Bukan Cemburu, Kan?

Jealousy did not always arrive with shouting.

Sometimes it stood quietly across the street, holding an umbrella that had not yet opened, watching through café glass while pretending it had not come looking.

Aleesya did not see Harith at first.

At three-oh-seven on Saturday afternoon, Joo Chiat was still damp from an earlier shower, the old shophouses bright beneath a sky that could not decide whether to clear or darken again. Their pastel facades stood in soft rows along the road, mint green and butter yellow and faded rose, with decorative tiles shining from rain. The air smelled of wet pavement, coffee, fried shallots from a nearby stall, and the faint sweetness of kaya toast drifting from somewhere down the stretch.

Inside the café Danish had chosen, the noise settled around Aleesya gently. Cups clinked against saucers. The espresso machine hissed in sudden bursts. A child at the next table tapped a spoon against a glass until his mother placed one hand over his and whispered something that made him pout. Rainwater slid down the window in thin trails, making the world outside look like a painting that had not dried properly.

Aleesya sat near the back with her hands wrapped around a warm cup of honey lemon tea.

She had ordered tea instead of coffee because her stomach had been nervous since morning and because coffee felt too much like old routines. Harith drank kopi. Harith forgot lunch and bought caffeine instead. Harith sent pictures of bad office coffee when he wanted attention but did not know how to ask for it.

So she chose tea.

It was a small decision. A private one. Nobody would know what it meant except her.

Danish sat across from her, not too close, his chair angled slightly so she had space to look away without feeling trapped. He wore a dark green shirt today, sleeves folded neatly, watch plain at his wrist. He had arrived before her but had not ordered until she came. When she apologized for being seven minutes late because the bus had slowed near Eunos, he had only smiled and said, “Seven minutes is not late. It’s Singapore weather tax.”

She had laughed.

The laugh had been real.

That had frightened her a little.

Now he stirred his coffee slowly, watching the swirl of milk disappear into brown. “I have to confess something.”

Aleesya lifted her brows. “That sounds serious.”

“It is.” He set the spoon down with exaggerated care. “I chose this place because the chairs are comfortable. Not because I am cool enough to know hidden cafés.”

A smile tugged at her mouth. “You mean this is not your mysterious artistic side?”

“I’m afraid my mysterious artistic side is mostly Google reviews.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“I know. I wanted to start with honesty before you discover worse things.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t understand abstract paintings. If a canvas is just three lines and one dot, I need instructions.”

Aleesya laughed softly, and the sound slipped out before she could measure it.

Danish smiled, but he did not pounce on the moment. He let it exist, warm and small, then leaned back. “You look less nervous now.”

She looked down at her tea. “Was I obvious?”

“Only to someone paying attention.”

The words might have been dangerous from another man.

From him, they landed carefully.

Aleesya traced one finger along the cup handle, feeling its heat. “I haven’t done this in a while.”

“Coffee?”

“Being asked clearly.”

Danish’s expression changed, not with surprise exactly, but with an understanding he did not pretend to own. He nodded once, slowly. “Then I’m glad I asked clearly.”

Outside, a bus rolled past, spraying water from the road into a shallow fan. The glass blurred the motion, turning people and vehicles into streaks of colour. Aleesya watched a woman in a beige tudung hurry under an umbrella, one hand holding the hem of her long skirt away from puddles.

Danish did not rush to fill the silence.

That was one of the things she was beginning to notice about him. He was comfortable leaving space on the table. He did not treat quiet as a failure or an invitation to pry. He let her think without trying to become the answer.

It made Aleesya aware of how much of herself had once been occupied by anticipation.

With Harith, silence had always had temperature. Warm when he sat beside her after a bad day. Heavy when he avoided a question. Electric when their knees almost touched under a prata table and both of them pretended not to notice. Even his quiet asked something of her.

Danish’s quiet did not ask.

It waited.

“So,” he said eventually, reaching for his cup, “tell me one thing that is not on the volunteer attendance sheet.”

Aleesya looked at him. “About me?”

“No, about me. I’m testing your psychic ability.”

She rolled her eyes before she could stop herself. “Very funny.”

“Thank you. I prepared that since morning.”

She smiled into her tea.

One thing not on the attendance sheet.

There were many versions of herself she could choose. The professional one. The safe one. The polite one mothers approved of. The one who made jokes so people would not notice when something hurt. She had worn them all so often they felt less like masks and more like weather.

“I like rainy days,” she said finally, then glanced at the window. “But only if I’m already indoors.”

“Reasonable.”

“I like watching rain. I don’t like negotiating with it.”

Danish nodded solemnly. “Rain is a difficult stakeholder.”

“It has no timeline discipline.”

“And poor communication.”

“And it always escalates at inconvenient times.”

They both laughed, quieter this time, sharing the ridiculousness like something they had made together.

Aleesya relaxed another inch.

Then her phone buzzed on the table.

She looked down before she could stop herself.

Harith.

The name appeared with such old authority that her hand tightened around the cup.

Danish saw the movement, not the screen. His gaze flicked away immediately, giving her privacy without making a show of it.

Aleesya read the message.

Harith You busy?

Two words.

Harmless.

Familiar.

Heavy.

Her thumb hovered over the screen. In the past, the answer would have been easy. She would have told him where she was. She would have sent a picture of the café, maybe complained that the tea was too sweet or that the air-conditioning was trying to turn her into a fossil. He would have asked who she was with, casually, and she would have answered because hiding things from Harith had never felt necessary.

Now every answer carried a consequence.

Danish lifted his coffee and looked toward the window as if the rain required deep study.

Aleesya typed.

Aleesya A bit. Having coffee.

She paused.

Then, because friendship should be honest but did not require emotional explanation, she sent it.

Harith’s typing bubble appeared almost immediately.

Stopped.

Appeared again.

Stopped.

Aleesya placed the phone face down.

Danish waited a few seconds before speaking. “Everything okay?”

She nodded, but the movement lacked conviction. “Yes.”

He looked at her, gentle and unfooled. “You don’t have to explain.”

“I know.”

“And you also don’t have to pretend if it made you uncomfortable.”

Aleesya exhaled slowly. “You’re very hard to dislike.”

“That is my long-term strategy.”

The joke was light enough to let her breathe again.

She smiled, grateful.

For the next hour, they talked about ordinary things. Work, volunteer routes, their families, the strange pressure of being the dependable one. Danish told her his mother believed every guest was underfed by default and had once packed food for a plumber who came to fix the kitchen tap. Aleesya told him about Nadiah and her ruthless commentary at weddings, though she edited around the parts that still bruised.

Danish listened with his whole face.

Not intensely. Not in a way that demanded disclosure. But steadily, as if each thing she said had somewhere to land.

When he spoke about his work in social services, he did not make himself sound noble. He spoke instead about paperwork, impossible systems, elderly residents who refused help until someone brought bananas, and the quiet dignity of people who had learned to survive without asking for much. Aleesya found herself asking questions. Real ones. Not because she needed to keep conversation alive, but because she wanted to know.

Outside, the rain stopped.

The glass cleared slowly, revealing the street in sharper detail. People emerged from shelters. A cyclist rode past with one hand on the handlebar and the other balancing takeaway drinks. Sunlight broke through for a brief moment, catching on puddles and turning the road silver.

Aleesya was laughing at Danish’s story about a resident who insisted that WhatsApp voice messages were “more sincere than typing” when her gaze drifted toward the window.

And then she saw him.

Across the street, under the awning of a closed boutique, Harith stood with his phone in one hand.

The sight of him struck her so suddenly that her laughter died in her throat.

He was not looking at his phone.

He was looking at her.

Through the café glass, across the wet road, across every careful distance she had spent the week building, Harith’s eyes found hers. He wore a black shirt and dark jeans, hair slightly damp as if he had walked through the rain without noticing. His umbrella hung unopened from his wrist. There was a paper bag in his other hand, the kind bakeries used, but it looked forgotten.

For one second, neither of them moved.

Then a bus passed between them, cutting him from view.

When it cleared, Harith was gone.

Aleesya sat very still.

Danish followed her gaze but saw only the street.

“Aleesya?”

She blinked. “Sorry.”

“You saw someone?”

She looked at him.

There was no accusation in his voice. No claim. Only concern, carefully placed.

Aleesya could lie. She could say no. She could fold the moment away and pretend her heartbeat had not turned unsteady.

But Danish had given her clarity.

She owed him at least honesty in return.

“Yes,” she said. “Someone I know.”

His face softened with understanding before she gave him details. “The story behind the clear asking?”

Aleesya let out a small breath that might have been a laugh if it were not so tired. “Maybe.”

Danish nodded and looked down at his coffee. “Do you want to go?”

The question surprised her. “What?”

“If seeing him makes you feel like you need to leave, it’s okay. We can end here. No offense taken.”

Aleesya stared at him.

There it was again. No hook. No punishment. No wounded pride dressed as concern.

She felt, suddenly, the urge to cry—not because of Harith across the street, but because Danish was making it painfully clear how little kindness had to hurt.

“No,” she said after a moment. “I don’t want to leave.”

Danish accepted that with a nod. “Okay.”

He did not ask more.

Aleesya picked up her tea, but it had gone lukewarm.

---

Harith had not meant to come to Joo Chiat.

That was the truth he might have used if anyone asked.

His aunt had asked him to collect a box of pastries from a bakery near East Coast Road for dinner at his mother’s place. He had gone because refusing would require explanation and because errands were easier than sitting at home, staring at conversations he no longer knew how to enter. He had told himself he would collect the pastries, take the bus home, and not think about Aleesya.

Then he had seen her through the café window.

Not in a dramatic embrace. Not laughing too intimately or leaning across the table. Nothing he had the right to resent.

She was simply sitting across from Danish, hands around a cup, smiling in a way Harith had missed for two weeks.

That was enough.

Harith stood across the street with rain dripping from the awning behind him and felt something inside him twist.

He wanted, absurdly, to walk into the café.

To do what, he did not know. Say hello? Interrupt politely? Introduce himself to Danish as what? Aleesya’s friend? The word tasted like punishment now. Her almost? Her mistake? The man who had chosen safety and now found it unbearable that someone else did not?

He looked down at his phone.

Her message waited there.

Aleesya A bit. Having coffee.

Having coffee.

Not with who. Not where. Not whether it mattered.

She had answered like a friend.

Harith had no right to ask more.

The knowledge did not make jealousy disappear. It only made it more humiliating.

A bus passed, briefly hiding her from view. In that moment, Harith stepped away from the boutique awning and turned down a side lane before she could see how long he had been standing there.

He walked without direction.

Joo Chiat after rain was all colour and reflection, old tiles slick beneath five-foot ways, potted plants dripping from balconies, murals bright against washed walls. People moved around him carrying umbrellas, takeaway bags, weekend ease. A couple posed for photos near a Peranakan shophouse, the woman laughing as the man tried to angle his phone without stepping into a puddle.

Harith kept walking until he reached the corner near a small park connector, then stopped under a tree that offered very little shelter.

The pastry bag had begun to soften in his hand.

He swore quietly under his breath and moved beneath a covered walkway.

His phone buzzed.

For one reckless second, he hoped Aleesya had messaged.

It was Hafiz.

Hafiz You alive? Your mum asked my mum if you collected pastries. Why are mothers like this?

Harith stared at the screen.

Then another message arrived.

Hafiz Also don’t do anything stupid if you somehow saw Aleesya today. This is a general reminder from the universe.

Harith almost laughed.

Almost.

He typed back with one hand.

Harith Too late.

Hafiz replied instantly.

Hafiz Define too late.

Harith looked back toward the café street though he could no longer see it.

Harith I saw her with Danish.

A pause.

Then:

Hafiz Did you interrupt?

Harith No.

Hafiz Good. Continue not interrupting.

Harith closed his eyes.

The rain had stopped completely now, but water still fell from leaves in delayed drops. One landed on his wrist and slid beneath his sleeve, cold as accusation.

He typed.

Harith I hate this.

Hafiz I know.

Harith I don’t know what to do.

Hafiz took longer to reply this time.

Hafiz Start by not making your jealousy her problem. Then figure out if you’re jealous because you love her or because you lost access.

Harith stared at the sentence.

Lost access.

The words were ugly.

Because they were close enough to truth to hurt.

Had he loved Aleesya, or had he loved being loved by her? Had he missed her, or the version of himself who was always checked on, always understood, always forgiven before he had to explain? Had he been jealous of Danish because Danish might hurt her, or because Danish might treat her clearly enough that she no longer needed Harith’s half-light?

He wanted the answer to be simple.

It was not.

His phone buzzed again.

Hafiz And bro. If you decide to talk, talk clean. No guilt. No vague. No “I care about you” nonsense unless you can say what kind of care.

Harith let the phone lower to his side.

Talk clean.

He did not know if he still knew how.

---

Aleesya’s coffee date ended at five-twenty.

Danish paid for his own coffee and let her pay for her tea because she insisted, which she appreciated more than she expected. Then they stepped out into the damp brightness of late afternoon, the street washed clean and shining. A faint breeze moved through the shophouse corridor, carrying the smell of rain, coffee, and something fried from a nearby stall.

For a while, they walked without urgency.

Danish had parked farther down the road but offered to walk her to the bus stop first. She said it was not necessary. He said he knew, and then asked whether she would still allow it. The phrasing made her smile.

“You ask everything very properly,” she said as they waited to cross.

He looked faintly amused. “Occupational hazard.”

“Social work?”

“Being raised by a mother who says, ‘Don’t assume people are okay just because they’re quiet.’”

Aleesya looked at him. “Your mother sounds dangerous.”

“She is. She also knows everyone’s favourite kuih and uses that information to win arguments.”

“Efficient.”

“Terrifying.”

They crossed with a group of pedestrians. A car drove through a puddle too fast, splashing water near the curb. Danish shifted slightly, shielding the spray with his body without making a point of it.

Aleesya noticed.

Her chest tightened—not with romance exactly, but with the grief of recognizing care that did not arrive tangled in uncertainty.

At the bus stop, he stopped beside her rather than in front of her.

“I had a good time,” he said.

She looked up. “Me too.”

The truth of it surprised her again.

“I’d like to see you again,” he continued. “But I meant what I said. No pressure. If you need time, take time.”

Aleesya wrapped both hands around the strap of her handbag. “I appreciate that.”

He nodded. “And Aleesya?”

“Yes?”

His expression remained gentle, but his voice became more serious. “You don’t need to be fully healed to be treated well. Just don’t let anyone rush you, including yourself.”

The words entered quietly and found a place she had not known was sore.

For a second, she could not answer.

Danish did not look away in embarrassment or lean in to rescue the silence. He simply waited, letting the sentence be what it was.

“Thank you,” she said finally.

He smiled. “Text me when you reach home?”

Her body reacted before her mind did.

Text me when you reach home.

The phrase belonged to another voice. Another life. Another man standing at lift lobbies, pressing buttons, holding umbrellas slightly too far over her side.

Danish saw the flicker cross her face and immediately softened the request. “Sorry. Habit. You don’t have to.”

“No,” Aleesya said quickly, then slowed herself. “No, it’s okay. I will.”

He nodded, accepting both the answer and the complexity beneath it.

Her bus arrived a few minutes later.

When she boarded, Danish did not try to stretch goodbye into something more. He lifted his hand once, then turned and walked back toward where he had parked.

Aleesya found a seat by the window.

As the bus pulled away, she saw someone standing near the next shelter.

Harith.

Her breath caught.

He was half in shadow, pastry bag still in hand, phone held loosely at his side. He looked like he had been waiting without wanting to admit it to himself. His eyes followed the bus for a second before finding her through the glass.

This time, she did not look away.

The bus moved forward.

Harith remained behind, becoming smaller, then blurred by distance and reflections.

Aleesya sat very still, her pulse uneven.

She had known he was nearby after seeing him at the café. Part of her had hoped he had left. Part of her, shamefully, had wondered whether he would appear. Now both hope and dread sat inside her together, indistinguishable.

Her phone buzzed before the bus reached the next stop.

Harith.

Harith Can we talk?

Aleesya closed her eyes.

The bus hummed around her. A baby babbled two rows ahead. Someone’s phone played a TikTok too loudly. Outside, Joo Chiat slid into Geylang, shophouses giving way to wider roads and evening traffic.

She could ignore him.

She could say no.

She could say, There is nothing to talk about.

Instead, she thought of Danish’s words.

You don’t need to be fully healed to be treated well.

She opened her eyes and replied.

Aleesya About what?

The typing bubble appeared.

Stopped.

Appeared again.

She almost smiled without humor.

Even now.

Finally:

Harith About us.

Aleesya stared at the word.

Us.

For years, the word had existed without being spoken. Now he sent it after seeing her with another man.

The timing hurt so cleanly it almost felt surgical.

She typed:

Aleesya There is no us, Harith. You said we’re friends.

He replied faster this time.

Harith I know what I said.

Aleesya’s fingers tightened around the phone.

Aleesya Then please respect it.

She expected no answer.

But it came.

Harith I’m trying. I’m just not doing it well.

Aleesya looked out the window.

The city passed in wet fragments: bus stops, traffic lights, old trees, people hurrying with groceries, a man in a skullcap stepping carefully over a puddle. Everything ordinary. Everything continuing.

Her anger rose slowly, not hot but clear.

She typed:

Aleesya I’ll be at Bedok Reservoir stop in 20 minutes. If you still want to talk, meet me there. But I’m not going to comfort you for being jealous.

She read the message once.

Then sent it.

His reply came after a few seconds.

Harith Okay.

No denial.

That frightened her more than it should have.

---

By the time Aleesya reached Bedok Reservoir, the sky had turned the soft grey-blue of early evening.

The air smelled of wet leaves and lake water. The path around the reservoir was damp, reflecting the last light in broken strips. Joggers moved past in bright shirts, shoes striking the pavement in steady rhythm. A family walked slowly near the railing, the father pushing a stroller while the mother held a small child’s hand. On the water, the surface lay dark and smooth except where rain still fell from overhanging branches, making small circles that widened and vanished.

Aleesya chose a bench under a shelter near the bus stop.

Not too secluded. Not too public.

A place with exits.

She sat with her handbag in her lap and watched droplets fall from the shelter roof. Her reflection appeared faintly in a puddle near her feet, blurred each time water struck it.

Harith arrived twelve minutes later.

He had changed nothing about himself since she saw him at Joo Chiat. Same damp hair. Same black shirt. Same pastry bag, now folded smaller in one hand as if he had crushed it without noticing. He stopped a few feet away, breathing slightly harder, perhaps from walking too fast.

For a moment, they only looked at each other.

The last time they had stood like this, beneath shelter after rain, he had asked her whether they were just friends and she had decided to believe him.

Now the rain had returned them to another shelter.

Aleesya wondered if this was punishment or poetry.

Harith spoke first. “Thank you for meeting me.”

She nodded once. “You said you wanted to talk.”

He looked at the bench beside her, then remained standing. “Can I sit?”

The question was so careful it almost hurt.

“Yes.”

He sat, leaving space between them. Not too close. Not familiar. The empty part of the bench seemed louder than either of them.

For several seconds, Harith looked out at the reservoir.

Aleesya waited.

She would not carry the beginning for him.

Finally, he said, “I saw you.”

“At the café.”

“Yes.”

“With Danish.”

His jaw tightened at the name, but he nodded. “Yes.”

Aleesya turned slightly toward him. “And?”

He let out a slow breath. “And I didn’t know what to do with it.”

“You didn’t have to do anything with it.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

He looked at her then.

There was hurt in his face. Hurt, jealousy, shame. All the emotions he had kept too well-controlled for too long, now showing at the edges.

Aleesya felt the old instinct rise again. The urge to soften. To say, It’s okay. To make this easier because Harith looked miserable and she had always been weak for his quiet suffering.

She folded her hands tighter around her handbag strap.

Harith swallowed. “Are you going out with him?”

The question was quiet.

Still, it struck.

Aleesya’s face went very still. “As my friend, are you asking because you’re happy for me or because you think you have a right to know?”

His eyes lowered.

There it was.

The answer beneath the silence.

Aleesya laughed softly, once. “Bukan cemburu, kan?”

Harith flinched.

She had not meant for the Malay to come out so sharp, but there it was, hanging between them like the mirror of his own sentence.

Aren’t you jealous?

No.

More cruel than that.

You are jealous, but what right do you have to be?

Harith rubbed both hands over his face, then leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I know I don’t have a right.”

“Then why ask?”

“Because it hurts.”

Aleesya stared at him.

The honesty landed hard because it was too late and too little and still, despite everything, real.

Harith turned his head slightly, looking at her from the corner of his eye. “I’m not proud of it.”

“You think that makes it easier for me?”

“No.”

“Because it doesn’t.” Her voice remained controlled, but she could feel something trembling beneath it. “You don’t get to call me your friend when people ask, then look wounded when I behave like I’m free.”

He closed his eyes.

The reservoir wind moved damply through the shelter. Somewhere behind them, a cyclist rang his bell twice. Life carried on around the bench, indifferent to the old wound finally being opened properly.

Aleesya continued, quieter now but no less steady. “You wanted the safety of being close to me without the responsibility of choosing me.”

Harith opened his eyes.

The sentence struck him visibly.

Good, she thought, and then immediately hated that she thought it.

But she had carried his confusion long enough to deserve one clean truth.

“You wanted me to be there,” she said. “To reply. To tell you when I reached home. To let you know when I didn’t eat. To be the person you came to when your day was bad. And I did all that because I thought maybe…” Her voice faltered for the first time.

Harith turned fully toward her. “Aleesya.”

She held up one hand, stopping him before gentleness could undo her. “No. Let me finish.”

He went still.

She swallowed, looking out at the water because his face made courage difficult. “I thought maybe you were scared. Maybe you needed time. Maybe you were the kind of person who loved quietly. And maybe if I was patient enough, you would eventually say what your actions kept saying.”

A jogger passed in front of the shelter, shoes splashing lightly through a shallow puddle.

Aleesya’s hands were cold.

“But when I asked,” she said, “you reminded me we were just friends.”

Harith’s face tightened with pain. “I know.”

“Do you? Because you keep acting like something was taken from you.”

His answer came rougher. “It was.”

Aleesya looked at him sharply.

The words had escaped him. She could tell from the way his own eyes widened slightly after saying them.

For one second, the air changed.

Something in her chest leaned toward him without permission.

Harith looked away first, breathing hard. “I know how that sounds.”

“Then explain.”

He gave a small, helpless shake of his head. “I don’t know how to explain without making it worse.”

“Try.”

He looked down at his hands. They were clasped tightly, knuckles pale. “You were… you were the person I wanted to tell things to. Not because I needed advice. Just because something didn’t feel finished until you knew about it. When I ate somewhere good, I thought of whether you’d like it. When it rained, I thought of whether you had an umbrella. When something was funny, I saved it for you. I didn’t think of it as taking. I thought…” He stopped, jaw working.

“You thought what?”

“I thought as long as I didn’t ask for more, I wasn’t being unfair.”

Aleesya let the words settle.

Then she said, “But you were asking for more.”

Harith’s eyes lifted.

“Not with your mouth,” she said. “But you were.”

He looked devastated.

Aleesya should have felt satisfied.

She did not.

She felt tired.

Harith leaned back against the bench, staring at the reservoir as if the dark water might offer him an answer. “I was scared.”

“Of me?”

“No.” The reply came quickly, then softened. “Of what it would mean. Of getting it wrong. Of our families noticing. Of committing to something and then hurting you if I couldn’t be enough. Of ruining what we had.”

“And so you ruined it more slowly.”

He closed his eyes.

“I know,” he whispered.

There it was.

No defense.

No explanation disguised as innocence.

Only the truth, finally kneeling where pride used to stand.

Aleesya felt her anger waver, and she hated that too.

Because Harith’s pain was not fake. His fear was not fake. He had not been playing with her for sport. That almost made it worse. If he had been cruel, she could hate him cleanly. But he was only human in a way that had hurt her very badly.

The sky darkened another shade.

Lights around the reservoir flickered on, one by one, their reflections stretching across the water.

Harith turned to her again. “Did you say yes to him?”

Aleesya held his gaze.

This time, the question did not sound like entitlement.

It sounded like a man asking how much damage had already been done.

“Yes,” she said.

His face went still.

“To coffee,” she added. “Today. That was all.”

He nodded slowly, absorbing it.

“Do you like him?” he asked.

Aleesya looked away.

Danish’s face came to mind: calm, kind, respectful. The way he had said she did not have to be fully healed to be treated well. The way he asked clearly and accepted answers without trying to own them.

“I like that he’s clear,” she said.

Harith flinched again, but he deserved that one.

She softened the next sentence because cruelty had never been what she wanted. “He’s good. He doesn’t make things difficult.”

“Do you want him?”

The question was barely audible.

Aleesya looked at her hands.

What did want mean when the heart was still carrying someone else’s name like a bruise? She wanted peace. She wanted honesty. She wanted to stop measuring affection by how much uncertainty she could survive. She wanted Harith and did not want the version of herself who waited for him. She wanted Danish’s clarity and feared using it as shelter from a storm another man had made.

“I don’t know yet,” she said.

Harith nodded as if the uncertainty was both mercy and punishment.

Then he said, “I’m jealous.”

The admission entered the space between them simply.

No performance. No demand.

Aleesya’s throat tightened despite herself.

Harith looked at her, eyes dark with shame. “I know I don’t have the right. I know it’s unfair. But I am.”

She let out a slow breath. “Jealousy is not a choice, Harith.”

A flicker of hope crossed his face before she continued.

“But what you do with it is.”

He lowered his gaze.

“I don’t want you to use your jealousy to pull me back into the same unclear place,” she said. “I can’t do that again.”

“I don’t want that either.”

“Then what do you want?”

The question returned, older now, heavier.

Harith looked at her.

For one terrible, fragile second, Aleesya thought he might answer fully. She saw him gather himself, saw the fear move through him and then something stronger beneath it. His mouth opened. The reservoir wind lifted the edge of her tudung. A drop of water fell from the shelter roof and struck the ground near their feet.

Then his phone rang.

The sound cracked through the moment.

Harith looked down, startled.

His mother’s name lit the screen.

For a second, neither of them moved.

Then Aleesya laughed under her breath. Not because it was funny, but because life had a cruel sense of timing.

“You should answer,” she said.

He silenced the call without taking it.

“No.”

The word was immediate.

Aleesya looked at him.

Harith placed the phone face down on the bench between them, as if choosing not to let the world rescue him from this conversation.

Then he turned back to her.

“I want you,” he said.

The words were quiet.

They did not come dressed in poetry. They did not arrive confidently. They shook a little at the edges, like something carried too long in the dark and brought finally into light.

Aleesya’s heart reacted so violently she almost hated it.

Harith continued before she could speak. “Not as a friend. Not as someone I check on because it’s habit. Not as the person I keep close because I’m afraid of being lonely. I want you in the way I should have admitted before you had to ask.”

The shelter seemed to narrow around them.

Aleesya could hear the water. The distant traffic. Her own pulse.

For years, she had imagined some version of this. Harith looking at her with clarity. Harith saying the word want without hiding behind care. Harith stepping toward her instead of backward. In those private imaginings, she had always felt relief.

Now relief came tangled with grief.

Because the words had arrived.

But so had the cost.

She looked at him, and the love she still had for him rose up so quickly it almost took her breath. It was there. Wounded, yes. Angry, yes. But there. In the way she knew the tired curve of his shoulders, the shame in his lowered gaze, the courage it had taken him to say what he had said.

And because she loved him, she could not pretend his confession erased what his uncertainty had done.

“Harith,” she said softly.

His face changed at her tone.

He knew.

Maybe before she did.

“I needed to hear that,” she said. “I won’t lie. I did.”

His throat moved.

“But I needed to hear it before I had to become someone else to survive you.”

The sentence broke something in his eyes.

Aleesya looked down, because if she watched him hurt, she might make the mistake of comforting him again.

“I don’t know what to do with this now,” she admitted. “I don’t know how to trust that you’re saying it because you truly understand, and not because you saw me with Danish and got scared.”

“It’s not just because of him.”

“I believe you.”

He looked up, hope and pain warring on his face.

“But he made you say it now,” she added.

Harith had no answer.

That was answer enough.

The evening deepened around them. The reservoir lights shimmered on the water, each reflection trembling apart before becoming whole again.

Aleesya stood.

Harith stood too, instinctive, then stopped himself from reaching for her.

Good, she thought.

Or perhaps: please.

“I’m not choosing anything tonight,” she said.

He nodded once. His face was pale under the shelter light. “Okay.”

“I’m not saying no.”

His breath caught.

“I’m also not saying yes.”

“I understand.”

Did he? She hoped so. She feared he did.

Aleesya adjusted the strap of her handbag over her shoulder. “If you mean what you said, then don’t ask me to rush just because you finally stopped running.”

The words landed between them.

Harith bowed his head slightly, as if accepting a sentence.

“I won’t,” he said.

She wanted to believe him.

That, perhaps, was the most dangerous part left.

Aleesya stepped out from under the shelter. The path ahead was damp but no longer raining. Cool air touched her face. She walked toward the bus stop, aware of Harith behind her, not following.

After a few steps, she turned back.

He remained by the bench, phone still face down, pastry bag crushed in one hand, looking at her as if he had found her only after losing the map.

“Harith,” she called softly.

He straightened.

She almost said take care.

She almost said text me when you reach home.

Old habits rose like ghosts.

Instead, she gave him the same truth he had given too late.

“I did love you,” she said.

The past tense struck them both.

Harith did not move.

Aleesya’s smile trembled, but it stayed.

“Maybe I still do,” she added. “But I’m not going to live inside maybe anymore.”

Then she turned and walked away before either of them could turn her honesty into a door she was not ready to open.

Behind her, the reservoir held the lights in broken pieces.

One by one, the circles from fallen drops widened across the dark water and disappeared.