Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The bus stop looked out of place, a wooden post with a warped plank nailed across the top, the paint weathered to a chalky blue. The letters were chipped but still legible: 

วัดจมน้ำ
Wat Chom Nam
A temple sunken in water. 

Compared to Bangkok’s steel shelters and glowing timetables, this sign looked as though it had been forgotten here, waiting for someone who never arrived.

Joss stood beneath it, tall and deliberate in a clean white button-down, the collar open at the throat, sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows. His face drew the first glance: sharp lines softened by fatigue, the faint shadow of tiredness beneath his eyes. His hair was dark and parted with careful precision, though a strand had slipped loose against the heat. The shirt gleamed against the dust, his shoulders carrying it easily, while his trousers and shoes, though scuffed from travel, still gave him the air of someone who had prepared for this trip with intention. 

From a distance, he could have been mistaken for a man certain of where he was going. 

Up close, his eyes betrayed him—quick, searching, restless, as though they were trying to catch hold of a thought that kept slipping away.

He checked his watch. Four o’clock. An hour and a half before sundown, though the weight in his chest told him it should be earlier, or later; he couldn’t decide. 

He remembered taking the bus at dawn, bound for the temple his Division had waited years to inspect, the one swallowed season after season by floodwater and exposed now by drought. He remembered the urgency of it, the once-in-a-lifetime chance. And yet here he was, standing at a bus stop frozen, staring at the station’s name as if he had nothing better to do.

His gaze drifted back to the sign: Wat Chom Nam. The letters seemed heavier now, as though they were watching him. He felt a sudden urgency, a decision rising in him without explanation.

It’s late but he has to go. He knew that summer storms, especially in late April were notorious in Ayutthaya. This could be their only hope to document the wat. 

He straightened his back, as if reminding himself of his routine—inspect, record, return before dusk—and stepped forward into the empty road. Behind him, the bus stop sagged in the heat. Ahead, the ruin waited. 

Joss followed the road until it softened into dirt, his shoes scuffing against the uneven ground. The fields were quiet, heat pressing down like a hand. If there was a temple here, it had long since sunk back into the earth. He relied on instinct, on the way archaeologists learned to trace absences rather than presences. Sacred ground, no matter how ruined, always left a boundary. Not walls, not here—floods would have claimed those first—but markers, thresholds where someone once declared the space holy.

He slowed when he saw them. Low protrusions scattered in the soil, irregular in height and alignment, like teeth jutting from a broken jaw. At first glance they looked accidental, but a closer study betrayed intent. He crouched, hand brushing the surface of the nearest.

The base layer was smooth, hard-fired bricks, large and rectangular. Above them, cruder laterite blocks stacked unevenly, depressions across their faces that might once have been deliberate carvings. Higher still, a sliver of sandstone caught the light, a lotus half-buried, edges worn. And at the very top, rubble—shattered brick, mortar residue, the coarse texture of cement—evidence of a modern repair already undone by water.

It was patchwork, not a single period but a stack of them, layered through centuries of building and collapse. He made a mental note, quick, practiced. Observation first, analysis later. That was how he worked.

He straightened, brushing dust from his palm, and for a moment the thought flickered unbidden: of all the things in his life, memory was the one he trusted most. It was what had raised him when parents could not, what tethered him when family history had none to give. He carried the stories he had learned in books, in classrooms, in ruins like this. He believed memory was what made sense of the world, what made him belong to it.

The thought steadied him, even as the ground ahead offered only fragments.

This was likely the entrance. Ahead, more of the protrusions appeared in pairs, shrinking in size as they descended along the smooth slope of earth. He paused, letting the sight sink in. In the present it was little more than broken stone, half-swallowed by weeds and roots, the work of men repeatedly undone by the Chao Phraya’s floods. But once, it must have been something—majestic, ominous, a threshold that demanded reverence.

He scanned the quiet. No homes nearby, no paths cut into the grass. Only the whir of crickets and the shrill of cicadas testified to life beyond the trees.

“Hah!” The sound burst from him, abrupt but controlled. A ritual of his own making, the way he steadied his pulse before crossing into any ruin. It was respect as much as habit: a way to remind himself this was never just excavation, but communion.

He set down his suitcase and raised both hands in a wai. “O deities who have kept this sacred ground, grant me passage. Let me learn, let me tell the stories of those who came before.” His voice hung in the air, caught in the stillness, before fading back into the drone of insects.

Joss bent to open the suitcase, pulling free his notebook, only to fumble when he reached for his pen. His brow furrowed. He patted down his pockets, checked the folds of his trousers. Empty. For a moment, worry pressed against his chest; the thought of entering ruins without his pen felt like stepping in without his sight.

Then memory stirred. He’d been writing notes on the bus earlier. He lifted a hand to his right ear and felt it there—the familiar cool weight of the metal barrel. His pen, the one that had survived dig after dig, as constant as his own breath. Relief pulled at his mouth.

He let it rest where it was, comfort enough to know it remained. His phone pressed solid against his left pocket, his field notebook secure in the right. He shifted the suitcase to lean against the first post of what he believed had once marked the gate.

And then he stepped forward, across the threshold, into what remained of Wat Chom Nam.

Joss walked the gentle slope with the patience of habit, eyes tuned to detail the way others might scan for faces in a crowd. The ground rose and fell in low mounds where brick had collapsed into itself, their edges softened by silt and seasons. Now and then a shard caught the light—green, blue, a glint of glazed ceramic half-buried in caked mud.

He moved steadily, confident but unhurried, phone in hand to take quick photographs. At each pause he opened the measurement app, aligning the lens to capture distances and dimensions, the angles of what might once have been walls or paths. Every so often he bent down, pen in hand, to turn over a fragment or sketch a line, the practiced rhythm of his craft.

It was during one of these pauses that he noticed the oddity. A tile face lay clean against the ground, its surface startlingly bright compared to the dull grit around it. He lifted it carefully. The underside was heavy with hardened mud, its edges jagged where it seemed to have been pulled free. He turned his head, tracing the shape of a fresh cut in the soil where it must have been dislodged.

“tsk. Treasure hunters,” he muttered, his voice carrying low in the stillness.

He straightened, and the plants thinned before him. What opened next stopped him in place.

The ruin gave way to a wide clearing, the ground cracked into a vast mosaic of dried mud. Above it, the sky was rinsed clear, the sun already bending toward its descent, burning the horizon with amber light. And in the center stood a pillar.

Tall. Polished. One single stone.

It rose with a gravity that demanded stillness, the air around it thick with a quiet authority. Joss felt, in a rush, why people had chosen to build here—why the temple had been raised and raised again. The stone was more than structure. It was origin, center, a navel pressed into the earth.

He turned, tracing the line of where the gate would have stood, the slope he had descended. This had to be the heart of it. The Buddha image would have been placed before the pillar, facing east, the threshold opening onto light.

“It’s so beautiful,” he said aloud, almost deliberately, as though offering the words to the stone itself.

He raised his phone, framing a wide shot, though the gesture felt inadequate. The lens could record size, dimension, shadow, but not presence. What stood before him had the bearing of a lord, or a king. Or perhaps a god.

Chapter Text

Joss stepped into the clearing, the cracked mud crunching beneath his shoes, and the closer he moved to the pillar the more the world seemed to narrow toward it. Yet the ground was not empty. A pair of footprints curved across the surface, faint but distinct, circling the monolith in uneven paths. He froze. Someone had already been here.

The urgency dropped heavy in his chest. Wat Chom Nam had been left unguarded precisely because its pond had always hidden its secrets. Without the water, the site was vulnerable, and in his mind every unprotected shard of tile, every carving, was already at risk of vanishing.

The light dimmed. Sunset pressed low against the horizon, a reminder that he had little time left. He quickened his pace and stood before the pillar, breath stalling at its size.

Up close, the sight stopped him cold.

The stone was immense, taller than his own height by half again, rooted into the ground with a patience that felt older than the land around it. Bands of discoloration wrapped its length, each ring a story of water and absence, of floods rising and receding year after year. He tilted his head, following the bands upward as though reading chapters in a book bound not by leather but by centuries of earth. A book written in silence. A book older than him, perhaps older than Ayutthaya itself.

Awe washed through him first, numbing the instinct to analyze. Then reverence—he could almost see the generations who had built around it, who had prayed at its base, who had taken its endurance for proof that their faith mattered. Excitement crept in after, sharp and undeniable, because here was something rare: a stone that had outlasted temples, floods, kingdoms. He could feel it in his chest the way others felt music—an immensity that vibrated through him.

He stepped closer, voice low. “Bathtub marks,” he said, tracing one of the darker bands. “So the water here is alkaline.”

The stone felt alive, as if watching him in silence. His hand lifted almost without thought, palm flattening against its surface. Cool. Smooth. Startlingly smooth for sandstone. The cycles of immersion should have eroded it long ago, yet it felt untouched.

“So the water itself shields you. Keeps your form. Protects your secrets.” The words fell from his lips softly, less analysis than respect, the way he might speak to an elder who had outlived explanation.

The horizon burned briefly and then dimmed, and night pressed in from the edges of the clearing. 

Joss knew better than to linger—marshlands kept its own dangers once the dark arrived—but routine held him steady. Measurements now meant protection later; every detail might be the line between preservation and loss. Against better judgment he reached for his phone, letting the last light of the sinking sun stretch across the stone. The glow caught in his lens, just enough to frame the pillar against the gridlines, to record its dimensions before shadow swallowed it whole. 

He stepped backward to catch more of the height. His foot dragged, expecting empty ground, but instead his shoulder struck something solid. Not stone. Not tree. A weight that gave no space.

He turned.

A man stood behind him.

He was taller than expected, dressed simply in black—a shirt and loose trousers that shifted softly with the air. His hair was brushed back, exposing the smooth planes of his face, pale in the last spill of daylight. His skin did not glow outright, but the fading sun seemed unwilling to leave him, catching on his cheekbones, gathering in the line of his jaw, as if the light itself lingered there.

Joss blinked. The clearing should have grown darker, yet around the man there was no heaviness of dusk. The air felt subtly altered, as though silence had gathered to make space for him. Even the heat pressed differently—cooler, steadier, the kind of atmosphere that carried presence before words.

The features were calm, expression unreadable, but his presence was immovable, greater than the pillar itself. It was not menace. It was not ordinary. It was something vast contained in human form.

Joss found himself staring, the same way he did when confronted with an artifact too fine to classify at once—first caught by the whole, then dragged, helpless, into its details. The man’s face was strikingly clean, lines sharp but softened by youth. His skin was pale, the kind that seemed to gather light rather than reflect it, smooth as polished marble. His eyes, set deep beneath dark brows, carried a quiet intensity even as they lifted, as though searching for something above them.

Joss’s focus lingered on the curve of his mouth, parted slightly as though the air here belonged to him more than anyone else. His hair, brushed up and back, left his forehead clear, accentuating the slope of cheekbone and jaw. It was all simple, unadorned—no ornament, no pretense—yet in the dusk the ordinariness became its own kind of impossibility.

A thin silver chain rested against his collarbone, subtle, a point of shine at the center of his chest, perhaps opal, pearl, or moonstone, he couldn’t pinpoint. Joss’s gaze caught there longer than it should have, distracted by the way it swayed faintly when the man breathed. Prominent collar bones served to draw his attention lower… And then he realized, with a sharp inward jolt, that his heartbeat had picked up, quick and shallow.

It was absurd. He had meant to measure stone. To mark, to sketch, to catalog. Instead he stood with his phone forgotten in his hand, caught by the living presence of a stranger who felt older than the ruin itself.

“You are lost,” the stranger said. His voice was deep, steady, sonorous—like a line rehearsed countless times or one he had been waiting his whole life to speak.
Joss dipped his head in instinctive respect, only later realizing how absurd that was: showing deference to a stranger who had chosen to block him in the wide emptiness of the floodplain.

“No, I’m not lost. I’m Joss Sangngern—” He fumbled in his back pocket and drew out a small slip of thick paper. “A senior archaeologist at the Fine Arts Department.” He held the card out, but the man’s gaze did not move from his face. The silence stretched, and after a moment Joss retreated, slipping the card back into his pocket.

“If you are not lost,” the stranger said, “then this is a curious meeting.”

“Why?”

The answer came as nothing more than a smirk. It told him nothing and yet, somehow, suggested everything.

The man lifted a hand, pointing upward. “Tonight is a new moon. You will have no light if you don’t leave now.”

Joss followed the gesture, startled. The horizon had long since swallowed the sun; the clearing was black. Yet the stranger remained visible as if it were still day.

Around his figure, a carpet of fog had gathered, curling and drifting in soft whorls that blurred the line between sky and earth.

“If you are not lost,” the man said again, “then eventually you might be. Just remember the old wives’ tales when you find yourself… wandering.” He turned, walking toward the far edge of the dried pond, each step slow, deliberate, carrying him into shadow.

Joss kept his eyes fixed on him, as though watching might hold the figure in place. But when he glanced back toward the gateway where he had entered, the world was swallowed in darkness—shadows rising, night absolute. He craned his neck around again, searching for the man, but the clearing was empty.

A chill slid over him. Perhaps the night air. Perhaps the weight of realizing he had brushed against something unknown. He wasn’t sure.

But he didn’t believe in ghosts. And this wasn’t the night he wanted to be proven wrong.

The shrill ring of his phone shattered the silence, flooding the air with its insistence. On the screen glowed a name:

Jimmy FAD.

He answered quickly, relief rushing in at the familiar tether. “Hey, Jimmy.”

“Why aren’t you home yet?”

“Ah… well—”

“Don’t tell me you got carried away at the Wat and lost track of time. Where are you exactly?”

Joss looked around, as if the floodplain itself might supply an answer. His silence gave him away.

“It’s seven p.m. and you’re still out there? At the Wat?!”

He nearly bristled, but gratitude came instead. Jimmy’s voice cut through the strangeness, yanking him back into something ordinary. The night could be remembered not for fog, or vanished men, or the prickle of reverence and dread—only as the evening he overstayed in a sunken temple, lost in the beauty of stone.

Chapter Text

Joss climbed the slope toward the entrance and found his suitcase where he’d left it. It was an old code among their circle of archaeologists: when you broke the rule and went into ruins alone, you left a totem behind. A suitcase, a hat, anything that said, someone is inside. Just in case.

He bent to lift it, straightened, and glanced around. The road ahead had streetlights spaced thinly apart, each cone of warm yellow leaving wide patches of black between. Off in the distance, higher than the plain, a crown of lights burned on a hill. A town, surely. He set his steps toward it.

The air was cool now, the breeze pushing against his face as though the night itself were moving. He didn’t notice at first how the streetlamps dimmed as he passed them, how their circles of light seemed to fold in on themselves. He walked on, steady, until something familiar to his left caught his eye.

The jagged teeth of ruined posts, the entrance to the Wat, and beyond it, imperceptible darkness. 

Joss stopped. Looked at his watch. Eight o’clock. He had been walking for an hour. And yet he was still here. 

The hilltop town glowed faintly ahead, unreachable. Behind him stretched the same unbroken road: alternating light and shadow, endless, unchanging.

The stranger’s warning pressed cold into his stomach. If you are not lost, then eventually you might be.

He swallowed hard, forcing his training to the surface. Fatigue, he told himself. Light distorts distance at dusk. Field school professors had said as much. It was illusion, not curse. Folklore grows like weeds around ruins. He pushed forward.

But the distance stretched. Fifty paces became seventy. A hundred. And every time he glanced to the left, the ruined posts still waited within arm’s reach, mocking him with their persistence.

Joss tightened his grip on the suitcase, jaw clenched. His stride quickened, hardened into a march. Sweat ran down his back, cooling in the night air. The hill did not move closer. His chest tightened. His ears sensed the other eerie thing about this night. 

Silence. No bats, no insects. No chirping of lizards. No ‘tokays’ from geckos. 

The thought trembled toward panic when a voice rose beside him, low and steady, as if spoken into his very ear.

Remember the old wives’ tales when you find yourself wandering.

Joss froze mid-step, heart hammering. Was it memory vivid enough to feel alive, or the stranger returned to taunt? He turned, but the road behind him lay empty.

The dirt stretched on, lamplight fading in and out, quiet.

He pressed a hand to his temple, forcing thought through the fog. Words tangled, fragments spun—and then one surfaced whole, sharp, undeniable.

His foster mother’s voice. Warm. Patient.

“When the forest takes your path, child, wear your shirt inside out. Confuse the spirits with the seam of your clothes.”

He looked down at himself: his crisp white shirt clung damp with sweat. He exhaled, cursed under his breath, and dropped the suitcase. Fingers shook as he unbuttoned, stripped it off, turned it wrong-side-out. The seams scratched his skin when he put it back on, buttons tugging awkwardly against his chest. Yet the air shifted as he pulled it tight—no comfort, but alignment, as though the world had righted its tilt.

He didn’t dare look back. He bent, took the suitcase in hand once more, and sprinted toward welcoming lights.

When at last the hill drew closer, and the crown of lights resolved into a scatter of houses climbing upward in terraces. Relief pricked at Joss’s chest, sharp but welcome. He forced himself to slow his steps, to shift his thoughts away from panic. 

Archaeology was habit, discipline. It was the surest way to keep his mind steady.

The settlement rose in what he thought were rings, each level curling around the slope like concentric layers. Old. 

He could see it immediately. The houses were timber, tropical hardwood darkened with age, raised on stilts to lift them from the ground. 

Practical: protection from dampness, from flood, from heat. He knew the form—modern Thai villages still echoed it—but the way these houses curved in pattern told him something older. Circular layout, tiered elevation. 

His mind supplied the guess before he asked for it: Dvaravati. Ninth century, maybe earlier. This place could have been a node in their expansion, a community that carried the past into the present without breaking stride.

The thought steadied him further. Sweat dried on his back; his heartbeat found rhythm again. He was no longer counting the silence or watching for shadows. He was working, observing, cataloguing. That was his language.

He looked for a house that was different from the rest—larger, its roof likely pitched in tiers, the ridges carved into flourishes. 

Then Joss saw it, as he predicted. Close to the center of the town. He stepped toward it. The ladder creaking under his hand as he set his foot on the first rung. He climbed to the front door, raised his knuckles, and knocked.

The door opened to an old man with a thin frame, his back straight despite his years. He wore a plain cotton shirt and trousers, the fabric faded but clean, and his face carried the lines of someone who had spent a lifetime in sunlight. His eyes widened slightly at the sight of Joss before softening into a smile.

“Traveler?” the man asked, his tone curious but kind.

Joss bowed his head lightly. “Apologies for disturbing so late. I was on the grounds of Wat Chom Nam and—”

“Wat Chom Nam?” The man’s brow lifted. His voice carried a note of caution. “And what is it you seek in our ground, khun? Stones? Relics?”

Joss’s throat tightened for a beat, but he steadied himself. He pulled the thick card from his back pocket, the one still pristine despite the ruin. Ignored once, but maybe not this time. He extended it. “Joss Sangngern. Senior archaeologist with the Fine Arts Department. I’m here on official business—to study, to document, to preserve. I got carried away and lost track of time.”

The old man took the card with a small bow, his thumb brushing its edge, though his eyes remained fixed on Joss. After a moment he nodded. “An archaeologist,” he repeated. His tone softened. “Finally. The government’s come to help the Wat.”

A small woman appeared behind him, silver hair tied neatly, her hands wiping against her apron as though she had just stepped away from the kitchen. She peered past her husband at Joss, and when she saw the sweat and dust clinging to his shirt, she clucked her tongue.

“Don’t stand there in the dark,” she said. “Come in, come in. The road isn’t kind at night.”

Joss stepped inside. The air smelled faintly of woodsmoke and boiled rice, warmth layered over the tang of timber. Woven mats lined the floor. Clay jars of water stood neatly against one wall. A low table sat with bowls stacked from supper, still faintly steaming. The house felt lived-in, steady, the kind of place where time paused.

The old woman studied him more closely now that the lamplight revealed him fully. Her gaze caught on his chest. Then her lips curved, and she chuckled softly.

“Ah,” she said, “so the Old Man got you too.”

Her husband’s laugh joined hers, warm, unhurried. Joss looked down at himself—the shirt wrong-side-out, seams scratching his skin—and felt a ripple of unease under their mirth. They weren’t mocking. They were confirming.

Chapter Text

The old couple’s laughter lingered after it faded, the sound of it trailing like smoke in the lamplight. Joss shifted where he stood, his suitcase heavy at his side, seams still biting into his skin from the turned shirt. He wanted to ask what they meant, wanted to press them, but the words caught in his throat.

The old woman broke the silence first. She touched her husband’s arm lightly, then looked at Joss with eyes that were neither mocking nor suspicious—simply certain.

“Sit, child. The Old Man spares no one. Best to eat while you’re still yourself.”

Her husband gestured toward the low table. “You’ve come a long way. We’ll talk of business after rice.”

The rhythm of their voices—gentle, measured—smoothed the edges of his unease. Joss stepped forward and set the suitcase down by the wall. The woven mats crackled faintly under his shoes as he lowered himself to sit. For a moment, he allowed himself to breathe in the ordinary: the warmth of cooked grains, the faint bitter scent of tea, the soft creak of timber in the rafters.

It struck him suddenly that he hadn’t eaten since the bus ride that morning. He thought back, trying to recall whether he had finished the sticky rice packet he’d bought at the terminal, but the memory blurred, fragmented, like a page ripped from his mind. He shook it away, focusing instead on the bowl the old woman placed before him, steam curling into the lamplight.

The man settled across from him, cross-legged, eyes steady. “Our ancestors have lived here since before Ayutthaya was a capital,” he said. “Mon blood, Mon tongues. We were keepers then. We are keepers still.”

Joss looked up, drawn back into the current of his work. “Keepers of Wat Chom Nam,” he murmured.

The man nodded once. “Of the Wat. Of the Old Man.”

The old woman poured tea into a small cup, the liquid dark as ink. She slid it toward him, her hands careful, then turned to her husband with a playful slap to his arm.

“Let the nong eat!” she scolded lightly, her smile tugging the severity from the room.

Her husband’s eyes crinkled, and for the first time Joss felt the weight of the evening lift. The air was still heavy with questions—why his shirt mattered, what the Old Man truly was—but in this moment he was simply a guest, a traveler who had found warmth where he least expected it.

Joss wrapped his hands around the cup, the heat grounding him. The buttons of his shirt still pressed awkwardly against his skin, but the laughter between the two elders softened the strangeness of it. For the first time since the sunset, he felt like maybe he was not unwelcome.

“So this old man,” Joss began, the words slipping out before he could measure them. He thought of the stranger’s sharp jaw, pale skin, the way his presence had filled the clearing. “He didn’t look too old to me.”

The village head chuckled, a low, amused sound. “I think it’s the water.”

Joss tilted his head, frowning. “The water?”

It was the wife who answered, her voice steady, matter-of-fact. “The water here is alkaline. It doesn’t eat at the stone. It leaves it smooth, whole. Every flood lays down another layer, like protection.” She glanced at Joss’s hands as if she could see the memory there. “When you touched it, you felt it.”
Joss blinked, caught. “I’m sorry—do you mean the pillar?”

“Yes, nong.” Her eyes softened with a knowing glint. “We have called that pillar ‘Phûu Thâo’—the Old Man—for as long as anyone remembers.”

He swallowed, the tea suddenly dry in his mouth. “The Old Man… is the pillar?”

The old man leaned forward slightly, his eyes holding Joss’s with patient certainty. “Who else could it be? Did you perhaps meet a different old man in the Wat?”

The question landed heavy, casual in tone but sharp in its weight. Joss opened his mouth, then closed it again. Unsure how to proceed.

“Ah. I recognize that face. You’re likely talking about the Waylayer,” the old man continued, lowering his voice as though wary of an unseen listener.

Joss found himself leaning in too, curiosity pricking through the unease.

“My side of the family believes the Waylayer is an evil spirit,” the old man said.

The words chilled Joss’s skin.

“He appears on days like these, when the pond around the Old Man is dry. He lures travelers to stay the night. Then he heralds a summer storm at night—a flash flood, sudden and merciless. Visitors drown in their sleep.”

The wife scoffed, folding her arms with mock irritation. “My husband and I never fight, except about this ‘Waylayer.’” She cast him a sidelong glance. “My mother told me once he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. More handsome than my father!” Her laugh rang warm, dismissing the gloom.

Joss’s lips curved despite himself. He agreed, though the thought twisted strangely in his chest. He had no memory of his own father’s face to compare.

“They were sneaking out one night, my mother and her friends,” the old woman went on. “That handsome man told them not to. Said the night would turn. They listened—and the river rose. The flood swallowed the marshes, and the last temple standing over the Wat was lost. It was never rebuilt. They made offerings the next morning for gratitude. If it weren’t for that Waylayer, I’d never have been born!”

Joss let the smile linger. Myths were always born in twins—fear and favor, curse and blessing. One story would devour the other, given time. For him, if the stranger was truly the Waylayer, then he was siding with the grandmother’s tale.

The old man’s eyes sharpened again, pinning him. “So then, nong—” his tone deliberate, almost ritual—“which Waylayer did you meet?”

The cup in Joss’s hands had cooled, but his palms stayed damp against the porcelain. He swallowed, weighing the two stories in the silence between them. The flood-bringer. The savior. Evil spirit. Handsome warning. His mind could catalog artifacts, measure strata, date brick and stucco with certainty. But stories were slipperier. They refused to be pinned.

“I’m not sure,” he said at last, choosing his words carefully. “He wasn’t old. And he wasn’t… ordinary. He told me it would be dark soon. That I’d lose my way if I stayed. Then, on the road… I nearly did.”

The wife leaned closer, eyes bright. “Handsome?” she asked, mischief in her tone.

Joss hesitated. The image of pale skin, steady gaze, the smirk that seemed to know more than it told—rose sharp and unbidden. The gentle nose. The prominent collarbone. The kissable lips. He coughed lightly. “Some might think so.”

Her chuckle filled the room, but the old man’s expression stayed unreadable. He only nodded once, slow, as if Joss had answered a riddle without knowing the stakes.

“Then perhaps,” the elder said, voice low, “you were fortunate. The Old Man spares some. Others, he takes.”

Joss looked down into his cup again, the tea dark and bottomless. For the first time since entering the house, he wasn’t sure if he was guest—or witness.

The old woman reached out, laying her hand briefly over Joss’s wrist. Her touch was light, but it drew him back from the spiral of the tea’s dark surface.

“Don’t brood on it tonight, nong,” she said, her tone gentler now. “Eat. Rest. Tomorrow, you’ll see the Wat with clearer eyes.”

The old man gave no reply, only pushed himself slowly to his feet. His shadow stretched long in the lamplight, lean and quiet. “The guest room is ready,” he said.

“You should take it before the night grows heavier.”

Joss nodded, though his throat was dry. He followed when the old woman stood, carrying his suitcase in both hands as if to anchor himself. The seams of his shirt still pressed into his skin, and though the house smelled of rice and smoke, he couldn’t shake the faint memory of fog curling at his feet, and the voice that had whispered on the road.

Chapter Text

The guest room smelled of wood and rain-worn air. The walls were timber, dark with age, their grain polished by decades of hands and seasons. The floor was made of smooth planks, cool beneath his bare feet, raised high enough that he could hear the hollow echo of frogs and geckos stirring somewhere below. A lattice window let in the faint orange of the lamps outside, strips of light falling across the woven mat laid out for him.

Joss set his suitcase on the mat and unlatched it. His fingers rifled through neatly folded clothes, packets of field supplies, the battered kit that had followed him to dozens of digs. But the small rhythm he expected—the quick catch of pen against his hand, the solid spine of his notebook—didn’t come.

He frowned, checked again. No pen. No second field notebook. His hands went instinctively to his trousers, patting pockets as if they could conjure what was missing. Instead, he felt only the familiar spine of the notebook he had used at the Wat earlier that day, corners soft from use.

Disappointment prickled under his ribs. He had trusted that pen to outlast every assignment, every season. The one given to all new archaeologists in the Department—standard issue, they had said, though every fresh appointee treated it like initiation. A legend followed the pen: no one kept theirs longer than a year. Lost in mud, forgotten on buses, dropped into rivers. But Joss had kept his. Nine years. The quiet record-holder. He had thought, foolishly, he might retire with it still in hand.

He sat back on his heels, exhaled through his nose, and closed the suitcase. Perhaps it was time to give up the superstition. Without the pen, the day’s notes would have to wait.

A soft knock broke the silence.

“Come in,” Joss said, rising.

The door slid open to reveal the old man, a folded bundle of clothes cradled in his arms. He stepped inside, his presence unhurried. “The water terrace is at the back,” he said, voice low, measured. “You can wash there. And—” He lifted the bundle slightly. “Consider this a gift from the village.”

Joss stepped forward to receive it. The cloth unfurled in his hands: simple linen for work, a pha kao ma, rectangular and vivid. The checkered pattern glowed in deep red and black, its edges worked with ornate embroidery. At the center, a bird stretched its wings—a swan, but not any swan. The Hongsa. Joss knew it instantly, the emblematic creature of the Mon.

A smile tugged at his lips, the ache of his lost pen momentarily eased. He bowed his head lightly. “Thank you.”

The village head studied him, eyes crinkling. “I know you’ll return many times,” he said. “To help take care of our Wat. Accept this with our gratitude.”

Joss traced the embroidery with his thumb, the threads raised against his skin. The gesture felt larger than hospitality. It felt like inheritance.

The water terrace sat at the back of the house, its floor built from long slats of hardwood, each spaced just enough to let the runoff spill into the dark below. A wide clay vat stood at the corner, filled with rainwater collected through bamboo pipes, its surface trembling faintly with each night breeze. Beside it hung a coconut shell scoop, polished smooth from years of use.

Joss set the bundle of clothes aside and undressed, folding his shirt with more care than he felt. The night air pressed cool against his bare skin, gooseflesh rising along his arms and chest. He dipped the scoop, lifted it, and let the first rush of water fall across his shoulders. It struck cold, shocking at first, then steady, rivulets carving lines down the planes of his chest, over the taut cut of his abdomen.

He closed his eyes, tilted his face upward into the second scoop. The water ran through his hair, plastering it back, and he let his breath out slowly. His body was lean, all long muscle carved by habit and fieldwork—shoulders shaped by years of hauling equipment, legs firm from hours of trudging ruins and riverbanks.

Against the lamplight, the droplets clung to him like glass beads, sliding down to vanish between the wooden slats beneath his feet.

He thought of the old man and woman inside, their laughter and gentle teasing. How easily they had folded him into their home, as though he were kin returning instead of a stranger arriving at their door. It wasn’t the first time. Families other than his own had always been the ones to shelter him—foster homes, friends’ kitchens, borrowed spaces where warmth was offered, never claimed. He stood there, water running down his face, and felt again that hollow memory of being left behind at an orphanage, too young to understand why, too old to forget.

He dipped the scoop again, poured it over his arms, his chest. The water ran brown at first, the dust lifting in rivulets, streaking away between the slats. He scrubbed with the rough edge of his hand, astonished at how much clung to him. Caked dirt, fine silt, as though he had been working the ruins all day. But he hadn’t, had he? He had only crossed the threshold, only walked the slope, only touched the pillar…

A frown tugged at him as he scraped more mud from the back of his neck. It was absurd, how much came away. An hour’s work, perhaps two. Nothing more. And yet the stains darkened the runoff like he had spent half the day submerged in earth. In truth, he had no memory of how long he’d been there.

He stilled, water dripping from his jaw. The thought prickled at him—had his wandering left more on him than he knew?

The question slipped from his mind the moment he lowered himself onto the bed. The mattress was thinner than what he had at home, but its firmness surprised him—it held him steady while yielding just enough to his weight, like hands pressing against tired muscles. A day’s ache unwound in silence.

Outside, the last of the lamps guttered out, one by one, until even their faint glow disappeared. Darkness wrapped the room whole. Joss welcomed it. He had never been able to sleep unless night was absolute, unless no stray glimmer could sneak through.

His hand twitched once, instinctively, as if reaching for a pen beside him. Finding none, his fingers curled against the mat.

His body stilled into the quiet, his breaths evening out. Within minutes, fatigue pulled him under. A soft, unguarded snore rose in the dark—his surrender, his departure from the waking world, and the first step into another. 

Chapter Text

Joss found himself standing before the Wat again. The night pressed heavy, yet the ruin glowed faintly from within, as though its stones exhaled their own light.

Enough for him to see. Enough for him to know.

He smiled faintly, not in surprise but in recognition, as though he had been waiting for his return to this place. His eye twitched, his gaze dragging along the pillar until it caught on the faint outlines etched deep. 

Carvings. People, houses, a large circle suspended in the sky—the sun? No. It was likely the moon.

He continued with his visual dissection. The surface revealed its true skin where centuries of white and yellow alkaline plaque had been deposited, where the creeping film of greens and blues lent themselves some restraint.

Reddish-brown lay beneath. The color of rust. The pillar was likely sandstone mined from Khorat, he thought at once. Neolithic. 

The same as the standing sema stones in Khon Kaen, He added.

A voice, gentle, honeyed, curious came from behind him. “Khorat is very far from here. How do you think it was brought over?”

Joss answered without lifting his eyes. “Likely by land until Pa Sak. From there, river transport to where it meets the Chao…” His thought snagged, the words thinning into silence. He turned.

And there he was. Still draped in black, still smiling with that warmth that should have reassured but didn’t. The Waylayer.

Joss’s thoughts stumbled even as his gaze steadied. Pale skin, luminous in the half-light. A face too symmetrical, the kind that invited both trust and suspicion.

Brows drawn with a soft arch that framed eyes darker than the night fog curling around them, unreadable yet fixed on him with quiet certainty. A nose straight, almost delicate, the kind sculptors never quite carved into stone without losing its gentleness. His lips curved easily, not mocking this time but knowing, as though secrets had always been meant to pass through them. Joss found his own gaze lingering too long on that mouth, on the softness that clashed against the severity of black clothes.

The details pressed sharper than they should have. His collarbone catching the faint light. The lean cut of his jaw tapering into a throat where shadow blurred and refused to give shape beyond. Everything else—the world behind him, the ground beneath his feet—seemed to fold into indistinct haze. But this face remained.

Clear, impossibly clear.

He then locked eyes with the Waylayer. 

An eyebrow twitched, as if challenging. Daring. “Please continue.”

Joss, uncertain why this was happening in his dream, continued. “From the Pa Sak river, the stone would be transported into the Chao Phraya. Given the right conditions, it could be brought directly here.” 

“Oh no. Not that one. Please continue describing my throat. I believe you were about to describe my adam’s apple next.” A flash of a grin. 

“I… I’m sorry?”

“You said, I had pale skin. Luminous in the half-light. A face too symmetrical to trust. My brows perfectly drawn to frame my dark eyes. My nose-”

“Wait! I didn’t say your eyebrows were perfect!” Joss said, slowly realizing that the stranger had been reading his thoughts.”

“Well…” the man said as he put his hands on his waist. “Aren’t they perfect?”

“No. Yes. I mean they are. Perfect…” Joss wondered why he was being embarrasingly honest. “But that’s not the point here is it? Are you… reading my mind?”

The Waylayer laughed—low, unhurried, full of delight at Joss’s flailing. “See? You don’t have to hold back. I already know what you think.”

Joss’s jaw worked, his voice faltering. “That’s… that’s not fair. Are you—are you reading my mind?”

The grin softened into something sly. “Not reading. Just listening. You think so loudly, it would be rude not to.”

“So you can hear my thoughts? What exactly are you?”

The Waylayer tilted his head, smile sharp but unreadable. “Well, you’re the beholder. What do you think am I?”

Joss’s throat worked, but no sound came. His mind went not forward but back—to the warmth of the timber house, tea steaming in a small cup, the old couple’s voices weaving around him like opposing currents.

My side of the family believes that the Waylayer is an evil spirit, the old man had said, words heavy, almost ritual. He lures travelers when the pond dries. He drowns them in their sleep.

My mother once said he was the most handsome man she had seen in her life, the old woman had countered, eyes bright with mischief. If it weren’t for that Waylayer, I’d never have been born!

Two myths. Twins, locked in contest. Fear and favor. Curse and blessing.

Joss stared at the figure before him—at the smirk that seemed to know more than it told, at the pale throat half-hidden by shadow, at eyes that waited patiently, daring him to decide.

What was he? A trickster? A curse? A savior?

The Waylayer only watched, the fog swirling thicker around him, as though the night itself bent closer to hear Joss’s verdict.

The Waylayer’s grin lingered, but his voice came softer, low and steady, as though it carried more weight than the words themselves.

“So what am I? Curse or blessing?”

The question landed heavy in Joss’s chest. He felt it echo with the old man’s severity, with the old woman’s laughter. Two verdicts battling in his memory, each waiting for him to choose.

His eyes traced the stranger’s face again—too clear, too vivid for dream. The lines of him precise while everything else blurred. A face that could not be forgotten.

A presence that unsettled even as it pulled him closer.

Joss swallowed, his tongue clumsy against the answer he couldn’t yet give. So he paced. 

“This isn’t real. This is my dream,” Joss said as he paced. “I’m a lucid dreamer. I dream vividly, especially after field work. Because here in my dreams, I can focus on the details that I missed. I can zoom in.” He kept speaking to himself, almost to steady his own pulse.

The Waylayer walked past him, laughing. He bent down, plucked something invisible from the ground, turned it in his fingers as though it were worth more than stone.

“What’s funny?” Joss asked.

“Dreams,” the stranger replied. “You seem to trust your dreams more than reality. I find that amusing.”

“Well, the world isn’t exactly a kind place, is it?” Joss countered.

“I don’t know. I don’t know much about your world.” The Waylayer’s voice softened as he stood by the pillar, his hand resting against its smooth side. “At least you could tell where this Old Man came from.”

The sadness in his tone startled Joss. He found himself stepping closer without thinking. “Do you need help? Can I help you?”

The Waylayer turned, walking slowly toward him, amusement curling at the edges of his mouth. “I thought this was just a dream?” A small chuckle.

“This is the first time I’ve had the chance to talk to someone in a dream,” Joss admitted, honest despite himself. “I wondered if I could at least give it a chance.”

The man’s expression settled into something almost satisfied. “Well, I think it wouldn’t hurt to give you my name. We’re not bound to meet again anyway.”

The words cut sharper than they should have, a goodbye disguised as a gift. Joss felt a deep disappointment lodge in his chest.

“Gawin,” the Waylayer said, and pressed his palm against Joss’s chest.

Joss braced for warmth, for contact that might ground him. Instead he felt something more, something colder, thinner, unyielding.

“It was nice to have met you, Joss.”

The name lingered like an echo. A farewell wrapped inside an introduction. The fog thickened. The pillar blurred. Gawin’s features dissolved at the edges, leaving only his eyes, steady and immovable, until even they vanished.

And then Joss was alone. 

Laid on his bed, the way he had been before sleep took him. His breath caught as a weight pressed against his chest, not imagined but real.

His hand rose. Fingers closed around something long, thin, metallic.

He pulled it free and stared.

His missing pen.

Chapter Text

Morning brought him the smell of boiled rice and woodsmoke, and the rattle of a tuk-tuk waiting outside. The elderly couple insisted on escorting him back. Joss climbed into the small cart, the seat patched but steady, and let the air whip past as they drove him to the Wat.

This time, when he stepped onto the cracked earth, the ruins felt different. His walk was layered with stories now, not just stone.

He had been right. The pillar was older than any of the temples around it. He could see it—like a spine outlasting bodies that had risen and fallen around it.

“Legends from our elders said this place took people away,” the old man said, his sandals crunching against broken brick as they walked the periphery of what had once been a grand hall. “Until the pillar was raised, to calm its hunger for human blood.”

“And whoever built a temple around the Old Man,” the woman added, “was respected and followed by all—human and non-human alike.”, the last words seemed ominous to Joss.

“We’ve had archaeologists before,” the man went on. “They told us the Dvaravati were first to give the Old Man a proper temple. Every kingdom since tried, but always, the temples fell.”

“As if the temples themselves preferred ruin,” his wife finished softly. “As if the Old Man chooses to toil under the merciless sun.”

They spoke like duet singers, trading lines in rhythm, voices rising and falling together.

Joss’s brows knit, his retrieved pen racing over the page of his field notebook. He wrote fast, afraid to lose any thread of this oral history given so freely by the keepers of Wat Chom Nam. “What kind of help can we give then?” he asked. “Do we rebuild a temple here? Or bring the Old Man to a museum, where he might have refuge?”

The couple paused. For the first time, silence threaded between them.

It was the woman who spoke first. “The Old Man is older than this place. Older than the name of this region. I don’t think it right to move him.”

The man’s voice followed, slower. “But without support, there can be no new home. And support needs money. Money means tourism.”

Joss exhaled, his pen hovering mid-word. “But building for tourism risks destroying the ecology here. It disrupts the rhythm of the floods. And investors won’t want a site that drowns each summer.”

The old woman stepped closer, searching his face. “Are those the only choices? Is there no middle ground?”

Her words hooked into him, barbed and insistent. They stayed with him even after their farewells, even after he boarded the first bus back to Bangkok.

The two-hour ride was not comfort, not clarity. Only questions.

Of the dream he swore was lucid.

Of the pillar they called the Old Man.

Of the name—Gawin.

He arrived in the city with more doubts than answers. His watch read eleven when the bus rolled into the terminal. He thought briefly of going home to change, but the thought passed. Time was short, the rains were coming, and when the floods started, every proposal for Wat Chom Nam would slide down the government’s list of priorities.

He hailed a motorbike, swung his leg over the seat, and set his eyes toward the Fine Arts Department.

Through the visor of his helmet, Bangkok blurred in sunlit fragments—concrete walls, glass towers, alleys crowded with vendors—but when the motorbike turned into the government quarter, Joss straightened. Rising ahead of him was the Fine Arts Department.

To most, it was another state office, utilitarian and pale against the skyline. To Joss, it always carried the air of a ruin—an active one, still inhabited, but with layers he could not unsee. The façade was whitewashed in its youth, though age had yellowed it into parchment. The windows were framed in the stiff geometry of the 1960s, but their shutters bore the scars of constant repainting, like palimpsests where one era tried to overwrite another.

He saw foundations more than walls. The base—heavy poured concrete, poured thick during the city’s post-war expansion—was still sound, square, as if meant to withstand centuries. Above it, the architecture grew lighter, boxier, improvised over decades. Each addition was its own stratum, an archaeological record in plaster and steel.

That was why the Department’s officers, with their dark humor, called it the Ledger House. Because like a ledger, it was always recording—lines upon lines, some erased, others rewritten, none truly forgotten. The walls carried every entry.

The motorbike stopped at the gate. Joss pulled off his helmet and stared up at the building, his heart tight with the same unease he carried at the Wat. Even here, in the city, the sense of layers pressed close.

He tightened his grip on his suitcase and walked inside.

The reception hall of the Ledger House hummed with its usual weekday rhythm—clerks shuffling papers, young assistants hurrying across the tiled floor, the faint drone of old ceiling fans that had outlived multiple administrations. Joss kept his steps brisk, but the dirt streaked across his trousers and the faint smell of pond silt clung stubbornly to him. He didn’t need to check to know he stood out.

“Khun Sangngern!”

Joss turned at the sound of his surname, but before he could respond, a figure barreled toward him, hair neatly slicked back, shirt pressed, sleeves rolled high in a way that announced both formality and impatience. Jimmy.

“Are you serious right now?” Jimmy’s eyes swept him from collar to shoes, one hand already tugging at the cuff of Joss’s sleeve as if to verify the dust wasn’t just a trick of the light. “You’re wearing the same clothes from yesterday. And don’t even tell me you didn’t notice this entire shirt is caked.”

Joss allowed himself the faintest shrug. “It’s clean enough.”

“Clean enough? Nong, you look like you lost a fight with a rice paddy.” Jimmy clicked his tongue, shaking his head with theatrical dismay before gripping Joss’s shoulder. “Come on. My office? No, yours. You have spares.” He didn’t wait for agreement, steering him through the corridor with the ease of someone who’d done it too many times.

Joss let him, suitcase dragging lightly behind. He felt the corners of his mouth threaten a smile. Jimmy was younger than him by a few months, technically, but the man had always treated him like a gigantic little brother in need of correction. The fussing, the nagging, the way he checked if Joss had eaten or slept—it filled a space Joss never admitted aloud, the hollow absence left by family he had never known.

Inside his office, Jimmy went straight for the battered canvas Go Bag that leaned in its permanent place by the desk. Every senior archaeologist had one, packed for sudden deployments: maps, mosquito repellent, rolled trousers, a shirt or two. Jimmy pulled a crisp button-down free and tossed it across the desk.

“Change. Right now. You can’t brief anyone looking like you deserve to be cataloged yourself.”

Joss caught the shirt, glanced at Jimmy. “That’s usually your look.”

“Mine is intentional,” Jimmy shot back, deadpan, before letting the faintest grin curve his lips.

Joss shook his head, ducked into the corner to change, slipping out of the soiled shirt. When he pulled on the fresh one, Jimmy’s voice followed without pause.

“You had lunch yet?”

“No.”

“Of course not.” Jimmy sighed, though it softened into something closer to fondness. “Then cafeteria. We’ll talk there. You can tell me what you saw at Wat Chom Nam while you eat.”

Joss nodded once, tucking the dirty shirt into his bag. He could already hear Jimmy’s lecture winding up, but he let it wash over him, steady and familiar. A rhythm, he thought, not unlike family.

Chapter Text

The canteen clattered with the midday rush. Metal spoons scraped against dented trays—standard issue, stainless steel, their divets holding rice, a ladle of soup, fried fish, and a small tangle of noodles. Joss and Jimmy carried theirs to a corner table near the window, the sunlight striping their plates, the buzz of conversation a constant hum around them.

Jimmy was the first to break it, leaning forward with that older-brother-who-wasn’t air, voice low but expectant. “Okay,” he said. “What’s the condition?”

Joss’s reply came quicker than usual, spilling out before he could check himself. His eyes were bright, his words sharp with momentum. “The Wat is amazing, Jimmy!”

Jimmy’s brows rose. He didn’t interrupt, only let a smile slip, the kind that said—there you are, the real Joss.

Joss went on, chopsticks forgotten in his hand. “Nothing left of the temple but stumps. And in the middle—a lone pillar.”

Jimmy dropped his spoon with a clang onto his tray. His voice cut in, sharp. “You’re hiding something. What about a ruined Wat and one surviving pillar could get you this excited?”

“The pillar’s a monolith. Red-brown sandstone.”

Jimmy froze, lips tightening, his posture shifting into focus. “Like the sema stones in Khon Kaen?”

Joss nodded, and for the first time since he’d returned, his smile widened fully, teeth flashing. “Likely mined from the same place. Korat.”

Jimmy leaned in, voice dropping into reverence. “This could be our country’s third megalithic structure.”

“Not just that,” Joss said, a spark in his tone.

Jimmy slapped the table. “What else? Don’t leave me hanging!”

“The base structures of the surviving gate and walls—”

“What? Tell me!”

“Dvaravati,” Joss said, his voice low, deliberate. “Huge fired bricks, buried in the mud.”

“Dvaravati?!” Jimmy nearly shouted. Heads turned. Joss grimaced, apologizing quickly to the startled lunch crowd, but the slip had already set the room vibrating.

Within moments, colleagues began dragging trays, circling their table like moths to a flame.

“The ruins are Dvaravati?” Jimmy pressed, needing the confirmation.

Joss raised his right hand flat on the table, palm open. “Dvaravati,” he said, anchoring it as the first layer.

Then he lifted his left hand, stacking it above. “Lopburi.”

Gasps rippled. Jimmy covered his mouth, his eyes wide, but Joss stilled him with a shake of his head, urging patience.

He repositioned his right hand higher, steady as a builder laying bricks. “Ayutthaya.”

A murmur swept through the crowd.

And finally, with a slow precision, Joss placed his left hand above the rest. “Rattanakosin.”

The silence hit like a wave. Some of the onlookers actually sank into their chairs, as if the scope alone demanded gravity.

“Holy shit,” someone whispered from the back. “That’s the whole history of Central Thailand in one temple!”

“Religious transition too,” another chimed in. “From animism to Buddhism. It’s all there.”

Jimmy’s voice broke through the awe, cracking with disbelief. “How is that even possible?”

Joss straightened, cleared his throat, his voice carrying now, drawing the entire corner into his orbit. “It’s the floods. The flash floods always destroyed whatever temple was built around the Old Man. That’s what the locals call the monolith. And then the next dynasty builds it’s own temple on top of it, until the last one that is, possibly 80 years ago, if I guessed the age of the caretaker’s parents correctly.”

A younger archaeologist leaned forward. “But sandstone surviving centuries of floods? That doesn’t make sense.”

“I asked that too.” Joss tapped chopsticks on the edge of his tray. “The Chao Phraya’s water in that area is alkaline.”

Another onlooker completed the statement. “So the flooding doesn’t corrode stone. It preserves it.”

For a beat, no one moved. Then a smattering of claps broke the silence, hesitant at first, then building, until the cafeteria rang with it.

At a far table, interns craned their necks, trying to catch pieces of the conversation. One whispered to their handler, “What’s happening there?”

The handler smirked. “Not surprising. That table? That’s Jimmy and Joss. J&J. The gems of the Division. Disciplined, relentless, like they’re rehearsing for their own Tomb Raider adventure.”

The intern’s eyes widened. “Wow. How long was P’Joss on site for this?”

The handler chuckled, shaking their head. “One day.” The interns froze, impressed.

“Then therein lies the problem,” Jimmy said, breaking the reverent hush.

Joss nodded slowly, fork spearing a piece of beef from the segmented tray. He chewed, swallowed, and didn’t argue. The weight of it pressed against him too.

“Ah, shit. You guys are right,” muttered a bespectacled man whose ID clipped to his chest read Office of Architecture. He leaned forward, elbows on the table.

“How do you preserve a place that gets ravaged by seasonal flooding?”

“And drought,” another voice chimed in. “Don’t forget that.”

From the edge of the circle, a woman in a blue lanyard raised her hand, her tone dry but firm. “Not to mention the ecology. That Wat is already part of a natural floodplain system. It isn’t as straightforward as throwing open the gates to tourists.” She tapped the emblem on her ID—Underwater Archaeology Division.

“Maybe we prioritize,” another colleague said. “If the Old Man is indeed a megalith, then it needs immediate study, maybe even removal. That makes it an artifact of national treasure class. It should be in a museum.”

“But see, that’s the complication,” another replied, his voice rising over the hum. “If it really is a megalith, it predates Dvaravati. Could be Neolithic.”

“Sorry,” called someone from the far side, flashing his badge with a grin. “Performing Arts Office. We don’t go beyond Dvaravati.”

The congregation broke into laughter, short and sharp, before quieting again under the gravity of the claim.

“Neolithic? Then it’s been there at least four thousand years,” one archaeologist muttered.

“And the locals say it was placed there to stop the floodplain from taking lives,” Joss added as he chewed on vegetables.

That earned a collective hiss of breath. Someone shook their head. “Then we can’t uproot it. That’s an in situ preservation case if I’ve ever seen one.”

“Great input Joss, but don’t speak when your mouth is full.” Jimmy pointed at him.

Eyes turned back to the corner, as a colleague called their attention. “P’Joss,” one of the younger archaeologists said, “any other issues with the site?”

Joss hesitated, the memory rising before he could push it down: pale skin in moonlight, the smirk, the name spoken against his chest. His teeth caught his lower lip.

Jimmy noticed. Of course he did. His eyes narrowed in a way that meant later, you’ll tell me the whole story. By hook or by crook.

“Treasure hunters,” Joss said finally. The word dropped like a stone.

Groans circled the table, hands rubbing at brows, spoons clattering into trays. The mood soured immediately.

“We can’t take it out, and if we keep it there, it gets pillaged,” Someone from the Office of the Secretariat said, clicking his tongue. He pushed to his feet, letting his voice carry over the crowded cafeteria. “So. What solutions do we have, people? We’re all experts here, every one of us. Ideas.”

Chairs shifted. Phones lit up, notes opened. The buzz of conversation swelled again, no longer in awe but in urgency. Around them, the cafeteria became less a lunchroom and more a war council.

One junior left only to return with a large white board on wheels. 

Chapter Text

By late afternoon, the ‘ad hoc war council’ had scattered, leaving behind a battlefield of white boards covered in marker scrawl, trays gone cold, and napkins soaked with ink. Joss carried the aftermath in his arms: a precarious stack of printer paper, yellow legal sheets, cafeteria receipts, even a torn envelope with rough sketches. It looked less like archaeology and more like ransom notes to the future. He clutched it anyway, knuckles whitening, as though the weight of collective effort might crumble if he let go.

Jimmy trailed behind, phone pressed to his ear, his voice low, measured, efficient. By the time they reached Joss’s office, he slipped the phone into his pocket, his expression softening into a grin.

“So,” Joss said, shifting the stack onto his desk. “When do you think I should set the meeting with the chief?”

Jimmy didn’t answer. He tilted his head, eyes narrowing the way they did when he smelled trouble. “Uh-uh. Don’t dodge me, Sangngern. I saw your face earlier. You’re hiding something. And I want to know what it is.”

The grin remained, but it was sharpened now—half-playful, half-prying.

Joss’s hands hovered over the papers, flattening them into order they didn’t need. He met Jimmy’s gaze, feeling again that peculiar mix: brotherly nagging wrapped around genuine care, the kind of attention that pressed close even when Joss wanted to retreat.

Jimmy leaned back against the edge of the desk, arms crossed, gaze fixed. He wasn’t going to let it drop. Joss could see it in his eyes—the stubborn glint that meant confession or death by yapping.

He sighed inwardly. He’s not giving this up. Fine.

“I… met someone,” Joss said at last, voice quieter than he meant. “A local. Cute guy. Slightly smaller than me.”

Jimmy’s head tilted, predatory grin already forming. “And?”

Joss fiddled with the corner of a receipt buried under the stack of papers. “Uh, well… we talked.”

That was all Jimmy needed. He slid closer, wriggling both index fingers in the air like he was about to jab them into Joss’s ribs. Joss tried to hold steady, keep a stiff face, but the smile cracked through anyway.

“Oh, you like him,” Jimmy sang, delighted. “My best friend’s got a crush. Go on, tell me more.”

Joss broke into a grin so wide it hurt, shoulders shaking. “I’d really love to, but I don’t think it’s going to be more than just a late-night—”

“Late night—what?” Jimmy exploded, loud enough to rattle the office door. “Joss Way-ar Sangngern, are you telling me you’re a one-night-stand kind of guy?” His smile stretched even wider, victory in every tooth.

Joss flushed crimson, eyes wide in disbelief at the accusation. “JIMMY POTIHIWOK! It was a conversation. A late-night conversation.”

Jimmy cackled, raising both hands in mock surrender, though his grin never dimmed. “I guessed as much. You’re not exactly the upfront type.” He plopped into Joss’s chair like he owned it. “So. When are you going back to the Wat for your lover boy?”

Joss’s grin faltered. “Ah… I don’t think we’ll see each other again.”

Jimmy sat forward, suddenly serious. “Why?”

Joss scrambled for something, anything. “He’s… moving. I won’t be able to see him, even if I go back to the Wat.”

Jimmy’s face twisted. “Ah, shia!”

“I know,” Joss said quickly, forcing a sad shrug. “It’s fine. Just… something to move on from.”

But Jimmy wasn’t done. He jabbed a finger at Joss, sharp. “No, that 'shia' was for you. Don’t you have a phone? LINE? Instagram?”

Joss laughed, shaking his head. “It’s not like that.”

If only Jimmy knew: this crush spoke in fog and silence, walked out of dreams, and left Joss with nothing but a name that still burned in his chest. 

Jimmy leaned forward, words spilling over in the same rhythm that had carried him through the cafeteria war council. “We can figure this out, Joss. We track him down—easy. LINE, Instagram, maybe the village head knows his family. Or hey, his neighbors probably know more about him? We can triangulate. I’ll talk to—”
Joss smiled faintly, but the sound blurred at the edges. Jimmy’s ramble became a rush of consonants, the kind that folded into background noise when his mind strayed too far. He pressed his palm against the desk, feeling again the echo of another hand, cooler, firmer, leaving a name carved into him like inscription.

Gawin.

The question had followed him from the Wat, into dreams, into this office.

Is he a curse or blessing? 

He thought of the village head’s warning, sharp as a blade. Thought of the wife’s laughter, her memory of a handsome man who spared lives, who warned of floods.

Not all myths were devourers. Some sheltered. Some guided.

He drew a breath, eyes steadying, the decision anchoring itself. Whatever the Waylayer was, he was no curse. Not to Joss.

Jimmy clapped him on the shoulder, jolting him back. “Don’t worry, nong. We’ll find him. I promise.”

Joss only nodded, hiding the truth behind the curve of his lips. Because Jimmy didn’t understand. This wasn’t someone you could find.

This was someone who found you.

Chapter Text

The glow of lanterns trailed above them like a low ceiling of constellations, swaying gently in the evening air. Bangkok’s streets were dense with people carrying lotus buds, incense, candles, and rice cakes. The tide of Vesak moving toward temples in every direction. Jimmy nudged him as they wove through the crowd.

“This is your win, nong,” Jimmy said, nodding toward the phone still in Joss’s hand, the approval email from the Ministry of Culture, glowing on its screen. “Digitization, preservation, promotion—all green-lit. You should be smiling wider than those lanterns.”
Joss tucked the phone away, lips pressing into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “It’s good news.”

Jimmy’s eyes narrowed. “But?”

“Nothing.”

Jimmy gave him a sideways glance, then let the grin come out crooked and teasing. “Still on about that guy?”

Joss exhaled through his nose, feigning irritation. “Crush? I told you before… he’s moving away.”

“Yeah. I know.” Jimmy’s reply was quick, sharper than teasing. “You told me already. And shouldn’t it be—he moved away already?”

Joss blinked. His steps hitched, the crowd jostling him forward before he caught himself. A laugh scraped up from his throat, thinner than he meant. “Right. That’s what I meant.”

Jimmy looked away toward the lanterns, already distracted by the temple gates ahead. Joss let the moment pass, but the seam of it tugged at him, quiet and persistent, like a thread pulled loose from memory.

“Hey! A talisman store!” Jimmy’s voice rang out, pointing across the street. He was already jogging toward it before Joss could reply. “I know how much you hate that kind of thing, so I’ll go ahead. I’ll see you later!”

The crowd surged, pulling Jimmy ahead like a leaf in the current. Lanterns swayed above, incense thick in the air, until Joss realized he stood alone—adrift, the noise of the festival receding into silence. Around him, the fog arrived with that familiar pull, curling low as it crept along the ground.

“Joss?”, a familiar voice called out. It’s tone surprised. 

It stopped him cold.

Honeyed. Low. Sonorous.

He turned.

And there he was.

The Waylayer.

Gawin.

Joss’s chest tightened, his mouth fighting the rise of a smile. He stepped forward, and the the rest of the world dissolved away. The fog spread until it rose like walls, leaving only the two of them in gray silence.

“Hey,” Joss said, his voice rougher than he intended, his trembling hands failing at trying to act nonchalantly. “It’s you!”

Gawin’s expression barely moved, but his words came with the same tone of surprise when he called out Joss’ name earlier. “Are you… happy to see me?” He said it like he didn’t believe the answer could exist, as if the very idea was inconceivable.

Joss laughed—sudden, sharp, unguarded. The hardest he had laughed since they last met.

Gawin frowned, taken aback. “What’s funny right now?”

“I remember asking you that last time.” Joss shook his head, grin slipping free. “It’s like the tables have turned.”

“And what exactly is funny?” Gawin pressed.

“Your face.” He bit his lip to keep from laughing harder. “You looked so disgusted when you asked.”

For a beat, Gawin only stared, brows tight, as if trying to parse something he’d never encountered. Then his mouth twitched—just slightly. A startled laugh slipped out, uncertain but real.

The fog curled closer, holding them in the small, impossible moment.

Joss laughed because he couldn’t stop.

Gawin laughed because he couldn’t explain.

And for the first time, their laughter touched the same air.

“This… this has never happened!”

Joss wiped the tears from his eyes, still catching his breath from laughter. “What? What’s never happened before?”

“Seeing the same person again.”

Joss froze. So that was why Gawin had said they wouldn’t meet again. His chest pulled tight.

“Yes. You’re right.”, Gawin answered the question in his head.

“Oh fuck,” he muttered. “I forgot—you can hear my thoughts.”

“Yeah.” Gawin’s smirk curved. “And honestly? Some of them are pretty embarrassing.”

Joss flushed. “Okay! Gawin! Can you stop… the telepathy thing or whatever that’s called?”

“Why? Isn’t it convenient?”

“It’s not fair if I can’t hear yours!” Joss spat back, ears red. Wondering what the hell his mind was yapping about that Gawin said was embarrassing. 

Gawin paused, eyes narrowing as it was the biggest discovery of the century. “You know what… that makes sense.”

He closed his eyes. A beat of stillness. Then his face broke into a grin so wide it lit the fog around him.

From the silence of his meditation, he drawled out his surprise. “Woooow!”

“What?” Joss asked, wary.

“Oh my goodness it’s so quiet!” Gawin whispered, voice restrained as if afraid to wake up a sleeping beast.

“Okay, okay, pipe down. You don’t need to scream.”

“Was I?” Gawin blinked, wide-eyed, wonder spilling across his face.

Joss laughed, helpless. “No, I was just teasing you.”

Gawin closed his eyes again, and splayed his arms outstretched. The spirit suddenly turned around in place. 

Joss startled, half-raising his hands, ready to catch him if he toppled. “Talk to me. What’s happening here?”

“I wish I’d done that ages ago,” Gawin said, still spinning lazily. “This silence is… amazing.”

“Really? No one’s ever told you to turn off the whole mind-reading thing?”

“I… thought it was normal.” He slowed to a stop, eyes opening with a boyish wonder that looked nothing like the aloof figure who had met him in the clearing. “Until you brought it up.”

Joss nodded slowly, the gears in his mind turning. He suddenly stared intensely at Gawin, testing. If this wonderful being couldn’t hear him anymore… then maybe—

Hey, Gawin. I like you.

He said it only in his head, holding the thought steady, staring straight into the other man’s eyes. The words hung there, heavy, reckless, heart thundering worried if Gawin might still pluck them out of the air.

Gawin blinked. Tilted his head. Nothing.

Joss’s breath caught. Then he realized—Gawin wasn’t reacting. His chest loosened with a rush of giddy relief. So the silence worked.

But before he could look away, Gawin grinned, sudden and sly. “Why are you staring at me like that? You looked… suspicious.”

Heat flared across Joss’s face. “Suspicious? I was—nothing. It’s nothing.”

Gawin narrowed his eyes, playful now, almost leaning forward. “You’re hiding something.”

“I’m not.” Joss forced a smile, but the words echoed in his skull—I like you—and for the first time, they were his alone.

“Okay,” Gawin said slowly, wonder melting into sharpness. “I forgot that humans lie. I don’t like it.”

He started to close his eyes again, as though ready to undo the silence he blessed himself with, ready to listen in once more.

Joss’s stomach lurched. His thoughts, uncooperative, wouldn’t stop repeating the one thing he absolutely couldn’t risk being overheard.

I like you, I like you a lot, I like you—

“Wait!” His voice cracked as he shot his right hand up—open, trembling—the way schoolboys once swore playground promises. “Are you turning it back on?”

Gawin opened one eye, amused. “Yes. Why?”

“I—I can’t promise you that I won’t ever lie,” Joss stammered, cheeks burning. “But I promise to always be truthful! Can you work with that?”

The words tumbled out too quickly, desperate, half-ridiculous. But he held the pose anyway, hand raised, chest heaving, like a negotiator attempting to prevent an incident.

Gawin studied him for a long moment, expression unreadable—then the corner of his mouth curved, and as soon as the smirk appeared, it had fallen away, replaced with something stranger, softer. “You promise?”

Joss’s hand stayed raised, palm open, steady despite the pounding in his chest. “Yes. I can’t swear I’ll never lie. But I swear I’ll always be truthful. With you.”

The fog diminished around them, curling lower, like a curtain dropped. 

For a moment, silence. Gawin’s gaze lingered, eyes searching Joss’s face as if looking for cracks. Then—unexpectedly—he laughed. Not mocking this time, but startled, disbelieving. “You’re insane.”

“Probably.” Joss let his hand drop, a grin tugging helplessly at his mouth. “But I meant it.”

Gawin’s smile returned, slower now, as if he were savoring something unfamiliar.

“Truthful,” he repeated, tasting the word. “I’ll hold you to that, Joss Sangngern.” 

Chapter Text

Joss, still a little breathless from his oath, scratched the back of his neck. “So… do your kind celebrate Vesak?”

Gawin blinked, as if caught off guard. Then he tilted his head, thoughtful. “Celebrate?” He chewed the word slowly. “We don’t mark time the way you do. No months, no years. No beginnings, no endings. So—no. Not Vesak. Not anything like it.”

Joss’s brows knit. “Then how do you remember? Honor? You know, the way we do with rituals.”

“Remember?” Gawin gave a small laugh, low and almost sad. “Joss, we don’t remember. We only… are. What is, is forever. What isn’t, was never.”

The words left Joss uneasy, the historian in him balking at the thought. “That sounds—” He searched for the word. “Lonely.”

Gawin blinked slowly, the thought rolling over him like new stone against old. “I don’t know. I wasn’t necessarily lonely.” His head tilted, curious at his own words. “But now I know I can be… happier.”

Joss’s throat tightened at the quiet honesty. Happier. As if happiness itself had only just entered Gawin’s vocabulary. Then what hope he amassed, deflated. He wasn’t sure if the spirit meant it as Joss heard it, or if it was nothing more than observation. So he shoved it down, folded it into silence, and let the lanterns of his memory carry the question away.

“Do you want to try celebrating Vesak?” Joss diverted, the question tumbling out too quickly, as if speed might outrun the beating march of ‘I like you’s’ in his heart.

Gawin tilted his head, dark eyes narrowing in curiosity. “How do I celebrate?”

Joss forced a small laugh, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s not complicated. Lanterns, offerings, walking around the temple three times. Chanting, if you’re inclined.”

The Waylayer’s lips curved, neither agreeing nor refusing. “Sounds… human.”

Joss nodded, gaze dropping to the fog coiling at their feet. “Yeah. It is.”, after a beat, continued. “Fair enough. You’d probably trip over the lanterns anyway.”

“I wouldn’t trip, I don’t trip.” Gawin said quickly, chin tilting with mock offense. The stubborn flash in his eyes pulled a fuller laugh out of Joss than he’d meant to give.

The sound lingered between them for a moment—rare, fragile, something Joss wanted to hold on to. He swallowed, softened. “Look, the walking? we do it to remember. Every step is intention, every circle a reminder. Birth, life, death, return.”

Gawin’s head tilted, thoughtful. “So you walk in circles to prove you’re not lost.”

The words pressed against Joss’s chest, too sharp for how gently they were spoken. He wanted to argue, but Gawin summarized it well, and bluntly. “Yeah, something like that.”

He glanced past Gawin’s shoulder then, his eyes catching on a paper lantern being raised outside a shop. Its thin skin glowed golden against the dimming sky, trembling in the hands of the boy who carried it. Joss’s face lit up, and he pointed.

“See that? That’s what I mean. Lanterns. They carry prayers, and when you light them the float up—”

But his words faltered. Gawin hadn’t even turned. The spirit’s eyes stayed fixed on him, unreadable, and then he shook his head.

“I can’t,” Gawin said softly. “Beyond the fog, I see nothing.”

The lantern shimmered in the distance, bright and alive. Yet Joss felt his own throat tighten, as the revelation of what Gawin couldn’t see slowly pressed on him.

“I’m sorry, did you say…” Joss’s voice came out sharper than he meant, his brows pulling tight. “What do you mean you can’t see beyond this fog?”

“I can’t,” Gawin said simply, as if it were the most obvious fact in the world.

Joss turned, jabbing his finger toward the temple gate rising in the near distance, its eaves catching the glow of lantern light. “What’s that?”

“Fog.”

His jaw tightened. He swung his arm toward a stall across the street, its trays stacked high with sticky rice cakes wrapped in banana leaves. “And that?”

“Fog.”

Something hot prickled under Joss’s skin. He bent, snatched up a leaf fallen on the cobblestones, and held it out beyond the line where the haze seemed to gather thick. “What about this?”

Gawin’s eyes flicked down. “Leaf.”

The answer landed heavy, simple, unshaken. Joss’s chest rose, breath caught between anger and awe. He looked from the leaf to Gawin’s face, trying to decide whether to be furious for him—or with him.

“You help lost people but you’re trapped in your own bubble.”

“I’m not trapped.” Gawin’s tone was calm, matter-of-fact. “I’m focused.”

Joss blinked. “Focused?”

“I can only see what’s lost.” A pause. “I mean, except you. Because you’re clearly not lost, but I can see you.”

Something in Joss clicked late. His archaeologist’s instinct—the one that turned fragments into theories—began spinning. He raised the leaf still in his hand. “And this leaf! You can see this leaf!”

“Yeah.”

“But look!” Joss shoved it past the fog’s edge, then yanked it back, waving it once like a signal flag. 

“Yeah. Leaf. I can see it.”

“Not just that, O great Waylayer!” Joss’s grin broke wide, almost triumphant. “You can see it even outside the fog when I’m holding it!”

Gawin actually stepped back, his composure faltering. “Uh… that’s weird.”

“Wait—let’s test it.” Joss darted away, weaving through the crowd until he reached the sticky-rice stall. He pressed his finger to the glossy green wrap of a dessert. “This!”

Gawin’s expression shifted—first hesitation, then dawning awe. “Wow. That is a very green rock. But somehow it also looks soft. And pretty.”

Joss laughed, half-disbelieving. “You’ve never had a rice cake?”

“What’s a rice cake?”

The stall owner screamed, startled as Joss leaned in too suddenly. The rice cake vendor reacting as if Joss just appeared out of nowhere. The man blinked at him, half-shielding the bamboo trays piled high.

“Sorry! Sorry,” Joss said quickly, palms raised. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

The seller’s wary look softened into curiosity. “Vesak sweets?”

“Yes, one pack,” Joss replied, already pulling bills from his wallet. He bowed lightly as the man tucked six neat pieces into a woven banana-leaf tray and wrapped them with twine.

The cakes were small pyramids, wrapped tight in fresh green leaves still slick from steaming. Their scent carried warm and sweet. The sticky rice pounded fine and filled with palm sugar, sometimes mung bean, sometimes grated coconut. On Vesak, these little pyramids were everywhere—an edible symbol of merit, each bite meant to echo impermanence: soft on the tongue, sweet, but gone too quickly.

“Thank you,” Joss said, bowing again before hurrying back.

He found Gawin standing just as he’d left him, fog curling at the edges like a private veil. Joss held the parcel high, grinning.

“Look,” he said, tugging at the twine until it loosened. “Six rice cakes. Each wrapped like a gift.” He unfolded the first leaf, revealing the pale, glutinous mound inside, its sheen catching the light. “This is the green rock I showed you earlier.”

Gawin leaned closer, wide-eyed, the grin of a child seeing fireworks for the first time. “That’s… that’s not a rock at all.”

“Correct,” Joss said, pride warming his tone. “It’s food. Vesak food. Sweet, sticky, and best eaten with your hands.”

Gawin tilted his head, wonder blooming in his face. “You eat the gift?”

Joss chuckled, breaking the first cake in half, its coconut filling steaming faintly. “Yes. That’s the best part.” He extended one half, palm open—an offering, a dare, a promise—waiting. 

Chapter Text

Gawin didn’t reach for the rice cake right away. His gaze lingered on the soft mound, on the faint shine of sugar melting at the edges. He tilted his head, voice low, almost reverent.

“Many of your kind have told me about eating and food,” he said. “Some of the lost I’ve guided… they worry most about that. About never being able to eat their favorites again.”

Joss’s smile faltered. “You’ve… never eaten… ever?”

“Nope.” The word wasn’t sad, not exactly—just plain, factual. But something in its simplicity twisted Joss’s chest, like an artifact described as “ordinary” when it had carried the press of countless hands, the erosion of time.

For a moment Joss could only stare at the rice cake in his hand, its warmth bleeding into his skin. To think something so small, so everyday, was an entire universe Gawin had only heard about.

“Then,” Joss said quietly, pushing the sweet forward again, “maybe it’s time you did.”

Gawin pinched the sticky rice between cautious fingers, lifted it to his mouth, and bit.

The change was instant. His entire body jolted. Eyes snapped wide. The fog around them rippled as if a wind had rushed through. He covered his mouth with one hand, chewing slowly—then faster, as though trying to chase every grain of flavor at once.

“Oh—” his voice cracked mid-word. He swallowed hard, then laughed, startled and trembling. “What is that?!”

“Sticky rice,” Joss said, grinning despite the tremor in his voice. “Just… sweet rice.”

“It’s—” Gawin clutched at his chest like he had to steady something breaking loose inside. “It’s… so much.” His eyes darted as though he could see memories that weren’t his—bright kitchens, festival tables, mothers scolding, children laughing. “All at once. Sweet. Soft. Warm.” His voice wavered. “How do you even survive this? How do you not weep every time?”

Joss laughed, shaky, a little broken himself. “Sometimes we do.”

Gawin stared at the half-finished cake pinched by his fingers, then back at Joss. And for the first time, the Waylayer looked shaken—not amused, not aloof. Human.

Joss gave a sudden, embarrassing sniffle. He wiped the back of his wrist against his eyes, startled at how wet they suddenly were. “Sometimes,” he repeated softly.

He hadn’t meant to cry. Not here, not over something as ordinary as a rice cake. But watching Gawin’s face—wonder colliding with shock, with something like loss—cracked something deep inside him.

For Joss, food had always been a tether to memory: He’d never had a kitchen to call his own when he was younger. But kitchens always took him in. Hands that pressed bowls into his grip so he wouldn’t feel left out, the comfort of flavors that meant belonging. To see Gawin taste all of that for the first time—after eons living excluded from it—felt unbearable and beautiful all at once.

Gawin lowered the half-eaten cake, confusion creasing his brow at the sudden glassiness of Joss’s gaze. “Are you hurt? Did you break a bone?”

That undid Joss completely. He laughed again, wet and uneven, pressing the heel of his hand to his face. “Goodness—you probably haven’t met anyone who cried because they were happy.”

Gawin stuffed the rest of the rice cake in his mouth. His gaze steady, as though he were filing the thought away like a rare artifact. “People cry when they’re happy too.” He repeated it slowly, tasting the idea as carefully as he had the rice cake. No mockery. Only the careful precision of someone weighing a truth for the first time.

Joss let out a shaky breath, the corner of his mouth tugging upward. “Yeah. Happiness breaks you open too.”

They walked on in silence for a while, the crowd folding around them. Lanterns swayed above, incense clung to their clothes, and the hum of chanting drifted through the night. Every stall they passed seemed to glimmer a little differently now, as if Gawin’s first food had cracked the evening open into something new.

The candle stall glowed like a tiny temple in the crowded street. Volunteers handed out beeswax tapers, the flames trembling but steady. Joss lit one, cupping his hand around it to shield the flame before passing it to Gawin. Their fingers brushed briefly, the heat small but sharp.

“What’s this for?” Gawin asked, watching the light flicker in the fog around him.

“Enlightenment,” Joss said. Then, softer, “Well for you, probably more… light in the dark?”

Gawin studied the candle, eyes reflecting the flame until the fog seemed to take on its shimmer. For a moment, Joss let his thoughts drift. In life, Gawin was also a lantern, giving light to those who were lost.

They moved on, weaving past the crowd until the smoke of another stall reached them. Incense, bundled in neat rows, stacked like arrows. The air was sweet and sharp, smoke spiraling upward. Joss’s hand trembled as he struck the match, the incense glowing at the tip.

But instead of offering it straight away, he froze. The hesitation scraped at him. Another creeping thought. Incense wasn’t just fragrance—it was cleansing, banishment, a way of clearing space of restless and sometimes evil spirits.

“Why are you suddenly nervous?” Gawin asked, brow furrowed.

Joss swallowed hard. He remembered his promise. Truth, always truth. “Because… I don’t know how you’ll react to incense.”

Gawin tilted his head, curious rather than offended. He leaned in, following the curl of smoke with his nose. “I like it.”

Joss let out a shaky breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Okay, good. So you’re not an evil spirit.”

The look Gawin gave him was equal parts disbelief and amusement. “Did you just test me with incense?”

Joss laughed, flustered, and quickly tugged him away to the next stall. “Come on, come on. Something better!”

The jasmine garlands hung like braided stars, their fragrance delicate, alive. Joss bought one and looped it carefully over Gawin’s wrist. The pale blossoms looked startling against his skin. The tip of his index finger accidentally brushed against Gawin’s pulse. “Usually you offer this to the Buddha. But tonight, this is for you.”

Gawin lifted his hand slowly, turning it this way and that as if the garland were both strange ornament and sacred tether. His fingers brushed the blossoms, lingering longer than he meant to, and his breath caught as the fragrance curled up toward him. His lips parted before the words formed.

“It smells… alive,” he whispered, as though the blossoms weren’t merely flowers but something breathing against his skin. His eyes flicked to Joss, steady and searching, as if to ask whether the gift was meant to bind or to bless.

Joss noticed the petals unfurling under Gawin’s touch, their fragrance spilling sharper into the air. “Look—they bloomed when you touched them.”

Gawin’s brows lifted, a startled smile breaking through. He glanced at the garland, then back at Joss. “Then maybe they only needed reminding,” he said softly, “that they could open again.”

The fragrance clung between them, jasmine sweet and insistent, as if the blossoms refused to close now that they had been awakened. Joss, aware of their inevitable parting, soul unsteady, decided to listen to his heart’s rambling. His voice was low, almost drowned out by the crowd, but clear to the recipient of his desire.

“May I?” he asked, nodding faintly toward Gawin’s wrist.

Gawin blinked, caught off guard, then turned his bare wrist upward, a silent offering.

Joss’s fingers closed gently around him. Gesture, prayer, and wish—as though memorizing the shape of a moment he knew couldn’t last.

Together they moved through the press of festival-goers, the stalls glowing one after another like small altars of devotion.

They passed toward the banners next. A volunteer handed Joss a pen, and he scribbled quickly—May the Wat endure—before pressing it into Gawin’s hand. “Your turn. Write anything.”

Gawin hesitated for a long time.

Then, slowly, in stiff English block letters, he wrote a single word:

GAWIN.

Joss stared at it, breath caught. GAWIN. The letters were stiff, uneven. But the sight of them stopped him cold.

It was the first time he had ever seen the spirit leave a mark the world could keep.

A record of his name. Fragile on paper, but more enduring than fog. He knew what it meant when the lost chose to write themselves down: they were no longer content to vanish.

The very reason the oldest inscriptions were tallies and inventories—marks in clay, bamboo, or stone. The first records of humans reaching to thrive, not merely to survive.

Joss let the pen fall back into the tray, still reeling at the thought that material history had just happened in front of him. He reclaimed Gawin’s wrist with a gentle certainty, the gesture warmer now for the banner-prayer it followed. Around them the festival pressed on—laughter, footsteps, the hawker’s calls. Life surged forward, careless and unbroken, as if nothing sacred had just taken place.

The current of the crowd swept them with it until the scent of frying oil and sugar pulled him to a halt.

The crowd thickened near the food stalls, the air heavy with smoke and sweetness. Joss paused at a sugarcane press, watching pale-green juice run into plastic cups. “What do you want to drink?” he asked.

Then, remembering, he began touching bottles one by one—bright red syrups, fluorescent lime sodas, glass flasks of tea—drawing irritated looks from the vendors. To Gawin, though, it was the only way the choices became visible.

Gawin’s eyes tracked each motion carefully. “Colorful,” he murmured, then shook his head. “But none of these. There’s actually one drink I’ve always wanted to try. I’ve heard it the most from the people I’ve guided.”

Joss leaned closer, face lighting up. “Anything. I’ll get you whatever you want. Just say it.”

The Waylayer’s mouth curved in the faintest smile, almost shy. “I want to try drinking… water.”

Joss grabbed the coldest bottle from the ice bucket, pressed a few coins into the vendor’s hand, and twisted the cap free. He held it out.

Gawin accepted it with both hands, curious, reverent. He lifted it to his lips and drank. Two gulps only—but his body flickered, as if a lantern had been lit inside him.

He lowered the bottle slowly, eyes widening. “It’s—” He blinked, searching. “It has weight. Cold, sharp, then soft, like silk folding over my tongue. And it doesn’t stay—it vanishes, but leaves the coldness behind. Oh!” He laughed, startled, looking down at his own hands as if they’d given him something new. “Even my chest feels cooler. Like I swallowed a small piece of the night.”

Joss couldn’t stop watching him. The way he marveled at water—the simplest, most overlooked thing—was almost too much. His chest ached, and he masked it with a small laugh. “You make water sound like poetry.”

Gawin tilted his head, baffled, then smiled. “If all water tastes like this, I should have found it sooner.”

Joss stopped in front of him, catching his hands as he capped the bottle again. “Here. Keep it. For when you want to drink water again.”

Gawin’s eyes lit up, his whole face breaking into a grin that made the lanterns behind him look dull. “A gift! I’ve never gotten a gift before.”

Joss blinked. “Gi— Gift?” His brain tripped over itself. A bottle of water. Of all things. He pictured Jimmy finding out that his first gift to the boy he liked was a bottle of water, and the floor could not swallow him fast enough.

“Nope,” he muttered, already steering him away by the elbow. “Not calling it that. One last stall.”

Chapter Text

He forced his mind back to the crowded street, trying to remember where Jimmy had sprinted off to. The amulet store—somewhere in the crush of lanterns and incense smoke.

The shop smelled faintly of metal and sandalwood, its glass cases lined with rows of pendants: bronze Buddhas, etched yantra coins, slivers of bone sealed in resin. Jimmy was already leaning over a case when Joss ducked in, Gawin shadowing his shoulder.

“Joss!” Jimmy straightened, surprise flickering across his face. “What are you doing here?” His gaze swept past Gawin.

Joss glanced sideways. “Can no one see you?” he whispered.

Gawin’s voice brushed against him, calm, matter-of-fact. “No. Only the lost see me too.”

Joss swallowed. The words hollowed something inside him, sharp as a shard under the ribs. Gawin had been alone from the start—alone in ways Joss could barely imagine. He forced his voice steady, turning back to Jimmy. “What’s a good amulet?”

Jimmy cocked his head, incredulous. “For what, Joss? You’re an archaeologist. Do you not know how amulets work?”

Joss hesitated. Then carefully: “For… a good friend. To make sure they see each other again.”

Jimmy blinked, then scrubbed a hand over his forehead as though trying to line up the thought. A grin tugged at his mouth. “Oh, is this for that local—”

Joss’s hand shot out, covering Jimmy’s mouth. “Thank you, Jimmy,” he said too loudly, pivoting to the shopkeeper. “Khun, can you recommend one for… that purpose?”

Jimmy’s laugh buzzed against his palm, eyes bright with mischief. The shopkeeper only arched a brow, already sliding forward a tray.

Amulets crowded the felt lining: brass Buddhas, clay stamped with faint script, tiny ovals in gold frames.

“For friends who must always find one another,” the seller said evenly, but not unkindly. He tapped a copper coin etched with twin figures sitting back-to-back beneath a Bodhi tree. “This one is for companionship. No matter how far, no matter how long, it draws you back together.”

Joss’s fingers hovered, then closed around it. Warmth bled into his palm—too much for mere metal. Jimmy made a muffled noise of victory, still grinning into Joss’s hand. Joss ignored him.

He lifted the amulet toward where Gawin stood. “This,” he said softly, “is for you.”

Gawin tilted his head, eyes steady, unreadable. But his mouth curved in that quiet wonder Joss was learning to recognize.

Joss pressed folded bills into the seller’s hand before Jimmy could wriggle free. The man slipped the amulet into a cloth pouch. Joss closed his fingers around it like a vow.

“Thank you,” Joss said, bowing once before turning on his heel, and releasing his friend from the death grip.

“Eh—wait, nong!” Jimmy called, laughter still bubbling. “You’re seriously running off without me? At least tell me if—”

But Joss was already moving, the crowd parting as he pushed through, the pouch clenched tight. He didn’t look back. Couldn’t.

Beside him, unseen, Gawin kept pace. “You really bought it,” he murmured, gaze fixed on the pouch.

Joss exhaled, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. “Of course I did.”

“Then… it’s really for me?” The tone was even, but something raw slipped through—the kind of wonder that aches to hear yes.

Joss swallowed, heart hammering, and nodded once. “For you.”

Gawin’s mouth curved—no smirk this time, but reverence. “Then this,” he said softly, “is my first real treasure.”

Joss slowed, the pouch absorbing the pooling sweat on his palm. “Can I… put it on you?”

Gawin arched a brow, suspicion tugging at his lips. “Are you going to test again if I’m an evil spirit?”

Joss barked a laugh, sharper than he meant. “No. You've proven yourself good.” He loosened the cord carefully, as though the amulet might crumble under clumsy hands. “This isn’t a test. It’s a… wish.”

Gawin tilted his head, curious, but didn’t move away. “A wish?”

“Yeah.” Joss lifted the cord toward his neck. “That you’ll always get to see me again. And maybe…” His throat closed, the words rough. “…that you’ll always have good near you.”

For once, Gawin didn’t tease. He leaned forward, letting the amulet settle against his collarbones—small and bright against dark fabric.

Then Gawin's fingers reached for his own nape. He unclasped a slim chain and held it forward. “Can I also give you something?”

Joss smiled faintly. “Our time today is more than enough.”

“Turn around,” Gawin said, the shift in tone so sudden Joss laughed.

“You must really like giving gifts,” he teased, but he obeyed.

The necklace slipped into place. The chain was slender, but the pendant carried weight, cool and dense against his chest. Joss glanced down and froze. The shine was familiar.

He remembered now. The necklace Gawin had worn in the dream.

He lifted it in his palm, studying the smooth stone.

“Did you get your answer?” Gawin asked.

Joss blinked. “What do you mean?”

“When we first met, you were wondering if the pendant was opal, pearl, or moonstone. You said to yourself that you wanted a closer look.”

Heat surged up Joss’s neck, scarlet across his face. Of course—the innocent Waylayer thought his curiosity was about the stone, not the person wearing it.

“You’re red,” Gawin observed, brows knitting. “Are you having a hard time breathing?”

Joss shook his head quickly, laughter spilling out as he kept his fingers on the jewel that crowned Gawin’s—no, his necklace. “I’m more than okay. I was just thinking… even better than this gift is knowing you remembered something about me.”

Gawin tilted his head, thoughtful. Then his gaze lifted, as if the distant night sky had called him back. “It’s time. I must return to my duties.”

Joss nodded, the moment already sealing itself into memory. No grand words. Just a smile, his and Gawin’s in return. It was more than enough.

“Happy Vesak, Joss!” Gawin's voice rose above the buzz of the festivities. Lotus flowers bloomed, candles steadied, and the trails of incense spiraled upward, as the greeting permeated the evening.

“Happy Vesak, Joss!” Gawin’s voice rose above the festival’s hum. Lotus flowers seemed to bloom brighter, candles steadied, and incense trailed higher, carrying the blessing with it.

The fog curled backward, thinning, retreating into the shadows. And then—he was gone.

Chapter Text

Jimmy had lived with Joss long enough to know how he thinks.

The man loved his work more than sleep, more than food. Most nights he stayed late at the department, coming home only to collapse in bed so he could get up at dawn and do it all again. Predictable. Reliable.

Joss’s life was like the museum storage rooms he haunted: catalogued, labeled, in order.

But the weeks after Vesak were different.

Joss still came home late, but not with the same quiet satisfaction of hours well spent. His shoulders carried something else now—something heavy, unsettled. Sometimes he skipped meals.

Sometimes he sat at the kitchen table long after midnight, staring at nothing, a cold mug of tea untouched at his elbow.

And he was short with Jimmy. Not cruel, never cruel, but… off. Little things. Brushing past him without a word. A sigh instead of an answer. A look that lingered too long before he shook his head and walked away.

Jimmy caught it first on a Wednesday, when he’d asked the simplest question—“Want me to heat up leftovers?”—and Joss just… stared. Silent, unreadable, like Jimmy had spoken in a foreign tongue. Then he sighed, slow and tired, and moved on without answering.

That wasn’t Joss.

And Jimmy, who had never been good at keeping his mouth shut, was not about to let it slide.

He tossed his keys onto the counter, the clink louder than it should’ve been in the quiet house. He kicked off his shoes, rubbing at his face, but froze when he noticed the dining table.

Joss sat there, shoulders hunched, a mug of coffee cooling between his hands. No laptop. No stack of notes. Just him and the silence, his eyes fixed on nothing.

“… Nong,” Jimmy said, cautious. “You didn’t sleep yet?”

Joss didn’t answer. Only sighed, the sound dragging out like it had somewhere else to go.

Jimmy’s patience snapped. Weeks of this—aloof Joss, unreachable Joss—had worn him thin. He leaned against the counter, voice sharper than before.

“Are you heartbroken?”

The words landed like a stone dropped in still water. Joss shuddered, the mug rattling faintly in his grip, dark liquid sloshing at the rim. His eyes flicked up, startled, caught.

“I… I’m not heartbroken,” he said, voice thin, like he had to drag it out of himself.

Jimmy narrowed his eyes, arms folding as he leaned heavier against the counter. “Then what’s up?” He let the words hang for a beat before pushing further. “You’ve been out of it. Dare I say… distracted.”

The word came out with a bite, half-accusation, half-plea. Jimmy wasn’t the type to dance around things. He’d put up with the sighs, the staring, the tight smiles that never reached Joss’s eyes. But patience had its limits, and tonight, he’d hit them.

Jimmy blew out a breath, throwing his hands up. “Okay, I’m not going to push, but I will need an explanation.” His eyes narrowed, though there was still a spark of mischief under the annoyance. “Because I’m starting to not like this local boy’s influence on you.”

The words cut sharper than Jimmy realized. Joss flinched, a muscle twitching at his jaw, as though the phrase had pressed on a bruise.

“He… it’s not him,” Joss muttered, shoulders drawing in. “Let’s drop it. I’ll go to the Wat tomorrow. We can talk after.”

The tone was final, a scholar stamping a seal on the end of a page. Conversation over.

But Jimmy had lived with him too long to mistake that for closure. Joss was a master of evasion tactics—redirect, postpone, bury. Always bury.

A spark of inspiration lit Jimmy’s grin. “Okay. I’ll join you. I want to see the Wat too.”

Joss’s head snapped up, eyes wide. “What? No. Why? No.”

Jimmy frowned, pushing off the counter. “I don’t get it. You don’t like doing post-investigation visits. Not your thing. You always wrap the dig, file the report, move on. Usually you leave these things for your team.” He gestured toward him, exasperated. “And now I’m offering my help here, but suddenly you don’t want it?”

“Because it’s not your job!” Joss shot back, sharper than he meant to. The words cut the air between them, too quick, too raw. His jaw tightened, and he sank back into his chair, eyes darting anywhere but Jimmy’s face. “Just… let it be, alright?”

Jimmy froze. He had seen Joss annoyed before, seen him tired, even stubborn. But never like this. Never snapping, never bristling like a live wire. Normally Joss was all cool detachment—wrap the dig, file the report, go home to get ready for the next. Steady, almost boring in his composure.

Something was really wrong.

Jimmy forced his shoulders to loosen, the sharp retort dying on his tongue. “I’ll just visit the Wat, nong. Go do your thing. I’ll just observe.” His tone was easy, even casual—but inside, unease. Joss was never the type to let anything bother him after a good night’s sleep.

The morning sun spilled across the bus aisle, catching on empty rows of cracked vinyl seats. Joss slid into the one by the window, bag on his lap, already bracing himself for the long ride out to the Wat. He leaned against the glass, letting the rumble of the engine and the chatter of the rattling windows dull the knot in his chest.

Then the seat beside him dipped.

He turned, startled. Out of all the empty rows, Jimmy had chosen this one—close enough that their shoulders brushed every time the bus jolted.

Joss blinked. “Seriously? The bus is half empty.”

Jimmy only shrugged, dropping his own bag onto the floor with a thud. “And?” His grin was too quick, too practiced. “I can’t leave you to sulk by yourself. Risk you brooding a hole through the window.”

Joss sighed, turning back toward the glass. His reflection stared back at him, tight-lipped, evasive. Jimmy never did things without reason. And if he was sitting here, of all places, it meant he wasn’t letting Joss out of sight.

“I don’t brood.”

“Right. You just sigh dramatically, drink cold coffee, and stare into space like a rejected poet. Totally different.” Jimmy leaned back with a grin, eyes on the aisle but his tone warm, easy.
Joss tugged his earphones free, fit them in, and pulled up his tablet. The faint glow lit his lap as he began muttering under his breath—dates, stratigraphy layers, proposed conservation methods. Rehearsing. Of course.

Jimmy watched him for a beat, then let out a low laugh, shaking his head. “Unbelievable. The moment things get personal, you crawl right back into a report.”

Joss didn’t answer, didn’t even glance his way, voice steady as he recited citations like a prayer.

Jimmy leaned back, half amused, half exasperated. “You know, nong, most people use long bus rides to nap. Or, I don’t know… talk to their best friend.”

Joss tapped through his notes, jaw set.

Jimmy’s smile faded just a little, though he kept his tone light. “I see you, nong. Hiding behind work again.”

The bus wheezed to a stop at the edge of the village, brakes squealing as the doors folded open. Heat rushed in, thick with dust and the scent of damp soil. Joss was first down the steps, Jimmy close behind, the two of them blinking in the sudden brightness.

They followed a narrow dirt path that wound between stilthouses, the wood weathered silver by years of sun and monsoon. A group of children scattered past with baskets swinging from their arms, and somewhere nearby a rooster crowed too late for morning.

At the center of the village stood the headman’s house, taller than the rest, its carved eaves catching what little breeze stirred the air. A lean dog stirred under the stairs, wagged its tail once, and flopped back down.

The front door opened before they could knock. The village chief stepped out, his frame wiry, his eyes sharp beneath a face lined by years. Behind him came his wife, apron still dusted with rice flour, hands busy even as she offered them a smile.

“Chief!” Joss greeted, bowing his head slightly. He was careful, warm, like reuniting with grandparents he'd never seen for a long time. “Thank you for welcoming us again.” He gestured toward his companion. “This is my colleague, Jimmy. He came to observe, if that’s alright.”

The chief’s gaze lingered on Jimmy for a moment, weighing him, before he gave a short nod. His wife stepped forward warmly, pressing her palms together before gesturing them inside.

“Please, come in. We prepared a table. You must be tired from the ride.”

Jimmy glanced sidelong at Joss as they stepped into the shaded interior. He wasn’t used to this version of his friend—the warmth, the quiet deference in his voice. It was another reminder, he thought, that maybe he hadn’t figured Joss out as completely as he liked to believe.

Chapter Text

Jimmy noted how the wife had said she prepared a table, but what greeted them was closer to a feast. Clay bowls of steaming curries, grilled fish laid out on banana leaves, herbs arranged in neat piles, and rice heaped high in a woven basket. The smells tangled together—lemongrass, chili, smoke—and Jimmy’s stomach betrayed him with an audible growl.

He slipped into his seat, glancing at Joss. His friend had come alive the moment they’d stepped inside, posture straight, eyes bright, voice quick with certainty. Joss was animated, gesturing with his hands as he spoke, his tone eager in a way Jimmy rarely saw outside a dig site.

“Chief, once we find proof that the Old Man is a Neolithic stone structure, it becomes a national treasure class object. Tourism or not, it will get protected.” Joss leaned forward, excitement sharpening his words.

The chief chuckled, reaching for the ladle of soup his wife had set near him. “You know, it’s as if the Old Man has been waiting for you, Archaeologist.”

Joss blinked, caught by the phrasing. “Why do you say that?” He shifted just enough to cut Jimmy a quick sideways glance—the look sharp, warning. Don’t say anything weird, Jimmy.

“Well, I’ve never seen the Old Man exposed this long,” the chief said, voice thoughtful.

“Yeah. No rains,” his wife added as she refilled Jimmy’s rice. “As if he’s waiting for someone to come back.”

Joss froze mid-motion, biting gently on the tip of his spoon. “Well, maybe…” He trailed off, words slipping away.

The chief’s wife reached across the table, plucking a piece of grilled fish and placing it on Joss’s plate with maternal insistence. “Maybe you should visit him after lunch.”

Jimmy’s grin widened, eyes narrowing as he leaned back in his chair. He looked away before Joss could catch it, schooling his face into innocence. Mischief hummed at the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah, Joss,” he said casually, spearing another bite. “I can continue with the presentation. You were practicing so much beside me all day, I’ve practically memorized it.”

The chief chuckled, eyes crinkling. “That’s settled, then.” He lifted his glass in a small toast toward Jimmy. “Good friend.”

Jimmy answered the smile with one of his own, easy and bright.

Across the table, Joss pressed his lips together, fighting the curve tugging at them. He dropped his gaze to his plate, but it was too late. Jimmy had already caught it—the reluctant smile trying to escape—and his grin only deepened.

The chatter and clatter of lunch finally wound down, the platters left with only scraps of fish bones and rice grains. Joss pushed back his chair, already reaching for the nearest dishes.

“I’ll help clear—”

“Go ahead!” Jimmy cut in, slipping past him to scoop up the bowls instead. “I’ll take care of it.”

The chief’s wife laughed, intercepting him with practiced ease. She plucked the plates from Jimmy’s hands, shaking her head. “Guests can’t help with chores until you’ve slept here at least one night. That’s the rule.”

Jimmy grinned, surrendering the dishes. “Guess I’m off the hook, then.”

The chief rose from his seat, crossing to Joss with a set of jingling keys. He pressed them into his palm. “Here. Take my tuk-tuk. Just drive slow, nong.”

Joss bowed his head in thanks, but Jimmy caught the flicker of relief in his eyes, the way his shoulders lifted just slightly. By the time he looked up again, Joss was already halfway to the door, keys clutched tight, as though the Old Man himself had been waiting all this time.

The screen door creaked shut, and a moment later the tuk-tuk rattled off, its engine fading into the afternoon hum. Jimmy lingered at the table, drumming his fingers against the wood.

“He’s really in a hurry these days,” he said with a chuckle. “Not like him.”

The chief hummed, settling back on the bench. “Your friend carries something in his eyes. Like he’s chasing time.”

Jimmy leaned forward, grinning. “Well, the most I was able to squeeze out of him… was that he met someone here. A crush, maybe.”

The chief’s wife froze mid-gathering, then glanced at her husband. And just like that, both of them broke into laughter.

Jimmy blinked. “What? What’s funny?”

The wife covered her mouth, still giggling. “When your friend arrived here that night, his shirt was inside out. All flustered, wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. Like a young man sneaking home late.”

The chief shook his head, smiling at the memory. “He said he met a man. A tall man. Who spoke to him about what to do when he found himself wandering.”

Jimmy forced a chuckle, though unease prickled under his skin.

“My husband teased him,” the wife added, eyes bright. “Told him it was the Waylayer—an evil, vengeful spirit that heralds the flash floods, swallowing those who lose their way in the swell of the Chao Phraya.”

Jimmy’s stomach dropped.

But the husband waved her off. “Her side of the family told it differently. They said the being was a venerable spirit. A handsome guardian. One who helped the lost find their way, so they weren’t taken by the river.”

The wife leaned closer, voice warm with mischief. “And when we asked your friend which he met…”

The chief chuckled, finishing for her. “He said it was the handsome one.”

Their laughter filled the room, light and harmless to them.

Jimmy didn’t laugh. His throat was dry, his pulse loud in his ears. For weeks he’d teased Joss about a “local boy,” convinced it was just some crush. But if the elders were telling the truth—if Joss had really met the Waylayer—then what had his friend gotten himself into?

Jimmy cleared his throat, the smile on his face too tight. “Well… is there any local boy around who was moving away? Maybe Joss just—uh—met someone passing through?”

The chief and his wife exchanged another look, but this one wasn’t amused. It was steady, certain.

“We know everyone here,” the wife said gently. “No one’s moved out. Not for a long time.”

Jimmy managed a nod, but his chest felt heavier than before. A weight he couldn’t shake, pressing deeper with every laugh that wasn’t his. He had wanted to prove Joss was just hiding some village fling, some ordinary crush. Something human. But the more the elders spoke, the more that explanation slipped through his fingers—until only the other one remained.

And Jimmy didn’t like where that left his friend.

Unaware of his brother’s unease, Joss sat on the grassy slope rolling down toward the monolith—the Old Man, dark against the afternoon haze.

“Hey,” he said quietly, almost afraid of his own voice breaking the stillness. “Are you here?”

Only the rustle of leaves stirred in reply.

He shifted, feeling strangely out of place. Awkward. Small. “Gawin…” The name carried more weight than he meant, soft with longing.

Silence.

Then a bird call split the air: tuk… tuk… tuk…—sharp, rhythmic, fading into the trees.

Joss exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. Foolish, maybe, to sit here speaking to stone and silence. Still, he couldn’t help it.

He wondered if he was ever going to get an answer.

He wondered what the spirit was up to now—if he still remembered Vesak, the lanterns, the rice cake, the garland. If the night had etched itself into him the way it had into Joss.

He wondered, too, if Gawin still wore the necklace.

What was time like for spirits? The thought came unbidden, curling through him as he watched the slope darken with shadows. Given Gawin’s likely age—centuries, maybe longer—Joss was sure it must pass differently. A festival night to him might be only a blink, a passing ripple. For Joss, it was already carved into bone.

Do those moments imprint themselves on spirits, the way they do on mortals?

Does… does Gawin still remember me?

The question hollowed his chest.

Then another thought struck sharper: Jimmy. He had left his brother with the elders.

Jimmy wasn’t the type to volunteer for work like this. Not without an angle. If he was staying behind, it meant he had questions.

Joss’s stomach dropped. He’d handed Jimmy the perfect chance to pry—without even a fight.

He scrambled to his feet, dust rising as he bolted back toward the chief’s house. By the time he reached the tuk-tuk, his pulse was racing, the keys already slick in his palm. 

Chapter Text

The tuk-tuk rattled into the yard, coughing smoke as Joss yanked the brake. Dust plumed around the wheels, the heat pressing it down heavy. He swung off the seat, pulse still running too fast from the sprint uphill.

Jimmy was already there.

Arms crossed. Leaned against the post like he’d been waiting longer than he had. Eyes steady, sharp, full of things unsaid. Judging.

Joss froze halfway across the yard, suddenly feeling like a schoolboy caught sneaking past curfew.

“You were fast,” Jimmy said at last, voice flat. Not praise. Not amusement. Just fact, laced with something harder.

Joss swallowed, forcing his face neutral. “Presentation over already?”

Jimmy didn’t answer right away. He pushed off the post, slow, deliberate. “Funny thing, nong. I barely had to present. Your chief and his wife did most of the talking.”

The words slid between them like a blade unsheathed.

Joss’s hand tightened around the keys still in his grip, metal biting his palm. He forced a brittle chuckle, slipping them into his pocket.

“Ah, then perfect. I can take over. At least my practice won’t go to waste.”

The laugh didn’t reach his eyes. Pottery struck wrong.

Jimmy didn’t smile back. His arms stayed folded, his gaze fixed with the patience of someone waiting for the mask to slip.“So, nong.” Jimmy’s voice was level, but edged. “Care to tell me about this… Waylayer?”

The last word cracked sharper than the rest, heavy with bite.

Joss froze halfway through brushing dust from his sleeve. His head lifted slowly, eyes narrowing, the chuckle gone.

He flicked a glance at the doorway, where the chief and his wife might still be within earshot. His voice dropped to a sharp whisper, knifed through clenched teeth. “Stop it. Don’t say anything else. Let’s talk about it another time.”

Jimmy leaned closer, refusing to let go. His whisper climbed. “Another time? You’ve been hiding this for weeks. What the hell did you get yourself into?”

“I said—stop.” Joss’s jaw locked, his grip tightening on the keys until the metal cut white into his knuckles. “This isn’t the place.”

“That’s the problem, nong.” Jimmy’s whisper burned, eyes fierce. “There never seems to be a place with you. Always later. Always someday. And now I find out the elders are laughing about you sneaking home with your shirt inside out—talking about spirits like they’re real—”

“Enough!” Joss snapped, strangled down to a whisper, every muscle taut with the effort of keeping quiet. His chest heaved, eyes darting to the door again. “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“Then help me understand, Joss. Because it’s like you never listened to Sea’s story.” Jimmy’s voice broke, low, raw. Hurt more than anger.

“Jim… come on. That’s not fair. It’s not the same.” Joss’s whisper scraped.

“Not the same? You have an evil spirit who leads people to their deaths.” Jimmy’s whisper sharpened into accusation. “You told me about the Old Man like it was a find. You didn’t tell me you were flirting with something that—”

“Jimmy, you’ve got it wrong.” Joss’s hand clenched until his knuckles blanched.

“Where am I wrong? He’s called the Waylayer for God’s sake.” Jimmy leaned close enough that Joss felt the heat of him. “The name isn’t a fucking nickname.”

“He’s not—” Joss broke off, frustration fracturing him. He swallowed, urgent. “You sound like everyone else, making stories out of what you don’t understand. We’re—” His eyes flicked back to the shadowed doorway. “We’re archaeologists. Scientists. Arguing about evil spirits. It’s ridiculous.”

Jimmy’s laugh was soft, humorless. “Ridiculous or not, you didn’t say anything. You’ve been… different. More aloof than usual. If this is just some sad, awkward crush, fine—I’ll roast him later. But don’t hand me folklore and expect me not to worry.”

Joss’s eyes flashed. “He’s not vengeful, Jimmy. He—he’s not what that storybook label makes him out to be. There are things about him you wouldn’t believe and I can’t—” His words snagged, too large for a whisper.

“Nope. You don’t even understand what he is.” Jimmy jabbed a finger. “Hand it over.”

Joss blinked. “Hand what over?”

“The Bodhi talisman. From Vesak.”

Silence dropped between them.

Jimmy’s whisper cracked, disbelief spitting through his teeth. “Don’t tell me—you already gave the talisman. A bloody talisman that connects you to a fucking spirit?”

Joss’s eyes darted toward the tuk-tuk, as if the machine could spirit him away from his brother’s anger.

“JOSS!” Jimmy hissed.

Joss jumped, voice thin. “I… yeah. I gave it to him already.”

Jimmy’s breath hit sharp. “When?”

Joss winced. He already knew his brother wouldn’t like the answer. “During Vesak…”

“Excuse me?”

“I gave it to him during Vesak.”

Jimmy’s whisper erupted, a scream crushed between his teeth. “YOU GAVE A BINDING TALISMAN TO AN EVIL SPIRIT ON THE BUDDHA’S BIRTHDAY?”

“Yeah… At the temple grounds…” Joss’s voice broke, bare.

Jimmy staggered back, one hand gripping the post for balance, the other pressing his neck as though to keep the pressure from splitting him open.

“Look, Jimmy, don’t worry. There’s nothing to worry about. He’s not repelled by incense. That makes him a good spirit, yeah?”

“You think a spirit who can drown peo—”

“He is not that kind of spirit.”

“You think a spirit tied to a four-thousand-year-old megalith is kind because it tolerates incense?”

“I mean, we don’t know that the—”

“Joss.” Jimmy’s voice frayed thin. “You have no solid leads about him. Where are you getting all this trust?”

“Jimmy…” Joss’s shoulders dipped. His voice softened. “Listen. There’s something I haven’t told you yet.”

Jimmy stilled. “What?”

“I know his name.”

“What—you have the spirit’s name?”

“Yes. He gave it to me.”

“HE WHAT?”

“See?” Joss’s laugh was small, brittle. “I didn’t want to tell you all this because I knew you’d react this way.”

Jimmy’s face twisted, caught between shock and betrayal, like someone being gaslit by his own brother. Joss, meanwhile, looked everywhere but at him—up at the eaves, out toward the trees, down at the dust by his shoes. Anywhere but Jimmy’s eyes. “What’s his name?” Jimmy pressed, each word heavy.

Joss opened his mouth, certain he’d summon it at once. But the syllables slipped, just beyond reach. He frowned, chasing the memory inward. Lantern light, the garland’s scent, the weight of water in his hands—he should remember. Why couldn’t he?

The heat pressed harder. The afternoon sun blazed, shadows thickening into ink. Joss’s breath hitched as warmth curled low in his chest, familiar, pulling.

And then—thin at first, almost a trick of the eye—tendrils of fog began to rise. From the stilts of the house. From the tuk-tuk’s wheels. From every seam where shade touched air. Curling, circling, spilling thicker, as though the hot day itself had cracked open and exhaled its hidden breath.

Jimmy’s whisper cut sharp, trembling. “Joss…”

The Waylayer was here. 

Chapter Text

The fog thinned as Joss stumbled forward, each step carrying him out of the village yard and into someplace else entirely. The air sharpened, cooler, and ahead, light struck water until it dazzled like glass. He blinked, breath catching as the river came into view—a wide, gleaming band, its surface broken only by the slow lap of current against stone.

Above it loomed a giant. A rain tree, the great demon tree in the old language, older than any temple he’d studied, its crown spreading like a living sky. The trunk was a wall of ridged bark, roots twisting down into the riverbank, thick as columns. Its branches stretched outward, a hundred green arms netting the sunlight into gold-dappled shade. Even the air seemed hushed beneath it, as though the tree commanded reverence.

At the edge of its shadow, lying along a stone ledge where the roots kissed the river, was the Waylayer.

The spirit lay as though nature itself had set him down there. One arm bent beneath his head, the other resting loosely against his chest, fingers curled like he had fallen asleep mid-thought. The water’s reflection wavered across his skin, painting him in ripples of light and shadow. His chest rose and fell, steady, unhurried.

Joss froze, dumbfounded. Of all the ways he’d imagined seeing him again—through fog, in lantern light, at the monolith’s shadow—this was not one of them. Sleeping. Peaceful. Vulnerable in a way he wasn’t sure spirits could be.

The rain tree’s branches stretched wide above him, scattering light like a thousand small blessings across the ground. Every flicker of sun that slipped through the canopy seemed to fall toward Gawin, gilding the curve of his cheek, catching on the line of his jaw, tracing him in shifting gold.

Joss’s throat tightened. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen someone look so… human. Not divine, not terrifying, not otherworldly. Just—resting.

A breeze moved the leaves overhead, and for a moment the shadows passed over Gawin’s face, soft as a caress. It felt like watching a secret. Like standing too close to something he shouldn’t see, something meant only for the earth and the water and the silence.

And yet Joss couldn’t look away.

The name hovered on his tongue, but he dared not speak it. To break this stillness felt like sacrilege. So he only stood there, heart knocking in his chest, memorizing him all over again—every line, every breath, the impossible truth of him—afraid that if he blinked, the dream would dissolve back into fog.

Joss drew in a slow breath and shifted his weight, letting one foot press into the soft earth ahead. The sound barely stirred the grass, but it rang loud in his ears, reckless in the silence.

The stillness did not break. The Waylayer slept on.

Relief slipped through him, sharp and aching. He let himself linger on the sight—lashes low against sunlit skin, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the faintest stir of air with each breath.

He had never seen anyone so… peaceful. Not just at ease, not just unguarded—something deeper. A serenity that made Joss’s own body feel heavy with the lack of it. As if this spirit, feared and named in warnings, carried within him a kind of rest Joss had never once allowed himself to know.

For the first time it struck him: maybe this wasn’t just what Gawin looked like in sleep. Maybe this was what it meant, for the world itself to let him be.

And Joss stood there, aching with wonder, with envy, with tenderness, afraid to move again in case it vanished.

From within him, his voice found itself. Before he could stop what was happening, an overwhelming tenderness broke free, forming sounds into words, and words into verse.

“O, sleeping child of legend,
Nestled by the great giant.
Drunk in the songs of rivers,
Slept tender, the Waylayer.”

The words tasted strange, ancient and new all at once, as though they hadn’t belonged to him but had been waiting for him to speak. He clapped a hand over his mouth, heart hammering. But it was too late. The whisper met his target's ears.

The Waylayer stirred.

A faint shift, the slow unspooling of breath. His lashes fluttered against his skin, brows knitting briefly before smoothing again. He shifted with the drowsy grace of someone who had not been startled awake but invited—like the earth itself had nudged him from rest.

A long inhale filled his chest. He rolled one shoulder, then the other, stretching in silence as if reacquainting himself with his own body. His arms lifted above his head, fingers splayed, spine arching with unhurried ease. Then he let them fall back to the grass, palms open, eyes still closed, savoring the slow, languid weight of waking.

And Joss—Joss could only stare, the quiet reverence inside him swelling until it hurt. 

The Waylayer stirred again, then rose into a slow, unhurried sit. The great tree’s shadow draped across his bare shoulders, making him seem carved out of shade and light together. He blinked, rubbed the heel of his palm against one eye, and yawned softly, as though the river itself had been his cradle.

When his gaze found Joss, it was with the drowsy recognition of someone who’d only just woken from a dream. “Joss,” he murmured, stretching lazily. “You’re here. Are you lost?”

Joss nearly choked on his own breath. Reverence crowded his chest, too big to hold. This was nothing like he’d imagined—no mist, no omen, no veil of lantern light. Just… this. A spirit of river and legend blinking sleep from his eyes.

“I—” He laughed at himself, the sound breaking out like a crack in stone. “I’m at a loss for words, yes. I didn’t know spirits slept.”

“Of course spirits sleep. It’s only natural, isn’t it?” the Waylayer said, his voice light, almost amused. He pushed himself up from the ground, unfurling into a long, unhurried stretch that rippled through every line of his body. Then, with a lazy flick of his wrist, he beckoned Joss closer.

Joss’s chest swelled. His body had never wanted to be anywhere else but here. The breeze pressed at his back as though the river itself were impatient for him to move, urging him faster toward the one who called.

When they were close enough, Joss lifted his hand, hesitant at first, but the Waylayer caught it without hesitation. Their palms met—warmth against warmth—and Joss felt the pads of the spirit’s fingers. Smooth. Tender. Nothing like the calloused hands he was used to holding in the field.

“You probably don’t do much work,” Joss murmured, wonder slipping through even as his lips curved. “Your hands are very smooth.”

The Waylayer arched one brow, his usual mischievous edge surfacing through the gentleness. “I don’t recall giving you permission to bad-mouth me. Do you want to hold my hand or not?”

Joss’s laugh caught in his throat. He shook his head, smiling despite himself. “I’m not teasing you,” he said softly. “Just… memorizing. Remembering.”

“Why do you need to remember?” the Waylayer asked, his voice quieter now, threaded with curiosity.

It was Joss’s turn to lift a brow, though the gesture didn’t quite mask the ache underneath. “Is that why I haven’t seen you for so long?” His thumb brushed lightly over the crest of the spirit’s hand, a motion more vulnerable than he meant it to be. “You’ve probably forgotten about me.”

The words landed heavier than the teasing tone Joss had aimed for, more confession than jest.

Chapter Text

The Waylayer’s smile folded slow, easy — the kind that softened the corners of his mouth and made his voice small and teasing. He tipped Joss’s hand, lacing his fingers between Joss’s as if it were a basket. He squeezed.

“Silly you,” he murmured, eyes glinting. “You act as though forgetting is a burden. But maybe it’s remembering that keeps me away.”

He let the thought hang, like mist over water, then shrugged lightly, as if it were nothing at all.

Joss frowned, the words slipping past him in fragments, unsettling and unfinished. The spirit only smiled wider, as though pleased to have left him puzzled.

“What do you mean?” Joss asked, pulse quickening.

“Your friend, Jimmy. He is distant because he does not forget.”

“Distant?”

“During Vesak Day, when I saw him, I saw a veil—very deep, very dark—that he has woven for himself. He wears it proudly, like a cape. But this is what keeps others away.”

Joss blinked. “You mean… Sea?”

“The boy he lost. The friend taken.”

“Do you know him?”

“I saw him, once. Long ago. He was young then. Frightened. Whisked away by a threshold spirit.” The Waylayer’s gaze softened, though his words were steady. “Your friend Jimmy blames himself.”

“Well… from his story, he was the one who invited Sea to play on the mountain. At night. Before…”

“Before he disappeared, yes. But Jimmy has no fault in it.”

The Waylayer fell quiet, his eyes holding Joss’s as though searching for entry. Then he spoke again, voice lower, almost intimate:

“Sea was abducted. The spirits that took him were commanded. It was bound to happen, sooner or later.”

Joss froze. “What?”

The Waylayer nodded once, solemn. “But you should have no cause for concern. The boy is safe. Hidden, but alive.”

Joss’s throat closed. “But Jimmy said they heard a child scream. Falling into the rapids by the valley—”

“Tricks,” the Waylayer interrupted gently, “easily made to deceive grieving mortals. Especially mortal hearts desperate for an answer.”

Joss’s voice caught, almost breaking into a laugh, but too thin, too shaky.

“No body was ever found. Which means—sure, it’s possible. But that’s a reach. People vanish in rivers all the time. They drown, get pulled under, swept downstream. We don’t just… assume they’re alive because the evidence is incomplete.”

The Waylayer tilted his head, watching him closely, the way one studies a riddle already solved. His voice was soft, but it cut.

“And yet, nong archaeologist, you spend your life chasing what’s incomplete. Shards, fragments, foundations under the earth. Never the whole, but enough to prove life was there. Why not the same for him?”

Joss froze. His chest tightened against the question, too sharp in its simplicity. He opened his mouth, closed it again.

The Waylayer’s gaze lingered, almost kind.

“You of all people should know. Absence of a body is not absence of being.”

“Wait—” Joss’s breath snagged, the weight of it sinking in. “But if this is true… I must tell Jimmy.”

The Waylayer’s smile was small, almost indulgent. “Perhaps it is time, perhaps it is not. But tell me, Joss—what good are words to a man who does not want to hear them? Would you hurl truth like a stone and watch it strike your friendship instead?”

Joss hesitated, chest tight. “You’re right. But… I can’t imagine living in this world knowing this and keeping it from Jimmy. If you knew something about me—something you believed would wound me—you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”

The spirit studied him, head tilted as if weighing the shape of the question more than the plea behind it. Then he nodded once, slow.

“I would. Because we promised to be truthful.”

Joss swallowed. “So… is there any way we can help them? Jimmy and Sea?”

The spirit’s gaze lingered, steady as river-stone. “Help them?” His voice was mild, but the word sat strange in his mouth. “If you wish so.”

He gently freed his hand from Joss’s and walked toward the bend, where the river curved under the vast rain tree’s shadow. “Down the southern lands are a clan of priests. I spoke to them once—in a dream—about where to find the abducted child.”

“Priests… in the south?” Joss echoed, his voice hushed.

“Prayer comes in many forms,” the Waylayer said. “Some bathed in light, others in shadow. Know this, however—the child’s name is withheld, hidden, for fear his abductors will return. He lives in silence, for safety.”

Joss’s stomach clenched. “Oh no…”

The Waylayer’s tone softened, a ripple of reassurance beneath it. “Yet there is nothing to fear. What was asked in blood was paid for in blood. His name is safe now, safe to be revealed.”

Name. The word tolled in Joss’s mind like a struck bell, reverberating through his chest. It pulled another memory forward. He lifted his gaze, heart pounding.

“About that, I actually wanted to talk about something else.”

The spirit blinked, as if urging him to speak.

“Can I tell Jimmy about you? Can I tell him your name?”

The spirit broke into a wide grin, something unreadable in the curve of his mouth. “You would? You would etch my name into another’s memory?”

“Of course,” Joss whispered. His throat tightened, but the word broke free anyway, tender as breath. “Jimmy should know about you, Gawin.”

The spirit’s smile deepened, soft with recognition. He slipped a hand beneath his black shirt and drew out the bodhi pendant, letting it catch the light between them—a quiet answer to the unspoken question. No. I did not forget Vesak. I did not forget you.

But even as it glimmered, the air shifted. Low tendrils of fog curled at the river’s edge, sliding over stone and grass, climbing the roots of the great rain tree. They thickened, swallowing the shimmer of water, the hush of leaves, the very light around them.

And before Joss could reach again—before he could hold the moment still—the fog engulfed everything.

The next breath tore him back into heat and dust, the pendant gone, the river gone, the tree gone. Only the yard remained—the tuk-tuk behind him, the dust in his throat, and Jimmy’s face inches away, tight with worry.

Chapter Text

Joss jolted awake to the sound of his name. His vision reeled—light fractured, shadows smeared—and then Jimmy’s face swam into focus, pale with fear.

“Joss! Joss!” Jimmy’s hands gripped his shoulders, shaking, desperate. His voice wasn’t its usual steady baritone but a whisper gone ragged, a half-shout pressed into panic.

“You went still,” Jimmy stammered. “Eyes open, but—nothing. I couldn’t get through to you. I thought—” His breath broke, and he shook his head hard, as if to banish the thought he couldn’t say aloud.

Joss blinked, his throat thick. The ground beneath him was dust and sunbaked earth, not grass, not riverbank. The air was dry, not damp with fog. His chest still carried the echo of warmth where a hand had held his.

“Jimmy…” His voice rasped, the word half-formed. He wanted to reassure, to explain, but the weight of his conversation with the Waylayer trembled on his tongue.

Jimmy’s grip tightened as he shook him again. “Let’s get you to a hospital. You can talk on the way there. Give me the keys.”

Joss pushed weakly against his hands, forcing a rough laugh that sounded nothing like himself. “No, I’m good. I’m fine.” He sat up too fast, the world tilting before it steadied. His hand closed around the keys, knuckles white. “But we need to talk. Not here. Let’s go back to the city.”

Jimmy stared at him, jaw tight, the fear still written across his face. “You don’t look fine.”

“I said I’m fine.” Joss’s voice cracked, too sharp, and he immediately looked away, swallowing hard. “Please, Jimmy. Just—back to the city.”

They stood once more at the doorway of the chief’s house, where the old couple waited with gentle smiles. Joss bowed, offering words of thanks, but his voice was faint, as though carried by someone else. Jimmy spoke for them both—warm, practiced, steady enough to hide the fear still tight in his chest.

The chief's wife pressed leftovers into their hands, blessings into their shoulders, while the chief offered to drop them off at the bus stop.

The bus ride back to the capital stretched in silence. Joss leaned into the window, the fields flickering past in a blur, his reflection pale in the glass. Jimmy sat beside him, watching, waiting, but said nothing. The words burned in both their throats and refused to surface.

By the time the city lights replaced the fields, Jimmy slipped his hand into Joss’s, tugging him wordlessly through the crowd. Joss followed, distracted, still rehearsing ways to open the conversation about Jimmy’s long-lost friend, never noticing the turns they took.

It wasn’t until the sharp smell of antiseptic hit his nose and fluorescent lights glared down on him that he realized—Jimmy had swept him straight into the emergency ward.

Joss blinked, bewildered, as Jimmy pressed him into a chair and flagged down an attending. His brother’s voice was taut, trembling against restraint.

“He blacked out,” Jimmy said. “Eyes open, but gone. For a full minute—standing up, unresponsive.”

The nurse’s pen scratched against a chart. “When did this happen?”

Jimmy exhaled sharply, as if naming the moment would anchor it. “Around two hours ago. At Bang Ben.”

The attending scribbled the note, then looked up, his voice measured. “Heatstroke can explain fainting. It can explain confusion, even a spell of unresponsiveness.”

“Jimmy, no.” Joss pushed himself up on an elbow, voice urgent. “I wasn’t unresponsive. I was with—” He caught himself, the word choking off before it crossed his lips. His face burned under the attending’s stare. He sank back against the cot, jaw tight.

The doctor’s pen scratched again. “It seems like he also had some hallucinations…”

Jimmy’s jaw worked. His throat bobbed once before he forced the words out, voice rougher than before. “It… it seems like it.”

“…then I want neurology to follow up,” the doctor said. “With imaging. Just to be thorough.”

Jimmy nodded—too fast, too sharp, as if agreement alone could steady the ground under them. But his hand stayed on the bed rail, white-knuckled.

On the cot, Joss kept his gaze fixed on the IV line, face unreadable. Outwardly motionless. Inwardly, the words curled and lodged themselves deep: hallucinations. imaging. He let them sit there, cold.

Beside him, Jimmy exhaled like he’d been handed a life raft. Heatstroke. Hallucinations. Words that pinned the impossible down to something he could chart, measure, explain away. They gave him a reason to hold on, and he clung to it.

But for Joss, the terms cut the other way. Hallucinations meant doubt. It meant that even if he swore the warmth of the Waylayer’s hand had been real, even if he could still trace the weight of the pendant in his mind, the world would not believe him. Jimmy would not believe him.

The syllables pressed like stones against his ribs, too dense to shift. Hallucinations—like his memories were no more than tricks of heat and thirst. Imaging—like his mind had already begun to fracture, requiring proof on a screen.

He swallowed once, careful, as if the act itself might keep the world from tipping. But the air seemed thicker, the light harsher, every sound sharpened to a needle-point clarity. It was all too much, yet not enough to drown the single fear blooming quietly at the edges: what if Jimmy believed it? What if he started to?

Joss didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He let the stillness cover him, as if by not reacting, he could keep the words from becoming true.

The hospital hum carried on around him, machines and voices blurring into a single, distant sound. Joss lay unmoving, the IV tugging at his arm, Jimmy’s presence steady at his side. Yet for all of it, he had never felt more alone.

His lips parted before he could stop himself, the word slipping out in the barest whisper, softer than breath.

“…Gawin.”

Joss didn’t notice the way Jimmy’s head turned, the faint crease etching between his brows. The syllable might have been a name, or nothing at all. Jimmy didn’t ask. He only kept his grip fixed on the bed rail, silent, holding on.

Chapter Text

Two months later, Bangkok was swollen with the wet July heat, the streets steaming from an afternoon downpour. Joss bounded down the hospital steps, damp concrete splashing under his shoes, grinning like he’d won something.

“I told you I didn’t need a scan,” he said over his shoulder. “Didn’t imagine it, Jimmy.”

Jimmy came slower, Joss’ medical folder tucked under his arm, his mouth a hard line. “You would’ve skipped it if I hadn’t threatened to report you. Don’t forget that.”

Joss’s grin only widened. “Still took it, though. Still clean.”

Jimmy’s silence carried the weight of two months of arguments, slammed doors, and the unspoken words he never managed to drag out of his brother. The city noise filled the gap—frying garlic from a cart, the hiss of bus brakes, water trickling into drains.

“You’ve been impossible since Bang Ben,” Jimmy muttered finally. “You have to understand where I’m coming from. One minute you’re here, the next you’re not. That’s scary, Nong.”

Joss shrugged, smug but softer, tucking something unspoken into the smile. “Well, the results should calm you down.”

Jimmy sighed. He remembered Joss walking out of the doctor’s clinic, handing him the folder with nothing but, I’m good. The memory stuck like a splinter. He was shaken from it when a motorbike tore past, splashing gutter water onto his jeans. He turned, voice flat. “You’re running, not researching.”

Joss’s shoulders stiffened. The grin vanished, leaving something raw. “And what if I am? You going to follow me there too? Make me sign another waiver just to breathe?”

“You think this is about control?” Jimmy’s voice cracked louder than he meant, drawing a few looks from passersby. He lowered it quickly, jaw tight. “You scared the hell out of me, nong. You disappeared on me.”

“I didn’t disappear,” Joss said, each word precise, almost a plea. “I went to him. You just don’t want that to be true.”

The traffic light clicked green, and a crowd surged around them, umbrellas brushing past, the smell of damp canvas and diesel swallowing their argument. Jimmy stayed rooted on the curb, folder pressed like a shield to his chest, watching his brother retreat into the flow of people.

“Maybe you should take a break, Nong,” Jimmy muttered under his breath, clipped and defensive. “Do you want to go camping together? Just slow down?”

“I actually miss the version of you when you were scared I was involved with an evil spirit,” Joss said, shaking his head.

“And that’s why I wanted this scan, Nong—you know how it is. What if the heat caused that hallu—”

“He is NOT a hallucination.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way!” Jimmy called after him, but Joss was already walking faster. He didn’t answer. He was gone into the press of Bangkok, his figure blurred against puddled neon, as if the city itself conspired to erase him.

The rain started again, fine and needling, plastering Jimmy’s hair to his forehead. He clutched the folder tighter, knuckles whitening, as though the paper inside could anchor something already slipping away.

But Joss knew the truth. That folder didn’t contain medical answers—only a waiver authorizing the hospital to mail results and the doctor’s interpretation to his personal mailbox at work. It was just enough to buy him time.

He needed proof in hand if he was ever going to make Jimmy listen. If he could follow Gawin’s lead, gather information about Sea’s current whereabouts, then maybe—just maybe—Jimmy would finally give him the time of day.

One thing gnawed at him, though: Gawin hadn’t shown himself since Joss began treatment. The doctors had written his episode off as heat stroke and exhaustion. Joss had thought the sleeping pills might open the path to the Waylayer again, but instead they only sharpened his mind. Each night his sleep left him clearer, more alert, not less.

Instead of Gawin, he was left with his usual lucid dreams: pacing alone in the garden of the great Rain Tree, carrying nothing but silence where Gawin’s presence should have been.

He always returned to that place where the Waylayer had locked hands with him—warm as breath, undeniable. And now, in the stifling churn of Bangkok’s rain and neon, that absence ached worse than Jimmy’s doubt. Joss couldn’t decide if he was chasing proof for his brother’s sake—or to convince himself it had ever been real.

Still, the dreams gave him one gift: he could replay every word of his conversations with Gawin. And one clue stood out.

Nakhon Si Thammarat. Though no records of priestly clans remained, Gawin’s riddle—“Prayer comes in many forms: some bathed in light, others in shadow”—spoke to him of Nang Talung, the traditional southern shadow puppetry art.

It made sense. Even now, in some parts of the region, Nang Talung was still considered a way to speak with spirits. Over the past two months, he'd spiraled into investigating this lead, carefully weaving in some decoys just in case Jimmy was sniffing around too.

By the time he reached the Ledger House he was drenched, rain plastering his hair and shirt to his skin. Colleagues looked up with concern as he entered, but he only flashed his most convincing smile and promised he would change in his office.

Time was running short. Jimmy would eventually make his way here, and Joss needed to be gone before that happened.

He shut his office door and peeled off his rain-soaked shirt, hanging it over the back of a chair. The air conditioner rattled above, too weak to dry him, but his hands were already moving—pulling out maps, already encircled with names, traced with the spine of the peninsula southward.

Nakhon Si Thammarat. The words steadied his pulse even as they quickened it. Shadow and light. Prayer in motion. If Gawin had left him a path, this was it.

The folder on his desk glared up at him, Jimmy’s handwriting scrawled across the cover. For a moment Joss thought of opening it—of proving something, anything. Instead, he slipped it into his backpack alongside maps and notes. Then he scribbled  words onto a post-it, crumpled it just enough, and dropped it haphazardly beside his table where Jimmy would see.

Mae Hong Son.

The complete opposite of where he was going.

Joss smiled, shouldered his bag, and was out as fast as he’d arrived. Minutes later, he was in a cab bound for the airport. 

Chapter Text

The cab dropped him at Don Mueang Airport just as the evening crush thickened. July rain clung to the air, a curtain you could feel but not see. Joss shouldered his bag and jogged for the terminal, weaving past families with suitcases, monks with saffron robes tucked high against puddles, the smell of fried chicken and jet fuel tangling in the damp heat.

Check-in was a blur. He almost left his ID at the counter, catching it only when the agent cleared her throat. His smile was quick, apologetic, but his pulse skipped at the slip. He shoved the boarding pass into his pocket like a talisman and pushed through toward security.

The departure gates buzzed with the layered noise of announcements, raucous laughter, and the loud buzz from a student group in matching jackets. Joss kept moving, preferring to pace instead of sit. His legs felt stiff from the cab ride, a hitch in his stride as he looped the row of chairs, but he brushed it off, stretching casually when he stopped by the window.

Something had been gnawing at him since he last saw Gawin.

The image was sharp: the garden of the Rain Tree, Gawin’s head bowed, his breathing steady, not a word between them. Whenever he saw Gawin, it would always feel like a chance meeting — a passing connection made magical by being in the right place at the right time.

And yet…

In that garden by the lapping river, Gawin had been… asleep.

The boarding call cut through his thoughts. He blinked, adjusted the strap of his bag, and joined the line shuffling down the jet bridge. His stride was steady, if a little tight, but he didn’t let himself falter. Whatever waited in Nakhon Si Thammarat, he was ready to chase it.

Joss slid into his window seat, the faint chill of the air-conditioning already battling the wet Bangkok heat that clung to his shirt. He rested his bag under the seat ahead, pulled the shade halfway down, and leaned his temple against the glass. Raindrops streaked sideways across the oval window, smearing the view of the runway lights into trembling ribbons.

The plane taxied, engines low and rumbling, and Joss let the motion pull him inward.

He thought back to the first time — Bang Ben, that awkward day. The world had gone dry and sun-baked, allowing him - and the whole of Thailand to finally admire the Old Man, and after talking to Jimmy on the phone, he bumped into him — yet to be named. Sharp eyes, voice steady, words folded like riddles.

The second time — that same night, when he was dreaming about the Wat, as he always did after intense field work. It was when he figured out that the Old Man might have been a neolithic megalith, when he was abruptly interrupted by an intelligent question, by the Waylayer. That night ended with him getting his name, Gawin.

The third time was Vesak. When he realized how sad Gawin’s life must be, since no one saw him, and he saw no one, unless they were lost. The little reprieve being that Gawin had not known an alternative life. He believed in a talisman that could bring them together.

And then the last, the Rain Tree. Joss’ memories as clear as the day it happened. Gawin’s angelic face as he slept, his chest gently rising and falling. How he needed to call his name to wake him up from his slumber.

Joss pressed his forehead harder against the oval window of the plane.

Was he wrong? His assumption that the Waylayer wasn’t someone you could find — was this understanding wrong?

The plane shuddered, wheels leaving ground. Bangkok lights scattered beneath, neon and rain turning into blurred constellations. Joss closed his eyes, chasing the shape of those earlier moments, trying to fit them together like pieces of a map. But the last piece refused to settle — silent, slumbering, beyond his reach.

Was it possible to find someone who was meant to always find you?

Joss tapped on his forehead, eyes closed tightly shut, as if unwilling to lose this trail of thought. The engines unyielding in their roar.

How could Gawin come to him… if he was asleep?

He wondered, then, if the reverse of his assumption was possible. Was he perhaps able to come to Gawin? When Gawin was sleeping, was he the one who came to him?

He laid back at his seat, and extended his hand. Heart beating louder at the possibility he just discovered.

“Gawin.” He whispered. He waited. Nothing happened.

He exhaled out of frustration.

He tapped his fingers on the armrest. “There must be something I’m…”

Then he remembered Gawin’s most consistent statement: Are you lost?

Gawin was the spirit of lost people and lost things, he clarified. 

Another idea flashed in his mind, as soon as the seatbelt sign warning turned itself off.

He searched his bag frantically until he found it, an extra pen. Joss thought about leaving it in the airplane’s lavatory, but wondered: was forgetting the pen the same as losing it?

He gripped the pen tightly. He pressed the button calling a flight attendant, and handed her the pen.

“Can you lose this pen for me?”

“I’m sorry?” the attendant said, confused.

“I’m an archaeologist.” Joss flashed his ID as he started to explain. “I’m trying out an experiment if you’d allow me. It’s for… science.”

The flight attendant, unsure of what she was hearing, decided to just trust Joss’ credentials.

After the flight attendant disappeared, he kept looking around for the tendrils of fog to approach him, but there was none.

He wondered if he’d miscalculated. If he knew the pen’s keeper, was it truly lost? 

Deep in his chest, hope turned itself inside out. The warmth from earlier collapsed into a hollow ache.

It had been two months.

Two months of doctors — and Jimmy — insisting Gawin was nothing but a hallucination.

But he had proof.

Joss reached beneath his shirt and pulled free the necklace, its small gemstone pendant cool against his skin. The one Gawin had put on him at Vesak.

He clutched it tight.

“I miss you… Gawin.”

The empty seat beside him shifted. A pale hand, long-fingered and graceful, slid into his own where it rested on the armrest.

Joss froze. Slowly, he turned.

Hazel eyes. Brown hair. The familiar high nose, pale skin, red lips — smiling at him.

“I miss you too, Joss,” Gawin whispered.

Chapter Text

Joss didn’t dare breathe. The pendant dug into his palm, a shard of proof against madness, but the weight in his hand was nothing compared to the weight beside him.

A hand. Warm, pale, impossibly familiar. Fingers lacing into his at the armrest, fitting into the grooves of his own as if they had always been meant to belong there.

His heart convulsed in his chest. Too loud, too fast, like it was trying to break free. If he moved too suddenly, if he blinked too long, would it all vanish the way the doctors insisted? A phantom, conjured from fever and longing?

He forced himself to look again. Hazel eyes steady, brown hair falling into place as though it had never left him. Pale skin carrying the glow of something not quite mortal. And lips—red, curved, tilting into a smile.

The smile he had replayed in his dreams.

The smile he had been told never existed.

Something in his throat snapped tight. But the words clawed out anyway, cracked, trembling, raw.

“Gawin…”

The name itself was a plea, a confession, a surrender.

His grip tightened, almost frantic. He clutched the hand and dragged it to his cheek, holding it there as though to pin himself back into reality. The touch seared against his skin, warm and solid. His breath fell out in ragged pieces.

“You’re real. You’re real. You’re real…”

He whispered it over and over, as if repetition could carve the truth deep enough to withstand the tide of disbelief. Each syllable shook out of him like prayer beads slipping through desperate fingers.

He pressed his face harder into those long, graceful fingers. If he could bury himself in that warmth, maybe it could undo the hollow months of silence. The sterile glare of hospital lights.

The doctors shaking their heads. Jimmy’s voice, soft but firm, saying hallucination.
The word had poisoned him. It had sat heavy on his chest every night since, sour and suffocating. He had begged for fog in the corners of rooms, for a whisper in the stillness, for the smallest proof that he wasn’t unraveling. And each night, only silence answered.

But here—here was flesh and bone. Here was weight. Here was the one thing no doctor could measure, no diagnosis could erase.

He clung to it as though the world itself was trying to drag it away.

Joss’ brows furrowed, his gaze locking into Gawin’s. He hadn’t meant to, but his chest shuddered, and before he could stop it a tear slipped free—sliding down, catching on Gawin’s fingers.

The spirit’s smile faltered. For the first time, it wavered with worry.

“Joss…” Gawin whispered, voice tighter now, as if the sight cut deeper than he’d expected.

Another tear followed, warm against pale skin. And suddenly it was Gawin who was frantic. He cupped Joss’ face with both hands, cradling him as though the smallest fracture might break him apart. His thumbs swept across Joss’ cheeks, trying, failing, to catch each new tear as it fell.

“This doesn’t look like happy tears,” he murmured, desperate to soothe, even as his own composure cracked. “Are you okay?” 

An ache swelled sharper the longer he held on. His body remembered absence too clearly, the bed left empty no matter how many times he whispered Gawin’s name into the dark.

Joss’s mouth opened, the easy lie already forming — I’m fine. But the thought snagged hard in his chest.

He had promised. Promised that even if he couldn’t always be honest, he would always be truthful.

And I’m fine was neither.

His brows knit tighter, his throat raw as the words shifted inside him, heavy and unwelcome. His hands shot up, closing over Gawin’s wrists where they framed his face. He held them there, trembling, clinging to the very touch that undid him.

“You left me.”

The truth cracked out of him, harsh and unsteady. His forehead pressed into Gawin’s palm as if trying to fuse with it, desperate to hold onto something solid. “You left me, and they told me you weren’t real. That I made you up. That I was sick, broken.” His breath shuddered, catching on the memory. “And I almost believed them.”

His grip tightened, nails carving faint crescents into Gawin’s skin as though to keep him from fading. The pendant at his chest struck lightly against his ribs, the sound hollow, accusing.

“I called for you,” Joss whispered, the words thinning to a plea. “Every night. I called. And you never came.”

He raised his eyes, bloodshot and glistening, locking into Gawin’s with something between desperation and fury. His voice frayed into questions, brittle with ache:

“Where were you? Why didn’t you come? Am I… am I going mad?”

Joss felt warm lips press against his forehead.

It took a moment before he understood what it meant: Gawin had kissed him.

And another before he realized that tears — clear, trembling rivulets — were rolling down Gawin’s cheeks, spilling onto his skin.

His face was stricken, apologetic, pained.

Then Gawin’s hands slipped from Joss’ face only to gather him closer, sliding beneath his arms and pulling him into a tight embrace. One hand patted and rubbed his back in slow circles, the other cradled the back of his head, guiding him down.

Joss yielded, collapsing into the hold, his cheek pressed into the hollow of Gawin’s neck. The familiar scent of jasmine and green tea rose around him, steadying, breaking him all at once.

“I have been searching for you, Joss,” Gawin whispered, voice breaking into the crown of his hair. “I couldn’t find you. I was so scared so much time had passed… that I’d never get to see you again.”

The words trembled against Joss’s ear, shaking with what Joss recognized as relief and fear. “I was so scared that so much time had passed… that I’d never get to see you again.”

At first, Joss only clung harder to the sound of it. But then the meaning slid into place.

Time.

For Gawin, time must stretch and collapse differently. If weeks felt like seconds, and months blurred into hours, then of course he would fear returning only to find Joss already gone, bones in the earth, memory erased. Joss' life already lived full.

Joss’s chest clenched. Just as he had been terrified Gawin was nothing but a hallucination, Gawin had been equally terrified that his delay had cost him everything—that he had lost Joss to death itself.

The thought hit like lightning.

Without thinking, Joss’s arms tightened fiercely around him, crushing close, as if to prove the opposite fear wrong. His face pressed deeper into the curve of Gawin’s neck, words muffled but certain.

“I’m here,” Joss whispered again, arms locked tight around him. “I’m alive. I’m here.”

He felt Gawin’s breath hitch, his body trembling as if those words were the only anchor he had left.

“And I’m real,” Gawin murmured, his lips curving faintly even through the tears. “Very much real. Though truth be told—” a soft chuckle broke through, warm against Joss’s hair— “my kind doesn’t worry too much about what humans think.”

Chapter Text

Joss pulled back from the embrace, his palms still resting against Gawin’s shoulders as if reluctant to let go entirely. His brows drew together. “So what are you doing here? Am I lost? Are you… here for the pen?”

Gawin blinked. “What pen?”

“The pen that I gave the—” Joss caught himself, shaking his head. “Never mind. You’re the Spirit of the Lost, right? So how did you find me? I need to know, Gawin. If I can figure out the rules, maybe I can—”

Gawin tilted his head, lips quirking faintly. “Actually… I was going to ask you that.”

Joss stilled. “Ask me what?”

“This,” Gawin said, eyes searching his. “This is the second time you’ve found me. Not the other way around. How did you do it?”

Joss frowned, mind racing. “Okay, first guess: it’s the pen. Something lost, something offered… and it pulls you to me. Like a trail.”

Gawin tilted his head, bemused. “I’ve never followed just pens before.”

Joss waved him off, “Then… maybe it’s the place. Airports, planes—they’re thresholds, in-between. No one really belongs here, not fully. That must count as being lost.”

A faint smile touched Gawin’s lips. “You make me sound like a ghost who waits at doorways.”

“Or,” Joss pressed on, ignoring the sting of self-doubt in his chest, “maybe it’s when I’m too tired to hold myself together. Dreams, exhaustion, blurred edges. When I don’t know where I end and the world begins—that’s when you come.”

Gawin’s gaze softened. “I would never think of you as broken pieces scattered on the floor, Joss.”

Joss stopped, chest heaving. His voice rose, brittle. “Then what is it? If it’s not objects, not places, not weakness—what brings you to me?”

For a long moment, Gawin was silent. Then he leaned closer, his words brushing out like breath.

“What exactly did you do before finding me?”

Joss blinked at him, caught off guard. His mind reeled backward through the moment: the pendant in his fist, the hollow ache in his chest, the words he had let slip into the silence. I miss you, Gawin.

His throat tightened. “I… I called for you,” he said slowly. “Not... Not your name. Not really. I just… said I missed you.”

Gawin’s gaze lingered on him, soft, unreadable. Then the break of the gentlest smile. From one hand rose a thumb, brushing a stray tear from his cheek with a touch almost reverent.

“Aaahhh,” he murmured, “that makes sense.”

Joss frowned, still breathless. “Why? What makes sense?”

“Do you know what that phrase means?” Gawin asked gently.

“I miss you?” Joss repeated, confusion furrowing his brow.

Gawin nodded. A quiet affirmation, that carried weight and understanding. A truth older than both of them.

“Mortals use it so lightly. But to me, it is not just remembering. It is loss, spoken out loud. It is the wound naming itself. When you said it—truly said it— It connected us.”
He paused, eyes glimmering. “You were not simply calling me. You were lost... in me. That is why I found you, or rather, that is how you found me.”

Joss shook his head, restless. “No… that’s too simple. That can’t be the rule. Words can’t summon you. It has to be—” He faltered, searching. “—something measurable. Something logical.”

A smile tugged at Gawin’s lips, faint but mischievous. “Logical?” he echoed, as though testing the word on his tongue. “You think it’s logic that pulls me to you?”

Joss bristled. “It has to be more than just me saying I miss you. Anyone can say that.”

“Ah, but not everyone means it the way you do,” Gawin replied, tilting his head, playful now, his voice lilting like a secret. “You say it like you’ve carved the words out of your own chest. That kind of loss… it's like a thread that binds.”

Joss stared, caught between frustration and awe. “Wow. It's so unbelievable.”

Gawin chuckled, leaning just close enough that Joss could feel his breath stir against his cheek. “It may be simple, But it’s the truth.”

Joss scowled, rubbing at his temple. “It raises more questions than answers.”

Gawin’s chuckle was low, warm. “You and your science. Always hunting for rules, for reasons.”

“Of course I am,” Joss shot back. “How else am I supposed to understand you? Meet you like a normal person?”

“You don’t have to understand me,” Gawin said lightly, tilting his head. “You only have to miss me.”

Joss groaned, exasperated. “Do you even hear yourself? You make this whole thing sound like poetry.”

“Mm.” Gawin’s smile widened, sly now. “And you love it.”

“I...” Joss paused.

“You do.” Gawin leaned closer, eyes gleaming. “You keep chasing me, remember? Not exactly the behavior of someone allergic to poetry.”

Joss opened his mouth to argue, then shut it, cheeks heating despite himself. “…You’re impossible.”

“And yet,” Gawin said softly, threading their fingers together, “you keep finding ways to... find me.” Gawin’s smile turned sly, but there was a glint of sincerity behind it. “Why don’t we put our understanding of these rules to the ultimate test?”

Joss furrowed his brows. “Test?”

“I feel the pull of the universe calling me,” Gawin nodded, his thumb brushing over Joss’s knuckles. “I have to go. But later, when you’ve settled into the room you’ll sleep in…” He tilted his head, eyes locking on Joss’s. “…will you summon me again?”

Joss’s mouth opened, then closed. He hesitated, uncertainty flickering across his face. “Wait - you have to go already? what if we’re wrong?” His voice dropped, raw again. “What if I call and you don’t come? How will I see you again?”

For a heartbeat, Gawin just watched him, his expression a mixture of tenderness and mystery. Gawin’s expression softened as he studied Joss’s worry. “You need proof,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Something you can hold onto. Something that knows me, as I know you.”

Before Joss could answer, Gawin slipped his fingers to the hem of his shirt and tugged it upward.

Joss blinked, caught off guard. Pale skin came into view, smooth and faintly luminous under the cabin light, the subtle lines of muscle curving across his abdomen. His breath hitched before he could stop it. Heat crawled into his cheeks, and his gaze lingered longer than it should have. God, I shouldn’t be thinking about this right now…

But Gawin seemed blissfully unaware of the effect his bare body had on Joss, his attention fixed on his own ritual: He pinched at a section of the hem of his shirt and drew out a thread—fine at first, then lengthening into a sizable strand that shimmered faintly between pale and silver in the dim light.

Joss stared, his earlier thoughts scattered by the sheer randomness of what he was seeing. “What—what are you doing?”

Gawin glanced up, expression utterly guileless. “Keep this with you. And when you find that summoning me using your own words have failed, let it slip from your hand. When it’s lost, I will know. I will find you.”

He guided the thread into Joss’s palm, folding his fingers over it with both hands, the touch lingering as though to impress its weight on him. His eyes softened.

“For now… I need to take my leave.”

But before Gawin could slip away, Joss caught his hand, pulling it back with a sudden urgency. His voice shook, but his gaze held firm.

“You better come find me tonight.” Joss said, firmly.

For a moment, Gawin only stared at him, hazel eyes shimmering in the cabin’s dim light. Then his lips curved, not quite a smile, not quite a promise, but something weighted with meaning.

Chapter Text

Nakhon Si Thammarat Airport was small, a single strip of concrete framed by green fields and low hills. No sprawling terminals, no endless concourses—just one modest building with a corrugated roof, whitewashed walls streaked by years of monsoon weather.

Joss stepped down into the arrival hall with the other passengers, the air immediately thicker, damp with sea-wind and soil. Ceiling fans turned lazily overhead, and daylight filtered through long rows of narrow windows set high in the walls. He found himself lingering, eyes tracing the way the concrete columns met the roof beams, simple yet deliberate, as if even here in this utilitarian space someone had insisted on rhythm and order. A kind of architecture that revealed its age in restraint rather than display.

Was it really that simple? he thought, pulse quickening. On the plane, all it had taken was three words—I miss you—and the fog had folded back. Gawin had appeared beside him, as real as the weight of his hand, as solid as the lips that touched his forehead. Two months of silence, of doctors insisting hallucination, and yet… when the ache spilled out of him, Gawin had come.

The baggage belt clattered. Joss shook himself back into motion, shouldered his bag, and followed the crowd out into the rain-washed forecourt. A line of taxis waited beyond the awning, their windshields glistening with water. He hailed one with a raised hand, and a driver waved him in, plastic beads and a string of amulets swinging from the rearview mirror as the car pulled away.

The road south from the airport cut through flat fields first, then into stretches of shopfronts and market stalls. The rain thinned to a mist, leaving the asphalt shining. Joss watched as the scenery shifted: billboards gave way to weathered wooden houses on stilts, then to low cement homes with verandas strung in laundry. He leaned against the window, absorbing every detail—the mix of Buddhist shrines and spirit houses along the roadside, the scent of fried bananas drifting in from an open cart at a stoplight.

And through it all, his fingers kept brushing the pocket where the thread lay coiled. Lose this, and I will know, Gawin had said. The words had been soft, certain, innocent. A failsafe. Proof.

Soon the road narrowed, traffic thickening as they entered the city. Motorbikes swarmed around the cab like darting fish, their drivers hunched against the wet. The driver pointed with a thumb when the ancient stupa of Wat Phra Mahathat came into view, its white spire tapering into the gray sky. Even through the rain, it gleamed—a landmark of centuries.

The cab turned east toward the old quarter. Streets bent tighter here, the rhythm slowing. The driver eased them past rows of teak-fronted shops and crumbling shophouses with rusted balconies. The city moat appeared, a narrow ribbon of water edged with stone. On the far side, Tha Wang spread out—a warren of lanes and alleyways, roofs pressed close, electric wires looping overhead like tangled nets.

When the cab stopped at the mouth of one such lane, Joss stepped out into air heavy with incense and the faint salt of the sea. The neighborhood felt older, layered: shadows of temples, markets, and homes folding over each other. Somewhere within these winding streets lay the House of the New Moon’s Shadow, quiet behind its unassuming gate.

But first, Joss noted, he needed to find his home for the next week. A rustic little homestay, its wooden sign painted in flaking blue letters: Dolphin Inn. The cab pulled up in front of a narrow teak house with faded shutters, its second floor jutting slightly over the street. A line of potted palms leaned against the walls, dripping from the earlier rain, and the carved lintel above the door showed two dolphins leaping in opposite arcs, their outlines softened by age.

Inside, the lobby smelled faintly of lemongrass and damp wood. The floorboards creaked underfoot, polished not by design but by decades of use. A woman in her fifties greeted him from behind a small desk, her hair bound neatly, a string of jasmine on her wrist. Her smile was practiced but kind, the sort given to travelers passing through rather than long-term guests.

The room she handed him was simple: a bamboo mat on the floor, a low bed with a white mosquito net, and a single desk set against a shuttered window. From outside came the layered sounds of Tha Wang—motorbikes sputtering, a rooster calling from somewhere improbably near, the sing-song cry of a hawker selling fruit in the lane.

Joss set his bag down, sat on the edge of the bed, and listened for a moment. The Dolphin Inn was modest, ordinary, unremarkable. But it would be enough. A place to map his notes, follow his leads, and slip away into the city without notice. He leaned back against the wall, staring up at the slow sweep of the ceiling fan. Two months of digging had brought him here, to this warren of streets and stories. And somewhere within them, hidden beneath the guise of performance, waited the House of the New Moon’s Shadow.

The innkeeper herself showed him upstairs, a woman in her fifties with soft lines around her eyes and the scent of jasmine clinging to her wrist. She carried a stack of folded bedding against her hip.

“Here’s your extra pillows, as requested,” she said as she set them neatly at the foot of his bed. Then, with the easy curiosity of someone who had seen countless travelers pass through her doors, she added, “By the way, Nong, where do you plan to go tomorrow?”

Joss hesitated only a moment before testing the words aloud. “I heard there’s an old puppet house here… the House of the New Moon’s Shadow. Do you know where it is?”

Her face lit up, eyes widening. “Ah! That one! Most visitors ask about Suchart Subsin’s museum or the big shows by the main road. But the House of the New Moon’s Shadow—now that is old. Only locals go there. Even I haven’t stepped inside since I was a child.”

She perched on the edge of the doorway, warmed by her own memory. “They don’t do the funny skits like others. No politics, no modern jokes. Only the epics—stories of gods, spirits, and the old kings. My grandmother used to say it was like going to a temple, not a theater. When they light the lamp, the shadows look… different. Taller, like they’re alive.”

Joss kept his expression measured, but something tightened in his chest. He thought of the fog curling in airplane aisles, of Gawin’s face materializing from absence. Shadows taller than they should be. Alive.

“It’s tucked in Tha Wang, near the old moat,” the innkeeper went on eagerly. “The lane is so narrow you’ll think you’re lost. But there's a gate with a crooked moon lantern above it. That’s the place.”

“Thank you,” Joss said softly. “That’s exactly what I was hoping to find.”

The woman gave a pleased little nod, as though happy to have steered a traveler off the beaten path, and left him to his room.

Joss sat on the edge of the bed, the extra pillows stacked beside him, and unfolded his map. Every detail she’d spilled—the temple-like feel, the epics, the shadows that seemed to live—slotted neatly into his research. Tomorrow, the trail would no longer be theory. It would be real.

Joss unpacked slowly, stacking his notebooks on the low desk, propping his damp shoes against the wall to dry. He stretched out on the bed for a moment, listening to the ceiling fan hum overhead, then pushed himself upright. Rest could wait. He had a habit to keep.

Everywhere he traveled, he told himself the same rule: walk the block, learn its face.

So he slipped out of the Dolphin Inn with a light jacket against the damp air and started down the narrow lane. Tha Wang breathed differently from Bangkok—the motorbikes still roared past, but the streets curved tighter, older, pressed close with wooden shopfronts and tiled roofs that sagged under the weight of years. Lantern light spilled from noodle stalls, mingling with the incense curling out of roadside shrines.

He passed the line of the old city moat, the water still and dark under a skin of floating blossoms. Beyond it, the spire of Wat Phra Mahathat Woramahawihan pierced the night, its white chedi stark against the cloudy sky. The temple was the heart of this quarter, he recalled, founded in the Srivijaya period and still the anchor of Buddhist devotion in the south.

But Tha Wang had always been more than Buddhist. As an archaeologist, he’d read the strata: Brahmanical shrines beneath modern courtyards, traces of animist altars beneath temple floors. Here, belief didn’t erase—it layered. The people had kept everything, folding the old gods into the new.

He paused at a corner where an old banyan tree grew into the wall of a shophouse, a red cloth tied around its trunk. Offerings clustered at its base: incense, sweets, even a tiny clay elephant.

To locals it was nothing unusual, but to Joss it was another thread, another reminder that shadows here were never only shadows.

The incense smoke curled upward, and for a breath he swore it thickened, fog-like, just enough to quicken his pulse. His hand slid into his pocket, brushing the thread. Tonight, he thought.

Tonight I’ll know if it was real.

He walked on, tracing the line of the moat until it bent into a quieter street, lanterns thinning, the air rich with damp earth and wood-smoke. His mind tugged at the threads he’d carried for months.

If there was a place where an extant priest-clan could have survived in the south, Tha Wang was the perfect hiding place. A warren of temples and shrines layered one atop another, belief folding belief, never quite erasing what came before. Especially here—where shadows had always been part of devotion. A priestly clan devoted to shadows could hide in plain sight.

But one mystery kept him restless, tugging even now as he walked: the name of the puppet house itself. House of the New Moon’s Shadow.

A new moon gave no light. No glow, no sliver. Just the absence of the moon. So what shadow could it form?

Joss paused under the banyan, the incense smoke drifting around him like veils. He stared up at the blank stretch of sky, hidden tonight by clouds. No moon at all. Only dark.

And yet tomorrow, if the innkeeper was right, he would step into a house that claimed to cast those impossible shadows.

But tonight—tonight, he would test another shadow. The one that had taken form beside him on the plane, whispered into his ear, pressed a thread into his hand.

He closed his fingers around it in his pocket. He couldn’t wait for night to fall.

Chapter Text

By the time he returned to the Dolphin Inn, the night air clung to his skin, thick with smoke and humidity. His shirt was damp at the collar, his hair plastered faintly against his forehead. The walk had steadied his nerves, but only barely. The thread in his pocket pulsed with memory every time his hand brushed it.

He stripped off his clothes as soon as the door closed and stepped into the narrow stall. The water stuttered at first, then spilled over him in a steady rush, warm enough to unknot his shoulders. He braced a palm against the wall, eyes closed, letting the stream pour over his chest and down his stomach.

He stayed longer than he needed. He lathered twice, rinsed twice, as though the day’s dust clung too stubbornly. The soap slid over muscle and scar alike, chasing heat down the slope of his back. His breath caught once, unbidden, at the thought of being touched like this by other hands. He exhaled sharply, shaking it off, but the thought stayed, curling in the steam.

When he stepped out, the mirror was fogged. He wiped it clear with the flat of his hand. The reflection waiting there was sharper than he expected: hair dripping dark, shoulders cut in the haze, water tracing slow rivulets down his chest. His towel sat low on his hips. He drew it tighter, fingers lingering at the knot, not out of modesty but with the strange awareness of being seen.

His gaze held steady on himself for a moment too long. Then he raked wet hair back from his face, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth before he dropped the towel and reached for clean clothes.

He chose them carefully without admitting why—jeans free of travel dust, a shirt soft from wear that clung lightly when he rolled the sleeves to his elbows. He combed his hair back with his fingers until it fell just enough to frame his face. The motions felt deliberate, like ritual.

By the time he sat on the bed again, the ceiling fan wheeling slowly above, the thread lay waiting on the nightstand beside the pendant. His heart beat too loud in his ears.

He told himself it was an experiment. A test. But the room smelled faintly of steam and jasmine soap, and he knew the truth. He was preparing to be seen.

Preparing for him.

His hand hovered over the thread, then pulled back.

Not yet.

If he reached for it now, if the thread was the only way through, then every meeting would belong to the spirit’s terms, not his. He would be nothing more than a petitioner in their world, bound to their rules. And Joss had lived too long in ruins, his hands deep in the earth, to surrender so easily.

He leaned forward, elbows pressed to his knees, fingers clasping tight enough to whiten his knuckles. His breath came quick, shallow, until he forced it lower, deeper, as if drawing the air into the hollow of his chest. He closed his eyes.

And he let the ache rise. He wondered if this was how actors prepared for their emotional scenes - drawing from past experiences to relive the emotions… to draw upon them. 

Two months of absence. The antiseptic brightness of hospital wards. Jimmy’s voice pleading at his bedside. The hours of silence where he whispered a name into nothing and nothing answered back. He called all of it into himself, every fracture, every hunger, until the weight was unbearable.

It swelled inside him, raw and electric, not a prayer, not a plea—but a fire. His whole body trembled with it, shoulders bowed, jaw tight. The pulse in his throat hammered against his skin.
He poured it into the air, as though the room itself might bend to his will, as though absence itself might split open.

When it brimmed over, tearing at him from the inside, he let the words break free, shaped by everything he had carried since the moment Gawin vanished:

“I miss you.”

The words left him like a wound breaking open, raw and certain. The room fell still, the ceiling fan’s drone swallowed by a silence that felt too heavy for its size.

For a heartbeat, nothing moved. Only the pounding of his pulse, the rasp of his own breathing.

Then the air shifted.

It was subtle at first—the faintest drop in temperature, the way the shadows of the mosquito net thickened at the edges. The lamplight guttered, stretched thin, as if the room itself held its breath with him.

Mist curled out from the corner of the room, fine as smoke, slipping along the floorboards. Joss’s chest seized, not in fear but recognition. His fists unclenched, trembling as he rose from the bed.

“Gawin…”

The fog climbed, wrapping around the desk, the window shutters, the line of his own bare arms. It smelled faintly of river-wind and rain on stone. And then, as naturally as a shadow falling into place, the mist parted—shaping into shoulders, into pale hands, into a face he had memorized in dreams.

Hazel eyes caught the lamplight. A mouth he had whispered into emptiness for weeks curved into a smile, soft and certain.

Joss’s breath broke in his throat.

Gawin stood before him, whole, waiting.

“I heard you,” he said simply, voice like the hush of fog against glass.

Joss stumbled the last step forward, his palms finding Gawin’s chest, warm, solid, real. A laugh tore from him, half-sob, half-relief, and he buried his face against him.

“Oh my God,” he whispered, shaking. “You actually did come!”

And for the first time in months, he felt arms close tight around him, steady and unyielding. Gawin’s lips brushed his temple, and Joss swore the ache in his chest finally loosened.

“Now we know,” Gawin murmured, holding him as if he’d never let go. “That you can be my destination, even if you’re not lost.”

Joss drew back just enough to look at him, eyes searching. His hands still gripped Gawin’s sleeves, as if to anchor him in place.

“I need to understand this,” he said, voice trembling between awe and determination. “I need to know the rules.”

The words spilled out faster, one after the other:

“Is it the words themselves? I miss you. Or is it the ache behind them?”

“Do you come only when I say it aloud, or can you hear me if I think it?”

“Does the distance matter? If I’m across the sea, if I’m in another country—will you still find me?”

“And what about time? Do you arrive the instant I call, or only if I’m truly lost in the moment?”

Joss’s brow furrowed, his voice quickening, relentless.

“Can anyone summon you this way, or is it only me?”
“And if it is only me—why?”

He stopped, breathless, staring into those calm hazel eyes. “Tell me. I need to know.”

Gawin just looked at him, wide-eyed at first, then slowly smiling. A real smile, not the wistful curve he so often wore, but something warmer, fuller. His brows arched slightly, curious, as though he hadn’t expected anyone to ask.

Instead of answering, he tipped his head to the side like a child confronted with a riddle, eyes glinting as if he was savoring the shape of Joss’s questions. His hands slid down from Joss’s shoulders to his wrists, thumbs brushing idly over the skin as though grounding himself in the contact.

“You…” Gawin said softly, almost in wonder. “You really want to know how I work?”

There was no mockery in it, no distance — only delight. He chuckled, a low sound like the fog curling at dawn, and leaned in until their foreheads nearly touched. His voice, when it came again, was playful but reverent, as though this curiosity was the sweetest gift he’d been offered in centuries. 

Joss waited, eyes fixed, expecting riddles, evasions, something. Instead, Gawin only blinked at him once, slowly, before his lips tugged into a sly smile.

“I can give some answers,” he murmured, voice lilting with mischief. “But only if…”

Joss narrowed his eyes. “If what?”

“If you take me with you,” Gawin said, tone light but gaze steady. “Around this town. Show me the streets, the stalls, the people. And—” his smile deepened, almost sheepish now—“let me eat... more food."

Chapter Text

Joss blinked, dumbfounded. “Eat?”

“Yes.” The word was simple, but behind it was reverence — a kind of wonder that made even the air pause. “That rice cake you gave me…” Gawin trailed off, eyes distant, as though remembering the shock, the sweetness, the jasmine garlands, the water cold as night. His voice softened. “I want to taste more.”

Joss’s throat worked. For a heartbeat, he was back at Vesak — Gawin’s trembling hands around that rice cake, tears gathering when joy came too sharp, too new.

“Dinner,” Joss said finally, steady but low. “You want dinner.”

“And in return,” Gawin replied, smiling with the ease of someone who’d never had to bargain before, “I’ll give you answers. Maybe all of them.”

The Dolphin Inn’s narrow shutters let in the hum of Tha Wang’s night. Lanterns swayed above the lanes, and smoke from food stalls drifted like ink through damp air. When Joss and Gawin stepped into the street, the fog followed — thin, obedient, wrapping their ankles as they walked. No one turned to look at the pale figure beside him. Just like in Vesak, the world saw only one man walking.

The first stall glistened with skewers of meat, smoke rising in ribbons as vendors turned them over glowing coals. Joss bought two, the marinade sticky with sugar and soy, the scent rich and heavy. He handed one over, watching Gawin’s fingers curl carefully around the wooden stick, as if it might vanish at his touch.

Gawin leaned close, nose twitching. “It smells… alive. Why is the smoke sweet?”

“It’s the marinade,” Joss said, biting into his own. “Sugar burns — makes it caramelize. Sweet and smoke at the same time.”

Gawin blinked, then took a bite. His eyes went wide. “Oh—!” He clutched the stick tighter, lips glossed with oil. “It bites back. But soft after. Like… fire turning to honey.” He laughed suddenly, bright and surprised, and Joss had to swallow hard just to watch him.

“You know,” Gawin added between small, greedy bites, “it’s like your question earlier — whether it’s the words or the ache that connects us.”

Joss raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“I think it’s like this skewer,” Gawin said, eyes thoughtful now. “The sugar and soy are the words. The ache — the smoke. They change each other, become something bigger than themselves. Both are equally important.”

Joss smiled faintly. “That’s… actually beautiful.”

They wandered on, drawn deeper into the labyrinth of Tha Wang’s streets, where food stalls bled into one another and the rain left every tile gleaming. The scent of lemongrass mingled with engine oil, and the fog that clung to Gawin shimmered faintly in the neon light. Joss couldn’t tell if the world ignored him, or if Gawin simply bent the world around him.

A few steps later, another stall caught Joss’s eye — Khao Yam, a southern rice salad. He ordered a plate: a mound of rice buried under shreds of kaffir lime leaves, toasted coconut, long beans, and flowers so blue they looked stolen from the sky.

Gawin tilted his head, smiling. “Wow, that’s so pretty! It looks like someone dropped a rainbow onto rice.”

Joss grinned. “Kind of. Mix it all up, then taste.”

When Gawin stirred, the blue petals bled faintly violet into the rice. His first bite made him pause, chewing slow. “It doesn’t stay still,” he murmured. “First sour, then sharp, then sweet again. It keeps changing in my mouth.”

“That’s the herbs,” Joss said, amused. “Southern food doesn’t like being quiet.”

Gawin nodded solemnly, then took another bite. “Neither do I.”

Joss almost choked on his food. He wasn’t sure if Gawin understood the innuendo, or if it was just that open, innocent candor again — either way, his ears went hot.

But Gawin caught him looking. “Joss, I think you don’t need to say the words ‘I miss you’ aloud,” he said suddenly, as if reading his thoughts.

Joss froze mid-breath.

“It’s like this dish,” Gawin went on, voice soft and sure. “All these colors, all these pieces — each leaves something behind. The intensity is already there. I believe once the intent exists, our connection will bridge us.”

Joss didn’t answer, but his heart stuttered in quiet agreement. He’d spent so long trying to explain the unexplainable; now, somehow, this spirit had done it with rice and flowers.

The crowd thickened as they moved on. Music thumped faintly from somewhere beyond the alley, and thunder rumbled far off toward the sea. By the time they reached the curry stall, the air was thick with tamarind and spice. Bowls of Gaeng Som simmered in clay pots, the steam rising in fragrant bursts. Joss hesitated. He thought to walk past — too strong, too intense — but Gawin’s hand brushed his, lingering just long enough to stop him.

“This one,” Gawin said, nodding toward the bubbling pot. “Why does it smell angry?”

Joss laughed. “Because it is. Spicy, sour, strong. You might not like it.”

Gawin’s lips curved in challenge. “Then let’s find out.”

The first spoonful nearly doubled him over. He coughed, eyes watering, chest shuddering — then straightened, a grin splitting his face. “It burns. But it sings too.” He dragged the spoon back for another mouthful. “It makes me want to eat more!”

“Some things just want to be eaten,” Joss muttered, unable to hide the smile tugging at him.

Gawin squinted, spoon midair. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” Joss said quickly, grinning wider. “So tell me — will our connection only work here in Thailand? What if I go overseas? Will you still find me?”

“Distance doesn’t matter,” Gawin replied easily. “I’m here because I chose to be.”

“Meaning?”

“I can choose to be anywhere I want. If I really try, I think I can even be everywhere.”

The image jolted through Joss — Gawin, everywhere, answering anyone who called his name — and something sharp and irrational twisted inside him. He didn’t know if the heat on his cheeks was from the curry or from that thought.

“I don’t want that,” he said before he could stop himself. “I don’t want other people summoning you.”

Gawin laughed softly, daring another spoonful of the furious red curry. “I don’t want that either.”

The admission settled between them like warmth after rain — quiet, fragile, unmistakably real.

They drifted onward through the night. The fog glowed faintly under the lanterns, curling around their ankles like a living thing. At a sweets stall, golden threads of Khanom La were stacked in delicate bundles, as fine as lace. Joss broke one in half and pressed it into Gawin’s palm.

Gawin lifted it slowly, brows furrowed. “It weighs nothing. Why would anyone make food this thin?”

“Because sweetness doesn’t need weight,” Joss said. “Go on.”

The crunch snapped sharp between Gawin’s teeth. His expression softened, startled, as if the sound itself had struck him. He chewed, eyes closing. “It vanishes too fast,” he whispered. “Like… a happy dream.”

Joss’s throat tightened. “Now you know how I feel when you leave me.” He tried to sound teasing, but his voice broke on the last word. He reached for another bundle and set it gently into Gawin’s hand. “Here. Have more.”

“Thank you!” Gawin said brightly, tossing one toward his mouth. “It disappears as fast as I arrive when you summon me.”

“Oh, so it’s immediate?” Joss asked, leaning closer.

“Yes. For me, it is. How is it for you?”

“Well…” Joss rubbed the back of his neck. “I wouldn’t call it immediate. The world sort of… prepares for you. Everything slows down. It gets colder, quieter. Then your fog—” He gestured to the faint mist rolling along the street. “—then your fog appears.”

Gawin looked around, amused. “Oh. How poetic. And polite. I’ve never thought about how my arrival looked to others.”

Joss chuckled, pulling a bottle of water from his satchel and offering it. “You don’t seem to think much about yourself, Gawin.”

Gawin accepted the bottle, turning it over in both hands as though it were something precious. His voice dropped low, nearly lost to the hum of the crowd. “When you’ve spent your life guiding others to find their way,” he said softly, “you forget to look at your own reflection.”

As Gawin savored every gulp of his favorite drink, Joss folded his arms across his chest. “Jimmy said last time I looked awake but wasn’t responding. What actually happens to me when we meet?”

“That’s a good question.” Gawin’s tone stayed gentle. “In places like this, my fog just covers us. When no one is focused on us, we… dissolve into the background.”

“And when someone is focused — like when I was talking to Jimmy before I found you sleeping by the Rain Tree?”

“That’s more complicated. Time can flow normally — you appear awake but unresponsive. Or…” He glanced at the mist curling at their feet. “Sometimes I can stop time instead. Then it’s just us. Everyone else waits, like a paused breath, until we return.”

Joss opened his mouth, then closed it again. “You can stop time?”

“Yeah.” Gawin smiled faintly. “Why?”

“What kind of spirit are you? How can you stop time?”

Gawin laughed, handing the bottle back. “Silly you. I told you already — I’m not a spirit.” His eyes glinted in the lantern light, brighter than the fog. “I’m… what is it you humans call me? Ah—yes. A god.” He smiled softly, the name rolling out like a forgotten verse. “I’m Gawin — God of Poetry, the Lost, and the Forgotten.”

Chapter Text

Joss stayed quiet a long time.

The air around them had gone still again — not heavy, just listening. Gawin’s fog coiled gently near the gutter, thinning where the light fell, thickening in shadow, as though uncertain which world to belong to.

Finally Joss said, “What does that even mean?” His voice was hoarse. “Being a god.” He forced a small laugh. “You say it like a job title. God of Poetry, the Lost, and the Forgotten. What do you do — file reports? Take shifts?”

Gawin smiled, and the fog shivered faintly, as if amused too. “Sometimes I wonder.” He looked out over the narrow lane, where the lanterns trembled in the breeze. “Mostly, it means I remember what the world has discarded. The prayers that never reached their intended. The names carved on stones no one visits. The stories left half-told.”

Joss frowned. “That sounds more like punishment than divinity.”

“It is both,” Gawin said softly. “The forgotten are never truly gone — they collect somewhere. That’s what I am. A vessel of what’s left behind.”

He pressed a hand to his chest, as though feeling the weight there. “Every missing person, every lost greeting, every lost child’s whisper, every lover’s name swallowed by time — they gather here.”

Joss stared. “You carry all that?”

“Yes.” Gawin’s voice dipped. “Though sometimes, it carries me.”

The words settled like ash. Joss found himself whispering, “So when you said you were searching for me—”

“I meant it, quite literally,” Gawin finished. “I am only found wherever someone forgets, or aches to be found.” He turned to Joss, eyes luminous. “thankfully you called out, and your longing was so loud it almost cracked the fog.”

Joss swallowed, throat tight. “And you answered.”

“You make it sound more noble than what it actually is. But that is a lie.”

“What do you mean?”

“We, the ones you call gods, are the most selfish beings in existence. We follow our wiles. We are greedy. We play by the rules we’ve set upon the world, and just… watch,” Gawin said, pain threading through his voice.

“I don’t get it.”

“What gods allow people to become lost in the first place? Why create that distinction? Why do most people belong, and others… well, don’t.”

Joss’s face scrunched in understanding. “So why do you allow people to get lost in the first place?”

Gawin’s smile broke like a crack in porcelain. The fog dulled, its shimmer fading to a low, colorless mist. “Because you can,” he said at last.

Joss blinked. “What?”

“The world runs on will — free will. You are free to act as you wish. Free to make the choices you want to make. In doing so, you unravel your own rules, philosophies, and eventually your laws. It is in this order that people are allowed to be lost — whether by choice, or by the force of someone else’s.”

“Then… why don’t you interfere when it becomes too much?”

“What is too much? Where should the line be drawn — between mortals learning on their own, and the divine imposing our beliefs on everyone?”

It was Joss’s turn to open his own bottle of water, mouth dry from the revelations of the evening.

“This is what led me to take this role,” Gawin continued. “Caretaker of the Lost. To give hope to those wandering, but also to relieve suffering of those they leave behind.”

“And from what you said earlier, when you intervene, it’s because it pleases you?”

“Yeah. Pretty much. The opposite is also a harsh truth — when we withdraw, it’s because we choose to. We are not tied down by consequences the same way you humans are. We can sleep off millennia in a blink. It generally wouldn’t bother our kind if we did.”

“Generally — but not you?”

Gawin laughed. “Please, don’t let your perception of me mislead you. I am equally as selfish as every single one of my kind. I regret that I can’t remember what I did before I began sheltering the lost and the forgotten, all because of my selfish choice.”

“You mean, you weren’t always the god of the lost?”

“Well, there was a time when no one got lost, and there was nothing to lose.”

Joss tilted his head. “So there was a time when the world didn't need a god for the lost… Was this before cities? Before people started hoarding things?”

Gawin nodded. “Even earlier than that. Even before the first roof was ever raised, before the first line was drawn between ‘what’s mine and yours’. When humans lived close enough to hear each other breathe. Every voice mattered. Every life was seen and visible.”

He paused, gaze distant. “In those days, no one owned more than they could carry. The earth fed you as it fed plants, and beasts. There was no treasure to hoard, no walls to guard. You built fires together, shared the same hunger, and ran from the same rain. Nothing needed to be kept — so nothing could be lost.”

Joss frowned softly. “That sounds… peaceful.”

“Peaceful, yes.” Gawin’s voice carried a wistful lilt. “But stagnant. Without want, there was no motion. Without poetry, no song. Without desire, one had no reason to dream beyond the firelight.”

“So we started wanting,” Joss murmured.

“Yes,” Gawin replied. “One of you wanted more food. Another wanted more fire. Someone wanted to walk farther, and someone else wanted them to stay.”

He looked at his open hands, palms faintly lit by the fog. “The first map was drawn in that wanting. The first boundary. The first absence. And in that gap between what you had and what you desired…” His voice fell to a whisper. “That was when my earliest memories began — becoming caretaker of the missing and the forgotten.”

Joss exhaled slowly, a chill prickling down his neck. “So the Gawin I’m talking to now was born from our wanting?”

“From your forgetting,” Gawin said gently. “From the spaces and people you needed to leave behind when you moved forward.”

Joss studied him — the faint curl of fog at his shoulders, the dim light glancing off his skin. “But that’s not selfish of you at all,” he said. “Getting lost... that's inevitable.”

Gawin smiled faintly, sadness folding into the edges of it. “You mistake inevitability for innocence. Our kind could have stopped you from wanting but we didn’t.”

“Because it pleased you.”

Gawin nodded. “Because it pleased us — to see what you’d make of the world.”

The hiss of a distant fryer broke the quiet. Lantern light rippled across the puddles like scattered coins.

The fog pulsed once, faint and blue, then settled again. Joss didn’t know if it was the light or Gawin’s grief that dimmed it. He only knew that for the first time, the idea of a god didn’t make him feel small. 

It made him feel seen — part of some vast, tragic curiosity that had started with a single spark in the dark. 

Chapter Text

The market had begun to empty itself of it's usual visitors. The lanterns swung low, their reflections rippling across the puddles like broken stars. The drizzle of rain had left the air clean, almost crisp.

Joss walked beside Gawin in silence for a while, listening to the faint slap of their shoes against the stone. His thoughts were still tangled from everything he’d heard — gods, will, forgetting — but one question pressed through the noise.

“So,” he said finally, “what can you actually do?”

Gawin glanced at him with one eyebrow raised, amused. “Do?”

“You know,” Joss said, waving a hand. “God stuff. Lightning. Miracles. The dramatic kind. Or is that someone else’s department?”

Gawin smiled, slow and knowing. The fog around them stopped moving. Even the sound of water dripping from the eaves paused midfall — a single bead suspended between them. "We… don’t ‘do’ as you described,” he said. “We allow.”

“You lost me there,” Joss said, then grinned. “That’s a pun.”

Gawin snickered. “I know what a pun is.”

“Good. So, please continue — you said you 'allow'?”

“What makes mortals different from gods is the way the universe listens to us,” Gawin said, looking up. The long tail of the Milky Way unfurled above them, weaving into the depth of the night. “Here. Hold my hand.”

He offered his gentle fingers, and Joss took them.

Then Gawin spoke — not to Joss, but to everything else.

“Take me to the Old Man.”

The words didn’t echo; they reverberated.

The air drew inward, like the universe taking a breath. Every drop of fog, every sound, every flicker of light leaned toward him in obedience. Joss felt the pull in his bones before he could even move.

He blinked — and the world had already answered, just as Gawin said.

Tha Wang vanished. Lanterns folded into starlight. The fog became howling wind.

The air still trembled around them, as if the universe hadn’t finished exhaling.

Joss blinked hard. His shoes sank into cracked mud; the smell of algae and dried soil filled his lungs. The food stalls of the night market were gone. In their place stretched the floodplain of Bang Ben, its surface caked and veined where the pond had long since dried.

At the center of the desolate basin rose the monolith—the same pillar he had found months ago when the waters receded because of the record summer heat. The Old Man.

It loomed exactly as he remembered: dark stone striped with pale bands of mineral, each one a record of flood and drought. Around its base, the ground still bore the faint prints he had seen that day—the uneven circles of someone pacing.

His breath hitched. “This can’t be—”

“Bang Ben,” Gawin said quietly beside him. His hand was still clasped around Joss’s. “You’ve stood here before.”

“I have.” Joss’s pulse raced. “This is where I first saw you.”

Gawin smiled faintly. He stepped forward, leaving no mark on the mud. “He’s the eldest witness. When the boundaries between land, sea, and sky, were first drawn. Eventually, mortals raised him here to keep the line. To remember.”

They stopped at the base of the monolith. Up close, the bands of stone shimmered under starlight, the same soft pulse Joss had once mistaken for reflection. The air around it felt thick, aware. The fog gathered, circling the stone. For an instant, Joss thought he saw movement beneath the surface—ripples of light sliding through the rock, as though the pillar itself breathed.

“What happened?” he asked.

“My approach,” Gawin said. “Caused a stir within it.”

A low vibration rolled through the mud, deep enough to rattle Joss’s ribs. The cracked mud at their feet trembled, disturbing the rest of the stars at their feet. Joss recognized it as excitement, the way old friends greeted each other after a long time apart.

“That’s what I meant earlier,” Gawin said. “I don’t command the world. I ask—and it always answers.”

Joss stared at the monolith, the same stone that had haunted his dreams. The air hummed with something vast yet tender, like a memory refusing to fade.

He looked at Gawin, at the fog curled around his shoulders, at the quiet certainty in his eyes. For the first time since that night, the ruin felt less like a place he’d discovered and more like a place that had found him.

“Should I be more respectful to you?” Joss asked nervously.

Gawin pouted his lips. “What do you mean?”

“I mean—” Joss rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly aware of how absurd the words sounded here, in front of a breathing stone. “You’re a god. Shouldn’t I use honorifics or something? Like your lordship?”

Gawin blinked at him, genuinely confused. “Why?”

Joss hesitated. “Because you can move the world by talking to it. and I'm a lowly mortal. a poorly salaried archaeologist at that.”

“That’s not reason enough.” Gawin tilted his head, the faintest chuckle tugging at his mouth. “You respect me when you listen. You honor me when you speak honestly. I don’t need a crown.”

“That’s… surprisingly democratic of you, My Lordship.”

“Not really,” Gawin said as he waved his hand away at Joss, swatting away the title he'd been given. “Just practical. Reverence gets in the way of truth.”

He stepped closer to the monolith, fingers brushing through the fog without touching the stone. “Mortals always build thrones for the things they fear. It makes worship safer. Contained.”

“And you?” Joss asked. “You don’t want to be contained?”

Gawin’s smile faded. “All the memories I have of my existence, are within these walls… contained,” he said, gesturing toward the fog. It curled outward in answer, like it understood. “This is the space the world gave me.”

The wind swept across the flats, cold and briny, tugging faintly at their clothes. The fog swirled lower, lacing between their ankles like something restless.

Joss shifted, the weight of that truth pressing against him. “For some reason, just being so casual with you…” he said quietly, a grin fighting it's way out, “just doesn’t feel right.”

Gawin tilted his head, eyes narrowing with faint amusement. “Your smile betrays your so-called guilt.”

Joss paused — then laughed, startled by how accurate that was. The sound broke the stillness like a stone into water.

Gawin blinked, surprised by the sound. “What?”

“Nothing,” Joss said, still laughing softly. “You’re just too funny without meaning to, you know?”

“I don’t get mortal humor,” Gawin admitted, a faint crease forming between his brows. Then, quieter, almost shy: “But I guess I have to learn now, right?”

The wind stirred between them, carrying the scent of salt and rain. Somewhere beyond the flats, the tide began to turn.

Chapter Text

They walked side by side, shoes sinking into the soft mud, the sound of waves somewhere behind them. The air was thick, as if rain was about to fall any time soon.

Joss broke their silent pace. “Can I ask you something?”

Gawin smiled without looking at him. “You usually do.”

“This one’s different.”

“They all are.”

Joss smirked but pressed on. “Alright, God of Sass, what can’t you do?”

That made Gawin pause. “Can’t?”

“Yeah. You keep showing me what you can do — fog, time, teleportation — so what’s off-limits? What’s the thing you’re not allowed to touch?”

For a moment, Gawin said nothing. The wind pulled at his hair; the fog drifted in ribbons around his ankles.

“I don’t think there’s any,” he said finally. “I’m sure if I tried to remember what I was before becoming the caretaker of the Lost, I could do what the rest of my kind were all known to do.”

“Known to do? As in… everything in myths and legends?”

Gawin nodded. “Yeah.”

“You keep saying that—remembering what you were before. Tell me more?”

Gawin looked up, as if heeding a message, and then extended his hand to Joss.

Joss hesitated, already knowing what the god before him was about to do.

“Take me back to the Dolphin Inn,” Gawin said.

This time, Joss was ready.

And he saw it—the way the universe listened.

There was no ritual, no sound, no light. Only the world parting itself, gently, as though making room for him to pass—from Bang Ben to Tha Wang, from dried mud to the small rented room of their homestay.

A gust of wind followed, announcing their return, then stilled—as if waiting for Gawin’s approval.

And just like that, they were back where Joss had earlier whispered the words I miss you.

The realization hit him all at once. His eyes widened. “Wait—Gawin. When you said you can be everywhere… did you mean it like Plato?”

Gawin tilted his head. “Ah, I’ve heard of that. Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I think Plato said that about singular gods.”

Joss studied him. “Ah. So you’re not…?”

“Oh, I am,” Gawin said lightly. “I just think he was wrong to assume those things are only true with a monotheistic lens”

“So when you said you can be everywhere…”

“I can,” Gawin said simply. “But it benefits no one if I am. My role is to stay where the lost are, not to be everywhere at once, or else how would the lost find me?”

Joss’s brows furrowed. “And you don’t do telepathy. You can’t actually read my mind. You just know—”

Gawin nodded, pointed toward the water bottle on Joss’ satchel, and extended his hand. “I just know,” he repeated. “Knowledge collects in me, as if I were a sink for such things.”

“That’s why you can practically do anything,” Joss said, uncapping the bottle and handing it to him.

Gawin shook his head. “Can and will are very different things.” 

“How so?” Joss asked.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of that riddle… can God create a stone so heavy He can’t lift it?” Gawin said, taking a slow swig from the bottle.

Joss sat on the floor of his room, eyes fixed on him in awe. Gawin was talking about the Divine Paradox, a question older than modern religion itself. “And what’s the answer?”

Gawin laughed at Joss’s posture. “Joss, you’re making me feel like I’m giving a sermon.”

Joss glanced at himself, paused, then laughed too. “I’m sorry. It just felt like the most natural way to listen to you.”

Gawin reached out, took Joss’s hand, and kissed it. “So long as it’s clear you like me as me—not because I’m a god.”

Joss tilted his head, teasing. “I’ve never thought of it that way. I mean, I don’t even think the way I’m treating you right now is in any way befitting of a god, My Lordship.”

Gawin raised an eyebrow, the gesture more warning than reproach, but still affectionate. “A god can create a hammer they can’t wield,” he said softly, “but only by making a version of themself that refuses to lift it.”

It took a second for understanding to reach Joss’s eyes. “Oh my god—” he blurted, then clapped a hand over his mouth. “Oh shit, I’m sorry. I didn't mean to take your name in vain...”

Gawin laughed. “I don’t care about that stuff.”

Joss lowered his hand, cheeks warm, and continued. “I just realized… you and your kind—respectfully—are the embodiments of free will. Of course you can make a stone you can’t lift, because creation itself obeys you. And then you do your part, your end of the bargain - or covenant, and you… choose to become the god who can do everything but lift that stone the universe birthed, the fulfillment of that wish!”

Gawin’s smile broadened; he nodded. “Almost spot on. Good work there.”

Then, without warning, Joss stood up with an urgency of his realization — sudden enough that Gawin flinched where he sat on the bed.

“What was that?!” Gawin yelped, startled.

But Joss didn’t answer. He turned toward him slowly, the realization still breaking across his face — then crossed the room in three quick strides and wrapped his arms around him.

The hug was fierce, shaking.

“What the fuck, Gawin,” Joss said, voice breaking. “What the fuck.”

“What?”

“You said—” Joss pulled back just enough to look at him, eyes shining. “You said, ‘A god can create a hammer they can’t wield, but only by making a version of themselves that refuses to lift it.’”

Gawin blinked, confused at first, and then his eyes were flickering into understanding. He was proud of Joss for realizing it without further explanation.

Joss’s breath hitched. “You’re that version, aren’t you? You became the version that refused to lift the hammer, or whatever it is. You chose to be the god who could fulfill the impossible that was asked for.” His voice cracked into a whisper. “You did this to yourself because the world asked the gods for something that cannot be granted.”

Gawin’s expression softened — remembrance dawning like an old ache. He reached out, resting a hand on the back of Joss’s head, gentle, almost paternal. “I don’t remember what exactly was asked,” he said quietly. “But from that point on, I came to know the shapes and names of every single thing, or person that became lost. I became lost.”

Joss clung tighter. “You’re not lost,” he whispered, tears slipping down his cheek. “You’re proof, that there were things too precious to lose.”

For a moment, neither spoke. The fog outside the window thickened, curling against the glass as if listening.

Then Gawin exhaled, patted the space beside him on the bed, and spoke -  his voice a low murmur.

“Would you like to hear what I do remember?”

Chapter Text

The wind outside the Dolphin Inn pressed close against the windows, pale and listening. Inside, Joss sat still beside the pale handsome god, while Gawin’s gaze drifted toward the ceiling as if watching something invisible unfold there. 

“When people first began to disappear,” Gawin began, his voice tender, “without leaving traces or remains, the ones left behind did not know how to process it.”

Joss looked at Gawin’s eyes.

“As the world before them grew, they drifted away from one another,” Gawin continued. “Villages spread apart. Paths that once crossed stopped crossing. The world grew larger. Someone would leave to hunt or trade and never return. And one day, someone looked up and realized that a name was missing from their nightly bonfires. They searched—but there were too many paths now, with too much silence between them.”

He paused, fingers tracing the rim of his water bottle absently.

“The world noticed before anyone else did. Every lost voice made the air tremble. Every prayer for the missing pressed against the fabric of things until the universe began to ache with it.”

Joss’s breath hitched. “The universe ached?”

Gawin nodded slightly. “When mortals ask the same question enough times, the world starts to answer—just as too many fires will plunge the world into heat and then a cold snap, or too much rain leads to floods. This time, the question was simple: Can there be a place for those who no longer belong?”

The light in the room flickered faintly.

“The answer wasn’t a place,” Gawin said. “It was a condition. The world gathered all that came with this kind of loss—grief, longing, love—and wove them into fog. Not quite air, not quite water. It stretched itself over the spaces where belonging failed—between villages, between memories, between names.”

Joss pointed toward the fog that always clung around Gawin, then asked a question with his eyes.

Gawin nodded.

“But what was made with the lost and forgotten could not touch the living. It could not exist in the same plane as those who still had a place in the world. It was the first half of the paradox: a place of belonging for those who did not belong. So it became a refuge for those who were missing—and a prison for he who chose to care.”

Joss swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet room.

Gawin’s voice softened. “Someone had to take the role. The world had built a place for those who no longer had one, but what sanctuary does not have a god to make it a safe space? So I stepped inside. Voluntarily.”

He said it as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

“Someone needed to be the keeper of names,” he went on. “The lost are only forgotten if no one remembers them, right?”

He turned his hand upward, and the fog in the room stirred faintly, like a breath responding to its master.

Joss sat quietly, eyes glinting wet in the dim light. Gawin looked at him only once, then back toward the window.

“But in exchange,” Joss said softly, “the world forgot yours.”

“I’m a God,” Gawin murmured. “Such trivial things could never break me.” He paused, and for a moment, the certainty in his tone wavered. Then softer, almost to himself: “But you— with lives so fleeting and bodies so fragile— a name is the only thing that remains immortal.”

Joss looked at Gawin then… really looked. He remembered the first time Gawin had tasted food—how he’d flinched at the sweetness, eyes wide with wonder; how water had stunned him, as if the very act of swallowing could hurt. Gawin could rationalize anything, could turn pain into poetry with a word. But he wasn’t immune to it. Gawin might not even know that he was actually… already in pain.

He wasn’t untouched by the ache of being forgotten. As every brick of his being was made up of it. Every first, was an experience denied for millenia, the price of his mercy.

“You gave those without a place a home. You lead these souls back to memory. But you… you are the one left with none. You were the one who lost the most.”

The fog pressed against the glass, curling into soft spirals, as though in mourning for the truth it had just heard spoken aloud.

The pale god vanished, but before he could react, Joss suddenly felt Gawin behind him, two arms encircling his waist. Chin resting on his shoulder.

“I wouldn’t say that.” Gawin whispered at Joss’s neck, the caress of his breath making him tingle. “I have a home now.” 

They remained in like that silence. Then a rustle of clothes, and Gawin was back in front of him. 

Joss didn’t know where to put his hands—on Gawin’s shoulders? His chest? After hearing his side of the story spoken so simply, any gesture felt too small.

He felt small himself, though not from awe. It was empathy that hollowed him out—the sudden understanding that everything Gawin had found wonder in—the taste of food, the refreshing taste of cold water, his bodhi tree amulet—were things Joss had taken for granted his entire life.

Moments that, to Gawin, had been firsts. Reminders of the things he couldn’t have, even as a so-called god.

He realized, then, that each time Gawin had laughed or asked a question, each time he’d reached for something new, Joss had been unknowingly giving him something that completed him. Through his small, mortal gifts in a world that had long stopped giving Gawin anything at all, he was being fulfilled.

Gratitude welled in him—for being trusted with this truth.

But guilt followed, sharp and quiet.

He’d wanted Gawin’s company so badly, not seeing that every touch, every shared wonder, might remind the god of everything he could never keep. 

When he finally spoke, his voice was unsteady.

“That’s… horrible,” he whispered. “Beautiful, but horrible. Maybe I’m too human to understand or even appreciate your choice, but choosing to be that alone—” He shook his head, eyes burning. “It’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard. And I’m proud of you, Gawin. For being the one who stayed with the lost.”

The words hung between them, fragile and warm.

Gawin didn’t answer right away. He only looked at Joss, and in that look was something ancient and disbelieving—like someone trying to remember how pride felt. Then he smiled, soft and human, and the fog around him slackened, as though even the air had decided to rest.

The quiet wasn’t empty—it was full of things that couldn’t be named. The air itself seemed to listen, holding its breath between them.

He hadn’t spoken that story aloud in longer than he could measure. Not because it was forbidden, but because no one had ever stayed long enough to ask. The fog carried prayers, not conversations. Humans unfortunately never heard it when the gods replied.

Now, here was a mortal—warm, trembling, heartbreakingly finite—looking at him not as a god or a mystery, but as someone to be pitied, even comforted. The thought unraveled something deep inside him.

Relief came first: the strange lightness of a memory no longer trapped in silence.

Then fear, sharp and electric—Joss’s compassion felt dangerous, like sunlight falling on a place meant to stay hidden. He knew that with this tenderness came clarity, and for the first time, he was truly seeing isolation in it’s entirety.

Finally, beneath it all, tenderness bloomed, quiet and uncontrollable.

He’d never known the feeling of being seen. To be told his pain was sad, not sacred.

The feeling frightened him. It was too much like belonging—an emotion his existence was built to exclude. It felt almost treacherous, as if by wanting to stay he was breaking his own law.

Gawin looked at Joss and smiled, small and unsure, a flicker of defense against the weight pressing on his chest. “You shouldn’t look at me like that,” he said softly.

Joss blinked, confused. “Like what?”

“Like I still need saving.”

The words weren’t sharp. They carried no edge, no pride—only quiet exhaustion, the kind that came from centuries of never being heard. Never touched.

Joss didn’t hear rejection. He heard regret.

Something in Gawin’s tone—gentle, almost embarrassed by its own vulnerability—told him this wasn’t defiance but mourning.

That maybe, once, there had been a version of Gawin who could be reached, who had wanted to be, and that some small part of that self still lingered.

He didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched, heavy and tender, and for a moment he thought even the fog had stopped breathing.

Then, without a word, Joss moved closer.

The bed dipped under his weight, the air between them collapsing into warmth. He didn’t touch Gawin but his nearness said everything his mouth couldn’t.

It wasn’t pity. It wasn’t worship. It was a quiet promise: I see you. I’m still here. I’m just here.

And in that closeness, the fog around them dimmed, almost shy, as if giving them back the world for a little while more. 

Chapter Text

The wood of the bedframe creaked faintly as they adjusted to the awareness of each other’s nearness; the curtains danced against the slightly open window.

Joss didn’t move at first. He didn’t dare. He only watched Gawin’s profile in the low light—the slope of his cheek, the tired calm in his mouth, the thin shimmer of fog that caught on his lashes like dust. The sight made his chest ache in a way he couldn’t name.

Carefully, he lifted his hand. He didn’t touch Gawin’s face or hair—only the edge of his sleeve, the faint brush of fabric against his fingertips. It was nothing, a whisper of contact, yet Gawin froze as if the world itself had reached for him.

His breath left him in a small sound, barely there.

For an instant, the fog hesitated, then sank, curling low around their feet, obedient to Joss’s quiet plea.

Gawin turned his head slightly, enough that their foreheads almost met. Not touching—just near. Close enough that when he spoke, Joss felt the words more than heard them.

“I can feel it,” he murmured. “The world… is listening to you.”

Joss’s throat tightened. “Then tell it to listen carefully.”

“To what?”

“To this.”

He closed the space between them slowly.

A kiss.

The air between their mouths trembled—warm, fragile, almost electric—the perfume of their shared breath already rewriting the room.

The kiss wasn’t gentle. It trembled, sure and uncertain all at once—the kind of contact that carried thought instead of desire. Joss’s eyes shut tight, as if he could press meaning straight into the fabric of the world through Gawin’s lips.

His whole being centered on one message, one rebellion that rang through every bone: no one should be tasked to carry the weight required of a god.

Gawin was stunned. He had heard of this gesture countless times—in songs, in dying breaths, in the memories of lovers whose prayers had drifted through him—but he had never felt it.

A mortal’s warmth struck through him like lightning made tender.

The millions of prayers that usually threaded through his consciousness fell silent all at once, giving way for him to breathe, to be here.

The fog that had always veiled his sight drew back like the tide retreating from shore.

For the first time, Gawin saw everything as the world did: the lattice of wooden beams above them, the curtain’s slow dance by the open window, the pulse at Joss’s throat. Even the air seemed suspended, every particle turned toward him in awe. The universe held its breath.

And in that stillness, Joss’s intent rang out—not in sound, but in resonance. Every cell in his body cried the same prayer: Let Gawin call me home. Let Gawin belong to me.

The words rippled outward. The world—once deaf to defiance—answered.

It did not punish. It rejoiced.

Light deepened, then bloomed. Shadows peeled back. Colors sharpened until even the dust shimmered like constellations remembering their names. Every thread of air, every quiet mote of matter woke to the act—a chorus of small rejoicings, the universe whispering yes, yes, yes!

Gawin inhaled, wonder cutting through him like light through deep water.

The universe was no longer waiting for prayer; it was waiting for acceptance.

He kissed back slowly, deliberately—like someone relearning a language once spoken fluently but lost to time. The touch was reverent, patient, a dialogue written in warmth and breath.

Between them, the air pulsed. Every heartbeat, every inhale became an act of recognition—you are here; you are allowed to stay.

And for a moment, the world believed it too.

When their lips finally parted, the air did not rush back; it lingered, thick with light, as if reluctant to remember what distance felt like. The room had changed—clearer, awake. The glow on Gawin’s face was unfiltered by fog, his eyes reflecting every corner of the Inn as though the world itself had offered it back to him.

It was as if the universe had waited through every age of loss only to exhale at last and whisper: welcome home.

Joss’s smile trembled somewhere between wonder and disbelief. His voice came rough.

“I’m sorry… uh, your lips are swollen.”

Gawin huffed a laugh that loosened the air. He raised a finger and traced it gently over Joss’s mouth—soft, grounding. “Yours too,” he murmured, smiling for real.

Something shifted at the edge of Joss’s senses. The air no longer hummed the same. “It feels… different.”

“The fog,” Gawin said, following his gaze toward the window. “It’s gone. For now.”

“So you can see the whole room now?”

“And beyond it.” A pause. “The horizon, even.”

“Why?”

“It heard your words.”

Joss went still, color blooming faintly across his cheeks. “You mean…”

“Yes,” Gawin said, voice low and certain. “You asked, and so in this moment, I belong somewhere.” He looked at Joss with a softness that almost hurt. “For this heartbeat, I am not the god of the lost.”

Joss let out a shaky laugh. “You got that right. You’re the God of Joss.”

That broke the spell enough for both of them to laugh—small, breathy, almost shy. The sound carried warmth into the corners of the room.

Outside, the fog began its slow return, curling along the floorboards, reclaiming the edges of Gawin’s shared space.

Joss sighed. “Oh well. It was great while it lasted.” He tried to laugh, but Gawin heard the emptiness underneath and brushed his thumb against Joss’s knuckles.

“I have to go,” he said gently.

Joss nodded. His heart had learned to brace for this parting, though it never got easier. “Already?”

“Duty calls,” Gawin said. “People keep losing their way. Someone should be there when they do.”

Joss managed a faint smile. “I still don’t understand why it has to be you. But I’m proud of what you do.”

“And I don’t need anyone’s validation,” Gawin replied, softer now, “but yours… yours matters.”

The fog swelled once, luminous at the edges, and when it fell still again, the bed beside Joss was empty.

Only the scent of rain and the warmth of belonging remained—fragile proof that, for one brief moment, even the god of the lost had been found.

Chapter Text

Joss woke to light pressing through the curtains—thin, pale, and kind.

For the first time in weeks, the fear was gone. The ache behind every breath—the dread that Gawin might never return—had dissolved with the night.

He knew now that he could call him back. With words. With intent.

The knowledge sat inside him like warmth: the same warmth that had lived in Gawin’s kiss.

The universe had heard him too; Like it wanted what he wanted—an end to Gawin’s wandering, a god allowed to belong, to be happy. A god returned to it’s rightful place.

He exhaled, somewhere between disbelief and prayer.

In the mirror, shadows rimmed his eyes. How does anyone sleep after kissing a god?

The thought made him laugh—soft, disbelieving.

And not just any god. The most beautiful one the world had ever lost.

He showered until steam filled the room, and when he stepped out, the fog that clung to him wasn’t divine anymore. It was only condensation.

Clothes, notes, pack. Routine. The world still waited.

There were more questions to chase—footprints, fragments, echoes that might anchor Gawin’s story to the mortal world. The truth had already been revealed to him; now he only needed to find its shape in history, the proof that others could see, touch, believe.

Jimmy would need that.

He glanced at his dead mobile phone at the desk, wondering. How could he tell him the rest?

That the spirit Jimmy refused to believe in was, in truth, a god—and that this god had spoken of Jimmy's late friend, Sea.

That somewhere beneath Tha Wang’s ancient quarter lay traces of a priestly clan who might still know where Sea was now, alive and free.

It would sound delusional. To Jimmy, even cruel.

To someone who already didn’t believe, it would seem as though Joss were stitching Jimmy’s grief into his own hallucinations—as if the trauma that had almost broken him had finally come full circle.

He tightened the strap of his pack, movements brisk, deliberate.

He needed proof—enough that Jimmy couldn’t dismiss it as madness. The world had shown him its hidden order once; he would uncover the rest of it, piece by piece.

Some truths could not be told.

They could only be proven.

He stood by the window a moment longer, looking out over Tha Wang as the city stretched awake. Somewhere beyond it, the tides were turning—the fog gathering again where it belonged.

“Duty calls,” he murmured, echoing Gawin’s words, and smiled.

Two objectives. Clear, simple, almost comforting in their precision.

First: prove that the House of the New Moon’s Shadow was—or still was—a temple.

Second: find the priestly clan, earn their trust, and learn what they know about Sea.

He repeated the list once in his mind, not as ritual, but as anchor.

The words steadied him. They gave shape to the impossible, made grief measurable, love practical.

He drew a slow breath, feeling the damp coolness through the shutters. The city was already waking — motorbikes humming faintly in the distance, roosters calling somewhere upriver. Beyond the rooftops, a faint line of mist hovered over the horizon, as if the fog itself were waiting for him to move.

So he did.

He locked the door of his room at the Dolphin Inn behind him and stepped into the bright hush of morning.

The streets were still slick from the night’s rain. Morning light pooled in puddles, glancing off hanging wires and windowpanes, bending into quicksilver flashes that seemed to follow him through the narrow lanes. The farther he walked, the older the city became—its air thickening with salt and age, the scent of wet brick and iron carrying whispers of the river.

He could read history the way others read signs: mortar lines, roof pitches, the ghost of foundations beneath new paint.

Every corner whispered what it used to be.

Low brick shop-houses from the Rattanakosin era leaned beside teak beams blackened with soot and time. Above them, new balconies of glass and steel quarreled with timber.

Layers upon layers—centuries folded like rice paper.

By the time he reached the bend where the road narrowed into an alley, the air had changed. The hum of scooters fell away; even the smell of frying oil thinned. What remained was something quiet and watchful—the kind of stillness that carried memory. Salt brushed the air.

Stone replaced pavement, worn smooth by generations of feet.

The walls rose higher, each brick older than the last, until the lane opened suddenly into a courtyard hemmed by banyan roots and cracked marble lions.

There, at its far end, stood the gate.

Two carved pillars framed it—sandstone traced with faint lunar patterns half-faded by rain.

Above them hung a lantern shaped like a crescent moon, its bronze ribs catching the light in broken gleams. Even unlit, it glowed faintly, as if it remembered fire.

Joss stopped. The pack slipped off his shoulder. His notebook was half out of his pocket before he realized it. His pulse steadied into the rhythm of discovery.

“This is it,” he murmured. “The House of the New Moon’s Shadow.”

He crouched, fingertips brushing the base of the gate where three stones met:

Old river rock, Ayutthayan curls, pale limestone shot with mica.

Different centuries, different hands—all part of the same threshold.

Whatever this place had been—monastery, observatory, refuge—it had watched every empire rise and fall. And still, it waited. Lantern unlit, for someone to remember its name.

Joss looked up at the moon-shaped light and smiled faintly.

He patted his pocket where the silver thread from Gawin’s clothing rested.

“I’ll bring you with me today, my Lordship,” he whispered. “I hope you’re listening.”

He knocked.

After a moment, the gate opened a crack.

An old woman stood there, dressed in traditional indigo cotton, hair bound in a neat knot held by an ivory pin. Her eyes were sharp despite their softness.

Joss bowed into a wai.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Is this the House of the New Moon’s Shadow?”

She nodded. “Oh, but you won’t see anything exciting today. It’s the night of the third new moon. We don’t have our usual puppet show.”

“That’s alright, mae,” Joss said. “I’m not here for the show. I’m here to learn about the house.”

The old woman studied him a long moment, gaze thoughtful, not unkind. “Learn?” she repeated. “Most who come here want to forget.”

“Forget?”

A small smile curved her mouth. “The noise of life. The clang of the ordinary.”

She opened the gate wider. The hinges sighed; the scent of camphor drifted out—clean, almost sweet. “Please, come in.”

The courtyard beyond was dim, roofed by trellised vines.

A dozen paper lanterns hung from the rafters, each painted with a different phase of the moon.

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” Joss said carefully as he stepped inside. “I’m an archaeologist. I’m studying the old quarters of Tha Wang—its architecture, its stories. Someone mentioned this place by name.”

The woman’s eyes flicked to the gate, measuring his tone. “Who told you?”

He hesitated. “No one, really. It just… came up.”

She hummed—neither suspicious nor convinced, merely resigned. “Then perhaps you were meant to come.”

He looked around. “Is this a temple?”

“A house first,” she said. “A house that grew old with the city. The monks borrowed it later, then artists after them. Now it’s only us—the puppeteers who stayed behind to tell stories for those who couldn’t go home.”

“The lost,” Joss murmured.

Her gaze sharpened, just for an instant. “It seems you’ve heard of him?”

Joss’s breath caught. “Heard of who?”

Her smile deepened, faint and knowing. “The Waylayer. The one who listens when the fog rolls in.”

Joss smiled back, eyebrows furrowed. A mention of Gawin so far from Bang Ben, he wondered what could Tha Wang and Bang Ben have in common to share stories of the Waylayer. “Stories about him reach farther than you think.”

The old woman laughed—a light, genuine sound that broke the still air.

“Ah, is that so? Then go on, archaeologist. Explore. Nothing much to see in a shadow house under daylight.” 

Chapter Text

Joss stepped inside, shoes scuffing the worn tiles.

The beams above him were black with age—the kind that only centuries of oil lamps could make. He could see where repairs had been patched with bamboo and where the original wood still held its ground. The structure wasn’t grand, but it had the weight of something loved—kept alive by those who refused to forget it.

“You take care of this place yourself?” he asked.

“I try.” Her shoulders rose in a small shrug. “There used to be ten of us. Now it’s just me, and the children from the next street when they’re not busy on their phones.”

She chuckled softly. “But that’s alright. As long as one person remembers, the house stays standing.”

Joss smiled faintly. “Sounds familiar.”

“To what?” she asked.

He hesitated, then shook his head. “Something I was told recently. About remembering.”

“Ah,” she said, as if that explained everything. “Then you understand.”

He crouched beside one of the puppets. Its shape was delicate—a man’s silhouette holding what looked like a lantern, though the carved lines suggested smoke or mist. The craftsmanship was deliberate, reverent.

“This one,” he asked, “he’s…?”

“The Waylayer,” she replied easily, as if naming an old friend. “The one who finds the paths others lose. We always end our show with him walking back into the fog. Children like it. They think it’s just make-believe.”

Her smile softened. “But the older ones cry.”

“Why?”

“Because they remember someone who didn’t come home.”

Joss nodded slowly, fingers hovering above the puppet’s hand but not touching. “And the fog?”

“Ah, the fog,” she said, her eyes going distant. “That’s just the world forgetting for a while, so we can remember again.”

The words hung there—simple, profound.

“That’s beautiful,” Joss murmured.

She grinned, pleased. “You see? Our stories are small, but they still make people think.”

He bowed slightly. “They do, mae. More than you know.”

She waved him off. “Go on, archaeologist. Explore. But mind the stairs—the house may be old, but it still knows when someone isn’t paying attention.”

Joss wai’d, smiling.

“Oh, and if you stay for dinner,” she called after him, “the master puppeteer will perform a show.”

“About the Waylayer?”

“Oh no.” Her eyes twinkled. “Not a spirit this time. This one is about a god—the God of Song. We don’t usually let outsiders watch. It’s too plain, too ordinary. But since you seem to have a heart for these things, perhaps you’ll learn something.”

“A God of Song?” Joss asked.

She nodded, bright-eyed with pride. “Yes. A god so old he’s no longer worshipped. They say he sang the world into rhythm—watched it grow until it became so vast he disappeared.”

Her smile deepened, as though the words themselves were a tune she’d carried her whole life. “Don’t expect anything fancy. Just shadows and light.”

“I’d like to stay,” Joss said. His tone was careful, reverent—but inside, something quickened. Rhythm. Silence. Forgotten gods. The phrasing was too close to coincidence.

“Good,” she said. “Dinner is simple tonight. Papaya salad—and stories.”

As her footsteps faded down the corridor, Joss lingered.

The air inside the House of the New Moon’s Shadow was cool, dense with the scent of rain-wet timber and burnt oil.

At first glance, it was nothing more than an old family house—the kind tucked into the oldest corners of Tha Wang, where memory and city intertwined.

But the longer he stood, the more the walls began to speak.

The layout was wrong for a home. Too deliberate. Too balanced.

From the threshold, a narrow corridor stretched ahead, flanked by two shallow wings—not the casual asymmetry of a stilt house, but the mirrored geometry of ritual space. The walkway aligned perfectly with the courtyard’s center, and beyond that, a raised platform framed by carved wooden doors.

He exhaled slowly. A naos, he thought. A sanctum.

The proportions sang the same logic as old wats—the same rhythm of silence and space. Even the creak of the floorboards beneath his feet echoed like a chant: three beats, a pause, then two.

He moved deeper inside.

The ceiling arched higher than it needed to, its ribs joined by beams darkened with soot. When he looked up, faint circular burns marked where oil lamps once hung. Each corridor corner ended in a recess—not for storage, but for altars.

He crouched beside one, fingers brushing the lip of a hollow where a base once stood. The shape was unmistakable: a lotus pedestal.

And there, beneath the sill, nearly erased by time—a carving of a crescent moon.

His breath caught. “New Moon’s Shadow,” he murmured.

He rose slowly, tracing the axis with his eyes. The house faced west—the direction of rest, of memory. In the old cosmology, only one kind of god was given such alignment: those who ruled over song, dream, and death.

Perhaps it wasn’t merely built like a temple.

Perhaps it was one—dismantled, reassembled, renamed.

He followed the corridor toward the back.

A row of wooden panels separated the main hall from the inner court. On each, faint carvings hid beneath dark lacquer. When he brushed one with his sleeve, shapes emerged—men and women mid-motion, mouths open, hands raised.

Not praying. Singing.

At the heart of it stood a low platform—a simple linen screen stretched across it. A shadow play stage.

But its placement was deliberate. The screen stood where the altar would have been, and behind it, a high door sealed by a bronze latch.

The holy of holies had become the puppeteer’s chamber.

Joss stepped closer, awe pressing behind his ribs. The scent of old incense lingered in the beams. From the lintel above the screen, tiny silver discs were nailed into the wood—each engraved with a phase of the moon.

All but one.

The missing coin left a crescent-shaped shadow.

The new moon.

He exhaled, heart steadying. This wasn’t just a house of stories.

It was a house of memory—

a place where the divine had learned to survive through art,

where worship had become shadow and song. 

Chapter Text

Joss’s steps grew lighter as he moved toward the back of the hall. The scent of old lacquer thickened, threaded with the faint sweetness of palm oil and powdered horn — the unmistakable perfume of the leather used in Nang Talung.

He followed it to a small, low-doored room tucked behind the main stage. The latch gave easily under his hand, opening to a narrow space no larger than a storage alcove.

Inside hung the puppets.

They were arranged with startling care — not stacked or boxed like props, but suspended from thin bamboo rods stretched across the ceiling. Rows of figures dangled in the dark, each cut from cowhide so thin it glowed under the lantern light. The walls shimmered with their shadows — singers, monsters, dancers, gods — edges scalloped by centuries of repair.

Unlike the towering Nang Yai puppets made for kings, these were small, intimate things. Each no taller than his forearm, each one unique and exact, carved for precision rather than grandeur. Their perforations were so fine that light passed through them like lace, scattering patterns across the floor in tangled, living detail.

Joss reached up instinctively, stopping short of touch. The hide was tinted in mineral hues — vermilion, ochre, indigo — colors that had outlived the stories themselves.

He leaned closer. Each figure carried its own expression: some fierce and wide-eyed, others serene, their open mouths shaped for song.

Then he noticed something stranger. Every puppet had its own shadow — not from the lantern, but from use: a subtle curl of leather, a posture warped by heat and repetition.

“They’re not just props,” he whispered.

The air seemed to agree. The room felt alive, charged by the ghosts of a thousand performances, each one balanced between worship and theatre.

At the far end hung a larger puppet, set apart from the rest. A musician’s silhouette — long fingers poised over a piphat, lips parted mid-song.

What stopped Joss cold wasn’t the craftsmanship but the mark at its center:

a faint spiral carved into its chest — the same sigil he had seen on the Old Man at Bang Ben.

He exhaled. No coincidence. None of this ever is. First the Waylayer, and now neolithic imagery. Bang Ben and Tha Wang definitely had a connection, he thought to himself. 

Behind him, bamboo rods creaked softly. For a moment, the puppets swayed — every figure turning in unison, their cutout eyes catching the light.

Watching him.

Then stillness. Only the faint rustle of leather against air, like the last note of a song refusing to die.

A soft breath behind him. The scuff of bare feet on wood.

He turned.

A man stood framed in the doorway, holding a single oil lantern. Its glow cut through the dim room, gilding the rows of suspended figures and the planes of his face.

He wore a plain white shirt, frayed at the collar, patched at the shoulder — cloth repaired by hands that valued use over beauty. Gray joggers rolled at the ankle. A faded fabric mask covered his mouth and nose.

Only his eyes were visible: dark, steady, rimmed with gold from the lamplight.

Not vanity — symmetry, Joss thought. The air itself seemed to arrange around him.

The man raised the lantern slightly. “You found them,” he said. His voice was quiet, smooth — an instrument in a lower register.

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” Joss said quickly. “The door was—”

“Unlocked,” the man finished. “That’s how they, the puppets, prefer it. They don’t like to be contained.”

He crossed the room in three measured steps, precision in every motion. Setting the lantern on a shelf, he let its glow flare gently across his face — calm, deliberate, almost ceremonial.

“You’re the master puppeteer,” Joss said.

A nod. “I am. And you’re the archaeologist the grandmother let in.”

Joss smiled, a little sheepish. “Word travels fast.” He offered his hand. “Joss. Fine Arts Department.”

The man blinked, hesitated. “And… I’m performing the rit—” he caught himself, soft correction, “—the play tonight.”

Joss retracted the handshake, embarrassed, and offered a wai instead.

That earned the faintest tilt of the puppeteer’s head — acknowledgment, maybe amusement. The lanternlight caught a glint of warmth in his eyes.

“I’m really impressed,” Joss said, sincere. “A culture bearer at your age. A master, at that.”

The man’s eyes softened — a smile withheld but felt. “I’ve been doing this since I was eight.”

“Performing the plays?”

“Everything,” he replied. “Choosing the hide, soaking it, carving, piercing, painting. Every part of Nang Talung belongs to me — and I to it.”

“Wow,” Joss murmured. “That’s… incredible.”

“Thank you.” The man’s voice gentled. He glanced toward the rows of puppets. “I’ll need the puppet room for now. I’ll see you later.”

Joss turned to leave, then hesitated. “Wait.”

The lantern haloed the puppeteer in warm gold as he paused.

“Why is it called the House of the New Moon’s Shadow?”

The man regarded him for a long moment. “I wondered that too. The new moon is dark — without light. What kind of shadows, then, does a night like that create?”

Joss frowned slightly. The question rooted deep.

“We think of shadows the way we think of light — immediate,” the man went on. “But the new moon’s shadow takes time. It grows. It swallows what it covers.”

The air between them thickened, aware.

He turned back to the puppets, his voice lowering into something that hovered between ritual and prayer.

“Tonight,” he said, “I believe you’ll find your answer.”

Joss found a low bench near the back of the main hall. Rows of reed mats faced a white linen screen stretched tight against a wooden frame. From here, he could see the whole space — the dark spine of the roof above, the orange lamps breathing along the walls.

This must be where the audience sat. He thought

At the far end, the Master Puppeteer moved in silence. He didn’t look at Joss, nor at the few caretakers slipping quietly through the side doors. His focus was total.

One by one, the Master took out the puppets from the earlier alcove. Left hand to hold, right to trace, a bow of the head.

It wasn’t performance. It was devotion.

He crossed the hall barefoot, the soles of his feet making no sound. Moving in slow, wide circles, he arranged the puppets along the outer wall — warriors, lovers, demons, gods — until they stood in silent ranks facing the screen.

From Joss’s seat, the pattern became clear: they weren’t being stored or prepared.

They were being seated.

As if the puppets themselves were the audience.

A chill rippled through him — awe threaded with unease. The grandmother had called tonight’s play simple, but nothing about this felt ordinary.

Each puppet shimmered faintly in the lamplight, hollow eyes glinting as though aware.

The Master paused, faced the screen, and pressed his palms together in a slow wai. The motion was reverent — the kind one makes before an altar, not a stage.

Joss watched, spellbound. Every movement seemed bound to an unseen rhythm — their own poetry with each motion.

It was prayer.

And as Joss observed the master puppeteer, he felt it — the house itself taking a sharp intake of breath, as though preparing for song.

The House of the New Moon’s Shadow wasn’t named for what it showed. It was named for what it summoned, and Joss was about to find out what that was.

Chapter Text

The lamps dimmed, leaving only the white linen panel glowing, illuminated from behind.

A reed flute began to play, its tune slow and circling like mist over water. Behind the screen, a low drum answered, steady as breath. Then a voice rose — the Master’s, but changed. It sounded older now, deepened by something that felt closer to memory than performance. Each word carried the gravity of something once lived.

In the beginning, when night was the only home of fire,
mortals gathered by the blaze and told their stories.
Their words were sparks that climbed the air —
and the moon, young and curious, leaned down to listen.

The light shifted. On the linen’s face, a moon took shape — a carved white disc edged with delicate rays, its face tilting from side to side as if craning an ear. Around it flickered small silhouettes of people, laughing, gesturing, their joy alive in shadow.

Each night they spoke of what they had found —
new rivers, new fruits, new songs —
and the moon drew nearer, nearer still,
hungry to catch even their whispers.

The drum quickened. The puppet moon began to descend, its pale light widening. At the base of the screen, blue waves of painted leather began to ripple and rise, swelling upward with every beat.

But as the moon drew near, the sea followed,
for the tides loved the moon too.
The rivers swelled, the shores disappeared,
and the people —
the people were swept away.

The flute faltered, then stopped. Silence pooled thick and heavy.

A single figure appeared at the edge of the frame — a man, small and trembling, crouched among jagged mountains. The moon’s light fell over him, pale and sorrowful.

“Why did you leave?” asked the moon, the Master’s voice softened to mourning. “Where are your bonfires, your songs?”

The small figure lifted its arms, its shadow shaking. “Because you brought the sea with you, my lord. The waters rose with your love — and now our homes are gone. Our people are lost.”

The moon dimmed, shrinking back, its light receding as if in grief. The drumbeats slowed, turning to the rhythm of waves retreating.

And so the moon learned longing —
that even love, too close, can drown what it adores.

A thread of silver light swept across the linen, shimmering like tears. The moon ascended slowly, reluctantly, until it hung once more among the carved stars.

Since that night, the moon keeps its distance,
listening still — but from afar.
And when the tide rises,
remember: it is not the sea that calls to you,
but the moon, still singing for what it lost.

The flute returned, softer now, almost a lullaby. Then, with a final sigh of air through the reed, the sound faded.

The light behind the screen disappeared. The moon’s shadow dissolved into nothing.

For a long moment, the room held its breath.

Joss realized he had too.

When he finally exhaled, it came with the strange ache of something remembered — the way myth and memory intertwine, where love becomes ruin, and distance becomes devotion.

Around him, the audience began to bow.

The movement rippled across the small hall like a single breath drawn by many lungs. Unsure but unwilling to stand out, he followed—placing his hands together and bending low until his forehead nearly touched the floor.

Even in reverence, his mind observed: another remnant of priestly tradition, clothed now in Nang Talung’s history.

Devotion disguised as etiquette.

But as his face hovered parallel to the polished wood, something else reached him.

A warmth.

A stillness threaded through the air—neither human nor ritual, but familiar.

It pressed lightly against his chest, the way fog does before it gathers.

Happiness. Quiet and certain.

He knew it instantly.

Gawin.

The name rose in his throat like a heartbeat. He looked up, startled, searching.

Nothing behind him — only the soft lines of bowed heads, the flicker of lamps, the white linen screen already dimming.

Still, the sensation remained.

Not presence, but trace.

A growing silence crept into him — not the emptiness of loss, but the hush of something that had just left, leaving its warmth behind.

He swallowed, palms still pressed together, and whispered, afraid to break the quiet: 

“Were you here?”

No answer came. Only the faint rustle of the puppets swaying in the after-breath of the play.

And yet Joss couldn’t shake the feeling that the night had bowed with them—

not to a performance,

but to a passing.

The air trembled once, then stilled.

Somewhere beyond the screen, something breathed back.

On the other side of the screen, the Master lowered his hands.

But the silence that followed was too perfect—too expectant.

The kind of quiet that happens when the world itself pauses to listen.

He frowned slightly and looked up.

The surface, moments ago blank, shimmered faintly — and from beyond the pale cloth, points of light began to appear.

Dozens. Then hundreds.

Small, steady glimmers, like stars pricking through fog.

And then he realized — they were not stars.

They were eyes.

The eyes of puppets.

Every figure he had placed along the walls — warriors, lovers, gods, demons — now stood turned toward him, their carved pupils alive with thin threads of light.

All of them faced the same direction: toward the back of the hall.

Beyond them, beyond the mortal audience still bowed in reverent quiet, a new shape lingered at the farthest row.

A man.

Dressed in black — shirt, trousers — his skin pale as silver against the dark.

The lamplight bent toward him without touching, as if afraid.

The Master’s breath caught.

He had always performed for gods who never answered — until now. 

Recognition struck through him like a chord remembered from childhood.

That face — sharp, calm, impossibly young.

The same man who had saved him from terror years ago, when he was taken and left to die in the forest.

The Waylayer.

He looked unchanged. And yet… wrong.

There were tears glinting on his face.

Tears — on a being he had thought beyond weeping.

The Master’s pulse hammered. He wanted to move, to bow, to speak — but the air warned him not to break the silence.

Around them, the audience straightened, marking the close of the ritual. The gesture rippled through the hall like a tide of reverence.

And that was when he saw them — the puppets, still standing in their careful ranks, as they began to shed their shadows.

The black silhouettes melted from them like husks, disappearing into air.

The colors beneath — crimson, gold, lapis, jade — flared into brilliance.

Each figure shone, radiant and impossibly alive, until the entire hall looked lit from within.

Yet the bowed men noticed nothing.

At the far back, the Waylayer’s form began to fade — not into shadow, but into light.

The sadness in his face softened into something quieter, almost peaceful.

Just before he vanished completely, the Waylayer looked straight at the Master Puppeteer. Straight into his eyes.

He mouthed a single.

Goodbye.

Chapter Text

The hall lights rose slowly, soft as dawn. The audience filed toward the side door where long wooden tables had been set — a modest spread of rice, grilled fish, and the sharp, sweet tang of Som tum perfuming the air.

Joss followed in silence, still half inside the lingering hush of the play. The clatter of plates and low chatter around him felt oddly distant, like sounds heard underwater.

An old woman pressed a small ceramic bowl into his hands. “Papaya salad,” she said cheerfully. “Eat!”

He smiled his thanks and took a seat near the end of the table. The first bite was a clash of flavor — sour lime, fiery chili, the sweetness of crushed peanuts — but the taste hardly registered. His thoughts were elsewhere: On the sudden familiarity of Gawin’s presence, and its almost immediate disappearance. 

He couldn’t shake that something must have happened. 

A look of concern must have shown on his face, because a shadow passed over his bowl.

The Master Puppeteer had approached quietly, mask still on, sleeves rolled to his elbows. His voice was low, threaded with wry amusement.

“Som tum not to your liking?”

Joss blinked, startled out of thought. “What? No, it’s— it’s good. Great, actually.” He managed a small laugh, but the sound came out thin.

The Master tilted his head, studying him. “You look like a man who saw more than the story tonight.”

Joss hesitated. The words he wanted to say — I think I felt Gawin’s godly presence — sat thickly behind his throat.

Instead, he said softly, “It felt… real.”

The Master nodded once, and from his eyes, looked like he smiled. “It was. Tonight, it really was.”

He sat across from Joss, his movements unhurried, deliberate, like someone who had carried silence for a long time and learned to share it sparingly. “Sometimes the old stories listen back.”

Joss frowned slightly. “You mean—like they remember who told them?”

The man’s eyes met his, steady and unreadable above the mask. “No,” he said. “Like they remember who needs to hear them.”

Joss lowered his eyes to his bowl, the lime and chili stinging his tongue. “Then maybe that’s why I’m here,” he said after a moment. “Because I needed to hear it.”

The Master watched him in silence, then set his own bowl aside. “People come here for many reasons. Tourists. Devotees. Scholars.” His gaze lingered. “You don’t look like any of them.”

“I’m an archaeologist,” Joss said carefully. “I study remnants—what people leave behind when belief turns into routine.” He paused, then added more quietly, “I think some rituals remember better than people do.”

That drew a faint hum of approval. “Memory is a kind of worship,” the Master said. “That’s why this house endures. It was built by those who refused to forget.”

Joss’s pulse quickened. “A priestly clan?”

The man tilted his head, considering. “That’s not what they called themselves. But yes. Once, the caretakers here were not puppeteers—they were keepers of rhythm. Every movement, every story, was part of a ceremony meant to call back what was lost.”

“Call back?” Joss repeated. His throat tightened. “You mean souls?”

“Names,” the Master corrected gently. “They believed the world remembers us by the music we leave behind. When a name is spoken in rhythm, it cannot vanish.”

Joss leaned forward. “Do any of them still live here?”

A shadow crossed the Master’s face. “The last member of the line passed around a decade ago. Some say they still have relatives up north; long left the path of the shadow plays.” His fingers tapped once against the table, thoughtful. “But the rites remain.”

Joss held his breath. “What about you? Are you not related to the priests of this house?” 

The Master hesitated, lowering his voice. “Unfortunately no. I have been adopted into this family. By their grace and generosity, a wandering orphan like myself was saved. And now I return the favor by becoming their last puppeteer.”

“Last?”

The Master studied him for a long moment. “No one’s interested in these things anymore. I fear that I am the last to keep the legacy of this house afloat.”

Joss’s training with the FAD kicked into high gear. “I can help, Master. I can definitely help.”

The Puppeteer’s eyes beamed, an undisputed smile grew beneath his mask. “You can?”

“Yeah. We did the same very recently, for a Wat, up at Bang Ben.”

His voice warmed, curious. “That’s far from here. You’ve worked with the old wats there?” 

Joss nodded, sitting a little straighter. “Yes. My friend and I, Jimmy - we’re both from the Fine Arts Department - They had us restore an abandoned shrine. The locals thought it was haunted…”

The words faltered mid-air.

A flicker of light — then another.

The lantern seemed to breathe, swelling, shrinking, its edges soft as water.

He blinked, but the blur didn’t clear. The air thickened, sound folding in on itself until all he could hear was a faint metallic ring — high, steady, impossibly distant, like a single note struck inside his skull.

He tried to speak, to steady his breath, but the sentence in his head slipped away before he could find its end. 

“Joss?” the Master’s voice reached him through a tunnel of sound, thin and far.

His jaw locked. A tremor rippled through his fingers; the spoon clinked once against the bowl and stilled.

A flash — white, brilliant, silent.

Then weightlessness.

The table, the light, the Master’s face — all slid sideways in one impossible motion, as if the world had been tilted and poured away.

And then nothing.

No sound, no thought, no pain — only a rush of light collapsing into black.

Then silence. 

Chapter Text

The phone lit up against the dark.

JOSS FAD.

For three days that name had stared back at Jimmy from every unopened message thread, every “last seen” that never changed.

Now, at 10:47 p.m., it was calling.

He sat up so fast the couch creaked.

“Joss?”

But the voice that answered wasn’t his.

“Good evening,” a man said, his Thai calm and precise. “Are you Jimmy? I’m calling from the Dolphin Inn at Tha Wang Old Town, Nakhon Si Thammarat. I’m the Master Puppeteer at an old Shadow Puppet house nearby.”

Jimmy’s pulse lurched. “Nakhon Si Thammarat?! Where’s Joss? Why are you calling from his phone?”

There was a pause, filled with the faint patter of rain on the other end.

“I’m sorry to inform you,” the man said gently, “Mr. Way-ar Sangngern suffered a seizure about an hour ago. He’s at Nakhon Si Thammarat Provincial Hospital. He’s stable, but the doctors want someone close to him here.”

Jimmy’s mouth went dry. “A… a seizure?”

“Yes. Unconscious, but breathing on his own. They expect him to wake soon.”

The man hesitated, his tone softening. “He mentioned your name before it happened. I thought you should know.”

For a beat Jimmy couldn’t speak. He thanked the man, scribbled the hospital’s name, and hung up only when the Master promised to text the ward number.

Then his brain clicked into work mode—the same clean, ruthless logic that had made him the dependable one in every crisis.

Step one: Objective.
Nakhon Si Thammarat → 780 kilometers south.

Step two: Transport.
He opened his laptop, fingers already on autopilot.

Flights: Don Mueang to NST.

The search results stung:

Last Flights:
— Thai AirAsia (20:25 → 21:45) Departed 1 hr ago.

— Lion Air (20:40 → 22:00) Departed 55 min ago.

The screen might as well have said: You’re too late.

He muttered a curse under his breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Buses? The southern terminal’s last run had left at nine.
Trains? The evening express departed before sunset.
Drive? Nine, maybe ten hours straight. Dangerous, but possible.

He stared at the route map: Bangkok → Chumphon → Surat Thani → Nakhon Si Thammarat.
750 kilometers. If I left now—no, even flooring it, I’d arrive near sunrise exhausted and useless.

He switched tabs again.

AirAsia
ETD DMK 05:15 a.m.
ETA NST 06:30 a.m.
Book it. Now.

He hit purchase without blinking, seat 7A, no baggage.

A confirmation tone chimed. Relief didn’t come.

He leaned back, jaw tight.

You misdirected me, Joss. I thought you were up north! Goddamn it, your note said Mae Hong Son.

He’d wasted three days calling friends and colleagues up north, asking if anyone had seen Joss at any of the sites there.

Now it turned out Joss had gone south—opposite end of the country—chasing something else in the rain belt. 

It was that damn crumpled post-it that he found that day. Joss didn't want him interfering with what he was researching.

He swiped at his phone again, double-checking the message from the Master:
“Nakhon Si Thammarat Provincial Hospital – Room 203. He’s resting now.”

Jimmy exhaled shakily.

“Resting,” he repeated aloud, as if saying it would keep it true.

He set an alarm for 2:45 a.m., packed an overnight bag with clinical precision—change of clothes, charger, notebook, the envelope with Joss’s MRI results—and laid his passport and wallet beside it out of habit.

Only then did he sit down, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.

He’d always been the one who solved things—read the signs, fixed the mess, closed the loops.

But this—this wasn’t a puzzle he could think his way out of.

He glanced once more at the flight receipt glowing on his phone:

Bangkok (DMK) → Nakhon Si Thammarat (NST)
Departure 05:15 a.m. | Arrival 06:30 a.m.

Five hours.

Five hours until he could move again.

He stared out at the city lights beyond the balcony and whispered to no one, “Hold on, nong. Please just hold on.”

The sun had barely cleared the limestone hills when Jimmy stepped through the Provincial hospital’s glass doors. The air inside was sterile and cold, a shock after the heavy tropical dawn.

Including his own hectic workday the day before, Jimmy had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours now, running on caffeine and dread.

The nurse at the information desk directed him down the corridor — Ward 2, Room 203.

Halfway there, a man rose from a bench near the door. He sported a well-worn shirt and pants,  and a pale fabric mask. The edges of his hair caught the morning light — The deep black of youth. This Shadow Play master was young. perhaps younger than him.

“Jimmy?” the man asked, voice calm, the same low tone Jimmy had heard on the phone.

Jimmy stopped short. “You’re—?”

The man gave a slight bow. “The one who called. From the House of the New Moon’s Shadow.” 

He extended a plastic bag printed with a leaping dolphin — Dolphin Inn, Tha Wang Old Town.

“His things,” he added. “We took what we believed were important from his desk at the Inn. I thought it best to keep them together, and bring it here for you.”

“Thank you,” Jimmy said, taking it with both hands. His eyes lingered on the mask.

Something about the man’s presence tugged at the edge of familiarity — as if he’d seen him somewhere before, long ago, in a dream or a photo he couldn’t place.

He blinked it away. Focus.

“How is Joss?”

The Master glanced toward the room’s small window. “He’s stable,” he said quietly. “The seizure was brief — six minutes at most. He regained consciousness at the ward, around dawn, disoriented. So the doctors sedated him again, to give him more time to sleep. However, they want to observe him for another twenty-four hours.”

Jimmy exhaled slowly. His shoulders dropped, the tension in his spine easing only a fraction. “Did he—was he alone when it happened?”

The Master hesitated, eyes thoughtful. “He was at dinner, with us. Surrounded by people. We called for help as soon as he fell. The physicians at the local clinic stabilized him until the ambulance arrived.”

A pause. His gaze softened. “You're such a great friend, for coming here fast.”

“I booked the first flight out,” Jimmy said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Joss... He's the only brother I have.”

The Master managed a faint, brittle smile. “Did the two of you get into an argument before he came here?”

Jimmy looked at the Master's knowing eyes, and nodded, slowly, shamefully, with lips pursed in regret. "Which is why I panicked when you called. I'm sorry if I was ever curt last night."

The Master’s eyes crinkled faintly above the mask — empathy, or maybe recognition again, flickering and gone. “I understand panic,” he said softly. “It’s just another word for love when you have no time left.”

Jimmy looked up at that. There was something strange about the phrasing — ceremonial, almost. The kind of thing Joss would have written down in his field notes.

He cleared his throat. “When Joss wakes up,” he said carefully, “could I speak to you again? Privately. About what he was researching in your House — the shadow plays, the rituals, all of it.”

The Master inclined his head. “Of course.”

“I just want to understand what he was doing there,” Jimmy added. “What he was trying to find.”

The Master’s gaze lingered on him a moment longer — searching, maybe weighing how much to reveal. “He saw what was meant for him,” he said finally. “But yes. When he wakes, we’ll talk.”

Jimmy nodded, gripping the bag tighter. “Thank you. For calling me. For—”

The Master raised a hand slightly. “No need. It’s what one does for the living.”

Then, quieter, “I’ll leave you with him.”

Jimmy watched as the man turned down the corridor, the soft click of his sandals fading. The air felt thinner in his absence.

He peeked into the plastic bag, and saw the folder he left for Joss before their big fight. Joss' wallet was also there. And as he shook the bag a little, something heavy settled at the very bottom. Joss' phone. He took it, but frowned when he saw it was locked. 

Chapter Text

When sound returned to Joss, it came thin and wrong — not the echo of a hall, not the pulse of drums, but the mechanical chirp of a monitor keeping time for him.

A hiss of air-conditioning.

The sterile scent of antiseptic and gauze.

He tried to lift his head.

Pain pulsed behind his eyes — deep, electrical — as though his skull had been packed with light and then switched off too fast.

A voice cut through the haze.

“Joss, take it easy.”

He blinked. The ceiling dissolved into Jimmy’s face — pale, sleepless, rimmed red at the eyes.

A paper cup shook faintly in his hand.

“Hey,” Joss rasped. His own voice startled him; it felt dry, borrowed, as if someone else had used it first. He swallowed and tried again. “What— where—?”

Jimmy’s chair scraped closer. “The Provincial Hospital. You collapsed during dinner last night. A seizure.”

Joss blinked hard, as if time might realign if he focused. “Seizure?”

The last thing he remembered was a bowl of Som Tam, the Puppet Master’s face, a story about hauntings—and then nothing.

“I’m fine,” he murmured automatically, though his hands still trembled against the sheet.

Jimmy’s jaw tightened. “You’re not.”

The heart monitor answered for him, steady, betraying.

Jimmy reached for the bedside table and lifted a CD with a taped brown envelope — creased at the corners, the hospital logo stamped faintly across it.

“Your MRI results,” he said quietly. “They came in yesterday.”

Joss stared at the envelope. “You opened them?”

“I had to. You had it mailed to our office anyway.” Jimmy’s voice wavered between apology and fear. “The doctor even called to follow up. They said you hadn’t been answering.”

Something cold slipped down Joss’s spine. “What did it say?”

Jimmy rubbed his temples, exhaling. “I only skimmed it. It’s… complicated. They said they found changes — patterns that don’t match your age.”

He hesitated, glancing down at the paper again. “Something about atrophy, cortical thinning. They want you to repeat the scan. And… get a genetic panel. Just to rule things out.”

“Rule what out?”

The question came sharper than Joss intended, slicing the quiet between them.

Jimmy met his eyes. “They didn’t say. Just that it’s neurological. They want to be sure before naming anything.”

Joss tried to sit up, but the room tilted, a wash of light and pressure blooming behind his eyes. He fell back against the pillow, heart drumming.

“It’s nothing,” he said, the words too fast, too practiced. “Probably exhaustion. Or dehydration. You know how long the field days run.”

Jimmy’s lips parted as if to argue, then closed. His shoulders slumped.

“They said it might explain the memory lapses,” he said softly. “The spacing out. And now, this—seizure. Did you even read the folder I left out for you? I kept telling myself it was stress—” He stopped, swallowing hard. “—but maybe it’s not.”

“I remember that folder. What’s in the folder?” Joss interrogated. 

Jimmy reached for a plastic bag stamped with the Dolphin Inn logo. From inside, he pulled a folder and, tucked within it, a mud-spattered field notebook — Joss’s handwriting clear even through the smudges.

He handed it over wordlessly.

Wat Chom Nam
Exploratory Field Work
April 20, 2024
8:00 A.M.

Joss frowned. Eight A.M. was wrong. He had explored the Wat late in the afternoon — closer to sunset, when the light cut gold through the dust.

He flipped through the pages. The same observations were there — the carvings, the soil strata, the orientation of the pillars — but written as if under the morning sun.

The shadows on his sketches also fell the wrong way.

Then he saw the final line, scribbled sideways near the margin:

The footsteps I made as I encircled the monolith might be mistaken for pillagers, but I didn’t have the heart to erase them. The ground felt awake.

Pain struck behind his eyes, one that came like lightning through water — quick, bright, gone too soon. He gasped, clutching his temple.

“Hey—hey, man, sorry,” Jimmy said quickly, setting the notebook aside. He gripped Joss’s shoulder, panic rising in his voice. “I shouldn’t have—just breathe, okay?”

Joss squeezed his eyes shut. In the darkness behind his lids, shapes and light bled together — the lantern, the stage, the moon — but none of it held still.

For the first time, the silence between each beep of the heart monitor felt like something counting down. Even without recalling things, he started to feel that some things were slipping away.

He pressed a trembling hand to his forehead. He could feel it now — not memory exactly, but continuity. A stretch of time gone blank, refusing to form an edge.

“I was supposed to tell you something,” he whispered. “I just can’t remem—”

The words faltered mid-air, not lost, but unreachable.

Jimmy took his hand, holding on tight. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out, alright? One thing at a time.”

But Joss only looked at their joined hands, confusion flickering behind his eyes.

The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, steady and merciless.

In that hum, the world felt slippery again — too clean, too white, too easily erased.

Chapter Text

The air between them felt fragile, thinned by machines and morning light.

Jimmy sat at the edge of the bed, his voice low but taut.

“Why Tha Wang, Joss? Why trick me—make me think you were going north? ”

Joss’s gaze drifted toward the window, toward the pale sky outside. “Because you’d have stopped me.”

Jimmy’s jaw flexed. “You were chasing him again, weren’t you? The same one from Bang Ben.”

Joss frowned. His hand twitched against the sheet, as though the name pricked at something deep inside but failed to find purchase.

“The same… who?”

Jimmy stared at him, waiting for the lie, for a flicker of guilt. “Gawin,” he said. “The man, or spirit, from the exposed ruins. The one you swore wasn’t a hallucination.”

“Gawin?” Joss repeated carefully, testing the syllables like they belonged to another language.

“Don’t act like you don’t know.” Jimmy’s voice sharpened. “You even thought he was a local boy.”

“Jimmy, that’s—” Joss stopped, searching for footing. “That’s just a story. Something you read in my notes?”

“A story?” Jimmy’s voice cracked. “You whispered his name! You blacked out talking to thin air!”

Joss blinked, bewildered. “I remember that day— and It was just the two of us by the chief’s house. There wasn’t anyone else there.” He swallowed hard. “I just froze up. Heat exhaustion, right?”

The silence stretched. Jimmy stared at him, his throat working, the color draining from his face.

“You’re serious,” he said finally.

“If you’re teasing, it isn’t funny,” Joss replied. “You’re the one who started calling that spirit Gawin—I just went along. It’s just some old myth, Jim. You know how people talk.”

Jimmy shook his head slowly. “No, Nong. You told me his name first.”

Joss’s voice softened, almost apologetic. “Then maybe you remembered wrong.”

Jimmy’s pulse thudded in his ears. “You risked everything chasing him,” he said, the words falling out before he could stop them. “You lied about Mae Hong Son because of him. And now you’re saying you don’t even remember?”

He waited for the denial, the familiar fight, the flinch that meant Joss was hiding something. But Joss only blinked, confusion written plainly across his face.

“I remember Bang Ben,” he said quietly. “I remember getting sick. That’s all.”

The room went very still. The monitor beeped in a slow, indifferent rhythm.

Jimmy’s next words came smaller. “You said he saved you.”

“I… I don’t know, Jim.” Joss’s voice trembled. “Maybe I was wrong.”

The answer landed dull, harmless—and that was what made it terrifying. Jimmy’s breath caught. He studied Joss’s face like he was searching for the punchline, for any trace of recognition, for the brother he’d argued with for months.

“You really don’t remember him,” he said at last.

Joss blinked up at him, uncomprehending. “Should I?”

The monitor clicked twice. Jimmy sank back into the chair, the realization spreading slow and cold through his chest. His expression folded inward—quiet, disbelieving, then hollow.

Jimmy exhaled slowly. “No,” he said. “Forget it.” 

Joss turned toward him, brow furrowed. “I don’t even remember having this conversation with you about any guy.”

Jimmy pressed a hand to his mouth, nodding like he understood. His eyes were wet. The anger that had carried him across seven hundred kilometers was gone; only shock remained.

The machine kept its steady rhythm beside them, the sound of something counting time that neither of them could keep anymore. 

“Okay, Bud,” Jimmy said quietly. “We’ll debrief on your findings here in Tha Wang later. For now, just rest. I’ll grab us some lunch. Want anything?”

Joss looked up at him, eyes a little dazed. “Skewers?”

Jimmy managed a small smile, gave a thumbs-up, and stood.

Once past the door, the smile collapsed. The tears he’d been holding back broke loose all at once. He caught himself on a nearby chair, gripping it until the shaking passed.

Earlier that morning—before Joss had even opened his eyes—he’d handed the MRI results to the attending physician. The conversation hadn’t been easy. The words still echoed now, clearer than he wanted them to be.

Those merciless words rose again as he sank into the chair, sobs shaking loose from his chest— and with them, the memory unfolded.

The attending’s office smelled faintly of old coffee and disinfectant. Joss’s MRI image looked back at them, the doctor frozen.

Jimmy sat across from the desk, hands locked together so tightly his knuckles blanched.

The doctor adjusted his glasses, careful, deliberate. “The scans are very clear, Mr. Potihiwok.”

Jimmy nodded, throat dry. “So what are we looking at?”

The doctor turned the screen toward him. “These were taken just last week, so they explain quite a lot.”

He traced a faint outline on the image with a capped pen — the outer layer of the brain, a coastline slowly eroding.

“See this area here? The cortical region is showing signs of thinning — not typical for someone his age.”

Jimmy leaned forward. “Thinning?”

“It means there’s some loss of density,” the doctor said gently. “Usually, we associate this pattern with certain neurodegenerative conditions. Combined with the seizure, and what you just recounted about hallucinations… it suggests something progressive.”

Jimmy’s pulse quickened. “Progressive, like what?”

The doctor hesitated, measuring each word. “We can’t make a definitive diagnosis yet. But one possible explanation is early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.”

The words hung between them like a physical thing. Jimmy felt his stomach drop, a coldness spreading through his chest.

“Alzheimer’s,” he repeated, barely a whisper. “That’s… that’s impossible. He’s twenty-nine.”

“It’s rare,” the doctor said quietly. “But not impossible. In some cases, it’s linked to genetics — mutations that accelerate the process. Do you have any information about his parents? His grandparents?”

Jimmy shook his head. “They… disappeared on him.”

“Then we’ll need a genetic panel to confirm.”

He paused, letting the thought settle before continuing. “It would also explain the disorientation, the misplaced timelines in his notes, the… confabulation.”

Jimmy blinked. “Confabulation?”

“When the brain tries to fill in gaps it can’t retrieve,” the doctor explained. “The mind might invent a detail, genuinely believing it to be true. It’s not lying — it’s the brain doing its best to stay whole.”

Jimmy stared at the scan — the ghostly white lines, the dark hollows. He tried to remember how many times Joss had said, I’m fine.

“How do we treat it?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.

The doctor’s silence was an answer in itself. “We can try to slow it down,” he said finally. “Manage symptoms. But no — there’s no reversal. It is a chronic illness.”

Jimmy pressed his palms against his eyes. The back of his throat burned. “He’s an archaeologist,” he muttered. “He remembers everything — dates, soil types, every damn detail. You’re saying…” He trailed off, unable to finish.

The doctor’s voice softened. “However—”

Jimmy looked up sharply. “However?”

“There’s one specific kind of Alzheimer’s that presents very similarly to what your brother is exhibiting. That’s why I want the genetic panel.”

Jimmy frowned. “Why does that sound so much worse?”

“A genetic form of early-onset Alzheimer’s called Familial Alzheimer’s Disease, or FAD — caused by a PSEN1 gene mutation.”

“FAD?” Jimmy realizing the irony. Joss felt he belonged somewhere when he joined the Fine Arts Department, FAD. and now this. 

“In individuals with a PSEN1 mutation, a defective protein causes a buildup of sticky, toxic peptides in the brain — amyloid plaques.”

Jimmy swallowed. “That… doesn’t sound—”

“The buildup of these plaques leads to neuron death and an extremely aggressive progression,” the doctor said. “Memory loss is its kindest symptom. It’s followed by severe cognitive decline.”

Jimmy’s eyes filled again. “Doc… what do you mean?”

The doctor hesitated. “The seizures indicate late-stage FAD.”

Jimmy’s voice broke. “If it is this kind of Alzheimer’s… how long?”

The doctor looked down. “One to two years.”

A clock ticked somewhere — steady, mechanical, too loud in the quiet.

When Jimmy finally stood to leave, the doctor’s voice followed softly behind him.

“I’ve seen families go through this. It never gets easier, but love helps. So does patience.”

Jimmy paused at the doorway, eyes glassy. “I’ve been patient,” he said quietly. “I just didn’t think it would mean watching him disappear.” 

Chapter Text

The elevator doors sighed shut on the ward’s chill.

By the time Jimmy hit the street, the noon heat slapped him across the face—wet, bright, merciless. Motorbikes stitched the traffic into a restless hum. He should’ve turned left toward the food stalls. Instead he went right, the Dolphin Inn bag thumping against his thigh like a metronome he couldn’t slow, the word skewers already feeling like a small lie he has yet to fix.

He hailed a motorcab. “House of the New Moon’s Shadow,” he said.

Tha Wang at noon was all glare and shadow. He kept his eyes on the ground—painted curbs, oil rainbows in puddles that hadn’t quite dried—until the city’s noise thinned. Brick grew older. The air salted. The lane pinched, then opened into a small courtyard: banyan roots, marble lions, and a gate whose carved pillars bore faint lunar patterns worn down to memory.

Above them hung a bronze crescent lantern.

It wasn’t lit, but it held the sun the way some things hold a secret—not glowing, exactly. Remembering.

Jimmy alighted, paid, and steadied his breath. It took him two more before he had the courage to knock.

The gate opened a hand’s width.

The Master looked through—black linen, pale mask, eyes steady.

“Good afternoon,” Jimmy said, hoping his voice didn’t sound like he’d been crying.

“Good afternoon,” the Master answered, noticing anyway. He stepped aside.

Inside, the house felt ten degrees cooler and a hundred years older. The geometry hit him at once: a straight corridor aligned to a raised platform; corners folded into shallow alcoves for offerings; beams arched higher than a home would ever need. The clues fit easily into place. This had been a temple once.

“You see it,” the Master said.

“I see someone cared about moments and thresholds,” Jimmy said. “It’s not a house pretending to be a stage. It’s a temple pretending to be a house.”

A faint assent in the Master’s eyes. “You and Joss, you really look for the same things.”

They entered the main hall. Reed mats faced a linen screen.

Along the side walls, puppets—small, precise—were arranged not in stacks but in ranks, as if seated to watch. Even in daylight, their perforations winked with tiny points of sun.

Jimmy had never liked superstition. Still, something in his shoulders tightened—like the air noticing him back. “Joss sat here?”

“Near the back,” the Master said, nodding toward a low bench. “He asked a lot of questions before sitting there though.”

“What did he ask?”

“Well, with his eyes, he asked why the hall faced west,” the Master said. “Why the altar’s place is now a screen. Why the lintel has every moon but the new moon.”

Jimmy looked up. Silver discs lined the beam like a thin constellation—full, gibbous, quarter, crescent—and then a deliberate absence. The new moon.

“I think he thought you were hiding an older rite under the shows,” Jimmy said.

“And I think you're both on the right track,” said the Master. “We carried the old rites forward in a form that could survive.”

Jimmy gestured toward a puppet near the screen—a figure holding a lantern, fog curling around its feet.

“And the Waylayer?”

The Master’s glance was quick and direct, like touching a hot kettle.

“What about him?”

“Why does that story live here?” Jimmy asked. “He’s supposed to belong to the north. By the wetlands and river basins, in the fog of thresholds. Bang Ben is seven hundred kilometers away. Yet your house has a puppet of him.”

“We don’t own these stories,” the Master said. “They pass through us. People carry them from river to river, trading grief for names the way sailors trade salt.”

“That’s an answer,” Jimmy said. “But not the one I wanted.”

“What answer did you want?”

“That you’d heard the same name Joss did,” Jimmy said quietly. “That you’d call him a spirit who returns lost people. Then at least I’d have a different…”

The Master was silent a moment. A gecko clicked from somewhere in the timber—a small, dry heartbeat in the air.

“At sunset,” he said finally, “shadows lengthen until they meet. It does not matter which wall the lantern hangs on. The same dark joins them.” He tipped his chin at the seated puppets. “Ask ten grandmothers about the Waylayer and you’ll hear ten roads to the same fog.”

“So you did talk about the Waylayer last night?”

The Master shook his head. “Alas, no. Last night was a special night. We performed the Legend of the Moon and the Tides. I am curious, though—why bring him up?”

Jimmy hesitated, eyes fixed on the floor. “I think Joss came here for proof...” he said. “Proof that the Waylayer is real.”

The Master studied him for a long moment. “Was that what you fought about before he came here?”

Jimmy nodded. His voice cracked before the words did. “Yeah. He’d been… showing signs.”

He didn’t notice the tears until he felt the Master’s handkerchief in his palm.

“He’d been saying things about meeting—talking—to a spirit.” Jimmy’s voice wavered. “The Waylayer.”

“Go on,” the Master said quietly, walking to the puppet with the lantern.

“At first, it was harmless. Dreams. Stories.” Jimmy rubbed his face. “Then one day, he just… froze. Staring through me. Eyes open but gone. When he came back, he said he’d visited the Waylayer.”

A sharp clatter broke the air. The Master had dropped the puppet.

“He did what?”

“Joss went to the Waylayer. Why—what’s wrong?”

“Going to the Waylayer is what’s wrong. That’s impossible. No one - and I mean no one can just visit the Waylayer.”

Jimmy’s breath caught. “Why do you say that? You… believe in him too?”

“Yes, I do.” the Master said, his voice low, unwavering. “Because the Waylayer saved me when I was a child. And he only appears to the lost.”

He looked toward the empty doorway, voice softening to something closer to reverence.

“He’s the reason I’m still here.”

Chapter Text

Jimmy hadn’t meant to cry in front of a stranger. But speaking about Joss's telltale 'signs' made it feel to him that it was now real, there was nowhere and nothing left to hide. His friend, his brother, really was sick, and Irreversibly so.  

“I was taken from my family when I was younger. My captors told me that I was rich in spiritual energy at such a young age. That I was the perfect offering.”  The Master lifted his tattered black shirt, showing a faded, incomplete tattoo, of what looked like a stylized image of the sun. 

Jimmy, initially wondering why the Master would choose to show him his naked chest, also caught the toned body, the abs, and the taut skin presented to him - beyond the unfinished tattoo.

“I was already being prepped for sacrifice the next morning. I can still remember how the room smelled of rust. I was gagged, so no one could hear my screams, as this mark was being etched on my skin.”

The archaeologist flinched. Cults centered around the sun were notorious for human sacrifice. He was surprised that it continued on well into modern times. 

“That night, the Waylayer appeared to me. We spoke briefly. He made me feel at ease, and he said that if I knew how to swim, he will take me somewhere else.”

“A flash flood?”

The Master nodded. “That night, a strong storm battered the place where I was taken to with so much rain. A landslide and a flash flood later, I found myself by a calm and peaceful sea. Several minutes later, the generous and kind elders of this house arrived, took me in. They saved me.”

Jimmy’s mind clicked into gear. “FLASH FLOODS! The Waylayer’s stories — they exist in places with flash floods. That’s the connection.” 

The Master’s eyes glinted, a teasing smile. “Almost. But not quite. Still, an interesting observation.” 

Jimmy nodded. Deep inside him, a painful memory broke through. How he wished his late friend, Sea, had also been found by the Waylayer.

“What I don’t understand, is why Joss would go to great lengths to get me to believe in this-”, Jimmy noted the Master’s rising eyebrow, “I mean, why does he need me to believe in the Waylayer? What’s with the proof?”

“Proof,” said the Master, voice turning almost gentle, “is a kind of love.” 

Jimmy let out a short, tired laugh. “Love didn’t protect him.”

“No,” the Master agreed. “But it brought you.” 

Jimmy laughed again, quieter this time — almost bitter. “I told him I was getting skewers. I came here instead.”

“You’ll still bring him food,” the Master said simply. “It will not make this a lie.” 

They sat in the noon light slipping across the mats. A smell like camphor threaded the air, clean and old. Jimmy felt the hospital in his bones—the monitor’s polite chirp, a doctor’s voice folding terrible words into calm sentences.

“He doesn’t remember why he went here for proof.” Jimmy said, because it was easier to say it to a stranger. “He remembers being sick. He remembers the heat exhaustion. Not the Waylayer.”

The Master’s gaze held his, steady. “Then someone will have to remember for him.”

“That feels like losing twice,” Jimmy said. “Once for him. Once for me.”

“Twice is still less than the world counts,” the Master said gently. “The world counts without mercy. We can count otherwise.”

Jimmy looked up at the lintel again — the missing silver coin where the new moon should have been. A deliberate gap. A phase gone dark.

“The doctor said it might be Alzheimer’s,” he said, voice barely holding. 

The Master bowed his head, allowing the silence to communicate his understanding. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Something in his tone carried genuine grief — not pity, but recognition.

Jimmy stood. If he stayed seated, his knees might not hold. “If the Waylayer were real,” he said slowly, “would he come to someone who’s forgetting?”

“I believe he'd come most especially then,” the Master said immediately. “Memory and mercy often arrive in the same clothing.”

Jimmy breathed once, deep enough to hurt. “Then I hope he comes for Joss — the way he came for you.”

The Master hesitated. “That might be… a problem.”

Jimmy blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I know you’re a skeptic,” the Master said carefully. “Even after my story.”

Jimmy said nothing, only waited.

The Master took a long breath. “I saw him last night.”

Jimmy froze. “You saw him?”

The Master nodded, voice low. “After the ritual… after the play. He was there.”

His next words fell with reverence.

“I saw the Waylayer bid farewell — and disappear into the light.”

Silence.

“Great. Just when I’m ready to bargain with my beliefs, he’s gone. How convenient," Jimmy let out a rough, disbelieving laugh. "I need to go and get my brother his lunch. Thank you Master.”

The Master didn’t answer. He only looked at Jimmy with an expression that felt too calm to be human — like someone who’d already made peace with the impossible.

And somewhere, through the open shutters, the faintest echo of mist passed through the courtyard—white, low, and slow, hovering around the marble lions before vanishing again.

Jimmy didn’t see it. He was already halfway back to the street, whispering to no one, “Skewers.”

Chapter Text

Jimmy had fallen asleep in the chair again.

His head lolled toward the bed, one arm draped over a folder of Joss’s notes, the other still clutching the edge of the blanket — as if to anchor himself to the person he refused to lose.

Room 203 breathed around them: the quiet hum of machines, the slow, metronomic pulse of the monitor, the faint antiseptic sharpness in the air. Outside, the night pressed against the windows — deep, starless, and moonless.

Joss stirred.

Something had changed in the air.

A soft sound reached him — bare feet on marble. Slow. Careful.

He blinked toward the doorway, expecting the gentle shuffle of a nurse on rounds.

Instead, the door opened wider without a sound.

A man stepped through.

Tall. Smooth-faced, like his skin had been carved from moonlight rather than marble. His eyes — warm hazel, ringed faintly with gold — found Joss’s without hesitation, and his smile carried the easy confidence of someone who had been waiting a long time.

Joss smiled back before he could stop himself.

The man wore a shirt unlike anything Joss had ever seen — white strips of woven cloth crossing his torso, clinging to his skin and baring a line of sculpted stomach beneath. A loose, cropped top that looked half ceremonial, half dream. Low-waisted linen pants pooled lightly at his bare feet.

“Hello, dear friend,” the man said. His voice was golden and low — the kind of sound that settled in the chest before the ears. “How are you?”

Joss blinked at him, disoriented but calm. “I’m… good, I think. Just under observation for a day.” He glanced toward Jimmy, still sleeping, and then back to the stranger. “Visiting hours are over. How did you get in?”

The man chuckled — soft, like the sound of water meeting shore. “I ask,” he said, “and the world responds.”

The words struck a chord, something half-remembered. Joss nodded slowly, though confusion furrowed his brow. “I’m Joss,” he offered. “You called me old friend, but… I don’t remember you. I’m sorry.”

The man winced — not in offense, but in pain. His hand went to his chest, fingers curling just above his heart.

“So it’s true,” he said quietly. “You have forgotten.”

The room felt suddenly colder. The monitor continued its steady rhythm, indifferent to what had entered.

Joss frowned. “Should I know you?”

The stranger hesitated. His eyes held sorrow that seemed too vast for one face. “Once,” he said gently, “you did. But the world is kind—it lets us meet again.”

He stepped closer, careful not to disturb the sleeping man in the chair. The scent of sea air followed him, clean and faintly sweet, impossible for this closed ward. Joss felt his pulse slow.

“Are you… a doctor?” he asked.

The man laughed softly. “Not the kind that heals bodies.”

“Then what are you?”

For a moment he didn’t answer. The monitor ticked between them. Finally he said, “Someone who remembers.”

He sat on the edge of the bed. The movement stirred no air, only the sheets. “Tell me,” he asked, “what do you remember of the fog?”

Joss tilted his head, trying to place the word. “Fog?” he echoed, puzzled. “There’s fog every morning in Tha Wang.”

A quiet nod. “Yes,” the man said. “Every morning.”

Something about his voice folded Joss’s heart in on itself—comfort, nostalgia, grief he couldn’t name. He wanted to ask more, but the man looked at him with a tenderness that made speech unnecessary.

“I’m sorry,” Joss said instead. “You look like you’re hurting.”

“I am,” the man replied. “But not because of you. But because forgetting is heavier for the one who remembers.”

Joss stared at him. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to.” He reached out, fingers hovering a breath above Joss’s hand but never touching. “Rest, Joss. You’ve been running too long in your mind.”

Joss felt his eyes grow heavy. “You sound like a poet.”

“Oh, no more,” the man said, smiling faintly. “Once I was a poem. Now I am song.”

The words dissolved in the air like mist.

When Joss blinked again, the man was standing by the window, one hand on the glass. Outside, mist had begun to gather where there should have been only darkness—thin ribbons of white curling upward from the street, tracing shapes that looked almost human before fading again.

“Who are you really?” Joss asked softly.

The man turned halfway, his profile catching the dim light. “Someone who keeps promises,” he said. “Even when the other forgets.”

“Will I remember this?” Joss asked.

The man’s eyes warmed. “No,” he said. “But you’ll feel lighter in the morning.”

And with that, he opened the window. No wind entered, only silence. The mist reached in like a sigh, touched the hem of his linen pants, and drew him outward. He didn’t vanish all at once—his smile lingered, then his outline, then nothing.

The room settled back into its rhythm: monitor, breath, stillness.

Across the bed, Jimmy stirred in his chair but did not wake.

Joss whispered to the dark, “Goodnight, whoever you are.”

A faint shimmer answered, just above the window—like moonlight remembering itself.

Chapter Text

Light seeped through the blinds in thin, dusty stripes. The air was still cool from the night before, carrying the faint tang of antiseptic and sea salt.

Joss stirred. His eyelids fluttered, then focused on Jimmy’s face — clearer now, lined with exhaustion but smiling all the same.

“We’re free to go in a bit,” Jimmy said, voice soft, hopeful. “The doctors just need to draw blood for a genetic panel.”

Joss blinked, confused for a moment. “A panel?”

Jimmy nodded. “They want to check for the cause of… what happened.” His words trailed off. “It’ll help them rule things out.”

Before Joss could ask further, a gentle knock sounded on the door. The attending physician stepped in with a nurse behind him — cart rolling, vials clinking softly.

“Good morning,” the doctor said, voice even and kind. “We’ll make this quick. Just a blood draw for the genetic test your brother approved yesterday.”

Joss looked between them, a faint furrow between his brows. “Genetic…?”

“It’s to see whether there’s a hereditary factor,” the doctor explained, preparing the tourniquet. “We’ll send the sample to a partner lab in Bangkok. The initial screening usually takes about two weeks, though full sequencing can take up to eight.”

Jimmy nodded, committing the number to memory. “So we’ll hear back in… two and a half months?”

“Roughly,” said the doctor, meeting his eyes. “Sooner if the markers are strong enough for early identification. You’ll get a call the moment we have results.”

The nurse smiled gently as she swabbed Joss’s arm. “You’ll just feel a small pinch, okay?”

The needle slid in with a practiced motion. Joss watched the dark thread of blood fill the vial — calm, almost detached. The nurse covered the site with gauze, taped it carefully, then wheeled the tray away.

“All done,” she said brightly. “You can change into your clothes whenever you’re ready. The discharge desk will have your forms.”

When they left, the room fell quiet again. Jimmy gathered Joss’s things, folding his shirt with unnecessary precision.

“I’ll process the paperwork,” he said, voice steady but tired. “You just take your time.”

Joss smiled faintly. “Yes, Doctor Potihiwok.”

Jimmy rolled his eyes, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Smartass. Be right back.”

The door shut softly behind him.

A few minutes later, another knock came — lighter, deliberate.

When it opened, the Master stood there, still in his black linen, a canvas bag slung across his shoulder. The Dolphin Inn’s logo peeked faintly from the fabric.

“Good morning,” he greeted. “Your brother told me you’d be discharged today. I brought the rest of your belongings.”

Joss’s face brightened. “You didn’t have to go through the trouble, but thank you.”

“It was no trouble,” the Master replied, setting the bag down by the chair. “Jimmy stopped by yesterday. We spoke for some time — about your work, and your plans once you’re well enough to travel again.”

Joss exhaled, a fond exasperation coloring his tone. “He never rests, does he?”

The Master’s eyes glinted, amused. “Neither do you.”

Joss chuckled softly. “Fair.” He sat up straighter, energy steadier than it had been in days. “I wanted to thank you properly — for the performance. It was extraordinary. The detail, the reverence… and the way you’ve preserved it all.”

The Master bowed his head slightly. “You honor us by saying so.”

“No, I mean it,” Joss said earnestly. “I plan to propose a collaborative initiative with the Fine Arts Department. Grants, documentation, perhaps a restoration fund. Your tradition — The House's Nang Talung — it deserves full academic support. I’ll make sure it gets it.”

Something in the Master’s expression softened — pride, gratitude, something else quieter. “You remember the details of the play, then?”

Joss’s smile was immediate. “Every frame of light on that screen,” he said. “The story of the Moon and the Tides, the carved figures, even the missing disc on the lintel beam. It’s all here.” He tapped his temple lightly.

The Master regarded him a moment longer, as if searching for proof of what had truly changed. “I’m glad,” he said finally. “The gods seldom leave without leaving something behind.”

Joss tilted his head, amused. “A philosopher and a puppeteer.”

The Master smiled faintly. “Only a keeper of stories.”

Before either could say more, Jimmy’s voice came from the hallway. “All set. They’ll finalize the discharge in thirty minutes.”

The Master inclined his head. “Then I’ll take my leave. The next new moon is soon. Our stage must be prepared again.”

“Then I’ll see you before that,” Joss said warmly. “There’s more I’d like to discuss — and to learn.”

The Master gave a small bow. “The house of shadows will always welcome those who remember.”

When he was gone, Joss looked down at his bandaged arm — the small circle of gauze, white against his skin. He smiled faintly, unaware of the thin shimmer that briefly glowed beneath it, like moonlight caught under the tape.

Outside, the day had already burned the last of the mist away.

Chapter Text

The propellers hummed like distant bees.

From the window, the coastline slipped by—silt rivers bending into the gulf, the blue-green shallows fracturing into silver light. Joss watched the view with quiet fascination, one hand cradling a notebook on his lap.

Jimmy sat beside him, the seatbelt biting lightly into his chest, a folder balanced on his knees.

For a long time neither spoke.

The hum of the engines filled the silence where difficult things lived.

Then Jimmy cleared his throat. “So,” he said, eyes on the folder, “I overheard you earlier. You’re proposing a restoration and academic grant for the House of the New Moon’s Shadow?”

Joss looked up, blinking as though pulled from a dream. “Yes,” he said, voice soft but certain. “It deserves one.”

Jimmy smiled faintly, the old teasing edge softened by worry. “Of course you’d plan another project while half-conscious.”

Joss chuckled, then grew thoughtful. “It’s not just a temple, Jim. It’s a living archive. The structure’s wrong for a home but perfect for a sanctum—mirrored corridors, western alignment, altar geometry disguised as domestic space. Every beam is a prayer hiding in plain sight.”

Jimmy leaned in. “You’re saying it used to be a temple?”

“Exactly. But not Buddhist—older. It’s the architecture of remembrance. The House isn’t named for shadow puppets; it’s named for what they guard.”

His voice gathered strength as he spoke, that familiar brightness kindling behind every word. “Every carving, every puppet, every phase of the moon etched into the lintel—they all point to one purpose: preservation. Not of relics, but of memory itself.”

Jimmy listened, eyes softening. For a moment, it was like sitting across from the Joss of the canteen months ago—animated, precise, unstoppable once the pattern revealed itself.  “And the missing disc?” Jimmy asked quietly. “The new moon?”

Joss smiled, almost proud. “That’s the key. It’s absence by design. Every phase of the moon was represented except the one where it disappears. It’s their way of saying: memory must rest to renew. Oblivion isn’t loss—it’s interval.”

He tapped the notebook lightly. “Even their plays reflect it. I wish I could watch more, but just the Moon and the Tides... They’re not myths about gods leaving. They’re about gods waiting to be remembered.”

Jimmy tilted his head. “And you want the department to fund their preservation because—?”

“Because they’ve kept an oral tradition alive longer than any manuscript,” Joss said simply. “What’s the chinese proverb… uh, The palest ink is better than the best memory!” He looked out the window again, where clouds piled like white mountains. “Because what they do—turning loss into story—it’s the same work we do, only older.”

Jimmy watched him for a long time, unsure whether to smile or grieve. The clarity in Joss’s tone felt miraculous, like sunlight breaking through a storm. It was so sharp, so articulate, that for a second he could pretend nothing was wrong. “Tell me more,” he said quietly.

Joss did.

He spoke about the banyan-root courtyard, the silver coins on the beam, the master puppeteer’s discipline, the feeling of the house breathing when the show began.

He described the play—the Moon’s longing, the drowning of mortals, the sea’s return. His words drew shapes in the air: waves, shadows, crescents, and griefs that turned into songs. Jimmy listened, the hum of the engines folding around them like rhythm under melody.

The seatbelt sign flicked on with a quiet chime. The stewardess’ voice murmured something about descent and tray tables.

Outside, Bangkok was a haze of gold and concrete, the river glinting like a thread of light through the sprawl.

Joss closed his notebook, smiling faintly. “It feels good to be going home.”

Jimmy turned to look at him. “Yeah,” he said softly. “It does.”

But as he said it, his gaze caught on Joss’s wrist—the small circle of gauze from the morning’s blood draw. Beneath it, for the briefest second, something shimmered. Not red, not silver—white, like light remembering its source.
He blinked, and it was gone.

The engines lowered their pitch.

Somewhere below, the city waited—bright, loud, alive.

Between them, the hum of flight continued: steady, fragile, holding two brothers suspended between belief and forgetting.

The plane shuddered as its wheels met the tarmac.

A ripple of motion swept through the cabin—seatbelts unclicked, bags lifted, the polite murmur of travelers already returning to their other lives.

Joss stretched, unbothered, his notebook still balanced neatly on his knees.

“Do you think they’ll approve the grant?” he asked, turning to Jimmy with that spark again—focused, professional, utterly himself.

Jimmy smiled automatically. “With your report? They’d be fools not to.”

He said it lightly, but his chest tightened with every word.

He watched as Joss scribbled one last note in the margin: House of the New Moon’s Shadow—preserve through memory, not brick.

The handwriting was firm, decisive.

Every line straight. Every thought coherent.

Too coherent.

Jimmy stared longer than he meant to.

A day ago, Joss could barely recall where he’d been. He’d asked the same question twice before breakfast.

And now—this.

A flawless recall of architectural sequence, mythic subtext, funding structure. It wasn’t recovery. It was performance—lucidity compressed into something sharp and unsustainable, like a star flaring before collapse.

He looked down at his own hands, flexing them against the weight of the thought.

Alzheimer’s didn’t gift clarity. It stole it, grain by grain, without reason or mercy.

If this was lucidity—if this was his brother’s mind blazing back to life—it could only mean one thing: the illness was taking what it could before the tide went out for good.

Joss turned, catching him watching. “What?” he asked, smiling as if they were back in the cafeteria, years younger, teasing through data and drafts.

“Nothing,” Jimmy said, forcing a grin. “Just proud of you.”

The plane doors opened. Warm Bangkok air rushed in, thick and bright and heavy with jet fuel.

Passengers filed out in quiet sequence, but Jimmy lingered, letting his brother go ahead. He needed a moment—just one—to steady the quake in his ribs.

As Joss stepped into the aisle, notebook tucked under his arm, the overhead light caught his profile. For the briefest second, Jimmy thought he saw something shimmer in his brother’s hair—a flicker of silver, like moonlight caught in motion.

He blinked, and it was gone.

Only Joss remained: human, smiling, alive, and unknowingly running out of time.

Jimmy swallowed hard, shouldered his bag, and followed. 

Chapter Text

The house fell silent yet again.

Outside, the night insects called across the garden, their cries threading through the open eaves. Inside, the scent of camphor lingered—faint, like memory trying to stay behind.

The Master moved slowly through the main hall, carrying the last of the puppets in his arms.

The reed mats rustled under his bare feet; the oil lamp on the altar cast long, breathing shadows against the screen. He paused at the threshold of the puppet room—a small chamber lined with wooden drawers, each labeled in a script no one had written in centuries.

He slid open the central drawer and laid the figures down, one by one.

The Moon.

The Tide.

The Waylayer.

He bowed over the last one. His favorite.

The puppet’s carved face, once bright with gold leaf, had dulled to the color of old ivory. The faintest hint of fog seemed to cling to its joints, as if refusing to disperse.

The Master smiled faintly. “You’re stubborn,” he murmured. “Even now.”

He turned to leave—and froze.

There it was again: that sound.

Patter.

Bare feet on the old wooden floor. Slow. Careful.

The same rhythm that once saved him from being sacrificed to the sun.

His breath caught. He turned.

A figure stood in the doorway.

Tall. Barefoot. Dressed in a loose weave of white strips that clung to his frame like mist clinging to bone. His hair shimmered silver-white in the lamplight; his skin held the calm glow of a man who had stepped out of the horizon itself.

The Master’s body moved before his mind caught up. His knees hit the mat. His hands pressed flat against the floor. The mask—habitual as breath—slipped from his face and fell soundlessly beside him.

“Sea Tawinan Anukoolprasert,” the stranger said, his voice honey and gravity combined. “You have grown into a fine young man.”

Tears stung Sea’s eyes. “Lord Waylayer?” he whispered. “Is it truly you? You… you bid farewell the other night. I saw you vanish into the light.”

The man smiled, warm and impossibly human. “The farewell was genuine. The Waylayer has left,” he said gently. “For I have remembered. And for that, I owe you gratitude, my loyal priest. My Mythmaker.”

The air itself seemed to bow. Every candle flickered toward him.

Gawin—no longer bound by fog, and no longer only myth—lifted one hand and motioned lazily, as though brushing away formality. He moved to sit, and a simple stool appeared beneath him, conjured from stillness itself. He leaned back, stretching like someone returning to the body he’d once forgotten.

“Be at ease, Sea. The archaeologists you welcomed here will ensure this house survives. The work you took on, will not die with you.”

Sea’s voice trembled. “Your promise of a boon is received, my Lord. Thank you.”

Gawin smiled, and the weight of the air around them shifted—lighter now, freer. “Rise,” he said softly. “Let us speak as equals.”

The compulsion to kneel broke like mist in sunlight. Sea rose, slowly, reverently. Only now could he truly look.

The god’s face was both young and ancient—eyes the color of gold hidden under river water, lips soft and full, as though perpetually on the edge of speech.

“It is you,” Sea whispered. “My savior. You have not aged one bit, but something is missing..." Sea said as he looked around. 

"Ah, I am veiled by the fog no longer." Gawin said nonchalantly. 

Sea furrowed his eyebrows, as if indexing that statement for later analysis. "Forgive me, I never thanked you for sparing my life that night.”

“You already have,” said Gawin. “More than any mortal ever could. Whether by fate or by the will of the world, you’ve done me great mercy.”

Sea bowed his head, emotion catching in his throat. “Then what brings you here, my Lord?”

Gawin’s gaze turned toward the puppet hall’s open doorway, where the moonlight should have been—but wasn’t. The sky outside was black, emptied of its usual silver.

“You know of the man named Joss Way-ar Sangngern?” he asked, his tone suddenly quieter, as though the name itself required reverence.

Sea nodded. “I do. He was here when you… when you bid farewell.”

“I know,” Gawin said. “I saw him, too.”

He rose from the conjured stool; it dissolved into vapor beneath him. His expression changed—sorrow, tempered by something almost tender.

“What do you know of his condition now?”

Sea hesitated. “He is ill, my Lord. The brother told me it is a condition called Alzheimer’s. It eats at memory, like floodwater rising and eroding through the mind.”

Gawin closed his eyes, lashes trembling. For a moment, he looked older, almost human in the way pain could inhabit him.

“I see,” he murmured. “What a cruel twist of fate.”

Sea’s voice faltered. “What do you mean, my Lord? Isn’t this your domain—helping the lost?”

“No more.” Gawin’s tone softened, a wind over still water. “I am Waylayer no more, my child.”

Sea bowed his head in understanding, though sorrow shadowed his face. “And his brother told me that you met Joss, yet he remembers none of it?”

“Well,” Gawin replied, voice low, “if the illness you speak of is indeed like a flood, then a day will come when no memory of his will remain.”

Sea hesitated. “Can you not help him?”

“The answer,” said Gawin, “lies with you, loyal priest.”

Sea blinked. “Me?”

“With the House you tend, and the craft you serve.”

It took a moment, but understanding came like sunrise breaking through mist.

“You mean… Mythmaking.”

Gawin inclined his head. “The true purpose of the House of the New Moon’s Shadow is not performance, nor remembrance—it is creation. To herald new legends and new guardians. To give birth to spirits through the act of Mythmaking.”

Sea’s breath caught. “You mean, you want to save Joss through Mythmaking?”

Gawin’s eyes met his. “To preserve what illness will erase. Memory can die, but myth endures.”

Sea shook his head slowly, disbelief and fear wrestling in his chest. “I didn’t know that was this House’s had that ability.”

“Then what did you think the puppets of this House were?” Gawin asked gently.

Before Sea could answer, the shadows shifted.

Hundreds of colored figures filled the room—dancing in a silent whirl of light and silk.

Sea recognized every one of them: the puppets he had trained with, repaired, and brought to life for years. They now stood around them—bright, translucent, breathing.

He stumbled backward.

“My Lord… they— They are all real spirits?”

“Yes,” Gawin said. “All anchored and immortalized in this world through the Shadow of the New Moon's of Mythmaking.”

The vision faded. The puppets were again lifeless wood and leather. 

Sea swallowed hard, his face tightening with realization. “Then it can’t work,” he said finally.

Gawin’s brow furrowed. “Why not?”

“Mythmaking needs memory—either the immortal strength of a single enduring soul, or the invincible weight of many who remember together. Neither of which…” He stopped, unable to finish.

“Neither of which Joss has,” Gawin said quietly.

Sea nodded. His face was solemn. “Even if gods remember him, it’s not the same. Mortal memory is bound to this world. Divine memory belong to the stars.”

Gawin’s hand went to his chest again, pressing deep as if to soothe an ache that memory alone could not reach. “Yes,” he said softly. “The stars.”

Silence filled the hall. Only the flicker of the lamps spoke.

Sea gathered his courage. “Then there’s truly nothing that can be done?”

Gawin smiled faintly, and the expression was both mercy and mourning.

“There is always something to be done,” he said, his jaw tight. “For now, it is to bear witness. What is precious must be missed.”

He stood, and gave a courteous bow. The air around him shimmered faintly with light—neither fog nor flame. “I will ask for a favor after I make my preparations. I will talk to you then.”

“Of course My Lord, I am a servant at your disposal,” Sea said, bowing low in return.

When he lifted his gaze, Gawin was gone.

Only his voice lingered in the hollow of the hall—gentle, echoing, threaded with the weight of blessing.

“Know that you have never been a servant nor a prisoner, my child. The pursuers who wished you harm are gone. And soon, the shackles you placed upon yourself shall also be undone.”

The candles bent inward with the sound, then straightened again.

Sea fell on his knees after the former Waylayer vanished. He didn't even get a chance to ask for his name. 

He looked around the empty hall — the puppets hanging in their ranks, motionless now, their painted eyes dim.

The words Mythmaking requires memory echoed in his mind.

A craft built to immortalize through remembrance — powerless in the face of forgetting.

He pressed a hand to his chest, mirroring his supernatural guest’s gesture. “How do you save a man,” he whispered, “from forgetting himself?”

No answer came. Only the faint creak of wood, the settling of the house, and the smell of rain drifting through the shutters.

The House of the New Moon’s Shadow had always promised salvation through story.

But tonight, it stood helpless before the silence of a fading mind.

Sea turned back toward the puppet of the Waylayer. Its once-bright strings hung limp, pale as threads of mist.

He reached out to touch it — and for the briefest moment, felt warmth, like breath still clinging to the cord. Then it cooled.

“If myth cannot rise without memory,” he murmured. “And memory is never treasured without loss. ” He bowed his head. “Then let loss mean something, at least.”

Outside, dawn was already thinning the fog.

The puppets swayed once, as if bowing, before the house fell still again. 

Chapter Text

Bangkok hummed like an old clock — steady, unbothered, refusing to stop for anyone.

Joss sat at his desk in the Ledger House, late afternoon light slanting through the blinds, striping his laptop screen with gold. The last line of his proposal blinked back at him:

“Project: Documentation and Restoration of the House of the New Moon’s Shadow — in partnership with the Performing Arts Division.”

He hit save, leaned back, and stretched until his spine gave a series of small, satisfying cracks.

The relief was brief. His right leg seized again — a sharp, involuntary twitch that pulled him forward in his chair. He hissed through his teeth, pressing a palm against the muscle, kneading gently until the spasm eased.

His eyes flicked to the door. Habit.

It’s been a full month since they’d come back from Tha Wang, and Jimmy had been everywhere — hovering, checking, worrying like it was his full-time job.

If Joss dropped a spoon in the sink, Jimmy came running.

If he missed a step on the stairwell, Jimmy panicked like he’d witnessed an earthquake.

Once, when Joss forgot where he’d parked the car, Jimmy nearly called the hospital.

He smiled at the thought — fond and frustrated all at once.

He loved his brother, but living under constant watch made every small failure feel like a siren.

The leg finally calmed. Joss exhaled, reaching for his phone. He thumbed open a message draft to the Master — something about scheduling the next site visit, confirming the puppetry documentation interviews.

Before he could type a word, the door burst open.

Jimmy stood there, grinning like he’d just won the lottery. “I’m done, Nong!” he declared, holding up a sheaf of printed papers. “The paper on the Myth of the Waylayer and his ties to Flash Floods is ready for peer review!”

He strode in, arms open for a hug. “Come on, congratulate me properly.”

Joss looked up, smiling, but didn’t move. The smile faltered halfway, turning awkward, apologetic. “Co-congratulations?”

Jimmy froze mid-step. His grin softened, then thinned. “Something’s wrong,” he said quietly. “Something’s hurting, isn’t it?”

Joss’s eyes darted to his phone, thumb hovering over the keyboard. “What do you mean? I was just sending a very important message.”

Jimmy didn’t move his arms. “This is the time for a hug, Joss.”

Silence.

Jimmy let his arms drop, resting his hands on his hips. “You can’t stand up, can you?”

Joss pressed his palm to his right thigh again, flexing, testing. The muscle twitched violently. He managed a weak laugh. “Ah… uh… Let me just send this text to the Master first, okay?”

Jimmy’s face folded into a look halfway between worry and heartbreak.

Joss’s thumb hovered over the keyboard, trying to remember what he meant to type.

Something about scheduling. Or was it gratitude?

The thought unraveled mid-sentence.

His phone slipped.

It hit the floor with a small, clean sound — softer than it should have been, yet somehow loud enough to freeze both of them.

Jimmy moved first. “Hey—”

“I’ve got it,” Joss said quickly, bending forward. But when he reached down, his right hand didn’t move the way he meant it to. His fingers trembled, closing too soon, brushing only air.

“Joss,” Jimmy warned, already crouching beside him.

“I said I’ve got it.” Joss’s voice cracked on the last word. He reached again — slower this time — but the tremor spread from his hand to his arm, a low, invisible shiver. The phone slid just out of reach, glinting in the patch of sunlight between them.

Jimmy picked it up and set it back on the desk, saying nothing.

For a moment, the only sound was the city outside — traffic, distant horns, the rhythmic bark of a street vendor advertising noodles. Life going on, as if nothing inside this room had changed.

Joss leaned back against the chair, forcing a laugh that came out thin and shaky. “It’s fine. Just… nerves. Haven’t eaten yet.”

Jimmy’s jaw tightened, the muscle there flickering once — a tell he couldn’t hide.

For a heartbeat, something raw rose in his chest, the instinct to call it what it was. To name the tremor, to shout for help, to drag Joss back to the hospital right now.

But he swallowed it.

“Yeah,” he said instead, voice catching only on the edge. “You always forget lunch when you’re writing.”

He forced a chuckle of his own, and it sounded almost convincing. “I’ll grab us something. Pad krapow, yeah? With that extra egg you always steal off my plate.”

Joss smiled, relieved. “And extra holy basil? Crisis averted!”

Jimmy reached out, straightening a crooked stack of papers on the desk — an excuse to look away. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Averted.”

For a moment, the room almost felt normal again — the air filled with the small, familiar noises of their shared rhythm: the hum of the fan, the clicking of laptop keys, the faint city sounds drifting in through the shutters.

But under it all, Jimmy could still hear it — the tremor in Joss’s hand against the desk, the tiny, arrhythmic tap that didn’t belong to any song he knew.

He didn’t say a word.

He just reached for his wallet and forced a smile that matched his brother’s.

“Back in ten, Nong. Don’t start any world-changing projects while I’m gone.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Joss said, still pretending, still trying.

Jimmy crossed the street from the Ledger House, the familiar warmth of exhaust and chili oil clinging to the air. Across the road, the small coffee shop that sold Joss’s favorite pad krapow still had its fluorescent sign half-lit.

He joined the short queue, hands in his pockets, still shaken.

Joss had started dropping more things lately — small slips, quiet losses.

The line moved forward. The smell of holy basil hit him — sharp, comforting, cruel.

He promised himself he’d get this meal for Joss every night from now on. Every favorite dish, every comfort. But before he could generate a checklist, a voice bent on intruding spoke up.

“Don’t grieve the living.” The voice was deep, resonant — pointed enough to make him turn.

So Jimmy spun around.

Two men stood by the corner, half-lit by the glow of a nearby lantern.

The first was tall, broad-shouldered, dressed simply in a white shirt and matching white linen pants. His face held an impossible calm — not beauty, exactly, but presence. His eyes seemed to catch and hold the light, as though they’d seen too many dawns to be surprised by anything left in this world.

Behind him stood a familiar figure clad in black, mask covering his mouth, posture straight and still. The glint in his eyes gave him away immediately.

“Master?” Jimmy breathed.

The Master raised a hand in greeting, his voice bright and warm in contrast to the stranger’s gravity. “Good afternoon, Archaeologist!” he called out cheerfully, as if they’d just met by chance and not under the weight of a collapsing future.

Jimmy stepped out of line, crossing toward them. He bowed low in greeting, and the Master stepped forward, almost too close, then returned the gesture with his usual grace.

“How is Joss doing?” the Master asked, his tone gentler now.

Jimmy hesitated. The question cracked something open in his chest.

His eyes dropped to the pavement. “He’s… trying,” he said softly. “Some days are good.” He swallowed hard. “Some aren’t.”

The Master regarded him quietly, then placed a hand on his shoulder — a steadying gesture, grounding without pity.

“He still remembers you,” the Master said. “That’s what matters.”

Jimmy’s breath hitched. He wasn’t sure if that was a comfort or a curse — because the unspoken end of that sentence was for now.

“There is someone who works with memory,” the Master continued. “Not medicine. Not faith. Something older.”

He stepped slightly aside, revealing the tall man behind him. “Someone well-versed in the House of the New Moon’s Shadow’s Memory Techniques.”

Jimmy’s eyes lifted to the stranger — to that calm, quiet gaze that met his without hesitation. There was something in it that made his chest tighten — not recognition, but familiarity without memory.

The man inclined his head, voice low but kind. “You can call me Fluke,” he said. “I’m here to help Joss remember.”

And as he spoke, the city seemed to still — the sound of engines, the scent of basil and smoke all thinning into silence for one impossible heartbeat.

In that pause, Jimmy thought — or perhaps only felt — that the man’s eyes held too much knowing for a stranger.

Something vast. Something old.

Something familiar and comforting, while also being oddly intimidating. 

Chapter Text

The coffee shop’s bell chimed behind them as the three stepped out into the glare of the late afternoon. Heat shimmered off the pavement; the kind that bleaches color from the city until everything feels paused between gold and white.

Jimmy walked ahead, paper bag swinging at his side — Pad Krapow, extra basil, double egg. Joss’s favorite. The smell rose in soft waves, a reminder that for all the strange turns of the day, life still demanded its ordinary rituals.

Beside him, the Master and Fluke walked in unhurried rhythm. The contrast between them was almost absurd: the Master’s black clothes and hidden mouth, and Fluke’s plain white shirt catching sunlight like it belonged there.

Something about the light seemed to cling to him — bending, softening — as if the afternoon itself hesitated to let him go.

Jimmy cleared his throat. “So you’re… a healer?”

Fluke’s gaze stayed on the street ahead. “That’s one word for it.”

The Master chuckled softly. “He’s being modest. At the House of the New Moon’s Shadow, people like him listen to memory the way doctors listen to the heart.”

Jimmy frowned. “Listen to memory?”

Fluke glanced at him then, eyes calm but strangely bright. “Most people think remembering is about holding on,” he said. “But sometimes it’s about knowing what can be safely let go.”

Jimmy’s grip tightened on the takeout bag. “You’re talking like it’s a ritual, not a condition.”

Fluke tilted his head. “Maybe it’s both.”

They reached the crosswalk. Traffic roared past — buses, taxis, motorcycles weaving through like restless spirits. For a moment, the three stood there in silence, hemmed in by noise and light.

Jimmy finally said, “Look, I appreciate you coming all this way. But if this is some kind of faith healing—”

Fluke interrupted gently. “I’m not here to pray over him.”

He turned toward Jimmy, his expression unreadable but sincere. “I’m here to keep him company. That’s all. To walk with him through what’s fading.”

The words landed with disarming simplicity.

Jimmy exhaled. “And the Master asked you to do this?”

The Master inclined his head. “He volunteered. I only introduced you.”

Fluke smiled faintly, sunlight glancing off his cheek. “Your brother and I… share a way of seeing the world. It might help him remember what still matters.”

Jimmy studied him. “You’ve met before?”

Fluke’s smile didn’t change. “In a way.”

Something in the air shifted when he said it — a quiet resonance, like the echo of an unseen name. Jimmy couldn’t place it, but the sound settled deep in his chest.

He fell into step between them again, the pad krapow bag swinging idly in his hand. “So,” he said, tone cautious but edged with steel, “when you say you’re here to help him — what does that mean exactly? What are you going to do to my brother?”

Fluke didn’t answer right away. He watched the passing cars, their reflections sliding across his face like waves. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet but certain. “I won’t do anything to him,” he said. “That’s the mistake most healers make. They force remembrance. They try to drag the mind back to the place it broke.”

Jimmy’s jaw tightened. “And you won’t?”

“No,” Fluke said. “I’ll listen for what still answers when his name is called.”

The phrasing was strange, poetic — but something in his tone made it sound less like metaphor and more like promise.

Jimmy frowned. “That sounds poetic, not medical.”

The Master gave a low chuckle behind his mask. “Far before religion ever entered the world, the poetry and medicine were the same thing.”

Fluke continued, unbothered. “When memory begins to fray, the mind protects itself. It hides certain rooms, closes certain doors. Sometimes all that’s needed is someone who can walk quietly enough for the doors to open again.”

Jimmy’s voice softened despite himself. “You really believe you can do that?”

Fluke glanced at him — and for an instant, the air around him shifted again. The sunlight seemed to catch on the faintest trace of mist, like a veil half-drawn. There was sorrow in his eyes, yes, but also something older than belief — the kind of faith that had once shaped tides.

“I’ve done it before.”

He said it without pride, without boasting. Only remembrance.

And though he stood there in his white shirt, hands bare, Jimmy couldn’t shake the feeling that the man beside him had once carried light itself as a burden.

They turned the corner onto the narrow lane leading to the Ledger House. The late afternoon sun stretched their shadows long across the cracked pavement — three figures walking together: the skeptic, the keeper, and the one who had come to mend what time had broken.

The elevator doors slid open with a dull chime.

The Ledger House lobby was half-empty — the end of a workday lull — but the small crowd that was there seemed to take notice the moment the three of them stepped in.

The tall, pale man in white drew the first looks. There was something unhurried about the way he moved, like gravity itself softened for him. Conversations faltered. Even the hum of the photocopier stilled, as if sound didn’t dare intrude.

One of the interns leaned close to another, whispering, “Is he an actor?”

The other shrugged, eyes wide. “Or an angel?”

But it wasn’t just him. As Fluke, the Master, and Jimmy walked through the hallway together, something about the trio made people straighten, glance twice — the sharpness of Jimmy’s stride, the composed calm of the Master’s dark silhouette, and the serene radiance of the man beside them.

And somewhere between their steps, that radiance flickered — for a heartbeat, the faint outline of someone older, brighter, standing in his place. Gawin, remembered by the world itself.

The illusion passed as quickly as it came.

By the time they reached the Fine Arts Department wing, people had already begun whispering about the three handsome men from downstairs.

Jimmy barely noticed. His mind was elsewhere, on the takeout bag now warm against his palm.

He pushed the door open.

Inside, Joss was exactly where Jimmy knew he’d be — bent over his laptop, eyes flicking between screens, hair slightly disheveled. He looked up at the sound of the door.

The change was instant.

“Master!”

Joss stood quickly — too quickly. The chair scraped back, and for a fraction of a second, his balance slipped — a subtle, almost invisible sway. Jimmy saw it. So did Fluke.

The Master’s hand twitched slightly, but Joss steadied himself, grinning wide.

“I finished it!” he said, voice bright. “The proposal — full draft, complete with appendices. We can start documentation next week.”

The Master’s eyes softened behind the mask. “You work fast,” he said, tone half-admiring, half-gently concerned.

“I had good inspiration! And I was just about to text you too!” Joss replied, laughing. “You should see the footnotes — I even cross-referenced the puppetry sequence from the ritual last month. I think—”

He stopped himself only to step forward and pull the Master into an embrace. It was awkward, earnest, almost boyish — a scholar hugging his favorite teacher.

The Master returned the gesture with a light pat on the shoulder. “You honor the house by remembering it,” he said quietly.

When they pulled apart, Joss noticed the man beside him.

The Pale Man's eyes were for a brief moment, menacing slits, oggling at the embrace between Joss and the Master. 

“Ah—sorry, I didn’t see—” Joss straightened again, performing a polite wai. “I’m Joss Way-ar Sangngern. Have we met?”

The tall man’s lips curved into a small, knowing smile.

“We have,” he said softly. “In Tha Wang.”

Something flickered behind Joss’s eyes — confusion, then recognition, then the faint warmth of déjà vu. “Right… Tha Wang.” He paused. “You look… familiar.”

Fluke inclined his head. “I would hope so. Well, for now, you may call me Fluke.” His gaze never left Joss, and for a moment, the rest of the room blurred away — the humming aircon, the shuffle of paper, the faint chatter from outside.

Jimmy cleared his throat, snapping the silence. “Fluke said he’ll stay with us for a while,” he said, tone brisk, controlled. “He’s offered to be a primary resource for your documentation of the House’s rituals.”

Joss blinked, then beamed. “Really? That’s— that’s incredible!”

He turned back to Fluke, excitement bubbling over his words. “That’ll make everything so much easier — context, access, oral history—”

The Master watched them both, silent, his hands folded loosely in front of him.

If he noticed how Fluke’s eyes lingered a heartbeat too long on Joss’s face — or how Joss unconsciously mirrored the angle of Fluke’s stance — he said nothing.

Behind the mask, he wondered if the god in front of him felt the human kind of pain that blossomed in such ironic encounters. Watching the plan he and Gawin had woven begin to take shape, he shuddered at the thought of a god becoming so hurt he might destroy the world. And that tremendous force of jealousy that erupted from the Pale god when Joss embraced him was proof, there was more than meets the eye between Joss and this pretender named Fluke.

Outside, the late afternoon light slid through the blinds, spilling gold across the floor. The four beings — two archaeologists, a Mythmaker, and a god in disguise — stood framed within it, the air trembling in excitement as though the world itself had recognized the reunion.

For now, it was enough.

Work. Company. Warm food.

And the faint, fragile sense that remembering could still be a kind of grace. 

Chapter Text

The clock on the wall read 3:00 p.m.

The light through the office windows had turned soft and syrupy — the kind that thickened shadows and blurred edges.

The Master adjusted the strap of his small canvas bag and gave a polite bow.

“I’ll have to catch the evening flight back to Tha Wang,” he said. “There’s a rehearsal tomorrow.”

Joss, still half-bent over his laptop, looked up. “Already? You just got here.”

“I move between places,” the Master replied lightly. “It’s how I keep them breathing.”

Fluke smiled faintly from where he stood by the window, arms crossed loosely. “We’ll manage things here. You can trust me.”

“I always do.”

The Master’s gaze lingered on him a second longer than necessary — a pause that wasn’t surprise, but quiet confirmation.

A current moved between them: not new recognition, but a reminder of an old pact.

Jimmy, somehow, didn’t miss the weight of it.

“I’ll see you out,” he said quickly, already standing. “Joss, eat your food before it gets cold.”

Joss waved him off distractedly, still typing. “Yes, yes. Go play host.”

The hallway outside the office was quiet, the afternoon lull settled deep into the building’s bones.

Their footsteps echoed softly against the marble tiles, a rhythm too measured to be casual.

At the end of the corridor, near the elevator, the Master stopped.

“You don’t have to walk me all the way down,” he said.

“I want to,” Jimmy replied. He hesitated, then added, “After what you did for Joss — after everything — I owe you that much.”

The Master tilted his head, the motion graceful, almost curious.

“You don’t owe me anything. He’s the one who found us, remember?”

Jimmy huffed a small laugh. “Yeah. Still doesn’t make it easier to say thank you.”

The elevator arrived with a soft chime. Neither of them moved.

For a long moment, they simply stood there — two men framed in the dim hallway light, the air carrying the faint hum of the city below.

Jimmy spoke first, his voice softer now.

“When you called me that night… I thought it was a scam. Some stranger saying my brother collapsed in Nakhon Si Thammarat — I almost hung up.”

He exhaled, shaking his head. “But you stayed with him. You didn’t have to.”

The Master’s eyes softened behind his mask.

“He reminded me of someone who used to wander our house,” he said quietly. “Someone who also refused to forget.”

“That sounds like Joss,” Jimmy murmured.

“Yes.”

The Master’s gaze drifted toward the window at the far end of the hall.

“And it sounds like you, too.”

Jimmy blinked, caught off guard. “Me?”

“You’re the one still holding the line,” the Master said simply. “Most people run from grief. You stayed.”

Jimmy swallowed hard. He wasn’t used to being seen like that — not in the way that bypassed explanation entirely.

“I just… didn’t want him to be alone.”

The Master nodded slowly. “Then don’t be, either.”

The elevator doors slid open again, a gentle metallic sigh.

Jimmy hesitated, searching for words that might stretch across the strange space between them.

“When you come back next,” he said finally, “maybe we can grab coffee. Or dinner. My treat. I know a place that serves actual southern-style curry, not the Bangkok version.”

The Master tilted his head, amusement warming his voice. “A dinner invitation? To a man whose face you’ve never seen?”

Jimmy smiled, just a little. “Then maybe that’s what dinner’s for.”

For the first time, the Master laughed — a soft, genuine sound that filled the narrow hall. “You’re braver than you look.”

“People keep saying that.”

The elevator chimed again, impatient. The Master stepped inside, then turned back.

“Until next time, archaeologist.”

Jimmy gave a small wai. “Safe flight, Master.”

As the doors closed, he caught one last glimpse — the faintest glint of light behind the mask, like a smile, or maybe just the reflection of the setting sun.

When the elevator descended, the air felt heavier, and yet, somehow, more alive.

Jimmy stood there for a while, hands in his pockets, before finally exhaling.

“Dinner, then,” he muttered to himself, smiling despite the ache in his chest.

As Jimmy and the Master was waiting downstairs, Joss and Fluke continued their conversation. 

Joss leaned back in his chair, chopsticks in one hand, the half-eaten pad krapow in front of him.

Fluke stood by the window, hands in his pockets, watching the sun glaze the skyline in amber.

“You can sit, you know,” Joss said finally. “We don’t charge for chairs here.”

Fluke smiled faintly and turned. “Old habits,” he said. “I’ve spent a long time standing behind screens.”

Joss nodded. “Right. Puppet work.” He gestured toward the extra chair. “Still, makes me nervous if someone just… looms.”

That drew a soft laugh from Fluke — the kind that sounded almost too human, almost too practiced. “Then I’ll sit.”

He did, folding neatly into the space across from him. “Better?”

“Much.” Joss poked idly at his food, then looked up with a grin. “So… what’s the Master really like outside of the temple? Does he ever take that mask off?”

Fluke tilted his head, considering. “He does,” he said at last. “But not for long. He’s grown used to keeping parts of himself hidden.”

Joss chuckled. “Yeah, I think my brother likes him.”

Fluke blinked, surprised. “Likes who?”

“The Master,” Joss said, leaning back. “Jimmy’s pretending it’s gratitude, but I know that look. He only gets that quiet when he’s interested.”

The laugh that slipped out of Fluke was genuine this time — warm enough to bend the light around them.

“Then I hope your brother’s athletic,” he said. “The Master has… walls.”

“Good,” Joss said with a smirk. “Jimmy could use walls. Keeps him humble.”

They both laughed softly, the sound settling between them like sunlight on old paper.

After a moment, Joss added, “I’m glad the Master sent you, though. I've been feeling like a prisoner over here.”

Fluke’s eyes softened. “I can relate, you know, but,” he said. “I’ll have you know that I volunteered for this.”

Joss’s eyebrows furrowed, chopsticks pausing mid-air. “What do you mean?”

Fluke smiled — that same calm, disarming curve of his lips that somehow said everything and nothing at once. “I volunteered to help you document, because I also want to free the Master from his own shackles.” he said.

Joss nodded slowly, half-lost in thought. “Yeah I get that… Imagine being the last bearer of an undocumented living tradition.”

For a long moment, they sat quietly — two men, a meal cooling between them, the late afternoon spilling across the desk.

To anyone else, it would look like an ordinary conversation.

But the air carried a faint shimmer, the weight of something ancient and tender, waiting to be remembered.

Chapter Text

Two weeks passed before either of them realized they’d fallen into a pattern.

Morning — Joss rose first, already halfway through coffee by the time Fluke emerged from the guest room.

Afternoon — the Fine Arts office, a few hours of documentation and research.

Evening — home again, with books and tea spreading across the dining table like a small civilization.

Tonight was no different.

The apartment was dim except for the lamp that burned over the table, its light pooling across maps, notebooks, and the pale steam from Fluke’s tea.

The city outside murmured in a steady, distant rhythm — traffic, rain, and the occasional bark of a street vendor calling it a night.

Joss was hunched over a notebook, hair in loose disarray, pen moving with near-frenzied focus.

Fluke sat opposite him, composed as always, one hand curled around his mug, the other tracing absent circles on the rim — the motion small, ritualistic, like a tide marking time.

“Repeat that,” Joss said suddenly, eyes bright. “What you just said.”

Fluke tilted his head. “What? That the Shadow Puppets of the House represent mortal stories?”

“That was beautiful, yes,” Joss said quickly, “but not that one — the one before.”

“Ah.” A faint smile ghosted across Fluke’s lips. “That the House of the New Moon’s Shadow used to be led by priests — the Mythmakers?”

Joss nodded, almost eagerly. “Yes! That. What are the Mythmakers?”

Fluke set down his cup, the sound soft and deliberate. “They were the ones who gave the gods voices,” he said. “Not priests in the ordinary sense. They didn’t worship; they translated. The House believed that when gods wanted to be remembered, they borrowed mortal tongues. The Mythmakers carried those words — turned them into stories, songs, shadows on a screen.”

Joss’s pen stilled mid-sentence. “You mean they… created religion?”

“Not quite,” Fluke replied. “They preserved the memory of truth by disguising it as story. Truth was too heavy to carry on its own. So they cut it into shapes of men and women, gods and monsters, and let people love them instead.”

Joss leaned back slowly, eyes widening as though the idea itself rearranged his thoughts. “So every myth, every folktale—”

“—is a memory of something that refused to die,” Fluke finished softly.

Rain began to fall harder now, the sound like static against glass.

For a long moment, neither spoke. Joss scribbled a few quick notes, the scrape of pen punctuating the quiet.

Then, without looking up, he said, “You talk about them like you knew them.”

Fluke’s smile was small, unreadable. “Maybe I’ve just listened well.”

“You’d make a good Mythmaker,” Joss said absently, flipping through his notebook. “You talk like every word remembers something.”

Fluke’s gaze lingered on him. “And you,” he said softly, “talk like you’re trying to remember something you already knew.”

Joss looked up then, puzzled — but before he could ask, Fluke rose, collecting his cup. “More tea?”

“Please,” Joss said, half-distracted, already returning to his notes. “We should write this down before it fades.”

Fluke paused in the kitchen doorway, his silhouette framed by lamplight. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Some things don’t fade. They only wait to be found again.”

And for a brief second, before turning away, he smiled — the kind of smile that carried centuries, grief, and tenderness in a single quiet curve.

Outside, the thunder rolled once, low and slow, as if the world had just remembered an old name.

Joss tapped his pen against the page, eyes still fixed on Fluke.

“So what types of stories did the Mythmakers turn into myths? Was there a… criteria?”

Fluke returned to his seat, setting the teapot between them. The steam curled upward, catching the lamplight like ghostly script.

“There was,” he said. “Though they never wrote it down. It wasn’t about what was grand or sacred. The Mythmakers chose stories that ached — the ones that refused to end even when the people telling them had.”

“Ached?” Joss repeated.

Fluke nodded. “A story only became myth if it carried something unfinished — a promise, a grief, a question that could outlive its teller. Joy fades when it’s spoken. But sorrow…” He glanced toward the window, where the rain streaked like falling ink. “Sorrow remembers.”

Joss leaned forward, captivated. “So myths were… containers for pain?”

“For meaning,” Fluke corrected gently. “Pain was only the thread that held it together. The House believed the world itself forgets too quickly — that time sheds its memories like old skin. So the Mythmakers turned what was unbearable into art, to trick the world into keeping it.”

Joss’s pen stilled. “That’s— that’s brilliant.”

Fluke smiled faintly. “It was mercy. Memory is cruel when it has nowhere to rest.”

Joss’s gaze softened. “And the House — they did this for everyone?”

“At first.” Fluke’s voice grew quieter, thoughtful. “But after a while, they began to choose. Not all stories were meant to be remembered. Some truths were sealed — hidden behind allegory, or burned from the scripts entirely.”

“Why?”

Fluke’s eyes met his across the table, dark and steady.

“Because remembering everything,” he said, “is impossible. Everything is prey to decay. Each generation of Mythmaker had their own way of choosing what to turn into myth, so there was never a universal rule.”

Joss jotted that down quickly, then glanced up. “So what changed? Why did they stop?”

Fluke took a slow sip of tea before answering. “They didn’t stop,” he said. “They scattered. The art of making myths became scholarship. Ritual became research. Priests became archivists, archaeologists, playwrights.” He gestured lightly toward Joss’s notebook. “People like you.”

Joss laughed softly. “So you’re saying I’m a descendant of the Mythmakers?”

Fluke’s expression gentled, almost wistful. “I’m saying that memory always finds new hands. The House of the New Moon’s Shadow may be gone, but its purpose isn’t.”
Joss set down his pen. “To preserve what’s worth remembering.”

Fluke inclined his head. “And to decide what can be forgotten.”

That last sentence hung between them, quiet but heavy — an invisible line neither seemed ready to cross.

After a long pause, Joss leaned back, half-smiling. “You know, if you talked like this in my thesis defense, my professors would either fail you or propose.”

Fluke chuckled under his breath, the sound low and warm. “What would you do?”

Joss leaned back, the corner of his mouth curving. “I’d marry you in a heartbeat, Fluke.”

For a moment, silence. Then both of them laughed — softly, easily — the kind of laughter that covered something too real to name. It filled the small apartment with the illusion of ordinary friendship, though both felt the gravity beneath it.

Even Jimmy noticed the change. Since Fluke had begun staying with them, Joss had been sharper — clearer.

No trembling hands. No forgotten names. No broken plates.

It was as if something in Fluke’s presence steadied him.

Joss’s notes were suddenly legible again. His focus lasted hours instead of minutes. He even teased Jimmy the way he used to, over who made the better coffee.

Jimmy didn’t understand it, but he was grateful — grateful enough to ignore the unease that sometimes came with it: the way Fluke seemed to move through their apartment without sound, or how Joss’s eyes followed him like he was afraid the man might vanish if he blinked.

Still, he told himself, it didn’t matter how strange Fluke was.

What mattered was that Joss was smiling again.

And somewhere behind that smile, the god of memory kept his quiet vigil — unseen, patient, making sure that this time, forgetting would not win.

Chapter Text

The apartment had grown soft with night — the kind of silence that hums just beneath the sound of breathing.

From behind Joss’s bedroom door came the slow rhythm of sleep: steady, fragile, but peaceful.

Fluke stepped out quietly, pulling the door closed until only a sliver of lamplight escaped. His bare feet made no sound against the wooden floor. In the living room, Jimmy sat curled on the couch, a mug between his hands, the faint scent of lemongrass and tea thick in the air.

Fluke inclined his head. “Joss is asleep. I’ll rest for the night, then.”

He started toward his room, but Jimmy’s voice stopped him.

“I don’t know what treatment you’ve been giving my brother,” Jimmy said quietly, eyes still on the mug, “but I just want you to know—I can see the difference.”

Fluke turned back, the lamplight catching the edge of his face. “He’s remembering more,” he said softly. “And laughing again.”

Jimmy nodded, a small, helpless sound escaping him that was half-laugh, half-exhale. “Yeah. You don’t know what that means. I’ve been watching him fade for months—one slip at a time. Dates, words, names. But since you showed up…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “It’s like he’s been given back to us.”

Fluke moved closer, sitting across from him at the low dining table. “Sometimes,” he said, “memory doesn’t need medicine. It needs to be witnessed.”

Jimmy frowned faintly. “Witnessed?”

Fluke’s eyes met his — dark, calm, unblinking. “When people forget themselves, the world starts forgetting them too. Their reflection dulls. Their voice echoes less. Someone has to keep remembering them, out loud, so they can find their way back.”

Jimmy took a slow sip of tea, trying to make sense of the words. “You talk like memory’s… alive.”

“It is,” Fluke said simply. “It listens. It gets lonely.”

Silence fell again. Jimmy looked toward Joss’s door, his jaw tightening, his thumb running along the edge of the mug.

“I can’t lose him,” he said, barely audible.

Fluke’s gaze softened. “You won’t lose him all at once,” he said. “That’s not how remembering fades. It leaves small gifts behind — the way he says your name, the way he hums before thinking. Even when memory breaks, the rhythm remains.”

Jimmy swallowed hard, forcing a smile. “You sound like the Master.”

Fluke’s expression flickered — a quiet, knowing amusement. “He taught me well.”

The clock on the wall ticked once. Outside, a late rain began to fall — soft, steady, the kind that feels like it’s washing dust off the city.

Jimmy set his cup down. “Thank you, Fluke. Whatever you’re doing… it’s working.”

Fluke rose, pausing by the window. “It’s not a treatment,” he said. “It’s a promise.”

Jimmy frowned slightly. “A promise?”

Fluke looked at him, eyes unreadable but kind. “That he won’t forget alone.”

He turned toward the hallway, his voice dropping to a whisper as he passed.

“Goodnight, Jimmy.”

The apartment exhaled into stillness. The rain eased. The world seemed to hold its breath.

From behind Joss’s door came a quiet murmur in sleep — a name, almost lost to the night.

“Gawin...”

Jimmy sat up, unsure if he’d heard right.

The apartment was quiet except for the hum of the air conditioner and the faint ticking of the wall clock. Then it came again—a sound that didn’t belong to the hour or the place. A low, uneven murmur, half-dream, half-memory.

“Gawin…”

He froze. The name was one he hadn’t heard from Joss in months. Slowly, he rose from the couch, every step deliberate, careful not to startle the silence that had fallen over the room.

“Gawin…”

The third call was clearer, heavier. He crossed the small living room to his brother’s door, his pulse quickening. When he turned the doorknob, a thin strip of warm light spilled out.

Inside, Joss was twisting under the sheets, his forehead damp, lips parting around the same name again and again.

Jimmy whispered, almost to himself, “Is he dreaming?” He stepped closer and placed a hand on Joss’s shoulder. “Joss, Nong—wake up. You’re dreaming.”

Joss stirred, eyes fluttering open, dazed. “Jimmy?”

“You were dreaming,” Jimmy said, his voice soft but shaking. “You said his name.”

“Gawin?” Joss echoed, sitting up, surprise flickering across his face.

Then a forceful grip caught Jimmy’s wrist.

He flinched, instinct tightening through his body, but the hand that held him wasn’t violent—just impossibly firm. It radiated a strange warmth, steady and deep, like the pulse of something living beneath the earth.

Fluke’s voice came low and even, cutting through the charged air. “He’s not hallucinating.”

The words drained the oxygen from the room. Jimmy stood frozen, staring first at his brother, then at the tall, pale man before him.

“Jimmy!” Joss’s voice broke through the haze, high and startled. “You can see him?”

“What—what’s happening to him?” Jimmy managed, his voice cracking halfway.

Joss’s gaze drifted between them, glassy yet aware, like someone surfacing from a long dream. “The two of you are talking,” he said, disbelief curling through the words. “This is absurd.”

Jimmy turned, heart hammering. “What are you talking about?”

Joss swallowed hard, eyes widening as though seeing a memory unfold in real time. “You… you’re talking to Gawin.”

Fluke stepped forward, the faintest smile ghosting across his lips. The lamplight caught in his eyes, deep and unreadable. “Yes,” he said softly. “He’s remembering me.”

Silence pressed between them, broken only by the faint hum of the bedside lamp.

Jimmy tried to speak—to demand, to deny—but his thoughts tangled. “You’re saying you’re—”

Fluke sighed quietly, the sound halfway between patience and pity. “You chase details, Jimmy, and miss the design. That’s why you keep circling what’s already waiting for you.”

He moved closer, each step deliberate, until he was sitting on the edge of Joss’s bed. The motion was smooth, reverent—almost ceremonial. “Welcome back, my dear friend,” he said, his tone softening as he turned toward Joss. “But before we have our moment, I believe you can now give Jimmy his freedom.”

Joss looked offended. "Excuse me... Dear friend? Gawin..."

Fluke looked at Joss with an amused face, and slightly shook his head, as if to say, Not now, Joss. 

Jimmy looked to Joss for answers, but his brother’s expression had changed—no longer confusion, but sudden, dawning realization. His lips parted, the words coming out in a rush.

“Yes! The reason I came to Tha Wang!” He gripped Jimmy’s wrist tighter, eyes shining with a strange, feverish light. “Jimmy—Sea—your friend. I know where he is!”

Jimmy’s pulse jumped. “What are you talking about?”

“Gawin told me,” Joss said, turning to Fluke as if for confirmation. “He saved an abducted kid from Khorat…”

Jimmy’s mind raced. “Khorat? Wait, you’re telling me—Sea’s alive?”

Joss nodded, too fast, too eager. “Gawin brought him to the Priests of Tha Wang, somewhere near the coast. The priests hid—” He stopped suddenly. His brow furrowed, the sentence dissolving halfway through. “They hid—”

Fluke placed a hand on his shoulder. “Take your time. No need to bulldoze through it,” he said gently. “Let the memory settle.”

Joss blinked, confused. “But I—”

“Rest,” Fluke said again, firm but kind. His voice carried something like command, and Joss’s resistance ebbed instantly. The tension drained from his arms; his eyes fluttered shut. Within moments, he was breathing evenly, asleep once more.

 
Jimmy stood frozen, the echo of that impossible name—Sea—still ringing between them. “What did you just do to him?”

Fluke turned to him, calm as before. “Nothing harmful. He’s exhausted. His mind walks a thin line between remembering and breaking.”

Jimmy’s chest tightened. “You said he was getting better.”

Fluke sighed, the weight of centuries in the sound. “I said he is remembering more. But remembering isn’t a straight road. Sometimes it leads you back through the fog.”

Jimmy’s mind tripped over the impossibility of it, but the caregiver in him reached for the only thing he understood: Joss was remembering, and that was enough for now. 

Jimmy stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Tell me the truth. What did he mean by that? About Sea?”

Fluke met his eyes. “It isn’t a lie.”

“Then where—”

Fluke raised a hand, silencing him with a glance that was almost luminous in the low light. “You’ll see soon enough. But I’ve come to the conclusion that Joss went to Tha Wang to look for your friend. In one of my visits to him as the Waylayer, I gave him a hint—that you yourself were lost.”

Jimmy swallowed hard. “Lost?”

“You were running circles around your grief,” Fluke said simply. “I told Joss there was nothing to worry about. Your childhood friend is alive, and in hiding.”

He rose, and as he did, a faint shimmer of mist curled at his feet before fading into nothing.

Jimmy’s breath hitched. For the first time, he believed what he’d been trying not to: that this man—whatever he was—had stepped straight out of Joss’s myths.

He looked once more at his sleeping brother, then back to the pale figure standing guard by the bed. “Fluke—or Gawin,” he said quietly, “if you really can help him—can we focus on bringing Joss back to me instead?”

Fluke’s gaze softened. “That’s the plan,” he said. “But remember, Jimmy—he’s not the only one who needs saving.”

Outside, the city lights dimmed for a heartbeat, as though something vast had turned its gaze toward them.

Chapter Text

Jimmy sat at the dining table, elbows on his knees, staring at the cold cup of coffee in front of him. Beyond the half-closed door, he could hear the faint rhythm of Joss’s breathing: uneven, labored, too light for comfort.

The quiet broke with the sound of the guest room door opening.

Fluke stepped out — but this time, there was something different in the way he moved. The ease, the practiced warmth, was gone. His eyes, always so calm, carried the exhaustion of someone who had been fighting gravity itself.

“You don’t have to call me Fluke anymore,” he said quietly. “Since the jig is up.”

Jimmy looked up slowly. “Then what do I call you?”

“Gawin.” The name hung between them like a chord struck from some invisible distance — resonant, undeniable.

Jimmy’s mouth worked before sound came out. “So it is true… you’re… him. The one from his dreams.”

“Yes.” Gawin stepped closer, bare feet silent on the floorboards.

He sat across from Jimmy, folding his hands on the table. For a long moment, neither spoke.

Then, finally, Jimmy asked, “Why can’t he wake up properly? Why does he keep slipping like this?”

Gawin’s gaze drifted toward the half-open door, where the pale light of morning touched the edge of Joss’s bed. “Because his memory is no longer a network,” he said. “It’s a scattering. Fragments floating without bridges between them. Every time he tries to remember, he crosses a gap that isn’t there.”

Jimmy’s throat tightened. “Can it be fixed?”

Gawin hesitated — just long enough for the silence to answer first. “Initially, I thought so,” he said finally. “But when he remembered me as Gawin— and not as Fluke... When he remembered me only as the Waylayer… I realized that his mind went back to the time before his seizure in Tha Wang. Everything that came after — your visits, his collapse, his recovery — it’s now locked behind walls, to allow this old fragment to surface.”

Jimmy pressed his palms to his face, trying to breathe. “So you’re saying he’s getting worse?”

Gawin didn’t answer right away. His eyes flicked to the rain-wet window. “His body is failing faster than it should. The fragmentation of memory means his being — mind, spirit, vessel — are slowly eroding away. He doesn’t have long before one abandons the others.”

Jimmy looked up sharply. “How long?”

Gawin’s silence was answer enough.

A tremor passed through Jimmy’s jaw, the kind that wasn’t anger yet but grief learning how to speak. “You said you’d help him.”

“I am.”

“By watching him fade?” His voice cracked, loud in the still air. “You’re a spirit, aren’t you? Can’t you do anything about this? Can’t you help?”

The question hit the table like a thrown stone.

Gawin closed his eyes for a moment, as though steadying something vast inside him. When he opened them again, they were clear — impossibly calm. “I could, but I won’t,” he said.

Jimmy’s heartbeat stuttered. “You won’t?” he repeated, disbelief raw in his throat. “You’re just going to stand there and let him die?”

Gawin’s gaze didn’t waver. “You think mercy is the same as interference,” he said quietly. “It isn’t.”

Jimmy pushed back from the table, his chair scraping the floor. “What use is your... I thought you were his friend.”

“Actually… I’m not his friend. At least not anymore,” Gawin replied. “And it doesn’t matter. I know where the line is drawn.”

Jimmy stared at him, breathing hard. “What line?”

“The one between remembering and rewriting,” Gawin said. His voice stayed calm, but the air around him seemed to shift — the faint hum of something vast, restrained. “If I cross that line, he stops being himself. He stops being human.”

Jimmy shook his head. “This is pathetic. You have power over us, humans. Don’t you have friends who heal? Other spirits who protect?”

Gawin’s expression flickered — pain, then patience. “No,” he said simply. “These fantastical things you believe our kind has done, are just stories. We guard the shape of the world as they are, not as we want them to be.”

He took a slow breath, eyes unfocused, as if seeing something far beyond the apartment walls. “You think it’s cruel that I won’t touch him — but cruelty is letting love remake the world until nothing remains but ruin.”

Jimmy stood frozen, his anger collapsing into something smaller, sharper. “Then what’s the point of you?” he whispered. “If you can’t save anyone?”

“You speak so freely, but what of your kind,” Gawin said. “Are we here to yield to your every beck and call?”

The words hung there — heavy, merciless, true.

Jimmy’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “You’re just deflecting. I’m not asking you to save the world. Just Joss!.”

“It would have been much easier to save the world,” Gawin said, a shadow of sorrow crossing his face. “Changing the world for just Joss, You don’t understand how I desire to reweave the whole of existence.”

He looked toward Joss’s closed door, the faint outline of the man who still dreamed within. “But if I touch him now,” he said, almost to himself, “I’d be taking away the last thing that’s still his — his right to finish the story as a mortal.”

Silence thickened between them, filled only by the quiet ticking of the wall clock and the hum of the rain gutters outside. Jimmy lowered his gaze, jaw tight, tears burning where they didn’t fall.

Gawin’s tone softened further, almost human again. “You can still save him, Jimmy. Not from dying — but from being forgotten. That’s where your hands still matter.”

He turned away, the faint shimmer of mist curling around his feet again, like memory taking shape. “That’s where mine don’t.”

The clock ticked once. Outside, a stray breeze rattled the window latch.

Gawin rose, his shadow crossing the table. “But there’s still time to give him peace,” he continued. “He came to Tha Wang looking for Sea. That thread is still open — I can help you reach him. But you’ll have to go soon. Before Joss forgets the road entirely.”

Jimmy stood too, his breath unsteady. “And what about him?”

“I’ll keep him safe while you’re gone,” Gawin said. “But you need to understand — his body won’t wait. Even if I hold his memory together, the vessel is weakening.”

Jimmy pressed his palms to the table, trying to steady the shake in his arms. “You sound like you’ve already accepted it.”

Gawin’s expression softened — a sadness that wasn’t pity. “Are humans so simple that emotions always need to be black and white?” he said. “All I can do now is walk beside him, and respect that path. As for you, I need you to free your friend from his self-imposed shackles.”

For a moment, neither moved.

The world outside the apartment seemed to have gone silent, as if waiting for the words to settle.

Then Jimmy said quietly, “If I go… how does that help Joss?”

Gawin looked at him, something almost tender flickering behind his stillness.

“He’s been connecting trying to solve this puzzle even when I tried my best not to interfere,” he said. “All because you’re the first thing his mind reaches for.”

He paused — a breath, almost human. “Isn’t that worth honoring?”