Chapter Text
The night folds itself around Aiah like a second skin.
It’s almost 1 a.m. and she’s still at her desk, blinking down at her notes. Her pen rests forgotten in the curve of her hand. A half-empty glass of water sweats against the coaster, the condensation creeping into the corners of a quiz reviewer she hasn’t touched in an hour.
Outside the window, the city has quieted. Just the occasional hum of a motorcycle passing, a distant dog barking, the low whir of the electric fan shifting left and right beside her bed. The playlist she put on earlier is now a soft murmur in the background, all melancholy guitars and songs she doesn’t remember queuing—except this one.
A slow, familiar melody. Warm and wistful. The kind that tugs at something inside her chest, though she can’t quite say why.
Aiah exhales through her nose and leans back, letting the chair tilt just enough to creak. Her eyes sting from too much screen time, and her body aches from the way she’s been curled up for hours, trying to cram another week’s worth of readings into a single night.
She reaches for her phone without really meaning to. Checks the time. 1:13 a.m.
No messages.
Not that she’s expecting any. Her friends know she’s on study lockdown. And the people who used to message her late at night?
Well.
She presses the power button and sets the phone back down, face-down this time.
Then, after a beat, she closes her eyes. Just for a moment.
She doesn’t mean to fall asleep.
But her thoughts go quiet.
And before she can even think I should move to the bed, the breeze through the window shifts, brushing cool against her neck. The playlist fades. The chair seems to steady. And in that liminal stillness, she exhales again—soft, heavy, surrendering.
“I wish I knew where I’m going,” she murmurs into the dark. Not to anyone. Just a thought she’s been carrying for weeks, maybe months.
Her head tilts. Her body slackens.
The city slips away.
And when Aiah opens her eyes—
It’s morning.
But not the kind she knows.
The light that spills through the curtains is softer, fuller. The air smells faintly of brewed coffee and something warm—like toasted bread, or cinnamon. The chair beneath her is gone. She’s lying on a bed now, tucked beneath a linen sheet that feels too smooth to be hers.
Her first thought is that maybe she sleepwalked. That she got up in the middle of the night and collapsed somewhere else.
But when she sits up, slowly, the ache in her back is gone. Her limbs don’t feel stiff or sore. Her desk is nowhere in sight. Instead, there’s a small wooden nightstand beside the bed, holding a ceramic lamp and a folded pair of glasses that aren’t hers.
Her heartbeat stutters.
She looks around the room.
Neutral walls, soft with the patina of morning. A window she doesn’t recognize. A shelf lined with books—some titles familiar, others not. A sweater slung over the back of a chair. A pair of slippers that aren’t hers at the foot of the bed.
There’s a photo frame on the desk.
She leans forward to look.
It’s a picture of her. Laughing. Caught mid-motion, mid-something. And beside her, arms loosely slung around her shoulders, is someone she doesn’t recognize. A woman with sun-warmed skin and a quiet smile. Someone beautiful. Familiar in the way dreams are—half-remembered, like something she’s known before.
She looks at the frame again.
Same smile. Same warmth.
Aiah’s breath catches.
She turns toward the mirror on the wall.
There’s a note stuck to the corner of the glass. Just a torn piece of yellow stationery, handwritten in ink that curves lazily, like it wasn’t written in a rush.
Don’t freak out. Coffee’s waiting.
—Mikha
Aiah stares at it.
The paper flutters slightly from the fan overhead.
“Mikha,” she reads under her breath. The name tastes foreign in her mouth. It doesn’t stir any memory. Doesn’t unlock anything at all.
She looks at herself in the mirror next.
And something is different.
Her hair’s longer. Her skin a little tanner. She leans in. The shape of her face is the same—but there’s a stillness there. Something grounded, softened, settled. Like whoever this Aiah is… she knows something that the current Aiah doesn’t yet.
A knock of sound drifts in from the hallway. Music. The clink of a mug being set down. A faint hum of someone singing—off-key but tender.
Aiah stands.
Her feet carry her toward the sound before she even knows she’s moving. Down a hallway she doesn’t recognize. Past prints and postcards she doesn’t remember hanging. Past a laundry basket with neatly folded clothes.
And then she reaches the kitchen.
And there she is.
The girl from the photo.
Back to her, hair tied messily, sleeves rolled up as she pours hot water into a French press. She’s barefoot, swaying gently to music Aiah can’t quite hear.
And when she turns— everything stops.
Because she’s smiling like she’s seen Aiah a thousand times before.
Like she’s been waiting.
“You’re up,” she says, easy, casual. As if this is just another Tuesday. “You always wake up weird after long nights. Sit. Your coffee’s getting cold.”
Aiah doesn’t speak. Can’t.
Her heart pounds. Her palms feel weightless. And somewhere in the back of her mind, she’s trying to make sense of it all.
Who is this?
Where am I?
Why does this feel so much like home?
The girl—Mikha—tilts her head, smile still gentle, just the faintest crease of amusement in her brow.
“You’re looking at me like it’s the first time.”
And Aiah—still barefoot, still unsure, still standing at the threshold of a life she doesn’t remember—finally says:
“It is.”
The words hang in the air like steam off the mug.
Mikha doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t furrow her brows or rush to correct her. She just blinks, once, slowly—like she’s turning something over in her mind. And then she sets the mug down and wipes her hands on the dishtowel slung over her shoulder.
“Okay,” she says softly. “Then let’s start there.”
She gestures toward the table, like this is just another morning, like this isn’t some gentle impossibility. Aiah hesitates for a second, then moves on instinct, the floor cool beneath her feet. She sits across from her, hands curled around the warm ceramic mug already waiting there.
It smells like hazelnut. Sweet and strong.
Aiah doesn’t drink it right away.
She watches the way Mikha moves—fluid and unhurried. She opens a cupboard without looking, pulls out two plates. Toast pops from the toaster. A pan on the stove is still warm. Scrambled eggs.
Something simple. Familiar.
Everything about this feels… lived in.
And not by her.
Or not by the version of her she knows.
Mikha sits across from her with her own cup, her knee knocking gently into Aiah’s under the table like it always does, maybe. Like she expects it to.
“So,” Mikha says, resting her chin on her hand. Her eyes are soft, curious. Not alarmed. Not even worried. Just open. “How far back are we today?”
Aiah blinks.
“Sorry—what?”
Mikha smiles a little. “You said it’s your first time seeing me, yeah? So I’m guessing you’re not this week’s Aiah.”
That makes even less sense.
“I don’t know what that means.”
Mikha nods, as if that answer fits just fine. She leans back in her chair, still watching Aiah like she’s the most fascinating thing in the room.
“That’s alright. You don’t need to understand everything yet.”
The silence that follows isn’t awkward. It’s quiet in a way that invites softness. Aiah picks up her mug, finally, and takes a sip. The coffee’s just the right temperature. The sweetness hits first, then the warmth. She tries not to sigh, but it escapes her anyway.
Mikha notices. Her smile shifts into something smaller. Fonder.
“I always know when it’s not you,” she says after a moment, almost to herself. “You’re more careful. You look at everything like it might disappear.”
Aiah sets her mug down. “Maybe because it already has.”
She doesn’t know why she says it. Maybe because it feels true.
Mikha’s gaze doesn’t waver. “Then we’ll take it slow.”
She gets up again, reaches for the small butter dish at the center of the table and spoons a bit onto Aiah’s toast. No explanation. No hesitation. Just the kind of thing you do when you know how the other person likes their breakfast.
When she sits back down, she adds, “You always come back eventually. But I guess… this might be the earliest you’ve ever come.”
Aiah wraps her fingers tighter around the mug.
The warmth is real. The scent. The weight of it.
Mikha is real.
But this isn’t her life. Not yet.
Still—
She watches as Mikha tears a corner of her toast and pops it into her mouth, unconcerned. Trusting. Present.
Aiah doesn’t know her.
But she already wants to.
Aiah takes another sip of coffee, more for something to do than anything else.
Across the table, Mikha watches her with the kind of patience that feels learned. Practiced. Like she’s done this before—waited for a version of Aiah that wasn’t quite ready yet.
It’s disarming, that kind of quiet knowing.
“You said I’ve come back before,” Aiah says softly, her voice still rough at the edges. “What does that mean?”
Mikha pauses, setting her toast down, brushing crumbs from her fingers like she needs to be precise.
“I don’t really know the how of it,” she admits. “You just… wake up different sometimes. A little earlier. A little lost. You look at me like you’re trying to figure out if I’m safe.” Her lips curl, gently.
“Sometimes you run. And sometimes you don’t stay long.”
Aiah looks down at her mug. “And you’re okay with that?”
“I don’t think I have to be okay with it,” Mikha shrugs. “It just is.” Then, softer, “Besides… I think part of you always wants to come back.”
Aiah lets that settle.
The fork beside her untouched plate catches a glint of sun. In the distance, the muffled sound of traffic starts to hum—a world outside this kitchen, but one that somehow still belongs to her. Still feels real.
“So who are you to me?” she asks quietly, her voice more breath than sound.
Mikha meets her gaze.
There’s no drama in her answer. No pause.
“I’m yours.”
It should feel too much. Should make Aiah laugh or recoil or question it. But instead, the words slip through her like warm air, like sunlight.
“And me?”
Mikha tilts her head.
“You’re mine.” A simple truth.
Aiah swallows. Something tugs in her chest.
“How long have we… been like this?”
Mikha’s smile changes. Becomes something heavier, tinged with wonder. “Years, I think. I stopped counting after the third. You said anniversaries made things feel too far away.”
“Did I?” she murmurs.
“You did. You also said love shouldn’t be measured in years. Just in mornings like this.”
Aiah laughs under her breath. It feels like a sound borrowed from another life. “That sounds like something someone in love would say.”
Mikha leans in slightly. “You were. You are.”
That word catches her off guard.
“Was?”
But Mikha doesn’t correct herself.
Instead, she says, gently, “You leave sometimes. Not by choice. It’s like a reset. You wake up in your past and I… I just wait.”
“Do I ever remember?”
“You always find your way back.”
Aiah doesn’t know what to do with that. With all this quiet certainty. With the way Mikha says it like it’s a promise already kept.
“Aren’t you tired?” she asks finally. “Of doing this over and over?”
Mikha reaches for her coffee. Smiles softly over the rim.
“I get to fall in love with you more than once. That doesn’t sound tiring to me.”
Aiah looks at her.
Really looks at her.
And wonders what she did in her own time to deserve being loved like this.