Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time Sua remembered was in winter.

At six years old, the cold seeped through the corners of her bedroom window like an invitation to the nightmare she had just had. Sua’s awakening to the past came with the sound of a pop.

It wasn’t a real noise — just the echo of a dormant memory firing in her six-year-old brain like the shot that had already pierced her throat in another life. She woke up choking, her small, warm hands clutching her own neck, searching for the hole she knew should be there. Her heart beat so hard it hurt, her fingers tangled in the blanket as if she were still holding onto something—someone. The stage floor echoed in her mind like a verse.

“I beg you, stay by my side.”

Sua gulped air as if she were drowning. The room was dark, but not dark enough to hide the emptiness consuming her. She looked at her own hands, small and intact, without the marks her nails used to dig into her own skin in the days before her death.

The darkness wasn’t enough to hide the tremors running through her entire body. Sua took a deep breath, the air entering her lungs so easily, so naturally, that it hurt. In that life, her last breath had been choked, with the taste of metal on her tongue and Mizi’s eyes before hers, happy before widening in horror.

Outside, snow fell softly, painting the world white. Sua felt her stomach churn. The older sister had lied — there were no ashes, no furnaces. Only that icy silence.

The bedroom door opened without a sound, and Sua instinctively flinched, her muscles tensed as if expecting punishment. But it was only her mother—or rather, the woman who thought she was her mother.

“Sua? Everything okay, Star?”

The voice was soft, but Sua didn’t answer. Speaking was dangerous. Speaking meant drawing attention, and attention meant pain.

In the Garden, the Guardin called her human, doll, but never “Star.”

The woman—“mother”—didn’t insist. She simply knelt beside the bed, keeping her distance, as if she knew a touch would be too much.

“Was it a nightmare?”

Sua swallowed dryly.

No. It was a memory.

But how to explain that? How to say she remembered being twenty-three, remembered dying, remembered leaving Mizi behind in a world where the winners were those who carried the weight of others’ deaths?

Her mother waited. When no answer came, she sighed and placed a glass of warm milk on the bedside table.

“If you need me, I’m here.”

And then she left, leaving Sua alone with the ghost of Mizi in her eyes.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

Morning arrived with sunlight reflecting off the accumulated snow outside, turning the world into a painful brilliance. Sua had stayed up all night, her fingers tangled in the blanket as if holding onto the memories so they wouldn’t escape.

I was twenty-three when I died.

The thought sounded absurd in the mind of a six-year-old. Her current body was small, fragile—but her mind carried the weight of two decades and a death.

“Sua, breakfast!”

Her mother’s voice echoed through the house. Sua hesitated before going downstairs. In the Garden, meals were calculated, tasteless, always supervised by cold eyes. Here, the table was full of colors: cut fruit, warm bread, melting butter.

And he was there.

Sitting at the end of the table, his legs swinging because they didn’t reach the floor, was Ivan.

Sua nearly dropped the glass of milk she was carrying.

Ivan.

His face was rounder, more childlike, but his eyes — those eyes she remembered, black with slight red reflections — were still the same.

“Noona!” He called her, smiling with his mouth full of bread. “Look, I made a plane!”

He held up a clumsily folded piece of paper. Sua froze.

He didn’t remember anything.

Ivan chattered about the plane, about the snow, about anything that crossed his mind. Sua didn’t hear him. Her fingers trembled as she picked up a slice of apple.

He doesn’t know.

She watched him — the way he furrowed his brow when concentrating, how he rocked slightly back and forth when excited.

Was this what he was like before the Garden?

In the Garden, Ivan was calculating, performative. A perfect pet for the aliens. But here…

Here, he let crumbs fall, hummed without melody, and looked at Sua as if she were interesting.

As if she were real.

It was then that Ivan did something unexpected. He reached out and touched her wrist.

“Noona, you’re shaking.”

Sua almost pulled back. But she held herself still, looking at his small, worried face.

“Are you cold?” he asked, tilting his head.

She looked at him — really looked — and saw:

No trace of the boy who smiled to hide the pain.

Just a child.

“…No,” she replied, her voice hoarser than intended. “Just… didn’t sleep well.”

Ivan seemed to consider this for a moment, then pushed his cup of hot chocolate toward her.

“Here. Chocolate helps.”

Sua looked at the drink, then at him.

How can he be so…

Her mother smiled, unaware of the turmoil inside her.

“He’s right, you know? Chocolate always helps.”

Sua carefully took the cup. The liquid was warm. Sweet. Different.

Like everything in this life that shouldn’t have been hers.

Chapter Text

The days dragged by like melting snow. Sua watched.

Ivan was different in this life — but not as different as she had expected.

He still practiced smiling.

Not in the performative way of the Garden, not to please Aliens or judges. But alone, in the bathroom mirror, when he thought no one was looking.

She caught him one afternoon, trying to copy an expression he’d seen on TV.

“Why are you doing that?”

Ivan jumped, but he didn’t seem embarrassed. He just shrugged.

“I don’t know. It’s… hard.”

Hard.

The word echoed within her. In the Garden, smiling was survival. Here, it was just… strange.

“You don’t have to,” she said, more to herself than to him.

Ivan looked at his reflection in the mirror, confused.

“But everyone smiles.”

“Not everyone,” Sua replied, and for the first time, she let the corner of her mouth lift, just a little — just for him to see.

Ivan smiled, and then he laughed, loud and clumsy, as if she had just told the funniest joke in the world.

She didn’t understand why her chest ached.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

It was on a grey Tuesday that Ivan saw his first corpse in this new life.

The animal was splayed out by the roadside, its brown fur stained with red, its tongue lolling out as if it had tried to lick the sky before it died. Ivan stopped so abruptly that Sua almost stumbled into him.

“Is he… sleeping?”

His voice was too small for such a big question.

Sua looked at the dog and felt her throat tighten. She knew death—she knew its smell, its taste, the weight of a body that no longer responded. But Ivan… Ivan shouldn’t know. Not yet.

“No. He died.”

The answer came out harsher than she intended. Ivan stood still for what felt like an eternity. Then, without warning, he began to cry.

They weren’t silent tears like the ones Sua shed at night. These were sobs that came from somewhere deep, shaking his small frame as if they wanted to tear him in two. Sua froze.

In the Garden, crying was synonymous with weakness. Weakness was synonymous with punishment.

But here, on the dusty sidewalk, there were no Guardians. Just her, Ivan, and the dog that wouldn’t wake up.

Sua raised a hesitant hand and placed it on Ivan’s head. It wasn’t a hug — she still didn’t know how to hug him — but it was something.

“Stop.”

Ivan didn’t stop. His fists rubbed his eyes hard, as if he could erase the image of the animal.

“Is he in pain?”

The question hit her like a punch. Sua thought of the shot that had pierced her throat, the sharp, brief agony, the darkness that came after.

“…No. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

A lie. Everything hurt. Even what no longer existed.

Ivan looked at her with swollen eyes, and Sua saw, for the first time, the broken innocence in him. Something inside her recoiled.

“Dogs… go to the stars,” she said, pointing at the sky. “There’s no pain there.”

Another lie. But Ivan swallowed hard and nodded, as if he had decided to believe her.

When they got up to leave, he held her hand with a grip that hurt.

That night, while Ivan slept, Sua lay awake, staring at the stars.

"Where are you, Mizi?"

In her past life, Mizi was the sun. She was easy laughter and warm hands. But she was also pain — because loving Mizi meant knowing she would one day lose her.

Now, Sua caught herself searching for her everywhere:

At the market, among the schoolchildren. In the reflection of store windows,where a girl with pink hair might be. Even in her dreams,where Mizi always called her name before vanishing.

She didn’t know what she would do if she found her. Would she hug her? Cry? Run away?

The only thing she knew was that she needed to see her. To be sure that Mizi was alive, too.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The morning sun streamed softly through the kitchen window, lighting up Sua’s black hair—now longer, so different from the short, perfectly cut strands Mizi used to twist around her fingers in another life. She watched the mother stirring oatmeal on the stove, her movements calm and precise, so different from the Alien guardian’s harsh gestures.

“Sua, honey or cinnamon?”

The mother’s voice was as warm as the smell of the oatmeal. Sua hesitated before answering. In the Garden, choosing was a test — a trap disguised as kindness.

“…Cinnamon.”

The mother smiled, sprinkling the spice with a generous hand.

“Just how I like it.”

Ivan, sitting at the table with his feet swinging, made a face.

“Noona likes bitter stuff!” he complained, showing the slightly crooked tooth that was beginning to stand out in his childish smile. “Honey is better!”

Sua looked at him. The Ivan she remembered was around six feet tall, with eyes like burning coal and a smile that hid knives. This Ivan was small, clumsy, with the same dark eyes but none of the shadows from the past.

“You only like honey because it’s sticky and makes a mess,” she retorted, pushing the honey jar toward him.

Ivan laughed, loud and carefree, and the sound did something strange to Sua’s chest — as if a piece of ice she didn’t know she was carrying had melted a little.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

Mornings in that house had a rhythm Sua was still learning to understand:

1. The mother always woke first, making coffee with the radio tuned to a bossa nova station.
2. Ivan was second, arriving in the kitchen with his hair sticking up and always mistakenly wearing mismatched slippers.
3. Sua was last—she still slept poorly, haunted by nightmares, but now a glass of warm milk waited for her when she came downstairs.

It was… normal.

And normal was something Sua didn’t know how to process.

It was during one of these mornings that the mother did something that stopped Sua’s heart for a second.

“Your hair is getting long,” she commented, running her fingers through Sua’s strands as she passed behind her.

The touch was quick, casual. But Sua went rigid, her muscles tensing as if expecting pain. In the Garden, touch was always something — a rough adjustment, a violent correction, a reminder of who was in charge.

But the mother just went on setting the table as if she hadn’t noticed.

Ivan, however, noticed. His dark eyes — the same eyes that would one day glow red under stage lights — fixed on her with a disconcerting intensity.

“Noona doesn’t like to be touched,” he announced, as if he were reading her thoughts.

The mother stopped, then looked at Sua with an expression she couldn’t decipher.

“Is that true, dear?”

Sua felt her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth. How to explain that yes, but not because she disliked it, but because she didn’t know what to do with touches that didn’t hurt?

“…I don’t know,” she admitted, softly.

The mother nodded, as if that answer made perfect sense.

“That’s alright. You just tell me when you’re ready, then.”

And just like that, life went on.

Chapter Text

The navy-blue school uniform seemed to swallow Ivan whole. He spun in place in front of the mirror, trying to see his back, while their mother patiently adjusted Sua’s tie.

"Hold still, Ivan," the mother said, her voice even. "You’re going to get all tangled up."

Sua watched in silence, her fingers brushing the hem of her skirt — too short, too blue, too different from the white dresses of the Garden. The fabric was rough against her skin, but in a real, tangible way. This is good, she thought. Real things should feel like this.

Ivan stopped spinning and looked at her with his big, dark eyes.

"Noona, are you scared?"

The question caught her off guard. Scared? She knew fear like she knew her own name; fear was the taste of blood in her mouth before a performance, the sound of a Guardian’s footsteps in the hallway, the emptiness in Mizi’s eyes as her body fell.

But school? Children? Notebooks and crayons?

"No," she lied.

Ivan frowned, as if he knew, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he grabbed her hand tightly — so warm, so alive — and pulled her toward the door.

"Come on! Let’s go meet everyone!"

Sua let herself be dragged, but her wistful eyes remained fixed on the car window, where the morning light hit softly. Somewhere, was Mizi also waking up? The thought ached. Did she go to school? Did she remember?

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The school hallway smelled of new pencils and disinfectant. Sua stood frozen before the door to classroom 3-A, her cold fingers gripping the strap of her backpack. A year older than Ivan. A separate classroom. A loneliness that hurt in a different way.

"Sua?"

Teacher Kim raised her eyebrows at her blank expression. Sua forced her shoulders back, mimicking the posture the Garden’s Guardian demanded — perfect, elegant, invisible.

"Present."

Her voice didn’t tremble. She had learned not to let it.

Math class was far too easy.

Sua finished the worksheet in three and a half minutes, the numbers flowing as if someone had engraved the answers in her bones. The teacher passed her desk, looked at the sheet, and then at her impassive face.

"Very good, Sua. Would you... like to help the others?"

No.

"Yes..."

She stood up, her legs moving on their own toward the desk of the girl who was crying over the problems. The girl — with brown hair tied with a red bow — smelled of strawberries and fear.

"Where did you get stuck?" Sua asked, not smiling.

In the Garden, helping was a sign of weakness. Here, it was an obligation.

The girl pointed to the second problem with a trembling finger.

"I... I don't know how to divide..."

Sua looked at the numbers. 7.8 ÷ 2. Simple. Obvious.

"Three point nine," she said flatly.

The girl blinked, and then she started crying again.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

At recess, Sua escaped to the library.

It was small, dark, full of old books that smelled of dust and ink. Safe.

Until the door opened.

"Noona!"

Ivan was there, his uniform already dirty, a scraped knee, and his dark eyes shining like hot coals. He was holding a book about dinosaurs, its cover almost torn off.

"Are you angry?"

Sua frowned.

"No."

"Then why did you make Hyuna cry?"

Ah. So the girl with the red bow had a name.

"...I just answered her question."

Ivan shook his head, his black hair flying.

"The teacher said you have to explain. Otherwise people don't learn."

Sua looked at him—really looked. Ivan, who stumbled over social rules, who didn't understand metaphors, who sometimes rocked back and forth when the world got too big... Ivan knew this?

"How do you...?"

"Mom taught me," he shrugged, as if it were obvious. "When I don't get it, she draws it. Then it's easy."

Sua sat down heavily in the chair.

What if I don't know how to draw the answers?

What if all I know are cold numbers and silence?

"Come on! Let's go to the cafeteria," Ivan said, already heading for the library exit.

In the cafeteria, Sua watched.

The kids from her class formed loud groups, swapping cookies and secrets. She sat at the end of a table, chewing her kimbap with precise movements.

"Can I sit here?"

It was the girl with the red bow — Hyuna — her eyes still puffy.

Sua almost said no. She almost ran. She almost spat out some sharp reply that would make her cry again.

But then she remembered Ivan, the mother, the oatmeal with cinnamon.

"...Yes."

Hyuna smiled, showing a missing tooth.

"You're so smart! Want to be my friend?"

Friend.

The word burned. Mizi had been her only friend. Her only everything.

"I don't know how to be a friend," the confession slipped out before she could stop it.

Hyuna laughed, as if she'd said something funny.

"It's easy! We just have to sit together and share things!"

And then, with a near-ritualistic gesture, she broke her chocolate cookie in half and held a piece out to Sua, who took it hesitantly.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

At the gate after school, Ivan was waiting for her, covered in gouache paint and smiling as if he'd conquered the world.

"Noona! I made a friend today! He likes dinosaurs just like me!"

Sua looked at her brother—her Ivan, who didn't know what a bullet was but knew exactly how many teeth a T-Rex had—and felt something strange in her chest.

"...Me too," she said, quietly. "I made a friend."

Ivan beamed, jumping up and down, and grabbed her hand with his sticky one.

"Let's tell Mom! She'll make cake!"

The afternoon sun bathed them as they walked home, and for the first time, Sua thought that maybe—just maybe—the world wasn't only a place to survive.

Perhaps it could be a place to live.

Chapter Text

Today, Hyuna smelled like laundry detergent and crayons. Her notebook was full of doodles in the margins — hearts, stars, a poorly drawn dinosaur.

"I don't get fractions at all," she admitted, pushing the notebook toward Sua. "They're like... pieces of a number? Why would anyone invent that?"

Sua looked at the numbers. 3/4 + 1/2. Simple. Obvious.

"You need to find a common denominator."

Hyuna blinked.

"A common what?"

How to explain? Sua took a deep breath. In the Garden, mistakes were punished. Here…

Imagine you have 3 pieces of a cake cut into 4. And you get another half a cake. But half a cake is the same as 2 pieces of 4. So, in total…

"5 pieces out of 4! Oh!" Hyuna's face lit up as she grabbed her pink pen. "You should be a teacher, Sua!"

Sua recoiled, her fingers twitching involuntarily. Praise was a trap. But Hyuna was already writing again, not expecting anything in return.

In the cafeteria, Hyuna dragged her chair to Sua's table without ceremony.

"Can I sit here? Yoojin only talks about boys all the time, and I swear I'd rather do math."

Sua hesitated. Why does she want to sit with me?

"…Yes."

Hyuna opened her lunchbox, sandwiches cut into triangles, grapes, a juice box with a pink straw.

"Want a grape? My mom always packs too many."

She held out the bunch. Sua looked at the fruit and then at Hyuna's earnest face. No hidden calculation. No ulterior motives.

"Thank you." She took a grape. Sweet…

Hyuna smiled.

"You're so quiet. You remind me of my kitten when we first adopted her."

Sua almost choked.

"…I'm not a cat."

"Of course not! You're better—at least you don't scratch us when we try to hug you!"

And then Hyuna laughed, loud and unashamed, and Sua discovered something strange: she didn't want to run away.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

After school, Ivan was waiting at the gate, covered in green gouache paint again.

"Noona! I survived P.E.!" he announced, as if it were an epic feat.

Sua examined her brother — his quickened breath, his hands trembling slightly. Noise. Too many kids. Games with unclear rules.

"You stayed in the corner of the field," she deduced.

"How did you know?"

"Because I would do the same."

Ivan laughed, showing his slightly crooked tooth. Safe. Familiar.

Hyuna jumped in front of them.

"Hi! You're Sua's brother? I'm Hyuna!"

Ivan studied her face for a second too long (difficult social assessment), then waved.

"I like your flower sticker."

Hyuna beamed.

"You two are so cool! Let's have lunch together tomorrow, okay?"

And before Sua could answer, Hyuna ran off toward a silver car.

Ivan tugged on Sua's sleeve.

"She's loud."

"…Yes."

"But you like her."

Sua didn't answer. But when Ivan took her hand to cross the street, she didn't pull away.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The alarm rang at 6:30 AM. Sua opened her eyes before the shrill beep even started, an old reflex from when waking up late meant lashes to the ankles. But here, the silence of the house was still cozy, wrapped in the distant hum of the kitchen coffee maker.

She got up silently, put on her uniform with precise movements, and combed her black hair, now a little past her shoulders. Never like the precise cut the Guardian had insisted on keeping her in for years.

In the hallway, Ivan was already ready, sitting on the stair step with his laces untied and a book about constellations open on his lap. He looked at the pages with an intensity that almost burned the paper.

"Noona," he said without looking up. "Did you know the Polaris star is actually three stars?"

Sua stopped, her hand on the banister.

"…No."

"Yeah! They're together and we see them as one!" Ivan made a circle with his arms, almost knocking over his backpack. "Like us and Mom!"

Sua looked at him — at the way his dark eyes shone even in the dim hallway light — and felt something strange in her chest. Together. Like stars.

Their mother appeared in the kitchen, her apron stained with butter and her hair tied up haphazardly.

"Good morning, my gods! Who wants bear-shaped pancakes?"

Ivan jumped up, forgetting the book. Sua just nodded, but when their mother turned away, she took the serving spoon and drew a shape on a pancake — the constellation Lyra, the one Mizi had once pointed out to her in the Garden's sky.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

Hyuna saved a seat for Sua every day.

"Here! By the window so we can watch the birds!"

She said it like it was a valuable secret, not a request for friendship. Sua had learned to accept, to sit there without questioning, to listen to Hyuna's loud stories about her cat (Bori), her twin brother, and her mortal hatred of math.

"But you get it, so it's okay!" Hyuna threw a paper ball into the trash and cheered when she made it. "We're like... a dynamic duo! I help you in P.E., you save me on tests!"

Sua looked at her and thought: "Why do you want this?"

But Hyuna just smiled, as if the answer were written on the board behind them.

That afternoon, during art class, Sua unconsciously drew a stage. Small, detailed, the one she had died on.

Hyuna peeked over her shoulder.

"Wow! You draw so well! It looks real..."

Sua froze. Too real.

"It's... a stage."

"Cool! Put us on it!" Hyuna grabbed a pink pencil and scribbled two figures on the stage — one tall and slender (her), the other small and serious (Sua). "There! Now we're famous!"

Sua looked at the drawing. No blood. No Alien. Just two girls, ridiculous and alive.

She didn't erase it.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

Every Thursday, their mother took them to the park after school. Ivan ran straight to the swings, counting each swing (37, 38, 39...), while Sua sat on the nearest bench, watching.

Until one day, Hyuna showed up with a shock-pink bicycle and a unicorn horn helmet.

"Sua! Come learn to ride!"

Sua recoiled. Falls were dangerous. Broken bones were punished.

But their mother gently pushed her forward.

"Go on, star. I'll hold you."

And so, step by step, with their mother's firm hands on the seat and Hyuna's laughter echoing, Sua learned to ride a bike.

When she finally pedaled on her own — just three meters, but on her own — Ivan stopped swinging to applaud.

"Noona is the best!"

Sua didn't smile. But that night, she drew a bicycle in her notebook, next to the constellation Lyra.

Their mother always asked questions during dinner.

"What was the best part of your day?"

Ivan answered too fast, mixing stories about giant ants on the playground and teachers who looked like "turtles with glasses." Sua just listened, until one night, she surprised herself:

"…The bicycle."

Their mother spilled grape juice by accident. Ivan almost fell off his chair.

"Noona spoke!"

Sua shrugged, but when her mother pulled her into a quick hug, she didn't pull away.

Later, on the porch, while Ivan pointed out the Big Dipper, Sua looked at the sky and thought of Mizi.

Would you see this?

Would you like them? Hyuna, Mom, this Ivan who laughs without fear?

The wind carried the scent of lavender from the kitchen, and for the first time, Sua allowed herself to imagine: perhaps, somewhere, Mizi was also looking at the same stars.

Perhaps, without knowing it, she was just as alive as she was.

Chapter Text

Hyuna's notebook was open to the science page, full of lime-green notes and drawings of cells with smiley faces. Sua watched silently as the girl swung her leg under the desk, the tip of her tongue appearing between her teeth whenever she concentrated.

"Done!" Hyuna held up the notebook proudly. "I made a punk cell! Look, the ribosomes have earrings!"

Sua tilted her head. "Why would anyone give organelles personalities?"

But before Hyuna could answer, a notification chimed on her phone, and Hyuna jumped out of her chair like a bolt of lightning.

"Today is lunch with Hyunwoo day! You're coming with me!"

At lunch, Sua met him for the first time.

He was an imperfect reflection of Hyuna. Same round face, same upturned nose, but with messy brown hair and a crumpled uniform from another school. The most striking similarity was their eyes: large, the same ice-blue color.

"You must be Sua!" Hyunwoo flashed a smile that revealed braces identical to his sister's. "Hyuna won't stop talking about you."

Hyuna shoved him with her shoulder. "Liar!I only talked about her like, fifty times!"

Sua stood still, analyzing. Do they fight? Do they hate each other? But then Hyunwoo pulled a package from his pocket—heart-shaped rice cakes—and divided it into three parts without hesitation.

"Mom sent them. Said it's to 'feed my daughter and her antisocial friend'."

Hyuna swatted the back of his head, but Sua got stuck on the word. Friend.

She took the rice cake carefully. Soft. Warm.

"...Thank you."

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

On Friday, Hyunwoo showed up at Hyuna's school by mistake.

"Dad dropped me off at the wrong place again!" he complained, his hands in his uniform pockets. "Now I have to take two buses to get to my science class!"

Hyuna laughed but was already pulling out her phone. "I'll ask Mom to come get you. In the meantime..." She looked at Sua, then at her brother, and a mischievous smile appeared. "You two will have to put up with each other!"

And so, Sua found herself sitting on a park bench with Hyunwoo, in silence.

He was the first to speak. "You're really quiet, huh?"

Sua nodded. "...Yes."

Hyunwoo looked up at the sky, thoughtful. "Hyuna says you're the smartest person in class.That you're good at math. And that you have pretty eyes."

Sua almost choked. "She...talks too much."

"Agreed." He laughed, then lowered his voice. "But she's right about you. Hyuna has a thing for finding broken people and wanting to fix them."

Broken. The word hurt, but not how Sua expected. Because Hyunwoo didn't say it with pity, he said it like someone recognizing something familiar.

"...Did she try to fix you?"

Hyunwoo showed his wrist — a thin, white scar. "Bike accident.She spent a month teaching me to ride, even though I cursed at her every day."

Sua looked at the scar, then at his face. Siblings. Bonds. Someone who comes back, no matter how far they go.

"She's gonna be a good doctor." Hyunwoo smiled. "Or a dictator. Whatever."

When Hyuna returned, the two were quietly laughing at a joke about teachers. She stopped, her eyes wide.

"What did you do to my brother and my best friend?!"

Sua didn't answer. But when Hyunwoo left, she waved.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The spring wind carried cherry blossom petals into the schoolyard when Hyuna appeared with her dark brown hair tied into two messy braids. Her blue eyes sparkled under the afternoon sun, almost the same color as the dolphin sticker on her backpack.

"Sua! Look what I brought!"

She opened her lunchbox enthusiastically, revealing two packages of red bean paste rice cakes.

"Hyunwoo hates this filling. So now they're just for us!"

Sua took the package, her fingers sinking slightly into the soft texture. Red bean. Sweet. Safe.

"Thank you."

Hyuna sat on the picnic table, swinging her legs. "He's so jealous that I became friends with you. Said he's gonna show up here tomorrow just to get to know you properly."

Sua chewed the rice cake slowly, thoughtful. Meeting someone new was so simple in this life.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

Recess was too loud. Sua saw Ivan before she even heard him. Hunched over by the water fountain, his hands pressed against his ears, his black eyes wide and fixed on some distant point. The other children laughed and ran around, not noticing the boy who seemed to be coming undone in broad daylight.

She stood up so fast her chair scraped the floor. Hyuna looked at her, then at Ivan, and instantly threw the apple she was eating into her backpack. "Let's go."

It wasn't a question.

Sua got there first. She knelt in front of Ivan but didn't touch him. She'd learned that on bad days, even the lightest contact could feel like fire. "Ivan."

He didn't react. His fingers were digging into his own temples now, leaving red marks.

"Ivan, remember these three things?" Sua lowered her voice, using the tone their mother used with her during nightmares. "The smell of cinnamon. The sound of the stream. The taste of chocolate."

Ivan blinked. "...Four." He swallowed, his voice a thin thread. "The smell of Mom's shampoo."

Sua nodded. Three things can be four. The world expands, but it doesn't collapse.

Hyuna appeared beside them with a water bottle and a pack of star-shaped cookies. "Hi, Ivan! See this?" She placed a cookie on her own forehead and crossed her eyes to look at it. "World record for cookie balancing! Think you can beat it?"

Ivan looked at the cookie, then at Hyuna's ridiculous expression. His shoulders dropped half an inch. "That's...dumb."

"It's okay to be dumb! Look at Hyunwoo, he's a professional!"

And then, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, Hyuna placed another cookie on Ivan's forehead. He stayed still, eyes wide, until the cookie slipped down his nose. "You lost!" Hyuna cheered as if he'd just won a marathon.

Sua watched her brother — the way his fingers were no longer trembling, how his shoulders relaxed — and felt something strange and warm in her chest. Protecting doesn't mean hiding him, she realized. Sometimes, it means letting someone put a cookie on your forehead.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The principal had a mustache that trembled when she spoke. Sua sat in the hard chair, her hands folded in her lap, as the woman talked about inappropriate behavior and the need for evaluation.

"Your brother is a very intelligent boy, but these... episodes..."

"They're not episodes." Sua cut in, her voice sharper than she intended. "That's just how he is."

The principal raised her eyebrows. "Dear,he screamed in the middle of music class because he didn't like the sound of the violin!"

Sua clenched her knees. Violins in the Garden meant competition. They meant corrections, the need for perfection or death. "Maybe the violin was out of tune."

"What?"

"Ivan has perfect pitch." She lied, but the lie came easily. "He notices these things."

The principal sighed, marking something on a form. "Sua,you are a very mature girl for your age. But your brother needs to learn to control himself."

Sua stood up so fast the chair fell backward. "He is not a problem."Her fingers formed fists now. "And if you talk about him like that again, I'll... I'll..."

I'll teach him to pretend, she thought, a bitter taste in her mouth. Like I did. Like I still do.

But then she remembered their mother, the cinnamon porridge, the way Ivan laughed when he got a constellation's name right.

"...I'll tell my mom. And she gets really mad when someone tries to change us."

The principal was speechless. Sua turned and walked out, finding Ivan in the hallway, rocking back and forth as he counted the fluorescent lights. "Let's go home." She took his hand. "Mom is making pancakes."

Ivan looked at her with those black eyes that saw too much. "You fought for me?"

Sua squeezed his hand tighter. "Yes."

And then, for the first time, Ivan smiled just for her. Not the practiced smile he rehearsed in the mirror, but something small, genuine, and all crooked.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

Their mother knew. Sua realized it at dinner that night—in the way she looked at both of them, as if deciphering a code.

"The school called today."

Ivan froze with his spoon in the air. Sua felt her muscles tense. "Oh, yeah?" Her voice sounded strange even to herself. Too high. Too quick.

Their mother put more kimchi on Ivan's plate before answering. "Yes. They said my daughter is the best defender my son could ever have."

Ivan let out a noise that was almost a laugh. Sua looked at her mother — their mother — and saw her wet eyes, her proud smile. "...He didn't need defending."

"Everyone needs someone on their side." Their mother took each of their hands, her palms warm and rough from work. "I have you. You have each other. And now..." She winked at Sua. "It seems we have a certain brown-haired girl too, don't we?"

Hyuna. The name didn't leave her lips, but their mother knew. Of course she knew.

Ivan chewed his kimchi thoughtfully. "What about Hyunwoo? He's annoying, but can we keep him too?"

Their mother laughed, the sound filling the kitchen like light. "Only if he likes dinosaur-shaped pancakes."

Sua looked at her plate, at the joined hands, at her brother who now ate with his cheeks full like a hamster. This is my family, she thought. This is my life.

And for a moment, just a moment, the ghost of Mizi in her dreams seemed to smile.

Chapter Text

The city park was full of screaming children, but Ivan only had eyes for one boy under the tree.

Till.

Sua recognized him immediately. The silver hair under the afternoon sun, the shoulders hunched over a sketchbook, the knees covered in scars from falls. Till, but not the Till she remembered. This one wore a hoodie covered in band stickers and chewed on the end of his pencil when he concentrated.

"He's drawing dinosaurs," Ivan whispered, as if speaking of a hidden treasure. "And spaceships. And sometimes both together!"

Sua swallowed dryly. Till used to draw in the Garden, too. She remembered the scribbles he'd make on the walls.

"Have you talked to him?"

Ivan shook his head, his fingers twisting the hem of his shirt.

"He's... big. And he has a temporary snake tattoo on his arm."

Big. Till was, in fact, taller than Ivan at this age, despite being the youngest of their group. Sua watched him from a distance, her muscles tense. He doesn't look like a rebel. He looks... like a boy.

Hyuna resolved the standoff before she could think better of it.

"Heeeeeey, stranger!" she announced, planting herself in front of Till like a brunette earthquake. "You draw really well! Wanna be our friend?"

Till looked up, surprised, and Sua saw the exact moment he noticed Ivan hiding behind her. Something shifted in his face.

"Depends," he said, carefully closing his sketchbook. "Do you like T-Rexes with bat wings?"

Ivan shot out from behind Sua like a rocket.

"Of course! And sharks with lasers!"

Till smiled, and for the first time, Sua saw the boy he could have been in the Garden, if the world weren't so cruel.

Till drew like he breathed: without thinking, without hesitating. His lines were quick and sure, turning blank pages into fantastical creatures in minutes.

"This is a Cybernetic Pterodactyl," he explained, turning the notebook toward Ivan. "It shoots bone machine guns."

Ivan got so excited he started flapping his hands.

"Can you teach me? Please? I promise I'll learn fast!"

Till studied Ivan for a second, then grabbed another pencil.

"First lesson: there's no right or wrong. If you wanna draw a purple dinosaur with five eyes, you draw it!"

Sua stood a few steps away, watching. Till teaching. Till patient. Till sharing. Nothing like that rebellious boy in the Garden who would break instruments and was always being punished for something.

Hyuna nudged her side.

"He's cool, huh? You can tell he likes Ivan."

Sua didn't answer. Because yes, you could tell. And it hurt in a way she didn't understand.

Ivan held up a drawing. A monster with six legs, three eyes, and a smile that took up half the page. He presented it to Sua as if it were the Mona Lisa.

"It's the Guardian of the Stars! He protects the constellations from... from invaders!"

Till added: "He was scared to show it at first.Then I told him even my drawings were bad when I was little."

"You lied!" Ivan corrected, indignant. "You showed me your sketchbook from last year and it wasn't bad!"

Till laughed, and the sound was so unexpectedly light that Sua almost let a smile slip.

"Gotcha."

Hyuna took the drawing and stuck it to her chest.

"Masterpiece! I'm gonna hang it on my fridge!"

Ivan turned red to the tips of his ears. Sua looked at the drawing. At the crooked monster, full of love and scribbles—and felt something strange in her chest. Till did that. Till helped.

On the walk home, Till walked beside them, hands in his pockets. Sua kept a careful distance, but Ivan hopped around him like a rabbit.

"Till! Till! Are you coming tomorrow? We can draw dragons!"

Till rubbed the back of his neck, looking at Sua for a moment before answering.

"I can come after school. I have to finish a... project."

"What project?" Ivan insisted.

Till hesitated, then pulled a smaller notebook from his back pocket. The pages were full of faces, faces of people he didn't know but that looked familiar.

"I dream about them sometimes," he murmured. "Then I try to draw them to see if I remember."

Sua looked at the sketches and felt her stomach twist. Ivan. Luka. Mizi. Even herself, in quick, imprecise strokes. Till didn't know it, but he was recreating ghosts.

"...You're good," she said, her voice coming out softer than she intended.

Till looked up, surprised.

"Thanks. It's... for therapy. It helps a lot."

Therapy. Sua looked at the sketchbook, at Till's hands that had broken so many things in the past and were now creating beauty. Maybe we all deserve a second chance, she thought.

At their doorstep, Till stopped, hesitant.

"So... tomorrow?"

Ivan jumped. "Yes! Yes! Bring your colored pencils!"

Till nodded, but his eyes were on Sua. "Will you come too?"

It was a simple question. But loaded with everything left unsaid: I don't bite. I've changed. Give me a chance.

Sua looked at him — at this Till, the artist, the creator of six-legged monsters — and did something she would never have done in the Garden.

"...Yes."

Ivan screamed with joy. Till smiled, just a little, before turning to leave.

And Sua, for the first time, didn't feel the bitter taste of resentment. Only the relief of a burden she hadn't even known she was still carrying.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The afternoon wind ruffled Till's silver hair as he crouched in the corner of the park, his knees marked with dirt and his fingers stained with graphite. His sketchbook was open to a page full of hybrid creatures, half-machine, half-animal.

Ivan watched him from afar, hidden behind a bush, counting the times Till chewed on the end of his pencil before drawing a line.

Three. Always three.

He didn't know why it mattered, but it did.

"You gonna stand there all day?"

Till's voice made Ivan jump. The older boy didn't even look up from his drawing, but a corner of his mouth twitched upward.

"I... I like your drawings," Ivan admitted, his fingers twisting the hem of his shirt. "Especially the rocket-dragon."

Till finally looked at him. His navy-blue eyes were lighter in the sunlight, almost transparent.

"Know what it's missing?" He turned the notebook, showing the mechanical dragon with spaceship wings. "A little astronaut controlling it here." He pointed to the empty cockpit.

Ivan approached slowly, as if Till were a stray cat.

"...Can I try?"

Till handed him the pencil without hesitation.

Ivan's astronaut had a triangular helmet and disproportionate boots. Till looked at the scribble, then at the boy's anxious face, and did something unexpected:

"Perfect."

"But it's crooked!" Ivan protested.

"Everything in space is crooked. Gravity messes with everything there." Till added a planet in the background, tilted on purpose. "See? Now he's planning to land there."

Ivan laughed. A loud, clumsy sound that made Till laugh too, almost against his will.

That's how Sua found them: sitting on the ground, surrounded by colored pencils, with a paper monster between them.

"Noona!" Ivan waved frantically. "Look what we made!"

Sua stood still, her sharp, melancholic eyes fixed on the drawing.

"...It's good."

Till looked at her, then at Ivan, and something in his face changed.

"I was wondering, are you guys siblings?"

"Yes!" Ivan pushed a blue pencil toward Sua. "Noona doesn't like drawing as much, but she's good at math. Like, really good!"

Till got distracted, studying Sua's face for a moment too long, as if trying to remember something.

"Your face is... familiar."

Sua felt a chill on the back of her neck.

"It shouldn't be."

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The following week, Till became a constant presence. He came over after school with his hoodie (black, with a band sticker Sua didn't recognize) and taught Ivan how to draw clouds, trees, constellations.

It was during one of these lessons that Ivan peeked into Till's secret notebook.

"Who's this?" He pointed to a face scribbled on the last page—a boy with dark hair and a smile with a crooked tooth.

Till froze.

"...Don't know."

Ivan tilted his head.

"Looks like me."

And it was true. The drawing was crude, but the black eyes with red reflections were unmistakable.

Till closed the notebook too quickly.

"Coincidence." His voice came out harsher than intended. "You can look like a lot of people in your life."

But Ivan didn't give up.

"And this one?" He opened another page, showing a girl with pink hair.

Sua swallowed dryly. Mizi.

Till snatched the notebook from Ivan's hands, his fingers trembling.

"Stop messing with my stuff!"

The silence that followed was heavy. Ivan shrank back, his shoulders rising to his ears. Till immediately regretted it.

"Sorry. It's just... these are bad ones. I draw better now."

He tore out the page with Mizi, then the one with Ivan, but Sua saw: he put the pieces in his pocket, not the trash.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

Till brought a guitar on Thursday. An old guitar, with stickers covering the cracks.

"Don't play that well," he warned, scooting back a bit. "But Ivan said he likes music."

Ivan nodded enthusiastically.

"Especially rock! Because of the screaming!"

Till laughed, and then he played. It was a simple song, with crooked chords and lyrics about lost astronauts. Sua vaguely recognized the melody—something Till used to whistle in the Garden between classes.

Hyuna appeared in the middle of the performance, dancing off-beat.

"This is gonna be a hit! I can feel it!"

Till blushed to the tips of his ears, but he didn't stop.

Sua watched him, the way his fingers pressed the strings hard, as if they were afraid to slip. He's not the same. This Till was shy, vulnerable, human.

When the song ended, Ivan applauded as if Till had just played a masterpiece.

"Another! Another!"

Till looked at Sua, as if asking for permission.

She didn't smile. But she nodded her head, just a little, in agreement.

As he left, Till handed Ivan an envelope.

"Open it at home."

Inside was a perfect drawing: Ivan as an astronaut, piloting the rocket-dragon they had created together. On the wings, tiny, were all the constellations Ivan loved.

"How did he know?" Ivan whispered, touching the paper with reverence.

Sua looked at the drawing, then at the empty path where Till had disappeared.

He doesn't know. But something in him remembers.

And maybe, for now, that was enough.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

It was Ivan who pushed, as usual.

"Noona has to learn to draw! Till said everyone can!" He pushed a pencil into her hand, his face so close Sua could count the freckles on his nose.

Till, sitting cross-legged on their living room floor, looked like he wanted to disappear.

"Ivan, leave her alone."

"No!" Ivan put a blank piece of paper in front of Sua. "Draw Mom! She'll love it!"

Sua looked at the paper. In the Garden, she never had any interest in doing something like that; a drawing for her Guardian would probably be discarded, and she'd be punished for wasting her time on silly things...

Here, their mother had a picture frame in the kitchen full of Ivan's crooked scribbles.

She took the pencil.

Sua drew like she did math, precision above all. Every strand of their mother's hair was meticulously traced, every fold of her favorite dress.

Till watched in silence, his blue eyes moving between the paper and Sua's concentrated face.

"You're doing what I used to do."

Sua stopped.

"...What do you mean?"

"Drawing too much." Till pointed to the eyes of the portrait, too perfect to be human. "Sometimes what makes it look real is what's wrong with it."

He took her pencil (Sua almost flinched) and added something tiny: a worry wrinkle between their mother's eyebrows, almost imperceptible.

"They do that when we're not looking."

Sua looked at the drawing, then at Till. How does he know? How does he see that?

Ivan stole the paper before she could answer.

"It's perfect! I'm gonna frame it!"

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

Till brought the guitar again on Thursday. This time, he played a song Sua recognized, not from the Garden, but from the radio their mother listened to while cooking. Something about shooting stars and silly wishes.

Hyuna appeared during the chorus, singing off-key on purpose and clapping out of rhythm. Ivan tried to keep up with a drum set made of pens and a box.

Sua stayed on the porch, watching.

Mizi would have loved this.

The memory came without warning. Mizi, who in the Garden was always singing, who would whistle nameless melodies while braiding Sua's short hair.

"Do you sing too?"

Till was suddenly beside her, the guitar slung on his back.

Sua shook her head.

"No."

Not anymore.

"That's okay." He leaned on the railing, his fingers drumming a disjointed beat. "I get scared sometimes too."

"I'm not scared."

"I know." Till didn't push it. "But if you ever wanna try, I can teach you a few songs."

Sua looked at him — at this Till, the boy who offered music instead of punches — and felt something strange in her chest.

"...Maybe."

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

That night, Sua opened a new notebook. This time, it wasn't drawings of faces or constellations.

It was a list.

Things Mizi Would Have Loved:

1. The chocolate cake Mom makes on Sundays, with orange zest.
2. The (bad) horror stories Hyuna tells at recess.
3. Till's songs, even when they're off-key.
4. The way Ivan laughs, loud and unashamed.

And at the end, in tiny letters:

"I wish you were here."

The notebook was hidden under her pillow. Sua didn't cry. But when she fell asleep, she dreamed of soft hands braiding her black hair and a voice humming softly.

Chapter Text

12 Years Old

Sua's birthday fell on a rainy Saturday. Their mother covered the table with star-shaped pancakes and a small cake (she still hadn't figured out the voracious appetites of teenagers). Ivan, now 11, spent the whole morning drawing a card with Till: a three-eyed monster holding a rocket that said "Noona is the best!" in shaky letters.

"We made the monster green because it's your favorite color," Ivan announced, pushing the card toward her.

Sua looked at the drawing. Green. She had never mentioned that to anyone. But in the Garden, Mizi always said the green of the grass matched her eyes.

"...Thank you."

Till, sitting on the floor with his back against the sofa, watched her with a strange look.

"You don't like green?"

"I do," she nodded, remembering Mizi. "Very much."

Their mother took a picture of the moment. Sua holding the card, Ivan hanging on her shoulder, Till striking an awkward pose behind them, Hyuna and Hyunwoo making a heart shape with their hands. When the camera clicked, Sua thought, looking at the card: Mizi would have put glitter all over this.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

13 Years Old

Till brought a new guitar to the park. Blue, with stickers of bands Sua didn't know.

"It's my birthday present," he explained. "My dad said if I passed my grade, we could pick it out together."

Sua remembered the Garden's reports. Till's Guardian was a mid-level Alien, specialized in training rebellious competitors. This man, however, had tired eyes and calloused hands.

"Play the astronaut one!" Ivan jumped onto the bench next to Sua, knocking over Till's pencils.

"Careful, kid!" Till grumbled, but he was already tuning the pegs.

The music started slow. This time, Till sang about a space traveler who had lost his memory but kept collecting stars without knowing why.

Hyuna appeared in the middle of the second verse, throwing a handful of confetti into the air.

"This will be our class anthem! I demand it!"

Sua didn't sing. But when Till messed up a chord and cursed under his breath, she was the first to laugh.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

14 Years Old

The first time Sua saw Till cry was on a Sunday afternoon.

They were at his house, going through boxes of his father's old records, when Till found a photo, a silver-haired baby in the arms of a woman with blue eyes identical to his.

"My mom," he said, as if the words hurt. "She died when I was little. I don't remember much about her."

Sua looked at the photo, then at Till's hands trembling slightly. Grief without memory is like loving a ghost, she thought. I know.

"She's pretty," Sua offered, the compliment coming out awkwardly.

Till rubbed his eyes hard, leaving dust smudges on his eyelids.

"The worst part is I dream about her sometimes. She's always singing something, but I never remember the song when I wake up."

Sua thought of the notebook under her pillow, the list of things Mizi would have loved.

"...I dream about someone too." The confession came out before she could stop it. "A girl. She liked music."

Till looked at her, his eyes still red.

"Was she important?"

She was my universe.

"Yes."

Till didn't ask anything else. He just put the oldest record he could find on the player, and when the music started — something soft and sad about migratory birds — he let Sua hold the photo while the two of them listened in silence.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

15 Years Old

Ivan started having nightmares.

Not about the Garden (he still didn't remember), but about ordinary things: empty classrooms, doors that wouldn't open, voices calling his name in dark hallways.

That night, Sua woke to the sound of footsteps in the hall. Ivan was standing in her bedroom doorway, his glasses crooked and his breathing fast.

"Noona... there's someone singing in my dream."

Sua sat up in bed, her heart pounding.

"What do you mean?"

"It's a girl's voice. She sounds sad."

Mizi? The name burned in Sua's throat.

Before she could answer, another voice came from the window along with a soft tap:

"Ivan? You awake?"

Till was on the porch, outside the house, a sketchbook in his hand. He looked like he hadn't slept well in days. Sua knew from the dark circles under his eyes.

Ivan ran to him, opening the window and clinging to his shirt like an anchor.

"There was a song in my nightmare!"

Till looked at Sua over Ivan's head, a strange, silent understanding passing between them.

"Then we'll change the song." He picked up the guitar leaning against the wall. "Listen to this one, it's about a dog that becomes an astronaut. It's stupid, so it's not scary."

The song was, in fact, stupid. But when Till got to the chorus (and he howled into the void, AWOOOOOOOO!), Ivan was already laughing, and Sua, against all odds, was humming along softly.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

That night, Sua added new lines to her list:

Things Mizi Would Have Loved:

5. The way Till would flip her brother upside down just to hear him scream with laughter.

6. Hyuna's badly told horror stories, which now included astronaut ghosts (Ivan's suggestion).

7. Their mother learning how to make a birthday cake without burning the edges.

8. The fact that sometimes, when the world got too quiet, Sua could almost imagine Mizi there, laughing along.

And underneath, in letters so small they almost disappeared:

"I think you'd be proud of who I'm becoming."

Chapter Text

Summer brought with it warm nights and a slightly out of tune guitar. Till insisted the heat had ruined the strings, but Hyuna swore the problem was his "rockstar soul being too much for slow songs." They were all crowded on the roof of Sua's house — a spot Ivan had discovered and declared the group's official territory.

"You see that cluster of stars over there?" Ivan pointed at the sky. "It looks like a baby dragon!"

Till pulled the guitar onto his lap, his fingers sliding into a minor chord. "A baby dragon deserves a sad song."

"No!" Hyuna kicked his foot. "A baby dragon deserves a battle anthem!"

Sua watched it all from her corner, knees drawn to her chest. The list of "Things Mizi Would Have Loved" now had 27 items, and half of them were scenes like this — nights where the world felt too big, but not scary.

"Sua," Till tossed a mint candy at her. "You choose."

"Choose what?"

"The style of the song. Sad or epic?"

Ivan and Hyuna turned to her, expectant. Sua felt the weight of their gaze and, for a moment, wanted to disappear. Singing was about survival in the Garden. Never about choices.

"...Epic."

Till smiled, too quick to be caught, and started to play.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

It happened on a rainy afternoon. Till was teaching Ivan basic chords when Hyuna threw a book of sheet music into Sua's lap.

"Look! I found this at the library. It has all the songs we hear on the radio!"

Sua opened the book randomly. Lullaby for an Astronaut. A song their mother used to hum while washing dishes.

"You know this one," Hyuna insisted, sitting beside her. "Even I know this one!"

Till looked over at them from behind his guitar. "It's easy.Just three chords."

"No." Sua closed the book.

"It's okay to be scared," Ivan said, so serious he seemed like a different person. "I'm scared of elevators. But you hold my hand, and then it's less bad."

Sua looked at her brother — at her Ivan, who faced the world with a courage she'd never had — and something inside her broke.

"...If it's bad, you don't laugh."

Till crossed his heart with his finger like he was making a promise. Hyuna closed her eyes, like she promised not to peek. Ivan just held her hand, like she had done for him so many times.

And then, Sua sang.

The first note came out shaky, almost inaudible. But the second was stronger. And the third... the third echoed across the rooftop like something that had always belonged in the world.

Sua didn't notice when Till started accompanying her on the guitar, or when Hyuna joined in on the chorus, purposely off-key. She didn't see Ivan smiling with tears in his eyes.

She just sang.

Like she hadn't since the Garden.

Since Mizi.

When she finished, the silence that followed was warm and full of unspoken promises. Till was the first to speak:

"Holy shit."

Hyuna threw a pencil at him.

"That's a compliment, you mule!"

"It's just that she sings like my dreams!" Till corrected quickly, his blue eyes wide. "Like!... like someone I've heard before."

Sua felt her heart speed up. He doesn't know. He can't know.

"It's just a radio song," she murmured.

Ivan squeezed her hand tightly. "Noona, sing it again."

And she sang.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

That night, Sua added a new item to her hidden notebook:

28. The way my voice sounds when I'm not afraid. 

And underneath, almost a secret to herself:

"Mizi, I hope you heard me."

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The July heat turned the asphalt into a shimmering mirror. The group now gathered in Hyuna's backyard, where an old hose and a small kiddie pool guaranteed survival. Till was applying sunscreen to Ivan's back (who hated the sticky texture) while Hyuna tried to convince Sua to get in the water.

"You just have to dunk yourself, Sua! Even Bori swims!" She pointed to the cat, who was watching everything from atop the fence with disdain.

Sua shrugged, only dipping her feet at the edge of the pool. "I'd rather watch."

Till threw a ball into the pool, splashing her without warning. "Watch this!"

The impact was weak — more startling than anything — but Ivan reacted as if it were a declaration of war. "Till attacked Noona!" He dove into the pool, splashing water everywhere. "Defense mission!"

Hyuna took the chance to pull Sua in by the hand. "Traitor,"Sua grumbled, but let herself be dragged.

The water was warmer than expected. Like stepping into an embrace.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

On the porch, while they dried off in the sun, Till showed off the new temporary tattoo he'd brought, a golden snake coiled around his wrist. "It lasts a week if you don't rub it,"he explained, pressing the paper against Sua's damp skin. "Like... a scar but cool."

She studied the design, the strange feeling of his fingers on her forearm. "Why a snake in the shape of an eight?"

Till shrugged. "Because it always comes back to the same place. Like memory."

Ivan, lying on his stomach beside them, lifted his head. "I want a dragon! One that glows in the dark!"

Hyuna was already pulling another tattoo from her bag. "Here! This one is vomiting rainbows!"

Sua let them stick the dragon on her shoulder. When she looked in the mirror later, the glowing creature seemed to be protecting her. Mizi would love this, she thought, and it wasn't as painful as before.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

Ivan was always the one to initiate the night expeditions. "There's a meteor shower tonight!" He shook a flashlight in their faces. "We have to see!"

The roof of Sua's house had become headquarters. Till brought blankets stolen from the linen closet; Hyuna brought bags of snacks hidden from her mom; Sua brought the old telescope their mother had given her for Christmas.

That night, however, it was the constellations that stole the show for her. "That one is Lyra," Sua pointed, the name coming out easily like never before. "It was the favorite of..." She swallowed. "...of a friend of mine."

Till, lying beside her with his arms behind his head, turned to look at her. "Did you have many friends? Before us?"

The weight of the question hung in the air. Sua felt Hyuna and Ivan stop chewing to listen. "...No." The truth hurt less than lying. "Just one person."

Ivan shoved his hand into the chip bag and offered one to her. "Now you have three."

Hyuna raised her hand. "Four! Hyunwoo counts!"

Till didn't say anything. He just adjusted the telescope with a strangely melancholic look while watching the meteor shower, holding Ivan's hand.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

That night, Sua wrote in tiny letters:

29. The smell of sunscreen and chlorine mixed together.

30. The look on Till's face when he realizes I know more about stars than he does.

31. The way Ivan mispronounces 'meteoros'.

32. Hyuna's badly told horror stories, which now include rock bands made of dogs (Till's suggestion).

33. The golden snake on my skin, which disappears in a week, but the memory stays.

And at the end, as always:

"Mizi, you would have laughed today. Even Bori tried to swim."

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

On the last day of vacation, Till showed up at Sua's door with a small box. "It's kinda silly," he warned, rubbing the back of his neck. "But I thought you'd like it."

Inside was a silver pendant shaped like the stars, identical to the constellation of Lyra. "You...always point it out and talk about it," Till explained, his feet drawing circles on the ground. "I thought it must be important."

It was. More than he could imagine.

Sua didn't know how to thank him with words. But when Till turned to leave, she grabbed his hand and squeezed it, just once.

Ivan, peeking from the kitchen, made a face. "Ew, feelings."

Hyuna, who had appeared out of nowhere, threw a pillow at him. "Shut up, kid!"

And so, between laughter and squabbles, summer ended. Not with a goodbye, but with the promise of more nights on the roof, more dips in the pool, more life.

Chapter Text

The air at the school gate still carried the morning's reluctant coolness and the smell of concrete damp from the overnight sprinklers. Sua adjusted her backpack on her shoulders, the movement almost automatic, her fingers finding the familiar outline of the Lyra pendant under her uniform's fabric. A talisman of cold metal against warm skin.

"...and the Argentinosaurus could eat a whole forest in one day!" Ivan's voice cut through the chatter, laden with a breathless euphoria. He bounced beside Till like an electrified sparrow, a new notebook, covered in shiny dinosaur stickers, open in his hands. "Imagine the poop it made, Till! It had to be the size of this sidewalk!"

Till, standing under the shade of a tree, was the picture of opposite serenity. Deep, almost dramatic purple bags stained his pale skin beneath his navy-blue eyes. His fingers, perpetually stained with graphite, drummed a tired beat on his backpack strap. But when Ivan shoved the notebook almost in his face, a tiny smile — a rare and precious thing — curved his lips.

"You're telling me your new hero is a big lizard that only thought about eating and pooping?" Till's voice was rough with sleep, but his tone was light. "Makes sense. You at breakfast are basically the same thing."

Ivan guffawed, a loud, clumsy sound that made a few people turn to look. The sound, unexpectedly, didn't make Sua shrink. Instead, something warm and calm unfurled in her chest. It was one of those moments. Moments of peace that still felt like foreign territory, but which she had learned to crave.

Till noticed the tips of Ivan's shoelaces were undone, swinging dangerously near a puddle. Without a word, he pulled Ivan to a stop and crouched down, his knees cracking slightly. His skilled hands, which drew dragons and spaceships, picked up the laces with infinite patience and began tying a double knot, firm and perfect.

"You're gonna trip and become a fossil before first period," he grumbled, without any real irritation.

Ivan stopped bouncing. He stood still, watching the back of Till's silver-haired head with an expression of affection, almost solemn. His black eyes, usually full of a restless focus, were quiet and filled with a calm fondness.

"Thanks, Till."

Till finished the knot, patted Ivan's ankle, and stood up, avoiding direct eye contact. "S'nothing. Just don't wanna have to carry your backpack full of books if you fall."

Sua watched the exchange, the muscles in her jaw relaxing without her noticing. It was strange. But it was good.

"YOU GUYS WON'T BELIEVE IT!" Hyuna yelled, completely ignoring greetings and grabbing Sua's arm with a force that nearly made her stumble. "There's a new student! In OUR class! The principal was introducing her in the teachers' lounge. She's a transfer!"

Sua allowed herself to be dragged into the hallway, the sudden noise hitting her like a wall. She focused on her mental anchor: 27 steps to the classroom. 27 steps. It was her number. Her routine. Her safety against the chaos.

"So what?" Till asked, catching Ivan's backpack as it was about to slip from his shoulders.

"So what?" Hyuna repeated, indignant. "She's from abroad! And..." she lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper, pulling Sua closer "...and she has pink hair! Like cotton candy!"

Pink hair. The words echoed in Sua's mind like a distant bell. A sudden chill, completely disconnected from the heat of the hallway, ran down her spine. She felt a slight dizziness and blamed it on Hyuna's pulling, the smell of people, the noise. It surely wasn't about the phantom smell of gunpowder and a memory of a smile under stage lights.

She held tighter to her count. Twenty. Twenty-one...

Entering the semi-empty classroom, she finished the count. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Exact. She stopped in the doorway, taking a deep breath. The Lyra pendant seemed to vibrate slightly against her chest. Everything was... in order. The world, by some miracle, made sense.

Until it didn't.

Until the world collapsed.

The girl was sitting at the last desk, near the window.

Hair as pink as the sunset sky.

Amber-green eyes that reflected the light in a way Sua knew better than her own name.

Mizi.

Mizi.

Mizi!

The name echoed in her skull like a cannon shot. Sua froze in the doorway, her fingers intertwined so tightly on her backpack straps that her knuckles turned white.

"Sua?" Hyuna touched her shoulder. "Are you sick?"

She couldn't answer. She couldn't breathe.

Mizi. Her Mizi, the girl she died for, the one she left behind. Was looking out the window as if the world outside were the most fascinating thing in the universe.

How?

Why?

Does she remember?

Teacher Kim clapped her hands and Sua hesitantly went to sit down.

"Class, we have a new classmate! Mizi, would you like to introduce yourself?"

Mizi stood up. Sua swallowed a scream.

"Hi! I'm Mizi!"

The voice wasn't loud. It was gentle like the tone Mizi used only for her, calm... Too wrong.

The your Mizi had known always smiled. Spoke loudly when sharing secrets the same way she did when saying trivial things.

This Mizi still gestured too much, laughed with her head thrown back, but wore a butterfly clip in her hair that the other Mizi would have found tacky.

"I moved here because my dad's in the military! I love horror movies and sweet popcorn!"

Sua felt her legs give way. It's not her. It can't be.

But it was. Every detail — the curve of her nose, the dimple in her cheek, even the glasses that in this life had a different shape.

Hyuna dragged Mizi to the desk next to Sua as soon as the bell rang.

"This is Sua! She's super smart, but doesn't talk much. Like a mysterious genius!"

Mizi turned to her, eyes shining.

"Wow! You really look like a movie character!"

Sua opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

You held my hand.

Did you cry when they killed me?

Are you real?

Mizi frowned.

"Are you okay? You look super pale!"

Sua stood up so fast her chair fell over.

"Bathroom," she lied, and fled.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The bathroom was cold and silent, a brutal contrast to the heat and noise of the hallway. The smell of acidic disinfectant burned her nostrils. Sua staggered to the sink, her hands gripping the cold marble edge so hard her fingers turned white.

She looked up into the mirror.

And expected to see the figure from her past. Expected to see the pale, sweaty skin of internal panic as she patiently waited for her end, the empty eyes of someone who knew the taste of blood. Expected to see short, practical hair, cut to not obstruct the view of the sight on her neck. Expected to see a ghost.

But the ghost wasn't in the mirror. The ghost was the reflection.

The person staring back was just her. A girl in a navy-blue school uniform, with black hair now longer and slightly messy falling over her narrow shoulders. Her violet eyes were wide with a primordial terror, pupils dilated. Her skin, too pale, made the faint freckles on her nose from days in the hot summer sun stand out. It was a young face. Intact. Inexperienced.

It was the face of someone who shouldn't know any pain.

The dissonance was so violent it turned her stomach. She felt her past self still inside her. The weight of tired bones, the phantom scar on her neck with her name still throbbing.

But the mirror insisted on reflecting a 15-year-old child. It was as if her cursed soul had been forcibly stuffed into a body that never belonged to it.

A muffled sob escaped her lips before she could stop it. I'm not on the stage anymore. I'm not that woman anymore, she repeated to herself, hoping her body would understand.

The bathroom was empty. Sua locked herself in a stall, her shoulders shaking like a leaf in the wind.

She didn't recognize me.

She's not the same.

She's alive.

The Lyra pendant weighed heavily against her chest. Sua grabbed it like a talisman, her fingers white from squeezing.

"Mizi..." she whispered into the void. "What do I do now?"

The bathroom door burst open with a bang.

"SUA! YOU'RE IN HERE!"

Hyuna. Always Hyuna.

"Go away," Sua ordered, her voice coming out in shreds.

"No way," Hyuna sat on the floor, outside the stall. "Did the new girl scare you? She's a bit intense, but she seems nice."

"GO AWAY!"

The shout echoed off the tiled walls. Hyuna was silent for a long moment.

"...Okay. But I'll be back in five minutes. With chocolate."

When the footsteps disappeared, Sua slid into a crouch on the cold floor, her knees drawn to her chest. Sua could no longer see the reflection. But she could feel it. Who she was now, and the wounded woman she had been, one inside the other, both shaking uncontrollably, trapped in a cell of bone and memory, listening to Hyuna's voice, a friend who couldn't, not in a million years, understand what was happening on the other side of the door.

How do I survive this?

How do I look at her every day knowing what I lost?

How do I not scream the truth to the whole world?

And then, like a bolt of lightning in a blue sky, the answer came:

Her list.

On the last page of the hidden notebook, with letters so firm they almost pierced the paper, Sua wrote:

1. You are here. And you don't know me.

2. Your hair is pinker than before. Your smile is louder.

3. You like sweet popcorn now. I don't know if you did before.

4. I don't know who you are. But I want to find out.

And at the end, like a pact with herself:

"This time, I won't die. This time, I will get to know you again."

Chapter Text

Mizi's presence in the classroom was like an irregular gravitational field, distorting the space around her. In the days following her arrival, Sua became her silent observer, her personal astronaut studying a star that had changed its orbit.

Ivan, initially shy, now flooded Mizi with facts and trivia whenever they met. Hyuna gravitated around her, pulling her into excited conversations about the latest K-dramas.

And even Till was teaching her a simple song on the guitar, his fingers lightly tapping the back of her hand to correct her position— a casual, unpretentious touch that would have made the Till from the Garden blush to the tips of his ears. But instead, it earned a calm smile decorating his lips.

"Found you!" Mizi's whisper sounded like a shout in that sanctuary of silence.

And so Mizi tried to get closer to Sua. She talked about the history test, about her favorite band's new single, about the neighbor's dog that was afraid of squirrels. It was a constant river of words, carefree and light.

It was simultaneously the most wonderful and most agonizing sound she had ever heard.

She couldn't respond properly. Every word she tried to form in her mouth felt like a betrayal of what they were, of the pain she carried even over the promise to get to know her again.

Mizi didn't seem to mind the silence. After ten minutes, she pushed a cup of pudding toward Sua, her ears pink. "Here. I got an extra one in the cafeteria. Do you want it?"

It was such a simple gesture. So normal. But for Sua, it was like receiving a piece of her own heart, offered by someone who didn't know who it belonged to.

She took the pudding. Her hands trembled slightly. "Thank you," the word came out as a shaky breath.

Mizi just smiled and walked away, as if that small gesture had been nothing special.

For her, it wasn't.

For Sua, it was an earthquake.

Being near Mizi in her past life was as natural as breathing. It didn't require effort against memories of a past whose only recollection came through nightmares.

You were just mine, Sua thought, and the idea was so possessive, so wrong in this new life, that it left a bitter taste in her mouth. She didn't want her like this. So... How did she want her? Did she want the memory of her to be a shared burden? Did she want to see the same dead weight in Mizi's bright eyes?

The idea was horrible. It made Sua wish she had never gotten up from that cold stage floor, and that terrified her.

In the following days, Sua's internal earthquake didn't cease. It just turned into a constant tremor, a background hum only she could hear.

The rain fell heavily outside the school, beating against the windows like impatient fingers. Sua watched the drops streaming down the glass, trying to sync her breathing with their rhythm. One, two, three...

"You're always staring out the window, huh?"

Mizi appeared beside her like an unwanted ray of sunshine, tossing her backpack onto a nearby desk. Her smell was different— no longer the neutral soap of the Garden, but something sweet, with notes of vanilla and something fruity.

Sua didn't answer. She didn't even move her eyes as her mind wandered.

"Is it like... a hobby? Or are you planning an escape?" Mizi laughed, as if she'd made the funniest joke in the world.

"I observe," Sua murmured, the word coming out more like a sigh.

Mizi tilted her head to hear better as she leaned closer, her pink hair spilling over one shoulder.

"What?"

"I observe. It's not a hobby. It's not an escape." Sua finally looked at her, feeling the weight of those amber-green eyes like a punch to the gut. "I just observe."

Mizi smiled, her eyes shining as if Sua's answer were fascinating.

"That's so cool. Like a superpower!"

Sua found herself freezing under this attention. Mizi's gaze lacked the devotion of their past life, holding only an almost childlike curiosity.

Was it really a superpower to observe things that way? Would Mizi— her Mizi — have thought so too?

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

Till found Sua on the roof after school, curled under the eaves like a stray cat. He didn't ask. He just sat down beside her and handed her a crumpled piece of paper.

It was a drawing.

Mizi, but not the current Mizi, the other one. The one in a white dress with flowers in her hair.

Sua swallowed dryly.

"How...?"

Till shrugged, his fingers drumming on his knee.

"Dreamed about her. Don't know why." He looked at Sua, really looked. "You know her."

It wasn't a question.

Sua pressed the drawing to her chest, feeling the paper crumple further.

"She's dead."

Till didn't react. He just picked up his guitar and played the first notes of "Lullaby for an Astronaut."

It was enough.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

Mizi showed up at Sua's house on a Friday afternoon, with a giant bag of sweet popcorn and a horror movie DVD.

"Welcome gift!" she announced, as if she were the senior, not the new student. "Hyuna said you like horror, but never admit it."

Ivan, drawn by the smell of sugar, appeared in the hallway.

"Noona hates gore. Only likes psychological ghosts."

Mizi raised her eyebrows, impressed.

"Wow, you're her number one fan, huh?"

"Yeah!" Ivan smiled, showing his crooked tooth. "And she's my sister!"

Sua watched the scene from afar, her arms crossed. She doesn't belong here. But when Mizi held out the bag of popcorn, she took a handful.

"So?" Mizi nudged her side. "Are we gonna watch it, or are you gonna keep watching me like I'm a ghost?"

Mizi laughed as if it were an inside joke. Sua almost spat out her popcorn.

Ghost. How can I mourn the loss of someone who's right in front of me?

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

That night, Sua updated the notebook with a trembling hand:

38. She puts too much sugar on the popcorn. I don't know how you liked it.

39. She laughs loudly during horror movies. You used to get scared of the stories you told yourself.

40. She didn't cry during the sad scenes. You used to cry all the time.

And then, in the margin, in letters so small they almost disappeared:

"Did she cry for me? Will she still?"

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The rain beat against the roof of Sua's house, the hidden spot with street access that had become the group's official hideout. Till was already there, wrapping electrical tape around his guitar cable, his tongue stuck between his teeth like it always was when he concentrated.

Sua watched the trails of raindrops streaming down the zinc roof tile, intermittently illuminated by the headlights of cars passing on the street below.

Three hours and forty-two minutes since Mizi accidentally touched my arm.

Two days since she smiled at me when I was helping Hyuna with a problem.

Till broke the silence without looking at her: "You look like Ivan when he tries to do math in his head."

Sua turned slowly. Till now had a new ear piercing and the same navy-blue eyes that had stared out in the Garden — only now, instead of discomfort, there was a quiet tiredness in them.

"You remember."

It wasn't a question.

Till stretched his legs, his combat boots hitting an empty can. "Piece by piece. Like someone broke a mirror and is handing me the shards." He touched his own neck, where finger marks would never exist in this life.

"I'd given up on singing." Till threw a pebble into the void. "I stood there on the stage, and Ivan looked at me like I was the only damn being in the universe that mattered, and he dropped the mic too."

"Then he pulled me." Till's voice cracked. "Thought he was gonna hit me. I even wanted him to. But he..."

A sigh. A sip of overly sweet chocolate.

"He kissed me. And I didn't know how to react. Until I felt his hands on my neck, squeezing... pretending to squeeze. And I didn't understand, I closed my eyes like I'd accept anything in that moment... until..."

Till made the sound of a gunshot with his tongue.

"Three times. He only let go on the last one. Fell down smiling, Sua. Smiling, with blood running down his teeth."

Sua felt the air leave her lungs as she tried to process the scene.

"You never told him."

"Not gonna." Till looked at the guitar where a dragon sticker Ivan had given him covered a crack. "This Ivan will never need to do what he did. This Ivan just needs a friend to draw dinosaurs with him."

Sua held the cup with both hands, letting the heat burn her fingers.

"I didn't see what happened after I died. I don't even know if Mizi... if she..."

"She cried," Till said, soft as the night wind. "Like the world had ended. But later, when the rebels found her, she fought. For you. For all of us."

The information squeezed her chest like a selfish relief. Sua didn't cry. But when Till pulled her into an awkward hug, she didn't pull away.

"I also remember the guards dragging me away. I remember vomiting when I saw Ivan's body being carried off. I remember years trying to forget the sound he made when the bullets hit him." He took a sip of his own chocolate.

"Until one day I woke up and realized I preferred to remember. Because it hurt, but it was him."

The rain intensified, beating on the zinc roof like distant applause. Sua clutched the Lyra pendant.

"I died for her. For Mizi." The words came out like broken glass cutting her throat from the inside. "But this Mizi isn't her. She laughs at bad movies and wears tacky clips and..."

"And she's alive," Till finished, looking at her for the first time. "Just like Ivan. Just like you. Just like me, by some shitty miracle."

He picked up the guitar and plucked the first chords of Lullaby for an Astronaut.

"We don't get to choose how we come back, Sua. We only choose what we do with the extra time."

And so, Sua did what she always knew how to do: she observed. Not the world outside, but that new, fragile universe rebuilding itself inside her, drop by drop, note by note.

Chapter Text

The classroom ceiling fan spun with a constant drone, like a trapped insect. Hyuna tapped her feet on the floor in a rapid rhythm, her fingers drumming on the desk.

"Today's the day!" she whispered to Sua for the fourth time in ten minutes, biting her lower lip until it turned pink. "Hyunwoo is finally studying here! Mom finally let him!"

Sua nodded, her fingers touching the Lyra pendant under her uniform. The conversation with Till the night before still echoed in her mind like a muffled bell: "We don't get to choose how we come back, Sua. We only choose what we do with the extra time."

Looking at Mizi, who sat in front of her, she thought of the hidden notebook. The list. The promise she had made to herself. "This time, I won't die. This time, I will get to know you again."

"I bet he'll hate the math teacher," Hyuna continued, interrupting her thoughts with a smile that revealed a chipped tooth from last month's bike fall. "He's allergic to numbers. Literally! He sneezes when he sees equations!"

Before Sua could respond, Teacher Kim opened the door with a dry creak.

"Class, we have a new classmate."

Hyunwoo walked in with clumsy steps, the same round face as Hyuna, but with broader shoulders and a calm expression. His blue eyes — identical to his sister's — blinked against the light as he waved timidly.

"I'm Hyunwoo! I like Astronomy and I'm Hyuna's brother!" he said, introducing himself as if the class didn't already know him from his numerous visits to pick her up.

"And my brother hates cats!" Hyuna added, jumping up from her chair. "Bori scratched him three times and he still holds a grudge!"

Hyunwoo rolled his eyes, but his smile was affectionate. Something shifted in the air, gaining a lightness that wasn't there before. Siblings. The word tasted different in this life. Sweeter, less complicated. This time, she had Ivan, but in a way that warmed her chest in a quiet, confusing way that even her old memories couldn't decipher.

The conversation was interrupted by the low creak of the doorknob. The door opened not with a bang, but with a slow, hesitant slide, as if whoever was pushing it feared what was on the other side.

"Sorry for being late."

The voice that emerged was fragile, a thread of sound that barely cut through the heavy classroom air. And then he was there.

Luka.

He stood on the threshold, his hair blond like faded strands of sun. His yellow eyes — pale like weak honey — blinked slowly, adjusting to the light. His uniform collar was damp and crumpled, as if chewed like a childhood habit.

Hyuna's frantic drumming on the desk ceased so abruptly that the ensuing silence was louder than any noise. Sua felt, more than saw, her friend's body stiffen beside her. Her eyes moved to her.

The pen Hyuna held was so tight in her grip that her knuckles were white, the blue ink staining her skin like a bruise. A single drop of sweat traced a slow path down the nape of her neck, disappearing into the uniform fabric. Her lips parted, trembling slightly, but no sound came out, just a small cloud in the cold classroom air.

"Hyuna?" Sua whispered, her own voice feeling too thick for the vacuum that seemed to form around them.

Hyuna turned. Her eyes, usually so full of light and fire, were empty. Not scared, not angry. Shattered. Like window glass after an explosion, still intact but without any structure left.

"I..." Hyuna's voice was no more than a scratch. "I don't know."

"This is Luka," the teacher announced, her practical tone cutting through the tension like a machete. "Transferred from Italy. Let's welcome him."

The class greeted Luka, who smiled timidly. From his seat, Hyunwoo looked at him with curiosity, without any trace of the shock Hyuna displayed.

"Wow, you look like a baby owl!" he said, laughing at his wide eyes.

Luka blinked, confused but not offended. His fingers played with his uniform sleeve, twisting and untwisting the fabric.

"You can sit back there, near the window," the teacher pointed.

Hyunwoo immediately raised his hand. "He can sit with me, teacher."

Luka looked at Hyunwoo as if he'd been offered a lifeline. His steps were almost silent as he crossed the room, and Sua noticed how he avoided stepping on the lines between the floor tiles, as if the ground might open beneath his feet.

Mizi, sitting in front of Sua, turned around suddenly. "I don't like him," she whispered, her pink hair smelling of strawberry shampoo.

Sua swallowed dryly. She knew Luka had also been a competitor, but she didn't know what might have happened after her death.

"Why?" Sua asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

Mizi frowned, as if fighting an invisible headache. "I don't know. It's just... strange to look at him."

Across the room, Hyuna stared at Luka as if expecting him to turn into smoke. He, in turn, chewed on his collar, his eyes distant, golden eyelashes casting pale shadows on his face, oblivious to the earthquake his presence had caused.

The recess bell rang, breaking the classroom tension. Hyunwoo immediately pulled Luka to eat with the group. Sua watched the movement — Hyunwoo guiding Luka with a naturalness that seemed ancient, as if he'd done it a thousand times before.

"He's kinda weird," Ivan commented quietly to Till at lunch, pushing his beans onto Till's plate.

Till, beside him, straightened up suddenly, becoming a tense line of alert. His fingers, still stained with graphite, clenched so tightly around his fork that his knuckles turned white.

The question burned on Sua's tongue: What did he do to you? She swallowed it with difficulty, saving it for a more private moment. Until then, her refuge was the same as always: observe. And what she saw was an invisible minefield.

Hyuna seemed to have turned into a statue, her fingers inert beside her fork. On the other side, Luka's new existence continued its naive course. His laughter — a surprisingly light and disarming sound, so different from the calculated version from the Garden —echoed for just a second. It was enough. Sua didn't need to see to feel Hyuna shudder as if a spider had crawled up her neck.

Under the table, away from curious eyes, Sua found Hyuna's hand. It was cold and still, like a porcelain doll's. She enveloped it with her own, trying to transfer some of her own warmth, a gesture she had learned from her. Hyuna didn't pull her hand away, but she didn't respond to the touch either. Her eyes remained fixed on the golden-haired boy, but Sua had the distinct impression that she wasn't seeing him, but something much, much farther away, and much more frightening.

"I-I..." Hyuna answered, her voice still a thread, as if she already knew the question from Sua's gaze. "I really don't know. He seems..."

"What?"

"Pitiful..." she concluded, as if the word surprised her.

And in that word, full of contempt and agonizing pity, Sua understood. The monster haunting Hyuna wasn't that quiet boy. It was the memory of what he had been, or what he had done to her in a life neither of them could name, but that both felt on their skin like a phantom scar.

Sua looked at Luka, saw the unconscious fragility in his hunched shoulders. She looked at Hyuna, and saw the weight of an entire world sinking onto them. She looked at Mizi, whose easy laughter with Ivan now seemed like a fragile fortress, hastily erected against an invisible enemy her eyes still searched for in the corners of the room.

The pieces didn't fit together. They floated, sharp and dangerous, in a nightmare puzzle that only she and Till seemed to know existed. The question was no longer if Hyuna also remembered. It was what she remembered that made her look at Luka not with hatred, but with a horror so deep it turned into pity.

Hyuna's fear wasn't a reflection in the mirror. It was a window. And through it, Sua finally saw: the true monsters didn't have claws or teeth. They were made of silence. They were shadows of erased memories, inhabiting yellow eyes that didn't know the weight they carried. And they haunted far more than any ghost.

Chapter Text

The bell signaling the start of classes echoed through the school, releasing a flood of hurried, noisy students. Sua didn't move immediately. Her eyes were fixed on Till, who, from his spot in the yard under a tree, was closing his sketchbook with a deliberately slow movement.

He didn't look at her, but Sua knew his perception was like a radar. He had felt the weight of her gaze ever since Luka appeared.

When he got up and left through the back door leading to the service stairs, Sua didn't hesitate and followed him.

The school roof was a neutral territory, of gray concrete and rusty satellite dishes. Till was sitting on the low parapet, looking down at the empty yard below. The wind stirred his silver hair.

He wasn't surprised to see her enter. He just looked up, his navy-blue eyes weren't ablaze; they were clouded, like the glass of an old window, distorting the light passing through them.

Sua approached silently, sitting beside him without hurry. The silence between them was an old acquaintance.

Sua clutched the Lyra pendant. "What happened...? Between you guys and Luka?"

Till took a deep breath, pausing, choosing his words carefully, as if rummaging through a box of emotional tools he barely knew how to use.

"With Mizi… well... after you… she was destroyed. She seemed empty, like a husk of herself..." His voice faltered slightly. "Even so, he was pitted against her on stage. And then he started to sing."

"It was like watching a broken mirror that, even distorted, manages to capture a fragment of something real," Till's voice was now low, flat, as if he were reporting a fact from a dark history book.

"He just… performed. Copied the way you moved your hands when you sang. The way you tilted your head. The tone of your voice... Small things. He copied everything. Perfectly."

Sua felt a chill on the back of her neck, but it wasn't anger. It was a deep, icy sadness.

"She saw you in his every movement," Till continued, his voice now a whisper almost carried away by the wind. "It was like torture. She couldn't take it. She broke down. Attacked him, not out of hatred, but out of… desperation. Out of wanting that illusion to stop."

The description was so accurate it felt like a physical blow. Sua swallowed dryly, a metallic taste filling her mouth as she bit the inside of her cheek.

"The guards managed to separate them. She was going to be eliminated for violence. Until the smoke appeared and the rebellion took her..."

Sua fell silent, digesting the image. Her Mizi, reduced to a cornered, bloodied animal by a grotesque copy of herself. The silence that settled between them wasn't heavy with anger, but with a shared pain, a grief for something neither of them could prevent.

"And with you?" she asked, her voice holding back contained feelings. "What did he do to you?"

Till shrugged, a gesture that tried to be casual but couldn't disguise the tension in his shoulders.

"With me it was simpler... In the final… he put his hands on my neck. Gently. A touch of nothing." Till's eyes grew distant, seeing a stage that no longer existed. "And on the big screen… they showed images of Ivan. Of Ivan… falling."

"I almost stopped singing... I was going to break down just like Mizi. Then I saw Mizi in the audience, she was with the rebellion, I went towards her as if seeking salvation..."

Till took a deep breath, running his hands over his neck, as if he could still see the marks left by the memory of Ivan's desperation.

"Until I got shot in the neck too... Well. Not as precise as it was with you," Till concluded, turning to face the horizon again.

"I remember catching glimpses of Mizi's face. When I woke up months later, I was already with the rebellion... and Mizi had disappeared." Till's eyes filled with tears of anger and anguish. "I looked for her my whole life... but I couldn't find her. I'm sorry."

Sua absorbed the words, each one a piece of a horrible puzzle. She looked at Till — not at the rebel, not at the guitarist, but at the boy who carried the weight of having loved and lost everyone. Sua held his hand, her own eyes filled with unshed tears as they both tried to absorb the pain of the memories.

"Do you know anything about Hyuna?" she asked after a few minutes of silence. "She seems... to know him too."

Till shook his head, regaining some composure. "I didn't know her. But I heard... the old leader of the rebellion was named Hyuna. Died protecting someone, they said." He shrugged. "I didn't assume anything. Names can be a coincidence."

But from the look in Till's eyes, Sua knew he also doubted it was a coincidence.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

In the crowded hallways, Mizi looked like a pale shadow. Sua found her leaning near the lockers, her fingers pressing her temples.

"Headache again?" Sua asked, approaching.

Mizi nodded without opening her eyes. "Just need a minute."

When Luka passed by them with Hyunwoo, carrying chemistry books, Mizi instinctively moved, placing herself between Sua and the hallway — a nearly imperceptible movement, but Sua noticed. Her body curved slightly, as if preparing for something that never came.

"Let's go," Mizi said, opening her eyes and pulling Sua by the hand. "The cafeteria is less crowded today."

At lunch, Ivan appeared beside Mizi with a tray overflowing with food.

"You look green," he announced, placing a chocolate pudding in front of her. "This helps. Always helps."

Mizi looked at the pudding, then at Ivan, and a small smile appeared on her face. "Thank you."

"It's the new kid, isn't it?" Ivan chewed thoughtfully. "Till also gets tense around him." He leaned forward, lowering his voice. "I think he's a vampire. Or a werewolf. Something supernatural."

Mizi laughed, a surprisingly light sound. "Werewolf?"

"He has yellow eyes!" Ivan argued, serious. "And he's super pale. Classically supernatural."

The tension in Mizi's shoulders eased a bit as she and Ivan debated the characteristics of werewolves versus vampires. Sua watched, grateful for Ivan's inadvertent intervention.

Mizi laughed, a sound a bit more restrained than usual, her eyes occasionally drifting to the table where Luka was sitting with Hyunwoo.

Sua observed, her mind still on the roof, but her senses anchored in the present.

"Hey, guys!" Hyunwoo arrived at their table, dragging a chair. Luka stood a few steps behind, hesitant, his yellow eyes fixed on the ground. "Luka's scared to try the kimchi. Thinks it's too spicy. Can someone convince him he won't die?"

Hyuna froze. The carrot stick stopped halfway to her mouth. Her eyes, usually so expressive, went empty for a second, as if she had shut down.

"Ah… yeah… it's not that bad," she said, her voice sounding metallic and distant. She didn't look at Luka.

Mizi, beside her, shrank back slightly. She didn't remember anything, but some deep instinct made her want to retreat from that energy.

"I… I think I'll get more water," Hyuna murmured, getting up quickly and fleeing towards the water fountain.

Luka seemed to shrink even more. His chin trembled almost imperceptibly. He didn't seem hurt by the rejection; he seemed… lost. Like a child who broke a precious vase by accident and is now faced with a silent adult, not understanding the extent of their mistake.

"Maybe… another day," he whispered, his voice almost inaudible.

Hyunwoo looked around, perplexed by everyone's reaction. "What's up? Why is everyone acting weird today?"

Sua didn't stay to find out the answer and left, heading to where Hyuna had gone. She found her not far away, sitting on the patio steps looking towards the cafeteria, hugging her knees.

"You're quiet today," Sua said, sitting beside her.

Hyuna didn't answer immediately. Her eyes were fixed on Luka, who was now finishing a Rubik's cube and scrambling it again.

"Sometimes," Hyuna began, her voice so low Sua almost didn't hear it, "I feel like I'm going crazy. Like I'm remembering a movie I never saw."

Sua remained silent, letting her continue.

"I look at him and... I feel anger. An anger so deep it's scary. But I also feel... pity." She swallowed dryly. "As if he were a lost child who did horrible things, but didn't even know why."

Her eyes filled with unshed tears. "And the worst part is I can't explain why. Why would I care? Why would I care so much about him?"

Sua didn't answer, but she didn't question it either, just held her hand as the two sat in silence while the sun set, watching the golden-haired boy who, unknowingly, carried the weight of a life he didn't remember.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

On the way home, Mizi offered to walk Sua home. The silence between them was different. It wasn't the comfortable silence from before, but a loaded one, full of the things left unsaid in the cafeteria.

Mizi walked with her arms crossed, not in a bad mood, but as if she were trying to hold herself together.

"She's acting weird," Mizi said, finally, her voice softer than usual. "Hyuna. Ever since that boy… Luka… showed up."

"She has her reasons," Sua replied, carefully.

"I feel weird around him too," Mizi admitted, kicking a stone on the path. "It's like… like when you hear a really high-pitched sound that no one else hears. He gets on my nerves."

She stopped walking and looked at Sua, her expression open and confused.

"This is crazy, right? Judging someone just on a feeling."

Sua stopped beside her. The afternoon sun lit up Mizi's pink hair, making it look like a cloud of cotton candy. She looked so young. So intact. But still haunted by a ghost her conscious mind refused to name.

The time Hyuna put a cookie on Ivan's forehead echoed in her mind. "Sometimes, helping is just… being there."

Sua wasn't good with touch. She wasn't good with words of comfort. Her language of love had been her own reckless sacrifice. But she was learning a new language. A language of small gestures. Of constant presence.

Slowly, almost hesitantly, Sua reached out her hand. Not to touch Mizi, but to point to a cat asleep in a nearby window.

"Look," she said, her voice a bit hoarse. "Mrs. Kim's cat. He always sleeps there at four o'clock."

It was the most mundane and unimportant thing in the world. A trivial fact. A piece of normality.

Mizi followed her gaze. The cat, an orange tabby, was purring loudly enough for them to hear from the sidewalk. The tension in Mizi's shoulders slowly dissolved a little.

"He's fat," she observed, a small, genuine smile touching her lips.

"Very," Sua agreed.

They stood there for a minute, maybe two, just watching the cat sleep. There was no need to talk about Luka, or Hyuna, or the past. There was just a fat cat, the warmth of the afternoon sun, and a silence that was no longer heavy, but shared.

When Mizi started walking again, her step was light. "Thank you, Sua," she said without looking back.

"For what?" Sua asked, looking at Mizi's back.

"For not rushing me," Mizi replied, throwing a quick smile over her shoulder. "For letting me… stop."

Sua stayed behind for a moment, watching Mizi disappear around the corner. She looked at the cat, then at her own hands – hands that had once held a microphone like a weapon, had held Ivan as he trembled, and had tried to hold Mizi in her final moments.

Now, they were learning to point at fat cats. To offer small pieces of peace. Healing wasn't linear. It was made of moments like this. Of quiet choices. Of staying, instead of dying.

The echo of the past still cast a whispering shadow, but for the first time, Sua felt like she was learning to whisper back.

Chapter Text

Wednesday's break had its own unique rhythm. Under the large tree in the schoolyard, the sun filtering through the leaves painted patterns of light and shadow onto the group. It was one of those rare moments when the silent fog that had hung over them since Luka's arrival seemed to have lifted, if only a little.

Ivan was unsuccessfully trying to explain to Hyuna why his new drawing of a moose-dragon was "scientifically plausible." Till watched with a half-smile, sharpening a pencil with a pocketknife. Sua observed them all, soaking in the relative peace.

And Mizi... Mizi was closer than usual. Her arm brushed against Sua's from time to time, a constant point of warmth that was slightly distracting. When she laughed at something Ivan said, her shoulder pressed against Sua's and didn't immediately pull away. It was a tiny, almost imperceptible thing that made something calm and warm unfurl within Sua's chest.

“No, you don’t get it!” Ivan insisted, gesturing wildly with his drawing. “He needs the moose antlers to detect enemies! Otherwise, how would he know where to spit fire?”

Hyuna laughed, but the sound was more restrained than usual. Sua had noticed a change in her over the last few days. A new seriousness, a thoughtful, distant look in her eyes sometimes. She was also sticking closer to Mizi, pulling her into conversations and laughing in a more mature, less boisterous way.

“I believe you, Ivan,” Hyuna said, taking the drawing. “But I think the fire should be orange, not pink.”

“Debatable!” Ivan shot back, though he seemed satisfied.

The peace was shattered by the sound of approaching footsteps. Hyunwoo appeared, and by his side, like a pale and inevitable shadow, was Luka, following him.

The atmosphere changed. Instantly.

Till closed his hand around the pencil, his half-smile vanishing. Ivan stopped mid-sentence, his eyes darting toward Till as if to gauge his reaction. Mizi, beside Sua, instantly went rigid. Her arm, which had been casually brushing against Sua's, now pressed against it almost protectively. Her fingers touched Sua's for a brief, tense second, as if she wanted to hold her hand before withdrawing.

Luka seemed to feel the shift in the air. He hunched his shoulders, his amber eyes lowering to look at his own shoes. He looked small. Pitiful, as Hyuna had said. A broken vase unaware of the damage it had caused.

“Hey, guys!” Hyunwoo greeted, his voice a little too loud for the quiet that had settled. “Luka’s looking for a group for the history project. Can he join us?”

Silence was the only answer. Hyuna was the first to move. She took a deep breath, almost imperceptibly, and then lifted her chin. A professional, strangely adult smile appeared on her face.

“Of course he can,” she said, her voice controlled. “We’re meeting at the library tomorrow after class. You can come... Luka.”

It was a gesture of forced normality, but it was a gesture nonetheless. Luka looked up and smiled, a flicker of fragile hope in his eyes. Hyuna didn’t hold his gaze; she looked away toward Mizi, as if seeking support, but her smile didn't waver.

Mizi, for her part, did not soften. Her arm was still pressed against Sua's, her wary gaze fixed on Luka.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

It was Hyunwoo who sought out Sua later, near the water fountains. He approached not with his usual energy, but with a hesitation that was rare for him.

“Hey, Sua,” he called, his voice low, his blue eyes serious. “I need to talk to you. Got a minute?”

He led her toward the lockers, away from everyone else. The smell of new sneakers and old paper filled the space.

“It’s about Luka,” he began, rubbing the back of his neck. “He’s... he’s really down. He thinks nobody here likes him.”

Sua remained silent, her face a calm mask. Inside, a torrent of images: Luka on stage, a perfect and grotesque imitation of herself. Luka with his hands around Till’s neck. Till’s voice on the rooftop as he explained everything.

“And...?” she finally asked, her tone measured, wanting to see where this was going.

“And you were the only one who didn't... react badly. You just watched, like you always do.” Hyunwoo stared at her, a sincere plea in his eyes.

“What do you want me to do?” Sua asked.

“Just... don’t be cold toward him. If you, who’s always so calm, treat him normally, maybe the others will relax. Maybe Hyuna will relax. How about we all hang out? Everyone together. At the park on Saturday. To help him fit in.”

It was a simple request. From an outside perspective, it was even reasonable. Sua looked at the group in the distance. She saw Mizi, who grew tense whenever Luka was near; Till, always on alert; and the abnormal seriousness in Hyuna these past few days. Including Luka risked fracturing their precarious unity. But this life was a blank draft, wasn’t it? A chance to draw different lines, to choose different colors. Extra time...

“...Alright,” she agreed. “I’ll go.”

“Thanks a lot, Sua!” Hyunwoo said, his mood lifting. “Luka’s just a bit of a misfit. And since he got here, I’ve noticed something strange about Hyuna.”

“Strange how?”

“She’s... gotten more serious. She’s also more affectionate with me, like she’s trying to make up for something...” he explained, confused. “But she gets tense around him. And I know it bums Luka out. He really wants to have friends. So much.”

Sua observed Hyunwoo. His logic was pure and simple, based on the world he knew. He saw only a lonely boy and a sister acting inexplicably.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The integration attempt happened at the park after class. Hyunwoo practically dragged Luka over to the group, which was gathered under the shade of a tree. Till was leaning against the trunk, drawing with long, aggressive strokes that seemed too forceful for the task. Ivan was leafing through a book on constellations, but his eyes were fixed on Till, not the stars.

Hyunwoo laid out a small blanket and pulled Luka down to sit.

“Sua! Luka’s good at chess. Up for a game?”

It was then that Mizi moved.

It wasn't a movement of flight. It was a convergence. As if pulled by a magnet, she stood up from her spot and crossed the distance to Sua in quick, silent steps. Her face was serious, her eyes fixed on Luka with an animal-like distrust. Without a word, her arm wrapped around Sua's, pulling it against her side. Her hand found Sua's and interlaced their fingers, squeezing with a strength that didn't ask for permission, that demanded closeness.

Sua froze. The contact wasn't like Hyuna's casual touch or Till's clumsy hugs. It was a pure, primal instinct of protection. The warmth of Mizi's body against her side, the smell of strawberry shampoo from her pink hair... Sua felt heat rush up her neck, burning her ears. She stood there, embarrassed and confused by the gesture's intensity, and deep within a soul that still carried the scars of another life, irrevocably happy. That Mizi, who knew nothing, was still protecting her. Still choosing her.

“It’s... it’s just a chess game, Mizi,” Hyunwoo tried, embarrassed.

“It looks like rain, we should probably go,” Mizi announced, her chin raised, daring anyone to question her logic.

Luka shrank even further into his chair, his amber eyes downcast, fixed on the ants marching near his feet.

That's when Hyuna spoke. She had been sitting a little apart, chewing on the end of a pencil, until she seemed to reach an internal decision. She stood up, tossed the pencil into her backpack, and forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

“Ah, cut it out with the funeral faces, guys!” her voice sounded a bit too loud. “Who’s coming to my house? Mom made pizza. And... and Luka can come too. There's plenty.”

Luka’s face lit up as if someone had lit a candle inside him. A small, fragile smile touched his lips.

“I... I like pizza,” he murmured, as if confessing a great secret.

Hyuna seemed caught in her own trap. She blinked, looked at Hyunwoo's relieved smile, at Mizi's still-stony face, and then at Luka, who was smiling broadly and looking at her with a gratitude that was almost painful to see.

Hyuna's reaction was almost imperceptible, but Sua, with her trained perception, saw it. The tips of Hyuna's ears flushed red. She didn't look directly at him, but her chin remained firm, and her voice didn't waver.

“Cool. So... that's settled,” she said, grabbing her backpack with a abrupt motion. “Let's go, before it actually starts raining.”

She turned quickly to start gathering things, but not before Sua caught the brief flicker in her eyes – a flash of pain, irritation, and something else... a deep resignation – before they were hidden again behind the mask of normality.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The pepperoni pizza from Hyuna’s mom was spicy and comforting, and the familiar presence of Bori, the cat, purring near the table, helped dissipate some of the tension. Ivan was the first to succumb to normality, sidling up to Luka to start a conversation.

“Do you know how to say 'moose-dragon' in other languages?” Ivan asked, pulling Luka toward his notebooks.

Luka nodded, a small, genuine smile on his lips.

“Only in Italian, turns into Alce-drago.”

It was enough. Ivan launched into an enthusiastic conversation. Sua watched, participating with occasional nods, feeling Mizi's gaze on her. Mizi didn't move away but maintained a vigilant proximity, like a reluctant bodyguard.

Till stayed on the margins, drawing, but Sua noticed his eyes lifting now and then, studying Luka with deep suspicion.

Hyuna was the most interesting to watch. She participated, laughed at Hyunwoo's jokes, but her attention was a beacon that refused to shine on Luka. When he spoke, she listened, but her gaze fixed on a point somewhere beyond him.

After a while, the familiar chaos seemed to create a temporary truce. Even Till seemed to relax a bit, pulled into a discussion about music with Hyunwoo. Luka watched everything with wide, curious eyes, like an anthropologist studying an alien tribe. Ivan occasionally turned to him, trying to convince him that chess with dinosaur pieces was the future of the sport.

It was normal. Calm. For the first time since Luka had arrived, Sua felt that maybe, just maybe, the future was indeed a possibility.

As everyone was getting ready to leave, Hyuna approached her. She took Sua’s hand with a firm, meaningful squeeze.

“Sua,” she said, her voice lower, shedding some of that forced maturity and gaining a tone of real urgency. “I need to talk to you. For real. Tomorrow, after class, can we meet at the library? Just the two of us.”

Her eyes, for the first time since Luka had arrived, didn't dart away. They were serious, full of a meaning Sua couldn't yet decipher, but which promised to finally answer all the questions that had hung in the air like a thick fog.

Sua squeezed Hyuna’s hand back, a single, brief movement.

“Sure,” Sua replied, her voice as soft as the rain outside. “I’ll be there.”

The relief on Hyuna’s face was subtle but real. Her shoulders dropped half an inch.

“Thank you,” she whispered, giving Sua’s hand one last squeeze before letting go. “See you tomorrow, then.”

Sua nodded and turned to leave. As she walked to the door, her gaze swept across the living room one last time. She saw Till laughing at something Hyunwoo said, his guard momentarily down. She saw Ivan now laughing loudly at something Luka had whispered as he also said goodbye. And she saw Mizi, who was already watching her, her amber-green eyes full of silent questions.

She stepped out into the damp night, the chill of the fine rain hitting her face. The squeeze from Hyuna’s hand still seemed to be there, a ghostly mark of an unspoken pact.

It was all that needed to be said. The invitation had been made. The conversation was finally going to happen. The questions swirling in her mind were no longer abstractions, but real, solid things, about to be answered.

She walked home through the rain alongside Ivan in a comfortable silence, carrying the silent weight of Hyuna’s squeeze like a key about to unlock an entire world of memories.

Chapter Text

The smell of cinnamon and coffee filled the kitchen, a morning ritual as solid and comforting as the wooden table Sua leaned against. She watched her mother move with a calm efficiency, humming softly as she washed the chocolate cake pan from yesterday, made at Ivan's request.

"Star, the table's going to swallow you if you keep staring at it like that," her mother's voice came, warm with a small smile on her face as she dried her hands on her apron.

"School troubles?"

Sua hesitated. Silence had been her only fortress, but now it felt like an empty room where her questions echoed alone. She chose her words carefully, a mental exercise as intense as any she'd done in the Garden.

"What if someone..." she began, her fingers tracing the wood grain. "...did something really bad. Something that hurt other people deeply. Does that person deserve a second chance?"

Her mother leaned against the counter, her gaze turning to Sua without hurry. It was a look that seemed to understand the weight of the questions even without knowing the answers.

"Wow. Good morning for existential questions," she said with a touch of humor, but her voice was soft, welcoming. "There's no easy answer. Forgiveness isn't about deserving, sweetie. It's about the person who was hurt being able to move on. And sometimes, giving a chance isn't about approving what was done, but about believing the person can be better."

Sua fell silent, absorbing this.

"But what if..." Sua's voice came out lower, almost a secret for the table's wood. "...the person who did it doesn't understand what they did? As if... they couldn't have acted differently in the circumstances they were in?"

Her mother sighed, a sound full not of impatience, but of deep understanding. She approached and sat at the table, facing Sua.

"Ah, my star. That's the hardest wound to heal. Because we want to blame, but we also want to understand." She reached out and covered Sua's hand with hers, a simple gesture that had once been a universe of strangeness and was now a safe harbor.

"Sometimes, making space for someone to try to be better isn't about forgiving the past. It's about giving a chance to what's to come. And only the person who was hurt can decide if that chance exists."

Sua looked at their intertwined hands, the confusion inside her calming a little, not because she had an answer, but because she was no longer alone in carrying the question.

"And if it hurts?" Sua whispered.

"It probably will," her mother replied, without sugarcoating. "Growing up is like that. For everyone. For those who messed up and are trying, and for those who were hurt and are trying to move forward. Life doesn't stop hurting, star. We just learn to walk with the pain. It's the most complicated and most human thing in the world."

Sua nodded slowly. The weight hadn't disappeared, but it had spread out, becoming lighter to carry. Her mother hadn't solved the Luka puzzle. The answer wasn't a map, but it was a lighthouse.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The morning sunlight filtered through the trees, painting golden stripes on the sidewalk. Ivan walked beside her, his steps now longer and more awkward, as if he were still getting used to his own size. Sua noticed, not for the first time, how he had shot up in recent months, surpassing Till and becoming almost as tall as Hyuna. He carried his dinosaur backpack with one strap, swinging it slightly.

"Luka is... interesting," Ivan commented, breaking the comfortable silence. He didn't bounce anymore, but there was a contained energy in his walk. "He can solve a Rubik's cube in under a minute. It's kinda hypnotic to watch."

Sua looked at her brother, the calm of his assessment in stark contrast to the whirlwind in her mind.

"What do you think of him?" she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.

Ivan shrugged, a movement that was still familiar, even on his broader shoulders.

"He doesn't talk much. Stays quiet in the corner, watching. Like you, but... different." He paused, considering. "He's like a stray cat that hasn't decided if it can trust people yet but really wants to. Till gets tense around him, Hyuna acts weird... but I think he just needs a little patience."

The surprisingly perceptive analysis made Sua blink. Ivan had always seen the world through a unique lens, but now there was a layer of discernment over it that reminded Sua of the Ivan from the Garden.

"So you think it's worth trying?" she asked, genuinely curious about his answer.

"Of course," Ivan replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Everyone deserves someone who tries to understand their kind of weirdness. Otherwise, we'd all be alone, right?"

Sua walked in silence beside him, her mind processing.

While she got lost in labyrinths of past, trauma, and consequences, Ivan saw the world as an infinite puzzle where all the pieces, no matter how strange, deserved a place at the table.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The school hallway was a noisy river of backpacks and conversations. In the center of it, Hyuna was a waterfall of energy, gesturing animatedly to a group of friends while telling a hilarious story about Bori trying to "hunt" his own reflection in the mirror.

"...and then he slipped on the rug and ended up headfirst in my shoe!" she yelled, and the laughter that followed was so contagious that even Sua felt the corner of her mouth lift.

It was then that Hyuna's eyes found hers. For a fraction of a second, the mask of fun fell away. It wasn't a look of panic or sadness, but one of recognition. A quick, almost imperceptible blink, a silent nod that said: I'm here. I remember. It was a silent code woven between them, a thread of understanding no one else could see.

And then, as if nothing had happened, she laughed again, diving back into the story.

It was Mizi who approached her, taking her arm with a softness that still made Sua's heart race. She pulled her to the edge of the hallway, away from the main flow. Her touch was gentle but urgent.

"Hey," Mizi said, her voice a tone lower than usual. "I need to tell you something. About yesterday... I'm sorry for grabbing you like that. It was weird."

She let go of Sua's arm, her face slightly pink.

"I swear I don't know what came over me. I just saw that new guy near you and... something inside me just boiled over." She shrugged, frustrated with herself. "It's ridiculous. It's not like you're my property or anything. Sorry."

Sua stood still, Mizi's confession echoing within her. It's not like you're my property. In the other life, in a very deep sense, they were each other's. And that possessiveness, even if distorted by trauma, was a ghostly echo of that bond. The melody of a song only they two knew.

Instinctively, Sua's fingers rose to the Lyra pendant on her neck, spinning the silver stars between her thumb and forefinger, a nervous habit that calmed the inner storm.

"Don't worry," Sua said, her voice softer than expected, surprising even herself. "I... understand. Sometimes we react without knowing why."

It was the closest thing to the truth she could offer.

Relieved, Mizi's face lit up. It was then that her gaze fell on the pendant Sua was instinctively spinning between her fingers.

"Wow, that's a beautiful necklace," Mizi commented, tilting her head. "Lyra, right? The constellation."

Sua nodded, her fingers stopping on the cold silver.

"My grandma was kinda obsessed with Greek mythology," Mizi continued, a nostalgic smile on her lips. "It's a pretty constellation, right? My grandma told me the myth behind it. You know, about Orpheus?"

Sua looked at Mizi, tilting her head with curiosity.

"Orpheus?" she repeated, her voice a little low.

"Yeah!" Mizi went on, animated by finding a safe topic. "The musician who went down to the underworld to bring his wife, Eurydice, back to life. He convinced the gods with his music, but there was one condition: he couldn't look back to see if she was following him until they were completely free of the lower world." Her face grew serious. "At the last second, he doubted. He couldn't take it. At the last moment, he turned around to check. And he lost her forever."

Sua grew quiet, listening. The story didn't hit her like a shock, but like a tide, rising slowly and soaking everything.

The words intertwined with her own memories. She had descended into her own underworld and returned. She had her Eurydice back, breathing, laughing, alive. But this Eurydice didn't remember the journey. And the pact this time? What was it? Not to look back and hope Mizi would follow? Not to force her eyes open to a past that would hurt her?

Orpheus's doubt was her own: the doubt that this reality could be real, the doubt that she deserved it, the doubt that made her cling to the shadows of what was lost. The prohibition against looking back. The doubt that condemns.

"Sua? Everything okay?" Mizi tilted her head, worried. "You got quiet all of a sudden."

"It's fine," Sua lied, lowering her hand from the necklace. "It's just... a very sad myth."

"I know, right?" Mizi agreed. "It's about trust. And about... letting go, I guess."

Using the library as an excuse, Sua said goodbye, Mizi's words and the myth of Orpheus spinning in her mind like a kaleidoscope of perfect and terrifying metaphors. Every step toward the library was a step deeper into the underworld of her own story.

Trust what you cannot see.
Doubt can ruin everything.

The myth of Orpheus was no longer just a sad story; it was a mirror. She was living an inverted version of it. She was the one who had returned, and her task was to walk forward without the certainty that the past was following her, without looking back at the woman Mizi had been, trusting that the girl she was now was enough.

Orpheus's doubt was a monster she knew intimately. And the library, at the end of the hall, seemed the entrance to the underworld itself, where another lost soul, Hyuna, guarded her own ghosts.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The library was a world apart. The still air smelled of old paper and silence, a stark contrast to the hallway's bustle. Hyuna wasn't at a table but curled up in a corner between the non-fiction shelves, hugging her knees. She wasn't crying. She just seemed... exhausted.

Sua slid to the floor beside her, their shoulders almost touching. The silence between them wasn't empty; it was charged with everything left unsaid.

It was Hyuna who spoke first, her voice so low it was almost lost in the echo of the vast hall.

"It's funny," she began, looking at her own hands. "In the other life, I met Mizi... after. After you. She was someone who had lost her color. I tried to take care of her, but it never really worked."

She paused, and Sua felt a pang of pain in her chest. Take care of her. The person Till had described. The leader of the rebellion, strong and resilient — gained a new layer: that of a caregiver, trying to mend someone broken by a pain Sua had caused.

"I thought about that girl who died, and how her death had destroyed my friend," Hyuna continued, her voice a thread of sound. "And in this life, that person who was a ghost haunting Mizi is just... you. Quiet, empathetic, smart. My best friend. Isn't it... ironic?"

She didn't look at Sua. The question wasn't an accusation but a tired reflection on the absurdity of their intertwined fate. Sua stayed silent, the pain of that truth — the pain of Mizi, the loneliness of Hyuna — sinking into her like a stone.

"And then he arrived," Hyuna's voice trembled. "And it all came back. Everything... Luka."

"Unlike this life, Luka and Hyunwoo always fought... Hyunwoo was jealous. He saw how Luka clung to me, and he... he felt like he was losing me; it used to be just him and me. And Luka didn't understand. So I always ended up protecting him."

Hyuna took a deep breath, a tremor running through her body.

"That day... I didn't see what happened. It was a stupid fight. Hyunwoo went to hit him. And Luka... he fought back. It wasn't with anger. Just a quick, thoughtless gesture..."

She shrank further, her voice dropping to a terrified whisper.

"He pushed Hyunwoo hard. Hyunwoo stumbled, people around screamed, and he... he fell. His head hit the corner of a garden rock with a... with a crack."

The silence that followed that word was absolute. Hyuna seemed to be reliving every second, her eyes glazed with horror.

"I ran to see what had happened," her voice was now full of unshed tears. "And I looked at Luka. I looked at his face, searching for panic, for remorse, for something... anything that said he understood the shit he had done."

She raised her eyes to Sua, and in them was a void of terror.

"And there was nothing. Nothing. Just... relief. A frightening smile, running to me as if seeking my approval. As if the obstacle had disappeared. He didn't even look at Hyunwoo. He just looked at me. As if saying, 'there, now we can be together in peace.'"

Hyuna choked, bringing her hands to her face.

"Hyunwoo..." she began, and the name came out as a sigh full of pain. "He was always my foundation, you know? My anchor. In everything. When I led the rebellion... when the world was shit, the memory of him was there. He pulled me back to reality. He was the one who reminded me to eat, who challenged me to laugh, who poked me until I got out of bed on bad days. He was my strength. My home."

She took a long pause, swallowing dryly.

"And Luka... Luka was my weakness. From the start. I knew it was wrong, that he was... broken in a way I didn't know how to fix." She shook her head, a gesture of self-loathing. "My strength died on the ground that day. And my weakness stood there looking at me, waiting for a thank you."

Sua stayed silent, listening. Every word was a knife.

"I loved him," she whispered, and the shame in her voice was palpable. "And I hate him for it. I hate him for making me love him, and I hate myself for still feeling it. How do I look at him now and not see the void in my brother's eyes?"

Sua looked at her friend — the real Hyuna, behind the loud persona. The leader, the big sister, the caregiver. Utterly broken by a love that was both her anchor and her cage.

Silence settled. Sua searched for words within herself, but they didn't come easily. She wasn't good with comfort. So, she remembered the conversation with her mother. "Giving a chance isn't about approving what was done, but about believing the person can be better." She remembered Ivan. "Everyone deserves someone who tries to understand their kind of weirdness." And she remembered the myth.

"Mizi..." Sua began, hesitantly, her voice sounding rough from disuse. "...she told me a story today. About Orpheus."

Hyuna looked up, her eyes red and confused.

"He... He got a pact to bring his wife back from the world of the dead," Sua explained, the words coming out stumbling. "But he couldn't look back. To see if she was there. He had to... trust. And move forward."

She paused, spinning the Lyra pendant.

"He looked. In the end, he doubted. And he lost her." Sua swallowed dryly, gathering courage. "We... we also looked back, Hyuna. We remember. And that's what hurts. You look at Luka and see all the bad things he did. It's real. And no one can ask you to erase that."

Sua took a deep breath, looking at the dusty shelves, not at Hyuna.

"But... but what if the pact this time is different?" her voice was little more than a whisper. "What if it's for us to try... to move forward without looking back all the time? Without letting doubt —the doubt that he can be different now, the doubt that we deserve this — ruin everything again? It's not about forgiving. Not yet. It's... it's about giving a chance to what's in front of us. Because if we don't, we'll always just be... ghosts of who we were."

She finally risked a look at Hyuna. There was no magic solution in her words, just an offering. A silent embrace for her friend's pain and a difficult question about what future they wanted to build.

Hyuna didn't answer. She just lowered her head, hiding her finally overflowing, silent tears, her shoulders shaking slightly. But the silence now was different. It was no longer the desperate silence of inescapable pain. It was the heavy silence of a seed being planted, of an impossible choice being considered in the dark.

Sua could see Hyuna's gears turning, the ancient myth intertwining with her modern pain, a new perspective, painful and frightening, being weighed.

And there, with the two girls sitting in silence in the library, the weight of Luka's past and the agonizing promise of a possible future hung between them, all illuminated by the ghostly metaphor of a musician who looked back and lost everything.

Chapter Text

Monday morning silence had a different texture. Thicker, sweeter, imbued with the promise of unstructured time. Sua woke before dawn, not from nightmares, but from an old habit still ingrained in her bones. This time, however, it wasn't the quiet before the storm, but the peace of a world still asleep.

The light entering the room was a bluish-gray, illuminating the outline of the notebook hidden under her pillow. In it, the list of things Mizi would have loved remained unchanged since the last entry. Now, Mizi herself was here, breathing the same air, but the notebook remained her subtle connection to the present.

Sua went downstairs with silent steps, the smell of fresh coffee and cinnamon enveloping her. A smell of home. A smell she was learning to associate with safety.

The kitchen was empty. On the table, a note from her mother, pinned under the honey jar, swayed slightly in the breeze from the half-open window.

"My stars, I was called for an extra shift at the hospital. Porridge in the pot, just heat it up. Take care. Kisses."

Sua picked up the note. The paper was rough under her fingers, her mother's handwriting, scribbled in haste but full of soft curves. "My stars." The word no longer felt strange. Now, it landed in her chest with a warm, comfortable weight.

The sound of clumsy footsteps made her turn. Ivan was on the landing, rubbing his eyes with his fists. His hair looked like an electrified bird's nest.

"Mom left?" his voice was hoarse with sleep.

"Extra shift," Sua replied, holding up the note.

Ivan yawned, a wide, carefree yawn that showed his slightly crooked tooth. "Ah. Okay."

He dragged himself to the fridge and stood before it, opening the door and staring into the lit interior as if expecting something. Sua watched him. This was one of his little morning rituals: the silent contemplation of the refrigerator.

"There's porridge," she said, moving to the stove to heat it.

As the porridge warmed, Ivan leaned against the counter next to her, his shoulder touching hers lazily. He smelled of sleep and freshly washed clothes.

"I dreamed about Till," he murmured, watching the blue flames. "We were in a place full of stars. The floor was cold. And we were lost."

Sua stirred the porridge, the oat grains beginning to thicken.

"And then?" she asked, her voice low.

"Then we stopped trying to find the way," Ivan said, as if it were the most logical thing in the world. "And just looked at the sky. It was better."

Sua turned off the heat and served the porridge into two bowls, sprinkling cinnamon on hers, and honey on Ivan's, the way he liked it. They sat at the table, the steam rising between them like a veil.

"It was good having Till there even if we didn't know the way," Ivan blew on a spoonful, his eyes downcast and contemplative.

Sua didn't reply. But she understood. Sometimes, "just being" was the bravest journey of all.

When they left the house, the morning sun bathed the street in a clean light. The air was fresh, promising a calm day. And right there on the sidewalk, as if a fixed part of the morning landscape, was Hyuna.

She wasn't fidgeting, just watching the sky, but her eyes lit up as soon as she saw them. Without ceremony, before they could react, she had already wrapped her arms around both of them, pulling them into a sideways hug that was both awkward and deeply affectionate.

"Finally!" Hyuna yelled, releasing them from the tight hug but keeping an arm over each of their shoulders as they walked. "I thought you'd sleep until next year!"

Ivan groaned, pretending to struggle against the hug. "You're crushing my uniform, Hyuna!"

"Drama!" she sang, letting them go, but keeping a hand on each of their shoulders. Her eyes, the color of the morning sky, darted from one to the other. "So? The big weekend? Anything exciting, or just the sleepy trilogy of 'homework, TV, and boredom'?"

Ivan, whose face was still lit by the memories, needed no further prompting.

"I went to the park yesterday. Me and Till," he began, his voice taking on a tone of contained excitement. "I finished the drawing of the Guardian of the Stars. I put Lyra right in the center, you know? And he... he liked it. For real."

Hyuna arched an eyebrow, a playful smile on her lips. "Wow. Praise from the great artist Till? It must have been amazing indeed."

"He said it was," Ivan's confirmation came laden with shy pride. "Then we just lay on the grass. He's good at finding shapes in the clouds. He saw an elephant and a chair. I just saw... clouds."

Hyuna looked at Ivan as he talked about the park outing, her smile softening, becoming something more genuine and less forced.

"That's cute!" she said, and her voice was warm. "It's good to have someone like that."

The conversation flowed into school gossip, plans for the week. And then, like a passing cloud covering the sun, the subject arose.

"And Luka?" Ivan asked, his steps tapping a rhythm on the sidewalk. "Hyunwoo told me they two went to your mom's house this weekend."

This time, Hyuna didn't freeze. There was no heavy silence. She simply shrugged, a movement that tried to be casual but had a little too much precision.

"It was fun, we ate tteokbokki. He also brought that Rubik's cube of his and kept trying to teach Hyunwoo." She made a face. "My brother has no patience for that stuff, he almost broke the cube out of frustration trying to solve it."

Ivan laughed. "Even though he almost lost the Rubik's cube, Luka must have liked it. Just for the food, he always seems hungry.. Seriously. He looks like a baby bird just out of the egg, mouth open waiting for someone to drop a worm in."

"Ivan!" Hyuna let out a laugh, a real sound that seemed to surprise even herself. She poked his ribs. "What a horrible comparison! Poor guy."

"But it's true!" he insisted, laughing along.

Sua watched Hyuna. She didn't look away. She didn't flinch. She allowed Ivan's joke to hang in the air and even joined in, but the hand she had on Sua's shoulder tightened slightly, almost imperceptibly. It was an attempt. A conscious exercise in normality. A "moving forward" that hurt with every syllable, but was bravely executed.

"Well," Hyuna said, finally, with an exaggerated sigh that broke the residual tension. "Let's give the little bird some time to find himself, then. Who knows, with proper feeding, he might turn into an owl. Or at least a more confident sparrow."

The joke was a bit shaky, but it was there. A fragile bridge built over an abyss of memories.

The three walked the rest of the way in that Sunday-morning shell of tranquility. The sun warmed Sua's hair, and the weight of Hyuna's arm on her shoulder was no longer an uncomfortable touch, but an anchor. She looked ahead, to the street leading to school, a familiar path.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

The school gate swallowed the constant flow of students. The buzz was familiar, background noise that no longer grated on Sua's senses. She walked between Ivan and Hyuna, an island of relative calm in the middle of the whirlwind.

The tranquility of the walk dissolved into the bustle of the school gate. The first to be spotted was Hyunwoo, his uniform already slightly wrinkled, talking animatedly with Luka.

Luka's blond hair seemed to absorb the sunlight, and his thin shoulders were hunched over a Rubik's cube, his fingers moving with hypnotic speed. A meter away from them, leaning against the tree trunk with his arms crossed, was Till, his guitar slung carelessly in his lap. His body was a tense line, his usual calm replaced by a quiet vigilance. His navy-blue eyes weren't on the guitar he was pretending to tune, but on Luka, studying every tiny movement like a feline watching a bird.

Sua's group stopped. The change in the air was instant. Hyuna fell silent mid-word. Sua felt the muscles in her own stomach clench. She saw Hyuna's fingers tighten around her backpack strap, her knuckles turning white. The old Hyuna was there. The leader, the wounded sister. Not the Hyuna from the walk to school.

But then, something happened. Hyuna took a deep breath, an almost imperceptible movement, and Sua saw her expression change. Not to the mask of forced normality, but to something more determined. It was the face of someone consciously trying to move forward. The unspoken pact from the library.

"Hey, good morning, guys!" Hyunwoo raised his hand, excited. "Look! Luka solved the cube in under a minute!"

It was Hyuna who took a step forward, not a step of flight, but a step of approach.

Luka looked up. A timid smile appeared on his lips when he saw Hyuna, fragile as glass. When he realized she was coming towards him, the smile wavered, leaving only an anxious expectation.

"Under a minute?" Hyuna said, trying to sound light. "Turning into a genius, huh? Soon you'll beat a robot."

The joke came out awkward, too loud, but it was an effort. A thread thrown across the abyss. Luka seemed to light up inside, as if those words were sunshine after an endless winter.

Ivan, with his usual loud naturalness, interrupted.

"Till! Did you bring that black notebook? The one with the robots?"

The approach was so abrupt and specific that Till was forced to look away from Luka. He blinked, focusing on Ivan as if coming out of a trance.

"What? Ah... yeah, it's in my backpack."

"Then show it!" Ivan was already pulling the backpack strap with a familiarity no one else would dare. "That colorful robot looks just like a Rubik's cube! Luka will like it."

A deep sigh escaped Till's lips. It was a sound of exhaustion, but also of deep affection. He allowed Ivan to rummage through his backpack, his shoulders losing an inch of tension.

"Found it!" Ivan held up the notebook like a trophy. "Come on, Luka! Till can teach you how to draw robots. Some might even beat you at the Rubik's cube, right, Hyuna?"

Hyuna laughed but Till frowned, his gaze going from Ivan to Luka in a quick cut. Sua noticed the internal battle: the protective loyalty to Ivan, the instinct to keep him away from anything that smelled of danger, and the simple, irresistible logic of Ivan's request.

"I... can show you later," Till said finally, his voice lower, as if surrender was inevitable.

And so, almost unintentionally, Ivan's movement was like a magnet, rearranging the group's polarities. Till, reluctant, was dragged into the circle, his physical presence forcing a closer interaction with Luka, who looked at him with a somewhat frightened curiosity.

It was at that moment that Mizi arrived. For Sua, it was as if a brighter light had been turned on in the yard. Her pink hair was down, swaying with each energetic step, and she carried a bag with the logo of a new art supply store.

"Guys! Look what I brought!" she announced, her voice a cheerful alto that cut through the residual tension. "New paints! The teacher said there's a special art class today and I couldn't resist buying something new!"   

Her smile was wide and genuine, directed at everyone. But when her amber-green eyes landed on the group and found the pale, blond figure of Luka next to Hyunwoo, Sua saw it. It was quick, almost imperceptible: a brief freeze, a slower blink, an almost imperceptible tightening of the muscles around her mouth before the smile returned, a bit tighter at the edges.

She didn't pull away. She didn't grab Sua's arm like last time. But Sua, with her perception trained to read the smallest cracks in people, noticed. The Mizi of the present, sunny and carefree, still carried an echo of alertness, a primal instinct that whispered danger when Luka was near. It was the ghost of the stage, a memory of the body that the conscious mind did not possess.

Mizi greeted everyone, including Luka with a neutral nod, before joining them, consciously veering to stand beside Sua. Her arm brushed against Sua's accidentally before moving away.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

In art class, when the teacher announced the partner project, Sua felt a pang of anxiety. Her first impulse was to think of Hyuna; it was familiar. Safe. But then she looked at Mizi, sitting in front of her.

Mizi was looking out the window, her expression distant, that remnant of discomfort still hanging over her like a thin mist.

And it was that small sign of vulnerability that made Sua act. Before another pair formed around Mizi, before she felt even more out of place, Sua stood up, gathered her materials, and walked to Mizi's table. She pulled out the empty chair beside her and sat down, without ceremony.

Mizi turned, surprised. The surprise quickly gave way to a relief so visible it made something stir in Sua's chest.
"Want to be partners?" Mizi asked, a cautious hope in her voice.

Sua just nodded, arranging her brushes on the table. The relief in Mizi turned into genuine excitement, the previous discomfort dispelled by Sua's simple gesture.

"The theme is'Home.' It's a difficult theme, right?" Mizi commented, opening a case of paints with renewed enthusiasm. "Everyone will draw a house with a chimney. We have to do something different!"

As Mizi talked about colors and ideas, her contagious energy took over. In a moment of distraction, while gesturing with a brush loaded with green paint, she accidentally smudged Sua's cheek.

Mizi froze, eyes wide.
"Ah, no! Sua, sorry!"

Sua touched her face, feeling the cold paint on her skin. A few years ago, the invasion of her personal space, however small, would have made her recoil in panic. But the initial shock gave way to something different. She looked at the pot of yellow paint, then at Mizi's worried face. And, moved by an impulse born directly from that new and fragile sense of security, Sua dipped her fingertips into the yellow and lightly touched the tip of Mizi's nose, leaving a small yellowish smudge.

Mizi blinked, incredulous. And then, a laugh escaped her lips — a clear, carefree sound that made a few people turn to look. The sound was so contagious that the corner of Sua's mouth lifted in a shy smile, a genuine, unforced reflex.

Laughing together, the painting they created wasn't planned. It became a chaotic mix of colors that each added, an intuitive response to the other's suggestion. It wasn't a house. It was a field of flowers under a night sky, where golden paint stars shone over pink and purple petals. It was the opposite of a defined home. It was the feeling of belonging born from chance and a paint smudge on a face.

At the end of class, as they met in the hallway, the group's atmosphere was noticeably lighter. Hyuna was talking with Hyunwoo, and Luka was listening, quiet, but without the previous expression of terror. Till watched everything with weary skepticism, but no longer seemed about to explode.

Mizi walked beside Sua, her shoulder brushing against hers. This time, it wasn't an accident. She looked at the green paint stain still on Sua's cheek and smiled.

"We should leave it like this," she joked, her eyes shining. "Green suits you."

Sua didn't reply, but she didn't pull away. The phrase echoed inside her. Green suits you. The same words Mizi had once said, in another life, in a completely different setting.

Back then, something shared between two children about a garden of artificial grass, something almost cruel in its simplicity. Now, it was something new, light and warm, laden with a tenderness Mizi didn't even seem to perceive.

The touch on the shoulder, the smell of paint, the echo of Mizi's laughter, it was chaos. A colorful, warm chaos that, for the first time, didn't frighten her.

It was the opposite of the Garden. It was messy, unpredictable, and alive. And as they walked home under the afternoon sun, Sua felt that the warmth in her chest was the sound of a door opening, very slowly, to let the light in.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

At the end of the day, with her cheek still slightly stained green, Sua opened the hidden notebook. The pen hovered over the page for a long moment, not for lack of things to say, but because of the weight of what had changed. The list of "Things Mizi Would Have Loved" no longer made the same sense. The Mizi of before was a ghost. The Mizi of now was here, smudging her face with paint and laughing.

She didn't cross out the old list. Instead, she turned the page and started a new one, with a different title.

Things I Am Learning to Love Too (That I Hope Mizi Loves)

1. The color green on my skin, not as a memory of artificial grass, but as something real.

2. Hyuna's brave way of trying to move forward.

3. Till's surrender, a deep gesture that can hold as much weariness as love.

4. Laughing with Mizi until I forget there's a world outside that room.

5. The discovery that a home can be a shared orbit, a space where two different realities can, simply, coexist.

She closed the notebook. The green on her cheek was a stain, yes. But not a memory of pain. It was a memory that she was here. And that, finally, that was enough.

Chapter Text

Summer said its goodbye not with a bang, but with a slow, golden sigh. The mornings now carried a blade of cold in the air, and the leaves on the street trees began painting themselves in shades of rust and fire. For Sua, the passage of time was no longer a circular nightmare, but a succession of small wonders.

Three months. Three months ago, Luka had entered their lives like a pale, silent ghost, and the group had learned to breathe to a new, more cautious rhythm. Watching Hyuna that morning was like watching a flower bloom in slow motion, an everyday miracle. The smile she now directed at Luka was no longer just a construction of steel, a bridge forged from duty. There were moments, brief as the blink of an eye, when it became real. When Luka solved a Rubik's cube in seconds and his amber eyes blinked with timid pride, Hyuna didn't just praise him with rehearsed words. A corner of her mouth lifted, genuinely.

It was a work of emotional weaving. Sua saw the effort in Hyuna's shoulders, the way she sometimes had to look away and take a deep breath, as if reminding herself how to trust. But she was trying. And Luka, that boy who had once been a weapon of emotional precision, now blossomed under those rare rays of sunshine, his smile losing its glass-like fragility and gaining some of the consistency of someone who might, perhaps, truly belong in that place.

Meanwhile, another miracle, quieter and equally revolutionary, was unfolding beside her.

On the back porch, bathed in the weak morning sun, Mizi held Sua's hand with a solemn concentration. The object in question was a peacock-blue marker, and the canvas was the palm of Sua's hand.

"Almost... there..." Mizi whispered, the tip of her tongue appearing at the corner of her mouth.

Sua didn't need to be told to stay still. She remained motionless of her own accord, captivated not by the drawing, but by the ritual. By the warmth of Mizi's fingers wrapped around hers, by the shadow of her pink eyelashes cast on her flushed cheeks, by the childlike expression of devotion adorning her face. It was a contact that didn't ask for permission, but didn't invade either. It was an offering.

In recent months, their closeness had transformed into something new, something for which Sua had no name in her lexicon of survival. It was no longer the desperate dependence of the Garden, that love which hurt like a phantom limb. It was... softer. An accumulation of things: the shoulders that naturally brushed when walking, the extra pudding Mizi always brought for her without asking, the long afternoons of studying in silence, where the simple presence of each other was a comfort.

"Done," Mizi announced, her voice a breath of satisfaction that fogged slightly in the cold air.

She released Sua's hand, allowing her to see. On her skin, Mizi hadn't drawn a simple heart or flower. It was an intricate geometric pattern, a mandala of thin lines and small dots radiating from the center of her palm, like a private constellation only the two of them knew.

"It's like a map," Mizi explained, her amber-green eyes meeting Sua's with unexpected seriousness. "For when you feel lost. If you look at this, you'll know that... well, that I'm here."

Sua raised her hand, the morning sun making the blue ink shine against her skin. The mark was temporary, she knew. It would wash off in a few days. But what she felt in her chest, that warm, calm expansion when looking at Mizi, that was the real ink. Something being carefully engraved into her very foundations, layer by layer, in this new life.

Her fingers closed slightly, as if she could hold onto the sensation.

"I like it," she said, and the words, though simple, carried the weight of an ocean of feelings she still didn't know how to name. It was more than "pretty." It was theirs.

Mizi didn't laugh loudly this time. Her smile was a nod of understanding, as soft as the morning light. She leaned her shoulder against Sua's, a solid, comforting point of warmth, and the two of them sat there, looking at the ephemeral artwork, while the world around them continued, safe and silent, for the first time in all their lives.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

Later, during the break, the group gathered under an old tree, whose shade was now dotted with yellow leaves falling like autumn confetti. The air between them was different. Less a tense truce and more a fragile, but functioning, peace agreement.

Hyuna occupied her usual spot on the bench, but the geography around her had changed. Luka was no longer on the periphery, a golden, frightened specter. He leaned against the tree trunk, beside her, his thin body no longer rigid with fear, but relaxed in a posture bordering on comfort. His eyes, the color of weak honey, followed Hyunwoo, who was gesticulating with a napkin while expounding his newest theory.

"...and the key isn't the speed of light, it's folding the spatial napkin!" he explained, eyes shining. "Imagine: you order a pizza from Proxima Centauri b, fold the space between here and there, and poof! It arrives at your door instantly!"

Luka didn't laugh. A smile, however, a small and genuine thing, touched his lips. It was a gesture so rare and precious that Hyuna couldn't help but notice. She watched him for a second, and something in her own face, usually so guarded, softened.

"That's the dumbest thing you've ever said," she declared, but the tone was devoid of her usual barbs. It sounded almost... affectionate. She nudged her brother with her shoulder. "I'm pretty sure space and time aren't a napkin."

"Geniuses are never understood in their time!" Hyunwoo rolled his eyes, looking for an ally. "Luka, back me up here. The math for spatial folding delivery makes sense, doesn't it?"

Luka blinked, surprised to be included. His fingers, which had been subconsciously seeking his uniform collar to chew, stopped.

"The field equation... would be... complicated," he murmured, his voice a thread of sound. "But... the principle of quantum delivery... is... interesting."

Hyuna let out a laugh. It wasn't the loud, performative laugh from before Luka's arrival, nor the cutting laugh from the first days of tension. It was a true sound that reached her eyes. "See? Even he thinks it's out-of-this-world nonsense."

She said this, and her gaze met Luka's. It wasn't a long look, nor a casual one. It was a look laden with awareness, a silent recognition of the path they were walking together. She no longer saw only the boy who had taken everything from her; she saw someone learning to live in the same world as her, and the sight no longer consumed her from the inside. It was a silent miracle, cultivated each day with a courage Sua could only admire.

From her place beside Mizi, Sua observed the group with a gaze that had learned to decipher the nuances of her new life. While the main scene unfolded with Hyuna and Luka, her attention was captured by a quieter silhouette on the margins.

Ivan was not in his usual state of concentrated excitement. He had curled up on the grass, arms wrapped around his knees, chin resting on them like a tired bird. His gaze, normally so alive and inquisitive, was fixed on something distant and invisible. Sua recognized that empty expression — it was the same face he made when he woke from a nightmare, still caught in the residual threads of the dream.

She herself felt a pang of unease. That stillness was uncommon in her brother. It was as if a thin cloud had passed before the sun that was his usual energy. Small, almost insignificant, but enough to cast a shadow where before there was only light.

Till, sitting beside him with his guitar, was a study in contained worry. His fingers weren't drumming, his eyes weren't wandering. They were anchored on Ivan, scanning every small sign of distress. Sua saw when he leaned forward, his knee meeting Ivan's in a touch so light it almost didn't exist.

The result was almost imperceptible — a small shudder in Ivan's shoulders, as if someone had run an icy finger down the back of his neck.

"Hey," Till's voice came low, stripped of its usual shell of irony. "Ivan present? Got lost in the imaginary orbit of what some dinosaur would do if launched into space?"

Ivan blinked slowly, as if returning from very far away. When his eyes met Till's, Sua saw something — a brief flash of something undefined that appeared and vanished so quickly she almost doubted she'd seen it. It wasn't fear, exactly. It was more like the reflection of an old memory, a passing shadow behind his eyes.

"I'm here," he said, and forced a small smile that didn't light up his face. "Just remembering a strange dream about stars."

The answer sounded a bit forced, a conscious diversion. Till seemed to hesitate for a moment, his eyes still scanning Ivan's face for the truth that had slipped through his fingers. But then he accepted the diversion with a nod.

"Stars, huh?" he murmured, his fingers finding the guitar strings in a familiar, silly chord. "It's been a while, but you remember that song I made about the astronaut dog? The one that howled in the vacuum?"

Till plucked the first notes, so soft they were almost lost in the yard's bustle. Not the full chorus, just a fragment, a musical memory offered as a safe harbor.

The tension in Ivan's shoulders seemed to ease a millimeter. The two smiled — Ivan more restrained — and the air around them seemed to grow less dense. Sua watched the exchange with relief, that private language the two of them had built.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

On the way back home, the silence enveloping them was different from the one Sua knew so well. It wasn't the comfortable silence of two people who don't need words, but a heavy vacuum that seemed to suck away even the sound of birds in the twilight sky. Dry leaves danced in whirlwinds at their feet, and the autumn wind carried a cold that went beyond temperature.

It was Ivan who broke the silence, his voice so low it was almost lost in the rustle of leaves.

"Su... Noona... I had that dream again."

Sua slowed her pace, her body turning instinctively towards him like a radar tuned to his frequency. "The dream with Till?"

Ivan nodded, his eyes fixed on the sidewalk ahead. "Only... this time it was different. We were still in the place of stars. The floor was still cold. And he was still holding my hand like last time..." He paused, swallowing dryly. "...this time, Till let go of my hand."

Sua felt a stab of concern. "What did he say?"

"Nothing." Ivan's voice was laden with deep confusion. "He just... let go. And looked at me. It was a strange look, Noona. Like... like he had done something really bad and was apologizing. Like he felt sorry for me. And then he turned and walked away. And I was left there alone."

He stopped walking and finally looked up at Sua. In the twilight, his eyes seemed darker, deeper, shining with a moisture that didn't quite form tears.

"Why am I so upset about this?" his voice almost trembled. "It was just a dream. Dreams aren't real, are they?"

The question echoed in Sua's mind like a bell tolling in an empty grave. She looked at her brother — her brother, who was trembling because of a look in a dream. A look of pity. Of farewell.

"Dreams aren't real, are they?" How many times had she asked herself that question, in the early years, when nightmares woke her up choking?

Something cold and familiar crawled down her spine. It wasn't certainty, but a primal instinct of someone who recognized the shadows of the past even when they hid behind familiar faces.

"Sometimes..." she began, choosing her words with the care of someone handling thin glass "...dreams bring feelings we have when we're awake. Fears we don't even know we have. Maybe... maybe you're afraid that Till will drift away from you."

It was a logical explanation. Earthly. The only one she could offer without opening the door to the ghosts that inhabited her own room.

She paused, studying her brother's face.

Ivan watched her for a long moment, his expression a whirlwind of undeciphered emotions. His eyes searched her face as if looking for an answer he himself didn't know. The confusion, the vulnerability, the pain of being left behind — all of it swirled in his eyes like fragments of a puzzle that didn't fit.

Then, something changed. As if a curtain had been abruptly drawn shut, the cloud in his eyes dissipated as if he were pushing any thought away.

"It's..." he said, turning and starting to walk again, faster this time. "Must be that. How silly. Till wouldn't leave. He likes my moose-dragon drawings."

The change was so abrupt it left Sua unbalanced. It was like watching an actor break character mid-scene. His smile didn't reach his eyes, and the lightness in his voice sounded artificial, like a discordant note in a familiar song.

"Yes..." she agreed, hesitantly. "He likes your ideas."

"Of course he does!" Ivan started walking again, faster now, as if trying to leave the subject behind on the sidewalk. "We even agreed he'd help me with the aerodynamics question!"

Sua fell behind by a step, watching her brother's back as he quickened his pace. The subject might be closed, but the unease he left behind was palpable. She looked at her own hand, at the drawing Mizi had made hours before. The blue lines seemed darker now, as if the twilight had tinged them with shadows.

As Ivan talked animatedly about his drawings, Sua felt a tiny crack open. The seed of doubt, tiny and poisonous, had been planted.

And in the well-tended garden of her new life, Sua felt, for the first time in a long while, the chill of an approaching frost. It was small, almost imperceptible, but enough for the autumn cold to find a way inside her.

The frost wouldn't come with a bang, she realized. It would come silently, through the dreams of a boy who was beginning to remember things that should have remained forgotten.

Chapter Text

Breakfast tasted different now. It was no longer just the taste of oatmeal or the smell of toast, but the flavor of a reclaimed peace, fragile as morning dew on the grass. Sua observed the familiar ritual with eyes that had learned to see beyond surfaces, cataloging every small change in the ecosystem of her new life.

In the days following Ivan's unease, a peculiar calm had settled — not the genuine calm from before, but the kind that comes after a storm, when the sky is clear but ears still ring from the memory of thunder.

Ivan was the most complex puzzle. Since the dream, he hadn't mentioned the subject. On the contrary, he had become an exaggerated version of himself: the playful brother, the curious student, a storm of contained energy.

Till appeared more frequently, his visits no longer marked by the sound of his guitar, but by a silent, vigilant presence. He would sit on the floor of Ivan's room, flipping through comic books, drawing, or just existing in the same space, as if his mere presence could contain any shadow trying to approach the boy.

Hyuna and Luka were also learning a new choreography, a delicate dance of measured looks and words. Each gesture of acceptance from her was a silent victory, a step on the long path they were tracing. Each display of calm from her illuminated Luka's face with a pure joy, like a flower opening to an unexpected spring. Sua watched the scene with a mixture of admiration and a undercurrent of hope. At the center of it all, Hyunwoo was the anchor of the present, his spontaneous acceptance of Luka the invisible thread holding them together, a catalyst for that fragile peace he had unknowingly helped weave.

And Mizi... Mizi was becoming an intimate geography that Sua was learning to navigate without a map. Pulling Sua into life with a force that was both gentle and irresistible.

It was frightening, this closeness. Like opening a window that had been closed for so long you'd almost forgotten the feeling of the wind hitting your face. But when Mizi smiled at her in that specific way — her amber-green eyes lightening, her hands gesturing as she told a story —Sua felt something inside her calm down, as if she were finally finding her way home after a long journey.

The space between them had transformed into something new once again. In recent days, Sua had realized she no longer needed to translate Mizi's gestures — now, it was Mizi who seemed to be learning to read her.

She noticed when Sua grew distant not by what she said, but by the way her fingers stopped spinning the Lyra pendant. She perceived the good days by the lifted corners of her mouth in a soft smile when Mizi told a funny story. And on the bad days, when Sua's world shrank to the size of a silent room, Mizi had learned to be the indirect light — not dazzling, just softly illuminating the outlines, reminding her that the darkness was never permanent.

It was the shared silence that surprised Sua the most. In the Garden, silence was always uncomfortable, something that reminded her of loss, loneliness, and the guilt she carried for the future.

With Mizi, silence had become something soft, a space where she could just be, without needing to perform or explain herself. And when Mizi broke that silence, it was always with something small and sweet — "It's windy today" or "Your hair looks nice like that" — like someone who doesn't want to intrude, just to remind her that she's there. Like a lighthouse that doesn't need to shout to be seen.

Sua still didn't know how to name what was growing between them, but she knew it didn't hurt anymore.

And perhaps it was precisely because she was getting used to this new calm that Ivan's voice sounded so abrupt when it erupted in the kitchen...

"Noona, guess what!" his voice laden with an excitement that sounded a decibel louder than necessary. "I got an A on the math test! The teacher even praised my reasoning!"

Before she could process it, his arms wrapped around her in a hug that started off clumsy, as always, but held on with an intensity that surprised her. It was a gesture from the new life, from that brother who had learned contact without fear — and yet, the way that contact seemed to last a moment longer than necessary made Sua's body, trained in decades of defense in the Garden, stiffen instinctively.

She suppressed the impulse to pull back, to shrink away, to protect herself — responses etched into her marrow from another life to push others away. She remained motionless, allowing the hug, her own hands hovering in the air for an instant before landing lightly on Ivan's back. The contact was both strange and familiar; a ghostly memory that touches like this, in the Garden, wouldn't have existed due to her inability to open her heart to anyone other than Mizi.

Ivan released her, his smile still plastered on his face, but his eyes scanned her face with a rapid, analytical speed, as if evaluating her reaction.

"You seem different, Noona," he said, his voice deliberately light, but his eyes serious. "Less... tense."

The observation hung in the air between them, simple on the surface, but loaded with meaning between the lines.

Sua felt the words echo inside her as Ivan turned to grab his backpack, his apparent excitement back to normal. But she remained still for a moment, her fingers still touching the Lyra pendant, questioning if she had really seen what she thought she saw — or if she was just projecting her own fears onto her brother. The line between perception and paranoia was thin, and she walked it every day, balancing between what she knew of the past and what she hoped for in the present.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

At the school gate, their universe realigned along its familiar axes. Hyunwoo was showing Luka how to make a paper airplane that flew in loops, his hands guiding Luka's with seemingly endless patience. Luka laughed when the plane took an unexpected turn and landed in Hyuna's hair. She picked it up, and for a moment her face remained impassive, until a small, genuine smile broke her seriousness. She returned the plane with a soft comment that made Hyunwoo laugh loudly. It was a common scene, almost banal, but Sua couldn't help but notice how Hyuna's shoulders seemed light, as if she had learned to breathe deeply again.

A little further ahead, Mizi had already captured Ivan, her face animated as they argued about a new series they had both watched.

"...and the ending makes no sense!" she concluded, gesticulating. "Who in their right mind would choose the other character? His hair alone is a walking red flag!"

Ivan listened, a relaxed smile on his lips, swinging his backpack by one strap.

"I disagree," he countered, his eyes shining with the light debate. "The villain had a solid backstory. And the hair was stylish, not criminal."

"Stylishly awful!" Mizi insisted, poking his shoulder. "The other female character was much prettier and more interesting, I bet even Till would agree with me!"

It was at that moment that Till appeared — late, arriving during the break. He ran awkwardly towards the group and seemed to have carried the night with him. His shoulders were hunched under a backpack that seemed to contain stones instead of books. Deep dark circles stained his pale skin, and his eyes, normally so alert, were dull and distant.

Sua felt a familiar chill run down her spine. This wasn't the common fatigue of a sleepless night — it was an exhaustion she recognized deeply, the same one that consumed her on days when memories of the Garden insisted on bleeding through the fractures in her mind.

It was the weight of an unnameable past, carried on the shoulders of someone who, she knew, shared the same silent burden. While Ivan's restlessness was like a distant echo, a premonition of a storm, Till's weariness was the storm itself —mature, visceral, and terribly familiar.

Ivan, who had been laughing moments before, fell silent. His gaze followed Till's approach with quiet attention.

Till stopped before them, avoiding eye contact.

"Are you okay?" Sua asked, her voice softer than intended.

He shrugged, a gesture that seemed to require enormous effort.

"Just a nightmare. No big deal."

It was then that Ivan spoke. His voice didn't carry the artificial cheer from the morning, but a strangely serene, almost adult quality.

"You gotta cheer up, Till," he said, and the phrase sounded less like a tease and more like genuine advice. "Dream monsters don't exist during the day. They're afraid of the light."

Till looked up, and for the first time since arriving, his navy-blue eyes focused entirely on Ivan. There was no anger or irritation in his gaze, just a deep weariness and a silent recognition. He didn't reply. He just nodded, a slow, heavy movement, before heading towards his classroom, carrying the weight of a night that, Sua suspected, had little to do with imaginary monsters and much to do with real ghosts.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

Till found Sua after the break, his face still carrying the same tension from earlier.

"Sua, I need to ask you something," he began, lowering his voice in the bustling hallway.

It was then that Mizi approached, not like a lightning bolt, but like the gentle breeze she always brought with her. She held two cups of pudding.

"Found you!"she said with a soft smile as she offered one cup to Sua. "I got them before the cafeteria closed!"

Till watched the scene for a moment, his tired eyes resting on the cup Mizi handed to Sua. Something in his face softened slightly.

"Actually, about the drawing," he said, his voice softer now, inventing an excuse. "That can wait. We'll talk after school, Sua."

His gaze met Sua's for a fraction of a second — a silent promise of what was to come, but not wanting to intrude on that moment between the two of them —before he turned and walked down the hall.

Mizi watched him leave before turning back to Sua.

"He seems... tense today," she commented, not as a question, but as an observation.

Sua looked at the cup of pudding in her hands, feeling the weight of that perception. The words came out before she could stop them, emerging from a deep place she herself was learning to name.

"Mizi..." she whispered, like a confession. "What do you do when you want to help someone, but... you're afraid that anything you do will be wrong?"

Mizi tilted her head, her eyes serious but without judgment.

"What do you mean?"

Sua closed her eyes for a moment, searching for the right words in the void between what she could and couldn't say.

"Sometimes I feel like...if I hold on too tight, I'll break them. And if I let go..." she swallowed dryly, feeling the vulnerability like a chill on the back of her neck. "...they'll get lost."

She wasn't looking at Mizi, but at her own hands, as if they could contain the answer.

Mizi said nothing for a long moment. Then, her hand found Sua's, their fingers interlacing naturally, as they had done so many times before.

"You won't break anyone, Sua," she said, her voice an anchor in the midst of Sua's internal turbulence. "And no one who truly matters will get lost. Sometimes..." she squeezed her hand gently. "...we just need to trust that the other person knows the way back."

Sua remained silent, feeling the warmth of Mizi's hand envelop hers. It was frightening, this surrender. Like releasing something precious into the sea and trusting the currents would bring it back to shore. But in that moment, with Mizi's fingers interlaced with hers, it seemed possible to believe that maybe the currents could be kind.

"Thank you," she said, almost a whisper of contained emotions.

Mizi just smiled, one of those smiles that seemed to understand everything without needing explanations.

"It's like... the myth you told me about," the word came out before she could think, low and thoughtful. "The one about Orpheus."

Mizi's eyes widened, clearly surprised. "Wow, you remember that?"

Sua nodded slowly, her fingers still intertwined with Mizi's. "I remember. He couldn't look back. He had to trust that Eurydice was following him, even without seeing." She paused, the weight of the metaphor hanging between them. "Sometimes I feel like... if I look back, if I try to be too sure, I'll ruin everything. As if doubt could be a monster that devours good things."

Mizi was silent for a moment, processing. There was a new light in her eyes, a mixture of admiration and surprise at seeing Sua not only remember a story she'd casually told, but having absorbed it and transformed it into something deeply personal.

"I never thought of it that way," she admitted, her voice soft with recognition. "I just thought it was a sad story. But you... you turned it into something..." she searched for the right word "...into something alive."

Sua felt a different warmth rise up her neck, not from shame, but from being seen in a new way.

"It's just... something I thought about," she murmured, looking away.

Mizi squeezed her hand again, a firm and comforting gesture. "Then don't look back, Sua." Her voice was a conspiratorial and gentle whisper. "Just move forward. We... we'll be following you. You can trust that."

It was a simple promise, but in Mizi's mouth, it sounded like the most solid truth Sua had felt in a long time.

Sua felt her eyes well up, but she didn't cry, just squeezed Mizi's hand firmly. Mizi just smiled, looking at their joined hands, and gently pulled Sua down the hall towards the classroom.

・゜゜・ ・゜゜・

After school, Till was waiting for her, leaning against the wall away from the commotion. The afternoon sun lengthened his shadow but couldn't reach the darkness in his eyes.

"Last night," he whispered, "I dreamed of a meteor shower... Like... like it happened in the Garden. We were going to escape together... he held my hand and smiled..." His voice broke. "I let go of his hand and left him behind..."

Till finally lifted his face, and she saw the tears he could no longer hold back streaming down his face.

"This time in the dream, when I turned to go back, he wasn't behind me anymore." He wiped his eyes angrily, as if hating himself for that weakness.

"And the worst part is that part of me felt relief. Relief at not having to see that look of... of hurt confusion in his eyes again."

Sua stood frozen. She didn't fully understand the meaning of it, but she understood the pain in Till's voice — an ancient, deep pain that transcended dreams.

"Till..." she began, but the words failed.

"What if he remembers what I was like?" The tears flowed freely again, and he didn't even try to contain them. "What if he remembers all the times I ignored him, fought with him, that I..." His voice disappeared in a muffled sob. "How will I look at him if he remembers everything?"

"Then you stay," Sua replied, echoing the words Mizi had told her hours before. "You stay, and you show him that you're different now. That he's different. That this life... is worth living, even with the memories."

Till swallowed dryly, wiping his face with his sleeve. His shoulders, which had been tense, relaxed a little. The decision seemed to solidify in his eyes.

"I'll stay," he said, his voice regaining a thread of strength. "Even if he hates me. This time, I'll stay."

It was then that they saw Ivan approaching. Till turned quickly, rubbing his face with his sleeves, trying to compose a neutral expression.

"I have to go," he murmured to Sua, his voice still trembling. "Just... keep an eye on him. Please."

He left quickly, passing Ivan without looking back.

Ivan stopped beside her, watching Till's retreat with a silent curiosity.

"Ready to go?" he asked, his voice strangely calm.

Sua took a deep breath, her heart racing. She didn't want to ask that question, not now, but Till's words echoed in her mind.

"Ivan..." she began, hesitantly. "I wanted to talk to you. About... about how you've been."

He looked at her, and in his eyes she saw an almost sad calmness. It was the look of someone seeing through layers she didn't even know existed.

"It's okay," he said, his voice soft but distant. "We can talk later, Sua."

The name fell between them like a stone in a silent lake. It wasn't "Noona," it wasn't the affectionate nickname he'd used since they learned to speak. It was her name, spoken with a coldness that hurt more than any scar from the past.

He started walking, and Sua stood still for a moment, feeling the absence of that word like a physical blow. But then she remembered Mizi's words — "we just need to trust that the other person knows the way back" — and what she had said to Till: "You stay, and you show him that you're different now."

She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and followed Ivan, determined not to look back, no matter how dark her path through the world of the dead might be. The Ivan who called her "Noona" might be getting lost, but the Ivan who called her "Sua" still needed her — perhaps now more than ever.