Someone Else Calls It Clear

The first thing Aleesya noticed about Danish was that he did not make her guess.

It should not have felt remarkable.

A man asking whether she wanted help carrying rice packets should not have landed in her chest like evidence of another way to be treated. A man saying, “I can wait, no rush,” and actually waiting without filling the silence should not have seemed like a luxury. A man offering a curry puff and not turning kindness into a hook should not have unsettled her entire understanding of care.

But after Harith, ordinary clarity felt almost suspicious.

Aleesya had spent years learning how to read pauses, glances, changes in tone, the difference between a message sent at 10:31 p.m. and one sent after midnight. She had become fluent in the language of almosts. She knew how to hold a sentence up to the light and search for what lived behind it. She knew the ache of receiving tenderness with no label, of being cared for with both hands and denied with one sentence.

With Danish, there were fewer hidden rooms.

On Saturday morning, the volunteer centre smelled of cardboard, masking tape, and rain that had not yet fallen but was already thickening the air. Grey clouds pressed low over Tampines, making the daylight inside the room feel flat and undecided. Cartons of food staples lined one wall: rice, cooking oil, biscuits, canned sardines, packets of noodles, instant oats. Volunteers moved between tables in practiced disorder, calling out quantities, checking labels, arguing gently over whether elderly residents would prefer smaller bags.

Aleesya stood near the window with a clipboard tucked against her chest, reading through a list of households assigned to her team. Her tudung was pinned simply today, pale blue against a white blouse, sleeves rolled just enough to keep from catching on tape. She had barely slept, though she would have blamed the humidity if anyone asked.

Her phone had stayed silent all morning.

Or rather, Harith had.

That was the distinction her body still insisted on making.

She had not replied after sending him the message two nights ago.

Aleesya Then maybe we both need to learn.

He had not responded.

At first, the silence had felt like consequence. Then, gradually, it became something else. A hollow place she kept touching with her mind to see if it still hurt.

It did.

But less sharply now.

“Kak Aleesya?”

She looked up.

Danish stood beside a table stacked with packets of rice, holding two tote bags open. He had dressed practically: dark jeans, grey shirt, sleeves folded to the elbow, a volunteer lanyard hanging slightly crooked around his neck. There was nothing showy about him. No dramatic smile. No attempt to appear more important than the task. He looked like someone who had arrived early, assessed what needed doing, and simply started.

“Yes?”

“Sorry,” he said, nodding toward her clipboard. “For Block 733, are we packing for three households or four? The spreadsheet says four, but the printed list says three.”

Aleesya crossed the room, grateful for a question with a measurable answer. “Let me see.”

Danish shifted slightly to give her space. Not too close. Not too far. A distance with manners.

She compared the printed list with the spreadsheet open on his tablet. Their shoulders did not touch. He angled the screen toward her without leaning over her hand. The simple respect of it made something inside her unclench.

“Four,” she said after checking the notes. “One household was added yesterday. Single uncle, seventh floor. Low-sodium items if possible.”

Danish nodded, already reaching for a marker. “Uncle Rahman?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll label his separately. Low sodium, no sardines.”

Aleesya looked at him, surprised. “How did you remember no sardines?”

“He mentioned during the last visit that his doctor said to cut down on salt. Also he said sardines make his mouth feel ‘too noisy.’”

Despite herself, Aleesya laughed. “Too noisy?”

“His words. I didn’t want to argue with poetry.”

The laugh felt strange leaving her, not because it was forced, but because it was not. It rose cleanly, without guilt attached. For a moment, the room seemed to brighten around the sound.

Danish smiled, brief and warm, then returned to packing.

Aleesya turned back to her clipboard.

Across the room, Harith was watching them.

She had known he was there, of course. He had arrived ten minutes after her, carrying an umbrella though the sky had only threatened rain. He had greeted the coordinator, helped unload cartons from a van, and avoided speaking to her beyond a quiet “morning” that she answered with equal softness.

She had felt him ever since.

Not because he demanded attention. Harith never did. But because old attachment had its own gravity. Even when she chose not to look, she knew the shape of his silence in the room.

Now their eyes met.

Harith looked away first.

Aleesya tightened her grip on the clipboard, then deliberately returned to work.

That was what she was learning: not every feeling required obedience.

---

By noon, the food packs had been divided into teams and loaded onto trolleys. The sky finally broke just as volunteers began leaving the centre. Rain fell hard and sudden, silvering the courtyard, drumming against the shelter roof, turning the edges of cardboard damp despite everyone’s efforts.

The delivery route assigned to Aleesya included three blocks within walking distance. Danish was on her team, along with an elderly volunteer named Cik Salmah, whose energy made everyone else seem undercommitted, and two poly students who kept addressing Aleesya as “Kak” with the nervous politeness of people afraid of adults.

Harith was assigned to another route.

Aleesya told herself this was good.

Still, when the coordinator called out the team lists and Harith’s name landed elsewhere, something in her loosened and sank at once.

“Okay?” Danish asked quietly beside her.

Aleesya looked at him. “Hmm?”

He nodded toward the rain, then the trolley. “You looked like you were calculating whether this trolley can survive the pavement.”

“I was.”

“Conclusion?”

“It has a strong will but weak wheels.”

“That describes many community projects.”

She smiled.

Harith, a few feet away, adjusted the cartons on his own trolley without looking at them.

The teams separated under the shelter. Rain blew sideways in fine sprays, dotting Aleesya’s sleeves. She pulled a stack of plastic covers over the food bags, but one corner kept slipping free. Before she could fix it, Danish held the cover steady.

“Here,” he said. “You tape, I hold.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

No problem. Not “you always need saving.” Not “what would you do without me.” Not even the teasing version of care she might have enjoyed once from someone else. Just help given where help was needed.

Aleesya taped the plastic down carefully.

Cik Salmah clicked her tongue from behind them. “Rain like this, later all my hair flat.”

One of the poly students, Amir, looked genuinely alarmed. “Cik, you want my cap?”

Cik Salmah stared at him, then burst out laughing. “Aiyo, so sweet. Keep your cap. I still want to look glamorous, not like delivery rider.”

The team laughed, and the tension broke.

They moved out together beneath shared umbrellas and the long covered walkways between blocks. Singapore rain turned every surface reflective: void deck floors, bicycle seats, metal railings, playground slides. The air smelled of wet concrete, pandan from a nearby bakery, and the faint metallic scent of storm drains filling too quickly.

At the first block, the lift was slow and crowded. They carried the bags up in two trips, delivering to an elderly couple who insisted everyone take sweets from a tin. At the second, a young mother opened the door with a toddler clinging to her leg and a baby crying somewhere inside. Aleesya handed over the pack gently while Cik Salmah distracted the toddler with a biscuit.

By the time they reached Block 733, the rain had softened into a steady curtain.

Uncle Rahman lived on the seventh floor in a corridor lined with potted plants, old shoes, and one faded plastic chair. His door was open behind the metal gate, television murmuring in the living room. When Danish called salam, an elderly voice answered, “Masuk, masuk, but gate stuck already. Push harder.”

Danish crouched and set the food pack down before touching the gate. “Uncle, we’ll pass it through slowly. Don’t need to open if difficult.”

Uncle Rahman shuffled into view, thin but bright-eyed, wearing a white singlet and kain pelikat. “Eh, you again. The social work boy.”

Danish smiled. “Volunteer only, Uncle.”

“All same. You all come, I become famous.”

Aleesya laughed softly.

Uncle Rahman’s gaze shifted to her. “This one new?”

“Yes, Uncle,” Danish said. “This is Aleesya.”

“Good, good. Pretty name. Means protected, ah?”

Aleesya blinked. “I think so.”

“Then must protect your heart also.” The old man tapped his chest with two fingers. “People always remember to lock door, never remember to lock here.”

The corridor seemed to still for half a second.

Danish did not look at her. That was kind of him.

Aleesya adjusted the food pack in her hands and smiled because elderly people had a way of saying things too directly for defense. “I’ll try, Uncle.”

“Try better. Young people all say try then cry.”

Cik Salmah, who had just arrived from the lift with the second bag, laughed loudly. “Rahman, don’t disturb the girl lah.”

“I’m giving advice. Free one. Government never charge.”

Danish passed the low-sodium bag carefully through the gate. “No sardines, Uncle. Less salty items this time.”

Uncle Rahman’s face brightened. “Ah, you remember. Good boy.”

The words should not have affected Aleesya.

But remember had become a dangerous word.

Harith remembered things too.

Her tea order. Her presentation dates. Her mother’s kueh. Which MRT exit made her anxious. The way she went quiet when she was hurt. He remembered enough to make her feel held, but not enough to know what holding required.

Aleesya stepped back toward the corridor railing, rain-silver light washing over her face.

Danish finished speaking to Uncle Rahman, then turned. “You okay?”

This time, she almost told the truth.

Almost.

“Just thinking,” she said.

“Dangerous.”

“That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”

“Maybe everyone has a point.”

She looked at him, expecting a smile, but his expression was gentle rather than teasing. He did not ask what she was thinking about. He only picked up the empty trolley handle and waited for the others to say goodbye.

Aleesya glanced over the railing.

Below, the estate was blurred by rain. Covered walkways stitched the blocks together like grey ribbons. People moved beneath them with umbrellas folded, carrying groceries, school bags, wet shoes, ordinary lives. Somewhere beyond the carpark, she imagined Harith on his own route, pushing another trolley through another corridor, perhaps checking his phone between blocks.

She wondered if he had typed anything.

Then she stopped herself.

Not every thought needed feeding.

---

Harith’s route ended earlier than expected.

The rain slowed them, but the households assigned to his team were clustered close together. By one-thirty, they had returned the empty trolley to the volunteer centre and stacked the remaining cartons near the storeroom. Hafiz, whose idea of volunteering included complaining loudly while doing the work properly, collapsed into a plastic chair and declared himself a national hero.

Harith checked his phone.

No messages.

He hated himself a little for looking.

“You’re going to burn a hole in that screen,” Hafiz said.

Harith slipped the phone into his pocket. “I was checking the time.”

“There are clocks.”

“Not accurate ones.”

“Your excuses are getting worse.”

Harith ignored him and carried a carton toward the storeroom.

Inside, the narrow room smelled of dust, old paper, and plastic bags. Shelves sagged under donated supplies. A standing fan, unplugged and useless, leaned against the wall. Harith placed the carton down, then remained crouched for longer than necessary.

His knees ached slightly from the deliveries. Rain had dampened the edges of his sleeves. He was hungry. Tired.

And thinking of Aleesya walking somewhere in the rain with Danish.

The jealousy had not improved with time. It had matured into something quieter and more humiliating. He knew Danish had done nothing wrong. In fact, that was part of the problem. Danish was not flashy, not arrogant, not the kind of man Harith could dislike without exposing himself. He seemed considerate in a way that did not demand applause. He listened. He waited. He remembered details about elderly residents and dietary restrictions.

Harith hated that he could respect him.

He hated more that Aleesya seemed relaxed around him.

The old Aleesya had been relaxed around Harith too.

No, not relaxed.

At home.

The thought hit hard enough that he stood too quickly and nearly struck his shoulder against the shelf.

“Careful,” Hafiz called from outside. “Don’t fight the furniture.”

Harith rubbed his shoulder, jaw tight.

When he returned to the main room, the other teams had begun trickling back in. Cik Salmah entered first, waving an empty plastic bag like a victory flag. The poly students followed, damp and laughing. Then Danish came in, pushing the trolley.

Aleesya walked beside him.

Her sleeves were slightly damp. A few small rain spots marked the edge of her tudung near her shoulder. She looked tired but lighter somehow, her face open as Danish said something too soft for Harith to hear. She laughed—not loudly, not dramatically, but with an ease that made Harith’s chest tighten.

Danish lifted the trolley over the entrance step before Aleesya needed to help.

She noticed anyway and said something. Thank you, probably.

Harith looked away.

Hafiz did not.

“Oh,” Hafiz said under his breath.

“Don’t,” Harith warned.

“I’m not saying anything.”

“You said oh.”

“Oh is not a sentence.”

“It was a paragraph.”

Hafiz gave him a sideways look. “You know, if seeing her laugh with another man makes you look like someone stole your house, maybe reflect on that.”

Harith kept his gaze on the stack of empty bags. “I am reflecting.”

“Painfully slowly.”

Across the room, the coordinator called everyone for a debrief. Volunteers gathered in clusters, accepting bottled water and leftover snacks. Aleesya stood near Danish and Cik Salmah, listening to feedback. When the coordinator thanked the teams, Danish glanced at Aleesya and said something that made her nod.

Harith watched the exchange with a tightening sense of inevitability.

This was what he had asked for, was it not?

Friendship.

Friends did not mind if other men made her laugh. Friends did not feel replaced. Friends did not stand across rooms counting the seconds of someone else’s conversation. Friends did not have the right to hurt when the woman they refused to choose began learning the shape of someone else’s clarity.

After the debrief, Harith found himself beside Aleesya at the refreshments table.

Neither of them had planned it. Or perhaps both had. He no longer trusted accidents where she was concerned.

She reached for a bottle of water at the same time he did.

Their fingers did not touch.

Both withdrew.

It was almost funny, how careful they had become.

“You take,” he said.

“It’s okay.”

“There are more.”

“Then you take.”

A pause.

Harith let out a quiet breath and picked up the bottle, then took another and placed it near her hand without comment.

Aleesya looked at it.

For a moment, her face softened.

Then she smiled politely. “Thanks.”

There it was again.

Politeness, clean as glass.

Harith’s grip tightened around his own bottle. “How was your route?”

“Okay. Rainy.”

“Any issues?”

“Not really. Uncle Rahman’s gate is still stuck.”

“He needs someone to fix it.”

“Danish said he’ll check if maintenance can help.”

The name landed between them like a cup set down too hard.

Aleesya noticed. Her eyes lifted to his.

Harith tried to keep his face still. “That’s good.”

“Yes.”

Another silence.

Around them, volunteers moved and talked. A chair scraped against the floor. Someone opened a packet of biscuits. Rain ticked softly against the windows, gentler now, as if exhausted by its own insistence.

Harith looked at Aleesya’s hands. She had a tiny scratch near her thumb, probably from cardboard. In the past, he would have noticed aloud. He might have offered a plaster from the small pouch he carried in his bag because she once said she always forgot hers. He might have said, “You’re careless,” and she would have replied, “You’re dramatic,” while still accepting the plaster.

Now, he said nothing.

He did not know which parts of his care were still allowed.

Aleesya picked up the water bottle. “I should help clear the tables.”

“I can help.”

“You’re already helping with storeroom, right?”

He blinked. “How did you know?”

She looked away. “You always do.”

The words were small.

But they held a memory both of them felt.

For a second, Harith saw the old door again. Not open, exactly. But visible.

He stepped toward it before fear could stop him.

“Aleesya.”

She stilled.

He lowered his voice. “About the other night—”

Her expression changed immediately.

Not hard. Worse. Guarded.

“Harith,” she said quietly, “not here.”

“I know. I just—”

“Not now.”

The gentleness of her boundary left no room for argument.

He nodded.

“Okay.”

She turned to leave, then paused. Her eyes returned to his face, and for the briefest moment, the old concern appeared. The part of her that still saw when he had not slept enough. The part of her that wanted to ask whether he had eaten. Whether he was okay. Whether he was hurting too.

Then she folded that part away.

“Take care,” she said.

And walked off.

Harith stood with the unopened bottle in his hand, feeling as if he had just watched someone lock a door from the other side.

---

Danish asked Aleesya out at the bus stop.

Not dramatically.

Not in the middle of a romantic sunset. Not with rain falling in cinematic sheets while music swelled in the background. Not in a way that allowed her to mistake intention for accident.

It was late afternoon by then. The volunteer event had ended, the centre cleaned, supplies stored, chairs returned to their haphazard towers. The rain had stopped, leaving the roads shining and the trees dark green. The air smelled of wet leaves, exhaust, and the faint sweetness of waffles from a bakery near the bus interchange.

Aleesya had planned to go straight home.

Danish happened to be heading the same direction for two stops, so they walked together from the centre to the bus stop. Cik Salmah had already taken a cab after declaring the young generation too slow. The poly students had disappeared toward the mall, arguing about bubble tea.

For a while, Danish and Aleesya spoke about safe things: delivery routes, Uncle Rahman’s gate, whether next month’s event needed more volunteers, how difficult it was to convince people that “light refreshments” did not mean feeding an army.

The bus stop was half-full. A schoolboy sat with his earbuds in. An older woman held a plastic bag of vegetables on her lap. A man in office clothes stared blankly at the road, defeated by Saturday somehow. Water dripped from the shelter roof in slow, steady intervals.

Danish checked the bus arrival screen, then looked at Aleesya.

“I want to ask you something,” he said.

Aleesya’s body tensed before his tone could reassure her.

Danish noticed. He did not rush in.

“It’s nothing bad,” he added gently. “But I’ll say it clearly so it doesn’t become weird.”

The sentence was so unexpectedly considerate that Aleesya almost laughed.

“Okay,” she said, cautious.

He shifted his folded umbrella from one hand to the other. “I’d like to take you for coffee sometime. Not as a volunteer thing. Not because we happen to be going the same direction.” A small smile touched his mouth, not enough to pressure her. “As in, I’m interested in getting to know you properly.”

The world did not stop.

A bus pulled up, brakes sighing. The schoolboy stood and boarded without looking up. The older woman adjusted her plastic bag. Somewhere behind them, a child asked loudly why the floor was wet.

Aleesya stood beneath the bus stop shelter, holding her handbag strap, and felt clarity arrive without decoration.

It was almost too simple to trust.

Danish continued, his voice calm. “You don’t have to answer now. And if the answer is no, it’s okay. I won’t make the volunteer things uncomfortable.”

She looked at him.

No guessing.

No retreat hidden inside kindness.

No giving her just enough to hope and not enough to stand on.

Just a question, placed in her hands with care.

Aleesya did not feel swept away. Her heart did not leap into certainty. No dramatic music played inside her chest. She was still bruised. Still carrying Harith in places she did not know how to empty. Still tired from learning not to wait.

But something inside her, something small and self-protective, lifted its head.

“Thank you for asking clearly,” she said.

Danish’s expression softened. “That sounds like there’s a story behind it.”

Aleesya smiled faintly. “Maybe.”

“I won’t ask.”

“I know.”

The bus arrival screen blinked. Her bus was three minutes away.

Aleesya looked at the wet road, at the cars passing in thin sprays of water, at her own reflection faint in the glass panel beside the bus stop. She looked like someone standing between what had hurt her and what might not. The space was not romantic. It was frightening.

She turned back to Danish.

“I can’t promise I’m in the best place,” she said carefully.

He nodded once. “I’m not asking for a promise.”

“I might be slow.”

“Slow is fine.”

“I might also change my mind.”

“Then you tell me.”

“So easy?”

His smile deepened slightly. “Not easy. Just respectful.”

Aleesya felt a pressure behind her eyes that had nothing to do with crying exactly.

Respectful.

How gentle a word could be when one was used to surviving ambiguity.

Her bus appeared in the distance, headlights pale against the damp road.

She took a breath. “Coffee is okay.”

Danish did not celebrate. He did not grin as if he had won something. He simply nodded, accepting the answer with the same steadiness with which he had asked.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll text you. If you’re comfortable giving me your number.”

Again, the clarity.

Aleesya unlocked her phone and handed it to him with the contact screen open.

As he typed, her phone felt heavier than usual in her hand.

Not because giving Danish her number was wrong.

Because somewhere in the quiet chambers of her heart, Harith still existed as a reflex.

Danish returned the phone. “I’ll message you later. No need to reply fast.”

The bus pulled in.

Aleesya stepped toward it, then paused. “Danish?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for not making it complicated.”

His gaze held hers, gentle but not intrusive. “You’re welcome.”

She boarded.

Through the bus window, she saw him remain at the stop, umbrella folded, one hand in his pocket. He did not watch her in a way that claimed her. He only lifted his hand once when the bus pulled away.

Aleesya sat by the window and looked down at her phone.

A new contact had appeared.

Danish Rahman.

Below it, Harith’s chat remained pinned near the top, quiet and heavy as a room she had not cleaned out yet.

The bus moved through wet streets, past blocks and playgrounds and coffee shops steaming into evening. Her reflection hovered in the glass, layered over passing lights. For the first time in a long while, she did not know whether the ache inside her was grief or the beginning of space.

Her phone buzzed.

She looked down too quickly.

It was not Harith.

Danish Hi Aleesya, this is Danish. No need to reply now. Just wanted you to have my number too.

She read it once.

Then smiled, small and tired.

No need to reply now.

She replied anyway.

Aleesya Hi Danish. Got it. Thank you.

After sending it, she opened Harith’s chat by accident or habit or some cruel combination of both.

His last message still sat there.

Harith I just don’t know how not to.

Aleesya looked at it for a long moment.

Then she unpinned the chat.

The movement was small. Silent. No one else on the bus saw it.

But something in her chest shuddered as if a thread had been cut.

---

Harith found out because of Hafiz.

This was not entirely Hafiz’s fault, though Harith was tempted to blame him anyway.

They were at a hawker centre near Bedok after the volunteer event, sitting under bright lights with plates of chicken rice and bowls of soup between them. The rain had cooled the evening enough that steam rose visibly from the food. Around them, families occupied plastic tables, children swung their legs, stallholders shouted orders over the clatter of cutlery.

Harith had not wanted dinner.

Hafiz had insisted, which meant he had walked beside Harith until Harith gave up resisting.

“You need food,” Hafiz said, pushing a plate toward him. “Jealousy burns calories.”

Harith glared.

Hafiz pointed his spoon at him. “Eat first, emotionally collapse later.”

“I’m not collapsing.”

“You’ve been stirring chilli into your rice for two minutes. That rice is suffering.”

Harith looked down. The rice was indeed redder than necessary.

He set the spoon aside.

His phone remained on the table, screen down. He had been ignoring the urge to check it since leaving the volunteer centre. There was no reason for Aleesya to message him. He had not sent anything after the almost-conversation at the refreshments table. She had said not here, not now. He had respected that.

Or obeyed it.

The difference did not comfort him.

Hafiz leaned back, scanning the hawker centre. “Eh, isn’t that Danish?”

Harith’s head lifted before he could pretend indifference.

Across the aisle, Danish was at the drinks stall, buying something from an uncle who seemed to know him. He was alone. Harith watched as Danish paid, accepted change, and took his drink.

Then Danish stepped aside, pulled out his phone, and smiled at the screen.

It was not a big smile.

That made it worse.

Hafiz, possessed by the spirit of terrible timing, said, “Maybe texting your girl.”

Harith looked at him sharply.

Hafiz winced. “Sorry. Bad joke.”

Harith looked back.

Danish typed something, waited, then smiled again—small, contained, unmistakably pleased.

A cold certainty moved through Harith.

He had no proof.

He did not need proof.

Some truths arrived through the body before the mind could cross-examine them.

His own phone buzzed on the table.

Harith grabbed it so quickly Hafiz stopped pretending not to notice.

It was a message in the volunteer group chat.

The coordinator had sent thanks to everyone, followed by a few photos from the day. Harith opened them, pulse still uneven.

First photo: volunteers packing food.

Second: Cik Salmah laughing beside cartons.

Third: Aleesya and Danish at Uncle Rahman’s corridor.

The photo was candid. Aleesya stood near the railing, smiling toward the old man behind the gate. Danish was beside her holding a labelled bag, his body angled slightly toward her but not crowding. Rain blurred the background beyond the corridor. The light was soft. Ordinary.

They looked good together.

The thought was so immediate, so ugly, that Harith locked his phone.

Hafiz was quiet.

That was rare enough to hurt.

Harith stared at his plate. “Say it.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You always say something.”

“Not when it’s obvious.”

Harith let out a humorless breath. “That’s worse.”

Hafiz folded his arms on the table. His teasing had drained away, leaving only the friend who had known Harith since poly and had seen him avoid enough difficult things to recognize the pattern. “Do you want her?”

Harith closed his eyes briefly.

The hawker centre noise pressed around him: plates clattering, oil hissing, a child whining for ice cream, an uncle calling kopi orders in a practiced shout. Life, again, refusing to pause.

“Yes,” Harith said.

The word left him before fear could dress it up.

Hafiz held his gaze. “As what?”

There it was.

The question he deserved.

Harith opened his mouth.

For once, no safe answer came.

Friend was no longer available. He had used it already and watched it become a wall. Important was too cowardly. Close was too vague. Special was an insult after everything.

As what?

He thought of Aleesya beneath the bus stop shelter perhaps, smiling at Danish. He thought of her unpinning his chat. He did not know she had done it, but something in him felt the shift anyway, like a house settling after a beam had been removed.

He thought of her question at the wedding.

Where do I put my heart?

His throat tightened.

“I don’t know how to say it without sounding too late,” he admitted.

Hafiz’s expression softened with pity Harith did not want. “Maybe it is too late.”

The sentence landed quietly.

No drama. No cruelty.

Just the possibility Harith had been walking toward since the moment he looked away from Aleesya in the wedding hall.

His phone buzzed again.

This time, it was a private message.

Aleesya.

Harith froze.

Hafiz’s eyes flicked to the screen. “Open it.”

Harith did.

Aleesya Hi Harith. I forgot to ask earlier. Do you still have the contact for the transport uncle from today? Danish wants to check something for next month’s route planning.

For a moment, Harith felt nothing.

Then everything at once.

Hi Harith.

Transport uncle.

Danish wants.

The message was practical. Volunteer-related. Perfectly normal. A friend asking another friend for a contact.

A friend.

Harith stared at the screen, his chest tight with a pain that felt almost like laughter turned inside out.

He had wanted her to treat him like a friend.

Now she did.

Hafiz read his face and looked away.

Harith typed the uncle’s number from memory.

Then he paused before sending.

There were so many things he could add. Is Danish with you? Are you still out? Did he ask you something? Are you happy? Do I still have a place near you, or did I build myself out of your life with one stupid sentence?

He sent only the number.

Harith Uncle Hamid: 9XXX XXXX

A second later:

Aleesya Thank you.

Two words.

Clean. Polite. Distant.

Harith placed the phone down carefully.

His food had gone cold.

Across the hawker centre, Danish slipped his phone into his pocket and walked away with his drink.

Harith watched him go until the crowd swallowed him.

Hafiz spoke gently. “Bro.”

Harith looked down at his hands.

“I called her my friend,” he said.

Hafiz said nothing.

Harith laughed once, barely. It sounded broken. “And now someone else is asking her properly.”

He had never imagined regret would feel so ordinary. No thunder. No cinematic collapse. Just cold chicken rice, bright hawker lights, rainwater dripping from the edge of the shelter, and the sudden understanding that love did not always leave because it died.

Sometimes it left because someone else held the door open clearly enough.

---

That night, Aleesya sat at her desk with her laptop open and did not work.

Her room was quiet except for the fan turning overhead and the distant sound of traffic softened by the closed window. The rain had stopped again. The opposite block glowed with small squares of domestic light: kitchens, bedrooms, corridors, lives stacked neatly across from hers.

Danish had messaged once more after she sent him the transport contact.

Danish Thanks. Coffee next Saturday? There’s a quiet place near Joo Chiat, but I can pick somewhere closer to you if that’s easier.

Aleesya had stared at the message for a long while.

There were no hidden meanings to excavate.

Coffee. Next Saturday. A place. An alternative if easier.

A clear plan.

She replied:

Aleesya Joo Chiat is okay.

Then, after thinking carefully:

Aleesya Afternoon?

His answer came ten minutes later.

Danish Afternoon works. 3pm? And just to be clear, no pressure. If you change your mind before then, tell me honestly.

Aleesya read the words twice.

Honestly.

How strange that honesty, offered gently, could feel like rest.

She replied:

Aleesya 3pm is fine. I’ll let you know if anything changes.

After that, she placed her phone beside her laptop and tried to return to the minutes from the volunteer meeting. But the document remained mostly blank.

Her mind kept drifting to Harith.

Not because she wanted to. Because hearts did not empty according to schedule. She wondered if he had eaten dinner. Wondered if he had gone home or stayed out somewhere punishing himself with silence. Wondered if the number request had hurt him and then hated herself for wondering because the request had been fair.

Friends shared contacts.

Friends helped with logistics.

Friends did not owe each other the careful protection of unspoken feelings.

She picked up her phone again and opened Harith’s chat.

The conversation looked different now that it was no longer pinned. She had to scroll slightly to find it. That small inconvenience felt both cruel and necessary.

His last message was only the number.

No question.

No complaint.

No “you’re going for coffee with Danish?” because he did not know, and even if he did, what right would he have to ask?

Aleesya touched the edge of the screen with her thumb.

For one dangerous second, she wanted to tell him.

Not to hurt him. Not to make him jealous. But because telling Harith things had once been as natural as breathing. She wanted to say, Someone asked me out clearly today, and I said yes, and I don’t know why I feel like crying. She wanted to ask, Is this what moving on feels like, or am I just trying to survive you?

Instead, she closed the chat.

Her mother knocked once before entering, holding a mug of warm water. “Still awake?”

Aleesya nodded. “Trying to do minutes.”

Her mother glanced at the laptop screen. “Very empty minutes.”

“I’m thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

“Everyone keeps saying that.”

Her mother placed the mug beside her. Then she stood there, looking at Aleesya’s face with the quiet patience of someone who had raised her and therefore knew when not to pretend.

“Did something happen?”

Aleesya looked down at her hands. “Someone asked me for coffee.”

Her mother’s brows lifted slightly. Not shocked. Not displeased. Only attentive. “Harith?”

The name moved through the room like a small, familiar ghost.

Aleesya shook her head.

Her mother was silent for a moment. “And what did you say?”

“I said okay.”

“Do you want to go?”

Aleesya breathed in slowly.

Outside, a car passed below, its headlights sliding briefly across her ceiling.

“I think so,” she said. Then, quieter, “I don’t know if I’m ready.”

Her mother sat on the edge of the bed. “Ready for coffee, or ready to not wait for Harith?”

The question was gentle enough to break something.

Aleesya closed her eyes.

There were still no tears. Not properly. Only the ache behind them, the pressure of water held back too long.

“I’m tired, Ma,” she whispered.

Her mother’s face softened. “Of him?”

Aleesya shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head again because none of the answers were whole.

“Of being unsure,” she said.

Her mother reached out and touched her hair, smoothing it back the way she had when Aleesya was small and feverish. “Then go for coffee. Not because this new person must become something. Just because someone is offering you a clear cup. You can decide after you taste.”

Despite herself, Aleesya laughed weakly. “That metaphor started strong, then became kopi.”

“Good. We are Singaporean. Everything becomes kopi.”

Aleesya smiled, and this time the smile hurt less.

Her mother stood, pausing at the door. “Aleesya.”

“Yes?”

“If Harith wanted to ask properly, he would still have to ask. You don’t owe him an empty chair just because he might one day come to the table.”

After she left, Aleesya sat very still.

An empty chair.

She thought of the wedding, of her father saying she had saved Harith a seat. She thought of all the places she had saved for him without realizing: beside her at supper, inside her daily routine, at the end of bad days, in the future she never admitted to imagining.

Slowly, she opened the volunteer meeting minutes and began to type.

Work first.

Feelings later.

But before sleeping, she checked her phone one last time.

No message from Harith.

One from Danish.

Danish Goodnight, Aleesya. Hope tomorrow feels lighter.

She read it, her thumb hovering over the keyboard.

A simple message.

A kind one.

Not a hook.

She replied:

Aleesya Goodnight. Thank you.

Then she placed the phone face down and switched off the light.

In the dark, she waited for regret.

It came, but softer than expected.

So did relief.

Outside, the window held the reflection of her room: desk, bed, folded tudung on the chair, a woman learning that clarity could be frightening because it gave her fewer excuses to stay confused.

Aleesya closed her eyes.

Somewhere, perhaps, Harith was awake too.

But for the first time, she did not shape her night around that possibility.