This blog operates as a small fictional mailroom dedicated to written correspondenceâ stories, letters, and emotional records processed through writing.
All works published here take the form of mail.
Some are soft messages meant to arrive safely.
Others were never delivered at all.
đŹ OUTGOING MAIL [status: delivered]
đ DRAFT DESK [status: pending]
đŠ RETURN TO SENDER [status: fragile]
đ ARCHIVED CORRESPONDENCE [status: restricted]
POSTMASTER NOTE
This blog is maintained by a writer and one beagle.
NEVER NOT âËàż for as long as I live and as long as I love I will never not think about you
Package contents [FRAGILE]: major character death, mental health issues, health issues, mentions of hallucination, grief, heavy angst
Registered to: Megan Skiendiel
Revision status: Ongoing
Courier's remarks: This series is not a REAL portrayal of the people in this fic. This was made for entertainment purposes. All pics are from pinterest and dividers were made by me in canva!
Chapter I; Never not [-tba]
Fans find everything no matter how much celebrities hide it. Unfortunately for Megan, they found you, her lover.Â
Chapter II; Eternity [-tba]
Megan knows youâre strong. She just wishes she were too.Â
Chapter III; My favorite clothes [-tba]
Unfortunately, you're not the only one who's wearing your clothes.
Chapter IV; Merry Christmas, I miss you [-tba]
How to promise a lifetime together; a failed attempt
Megan wasnât used to the rush of Katipunan jeepneys.
Sheâd grown up abroad, where commuting meant cold buses and polite silence. Here, every ride was aliveâ voices overlapping, coins clinking down the line, drivers yelling over engines.
She wasnât used to it.
But then you climbed in.
You squeezed onto the seat beside her, damp hair clinging to your forehead, maroon UP shirt clinging to your back.
Megan tried to look unfazed, eyes fixed on the jeepneyâs scratched window, but her heart thudded like sheâd just been caught cheating on an exam.
The jeepney jolted forward.
Your thigh brushed hers.
âSan ka bababa?â (Where's your stop?) you asked, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
âDiliman,â she muttered, almost too soft.
You smiledâ eyes crinkling, boyish, easy. âPareho pala tayo.â (Oh, we're the same)
The words werenât special.
But in that second, Megan knew sheâd remember them forever.
She thought it was over.
Just a fleeting ride, just a stranger.
But fate had other plans.
At Maginhawa, she was awkwardly waiting in line at a crowded stall when you appeared beside her, holding skewers of isaw like youâd been waiting just for her.
âJeepney seatmate,â you teased.
âDonât tell me youâre getting corndog?â
She groaned, hiding her face, but her lips tugged upward. âAnd if I am?â
You shook your head, laughing, before handing her a stick of isaw anyway.
âFine. But next time, youâre trying kwek-kwek.â
Next time.
The way you said it, like it was guaranteed, made her stomach flip.
Then at UPTC, she panicked over which milk tea to order, staring too long at the menu.
âMedium Wintermelon, 50% sugar,â you told the cashier.
Megan spun around, wide-eyed. You were already smirking.
âTold you weâd see each other again,â you said, taking your drink.
Her heart was a mess the rest of the day.
From there, it became a pattern.
She saw you sprawled on the Sunken Garden grass, highlighters and readings spread everywhere, patting the spot beside you like youâd been saving it. She saw you at the Main Library, slouched and fighting sleep, and you grinned when you noticed her watching. She saw you at the Academic Oval, walking together under flickering streetlamps, the silence between you warmer than any conversation.
Everywhere she turned, you were there.
And every time, you smiled like she was the only person worth finding in a city this big.
One afternoon, the skies broke open.
Rain poured hard, drenching Katipunan in seconds. Megan found herself under a broken umbrella with you, pressed shoulder to shoulder, sneakers squelching in puddles.
âThe first time I saw you in that jeepney,â she blurted, her voice trembling, âI thought it was just⊠a one-time thing. A stranger Iâd never see again.â
You tilted your head, rain dripping from your lashes. âAnd now?â
Meganâs cheeks burned.
She laughed nervously, trying to keep her voice steady. âNow⊠I donât ever want the ride to end. Not if itâs with you.â
You stared at her for a heartbeat, then reached for her hand without hesitation. Your fingers laced with hers like it was the most natural thing in the world.
And Megan felt itâ that dizzy, unbearable happiness that made her want to hide her face in her palms, that made her smile so wide it almost hurt.
Weeks later, another jeepney ride. Same route, same chaos.
Except this time, Megan didnât sit alone.
You were beside her, shoulders brushing, your pinky hooked around hers under the rattling seat.
You yelled âBayad po!â (Payment!), you passed your coins together, laughing when your hands fumbled.
âSee?â you whispered, leaning close so only she could hear.
âTold you weâd always end up on the same ride.â
Megan bit her lip, grinning so hard her face hurt.
She would never tell you how hard she manifested that you two would always end up on the same ride.
And as the jeepney roared through Katipunan, crowded and loud and alive, Megan realizedâ home wasnât abroad, or Manila, or even UP.
Home was you, right here, pressed against her side, smiling like you both already knew how the story would end.
"A Bird May Love a Fish, But Where Would They Live?"; (Megan Skiendiel x reader)
Masterlist: Archived Correspondence
Revision Status: Completed
You and Megan love each other.
That was never the problem.
Your friends said you couldnât survive her world, hers said sheâd get bored of yours.
They were wrong about the love.
But they were right about the rest.
Megan needed the tideâ the parties, the strangers, the glitter that stuck to her collarbones.
You needed the stillnessâ books spread open on your bed, quiet mornings where love was slow and steady.
Both of you tried.
Both of you stayed longer than you should have, because love begged you to.
You tried to drown in her sea.
You let her press a shot glass into your palm and kissed her with lime on your lips. You stumbled through songs you didnât know, laughed louder than you felt, let the bass bruise your ribs. And sometimes it workedâ sometimes her hand in yours made you forget the water rising.
Other times, it didnât.
One night you stayed too long in the corner, watching her sway and spin. She caught you staring. She came back breathless, cheeks red, strands of hair stuck to her skin.
âWhy donât you dance?â she asked, voice trembling with alcohol and disappointment.
âI donât know how,â you admitted.
âYou donât have to know how,â she snapped, softer than anger but harder than love.
âYou just have to want to.â
âI do want to,â you said.
And you did.
But wanting wasnât enough.
The silence afterward was the beginning of the end.
And still, she kissed you afterward.
Still, she whispered âI love youâ against your collarbone.
Still, you stayed.
Because if love couldnât save you, then what could?
One night you tried to keep up, body heavy and head spinning, letting strangers pull you into a circle that wasnât yours.
Megan danced like the world was hers, and you wanted to be part of it. You wanted so badly. But your hands shook when you reached for her.
She didnât notice.
Or maybe she pretended not to.
When she finally came back, she collapsed against you, sweat on her skin, heartbeat frantic against your chest.
âYou okay?â she asked, voice still bright, still high from the rush.
You lied. âYeah.â
You always lied.
Later, in the quiet, you broke. Sitting on her bed, her hair damp from the shower, your voice cracked open.
âI love you,â you said,
âbut I donât know if I can do this anymore.â
She froze. âDo what?â
âThis. The parties. The noise. Iâm trying, Megan, I swear I am. But it feels like Iâm disappearing.â
Her face fell, just a fraction, but it was enough.
âAnd you think itâs easy for me?â she whispered.
âYou think I donât notice when youâre miserable in the corner, when Iâm trying to pull you in and you wonât move?â
You shook your head, tears blurring your vision. âI want to move. I want to want it. But I canât make myself belong.â
Silence stretched, sharp as glass.
âI love you,â she said finally, voice small.
âI really do.â
âI know,â you whispered back.
âThatâs the worst part.â
The last night wasnât dramatic.
No slammed doors, no screaming. Just the two of you holding onto each other too tightly, knowing it was the last time.
She cried into your shoulder, you buried your face in her hair. You stayed like that until morning, until the city outside was awake again and you couldnât pretend anymore.
You leaned into her one last time, your forehead pressed to hers, your tears mixing. Her hands clutched you like she could anchor you here, like love alone might make the sea rise to meet the sky.
âI love you,â you said.
âI love you moreâ she breathed.
When you left, she didnât stop you. When she stayed, you didnât drag her with you.
Megan Skiendiel was used to changes she didnât ask for.
Managers rotated, staff left, trainers came and went, but when she found out her psychiatrist had transferred to another hospital, something inside her cracked.
The thought of starting over made her stomach twist.
Another stranger with another clipboard who would stare at her like a puzzle to solve.
She sat stiffly in the waiting room, cap pulled low, hoodie sleeves twisted in her hands.
When the nurse finally called her name, she exhaled hard and muttered, âLetâs get this over with.â
She opened the doorâ and stopped.
You werenât what she expected.
You were young. Too young, almost.
No silver hair, no stiff suit, no glasses perched low. Just youâ smiling warmly, casual in a way that unsettled her because it felt like you werenât trying to intimidate her.
âYou must be Megan,â you said, standing to shake her hand.
âIâm Y/n. You can just call me that.â
She blinked. âYouâre the psychiatrist?â
You chuckled. âLast I checked.â
Her lips twitched, but she caught it before it became a smile.
âHi, doc,â she muttered instead, brushing past you to sit down.
âY/n,â you corrected gently.
âDoc,â she shot back, eyes narrowing playfully.
You laughed, and for some reason it loosened the tightness in her chest.
The first session was a blur.
You didnât ask her about medications or diagnoses right away.
Instead, you leaned back, notebook unopened, and asked, âSo⊠whatâs something you like? Doesnât matter how small.â
Megan stared at you. âThatâs⊠not a therapy question.â
âItâs a getting-to-know-you question,â you said.
âAnd it counts.â
She rolled her eyes, but after a long silence, she muttered, âI like⊠cats. The ugly ones. Cute-ugly, you know?â
Your grin widened. âAh, pangit pero cute. Thatâs how we say it in Tagalog.â
You laughed so hard you had to cover your face. âClose enough.â
She crossed her arms, fighting a smile. âWhatever. Donât laugh at me, doc.â
âY/n,â you reminded.
âDoc,â she insisted.
And just like that, the ice cracked.
The next sessions werenât as scary.
She still struggled to talk, but you had a way of making silence comfortable. Sometimes youâd throw in a Tagalog phrase and nudge her to repeat it.
âMagpahinga ka,â you said one evening when she admitted she hadnât slept properly in days.
She wrinkled her nose. âMagâŠpahingâga?â
You shook your head, smiling. âAlmost. It means rest. You need it.â
She rolled her eyes but whispered it again under her breath. She liked the way you said things, soft and unhurried, like you werenât rushing her to heal.
She still greeted you the same every session though, no matter what.
âHi, doc!â sheâd say, slipping into your office with her hoodie sleeves covering her palms.
And every time, youâd reply with a mock-sigh, âHi, Megan. Itâs Y/n.â
She never changed it.
Somehow, âdocâ felt safer.
But the world outside didnât get safer.
The hate comments dug under her skin like claws.
Rehearsals stretched past midnight, her body aching while her smile stayed plastered on for the cameras. Some days, she couldnât even hear her own thoughts over the noise.
One night, walking under strings of fairy lights by the river, it all came crashing down. Her chest tightened, breath coming short and sharp. She pressed against the railing, tears blurring her vision as strangers walked past, oblivious.
And then she heard your voice.
âMegan?â
She spun, panic clawing her throat. âDonâtâ donât touch me.â
You froze, keeping distance. âOkay. I wonât.â
Her tears burned hotter. âWhy are you here? Do you stalk me now? Is this part of your job? To watch me fall apart?â
âMeganââ
âYou donât care!â she snapped.
âNone of you do! Youâre all just⊠paid to listen. Youâll leave. Everyone leaves!â
Her voice cracked.
She wanted you gone.
Noâ she wanted you to stay.
You stepped closer, calm and steady.
âIâm not leaving,â you said, voice firm, âuntil you tell me youâre satisfied with my care.â
Her laugh was bitter, broken. âI am. Now leave me alone.â
âNo.â You shook your head, unwavering.
âBecause I know youâre not.â
And something in her chestâ something fragile sheâd buried deepâ splintered open.
You werenât lying.
You werenât running.
You were just there.
For the first time in years, she believed someone might stay.
After that night, she began to talk more in therapy.
Not all at once, but piece by piece.
She told you about the loneliness in dorm rooms that never felt like home. About nights when applause echoed in her ears but left her feeling hollow. About thoughts she wasnât proud of, dark ones she was too afraid to say out loud until you made it safe.
You listened, always.
Never with pity, just quiet understanding.
One day, she slumped into her chair and mumbled, âHi, doc.â
You gave her a look. âHow long are we going to keep doing this?â
âForever,â she said, stubborn but smiling.
You sighed dramatically, but she caught the way your lips twitched.
The change was small, but real.
She laughed more.
She let herself be quirky, awkward.
Sometimes sheâd repeat your Tagalog words just to make you laugh, pretending she wasnât secretly proud when you told her she got it right.
One afternoon, sunlight streamed through the blinds as she fiddled with the strings of her hoodie. She was rambling about something silly, and for once, her chest didnât ache.
She felt⊠content.
The words slipped out before she could stop them.
âI am so, so, so satisfied with your care.â
You blinked, caught off guard.
Her cheeks burned, and she covered her face with her hands. âI meanâ I donât knowâ youâre just⊠good at this. Annoyingly good.â
You chuckled, warm. âIâm glad you feel that way, Megan.â
She peeked at you through her fingers, and her whisker dimples showed before she could hide them.
For the first time in years, she thought: Maybe Iâll be okay.
But the next session, you werenât there.
The chair across from her was filled by someone elseâ older, serious, exactly what she had feared from the start.
They introduced themselves quickly, explaining that you had been transferred to another facility. Temporary, maybe permanent.
No one knew.
Megan sat frozen, words sticking in her throat. She nodded when expected, answered when asked, but her eyes never left the empty space where you should have been.
The room felt colder.
That night, she found herself back under the fairy lights by the river, the same place where she had fallen apart, the same place you hadnât left her. The crowd bustled, the lights glowed, but she stood still, staring at nothing.
Her lips trembled as she whispered to the night air, to the absence, to you, wherever you were:
âI really was satisfied with your care.â
The words floated up like smoke, fragile and fleeting.
And even though it hurt, they were true.
Authors note:
This fic is written in honor of the Filipino healthcare workers inside and outside of the country. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BRINGING SUCH A GOOD NAME TO OUR COUNTRY, PROVIDING SERVICE TO PEOPLE IN NEED.
And also, I wrote this because I watched a big hero 6 edit and I JSUT HAD TO OH MY FLIP JNGWLEVRGNLEKWV
âDo you think⊠weâre together in every universe?â Megan asked one night, her voice a fragile thing, like glass threatening to break if she breathed too hard.
You didnât hesitate.
You never did.
You turned to her, eyes glowing with certainty, lips curling in that soft smile that always unraveled her.
âIn every universe, Mei.â
And she believed you.
She always did.
The kitchen on Sunday mornings in her mother's house always became a battlefieldâ flour dusting the counters, sugar scattered like snow, laughter spilling into every corner.
Megan stood at the stove, wielding a spatula like a weapon, trying once again to flip a pancake into the perfect heart.
It flopped over, charred on one side, crooked on the other.
âItâs modern art,â she declared, proud as ever.
You leaned against the counter, grinning. âItâs a crime against breakfast.â
You smeared flour across her cheek, and before you could pull away, she leaned in to kiss youâ soft, sweet, tasting faintly of smoke and sugar.
You shoved her playfully, but she caught your hand, squeezing twice before letting go.
It was your code.
It always meant that three words: In every universe
Nights belonged to the rooftop.
The air was cool, damp with dew, the city glowing beneath you like a thousand fallen stars.
You pointed upward, your hand brushing hers as you invented constellations no book could ever confirm.
âThat oneâs the Eternal Cat,â you said with such conviction that Megan burst into laughter.
âYouâre insane,â she replied, though she didnât look at the sky.
She looked at you, bathed in starlight, the corners of your mouth curved in wonder.
âFine. The Eternal Cat. In every universe.â
Your fingers tangled together, and for a fleeting moment, Megan swore you were infinite.
When it rained, the world narrowed down to the two of you.
The windows blurred with droplets, the steady rhythm pattering like a lullaby. Megan sat cross-legged on the floor, her head bowed in your lap as your fingers worked carefully through her hair.
The soft glow of a single lamp painted you both in gold.
âDonât pull too tight,â she murmured, her eyes slipping closed.
âDonât move, or itâll be messy,â you teased, though you were already smiling.
When you tied off the braid, she tugged you down by the wrist and kissed your forehead. Her breath shook as she whispered, âI love this. I love us.â
And you kissed her hand, certain as the rain outside.
âIn every universe.â
The music now was golden and warm, lights dimming overhead as the world slowed around you.
You stood in the middle of the room, radiant, your eyes glimmering like they always did when you looked at her.
Megan stepped forward, offering her hand to you.
You took it without hesitation, slipping into each other's arms as if you were a puzzle.
The world blurred at the edges.
It was just the two of you.
Her hand found your shoulder; yours rested against her waist. She laughed when you stumbled at the first step, and you rolled her eyes, whispering, âI told you I canât dance.â
âShut up, youâre perfect,â she whispered back, spinning under your hand, falling effortlessly back into your chest.
Perfect.
Thatâs what you wereâ glowing, alive, hers.
Your foreheads brushed, and for a second, Megan thought she might cry.
She could feel the shape of forever in the way you held her, in the way your eyes said I love you. I love you, in every universe.
It was dizzying.
It was everything.
It was love, alive and burning.
It was herâ
It had to be herâ
But it wasnât.
The music cracked like a bone snapping.
The illusion shattered, and Meganâs breath froze in her throat.
It wasnât her holding you.
It wasnât her you were looking at like that.
Someone elseâs arms were wrapped around you, someone elseâs hands guided you through the song, someone else spun you into laughter.
She was on the outside, watching.
Watching as the love that once belonged to her bloomed in someone elseâs chest.
Her chest ached, dragging her backâ back to the night she ended everything.
Her eyes had brimmed with tears when she forced the words out: âIf I stay, Iâll lose my dream. And if I go, Iâll lose you. Y/n⊠I canât have both.â The silence had torn through you, jagged and merciless. But you chose her anyway. You always did.
You smiled, steady even as your heart cracked open.âThen lose me, Mei. Iâll carry us in every universe.â Her voice had broken when she whispered the only thing she could cling to: âIn every universe?â And you, sure even in heartbreak, cupped her face and swore it true. âIn every universe.â
Now she stood at the edge of the room, every heartbeat cutting deeper as you danced with someone else the way you once danced with her.
And Megan smiledâ broken, brittle, aching.
âMaybe in another universeâŠâ she whispered into nothing.
âËàżâ«âËàż feelings they come and they go, that they do âËàżâ«âËàż
âËàżâ«âËàż feelings they come and they go, not with you âËàżâ«âËàż
Masterlist: Archived correspondence
Contents Summary: "I love you with all my hypothalamus" she said.
Revision status: Completed
It was the first day of third grade, and the morning sun spilled golden light across the playground. The air smelled faintly of chalk dust and freshly cut grass, and your backpack felt too heavy for how nervous you were.
That was when you noticed her.
A small girl with big, brown eyes already teary, her tiny hand gripping her motherâs with a desperation that made your chest ache. Her lower lip trembled as her mom crouched beside her, whispering something soft, brushing a thumb across her cheek. She shook her head slightly, like she wanted to disappear right there in the middle of the playground.
You didnât know why you kept lookingâ maybe because she looked like she didnât belong yet, and part of you understood that feeling.
You shrugged and headed for the classroom, trying not to stare, but moments later, the door creaked open, and there she was again. Red-eyed. Sniffly. Her knuckles white from clenching her fists. She moved slowly, like the ground itself might give way if she stepped too hard. The teacher introduced her with that gentle tone teachers used for the shy ones, and she just nodded before lowering her gaze.
When she sat down beside you, gloom clinging to her like a shadow, something in you stirredâ a strange mix of guilt and curiosity. You reached into your bag and pulled out a blue Jolly Rancher, the kind you always saved for last. You held it out to her, awkwardly, your hand half-trembling.
She looked up at you, eyes wide and wet. She didnât say anything. Just stared.
âItâs⊠uh, blue raspberry,â you muttered.
Her lips parted slightly before she reached out, slow and hesitant, to take it from your hand. The candy glinted between her small fingers. She didnât smile, not yet. But she didnât cry again, either.
That tiny exchangeâ sweet and silentâ was the beginning of everything.
From that day on, you two were friends.
At first, it was a quiet friendshipâ the kind built on proximity and small gestures.
Youâd lend her your crayons during art class; sheâd share her snacks at recess. Sometimes youâd trade notes, though hers were usually doodles of stick figures in dresses or cats with hearts around them. She didnât talk much in those early days, but every so often, youâd hear her hum under her breathâ soft, melodic, always in rhythm.
One afternoon, while you were both waiting for your parents to pick you up, you said, out of nowhere, âDid you know your body has more bacteria than human cells?â
She blinked, wrinkling her nose. âThatâs disgusting.â
You grinned, pleased with yourself. âItâs true! They help you survive. Youâd literally die without them.â
âGross,â she said, scooting away with a dramatic gasp.
âIâm never shaking your hand again.â
You laughed, and this time, she did tooâ a small giggle she tried to hide behind her hand. But the corners of her eyes softened, and the sound stuck with you. You didnât know why, but it made your chest feel strangely warm.
That became your thing.
Youâd say the weirdest, most random facts you could find, and sheâd act like youâd just told her something horrifying.
âDid you know your stomach acid could dissolve metal?â
âWhy do you know that?â sheâd groan, clutching her lunchbox like it could protect her.
By fifth grade, everyone already knew how it went: you, the kid who talked too much about science, and Megan, the girl whoâd groan dramatically but never actually tell you to stop.
You were opposites in every way that mattered.
You loved lab kits and diagrams; she loved music and movement. You dissected frogs with fascination; she gagged at the sight of formaldehyde. But somehow, you found each other again and again, in hallways and group projects, in the middle of chaos.
Years passed, and your walks between classes turned into something of a routine.
Youâd ramble on about whatever new thing fascinated you that weekâ the circulatory system, the way neurons fired, the human brainâ and sheâd half-listen while marking dance steps in the air, her sneakers squeaking softly on the tiled floor.
âDid you know your brain produces enough electricity to power a light bulb?â you said one morning, adjusting your glasses.
âYeah? Maybe you should plug yours in,â she said without looking up, her arms tracing a pattern only she understood.
You pretended to be offended. âAt least I have one. You left yours in the studio.â
She paused just long enough to smirk, that little side grin that always made your thoughts scatter like loose paper. Then she went back to her invisible choreography, humming under her breath.
Sometimes, youâd catch her looking thoughtful, though sheâd deny it every time. âYou know,â she said once, âyou talk a lot about hearts and brains, but not much about dancing.â
âThatâs because dancing isnât logical,â you replied without thinking.
She gave you that lookâ the one that made you realize you probably said something wrong.
âNot everythingâs supposed to be,â she said softly, and then she skipped a few steps ahead, leaving you standing there with your backpack and your half-finished thought.
You always liked science because it made sense.
There was always an answer, always a cause and effect.
If something burned, it was because of combustion. If something broke, it was because of stress, pressure, or chemical imbalance. Everything could be traced, explained, dissected, understood.
Maybe thatâs why you talked so muchâ why you rambled about neurons and hormones and the way your heart wasnât really the one that felt things, but your brain pretending it did. Because in a world that felt too uncertain, science gave you structure.
It gave you reason.
Megan didnât.
She was the one thing that didnât fit the formula.
Youâd tell her how fascinating the hypothalamus was, how it controlled emotions, hunger, and desireâ and sheâd just shrug, tossing her hair over her shoulder and saying, âThat sounds boring.â
âBoring?â youâd gasp dramatically.
âIt literally controls you!â
âExactly. I donât need to know whatâs controlling me,â sheâd laugh.
âThat ruins the magic.â
And maybe that was it. You were obsessed with understanding things, and she was obsessed with feeling them.
You stayed like that for yearsâ her dancing through life, you trying to map it out. Somewhere between eighth grade and the first day of high school, the lines blurred.
She grew taller, her laughter softer, her movements more deliberate. You found yourself memorizing her the way you used to memorize bones and muscles, except there was no chart to label her with. No diagram could tell you why your chest tightened every time she smiled at someone else.
You told yourself it was hormonesâ dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, the same chemicals youâd read about in your biology textbooks. Just reactions. Just the body doing what it was meant to do.
But science had an explanation for everything except her.
Sheâd call your name down the hallway and your pulse would trip over itself, irregular. Youâd think of the sinoatrial node misfiring, a simple cardiac anomaly, but that didnât explain why her laugh could slow it down again just by existing.
âDid you know love is basically just chemicals?â you said once, trying to sound casual.
Megan raised an eyebrow, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. âYouâre ruining it again.â
âIâm just sayingâ itâs dopamine, serotonin, oxytocinââ
She pressed a finger to your chest, right over your heart. âThen how come this doesnât feel like a science project?â
You froze.
You wanted to tell her it was just sensory feedback, that your body was interpreting pressure and warmth, but you couldnât. Because she was close enough that you could smell her shampoo, and your brain short-circuited somewhere between logic and something else.
She grinned. âExactly.â
And just like that, she went back to her choreography, leaving you with your theories collapsing in on themselves.
You tried to explain her through anatomy, psychology, anything that made senseâ but she didnât fit.
You could break down the skeletal system, the nervous system, the endocrine systemâ but there was no diagram for the way your stomach flipped when she smiled, or how her voice could settle something restless in you.
By the time you were in high school, youâd stopped trying to categorize her.
Because science could tell you why stars burn, but it couldnât tell you why she looked like one under the gym lights during her first performance. It could tell you how the brain interprets beauty, but not why she was the definition of it.
Megan Skiendiel, who was supposed to be explainable. Who could be dissected down to her heartbeat, her reflexes, her bone structureâ somehow wasnât.
She was more than a collection of data points.
More than dopamine or hypothalamic stimulation.
She was that once-in-a-lifetime anomaly.
The kind of variable no experiment could predict, no equation could hold.
The kind of person who made you believe that maybe not everything in the universe was meant to make sense.
And you hated that.
And you loved that.
Because for the first time, you couldnât explain the one thing that mattered most.
ââ
Every proper scientific investigation begins with a question.
Yours came to you sometime between a pop quiz on atomic structure and a slow afternoon in the lab, when sunlight slipped through the window and landed on Megan Skiendielâs notebook.
She was doodling againâ her pen tracing loops and spirals that looked like motion itself, the kind of rhythm that didnât belong on paper. You caught yourself watching, as if by observing her long enough, you could quantify the reason your pulse always seemed to spike around her.
Research Question: Why does Megan Skiendiel feel like sheâs more than science?
You wrote it on the top of your physics notes, sandwiched between formulas on electric fields and magnetic flux. It looked ridiculous thereâ too human, too abstractâ but somehow it made sense. Youâd spent years believing everything had an explanation. Reactions had causes. Feelings had neurotransmitters. The body was just chemistry pretending to be poetry.
And yet, there she wasâ something that didnât fit into any equation you knew.
Megan was never quiet in the way most people were.
She moved through hallways like she had music pulsing under her skin. Even when she wasnât dancing, her body carried the memory of itâ the curve of her shoulder, the tap of her heel, the way her fingers unconsciously marked beats in the air. Her laughter felt like velocity, her sadness like gravity.
You knew the mechanics of motion. You knew how kinetic energy worked. But you didnât know how someone could become it.
You tried to reason with yourself. Logic first, feeling later.
Humans are biochemical organisms. Every emotion is a reactionâ a surge of dopamine here, a release of oxytocin there. The body doesnât fall in love; it misfires. It learns to crave. You told yourself that when you smiled back at her, when your chest tightened, when your thoughts circled back to her even in silenceâ it was just your brain doing what itâs wired to do.
A scientific fact. Nothing more.
Still, you wrote it down:
Hypothesis: Megan Skiendiel feels like more than science because I am experiencing a heightened dopaminergic response influenced by emotional and sensory triggers.
The sentence looked neat.
Objective.
Safe.
The kind of thing you could defend in front of a teacher without turning red.
But then, during lab one day, she leaned over your shoulder to peek at your notes, her hair brushing your arm, and all the air seemed to rearrange itself around you. You couldâve sworn your ribcage tightened, not from fear or anxiety, but something else entirelyâ something that couldnât be measured by any unit you knew.
âAre you seriously color-coding your data again?â she teased, voice light.
You wanted to laugh.
Or say something clever.
Or pretend you werenât about to rewrite your entire nervous system because of the way she said data.
But you only managed a weak shrug. âOrganization is key to reliable results.â
She grinned, that uneven one where one corner of her mouth lifted just slightly higher than the other. âYouâre such a nerd.â
Your heart rate spiked.
You told yourself it was adrenaline.
It had to be.
But even when she turned away, the echo of her smile lingered like an afterimage burned into your neurons.
That night, you revised your notes.
You added a second line, the ink darker, heavier, more honest than you wanted it to be:
Observation: Subjectâs presence seems to disrupt logical reasoning and elevate heart rate inconsistently.
Possible cause: unknown variable.
Unknown variable.
That was her.
You started noticing patterns. Your attention drifted in class whenever she laughed. Your memory improved when she was your lab partner. Your sentences grew clumsy when she asked questions. And though you could identify the biological explanations for eachâ dopamine, serotonin, cortisolâ you knew there was a margin of error.
Science could explain the process.
It couldnât explain her.
Because how could you chart the exact wavelength of her voice when she hummed under her breath?
How could you calculate the force of her hand brushing yours when passing a beaker?
How could you graph the quiet gravity that made your gaze find her even in a crowded hallway?
You couldnât.
You tried, but the math didnât add up.
So you started thinking maybe you were missing a variable. Something unquantifiable. Something absurd.
Revised Hypothesis: Megan Skiendiel feels like more than science because the human response to her exceeds measurable parameters of attraction and familiarity.
You paused.
Crossed it out.
Alternate Hypothesis: Maybe sheâs more than that. Maybe sheâs proof that not everything in the universe was made to make sense.
That one felt dangerous. The kind of statement that broke the rule of every investigationâ you werenât supposed to fall in love with your subject.
And yet, every experiment seemed to pull you closer.
During group projects, you found yourself focusing less on the task and more on the way she scrunched her nose when thinking. During breaks, you caught yourself waiting for her laugh in the middle of noise. You observed, recorded, analyzedâ but none of it brought you closer to understanding.
At some point, you realized the truth that most scientists fear: you couldnât remain objective. Not with her.
Because she wasnât a phenomenon to be studied.
She was the anomaly that made you question everything you believed about logic, and maybe, about yourself.
You began to suspect that the real experiment wasnât about Megan at all.
It was about what happened to your understanding of the world the moment she stepped into it.
You didnât know it then, but your hypothesis was already failingâ not because it was wrong, but because it was too small for her.
ââ
Every scientist knows that hypotheses mean nothing without data.
You canât just feel that somethingâs trueâ you have to prove it.
So thatâs what you told yourself when high school began: this wasnât infatuation.
This was observation.
Controlled variables.
Data collection.
At least, thatâs what it was supposed to be.
You started keeping a mental logâ tiny records of the times Megan Skiendiel disrupted your internal systems.
Date: August 12.
Location: Hallway, near locker 314.
Observation: Subject laughs while talking to friends. The sound registers as pleasant, possibly euphoric.
Duration: 3.7 seconds.
Result: Increased pulse rate, loss of spatial awareness, possible dopamine surge.
You wrote it in your notebook later, as though treating your heart like a specimen might make it easier to hold. It didnât.
Because soon, the observations stopped being numbers and started becoming moments.
Like when she walked into biology class one Monday morning, hair still damp from the rain, strands sticking to her cheeks. You tried not to look, but your eyes betrayed youâ recording every droplet, every reflection, every heartbeat that stuttered out of rhythm.
Or when she was assigned as your lab partnerâ again, as if fate itself had a sense of humor. You told yourself it was just another experiment, a chance to collect data. But your hands shook when she passed you the microscope slides.
âRelax,â she said, smiling as if she didnât just throw your nervous system into chaos.
âYou look like the frog weâre about to dissect.â
You almost dropped the scalpel.
âDid you know,â you said weakly, desperate to reestablish some kind of control, âthat frogs can absorb oxygen through their skin?â
She raised an eyebrow. âDid you know thatâs still gross?â
You laughedâ too loud, too quick. You could hear your heart pounding in your ears.
Later, you wrote:
Result: Subject continues to elicit unpredictable physiological responses. Hypothesis remains inconclusive. Recommend further testing.
And so you did.
Every day, another test.
Another observation.
Another chance to understand.
You sat beside her during study periods, pretending to focus on equations while she tapped her pencil in rhythm to songs only she could hear. You walked her home sometimes, both of you balancing between conversation and silence.
Sheâd talk about dance recitals, about the exhaustion of movement, about how music lived in her bones. Youâd nod, listening, but mostly you were studying the way she looked when she talked about the things she lovedâ how her whole body leaned toward joy, like it couldnât help it.
âDid you know,â you said once, âthat when you talk about something you love, your pupils actually dilate?â
She squinted at you. âAre you⊠studying me right now?â
You almost said yes.
You almost said I donât know how to stop.
Instead, you smiled awkwardly and looked away. âPurely scientific observation.â
She laughed. âYouâre weird.â
But she didnât sound like she minded.
Over time, the experiment grew messy.
Uncontrolled.
Youâd find yourself staring at her for too long, forgetting to record your findings. Youâd catch her watching you sometimes tooâ brief, unreadable glances that sent your mind spiraling into new theories.
You tried to define it, to frame it in familiar language:
Adrenaline? No. Too calm.
Lust? No. Too steady.
Attachment? Closer, maybe, but incomplete.
There was something elseâ some chemical, some spark beyond naming.
One night, while you were both working on a project at her house, she fell asleep on the couch beside you. Her hair spilled over the cushions like ink, her breathing soft and even. The TV hummed quietly, casting a warm light across her face. You sat there, motionless, watching the rise and fall of her chest.
It felt wrong to look, and yet impossible not to.
Because in that moment, she didnât feel like a variable.
She didnât feel like a subject.
She felt like the whole study.
You realized then that no graph could ever hold what you were feeling. No microscope could magnify it. No law of motion could explain why the world felt still whenever she was near.
You wrote it down anyway:
Conclusion (temporary): Megan Skiendiel cannot be studied objectively. Every attempt to observe leads to interference from the observerâs own emotional bias.
Possible explanation: love is the contamination of reason.
You laughed softly when you read it back, because it sounded too poetic for your own handwriting.
But the next day, when she walked beside you in the hallwayâ her shoulder brushing yours, your hearts accidentally synchronizing in rhythmâ you thought maybe contamination wasnât such a bad thing.
Maybe thatâs how discovery begins.
ââ
Science class that day was about the hypothalamusâ a small almond-shaped structure buried deep in the brain, responsible for regulating emotion, hunger, and body temperature.
At least, thatâs what the textbook said.
âThink of it,â your teacher began, tapping the board, âas your emotional control center. It tells you when youâre hungry, when youâre scared, and sometimesââ she paused for effect, ââwhen youâre in love.â
You shouldnât have looked at her.
You really shouldnât have.
But Megan was sitting two seats away, idly twirling her pen between her fingers, the afternoon sunlight hitting her hair just right. And suddenly, the word love wasnât just a theoretical conceptâ it was a live experiment happening in real time, in your own chest.
Your brain understood the lesson.
Your hypothalamus, apparently, did not.
You tried to focus.
You really did.
The teacherâs voice became background noise, a blur of scientific termsâ amygdala, oxytocin, dopamine releaseâ while your pencil hovered uselessly above the page.
You glanced at Megan again, and it was ridiculous how something as simple as her leaning forward to tie her shoe could short-circuit your entire nervous system.
Maybe it was funny, in a tragic sort of way. Youâd spent years memorizing how the body worked, and now your own had turned into a mystery you couldnât solve.
Your notes that day turned into chaos:
Hypothesis: Feelings are chemical. Observation: Megan smiled at me again. Heart rate spiked. Hands sweaty. Vision tunnelled.
Analysis: Either Iâm dying or Iâm in love.
âDid you know,â you whispered later during lab, âthat the hypothalamus releases hormones that trigger attraction?â
Megan raised an eyebrow. âAre you diagnosing yourself right now?â
You chuckled, pretending not to mean it. âPurely scientific inquiry.â
She smirked, dipping her pipette into the beaker. âUh-huh. Sure, Doctor Love.â
You nearly dropped your test tube.
After class, you walked together toward the courtyard, your notebooks pressed to your chest. The air smelled faintly of chalk and rain, and everything felt heavier somehow.
Megan was rambling about dance rehearsals, about how her group couldnât get their timing right, and all you could think was how do I explain to her that timing has never worked right for me eitherâ not since she showed up?
She looked at you suddenly. âYou okay? Youâre quiet.â
You blinked. âJust⊠thinking.â
âAbout?â
âScience,â you said automatically.
She laughed. âOf course.â
But your mind was elsewhere, unraveling data, chasing conclusions that refused to make sense. Youâd always believed everything could be explainedâ cells, reactions, behavior, the very rhythm of existenceâ but Megan Skiendiel defied every model.
If attraction was just chemical, why did it feel sacred?
If the hypothalamus only measured emotion, why did yours write poetry in her name?
You opened your notebook that night, unable to stop yourself. The page filled up faster than you could think:
Analysis Report:
Subject: Megan Skiendiel
Independent Variable: Her smile.
Dependent Variable: My sanity.
Controlled Variables: None. Nothing is controlled.
Every observation leads to contradiction.
Every explanation ends with her.
Conclusion pending.
But maybe, not everything beautiful needs to be defined.
Days later, during another class, your teacher wrapped up the topic: âRemember, the hypothalamus governs desire and connection. It reminds us weâre human.â
You caught Megan glancing your wayâ just briefly, just long enough. She smiled, small and knowing.
You looked down at your notes, the corner of your mouth twitching.
Maybe that was the answer all along.
It wasnât about finding the equation.
It was about feeling it.
Because if love begins in the hypothalamus, then Megan was every neuron that fired and every heartbeat that followed.
She wasnât a subject anymore.
She was the result.
But you werenât convinced.
You couldnât be.
Love was supposed to be measurableâ neurons firing, hormones released, patterns of stimulus and response.
There had to be a reason why your chest tightened whenever she laughed, why her name echoed in your head like a heartbeat. It had to be science.
So, you started over.
New experiment. New set of variables.
Same subject.
Day 1: You decided to ignore her.
You sat on the opposite side of the room during class, eyes fixed on your notebook. If proximity was the independent variable, then distance should yield different results.
Result: Failure. You still found yourself glancing at her reflection on the windowpane. Still felt your heart rate spike when she laughed at someone elseâs joke.
Conclusion: Distance changes nothing.
Day 2: You tried distraction.
If focus was the dependent variable, maybe shifting it could fix the problem. You read ahead in your science textbook, highlighted diagrams, even practiced solving chemical equations.
But your pen slowed every time your brain whispered her name.
Your margin notes turned to nonsense halfway through the chapterâ sentences dissolving into something unscientific.
Megan is laughing again. Her hair smells like rain. My brain refuses to shut up.
Day 3: You decided to talk to herâ calmly, neutrally, like a scientist observing his subject.
You found her in the hallway, sitting cross-legged on the floor with her water bottle, scrolling through her phone. She looked up at you, smiling that lazy, familiar smile.
âHey,â she said.
And that was it.
Hey.
Just one syllable, and every controlled variable in your body broke.
Your pulse jumped. Your breath hitched. You felt the words âthis isnât happeningâ dissolve into the air between you.
âDid you know,â you said weakly, trying to anchor yourself, âthat your hypothalamus also controls body temperature? Itâs why your cheeks get warm when youâre nervous.â
She tilted her head. âAre you nervous right now?â
You froze. âNo. Maybe. Shut up.â
She laughed, and it was all over.
That night, you went back to your notebook again. You tore out every old page and started rewriting from scratch. Your handwriting was shaky. Your sentences uneven.
Observation Log (Revised): Every logical conclusion collapses in the presence of Megan Skiendiel.
Attempted isolation: failed.
Attempted suppression: failed.
Attempted rationalization: catastrophic failure.
The variable cannot be separated from the scientist. The experimenter has become part of the experiment.
You stared at the words, your heart pounding in your throat. You didnât want to admit what they implied.
If love was just a chemical reaction, then maybe it could fade someday.
But what you felt didnât fadeâ it expanded.
It filled every quiet moment, every gap between breaths.
You rubbed your temples, muttering to yourself.
âIt doesnât make sense. Itâs not supposed to be her.â
And yetâ
It was.
You thought of her smile, the way her laughter seemed to rearrange the molecules in the air. You thought of her eyes, how they carried sunlight even when she was sad. You thought of the way she said your name like it was something gentle, something she didnât want to break.
You leaned back in your chair, defeated.
No graph could plot this. No chart could contain it.
Maybe, you thought, the data was right all along.
Maybe youâd just been too scared to read it properly.
ââ
And then, fair day arrives.
The fair smelled like popcorn, sun-warmed asphalt, and something faintly metallic from the rides. The chatter of students and families swirled around you, but your world had narrowed to one focus. One subject.
Megan Skiendiel.
You found your usual spot near the stage, notebooks abandoned, hypotheses forgotten. Everything else was background noiseâ the music, the crowd, the hot breezeâ but her⊠she was kinetic, impossible, alive.
The announcer called her name.
And just like that, she was on stage.
She moved as if gravity was a suggestion rather than a law. Each step, each leap, each spin was precise but wild at the same time. The sunlight caught her hair and made it shimmer like a halo. Your pulse betrayed your scientific composure, tripping over itself like it had forgotten the rules.
And then she saw you.
Her eyes locked with yours across the stage, and she pointedâ just a small, teasing gestureâ but it landed like an experiment gone right, like a variable youâd been trying to isolate for years finally announcing its presence.
Your hypothalamus would have had an aneurysm if it could.
She danced harder, faster, pouring everything she had into the routine. You could see itâ the rhythm in her bones, the music in her bloodstream. Every motion was alive, defying any model, any calculation you could have made. She wasnât just dancing.
She was being.
Somewhere deep in your chest, the logical part of you tried to speak: âSheâs just motion, just energy, just a performanceââ
But the rest of you ignored it.
Because the truth was obvious, undeniable: Megan Skiendiel could not be measured.
Could not be explained.
Could not be confined by charts, graphs, or laws of physics.
You chewed your lip, holding your notebook tightly, but it felt pointless. There was no formula for the way your chest thudded when she twirled toward you, or the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled at the crowd and still found you in it.
And then, the impossible happened.
At the final pose, she landed lightly on her feet, chest heaving, face radiant. She pointed at you again, winked, and the music faded. For a moment, the fair, the rides, the noiseâ all of itâ disappeared. There was just you. And her.
You laughed, breathless and disbelieving. This wasnât supposed to happen in a controlled experiment. Variables were supposed to stay in line. Observers werenât supposed to feel. Hypothalamuses werenât supposed to combust.
But here you were.
Heart rate: off the charts.
Pulse: non-compliant.
Hypothalamus: completely overruled.
She had broken all your rules, shattered every hypothesis, and somehow, in doing so, proved something youâd spent years denying: some thingsâ the best things âcannot be reduced to data. Cannot be predicted, cannot be explained, cannot be dissected.
You smiled, notebook forgotten on the bench, chest light with disbelief.
Megan Skiendiel had won.
The anomaly had triumphed.
The result was clear, and the conclusion had never been more obvious.
Love isnât measurable.
Love isnât logical.
Love isnât predictable.
And yet⊠love exists.
Because right now, she was pointing at you.
And you were certain of one thing: no science could ever account for Megan Skiendiel.
And that was perfect.
The fair had emptied almost entirely by the time you made your way backstage, the lingering smell of popcorn and sunbaked asphalt mixing with the faint hum of the rides shutting down.
Megan was folding up her costume, brushing loose curls from her face, still flushed from dancing. Her breath came in quick little huffs, like tiny gusts of wind that you could almost measure if you tried.
You leaned against the wall, pretending to check your notebook, but really⊠you were just staring.
âYou okay?â she asked, half teasing, half concerned, as she slipped into her jacket.
âIâm⊠fine,â you said, though your voice cracked slightly.
You cleared your throat. âFine. Totally. Data collection⊠complete.â
She raised an eyebrow, smirk tugging at her lips. âYeah? And the results?â
You shrugged, trying to keep it casual, but the truth was written all over your face. âInconclusive.â
She laughed, a low, musical sound that made your chest ache in a way no experiment ever could. âYouâve been saying that about me for years.â
âBecause itâs true,â you said, too softly.
You almost kicked yourself.
Almost.
She gave you a sideways glance, her whisker dimples catching the dim backstage light. âYou know, most people wouldâve given up by now.â
âNot me,â you said, stepping closer without realizing it.
âI⊠canât.â
She shook her head, smiling faintly, and you could see the moonlight glint in her brown eyes through the little curls framing her face. The world felt impossibly still, except for the thrum of your own heartbeat and the distant echoes of laughter from the few remaining fairgoers.
You both started walking out together, the path quiet, lined with darkened booths and the lingering scent of fried dough. You walked side by side, your shoulders brushing occasionally, and you realized something: all your years of âresearchâ had been for nothing.
Science couldnât account for this.
For her.
âSo,â she said, nudging your arm lightly, âyouâre really going to just walk me home in silence?â
You laughed, trying to sound casual, but your stomach was doing little somersaults. âI⊠guess I could⊠talk?â
âOh? You? Talk?â she teased, eyes sparkling.
âThis I have to see.â
You grinned, despite the sudden nervous flutter in your chest. âFine. Uh⊠I mean⊠so⊠the fair. Fun?â
âIt was great,â she said.
âBut, clearly, the highlight was me pointing at you from the stage.â
You choked on your own breath, nearly laughing and coughing at the same time. âObviously. The data is incontrovertible.â
She laughed, and your chest tightened painfully in a way no pulse monitor could measure. You stumbled over your next words, rambling like a fool.
âYou⊠you defy all laws of science. Like, I tried⊠I tried to quantify everything about you⊠but every test failed. All my variables⊠dust. Absolutely nothing. And I⊠I justââ
You froze. Somehow, the words that had been bubbling inside since the hypothalamus lesson slipped out before your brain could intercept.
âI love you⊠with all my hypothalamus.â
The world tilted.
The moon seemed to pause in the sky.
You both froze mid-step, and you swore the ground could swallow you whole and it would be justified.
Megan blinked at you, mouth slightly open. And then⊠she laughed. A full, lilting, perfect laugh that made your ears burn. Her whisker dimples deepened, her curls bouncing lightly as her hair framed her face. The moonlight caught the curve of her nose, highlighting it in a way that made your chest clench painfully and beautifully all at once.
âIsnât it supposed to be âI love you with all my heartâ?â she asked, her voice teasing, eyes glimmering.
You shook your head vigorously, flailing slightly with words tumbling out in awkward, excited bursts.
âNo! No, because⊠the heart is⊠fine, right? But the hypothalamusâ listenâ itâs the control center! It triggers everythingâ emotions, reactions, desire, love! Itâs⊠itâs literally the part of your brain that decides all the chemicals that make you⊠you. So, when I say I love you with all my hypothalamus, itâs⊠itâs like⊠itâs my entire brain agreeing to it, not just some⊠some romantic poetic nonsense!â
You trailed off, flustered, hands gesturing helplessly as if you could wave your logic into her understanding.
She tilted her head, both hands suddenly cupping your cheeks. Your brain short-circuited entirelyâ pulse, hypothalamus, and all. Her brown eyes softened in the moonlight, curls brushing your forehead.
âI love you⊠with all my hypothalamus too,â she said, her voice firm, sincere, and entirely magical.
You blinked, processing, trying to formulate a response that didnât involve fainting or spontaneous combustion. âYou⊠wait, you⊠are⊠serious?â
She smiled that crooked, uneven grin that somehow made everything okay, and you realized the only possible experiment left was to just⊠stay like this.
âCompletely serious,â she said, leaning forward slightly, forehead resting against yours.
âBrain, heart, hypothalamus⊠all of it.â
You laughed softly, breathless, utterly defeated by science and love simultaneously. âThen⊠then I guess⊠hypothesis confirmed?â
She rolled her eyes fondly. âMaybe. Or maybe science still has no idea whatâs happening.â
And for once, you didnât care.
Because Megan Skiendiel was everything unquantifiable.
Everything beautiful.
And now⊠everything yours.
The streetlights flickered softly as you and Megan walked home, the night air cool against your flushed cheeks.
The fair was gone behind you, leaving only the faint smell of popcorn and summer grass. Her hand brushed yoursâ innocently, accidentallyâ but it was enough to make your entire nervous system fire like a faulty lab experiment.
âSo,â she said, kicking at a small pebble, âyouâre really going to keep using âhypothalamusâ in every love confession from now on?â
âI⊠maybe,â you admitted, shoving your hands into your pockets.
âItâs⊠more accurate. Scientific. Definitive. Totally fails to sound romantic, though, I know.â
She laughed, the sound spilling over you like sunlight. âDefinitive, huh? Well, I appreciate precision.â
âYou appreciate precision?!â you said, eyes widening.
âYou justâ what if I messed up the exact dopamine response? Or⊠the oxytocin peak? My entire data setââ
âYouâre ridiculous,â she interrupted, smiling.
âAnd adorable. But yes, go on, Doctor Love, tell me more about your experiment.â
You exhaled, suddenly realizing how ridiculous you sounded, and laughed too. âOkay, fine, the data is⊠inconclusive. But the trend is clear. You make my heart do things no textbook can explain. You make every system in my body overreact. Andââ
ââand your hypothalamus combusts?â she supplied, grinning mischievously.
âYes! Exactly!â You threw your hands up, spinning slightly.
âAnd itâs not just a phase. The experiment is repeatable. Every encounter with you causes⊠this.â
You pointed vaguely at your chest, flustered and desperate.
She tilted her head, curls bouncing in the streetlight. âI donât know, I think you just love overcomplicating things.â
âMaybe,â you said, smiling sheepishly, âbut itâs all because of you. You⊠defy science, Megan. You⊠youâre impossible. And I⊠I love you.â
She stopped walking suddenly, eyes glimmering in the lamplight. Slowly, she reached out and took your hand in hers.
Warm.
Solid.
Comforting.
âI love you too,â she said softly, her thumb brushing the back of your hand.
You both stood there for a long moment, the quiet of the night stretching around you. Cars passed occasionally, a dog barked in the distance, but none of it seemed to matter.
Then she nudged you gently. âSo, now what? Do we⊠go home and continue studying each other scientifically?â
You laughed, cheeks burning, and squeezed her hand. âOnly if we record the pulse, the dopamine, and the blush frequency. For posterity.â
She groaned dramatically, pretending to roll her eyes, but her smile betrayed her. âYouâre impossible.â
âAnd yet,â you said, leaning closer, âscientifically proven to be completely irresistible.â
She laughed again, head tilting into the curve of your shoulder as you started walking. âFine. But just so you know, Iâm totally going to sabotage your data.â
âI wouldnât have it any other way,â you admitted, chest light, heart chaotic, and brain officially overrun.
The moon rode high above you, casting pale light over the quiet streets. You walked home side by side, talking about nothing and everything, laughing at silly hypotheticalsâ like testing if ice cream could enhance serotonin better than chocolate, or whether dancing barefoot increased oxytocin by at least 17%.
Every little brush of her hand, every shared smile, every echo of her laughter made you forget all the theories, all the experiments, all the rules.
Science couldnât explain it.
Logic didnât apply.
The universe, somehow, had decided that Megan Skiendiel was entirely unquantifiableâ and entirely yours
Because some thingsâ like Meganâ were meant to be unmeasurable, unpredictable, perfect.
The sun had barely climbed high enough to stop being forgiving.
Megan decided this roughly forty-five minutes into her shift, when her feet already ached, her smile felt stapled on, and the scent of breadâ warm, yeasty, sweetâ had gone from comforting to cruel.
Three hours.
Three whole hours trapped behind a booth instead of wandering the fair with you, fingers laced, stealing bites from overpriced snacks, laughing too easily around you.
All because she forgot to put her name on the damn Google Doc.
She leaned against the back counter of the booth, arms crossed, chin tucked into her hoodie, eyes half-lidded as another group of students approached.
âNext!â Daniela called out brightly, already slipping into her competent and cheerful mode, apron tied neatly around her waist.
She shot Megan a sideways glance, the corner of her mouth twitching. âTry not to look like youâre being held hostage.â
Megan huffed. âI am being held hostage.â
By bread.
The boothâ sponsored by some local bakery sheâd already forgotten the name ofâ was stacked with loaves and pastries, labels handwritten on little black signs. Cinnamon rolls. Brioche. Sourdough. Something filled with chocolate that kept selling out every ten minutes.
Elle stood at the register, posture stiff, fingers hovering like she was afraid the screen might bite her. She laughed awkwardly at Danielaâs comment.
âUhâ sheâs doing great,â Elle said, a little too quickly, flashing Megan a sympathetic smile that didnât quite land.
Megan didnât return it. She just straightened, pasted on a neutral expression, and grabbed a pair of tongs.
âWhat can I get you?â she asked the next customer, voice flat, eyes fixed somewhere around their shoulder instead of their face.
Daniela nudged her gently when the customer stepped aside.
âHey,â she murmured, softer now.
âI know it sucks. But youâll survive. Three hours isnât forever.â
Megan nodded, lips pursed, still not looking at her. âMm.â
She served another order. And another. Time dragged, sticky and slow. Each glance at the fair beyond the boothâ students laughing, music playing somewhere near the main stageâfelt like salt in a paper cut.
She shouldâve been with you.
She was thinking about thatâ about how youâd probably be searching for her already, texting where are you? or I found the cotton candy stand you were talking about âwhen a familiar voice cut through the hum of chatter.
âNot even happy to see me?â
Megan froze.
For half a second, she thought she imagined it. Like her brain had finally cracked and started conjuring you out of sheer longing.
Then she looked up.
And there you were.
Leaning against the edge of the booth like you belonged there. Smile soft but teasing, eyebrows raised, eyes warm in that way that always made something in her chest loosen.
Her breath caught.
âOh myââ Daniela started, already grinning.
Megan didnât finish her order.
She dropped the tongs onto the counter with a clatter, ducked under the edge of the booth, and ran.
She didnât think. Didnât care about the line or the bread or the fact that she was technically still on shift. She crossed the space between you in seconds and slammed into you, arms wrapping tight around your shoulders as she buried her face into your neck.
âYouâre here,â she breathed, voice muffled, relief pouring out of her like sheâd been holding it in all morning.
You raised an eyebrow, arms crossed. âThat didnât answer my question.â
She narrowed her eyes playfully. âYouâre so annoying.â
She pulled back just enough to look at your face, hands gripping your jacket like she was afraid you might disappear. âI was stuck. I forgot to sign up. Iâve been here forâ likeâforever.â
âForty-seven minutes,â Daniela called out from the booth, not even pretending to hide her amusement.
Megan shot her a glare over your shoulder. âTraitor.â
But then she looked back at you, pout returning full force. âI was supposed to be with you.â
âIâm soooo happy to see you,â she said. âIâm just grumpy because I should be spending the first day of the fair with you.â
You hummed. âSounds like a you problem.â
She laughed and grabbed your arm anyway, leaning into you like she always did. âYouâre literally the problem. Youâre too fun to not be with.â
You sighed, pretending to be unimpressed, even as you stayed exactly where you were. âI guess Iâll keep you company.â
Her eyes softened instantly. âYou will?â
âSomeone has to supervise you.â
She beamed and hugged you, quick but tight, before pulling away. âOkay, fine. Iâll survive my shift now.â
She bounced back to the booth, mood visibly lighter, sneaking you little smiles between customers like shared secrets.
âËàżâ«âËàż But since you came along, i'm thinking baby, âËàżâ«âËàż
âËàżâ«âËàż you are bringing out a difference kind of me âËàżâ«âËàż
Masterlist: Archived correspondence
Contents Summary: Megan was already having a hard time with college, what more if she has to take a job and her trainer turns out to be you?
Revision status: Completed
Related mail: Class booth
Megan never thought the smell of burnt coffee beans would become part of her daily routine.
But then again, she never thought sheâd be working at the cafe near her campus where she gets her coffee.
College was already heavy: her backpack always felt too full, her wallet always too empty.
So, when her allowance started slipping through her fingers faster than she could refill her planner, she decided to trade a few hours of sleep for a part-time barista gig.
Megan never thought that juggling college and a part-time job would be easy.
You were the âgrumpy one,â according to the online reviews and the whispers of students. She never thought youâd end up being the one training her.
âYouâre late.â Those were the first words you said to her on her first shift.
âIâm only two minutesââ
âThatâs two minutes weâre not prepping the pastry counter. Letâs go.â
You didnât smile. You didnât even look at her properly. But when she nearly sliced her finger on the bagel knife, you pushed her hand away and did it for her without a word.
Meganâs first shift started with spilled milkâ literally. She fumbled the milk jug trying to froth it for a cappuccino, and half of it hit the floor.
You watched her in silence from the register. A deep sigh came out from you, tired, sharp around the edges.
âWipe it up before someone slips,â you said, voice flat, turning away before Megan could read the rest of your face.
But later, when she went to the supply closet for paper towels, she found a mop already leaning by the mess. And when she glanced back, you were across the room, pretending to sort coins in the tip jar, eyes firmly averted.
ââ
It happened again on a rainy Wednesday.
Megan accidentally punched in the wrong order during the rush hour, two drinks turned into six refunds. You snapped.
âFor once, can you just think before you touch the register?â you hissed, voice low so customers wouldnât hear but sharp enough to sting.
Her smile faltered. She ducked her head, muttering, âIâm sorry,â before grabbing the mop to clean the spilled chai latte near the counter.
When she turned away, you saw it. The quick swipe under her eyes, her shoulders trembling just once before she straightened up.
You felt it in your chest, an uncomfortable guilt. You wanted to say sorry but couldnât find the words. So, you made her tea instead, left it on the staff counter. It was all you could manage. She smiled when she found it anyway.
The next day, she found a sticky note on the staff fridge: âDonât forget to eat.â
She turned to ask if it was for her. But you were already at the espresso machine, headphones in, back turned, pretending you didnât see her hold the note up. She stood there for a second, the corner of her lip curling, wondering. Then slipped it into her pocket and didnât push.
ââ
That weekend, Megan sank into her usual corner table at the cafe. Her friends were waiting: Daniela, sprawled out with her laptop; Sophia, doodling in her sketchbook; Yoonchae, already halfway through her third matcha latte; Manon, giggling over some playlist; and Lara, her dorm roommate, scribbling notes.
âSo,â Daniela said, raising an eyebrow. âHowâs the new job? Howâs grumpy?â
âDonât call them that,â Megan mumbled.
âItâs true!â Manon chimed in. âThey look like theyâd hiss at the sun if they could.â
Sophia snorted. âAre they at least cute in a âsleeps 3 hours a nightâ way?â
âShut upâ Megan shouted in a whisper.
ââ
Meganâs first week was chaosâ the cash register jammed twice, a ceramic mug slipped through her fingers and smashed on the floor, and she mixed up a latte order for a mocha and nearly cost them a regular.
You sighed when it happened. Every time. A tired sigh, like youâd seen this a hundred times before and had hoped, somehow, that Megan might be different.
But instead of giving clipped answers, youâd hand her another rag to mop up milk, show her for the third time how to steam it properly, and say: âAgain. Slower this time.â
One rush hour afternoon, she cracked another latte glass. A fancy branded one this time. She froze when you turned around.
âDo you know how much that costs?â you said, exasperated.
She flinched. âIâm sorry, Iâllâ you can take it from my payââ
You slammed the broom down beside her, not quite meeting her eyes. âForget it. Iâll cover it.â
She stared. âBut thatâs like⊠$12 dollars, isnât it?â
You grumbled, brushing past her, voice clipped: âThen stop breaking them, sunshine.â
She turned, watching your back as you pulled down another mug for the next order. But you never turned back. She didnât say thank you. Didnât know how.
But she also didnât know if you meant that last part as mockingly or affectionately, she bet it was the first option.
Later that shift, another co-worker, Jace, cornered you by the fridge. âYou know youâre too hard on her, right?â Jace hissed.
You clapped back. âSheâs clumsy. She needs to learnââ
âSheâs trying. And you care, obviously. Justâ maybe show her you do, yeah?â
You didnât answer.
Couldn't.
That night, Lara found Megan sitting cross-legged on their dorm floor, coffee cup half-empty, textbooks open but forgotten. âYouâre still upset?â Lara asked gently.
âItâs just⊠they donât have to be so mean all the time.â
âYou knew they were grumpy when you signed up for this, sunshine.â
âYeah, butââ Megan sighed, tracing circles on her cup. âSometimes I think they really hate me.â
Lara nudged her knee. âWith the way they just covered for something you broke, maybe notâ
ââ
Sometimes, your coldness stung harder than a dropped mug that would leave a scratch when shattered pieces comes in contact with her skin.
One night, she tried to joke with you while cleaning the milk wand. Her easy grin, the way she nudged your shoulder.
She nodded, backing away, the smile gone. âYeah. Sorry.â
You saw the way her shoulders curled in. You hated yourself for it. But by the time you looked up, her back was already turned. And you didnât have the words to pull her back.
You didnât meet his eyes, flicking your lighter open and shut. âShe broke the printer. Thatâs fucking $200 dollars out of my pocket.â
âSo? Sheâs trying. Youâre not blindâ you see how she kills herself to do it right. She worships the ground you stomp on, and you keep stepping on her neck.â
You bristled. âItâs better if she hates me. She can find better thanââ
Jaceâs laugh was sharp. âThen stop staring at her like you donât want her to hate you.â
ââ
The next day, Megan was walking back from class with Daniela when she spotted a familiar silhouette in the courtyard. Head down, pen moving furiously over a battered notebook. A stack of textbooks taller than their coffee cups back at the cafe. She paused. Watched them rub their temples, squinting at the fading sunlight.
Daniela nudged her. âIs thatâ?â
âYeah,â Megan whispered. It hit her then. The tired eyes, the constant tension, the sighs. You were just like her: another student trying to stay afloat.
Later in her shift, she found a cupcake in her locker. Vanilla frosting, sprinkled with chocolate shavings. Her favorite. No note. Just there, like magic. She poked her head into the back room, finding you reloading the syrup bottles.
âDid youâŠ?â
You didnât look up. âDonât work with an empty stomach. Bad for your shift.â
She stepped closer. The backroom light flickered. She could almost see your eyes soft behind the mask.
âHey,â she said, so gentle you almost flinched. âThank you.â
You only nodded, once, curtâ then busied yourself with the syrup. She didnât push for more. She just stood there, cupcake in hand, smiling at your back.
Megan groaned, face buried in her pillow. âThey still hate me, Lara. Still so cold. I swear every time I drop something they lose a year off their life.â
Sophia snorted. âOr they lose money.â
Yoonchae leaned back against the bed. âBut you like them.â
Megan peeked up. âDo not.â
They all laughed. Lara just said, âYou talk about them too much for someone who doesnât.â
ââ
You started noticing more. How sheâd arrive early on weekends to stock napkins. How sheâd bite her tongue and take the blame when you're not there to save her.
Once, you found her in the storeroom, sitting cross-legged on the cold tile floor, restocking sleeves of cups alone because she didnât want to ask you for help.
âMegan.â
She jumped. âSorry! Iâll finish soonââ
You bent down, took the sleeves from her hands, and helped her stack them on the shelf. She watched you, eyes wide, like you were doing something unimaginable.
âDonât do everything alone,â you murmured.
âYou donât, either,â she shot back before she could stop herself.
You paused, caught off guard by how true it was.
There were moments when youâd catch yourself watching her. Wiping down tables, hair tied up in that messy bun that never held, sleeves pushed up, grin peeking through the stress.
Sometimes sheâd feel your stare, look up, ready to say something, and youâd shut it down. A quick cough, a turned back, a mumbled order to restock the napkins. Sheâd stand there for a heartbeat longer, the corners of her lips wanting to curl, wondering why. Then decide not to ask.
Because every time she saw itâ that warmth flicker in your eyesâ you snatched it away before she could hold it.
ââ
Megan also found herself lingering too long behind the counter just to watch you work.
The way you frowned at the grinder, how your fingers tapped the register when the line got long. You, with your bitten-down nails and tired eyes, your quiet apologies when you brushed past her in the narrow kitchen.
She knew she shouldnât think about you this much. It made no sense. She had midterms, rent, her group project with Daniela breathing down her neck.
But still, she found herself hoping youâd lecture her again about the milk frother just so youâd look at her a bit longer.
She wondered if you noticed how her heart leapt to her throat. If you noticed how she nearly dropped it just so youâd steady her wrist again.
That night, Megan lay awake in the dorm room she shared with Lara. Lara was asleep, one arm thrown over her notes.
Megan stared at the ceiling, replaying the way your hand brushed hers when you passed her a mug that afternoon.
ââ
A week later, Megan found you asleep on the break room couch. Youâd been covering her shift and yours for three days straight because sheâd had midterms and you told her youâd âhandle it.â
Just like when you told yourself you didnât care when she broke another glass jar. Or when she dropped a bag of beans that cost more than your grocery budget for the week.
You told yourself youâd take it from your paycheck instead of hersâ no need to tell her.
She smiled too much for you to let her frown ever again.
She stood there for a moment, coffee mug in her hands, watching the rise and fall of your chest. She noticed the textbooks stacked beside you, half-finished papers with coffee rings.
She put the mug down by your side. Scribbled on the napkin beneath it was a note: âYou owe me a coffee, okay?â â the same words sheâd once told a stranger in the library years ago.
ââ
One late shift, Megan dropped her pen under the counter. When she ducked down to grab it, she found your phone. Unlocked, sitting on the lower shelf.
One open note app:
Donât forget to switch the filter for Meganâs shifts â she always forgets.
Megan likes vanilla syrup double pump, leave extra cup.
Meganâs paycheck.
Cover breakages again this month. 40.
She sat there for a second, heart hammering, before you rounded the corner.
You froze. She scrambled to her feet, pushing the phone back.
Your mask was iron-tight. âDonât touch my stuff, sunshine.â
She nodded, stepping back. âSorry.â She wanted to ask, wanted to push. But you were already turning away. So, she didnât.
ââ
One night, you stayed late doing the weekly inventory. You thought you were alone until you heard her soft humming.
She was in the corner, sorting the milk crates, her hair tied up, sleeves pushed past her elbows, face smudged with a streak of chocolate syrup she hadnât noticed yet.
âMegan, go home.â
âIâm almost done.â
You leaned against the fridge, arms crossed, pretending not to stare at how focused she looked when she was in her element. No silly smile, no clumsy slip-ups, just Megan, determined and steady.
She caught you staring. âWhat?â
âNothing,â you muttered. And when she turned away, you let yourself smile.
It should be nothing. Somehow it felt like something.
She leaned against the counter, arms crossed. You were behind it, closing the till.
âI saw your note, you know,â she said, voice quiet but steady.
You froze.
âThe one about covering my breakages. The vanilla syrup.â She tilted her head, searching your face for something real.
You exhaled, shoulders dropping. Youâd run out of places to hide. âYou remember the library?â you asked instead.
âFinals week. You were there. You gave me a coffee. You said I owed you.â
She blinked.
âThat was the worst week of my life. I was broke, failing, one missed meal away from passing out. And youâ you gave me warmth when I didnât think I deserved it.â
You stepped closer, eyes tired but soft. âIâve been trying to pay it back ever since. The mugs, the printer, the broken filterâ or everything that costed meâ I donât care. If itâs you, itâs fine.â
She looked at you. This tired, cold, grumpy soul who never let her see the softness unless she looked twice. And then she laughed, breathless, bright. âYou owe me a coffee, huh?â
You grinned. Small, crooked, the first real smile sheâd ever pulled from you.
âAnd now you owe me, sunshine. With thatââ She didnât let you finish.
She pulled you by your apron and kissed you like youâre the coffee she gets every day to start the day. You kissed back just as much.
âËàżâ«âËàż Yes, she's all that I see and she's all that I need âËàżâ«âËàż
âËàżâ«âËàż and I'm out of my league once again" âËàżâ«âËàż
Masterlist: Archived correspondence
Handling Instructions: Fragile
Contents Summary: Megan Skiendiel is so perfect. So fucking perfect.
Revision status: Completed
Courier's remark: [old remarks: CREDITS TO @mganyok HER BIO IS THE INSPO FOR THIS STORY HIHIHIIH] posting my megan fics before the never not series first! hehe
Youâd been collecting Gems long before you ever saw one.
Not the stones in jewelry shops, but stories. Torn magazine clippings folded into your school notebooks, black-and-white photocopies of newspaper articles about sightings, blurry photos of silhouettes on docks or beaches.
Every time a grown-up said, âThey donât come here anymore,â you scribbled harder, desperate to keep them alive on the page if nowhere else.
At seven, you drew them in the margins of math homeworkâ giant women made of light, hands glowing with stars.
At nine, you carried around a spiral notebook labeled âGEM FILESâ where you interviewed neighbors who claimed theyâd seen one on a ferry, at the market, in passing.
You believed them all.
Kids at school laughed, but you didnât care. The possibility of Gems being real mattered more than fitting in.
When you got older, it didnât fade.
If anything, the obsession sharpened. You stopped doodling, started reading. Dug through libraries for books no one borrowed anymore, combed online archives for scraps of information.
You argued with teachers who brushed off Gem history as âirrelevant.â You wrote essays about them even when the assignment was supposed to be about literature or politics.
At home, your parents tried to be patient. âItâs just a phase,â they said when you were thirteen.
By sixteen, when you still carried your scrapbook everywhere, they sighed and started asking if you couldnât write about something else for once.
But by then, fascination had already turned into purpose.
You didnât want to be the kid chasing myths anymore.
You wanted to be the person who proved they werenât myths at all.
So you chose journalism.
It wasnât the practical choiceâ not when your friends were taking business, medicine, engineeringâ but it was the only one that made sense.
Journalism was research, interviewing, storytelling. It was the discipline of chasing things people forgot about and dragging them back into light.
In college, professors raised eyebrows when you pitched Gems as your focus. Some laughed outright, others tried to steer you toward âmore viableâ topics.
But one professorâ Morales, old and sharp, with a voice like sandpaperâ leaned back in his chair during your sophomore year presentation and said:
âIf youâre going to waste your youth on this, at least waste it well. Go find something no one else has. Make it undeniable.â
So you did.
You spent nights hunched over your laptop, combing digital archives, transcribing old interviews, piecing together timelines that never matched up. Your dorm wall became a patchwork of sticky notes and pinned articles, a conspiracy board without the string. Your friends teased you for being married to your work. You didnât bother correcting them.
By the time senior year rolled around, you were restless.
Youâd written dozens of papers, interviewed a handful of âwitnesses,â but you were starving for something real.
For proof.
And then your final project assignment came in.
Gem Island. Three months. Document âcultural integrationâ between humans and Gems.
Everyone else in class groanedâ it was remote, inconvenient, too niche.
But you? Your hands shook as you held the slip of paper.
This was it.
The thing youâd been waiting for since you were seven years old, hunched over your scrapbook with a glue stick and a dream.
That night, you pulled the scrapbook out of the box under your bed. The cover was peeling, pages threatening to fall out, your childhood handwriting crooked and uneven.
You smoothed your palm over the first page, where youâd written in blue marker:
âGEMS ARE REAL.â
And for the first time in years, you believed you might actually prove it.
ââ
The ferry cut through the water with the weight of inevitability.
Three months.
Ninety days.
That was all the time you had to unravel a lifetimeâs obsession and turn it into something concrete, something publishable.
You stood at the deck rail, notebook already in hand even though the island wasnât yet in sight. The sea wind snapped at your jacket, ruffled the papers youâd stuffed between the pages.
Somewhere inside your backpack, the old scrapbook rested, worn edges pressing against your textbooks as if it were still reminding you why you were here.
When the island finally came into view, it wasnât what youâd imagined.
No glowing spires or alien ruins.
Just a coastline dotted with houses, docks stretching out into the waves, narrow streets weaving upward into a green hill. Human voices carried over the water, mingled with something softerâ notes of music drifting faintly, like the island itself was humming.
The moment your shoes touched the dock, you felt it.
Not magic exactly, but a charge, as if the air was denser here, threaded with a history the rest of the world had forgotten.
People bustled past youâ tourists, localsâ but every now and then you caught a glimpse of something different.
A tall figure with a gem set in her temple lifting crates onto a boat. A man with skin faintly luminescent selling fish by the basket. Gems, casually woven into the fabric of daily life.
It stole your breath.
For years they had been clippings, half-legends, footnotes. Here, they were real enough to brush shoulders with.
You checked into the little rented room the university had arranged, but you couldnât sit still. Posters plastered the narrow streets, bold letters announcing:
Moonlight Gatheringâ Songs & Stories Tonight, Town Square
You knew where youâd be.
The square glowed when you arrived. Lanterns hung from wires strung between Gem spires and modern lampposts, throwing warm light across the crowd.
Children darted between legs clutching skewers of grilled food, elders sat in folding chairs fanning themselves. The stage was simpleâ a wooden platform raised just enough for the performers to be seen.
The square dimmed as the lanterns softened, shadows rippling across the crowd. You were already scribbling notes about the ambience when her name slipped from the hostâs mouthâ casual, familiar, as though no introduction was needed.
âMegan.â
She stepped into the light, and the entire square seemed to draw breath.
Her gem gleamed faintly on the back of her hand, as if it had been waiting for this moment to announce itself.
The glow was subtle, not blinding, but enough to make her skin look like it was woven from starlight. She didnât rush to the microphone; she moved with the patience of someone who understood gravity bent toward her.
And when she finally sang, the world hushed.
Her voice wasnât loud, but it didnât need to be. It carried in a way sound shouldnâtâ threading through lanterns and over rooftops, curling into your bones. Each note shimmered with something ageless, like water remembering the moon, like wind remembering the shape of mountains.
You couldnât tell if it was magic or just her, but you knew, without doubt, you were hearing something eternal.
People swayed, smiled, closed their eyes. To them, maybe it was beautiful. To you, it was revelation. This was what youâd been searching for since childhoodâ not just proof Gems were real, but proof that beauty itself could live in a person.
Megan wasnât performing. She wasnât trying to impress. She was simply being, and somehow that was enough to eclipse everything else in the square.
By the time the last note faded, you couldnât breathe.
When she bowed, it was barely a dip of her head, her expression unchanged, as if all that magic hadnât just poured through her throat.
And then she stepped offstage, slipping back into the shadows as though the night hadnât just belonged to her.
But for you, it always would.
The applause hadnât even faded when she slipped into the shadows. No lingering for praise, no small talk with the crowd. Just a quiet departure, as if sheâd sung not for them, but because the night had asked her to.
Your heart was a drum against your ribs, louder than the music that followed onstage.
You shouldâve been writingâ capturing every detail for your projectâ but your pen had frozen uselessly in your hand the moment sheâd opened her mouth.
Now your notebook was pressed against your chest like a shield, though no shield could possibly steady you.
You told yourself you were moving for research. That this was just another interview subject. But the truth was simpler, rawer: you couldnât let her vanish from your sight.
You found her behind the stage, lit by a single crooked lantern. She was coiling the microphone cord with unhurried precision, fingers deft, gem on the back of her hand catching stray flickers of light. It was dim, but still she seemed to glowâ like the lanternâs flame bent closer to her just to be near.
Up close, the effect was worseâ no, devastating.
She wasnât just beautiful.
She was impossible.
Every line of her posture carried weight, every glance suggested entire histories youâd never touch. You had studied Gems your whole life, read archives, watched grainy clips of their powersâ but none of it prepared you for this.
For her.
Your mouth was dry. Your knees weak. Still, you forced the words out.
âExcuse me,â you said, the syllables cracked and trembling.
âMegan, right?â
She looked up. Just one glance, and your breath stilled.
Her eyes were brownâ plain, maybe, if youâd written it in a description. But up close, in the lantern glow, they werenât plain at all.
They were endless shades of earth and warmth, flecks of honey hidden in the depth. They looked lived-in, steady, like they carried stories sheâd never bother telling.
Not the glitter of gems. Not the shimmer of stars. Something rarer. Something human.
And that, somehow, made her more devastating than all the legends youâd grown up chasing.
You clutched your notebook tighter, half for the words you were supposed to collect, half for the heart already slipping from your chest.
She looked up. Brown eyes caught you, steady and unflinching.
And for a beat, you forgot the words youâd prepared, forgot the questions youâd scribbled, forgot even why you were standing there.
Her gaze wasnât sharp, but it was heavyâ like being measured and found wanting. Like she could see every childish scrapbook page youâd ever taped together, every late-night article youâd devoured, every silly dream that had carried you here.
The silence stretched, and you panicked.
âIâIâm sorry,â you blurted, voice cracking like glass.
âI didnât mean to interrupt. I justâ wow. You wereââ You caught yourself, biting back the word perfect, fumbling for something less humiliating.
ââ amazing. I mean, the song. Your voice. Iâve read so much about Gems but hearing itâ hearing youâ itâs justââ
You stopped, heat flooding your face.
This wasnât an interview, this was worship.
She tilted her head, expression unreadable.
âYouâre not from here.â Not a question, just an observation.
âNo. Uhâno, Iâm a student. Journalism.â You hugged your notebook tighter, as if the word student could make you sound less like a starstruck fool.
âItâs my final year, and Iâm⊠Iâm doing my project on Gem culture. How Gems live now, after⊠well, everything. Iâve studied youâuh, not you specifically, I mean Gems, like the history, the wars, theââ
You realized you were rambling and snapped your mouth shut.
Meganâs brow lifted ever so slightly. Her fingers tapped against the gem on the back of her hand, not glowing now, just resting.
âYouâve studied,â she echoed, voice calm, even, like she was weighing the word.
âYes,â you said quickly.
âMy whole life, really. I grew up reading everything I could get my hands on. And nowâ Iâm here.â
The silence that followed made you want to shrink into the floorboards. But then she gave the faintest shrug, as if to say your awe neither surprised nor particularly impressed her.
âResearch, then,â she said at last.
You nodded, clutching your pen tight. âYeah. Just⊠research.â
Her gaze lingered, unreadable. Then, with a small motion, she set the coiled cord aside and slipped her hands into her jacket pockets. The glow of her gem disappeared into shadow.
âGood luck with it,â Megan said simply, already turning away.
That was all. No invitation, no smile, just words dropped like a stone in water. But you felt the ripples spread through you anyway.
You stood there, notebook heavy in your arms, heart hammering like youâd just survived something monumental.
For her, it was nothing.
For you, it was everything.
The walk back to your dorm felt unreal.Â
The festival still buzzed behind youâ music, laughter, the smell of grilled fish curling through the airâ but you drifted through it like a ghost, clutching your notebook though not a single useful word had made it onto the page.
By the time you closed the door to your tiny room, your chest was aching. You dropped the notebook onto the desk, but your hands didnât want to leave it, fingertips pressed against the cover like maybe her voice had seeped into the paper somehow.
You sat on the bed, then lay down, staring at the ceiling while the islandâs hum seeped through the window. It shouldâve been a night like any other. Instead, you felt suspended, your whole body still ringing from the moment she looked at you.
Brown eyes. A glow in her hand. A song that cracked the world open.
You thought about the child version of yourselfâ the one who clipped pictures from old magazines, who stayed up late replaying fuzzy documentaries, desperate for a glimpse of the extraordinary.
That child would never have believed this: that youâd stand in front of a Crystal Gem, hear her voice, stumble your way through speaking her name.
And not just any Gem.
Megan.
You pressed your palms over your face, heat rushing up even in the dark. This wasnât just research anymore.
Maybe it never had been.
These three months were going to be the best of your lifeâ not just unearthing the history youâd spent years chasing, but piecing together the mystery that was her.
You turned on your side, eyes drifting shut, her voice still echoing in the space between waking and sleep.
Three months.Â
Ninety days.
Enough time to learn what the world never told you.Â
Enough time, maybe, to learn her.
ââÂ
Morning came too fast.
The dreamlike haze of last night still clung to you, but your notebook sat accusingly on the desk, blank where there shouldâve been pages. You reminded yourselfâ againâ that you were here for a reason. Research first.
Megan⊠well, Megan would have to be an afterthought.
The next day, you found Manon.
She was nothing like Megan.
Manonâs gem rested at her belly button, glowing faintly like a second sun beneath the thin fabric of her shirt.
There was something about itâ about herâ that felt rooted, steady, impossible to ignore. Where Megan had been all sharp lines and distance, Manon radiated warmth.
When you asked your questions, she didnât guard herself. She smiled, eyes bright with amusement, and leaned closer as if letting you in on secrets.
âYouâre not the first human to come here curious,â she said, her hand brushing absently across the gem at her center, like it was second nature.
âBut youâve been waiting your whole life for this, havenât you?â
Her laugh rang easy when you admitted it, notebook clutched too tightly in your hands. She led you through the streets, past markets, piers, and homes, gesturing expansively, like the island belonged to her and she was glad to share it.
And thenâ inevitablyâ you turned a corner.
Megan.
She came into view like the world itself had tilted to make room for her. Jacket draped over her shoulder, gem on her hand catching a sliver of sun, her stride unhurried, every step quiet but commanding.
Manon slowed, her expression flicking toward you with the ghost of a grin. She didnât say anything, but the spark in her eyes told you she understood far too much.
Meganâs gaze lifted, brown eyes locking onto yours. Just a glance. But it was enough to undo you all over again.
Manon filled the silence, voice warm as ever. âMegan. Didnât think Iâd find you out this way. You remember the event?â
She angled her head toward you. âThis one hasnât stopped scribbling notes since.â
Your pulse spiked. You managed a small, awkward laugh, clutching your notebook tighter like it might anchor you.
âI, uhâyeah. Iâm⊠working on a project. Journalism.â The words tumbled too fast, too bare.
âFinal year. Human-Gem coexistence.â
Megan didnât move closer. She didnât soften. She just shifted her weight, crossing her arms, her gem hand pressing lightly against her elbow as if to shield it from your stare.
âI knowâ she said flatly, like the word itself was suspect.
"Right" you choked on your cough, feeling hot all over from embarrassment.
Her eyes didnât leave yours, sharp and steady. âWhat makes you think youâll find answers here that you couldnât have pulled off a dusty archive?â
It wasnât unkind, not exactly. But it was a test. A line drawn.
Your throat went dry. You could feel Manon watching you, ready to smooth over the silence, but you forced yourself to hold Meganâs gaze.
âBecause archives donât look back at you,â you said quietly, surprising even yourself.
Something flickered in her eyes thenâ not approval, not even interest, but recognition, brief and gone before you could catch it. She tilted her head, lips pressing into something unreadable.
Manon chuckled softly, stepping into the tension like sunlight through cloud. âCareful, Megan. This oneâs not afraid to bite.â
But Megan only shrugged, pushing her jacket higher on her shoulder.
âCuriosity burns out quick,â she murmured, eyes flicking to your notebook, then away.
âThree months isnât forever.â
And just like that, she walked past you both, her presence trailing in the air long after her footsteps faded.
Manon exhaled, amused. âWell,â she said, clapping you lightly on the shoulder, âthat went better than most.â
But you didnât answer. You were still standing there, notebook pressed to your chest, heart hammering like youâd just been split open and seen.
You stayed rooted to the cobblestones, notebook hugged to your chest. The street shouldâve gone back to normalâ vendors calling out, kids darting pastâ but it didnât feel the same. Meganâs presence still lingered in the air, like sunlight after it slips behind clouds, warm but unreachable.
Beside you, Manon tilted her head, eyes gleaming.
âYouâre staring at nothing,â she said, but her tone was softer than a tease.
You blinked, heat rising to your face.
âSorry. I justâ sheâsâŠâ The words snagged, unwilling to line up.
âDifferent?â Manon finished for you.
A small smile curved her lips, the gem at her belly catching the light when she shifted. âShe is. Always has been.â
You hesitated. âShe didnât seem⊠unkind.â
âSheâs not,â Manon said quickly, with a hint of protectiveness.
âMeganâs all light. Once she trusts you.â Her gaze flicked toward where Megan had disappeared.
âBut she doesnât give that to humans easily.â
The reminder pressed against your chest like a stone. You clutched your notebook tighter, as though the paper could carry what your heart couldnât.
Manon softened, studying you as if she could see every thought written across your face.
âDonât look so doomed. She notices more than she lets on. And if youâre patientâŠâ
She let the rest hang, unfinished, like an invitation.
Her laughter came easy then, breaking the weight of the moment.
She swung her arms behind her head and gestured for you to follow. âCome on. Youâve got more Gems to meet than just the one who makes your knees weak.â
You walked after her, but your mind lagged, circling back to Meganâ her voice like dawn, her smile hovering just out of reach, her guarded gaze that still somehow felt like it had seen you.
Three months.
That was all you had.
And yet it already felt like your heart had decided what story it wanted to tell.
The night after, you didnât write.
You sat at your desk with your notebook open, pen pressed to paper, but the only words that came were her name. Over and over, filling margins like a spell you couldnât shake.
Megan.
Every thought of her bled into the restâ your project, your questions, your purpose for being here. Manon was right: you had more Gems to meet.
A whole island waiting to be mapped in ink. But it was as if every road already curved back to Megan, every question humming with her name beneath it.
Still, you had to move. The child version of youâ the one whoâd once glued clippings into a scrapbookâ would never forgive you if you wasted this chance.
So you rose with the sun and set out again.
The marketplace was alive when you reached it: smoke curling from food stalls, laughter rising above the clang of dishes, voices weaving together like a song. And that was where you heard her.
Not Megan.
 A different Gem.
Her voice cut clear across the noise, threaded with something richer, deeper, impossible not to follow.
Her Gem caught the light before her eyes didâ set at the hollow of her throat, glowing faintly whenever she laughed. And she did laugh, easily, like she found the whole world a little funny.
And just like that, you met Sophia.
âYouâre the human journalist, right?â she said before youâd even introduced yourself.
âThe one scribbling in that notebook like itâs gonna save the universe?â
Heat flushed your face. You fumbled with your pen. âIâ Iâm just documentingââ
She leaned closer, grin wide. âRelax. I like it. You actually look like you care. Most people just point a camera and run.â
Her voice had a timbre that was impossible to ignore. Not just pleasantâ magnetic. When she hummed absentmindedly, her Gem flared, and you felt the sound ripple in your bones.
âDoes it⊠always do that?â you asked, nodding toward her throat.
Sophia smirked, tilting her head back. âWanna see something cool?â
Before you could answer, she sang a single note. Just one. But it vibrated through the air, shimmering like heat rising off pavement. The vendors around her didnât even flinchâ they were used to itâ but you felt your knees weaken.
She laughed again, softer this time. âCareful. That was nothing. If I really sang, youâd probably cry.â
You wrote furiously, trying to catch the feeling in words, but your mind snagged on something else: the way her voice carried power, yes, but also vulnerability.
Sophia caught you staring and arched a brow. âDonât look at me like that. Save that face for Megan.â
The pen slipped from your hand. âWhatâ?â
âOh, please,â Sophia said, waving her hand.
âYou think sheâs subtle? Sheâs been circling since the festival. Guarded, sure. But sunshine doesnât stop being sunshine just because it hides behind clouds.â
Your heart tripped, but before you could ask more, she stretched, her Gem dimming back to a faint glow.
âAnyway. Thatâs enough of my magic show. Write what you want, journalist. Just donât forget weâre people, not stories.â
She winked and melted back into the crowd, leaving you clutching your notebook, pulse racingâ not just from Sophiaâs voice, but from the sudden, undeniable weight of Meganâs name hanging between the lines.
By the sixth day, your notebook was already thick with scribbles. Pages of Sophiaâs sharp laughter, of Manonâs easy warmth, of Meganâ always Megan, even when you swore you wouldnât write her name again.
But you needed more. Your professors hadnât sent you here for poetry. They wanted evidence, voices, texture.
That was when you met Yoonchae.
You found her by the waterline, sneakers kicked off, skipping stones across the surf with a group of local kids.
Her Gem caught the sunlight every time her arm swung forward, glowing steady from her shoulder like it was part of her strength.
The kids scattered when they saw you, whispering the human, the human, but Yoonchae just squinted.
âYouâre the journalist, right?â she asked, not unfriendly but not impressed either.
You nodded, clutching your pen. âThat obvious?â
âYeah.â She tossed another stoneâ skip, skip, sink.
âYouâre always writing. People talk.â
There was no malice in it, just honesty. The kind that made your ears burn because it was true.
You sat a cautious distance away, pulling your notebook onto your knees. âDo you mind if I ask you a few questions?â
Yoonchae shrugged, glancing at you sideways. âIf itâs boring, Iâm leaving.â
Fair enough.
But she didnât leave.
She told you about growing up here, about how her Gem didnât mean wisdom or history like Laraâs or Sophiaâsâ hers was about movement, energy, a restless force she couldnât always control. At one point she flexed her shoulder, the Gem pulsing faintly like it agreed with her every word.
You wrote as fast as you could, but what caught you most was her bluntness. Yoonchae didnât filter. Didnât dress her answers up to sound mystical or profound.
And then, as if she couldnât help herself, she asked, âSo. Youâre here for Megan, right?â
Your pen froze. âWhatâ?â
She snorted. âDonât act dumb. You light up whenever someone says her name. Itâs embarrassing.â
Heat shot through you, but she wasnât mocking. She was grinning, kicking at the sand. âShe doesnât trust humans. Not really. ButâŠâ
She paused, squinting out at the water. âIf youâre patient enough, maybe sheâll let you see the good parts. And theyâre really good.â
Your chest tightened.
She hurled another stone, farther this time, shoulders straightening like the motion had burned the moment away. âAnyway. Donât waste your whole project on her. Thereâs more to us than Megan.â
But you could tell, from the faint smile tugging at her lips, that even Yoonchae believed Megan was the center of something.
By the tenth day, your hand ached from writing. The pages of your notebook looked more like a storm than a recordâ half notes, half thoughts that strayed too far from the questions you meant to ask. You reminded yourself you were here to observe, not get lost.
That morning, you found Lara perched on the low steps outside the old library.
She wasnât aloneâ kids darted past, waving at her as if she were everyoneâs older sister. She waved back easily, laughter soft under her breath, and when her gaze slid to you, it was patient, welcoming.
âYou must be the one scribbling everyoneâs words like theyâre gospel,â she said, patting the step beside her.
âSit. Youâre making me nervous standing there like that.â
Her Gem glimmered faintly at her forehead, and it shouldâve made her intimidating. But somehow, it didnât. She felt less like a monument, more like a friend you could trust not to laugh at your clumsy questions.
You sat, notebook balanced on your knees. âYou already know why Iâm here, then?â
âI know youâre curious.â She leaned back on her elbows, looking entirely at ease.
âCuriosity isnât a bad thing. Itâs just⊠heavy, if you donât share the weight with someone else.â
The way she said itâ so calm, so unguardedâ made you set your pen down. For once, you just listened.
âWeâre not all the same,â Lara continued, eyes on the kids weaving through the square.
âOur Gems donât define us. They remind us. Of choices, of people, of the lives weâve shaped. Some memories are sweet. SomeâŠâ
Her smile thinned, though it never faded. âSome are sharp. But even sharp things have their use.â
She studied you then, tilting her head as if weighing whether to say more. âYouâve met Megan, havenât you?â
Your breath caught at the sudden mention, but Laraâs tone wasnât pryingâ it was knowing, almost fond.
âSheâs careful,â Lara went on, sparing you the need to answer.
âWith humans, especially. Not because she dislikes you. Because she remembers what it costs to give too much of herself away.â
She nudged your notebook gently, a small smile playing at her lips. âIf she lets you write even a piece of her story, consider it rare. Not because you chased itâ but because she chose it.â
The honesty of it sank deep, heavier than anything youâd heard yet.
Then Lara chuckled softly, easing the weight sheâd left in your chest. âDonât look so serious. Youâll turn to stone before your projectâs over.â
She stood, brushing dust from her palms. âHereâs my advice: donât just collect our stories like specimens. Decide what youâll do with them. Decide what you want remembered about you. Otherwise, youâll look up one day and realize youâve only been writing everyone elseâs life.â
And with that, she left you there, notebook half-open, feeling strangely lighter. Not because you had answersâ but because, for the first time, the questions didnât feel so lonely.
That night, the island refused to sleep.
The waves tapped endlessly at the shore, cicadas sang in the trees, and still you lay in the narrow dorm bed staring at the ceiling.
Your notebook was open on the desk, Laraâs words scattered across the page in half-finished sentences.
Youâd tried to capture them the way you usually didâ neat lines, tidy citationsâ but they slipped through. Her voice had carried a kind of weight you couldnât press flat between margins.
Curiosity isnât bad. Itâs just heavy, if you donât share the weight with someone else.
The phrase circled in your head until it felt less like advice and more like a mirror.
Because she was rightâ you werenât here simply to record. You werenât here to turn living people into exhibits in a museum. Somewhere deep down, the child in you who had once cut out grainy clippings wanted more than facts.
You wanted to understand.
But what struck harder was the way Lara had said Meganâs name. Not with warning, not with bitterness, but with a kind of tendernessâ like someone speaking of fire. Dangerous if you reached carelessly, but a gift if you learned not to flinch from the heat.
You rolled onto your side, pressing your face into the thin pillow, eyes stinging with exhaustion that wasnât just physical.
Three months. That was all the time you had. To write. To listen. To decide, as Lara said, what you wanted remembered about you.
The room was dark, but the thought burned bright, almost feverish: these stories werenât just theirs anymore. They were slowly becoming yours to carry.
Sleep came late, when the waves softened and the islandâs hum dulled into silence. But even then, Laraâs voice lingeredâ gentle, steady, reminding you that you werenât just gathering fragments. You were beginning to piece together a life that might, at last, make sense of your own.
The clock read 3:07 a.m.
You didnât know what pulled you awake. Maybe it was the heat, the restless hum of cicadas, or Laraâs words echoing too loudly in your head. Whatever it was, you found yourself slipping out of bed, tugging on a jacket, and stepping into the night.
The island was a different creature at that hour. The air smelled of salt and damp earth, streets hushed, lanterns burned low. You let your feet carry you without purpose until the stone paths gave way to sand.
The shore stretched out, silver under the moon. Waves lapped in their eternal rhythm, slow, steady. And then you saw her.
Megan.
Barefoot, jacket abandoned on the sand, her gem hand glowing faintly as she moved.
She wasnât singing this time, not for an audience. She was humming low, almost to herself, and her body swayed with the tuneâ half-dance, half-drift.
Every movement caught the moonlight, her brown eyes glimmering whenever she turned her head, her hair catching the salt air.
She looked⊠unguarded.
Not the Megan youâd seen at the event, commanding without effort. Not the Megan whoâd cut you sharp with suspicion in her voice. This Megan was softer, brighterâ sunlight translated into moonlight, impossible to hold but more perfect for it.
You froze at the edge of the sand, afraid to breathe too loudly and shatter it.
It wasnât obsession, not even infatuation.
It was awe.
The kind that made your knees feel weak, the kind that made you understand why people once mistook Gems for gods.
She wasnât performing. She was existingâ and somehow, that was more magical than anything she could have done on stage.
For a second, you thought about leaving. About letting the moment remain untouched. But the child inside you, the one whoâd spent years believing in them, whispered that some moments were meant to be seen. Even if only once.
You stayed. Quiet. Letting her glow etch itself into you, knowing it was something no notebook could ever capture.
And when she finally stilled, her humming fading into the sea breeze, you slipped away before she could noticeâ heart pounding, carrying the image of her like a secret.
Back in your dorm, you lay awake until sunrise, sure of only one thing:
You were already in too deep.
ââ
The morning began with resolve.
You had a new page, a new question, and a month to chase its answer. You were ready to throw yourself into fieldwork, to chase Gems through the town, the shore, the marketsâ
Then came the knock. Three sharp taps that startled you upright.
You shuffled to the door, notebook still in hand, and when it swung openâ there she was.
Megan.
Pink-streaked hair pulled back in a messy half-knot, loose hoodie draped carelessly, one brow raised like she was already tired of waiting.
âHey,â she said, simple, like youâd been expecting her all along.
Your throat dried. â...Hi.â
She shifted her weight, glanced behind her at the quiet street, then back at you. âSo⊠apparently Iâm supposed to invite you.â
âInvite me?â
Her lips twitched, not quite a smile. âYeah. Sophia, Lara, Manon, Yoonchaeâ they said you should hang out with us. Something about you always scribbling alone. Thought youâd probably say no unless someone dragged you.â
She lifted a shoulder, casual. âAnd I lost the coin toss, so here I am.â
You blinked, trying to process the fact that Megan, of all people, was at your door, talking to you like this. âYou⊠lost a coin toss?â
She finally cracked a grin, small but real. âDonât get excited. I wasnât exactly volunteering.â
Still, there was no venom in itâ just honesty, plain as sunlight.
âSo?â she asked, eyes flicking to your notebook, then back to your face.
âYou coming or not?â
It wasnât an interview. It wasnât an answer to your question. It was just Megan, standing there in the morning light, holding out something ordinary that, somehow, felt like the start of everything.
The invitation hadnât come from you.
That was the strangest part.
Three knocks. A flash of pink streaks in the doorway. Megan, eyes unreadable, voice flat but sure:
 âCome with us.â
You didnât ask where. You just followed.
By sundown you were on the shore, the sky melting into purples and oranges, a fire spitting sparks into the breeze. They were all there alreadyâ Sophia kicking at the sand, Yoonchae crouched near the flames, Manon unpacking food, Lara sprawled like she had nowhere better to be.
Megan stayed just on the edge, arms crossed, but she hadnât told you to leave. That felt like something.
Manon noticed you first, waving you over. âFinally. I was starting to think you chickened out.â
You dropped into the sand beside her. âI didnât know I had a choice.â
âExactly,â Sophia said, grinning.
âNone of us do, once Megan decides.â She aimed the jab across the fire, and Megan rolled her eyes but didnât take the bait.
âHere,â Yoonchae said, shoving a stick at you with a half-burnt marshmallow skewered on the end.
âDonât drop it.â
You blinked. âItâs alreadyââ
âBurnt?â She smirked.
âThatâs how youâll know itâs authentic.â
Manon laughed, smacking Yoonchaeâs arm. âYouâre supposed to make them feel welcome, not traumatized.â
âI am welcoming,â Yoonchae argued, mock-offended.
âTheyâre part of the circle now. The burnt marshmallow rite of passage.â
Sophia snorted, nearly choking on her drink. Lara had to pat her back, murmuring something about âdying of laughter, not fire.â
You tried the marshmallow. Too sweet, sticky as glue. âIt tastes like charcoal.â
âSee?â Yoonchae beamed.
âAuthentic.â
Across the fire, Meganâs mouth twitchedâ just slightly, but enough to notice.
The night spun easy after that.
Sophia told a story about sneaking out past curfew that had Manon crying with laughter. Lara chimed in with some dry one-liner that made everyone groan, and even Megan, quiet as she was, let out a sound suspiciously close to a laugh.
At some point Lara leaned your way, her voice low but warm. âYouâre quieter than I thought youâd be.â
âI usually⊠write things down,â you admitted, glancing at your empty hands.
âNot tonight,â Manon cut in firmly, pointing her marshmallow stick at you like it was law.
âTonight, youâre one of us. No pen. No paper.â
Sophia raised her cup in a mock toast. âTo the honorary Gem.â
They all echoed it, laughing, clinking cups, the fire snapping between you.
And you laughed tooâ really laughed, until the air felt different in your lungs. Until you werenât thinking about what to remember or record. Just the warmth of the sand, the smoke, the voices around you.
When you finally glanced up, Megan was watching. Not suspicious, not guardedâ just watching. Like sheâd been waiting to see if youâd let go.
You held her gaze a second longer this time.
She didnât look away first.
âAlright, alrightââ Sophia was still wiping tears from her eyes after another one of Manonâs dramatic retellings.
âBut tell me none of you remember when Yoonchae tried to cook for us and almost set the whole kitchen on fire.â
âIt was one time!â Yoonchae groaned, hiding her face in her hands.
âAnd the pan was possessed, I swear.â
âPossessed by your inability to cook,â Lara deadpanned, and the group dissolved into laughter again.
You were still catching your breath when Manon, suddenly softer, said, âSpeaking of disastersâ Danielaâs coming back next month.â
The name hushed the circle for just a beat.
âBack?â Sophia leaned forward, eyes bright. âFor real this time?â
Manon nodded, smile tugging at her lips. âShe said sheâs finally done with that thing overseas. Wants to stay longer this time.â
âThatâll shake things up,â Lara murmured, tilting her head like she was already imagining it.
Lara whistled low. âGod, I miss her loudness.â
âLoud?â you asked before you could stop yourself.
âLoud,â Manon confirmed, grinning.
âThe good kind. The kind that makes the whole place feel unshakable. Youâll see.â
Across the fire, Megan shifted, brushing hair from her face. Her expression stayed unreadable, but there was a flicker in her eyes you couldnât quite nameâ something like expectation, or maybe wariness.
Sophia caught it too, smirking. âOh, come on, Megan. Donât pretend youâre not looking forward to it.â
Megan gave the faintest shrug. âSheâs⊠a lot.â
But the corner of her mouth betrayed her. Just a little curve, quick as a spark before it vanished.
The conversation spilled onward, stories of Daniela weaving through the nightâ half legend, half memory. You sat back, listening, letting their laughter roll over you.
These werenât interviews, werenât research subjects. They were people, alive and messy, and you were in the circle with them.
For once, no notebook, no script. Just belonging.
And Meganâs gaze finding you again in the glow of the fire.
The fire crackled between them, sending sparks curling into the night sky. You felt the sand shift beneath your legs as you leaned back, letting the warmth sink in. Around you, the Gems carried onâ each one an entirely different constellation of energy and presence.
Sophia was telling a story about an old festival prank, animated gestures punctuating every sentence, and Manon kept adding little footnotes of commentary, rolling her eyes and laughing at herself. Lara, as usual, lounged like she owned the universe, sipping from her cup and only chiming in when a punchline required it. Yoonchae leaned forward, sneakers tucked under her, ready to jump in at any sign of opportunity for chaos.
And then there was Megan.
She hadnât said much, hadnât needed to. The way she moved, the occasional tilt of her head, the way her hand brushed at her gem unconsciouslyâ it all spoke volumes. She was present, but on her own terms. It was subtle, but you noticed everything.
âHey,â she said quietly after a pause, voice low enough that only you could hear over the general din of the group. You jumped slightly, heart stuttering.
âH-hey,â you whispered back, suddenly aware of your own voice, the raw edge of nerves betraying you.
Meganâs eyes flicked to your empty hands, then to your notebook sitting forgotten in the sand. âYouâre not writing?â
âI⊠Iâm just⊠listening,â you admitted.
Her lips twitchedâ again, almost a smile. âGood,â she said softly.
âYou donât need to write everything down. Some things are better when you feel them.â
It wasnât an invitation, not exactly, but it was closer than youâd ever gotten. You nodded, careful not to overthink it, trying to breathe normally despite the way your chest felt like it had contracted around her presence.
The conversation around the fire shifted to stories of old adventures. Manon gestured wildly, miming a boat nearly capsizing while Sophia added commentary about the âheroicsâ that were mostly exaggerated. Yoonchae interrupted with sharp, dry humor, sending everyone into laughter.
You laughed too, genuinely this time, and Meganâs gaze caught yours mid-laughter. It lingered a moment longer than beforeâ calm, assessing, almost approving.
Later, when someone passed a flask of hot chocolate around, Megan reached for a cup, but instead of standing apart, she sat down a little closer. Not beside youâ not yetâ but close enough that her shoulder nearly brushed yours.
âYouâre⊠really quiet,â she said, almost to herself.
âI usually am,â you admitted, voice softer.
Her glance lingered again, studying you. âYou notice things,â she said, a statement more than a question.
âMore than most humans.â
You swallowed.
âIâve⊠been practicing,â you said, only half-joking.
Megan let out a small, almost imperceptible chuckle. It was fleeting, but it made your stomach flip. It wasnât the full smile, the one youâd imagined a thousand times since that first song, but it was a crack in the wall.
The night stretched on, stories, laughter, and the occasional quiet lull where the group simply stared at the moonlit waves. Megan gradually inched closer each time someone moved or spoke, a subtle orbit that eventually brought her almost within reach. You felt itâ less like pressure, more like an unspoken permission to exist near her.
At one point, Lara leaned toward the firelight, half-serious.
âYou two should talk sometime,â she said, nodding toward you and Megan.
Meganâs eyes flicked to yours, unreadable. Then she leaned back, shrugging lightly, but the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth suggested she hadnât dismissed it entirely.
Hours passed.
You forgot the time, forgot everything except the heat of the fire, the glow of the gems, the rhythm of the wavesâ and Megan, slowly letting you into the orbit she rarely allowed anyone.
By the end of the night, the group began drifting toward the dorms, tired and laughing. Megan lingered, brushing sand from her knees. She glanced at you again.
âCome on,â she said softly.
âWalk back with me.â
It wasnât a demand, not exactly.
It was an invitation.
Your heart nearly stopped. You nodded, grabbing your jacket, careful not to trip over your own feet.
As you walked side by side in the moonlight, the rest of the world faded. The fire was behind you, the group dispersed, the hum of the island surrounding only the two of you. Megan didnât speak at first, just walked, letting you adjust to her quiet presence.
And somehow, without words, you understood: thisâ this slow letting in, this fragile orbit around herâ was far more intimate than anything youâd written in your notebook.
For the first time since you arrived, it felt like you were beginning to understand Meganâ not as a legend, not as a mystery, but as something real.
And maybe, just maybe, she was starting to understand you too.
You walked in silence for a while, the only sound the soft crunch of sand beneath your sneakers and the distant lapping of the waves. The moon cast silver trails across the shore, making the world feel smaller, contained, like it existed only for the two of you.
Finally, Megan spoke, her voice low and even. âYouâre⊠different from what I expected.â
Your chest tightened.
âDifferent how?â you asked, careful, trying not to sound too eager.
She didnât answer immediately, just glanced at you, eyes tracing the lines of your face as if cataloging every detail.
âYou actually look,â she said slowly, âlike you care. Not just about the project⊠but about the people in it. Thatâs rare.â
You swallowed, unsure if your heart was beating too fast or just noticing the weight of her words.
âI⊠I want to get it right,â you admitted softly.
âNot just write it down. Understand it.â
Meganâs gaze softened, though only slightly, just enough for a flicker of warmth to reach your chest.
âThen youâre⊠more human than most,â she murmured, almost to herself.
âCurious, careful. Patient. And stubborn.â
You let a small laugh escape, shaking your head.
âStubborn⊠I can take that as a compliment.â
She tilted her head, studying you like she was weighing the truth of it.
âI donât give that to humans often,â she said.
âRecognition. Understanding. You⊠might be earning it.â
Your stomach tightened in that way that only happens when someone sees parts of you no one else does.
âIâm not asking for it,â you said quietly.
âI just⊠want to be here. With you all. With you.â
Her eyes flicked away for a heartbeat, then back. The corners of her mouth twitched, just a hint of something almost like a smile, before vanishing.
âWeâll see,â she said simply.
Not a rejection.
Not a promise.
Just a fragment of acknowledgment.
You both fell silent again, letting the night hold you. The air smelled of salt and fire and something indefinably hers.
She walked close enough that your shoulders nearly touched, but not close enough to cross a lineâ an invisible boundary she was letting you inch toward at your own pace.
After a while, she muttered, âI like the way you watch people. Not in a⊠weird way. You notice them.â
âYouâre one of them,â you said softly, almost without thinking.
âAnd yetâŠâ You trailed off, unsure how to finish without sounding foolish.
She glanced at you, eyes half-lidded, the faintest edge of curiosity lighting them. âAnd yet?â
You shrugged, feeling the heat creep up your neck. âAnd yet⊠I keep finding myself noticing you more than anyone else.â
For a heartbeat, her expression faltered.
Then, as if dismissing it, she turned slightly toward the waves, hands shoved into the pockets of her hoodie.
âFigures,â she said, voice low.
âPeople always notice what they shouldnât.â
You stayed close, letting the words hang between you, heavy and unspoken. And for the first time, it felt less like a chase, less like a puzzle, and more like a fragile tetherâ a slow, careful connection you could hold without fear of breaking it.
The dorms came into view, dim lanterns marking the path back, but neither of you moved to speak until you were at the edge of the steps.
Megan finally looked at you fully, eyes steady, unreadable.
âTomorrow,â she said simply.
âTomorrow?â
âTomorrow,â she repeated.
âIf youâre still⊠paying attention.â
You nodded, words catching in your throat. âI will be.â
She gave a small, fleeting nod, then turned and disappeared into the dorm, leaving you standing there, chest tight, heart thunderingâ and more certain than ever that the next day, and the day after, would be impossible to stop yourself from following her orbit.
And somehow, you didnât mind.
Days slipped by like water over sand. You moved through the island in fragments, snapshots stitched together by light, sound, and the slow orbit of Meganâs presence.
Morning markets: Sophia pulling you into an impromptu taste test of street food, laughing as Manon critiqued the colors, Lara shaking her head at Yoonchaeâs reckless dodges through the crowd, and Megan trailing just behind you, quiet, observing, occasionally nudging you aside when you almost got run over.
Afternoons on the pier: Yoonchae skipping stones with reckless abandon, calling out counts for you to write down but never really expecting you to keep track. Sophia humming a note that made the wooden boards tremble underfoot. Manon unpacking little snacks and sharing stories about every vendor you passed. Megan leaning on the railing, watching, letting you glance her way before she looked away.
Nights by the fire: Same circle, different stories. Manon retelling childhood adventures with a grin. Lara narrating dryly, laughing at her own sarcasm. Sophiaâs voice carrying across the flames, and Yoonchaeâs bursts of chaos punctuating every sentence. And Megan⊠inching closer every night, sometimes speaking, often just sitting, letting the warmth of her presence brush against yours.
Quiet interludes: Long walks along moonlit beaches, Megan walking just beside you, letting you match her pace. No words, sometimes just a shared silence that felt charged, like the world had shrunk down to the two of you. Slowly, tentatively, she let you inâ through small glances, fleeting smiles, the occasional âwatch out for that rockâ or âdonât step in the tide.â
Rain-soaked afternoons: You all hiding under awnings, laughing as Yoonchae splashed through puddles, Sophia singing into the storm, Manon and Lara holding up scarves and jackets like shields. Megan grabbed your hand just once, light, passing it back to you immediatelyâ heart-stopping, brief, and unforgettable.
Late-night dorm corners: Scribbling notes by candlelight while the others played music or whispered secrets, Megan leaning just close enough for you to hear her soft, amused commentary. Small jokes, almost smiles, brief touches on shoulders or handsâ but always her choice, always careful, letting you orbit closer without rushing.
Sunrise sessions: Walking along cliffs as the sun bled into the ocean, the group far behind you, Megan finally talking to you in low, casual tones, asking questions you werenât expectingâ about you, not just your project. Those were the mornings you felt like youâd crossed some invisible threshold.
A month of firelight, salt air, laughter, music, and subtle glances. You learned the rhythm of the island, of the Gems, of Meganâ slow, deliberate, magnetic.
You werenât just recording their stories anymore. You were living them, part of a world that didnât notice the clock, that didnât ask for permission to be beautiful, chaotic, warm.
And Megan⊠Megan had let you in. A crack at first, then a sliver, then a soft, steady space beside her that you could call yours, if only for a few moments at a time.
By the end of the first month, your notebook was thick, but less with observations than with impressionsâ traces of laughter, half-spoken truths, the subtle shifts of someone letting you close.
And though the other Gems were brilliant and alive in every way, it was Megan who had become the gravity you couldnât stop orbiting, the quiet center of a month that had slipped past in a blur of sand, fire, and slowly shared silences.
ââ
The first clear night after the month passed, the island felt different somehowâ like the air itself had learned to hold secrets.
You were wandering near the edge of the pier, alone at first, notebook tucked under your arm though it remained mostly untouched these days.
Megan appeared without a knock, without warning, her silhouette framed against the silver glow of the moon.
âHey,â she said, voice low, almost teasing. Not the formal, guarded tone from beforeâ the one youâd memorizedâ but something warmer, quieter, patient.
âHey,â you replied, heart thudding in your chest.
She glanced at your notebook, then shrugged. âStill carrying that thing around like armor?â
You chuckled, a little embarrassed. âOld habits die hard.â
Megan tilted her head, watching you with that uncanny steadiness.
Then, casually, she nudged a loose piece of driftwood toward you. âHold this.â
You did, startled, as she sat beside you, closer than she had before. Just close. No words for a while, only the soft slap of waves and the occasional rustle of her hoodie.
The contact wasnât muchâ but it was enough. Enough to feel her warmth, her presence, without her needing to say anything.
Over the next few days, little things changed.
Megan started seeking you outâ small gestures that could be mistaken for coincidence if you werenât paying attention.
A hand brushing yours as you passed through the market. A voice catching yours over the din of Sophiaâs laughter: âDonât fall behind.â
Shared jokes you barely noticed at first, growing into long, quiet conversations at the edges of the groupâs chaos.
The others still surrounded youâ lively, unavoidable, impossible not to be drawn intoâ but Meganâs orbit became tangible.
She didnât crowd you.
She didnât force a moment.
She let you exist beside her, letting proximity speak when words wouldnât.
One evening, Sophia and Manon had gone to chase the sunset across the cliffs, and Lara had wandered off toward the library ruins. Yoonchae was darting along the shore, skipping stones with exaggerated flair. That left you and Megan alone near the waterâs edge.
She tossed a small stone into the surf.
âBet you canât skip it three times,â she said, eyes locked on yours, a small smirk tugging at her lips.
You tried.
Two skips.
You almost laughed at your failure. Megan chuckled softlyâ a full sound this timeâ and shook her head.
âClose enough.â
It was just a game. And yet, as you sat there, legs brushing, sand sticking to your fingers, something fundamental had shifted.
Megan wasnât just letting you watch her anymore. She was letting you share these small, ordinary victories.
Later, as the sky deepened into violet, she nudged you gently with her shoulder.
âCome on,â she murmured.
âRace you back to the dunes.â
The race was ridiculous, laughter spilling across the wind, a rare abandon you hadnât seen from her before.
By the time you collapsed, breathless, on the dunes, Megan didnât retreat. She stayed beside you, leaning back on her hands, eyes bright in the moonlight.
âSee?â she said softly.
âNot everything has to be serious.â
âNo,â you whispered, and it was true.
With her, you were learning that things didnât have to be serious.
Not yet.
Not always.
And somewhere deep in the chaos of laughter, waves, and sand, you realized that Meganâs slow letting-in wasnât about grand gestures or confessions.
It was about quiet proximity, shared silences, touches that lingered just a fraction too long, and the way she let you orbit closer without pushingâ or pullingâ too hard.
For the first time, you understood that patience wasnât just about waiting for herâ it was about noticing how she let you in, piece by piece, until it felt like you belonged in the same small world, even if only for fleeting moments.
The night air had cooled by the time you wandered back toward the main square, Megan trailing a pace behind you that was close enough to feel, far enough to let you breathe.
The island hummed softly around youâ waves brushing the shore, cicadas singing in the trees, distant lanterns swaying. You didnât realize how much youâd grown used to the rhythm of her presence until it shifted slightly.
Then she appeared.
Not with a crash, not with noise, not even with the usual circle of familiar voices. Daniela stepped into the lantern-lit square like the world had bent itself around her.
Her movements were fluid, confident, but not chaoticâ every gesture seemed deliberate, small arcs of light catching her gem-palms as if she were channeling something subtle yet impossible to ignore.
The air felt heavier somehow, not threatening, just charged.
You noticed her first, naturallyâ like noticing a star suddenly bright enough to distract from the moon.
Your heart caught.
She smiled briefly at someone passing, polite, warm, magnetic, and then her gaze fell on you. Not judging, not expecting, just⊠curious.
Megan noticed too.
You saw it in the small tightening of her jaw, the flex of her hand near her gem, and the slight narrowing of her eyesâ not unkind, but aware.
The space between Megan and Daniela shifted, unspoken, a tension that wasnât hostility but recognition.
Meganâs usual light seemed to dim fractionally, just enough that you sensed something fundamental had changed.
Daniela walked closer, gem-palms catching the lantern glow, and without speaking, her presence drew attention in a way that made words unnecessary.
It wasnât loud, it wasnât chaoticâ it was gravitational.
You felt your chest tighten as your curiosity bloomed. She stopped a few paces from you, tilt of her head and calm confidence insisting you pay attention.
âIâve heard stories,â Daniela said finally, voice soft but commanding, almost a song in the quiet square.
âAbout someone who writes everything down, someone who watches.â
You blinked, caught off guard, and only nodded. Words felt too small.
Meganâs gaze flicked to Daniela, then back to you, and the shift in the air was undeniable. Megan was still here, still protective, still steadyâ but something had been pulled, a current you didnât yet understand.
You felt drawn to Daniela, as if her calm charisma created a space you couldnât resist moving into. Megan noticed it too, subtle, measuredâ her eyes watching every step, every slight smile, every shift of your attention.
And for the first time, you realized that Megan wasnât just letting you in slowly anymoreâ she was paying attention to what pulled you, and that attention was a gift in itself.
The night held its breath. Waves whispered, lanterns flickered, and the three of you existed in the delicate gravity of new currentsâ one quiet, one patient, one magnetic, each influencing the other without a word needing to be said
The lanterns flickered across the square, casting long shadows as Daniela stepped closer, each movement deliberate.
Her smile was quick, teasing, and impossibly confident, like she knew exactly the effect she had. She didnât speak at first, just tilted her head and let the silence stretch, letting her presence wrap around you.
âIâve heard a lot about you,â she said finally, voice warm, magnetic, carrying a lilt that made you lean in without realizing.
âAll that scribbling⊠Are you as serious as you look, or just pretending for the island audience?â
You blinked, caught off guard by the charm in her tone. âIâuhâŠâ
Words felt small, inadequate, and suddenly you found yourself smiling despite the flutter in your chest.
Daniela laughedâ a rich, open sound that carried across the square, bold enough to make the waves hush just for a moment.
âRelax,â she said, leaning casually against the edge of a lamp post, one gem-hand catching the lantern glow.
âI like humans who can keep up with me. Or at least pretend to.â
Megan, standing a few paces back, observed quietly. Her hands were tucked into her hoodie, her posture less rigid than usual but still deliberate. She noticed the way your attention drifted, and you could feel her assessment in the small tightening around her eyes, in the subtle shift of her weight.
Danielaâs eyes sparkled, catching yours, and she smirked. âYouâre interesting. Iâve been waiting for someone like youâ not just a notebook, not just a pair of earsâ but someone who actually notices.â
She took a step closer, closing the gap ever so slightly. âLetâs get out of the crowd,â she suggested, voice low enough that it felt like a secret. âI want to hear more about that human obsession with observing everything. Alone.â
Your pulse jumped.
The invitation was direct, impossible to ignore. Megan didnât step forward, didnât interveneâ her presence hovered like a quiet shadow behind you, aware but restrained.
Daniela leaned in just a little, one hand brushing against the small of your back as if guiding you, yet with a teasing weightlessness that kept the tension playful.
âCome on,â she murmured, a grin tugging at her lips.
âI promise Iâm more fun than the night air, and way more interesting than a bunch of lanterns.â
And just like that, the square faded, the firelight dimmed, and your attention slid, willingly, toward Daniela.
Her energy was loud, enticing, impossible to ignoreâ her wit sharp, her charm deliberateâ and she was pulling you into her orbit with the ease of someone who knew exactly the gravity she carried.
Megan stayed just behind, quiet, her eyes never leaving the two of you, her light steady but aware of the shift.
You realized then, heart pounding, that the next chapter of this strange island life wasnât about observation anymore. It was about participationâ and Daniela, with all her allure, was dragging you in, one daring smile at a time.
The days after that dune evening stretched like a lazy tide. Meganâs presence became quieter, subtler, almost like the hum of the ocean in the backgroundâ always there, but no longer brushing against your skin or nudging you toward shared spaces.
You noticed it in the small things: a hand that used to linger when you passed now retracted, a glance that once caught you mid-thought now flicked past.
She was still around, always just at the edge of sight, and her calm patience was a tether you felt more than saw.
Daniela, on the other hand, thrived in the daylight and the lantern-lit nights alike. She claimed moments with a grin that was almost mischievous, looping her arm through yours, leaning close when she wanted to whisper something only you would hear.
âSlow down, human,â she would say, nudging you gently as you tried to linger at the market, âwe donât have time for distractions. Youâre mine for this walk.â
It wasnât possessive in a heavy, harsh wayâ it was playful, warm, teasing, the kind that made your chest tighten with delight rather than fear.
Sheâd laugh at your protests, tugging you along, eyes sparkling, gem-palms catching every glint of sunlight or lantern glow as if she were subtly marking her territory, but in a way that felt friendly, inclusive, magnetic.
You still thought of Megan often.
When the wind brushed your hair the way it used to when she was beside you, or when a quiet corner reminded you of her laughter, there was a small ache, a reminder that someone steady, patient, and grounding had once orbited closer.
But Danielaâs pull was immediate, irresistibleâ her orbit so wide, so bright, that it was easy to be drawn entirely into her world, even if a small part of your mind lingered with Megan.
One evening, as the sun dipped behind the cliffs and the lanterns blinked awake, Daniela steered you to the pier.
âYouâre thinking about her again,â she said softly, teasing, yet firm, a gem-hand brushing lightly against your arm.
âMeganâs⊠fine. But youâre here with me now. Remember that.â
Her words werenât cruel, just a friendly reminder, a claim wrapped in warmth and wit. It made you smile despite the ache in your chest, and you leaned into her pull without shame.
Megan remained in the periphery.
You caught glimpses of herâ walking past with Sophia or watching from the library stepsâ but she never approached, never intruded.
It was a quiet retreat, one you understood even if you didnât want it. And strangely, it made her presence even more poignant, the kind of absence that reminded you why she had mattered.
Daniela noticed your moments of distraction, and she made it clearâ playfully, possessively, without maliceâ that your attention belonged with her now.
A joke slipped in between her teasing touches, a hand resting lightly on your shoulder to guide you through the crowd, a grin that dared anyoneâ or anythingâ to pull you away.
By the second week, Meganâs orbit had faded to whispers, to memories, to a ghost of her grounding gravity. You could feel it still, a small weight at the edges of your chest. But Danielaâs pull was constant, insistent in its warmth, playful and demanding, and it had you entirely in its thrall.
In those final days of the second month, the tension between past and present, quiet and bold, patience and friendly possession, settled into something you could navigate.
Megan was out of sight but never out of mind, a quiet memory threading through your days. Daniela, however, had you fully, claiming your laughter, your attention, your space in the most magnetic, unapologetically friendly way.
You realized that even as the tides shifted and Meganâs light receded from the forefront, it had shaped the way you moved through this new orbit, made Danielaâs pull even more vivid, even more intoxicating.
And when the month ended, it wasnât with heartbreak or conflictâ it was with the gentle, bittersweet understanding that Megan had let go just enough, and Daniela had demanded your presence fully, leaving you caught entirely in her orbit, smiling, laughing, and entirely alive in the gravity she carried.
The first morning of the third month bled slowly into the room, pale light spilling across the scattered papers at your feet. You sat cross-legged, notebooks fanned out around you like a map of everything youâd been trying to hold onto. Names scribbled in margins. Half-finished sketches. Little notes about the island that didnât feel like they belonged to you anymore.
You were supposed to be fixing your notes, tightening the details, lining things up so they made sense. Lara. Yoonchae. Manon. Sophia. Daniela. You ticked them off in your head like a roll call.
And thenâ
Megan.
Your eyes fell to a corner of the pile.
A loose sheet, folded twice, its edges soft from being handled too much.
You unfolded it and there it was: the doodle.
Your attempt at Megan.
It didnât even look like her.
The lines were clumsy, her face stiff, the eyes wrong. Nothing about it matched the real thingâ not her quiet gravity, not her warmth, not the way she seemed to move without sound but still change the space around her.
It was just a sketch, nothing more, but staring at it made your chest ache.
You felt foolish.
Foolish for thinking you could trap her on paper, foolish for thinking you could hold her at all.
How could anyone draw someone like Megan?
Someone whoâd never really been yours to begin with?
Your pen slid from your fingers and rolled across the floor. The page stayed in your lap, mocking you gently. It wasnât her. It would never be her.
You sat there for a long time, listening to the faint sounds of the islandâ the cicadas in the trees, the waves hitting the shoreâ and let the quiet press in.
No Daniela laughing, no Megan sitting just out of reach. Just you, your notes, and a drawing that would never match the person it was meant to hold.
You closed your eyes, and for a heartbeat, it was like she was there again. That steady presence. That soft light. Not a sketch. Not a memory. Just a feeling.
And then it was gone.
By midweek, Megan returned.
Not the warm, patient Megan who had slowly let you in, but someone newâ or someone you hadnât really known at all.
She appeared on the pier one evening, her silhouette framed against the golden-pink wash of sunset, and for a moment, your chest tightened.
âHey,â she said, voice neutral, careful, measured. No teasing undertone, no warmth, just⊠words.
âHey,â you replied, awkwardly, as if greeting a stranger.
She didnât glance at your notebook, didnât nudge a driftwood log toward you, didnât close the space between you. She simply stood there, hands tucked into her hoodie pockets, her posture straight, controlled, distant.
And yet, every once in a while, the weight of her gaze lingered a fraction too long, subtle enough that it unsettled you, but not enough to bridge the gap between you two.
You spent the week circling this strange rhythm.
When you tried to speak, she answered lightly, keeping you at armâs length. When you moved closer, she shifted just enough to remind you that you werenât in her orbit anymoreâ at least not fully.
It was like meeting her for the first time, except your memory betrayed you, reminding you of every laugh, every soft nudge, every victory shared in silence.
Even in her distance, Meganâs presence was palpable. The same quiet gravity, restrained now, watched you from afar.
And you noticed everythingâ the small arch of her brow when she observed you, the way her eyes flicked toward something trivial yet sharp, the subtle tension in her shoulders as if she were holding herself together by sheer will.
By the end of the week, you realized how much you had missed herâ not the teasing, orbiting Megan, but this more controlled, distant version.
There was something magnetic about it too, a pull that made you ache and hesitate simultaneously. Meeting her again felt like starting over, but this time, you werenât just curiousâ you were aware of every inch of space, every unspoken word, every hesitant heartbeat between you.
And somewhere in that restrained distance, you understood: Megan had returned, but only on her terms, and the tension of her restraint became its own kind of gravity.
The second week bled into a gray sky. The ocean was restless, white crests snapping under a wind that made the palms hiss.
Every sound on the island felt sharper now, like it knew what you were about to lose. You hadnât been able to sleep; you hadnât been able to stop thinking about her.
Every time you closed your eyes, it was Meganâs face that appearedâ not the smile she used to give you but the distance she wore now like a veil.
Youâd spent days trying to reach her, your hands full of apologies you never got to say. But every attempt fell flat.
Youâd walk up to where she was sitting on the low sea wall, or under the eaves of the boathouse, or sketching something in the sand with her toe, and youâd start to speakâ and sheâd move away, like mist burned off by the sun.
No sharp words, no obvious cruelty, just an absence that grew heavier each time.
It was like you were back at the first day, before sheâd ever looked at you, before sheâd ever let you in.
And the panic in you was building.
You could feel the clock ticking. You werenât going to be on this island forever.
The time you had left was slipping like water between your fingers.
You couldnât leave her thinking youâd never wanted her.
You couldnât leave her at all.
By the end of the week you were a wreck, walking the pier like it might give you an answer. The boards were warm under your palms. The tide hissed below.
Somewhere behind you, someone laughedâ Daniela probablyâ but you didnât even look.
For once you didnât care.
All you could think about was Megan, her silence, her distance, the way sheâd been watching you with that hollow look in her eyes.
You spotted her at the far end of the pier. She was standing with her back to you, hoodie hood pulled up, hair caught in the breeze. She wasnât sketching or writing. She was just standing there, staring at the water as if it might take her away.
Your throat went dry.
âMegan,â you called softly.
No answer.
You stepped closer, heartbeat hammering. âMegan, please.â
She didnât turn.
You moved closer still, until you could see the trembling in her shoulders.
âIââ The words choked you.
âI canât keepâMegan, talk to me.â
She turned then, and the look on her face nearly knocked the breath from your lungs. Her eyes were wet, glassy, but her jaw was tight, her lips pressed into a hard line. The gem at her chest pulsed once, faint and pink, like an ember.
âNow you want me again?â she said. Her voice wasnât sharpâit was raw, cracked like glass about to break.
You froze. âWhat?â
âAfter you chased Daniela?â Her voice rose on the name, trembled like she hated even saying it.
âAfter you let her pull you away? Youââ She shook her head.
âFuck. I thought you wanted me.â
"I thought you wanted me."
âNoââ you tried, stepping forward.
âDonât.â She backed away a step. The gem flickered again, brighter.
âDonât lie to me. Thatâs what you humans do, isnât it? Something shinier catches your eye and you chase it. You lie. You always lie.â
Her hands clenched at her sides, and you saw itâ the tremor running through her arms, the way her gemâs light was starting to shake like it couldnât hold itself together.
âMegan, pleaseââ
âDo you not want me?â The words tore out of her, almost a scream, but softer somehow, breaking as they came.
âTell me. Tell me now. Because I canâtââ She cut herself off, covering her mouth with a trembling hand.
The gem flared bright enough to light her fingers from within.
You were shaking too.
âI do,â you said, voice cracking.
âI do. Iâve always wanted you.â
She made a harsh, disbelieving sound. âNo. No, donât. Donât do this. Donât say the words you think I want to hear.â
Her eyes were wild now, and the tears spilling over only made them brighter.
âYou humansâ Godâ you see something perfect, then you see something shinier, and youââ She broke off, clutching at her chest where the gem pulsed like a heartbeat out of control.
âYou leave.â
âI never left,â you said.
âNot really. Even with Danielaâ I never stopped looking at you. Megan, Iâve always seen you. Even when I was stupid, even when I let time get eaten up, even when it looked like I was somewhere elseâ I was watching you. I never stopped.â
Her knees wavered. She sank onto the boards, clutching at herself, gem light splintering across her hoodie like cracks in glass.
âStop,â she whispered, but there was no strength in it.
âStopââ
You dropped down in front of her, hands out but not touching her yet.
âI canât stop. Not now. Megan, Iââ Your voice broke.
âI canât leave without you knowing.â
She looked up at you then, eyes swimming with pain.
âWhy didnât you tell me?â
âBecause Iâm human,â you said, voice shaking.
âAnd Iâm afraid. But Iâve always known it was you. Always. Youâreââ You swallowed hard.
âYouâre perfect. Not because youâre flawless. Because youâre you. Every imperfection you think you have, I see it and I still canât look away. Iâve been noticing you all along, Megan. From the start.â
The gem pulsed once more, like a heartbeat matching yours, then dimmed. She folded forward until her forehead nearly touched yours, sobs breaking loose. Her hands clutched your wrists now, hard enough to hurt.
âWhyââ she tried again, voice wrecked.
âWhy did you let her take you away? Why did you make me thinkââ
âI didnât let her take me,â you whispered.
âI was stupid. I didnât know how to fight for you. But even thenâ Megan, even thenâ you were the one. Youâre the only one. Youâre everything I want.â
She let out a noise that was half sob, half laugh, the sound of someone finally shattering. Her gem flickered again but this time steadier, like it was syncing to your voice.
You reached for her then, slowly, and she didnât pull away. She collapsed into you instead, shoulders heaving, hands still shaking, tears wetting your shirt. The gemâs light pulsed between you like a heartbeat.
You held her, whispering the words you hadnât been able to say for weeks, for months, the words that had been clawing at your ribs:
âI wanted you. I want you. Iâve always wanted you.â
Her sobs quieted but didnât stop.
âYouâre so stupid,â she whispered back, voice hoarse.
âYouâre soââ
âI know,â you said.
âI know.â
She pressed her forehead against your collarbone, eyes squeezed shut.
âI wanted you too,â she said, so soft you barely heard it.
The wind moved around you, lifting the salt smell off the water, brushing your hair against hers. The pier creaked.
Somewhere far away the others were laughing, but here there was just thisâ the crash of what youâd both been carrying, the rawness of it, the flicker of her gem against your skin, the taste of salt and relief and something like worship in your throat.
You kept whispering, words spilling out like prayer: how youâd noticed her laugh in the mornings, how youâd noticed the way her hands shaped the sand, how youâd noticed the cracks she tried to hide and how they made her whole.
Not as a script, not as a plea, but as a truth youâd been holding too long.
Her body gradually stopped shaking. The gem light dimmed to a soft glow. She was still crying, but the tears were quiet now, almost calm. She stayed pressed against you, as if she could feel the words in your chest instead of just hearing them.
You stayed like that, on the pier, while the tide came in and the light changed around you. Nothing fixed, nothing solved, but the distance burned away at last.
ââ
The morning after the pier felt like a different island.
The air was still heavy with salt, the palms still hissed in the wind, but something had shifted between you and Megan.
She wasnât soft, not yet.
She wasnât warm.
But sheâd stopped running.
She came to breakfast late, hood down, hair loose and tangled from the sea air.
Her eyes were rimmed red, but when you said âmorning,â she nodded.
It was nothing, a fraction of a nodâ but it was more than youâd had for weeks.
You didnât push. You let her sit across from you, tearing bread into small pieces without eating it. Her gem sat quiet under her shirt, not glowing, not flickering, just there.
Later that day you found her near the waterline, fixing a net. The sun had burned the sky to white, and her shadow lay long across the sand. She didnât look up when you sat next to her, but she didnât move away either.
âI donât know what to do with you,â she said finally, threading twine through her fingers.
âIâm still⊠angry.â
âI know,â you said.
âIâm still scared.â
Her mouth twitched, but she didnât look up. âYouâre a mess.â
âYouâre still here,â you said softly.
That earned you a glanceâ quick, but there. Her gem flickered once, faint pink.
The days blurred, salt and wind and long silences. You learned her new edges: how sheâd stand with her back to you but leave space for you to stand beside her. How sheâd sit at the edge of the dock but not shift away when you joined her. How her gem glowed faintly when you spoke, like it was listening even if she didnât answer.
At night youâd sit outside your hut, notebook open, and sheâd pass by on her way back from the shore. Sometimes sheâd pause, just for a heartbeat.
Once she stopped long enough to say, âWrite about something real this time.â
Then she walked on.
You did.
You wrote about her.
About the way she wrapped her hoodie strings around her fingers. About the cracks in her voice when she thought nobody was listening. About the way her gem, no matter how broken it had looked that night, still pulsed steady now.
On the fourth evening she handed you a shellâ just held it out, eyes down.
âFound it,â she said.
âLooks like one youâd like.â
It wasnât much.
It was everything.
On the sixth day you were sitting on the sand, knees drawn up, scribbling in your notebook when she crouched next to you.
âYou draw like shit,â she said, glancing at the paper.
âI know,â you said.
âI was trying to draw you.â
Her lips pressed together. âDonât.â
âWhy not?â
âBecause you canât,â she said quietly.
âAnd I hate the way you look at me when you try.â
âIâm not looking at you like an object,â you said.
âIâm looking at you like youâre⊠you.â
Her gem flickered faintly. She stood up again without answering.
By the second week, the island felt different. The tension hadnât vanished, but it had thinned, replaced by something tentative, like the first breath after a storm.
You spent most evenings on the pier together. Sometimes she spoke, sometimes she didnât. You never pushed.
One night she asked, âWhy me? Still?â
You didnât have to think. âBecause even when I was stupid, even when it looked like I was somewhere else, youâre the one I kept noticing.â
She laughed once, a dry, broken sound. âYouâre bad at lying.â
âIâm bad at everything except wanting you,â you said quietly.
Her gem glowed faintly at that, a soft pulse under her hoodie. She turned her face away, but she didnât move.
The days kept shrinking. Each sunrise felt sharper. Each night you stayed on the pier a little longer.
She started to mirror you without realizing itâ crossing her arms the same way you did, sitting with her feet dangling at the same angle. Sometimes you caught her watching you when she thought you werenât looking.
Once, on the thirteenth day, she whispered, âI donât know how to forgive you.â
You answered, âIâm not asking you to. I just wanted you to know.â
She didnât reply.
But her hand brushed yours on the board between you, and this time she didnât pull away. Her gem glowed faintly pink, like a heartbeat.
You stayed there, the sea hissing beneath the pier, the whole island holding its breath. You knew there was still one more day.
You knew the end was coming.
But for now, she was next to you.
And she stayed.
The morning of the last day was gray and salt-heavy.
The sea was restless but quiet, like it knew it was about to take something from you both. Bags were stacked, the boatâs horn low and echoing, everyone else already gathered by the dock. It felt like the island itself was holding its breath.
You saw Megan apart from the others, at the edge where wet sand met water. She wasnât waving or calling out; she was staring down at the tide lapping over her shoes, fingers twisting the edge of her hoodie like she was trying to hold herself together.
You walked to her, each step heavy. She looked up as you stopped in front of her, eyes rimmed red but defiant.
âSo youâll go?â she asked. Her voice was soft, but it landed like a stone in your chest.
âI have to,â you managed, your throat tight.
âFor now.â
Her fingers trembled on her hoodie. âAnd youâll come back?â
You took a step closer.
âYes,â you said quietly.
âFor you.â
Her jaw quivered.
She blinked hard and a tear escaped, rolling down her cheek before she could wipe it away.
âDonât,â she whispered.
âDonât come back if you donât still want me. Donât stand here and make me think I was enough, and then step off that boat with eyes for someone else. I canât survive that. I canât.â
Her voice broke on the last word.
You reached for her hands.
She didnât pull away.
They were cold and damp in yours, trembling. âI wonât,â you said.
âMegan, look at me.â
She did. Her eyes shone, wet and wide and terrified.
âIâve wanted you from the start,â you said, voice cracking.
âAnd Iâll still want you when I come back. I donât care how far I go. Itâs you.â
Her breath hitched. She stared at you like she was memorizing you.
âSay it,â she whispered, broken.
âSay you want me. Only me.â
You stepped in until your forehead rested against hers. The wind caught her hair and tangled it with yours.
âI want you,â you said, every word trembling.
âOnly you. Iâve wanted only you. Iâll come back because itâs you Iâm coming back for.â
She choked on a sob then, the first sound she couldnât swallow. Her hands slid up your arms, then around your neck, and suddenly she was clinging to you, her face pressed into your shoulder. You felt her shoulders shake, felt her gem pulse warm and frantic between you like a heartbeat.
âI donât want to lose you,â she whispered against your neck, voice shaking.
âI donât want toââ She broke off with another sob.
âIf youâre lyingâŠâ
âIâm not,â you whispered back.
âI swear. Even if the whole world changes while Iâm gone, Iâll still be looking for you. Iâll still see you.â
She held you tighter for a long heartbeat, breath hitching against your skin.
Then she pulled back just enough to look at you, tears streaming down her cheeks.
âOkay,â she breathed, raw and small.
âThen Iâll wait. But come back wanting me. Donât come back at all if you donât.â
âIâll come back wanting you,â you said, your hands on either side of her face, thumbs brushing her tears.
âIâll come back.â
Her gem glowed faint pink now, warm through her hoodie, as if it was answering for her. She sniffled and tried to smile, but her hands were still gripping your wrists like she couldnât let go.
For a heartbeat you both just stayed there, the world around you blurring to salt and air and the sound of her shaky breathing.
When you finally stepped back, her hands slid down your arms until your fingers slipped apart. She didnât wave. She pressed her palm to her chest instead, eyes locked on yours, and mouthed one last thing across the water as you walked toward the boat:
