
That's so sweet I might throw up.
He laughed—a real one, startled out of him, bright in the dark yard. The sound carried across the grass, reached Godji on the patio, and she smiled into her cold tea.
"You're terrible," Phuwin said. "You know that, right? You're supposed to be a wise ghost. You're supposed to give me advice."
The air went still. Then, slowly, deliberately: Don't wear white.
He blinked. "What?"
You'd look better in cream. Or maybe— A pause, the air flickering with thought. Green. Like the leaves in spring. Pond's eyes would fall out of his head.
He snorted. "You want me to wear a green wedding dress?"
I want you to wear something that makes him forget how to speak. The color is negotiable.
He shook his head, still smiling, but something in his chest had gone warm and tight. The way she talked about his wedding—like she was planning to be there. Like she was already picking out what to wear, what to say, where to stand.
Like she wasn't planning to miss it.
"You'll save me a dance?" he asked, and his voice came out smaller than he meant it to.
The air beside him stilled. Then, soft as a held breath, warm as a hand on his cheek: I'll save you all of them.
His eyes burned again. He let them.
From the patio, Godji set down her empty mug and stood. Her joints protested—she'd been sitting too long, the wood of the chair digging into her back—but she didn't care. She walked across the grass, her steps soft, and when she reached the edge of the yard, she stopped.
Phuwin looked up at her. His eyes were red, his cheeks damp, but he was smiling. A real smile. The kind she hadn't seen on him in years.
"She says hi," he said.
Godji's throat tightened. She nodded once, slow, and looked at the space beside him—at the grass that bent without weight, at the air that shimmered like heat rising off summer pavement.
"Hi, Nao," she said, and her voice cracked on the name.
The jasmine swelled. Warm and full and unmistakably present, wrapping around both of them like an embrace.