Dah Makan?

Aleesya had learned that loneliness did not always arrive as silence.

Sometimes it came with a phone screen lighting up at 11:43 p.m., with a familiar name appearing at the top, with three words that should not have meant as much as they did.

Harith Dah makan?

The message glowed against the dimness of her bedroom, soft and accusing. Outside, rain dragged itself down the window in thin silver lines, blurring the lights of the opposite HDB block until every kitchen window and corridor lamp looked like something underwater. The air smelled faintly of detergent from the laundry she had forgotten to fold, and of the peppermint oil her mother insisted could fix headaches, bad moods, stomachaches, and possibly poor life choices.

Aleesya lay on her side, still in her work blouse, one earring removed and the other hanging from her ear like a small unfinished thought. Her laptop bag had been abandoned near the door. Her tudung was folded over the back of her chair with less care than it deserved. On her desk, the plastic container of untouched nasi goreng from lunch sat beside a stack of printed forms, its lid fogged from condensation that had long since cooled.

She looked at the message until the screen dimmed.

It was a simple question. Ordinary. Friend-shaped.

But Harith had a talent for making ordinary things feel like a hand placed gently at the small of her back, guiding her through a crowded room.

She unlocked her phone.

Aleesya Not yet.

She regretted the reply immediately. It sounded too honest, too small. She could have lied. She could have said yes, could have added a smiley, could have pretended to be the kind of woman who ate proper meals at proper times and did not let deadlines, emotions, and one particular man rearrange her entire nervous system.

The typing bubble appeared.

Disappeared.

Appeared again.

Aleesya held her breath without meaning to.

Harith Again?

She smiled despite herself. It was not a happy smile exactly. More like surrender.

Aleesya Don’t scold me.

Harith I haven’t started.

Harith You want prata?

The rain became louder for a moment, as if someone upstairs had opened a tap in the sky. Aleesya stared at the word prata and imagined him wherever he was: probably still in his office shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms, hair slightly ruined from the rain, brows drawn together in that quiet, serious way he got whenever he was pretending not to worry.

She should say no.

She had work tomorrow. He had work tomorrow. It was almost midnight. They were both adults with bills, sleep debt, and mothers who asked pointed questions whenever their children smiled at their phones.

She typed, deleted, typed again.

Aleesya It’s late.

His reply came too quickly.

Harith That wasn’t the question.

Aleesya pressed the phone to her chest and closed her eyes.

This was the dangerous part. Not the teasing. Not the supper. Not even the fact that Harith always seemed to notice when she had gone too quiet.

The dangerous part was how easily he made care sound casual.

As if this was nothing.

As if he did not know she would remember.

---

The prata shop below Block 418 was half-empty when Aleesya arrived, though the rain had driven a few stragglers under its fluorescent shelter. A delivery rider sat near the drinks stall, helmet beside his elbow, scrolling through his phone with the weary patience of someone waiting for the weather to become merciful. Two uncles in faded polo shirts argued softly over football. The television mounted in the corner played a drama nobody was watching, all glossy tears and dramatic pauses.

The floor was damp near the entrance. The air smelled of fried dough, curry, wet pavement, and teh tarik.

Harith was already there.

Of course he was.

He sat at their usual table near the back, not because they had ever declared it theirs, but because they had somehow chosen it enough times for the choice to become a ritual. He had placed a packet of tissue on her side. Her teh o peng was sweating beside it, untouched, straw still wrapped. A plate of prata kosong and egg prata sat between them, with curry in a shallow metal dish.

Aleesya paused at the edge of the shelter and watched him for one second longer than friendship probably allowed.

His hair was damp. Rain darkened the shoulders of his navy shirt. He had loosened his collar, and his laptop bag rested against his chair like it too had given up on the day. He was looking down at his phone, thumb hovering over the screen, not typing. Just waiting.

Then he looked up.

His expression changed before his mouth did. That was one of the first things Aleesya had noticed about Harith. His face did not open quickly, but when it did, it was always first in the eyes. A subtle brightening. A quiet relief. As if some part of him had been bracing until she appeared.

He stood halfway, hand already moving toward the chair opposite him. “Careful. The floor near the drinks counter is slippery.”

Aleesya stepped around a small puddle and tried not to feel anything about the fact that he had noticed.

“You sound like an announcement,” she said, lowering herself into the chair. “Next you’ll say, ‘Please hold the handrail.’”

“If you held the handrail, I wouldn’t need to say it.”

She gave him a look over the top of her drink. He did not smile fully, but the corner of his mouth shifted.

It had been three years since she first met him at a community volunteering event in Tampines, where he had been assigned to logistics and she had been assigned to registration. He had spent the first hour quietly fixing everyone’s mistakes without taking credit. She had spent the first hour thinking he was unfriendly. Then, during lunch, he had passed her a packet of chilli sauce without being asked because he had seen her searching the table for one.

That was how Harith entered a person’s life. Not loudly. Not with charm sharpened for display. He entered through small doors, carrying things you did not realize you needed.

Now he pushed the plate toward her. “Eat first. Then you can complain.”

“I wasn’t going to complain.”

“You looked like you were saving energy for it.”

Aleesya tore a piece of prata, dipped it into the curry, and watched steam curl faintly into the over-bright air. Her stomach tightened with hunger only after the first bite touched her tongue. She had forgotten how good food tasted when someone else had thought of it before she did.

Harith leaned back, satisfied, as if her eating was a problem he had solved.

The gesture irritated her because it comforted her.

“So,” he said, picking up his own piece of prata, “what happened?”

Aleesya wiped curry from her finger with the tissue he had placed for her. “Who said something happened?”

“You didn’t reply properly from four onwards.”

“I was working.”

“You reply properly when you’re working.”

“That sounds unhealthy.”

“It is.” His gaze rested on her face, not intrusive, but too observant to hide from. “Your meeting went badly?”

Aleesya looked away first.

Outside the shop, a bus sighed to a stop. Water sprayed from its tyres. Through the rain-blurred glass, she caught sight of passengers inside: heads bent, faces lit blue by phones, everyone going somewhere, everyone carrying something invisible.

“It wasn’t bad,” she said. “Just tiring.”

Harith waited. He had an annoying respect for silence. He never rushed to fill it, which made it harder to hide inside vague answers.

Aleesya stirred her drink until the ice knocked softly against the plastic cup. “My manager asked me to redo the report. Again. But not because it was wrong. Because apparently it didn’t sound ‘confident enough.’ Whatever that means. Then he said I should learn to present my points more assertively, but when I did that last week, he said I sounded defensive.”

Harith’s jaw tightened.

It was barely there, but she saw it. She always saw the small things with him because he had taught her, unintentionally, that the small things mattered.

“He said that in front of everyone?”

“Not everyone.” Aleesya gave a light shrug, the kind she had perfected over years of not wanting concern to become pity. “Only the people who matter.”

Harith stopped eating.

The television in the corner burst into dramatic music. One of the uncles laughed at something unrelated. Rain tapped the metal awning with quick, restless fingers.

“Aleesya.”

The way he said her name was unfair. Low, steady, with the kind of gentleness that made her feel as if she might fall apart if she relaxed too much.

She took another bite before answering. “Don’t.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You’re doing the face.”

“What face?”

“The I-want-to-fix-this-but-I’m-trying-to-respect-your-independence face.”

At that, he did smile. A brief, reluctant thing. “That’s very specific.”

“You only have four faces. I’ve catalogued them.”

“Only four?”

“Five, if we count the one you make when the nasi lemak aunty gives you cucumber even though you said no cucumber.”

“That one is justified.”

Aleesya laughed, and some of the tightness in her chest loosened. Harith watched her for a beat too long, his own smile fading into something quieter.

Then he looked down, tearing his prata carefully, as if the food required great concentration. “You know you’re good at your work, right?”

The words landed softer than praise. He said them like a fact he was placing on the table between them, something she could pick up later when she was ready.

Aleesya looked at the curry dish. “You didn’t see the report.”

“I saw you this whole month.”

“That’s not the same.”

“It is to me.”

She hated that. She loved that. Both feelings rose together until she had to take a sip of teh o peng to keep them down.

Harith shifted, his knee accidentally brushing hers under the table. It was brief. Barely contact. But her whole body noticed before her mind could remind it to behave.

He pulled back first.

Not sharply. Not guiltily. Just enough.

Enough to return them to whatever safe distance they had agreed to without ever discussing it.

Aleesya focused on her food.

This was how it always was with them. Almost something. Almost nothing. A closeness with careful exits built into every room.

“You’re quiet,” he said.

“I’m eating.”

“You’re thinking.”

“People can do both.”

“You overdo both.”

She rolled her eyes, but it softened before it became convincing. “You’re very irritating tonight.”

“Only tonight?”

“Don’t fish for compliments.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were. Emotionally.”

Harith looked at her then, and for one dangerous second, the teasing fell away.

His face changed, not into one of the five expressions she had claimed to know, but into something unguarded and tired. Something almost tender. The fluorescent light made shadows beneath his eyes. He looked like someone who had also had a long day and still chose to cross the rain for her.

Aleesya’s fingers tightened around her cup.

He opened his mouth.

The delivery rider’s phone rang loudly, slicing through the moment with a cheerful pop song. Harith blinked. Aleesya looked down. The ordinary world returned with its plastic chairs, wet umbrellas, and half-eaten prata.

Whatever he had almost said disappeared.

She told herself not to mourn words she had never been promised.

---

By the time the rain thinned, it was nearly one in the morning.

Harith insisted on walking her home even though her block was three minutes away, and Aleesya insisted she was capable of crossing a carpark without male supervision, and somehow they ended up walking side by side beneath his umbrella anyway.

The world outside the prata shop gleamed. The void deck pillars were slick with reflected light, and the wet pavement held the orange glow of streetlamps in broken pieces. Somewhere nearby, water dripped steadily from a roof edge into a drain. A cat sat under a parked van, watching them pass with the unimpressed dignity of a creature who did not believe in human complications.

Harith held the umbrella slightly more over her side.

Aleesya noticed. Of course she noticed.

“You’re getting wet,” she said.

“I’m not.”

“Your right shoulder is dark blue.”

“It’s fashion.”

“It’s pneumonia.”

“Drama.”

“You’ll be the dramatic one when you get fever and send me a picture of your thermometer.”

He glanced at her. “You’d reply?”

The question was light. Too light.

Aleesya looked ahead, where the lift lobby of her block glowed pale and empty. “Depends. If the fever is below thirty-eight, I’ll send thumbs-up.”

“Cruel.”

“Efficient.”

He huffed a laugh. Then, after a few steps, he said, “I would reply.”

She knew he meant more than fever.

She knew it so suddenly that her chest hurt.

Harith did not look at her when he said it. His gaze stayed on the path ahead, on the small puddles reflecting the overhead lights, on anything that was not her face. His voice had changed too. Quieter now, almost swallowed by the damp air.

Aleesya could have asked him what he meant.

She could have stopped walking. Could have turned to him beneath the umbrella, with rain hemming them into a private little world, and asked the question that had been sitting patiently in her throat for months.

What are we?

But courage had never been her strongest subject when the answer mattered.

So she made her voice playful. “Good. Then next time I’ll send you all my thermometer updates.”

“Please don’t.”

“You said you would reply.”

“I said that before knowing there would be data involved.”

She smiled, but the almost-question stayed between them, walking with them all the way to her lift lobby.

At the entrance, Harith lowered the umbrella and shook water from its edge. The fluorescent light hummed overhead. A notice about lift upgrading curled slightly at one corner on the bulletin board. Someone had left a pair of small blue slippers near the wall.

Aleesya turned to him. “Thanks for supper.”

He looked as if he wanted to say, Don’t thank me.

Instead, he said, “Eat properly tomorrow.”

“You also.”

“I do.”

“You had one kopi for lunch last Tuesday.”

He paused. “How do you know that?”

“You complained about gastric at night.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“You sent me a photo of your medicine.”

His mouth opened, then closed. A rare defeat.

Aleesya enjoyed it more than she should have.

The lift doors opened behind her with a soft chime. Empty. Waiting.

She stepped backward once, then stopped. Harith stood just outside the sheltered walkway, the umbrella folded in his hand, rain beading along his hairline. There was something painfully domestic about the scene, as if this was not the end of a late-night supper between friends, but the familiar goodbye of two people who belonged to each other’s daily life.

Her mother would ask tomorrow why she came home late.

Aleesya would say she had supper with Harith.

Her mother would make that thoughtful sound mothers made when they pretended not to ask questions.

And Aleesya would pretend not to understand it.

The lift began to complain softly, doors trying to close.

Harith reached forward, pressing the button from outside before she could move. His hand passed close enough that she caught the scent of rain on his skin, of office air-conditioning, of the sandalwood soap he used.

The doors opened again.

“Go,” he said. “Before the lift gives up on you.”

Aleesya wanted, absurdly, to stay.

Instead, she stepped inside.

As the doors closed, she looked at him through the narrowing gap. Harith lifted his hand in a small wave, not quite smiling. The last thing she saw was his face divided by the silver line of the lift doors.

On the ride up, her phone buzzed.

She already knew.

Still, she checked.

Harith Text me when you’re inside.

Aleesya leaned against the lift wall and closed her eyes.

Friendship, she thought, should not feel this much like being loved.

---

Saturday arrived washed clean.

By late afternoon, the rain had left behind a bright, humid shine over the estate. Aleesya stood in front of her mirror, adjusting the pleats of her dusty rose baju kurung while her younger cousin, Nadiah, sat cross-legged on the bed behind her, eating keropok from a container she had absolutely not been offered.

“You look pretty,” Nadiah said around a crunch. “Suspiciously pretty.”

Aleesya fixed the pin beneath her chin. “It’s a wedding. People dress up.”

“People dress up. You are glowing like there’s a soundtrack.”

“There is no soundtrack.”

“You sure?” Nadiah leaned sideways to inspect her. “Is Harith going?”

The pin slipped.

Aleesya hissed softly and pressed a finger beneath her chin.

Nadiah’s eyebrows rose with the satisfaction of a detective finding blood at the crime scene. “Aha.”

“There is no aha.” Aleesya reached for another pin. “He knows the groom from poly. I know the bride from uni. That’s all.”

“Mmm.”

“That sound is harassment.”

“That sound is wisdom.” Nadiah took another piece of keropok. “Kak, I’m just saying. If a man texts you ‘dah makan’ more than your own family does, there must be a category for that.”

“There is. It’s called concerned friend.”

“Concerned friend doesn’t walk you home in the rain.”

“He lives nearby.”

“Concerned friend doesn’t know your bubble tea order.”

“Many people know my bubble tea order.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re not observant.”

“I’m very observant. I’m observing denial right now.”

Aleesya turned from the mirror, trying to look stern. It failed because Nadiah was eighteen and therefore immune to dignity. Her cousin only smiled wider, crumbs on her fingers, eyes bright with the merciless joy of youth.

“He’s not like that,” Aleesya said finally.

The words sounded flat even to her.

Nadiah’s expression softened in a way Aleesya did not expect. She put the keropok container aside. “But are you?”

The room changed around the question.

Outside, someone’s child was laughing in the corridor. From the kitchen came the sound of Aleesya’s mother opening and closing cabinets, probably looking for the good Tupperware to bring to the wedding even though nobody had asked her to bring anything. The ceiling fan moved warm air in slow circles.

Aleesya looked back at the mirror.

Her reflection looked composed. Soft pink fabric, neat tudung, small pearl earrings. A woman who knew how to pin everything into place.

“I don’t know,” she said.

It was the first honest thing she had allowed herself all day.

Nadiah did not tease her after that. She only stood, came over, and adjusted the shoulder seam of Aleesya’s sleeve with surprising gentleness.

“Then maybe don’t let him make you wait too long in the ‘don’t know,’” she said.

Aleesya met her cousin’s eyes in the mirror.

For a moment, she saw herself from the outside: twenty-seven years old, old enough to know better, still young enough to hope foolishly, standing in a bedroom full of ordinary things while one man’s name made her feel as if the floor had shifted half an inch beneath her feet.

Her phone buzzed on the table.

Nadiah looked at it first, then looked at Aleesya.

Aleesya did not need to check to know. But she did anyway.

Harith You going with your parents?

Aleesya Yeah. Why?

Harith Nothing. Just asking.

A pause.

Then:

Harith Save me a seat if can.

Nadiah made a sound so high it almost escaped human hearing.

Aleesya threw a cushion at her.

---

The wedding was held at a community club hall in Bedok, the kind of space that transformed on weekends into something softer than its weekday self. White chair covers hid stackable plastic seats. Artificial flowers climbed the stage in pastel garlands. Fairy lights blinked around the pelamin, where the bride and groom sat under a canopy of cream and gold, smiling with the exhausted grace of people who had been photographed since morning.

The air was thick with perfume, biryani, rose syrup, and the faint powdery scent of fresh makeup. Children ran between tables until scolded. Aunties leaned close over plates, exchanging news disguised as concern. Somewhere near the speakers, a kompang rhythm played from a recording, bright and celebratory.

Aleesya entered with her parents and immediately began the careful ritual of greeting relatives who were not exactly relatives but had known her since she was small enough to be embarrassing. She smiled, salam-ed, answered questions about work, avoided questions about marriage, and accepted compliments from makciks who looked her up and down as if assessing market readiness.

She was halfway through telling someone that yes, work was busy, alhamdulillah, when she saw Harith.

He stood near the drinks table, holding two cups of rose syrup, speaking to the groom’s cousin. He wore a cream baju Melayu with dark trousers, sleeves buttoned neatly at the wrist. Simple. Clean. Infuriatingly good on him.

As if sensing her looking, he turned.

Across the hall, past moving guests and children and the blur of celebration, his gaze found hers with unsettling ease.

He smiled.

Not much. Harith never gave too much away in public.

But enough.

Aleesya’s fingers tightened around the strap of her handbag.

Her mother, who had the instincts of a woman trained by decades of weddings, followed her gaze. “Oh, Harith is here.”

Aleesya kept her expression neutral. “He knows the groom.”

“Mmm.” Her mother adjusted the edge of her shawl. “Good boy.”

“Mama.”

“What? I said good boy only.”

“You said it with meaning.”

Her mother smiled serenely. “If you hear meaning, maybe there is meaning.”

Before Aleesya could recover, Harith excused himself from the conversation and made his way over. He moved carefully through the crowd, pausing once to let a child dart past, then again to greet an older man who caught his arm. By the time he reached them, one cup of rose syrup had already begun to sweat in his hand.

He greeted her parents first.

This was another problem with Harith. He knew how to be respectful without performing. He lowered his voice when speaking to elders, asked after her father’s knee because he remembered the minor surgery from last year, and accepted her mother’s immediate interrogation about whether he had eaten with a patience that bordered on dangerous.

“Yes, Aunty,” he said. “I ate already.”

Aleesya’s mother narrowed her eyes. “Properly?”

Harith glanced at Aleesya.

Aleesya raised her brows, daring him.

He looked back at her mother. “Properly enough.”

Her mother sighed. “You young people all the same.”

“We try our best,” Harith said solemnly.

Aleesya had to look away before she laughed.

Her father, less subtle than anyone believed, gestured to the empty seats at their table. “Sit, sit. Aleesya saved one.”

Aleesya froze.

Harith looked at her.

Her father was already turning away to wave at someone, entirely unbothered by the small explosion he had left behind.

“I did not,” Aleesya said under her breath.

Harith leaned slightly closer, his voice low enough that only she could hear. “Your cousin betrayed you already?”

“She has no loyalty.”

His mouth twitched. “Good to know.”

He sat beside her anyway.

Not across. Beside.

Because her father had gestured there. Because the seat was empty. Because in the story they would both tell themselves later, there was always a practical reason.

For a while, the wedding carried them. Plates were filled. Drinks were passed. Guests came and went. Harith spoke easily to her parents, then to an uncle who mistook him for someone’s nephew, then to Nadiah, who arrived at their table with the expression of a person trying very hard not to look victorious.

Aleesya tried to behave normally.

It was difficult when Harith kept doing small things.

He moved the sambal dish closer because he knew she would reach for it. He noticed when her sleeve nearly brushed the gravy and shifted the plate without interrupting his conversation. When a child ran behind her chair too fast, he placed one hand briefly at the back of her seat, steadying it before it could jolt.

Nothing dramatic.

Nothing anyone could accuse him of.

Everything she would remember.

At some point, the emcee invited friends of the bride and groom to take photos. The hall rearranged itself into controlled chaos. People stood, adjusted outfits, handed phones to strangers, shouted names across tables. Aleesya found herself swept toward the front with her university friends, laughing as someone complained about bad angles.

Harith stood a few feet away with the groom’s side, watching the confusion with quiet amusement.

“Eh, Aleesya!” one of her old friends, Farah, called, waving her over. “Your boyfriend there also, ask him join lah!”

The word landed too loudly.

Boyfriend.

Several heads turned with the delighted hunger of wedding guests who had scented another possible wedding.

Aleesya’s smile held, but only because she had trained it to survive worse things than embarrassment.

“He’s not—” she began.

But Harith had already looked over.

Their eyes met.

For one suspended second, the hall seemed to soften at the edges. The fairy lights behind the pelamin blurred into warm stars. Someone laughed. Someone called for everyone to squeeze closer. The bride adjusted her veil. The groom leaned toward her with easy affection.

Harith’s expression was unreadable.

Then Farah, unaware of the fragile thing she had touched, grinned and said louder, “Aiyah, come lah. So when is your turn?”

The words were meant as a joke.

Everyone laughed as if the answer was harmless.

Aleesya laughed too, because there were so many ways to bleed politely in public.

Beside the stage, Harith looked away first.

And though he had not said anything wrong, though he had not rejected anything, though he had not even been given a proper question to answer, Aleesya felt the first small crack form in the unnamed place between them.

It was quiet.

Almost invisible.

But she felt it.

Like rain finding its way through a ceiling long before the stain appeared.