The morning began, as it always did, with the ghost of a notification.
Nick's eyes opened to the gray light of a Kuala Lumpur dawn seeping through his dorm room blinds. His hand, moving with a muscle memory that felt both sacred and pathetic, found his phone on the pillow. The screen glowed to life. Telegram. One unread message. His heart, that foolish, hopeful organ, gave a single, hard thump against his ribs.
It was a university group chat announcement about library hours.Not the one he hoped for a reply.
He let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. It fogged the screen for a second before dissolving. The silence in the room was a physical presence, thick with the remnants of a dream he couldn't remember, but whose melancholy clung to him like humidity.
Another fact of the day la, he thought, the words forming in her voice in his head.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, his feet meeting the cool laminate floor. The movement pulled at the fresh, tender skin on his neck. Right. The surgery. Three stitches, a small, angry line where a sebaceous cyst had been carved out. The doctor's orders echoed: No alcohol. No strenuous activity. Let it heal.
A bitter laugh escaped him. As if he had plans for either. His plans—the cosplay event, the photo booth, the future that had felt so tangible—were now artifacts in a museum only he visited. He was a curator of a relationship that never was, presiding over exhibits of almost-touches and might-have-beens.
In the small mirror above his sink, a familiar stranger looked back. Pale from days spent indoors overthinking, his eyes held a quiet storm. He traced the bandage on his neck. An external wound for an internal one. Poetic, in a painfully obvious way. He was a walking cliché, and he knew it.
The first class of the day was a blur of sound without meaning. The professor's voice droned on about marketing principles, but Nick's notebook held a different curriculum. In the margins, next to a diagram of consumer behavior, he'd written:
*Longing is a beautiful love my dear but it isn't something I hope for our love story.
— The Heart-Keeper
He'd started referring to himself in the third person in his own notes. A psychological detachment that felt necessary for survival.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. A jolt. He slid it out under the desk, the hope a vile, persistent weed.
A message from his mother. Did you change the dressing?
He replied with a thumbs-up emoji, the universal language of fine. He was fine. He was always fine. He was the king of fine, ruling over a crumbling empire of it.
The lecture ended. Students spilled into the corridor, a river of chatter and backpack bumps. Nick moved against the current, a stone in the stream. He passed the notice board. A bright poster screamed: MMU ANNUAL FAIR – AUDITIONS OPEN! Showcase Your Talent!
Yesterday, that poster had sparked a feeble flicker. Maybe a hosting gig. A way to be seen, to be heard, to be someone other than the ghost he felt himself becoming. He'd practiced lines in his mirror.
But the buzz from his friends who'd tried out last year came back, a toxic whisper: "They only pick the chiseled faces, man. The presenter voices. The ones who look like they walked out of a TV."
His hand went to his jaw, not chiseled. He heard his own voice in his head, not deep or manly, just… his. A crushing weight settled in his chest. Two doors, closing in unison. The teaching assistant position he'd wanted, quietly given to someone else. And now this, a door he hadn't even reached for, telling him his key was the wrong shape.
He stood before the poster, a monument to superficiality. The world, it seemed, only had room for certain kinds of stories, told by certain kinds of faces. And his story—raw, messy, written in the ink of silent phone logs and one-sided cosplay plans—didn't fit the template.
A drop of rain hit the window beside the board. Then another. A slow, rhythmic tap-tap-tapping.
If it rains too much, I will not come, her voice whispered from the archives of his mind. I mean it.
He believed her. He'd always believed her.
He turned from the board, away from the rain-streaked glass, and walked deeper into the echoing hallway. The chapter of the day was just beginning, and already, the sentences ached. But he was the author now, wasn't he? Even if, for now, all he could write was the weather.