---
Work ended late today.
Not because of a crisis — not because a client was angry or an email had to be replied to within an hour or a last-minute meeting Zayriel added to the calendar without sufficient notice. All of that was ordinary, all of that had become part of the rhythm I had learned to follow in these two weeks.
Today ended late because I hadn't noticed the time passing.
That was the strange part.
Because usually — usually I was aware of every hour. Aware at twelve, aware at three, aware at five in the way of someone waiting for something to end. But today there was a point where I lifted my head from the screen and the windows at the far end of the office were already dark and the clock already showed past six and I didn't know when the time had passed that way.
"You okay?" *Haziq* was at his desk — he was late too today, there was a system update he had to supervise. "Your face looks like you just woke up from a dream."
"Just realised how late it is." I shook my head at myself. "Didn't notice at all."
"That means you were productive." He closed his laptop. "Not many people can get lost in work like that." Then he turned to me with a face that had something he wanted to say but was deciding how to say it. "Hey, are you free tomorrow? I wanted to invite you—"
"*Haziq*."
A voice from a direction I hadn't expected.
We both turned.
Zayriel stood at the door of his room — jacket already in hand, bag already on shoulder, ready to leave. His eyes on *Haziq*. Not on me. But there was something in the way he stood at that door that filled the space in the way the body felt before the mind processed.
"The system update for server B — is it settled?" Ordinary tone. Professional. A sentence that had a reasonable reason to be said.
"Done, *En.* Zayriel." *Haziq* nodded. "Confirmed earlier."
"Okay." Zayriel nodded once. His eyes shifted to me — briefly, not more than two seconds — then he turned and walked to the lift.
The lift door opened. Closed. He was gone.
*Haziq* and I sat in silence for a moment.
Then *Haziq* drew a small breath. "Tomorrow — if you're free — just want to hang out for a bit. Nothing big."
I looked at the lift door that had already closed.
"Sure." I smiled. "Text me."
---
In the lift going down, alone, I stood with the lift mirror in front of me.
This time I wasn't thinking about Zayriel.
I was thinking about the way today had passed in a way I hadn't expected — in the same work, in the same office, in all the same things — but with something that was different. Something light. Something that made the time pass without my counting it.
And I realised that thing had a name — but I didn't let myself say that name in my head.
Not yet.
---
I arrived home with the sun already half disappeared behind the neighbours' rooftop, with more cars than usual along the roadside, with a body that was tired but a mind that — strangely — wasn't.
Changed clothes. Washed my face. Sat on the edge of the bed for two minutes in the way of someone who needed two minutes before they could continue.
Then went downstairs.
I wanted to invite *Mak* and *Ayah* out for dinner tonight. Not for any big reason — only because there was something in my chest that wanted to do something ordinary with ordinary people on an ordinary night.
I came down the stairs with that plan in my head.
And stopped halfway.
The dining table was already set.
Plates were out. Side dishes were arranged. Rice was on the table in the way of a table waiting for people to sit, not a table still being prepared. The smell of cooking I hadn't noticed from my room earlier — or perhaps had noticed but hadn't processed, too deep in the other part of my head.
*Mak* came out of the kitchen with hands wiping on a cloth, with a face that had a smile already prepared.
"*Mak* cooked a bit extra tonight." She stepped toward the living room. "We have guests for a bit."
I looked at the table. Looked at *Mak*. "Who?"
Before *Mak* could answer —
*ding dong.*
---
I was the one who went to open the door.
Not because I wanted to. Not because I knew who was outside. But because *Mak* had already turned back to the kitchen in the way of someone who knew the answer to the question she had just given and didn't feel the need to sit with that answer.
I opened the door.
*Mak Cik* Ira stood outside with a container of cakes in her hand and a smile that was the right size — a smile I knew too well now, too neat for an unplanned night.
And beside her —
Zayriel.
Clothes more casual than usual — not office attire, but there was something in the way he wore that clothes that was still neat, still controlled, still in the way he always was that made him look like he knew where he was and why.
"*Aina*'s *mak* invited us," *Mak Cik* Ira said, smile still in place. "Sorry to disturb so late."
I smiled.
"No trouble. Come in."
---
The dining table became smaller with six people around it.
*Mak* at the left end, *Ayah* at the right end — the way they sat that had never changed since I could remember. My younger sister beside *Ayah*, phone in hand but body facing the table because *Ayah* was there. *Mak Cik* Ira beside *Mak*, their conversation already having its own rhythm. Zayriel beside *Mak Cik* Ira, not talking much but present in every conversation at the right moment.
And I — I sat in the remaining chair, beside Zayriel, at the ordinary distance of a dining table that wasn't large.
My younger sister glanced at me from across the table. Then at Zayriel. Then back at me with a face that said she was storing something to ask later.
The table conversation flowed — *Ayah* asked about the move, *Mak Cik* Ira talked about the new neighbourhood, *Mak* entered and exited in the way she did.
"Is *Along* settled in Johor?" My younger sister suddenly asked, to *Mak*, in the way of someone who had just remembered something.
"Yes. She called earlier, said she found a housemate." *Mak* took a side dish. "*Angah* has exams next week. She asked us not to call too much."
"*Angah* — whenever she has exams she just goes MIA," my younger sister said in a half-laughing tone.
"You were the same before." *Mak* shot her a look.
Small laughter broke at the table. Not big laughter — ordinary laughter, the kind that existed at any ordinary family dining table, the kind that didn't need a big reason to exist.
And in that ordinary laughter, in that ordinary noise — I noticed Zayriel didn't laugh. Not because he didn't understand. Not because he was outside the conversation.
He was watching — in the way of someone storing something in memory. The way of someone who had come not only to eat.
---
After dinner, the adults moved to the living room.
My younger sister disappeared to her room on the pretext of homework that I wasn't sure existed or not. I helped *Mak* carry plates to the kitchen — and in those back-and-forth trips, in the small bustle of cleaning up, I noticed one thing.
*Mak* had never asked me about tonight from the start.
Didn't ask if I was okay with having guests. Didn't ask if I was tired after work. Didn't ask anything — just prepared the table and let tonight happen the way it happened.
As though it had been planned long ago.
As though me not knowing was part of the plan.
---
I went out to the yard for some air.
Late at night, the sky had stars rarely seen in a housing area with street lights, wind cooler than inside the house. I stood at the edge of the steps with hands in my jacket pockets and a mind still doing the work it was tired of doing.
The sound of footsteps behind me.
I didn't need to turn to know.
Zayriel stood beside me — not close, not far. A distance that had a name but I didn't want to say that name in my head. He looked forward, toward the dark road outside the gate, with hands in pockets and the same way of standing as wherever he stood.
Silence for a moment.
Not an uncomfortable silence. Something worse than that — a silence that was too comfortable for two people who had known each other for only a month.
"Do you like the work?" he asked finally. Not a boss's question. Not a neighbour's question. Something between the two that I had no category for.
"I like it." I also looked forward. "Tired. But I like it."
He nodded.
"Farhana said the same thing." Short. Ordinary. As though it was simply an observation.
But it sat in a way that was more than simply an observation.
I didn't answer.
"People who truly like something," he said slowly, "are always the last to realise when that something has started to take more than it should."
Wind came from the wrong direction — or perhaps from the right direction but I was standing wrong.
I looked at him.
He was still looking forward.
"What do you mean, *En.* Zayriel?"
He turned to me. His eyes in the streetlight that fell from an unhelpful angle — deep in the way of eyes that were usually deep, with something in them I didn't get to read fully before he smiled. The ordinary smile. The one that was always there.
"Don't work too hard." He turned forward again. "Rest properly."
Then he went back inside the house.
I stood in the yard alone with the wind still there and the sentence just left behind and something in my chest that didn't know where to put that sentence.
*People who truly like something are always the last to realise when that something has started to take more than it should.*
The work.
Or something else.
---
*Mak Cik* Ira and Zayriel left around ten.
*Mak* walked them to the door with a smile I had memorised the way it was different from *Mak*'s ordinary smile. *Ayah* nodded from the living room. My younger sister had been asleep since a while ago.
I stood at the side of the stairs.
Zayriel stopped briefly at the door — turned, looked at me in a way that was short and ordinary and with nothing I could hold on to and say this isn't ordinary.
"Good night."
"Good night."
The door closed.
*Mak* turned to me with a face that had something she wanted to say — but *Ayah* appeared from the living room and the moment passed.
"Go to sleep," *Ayah* said to me. "Work tomorrow."
I went upstairs.
---
In my room, lying on the bed, phone on my chest.
My mind still doing the work it had been doing — arranging tonight, arranging Zayriel's sentence, arranging the way *Mak* smiled and the way the table had been set and the way tonight had happened without my knowing from when it had started to be planned.
The phone vibrated.
*Haziq*.
*Hey, are you free tomorrow? Hang out for a bit. Eat something, watch something — nothing big.*
I looked at the message.
Then at the ceiling.
Then at the message again.
Something shifted in my chest — something small and warm that came from a direction different from all the heavy things tonight. Something that felt safe to have.
I typed — *Sure. Tomorrow what time?*
Sent.
Put the phone down.
And in the dark of my own room — in the quiet after a long night I hadn't planned — I felt something I hadn't realised I had missed.
Ordinary.
Just ordinary.
---
Outside, in the car still parked along the road —
Zayriel sat.
Not driving yet.
Phone in hand, screen lit in the dark of the car, with a face that didn't have the smile that was always there. What it had instead was something older than a smile — deeper, darker, in the way of something that was calculating.
A notification came into a system only he could see.
He looked at it.
Then looked at *Aina*'s bedroom window that still had its light on.
His thumb moved over the screen — slowly, controlled, in the way of everything he did.
Then stopped.
The screen went dark.
The car was started.
And in the moment the car moved away from the quiet residential road — in the moment the rear lights disappeared around the bend — the light in *Aina*'s room went out.
The house went dark.
And in that darkness, in the sleep that came faster than usual from a tiredness that was truly tired —
the dream came.
The same forest.
But the creature wasn't in the distance tonight.
It was closer.
Far closer than the last night it came — close enough for *Aina* to see the way its fur moved, close enough to see the soles of its feet that still didn't touch the ground, close enough to see its eyes that never closed.
Hungry.
In the way of something that had long not eaten and had just found its way back.
And *Aina* — in a dream that felt too real to be a dream — stood and didn't run.
Not from bravery.
Not because she wasn't afraid.
But because there was something in her mind, in the part that dreams couldn't fully close, that still held *Haziq*'s message and the answer she'd given and something small and warm that she had felt before sleeping —
and in a mind that held that thing —
the creature couldn't fully enter.
Not tonight.
But it was there.
Waiting.
In the way of something that knew it didn't need to rush.
— END OF CHAPTER 6 —