Qinny had not slept well.

This was, objectively, Dorian Ocampo's fault.

Not because of anything he'd done. He hadn't done anything. That was somehow the problem — the almost-fall, the hand braced above her head, the one second too long before he'd stepped back — and now it lived rent-free in her head at 2 a.m. like an uninvited houseguest with no concept of boundaries.

She gave up trying at six and stared at the ceiling instead.

By the time she dragged herself to class, she had achieved the following: showered, dressed, applied concealer with the desperation of someone facing a job interview, and told herself three separate times that she was a normal person who was fine.

She was absolutely fine.

Totally fine.

---

Maya took one look at her and said, "You look like you argued with your own brain and lost."

"Good morning."

"That's not a denial."

"It's also not an invitation."

Maya handed her a coffee anyway. Qinny took it without resistance, which Maya correctly identified as a sign of emotional vulnerability and filed away for later.

The lecturer started. Qinny opened her notes app. Stared at a blank page.

"Consumer behavior is heavily influenced by—"

Buzz.

She ignored it.

"—psychological triggers that cause—"

Buzz. Buzz.

She grabbed her phone.

---

Dorian 
I have an idea.

Dorian
It's unethical.

Dorian
But productive.

Qinny read it three times. Then typed back.

Qinny
Those two words have never once appeared together correctly in a sentence.

Dorian
Fake cancellations. Cancel your date. I'll cancel mine.

Dorian
We see what they do with a suddenly free evening.

She stared at the screen.

Qinny
That's either genius or genuinely disturbing.

Dorian
Both. 

Dorian
Meet me at the library after class.

Qinny
you could at least pretend to ask.

Dorian
Qinnara.

Dorian
Would you like to come conduct deeply questionable surveillance activities with me at the library after class?

She bit the inside of her cheek to stop smiling.

Qinny
Looking forward to it.

"Oh, that's a face," Maya said pleasantly from beside her.

"I don't have a face."

"You have several. That one specifically means you're about to make a decision you'll justify later."

"Go back to your notes."

"I am taking notes," Maya said, and somehow managed to sound both helpful and catastrophically nosy at the same time.

---

She found him at the library exactly where she expected.

Level 2, corner table near the window, laptop open, expression carrying the quiet focus of a man who processed heartbreak through data visualization and saw absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Qinny sat down across from him without preamble.

"Walk me through it."

Dorian turned the laptop toward her.

She stared.

"…There are tabs."

"There have always been tabs."

"Dorian. Why are the sheets back?"

"As I've mentioned. Patterns require documentation."

"There is a legend, now."

He pulled the laptop back. "Do you want to hear the plan or critique my organizational methods."

"Both," Qinny said immediately. 

"But the plan first."

---

The plan was simple.

Almost insultingly simple, which was probably why it would work.

They'd each cancel their respective plans for the evening .

Maya's fictional breakdown for Brennen, a nonexistent cousin emergency for Yris.

All this only to watch what happened next. If Brennen and Yris were actually meeting each other, a sudden free evening would reveal it. People in secret arrangements didn't sit quietly at home when an opportunity appeared. 

They moved.

"And if they don't?" Qinny asked.

"Then we've lost one evening and gained confirmation they're occasionally telling the truth." Dorian closed the spreadsheet tab. "Either way, we learn something."

"You've thought about this too much."

"I thought about it for two hours."

"That's the concerning part."

He looked at her evenly. "Are you in or not?"

Qinny exhaled through her nose.

"I want it on record that I'm a reasonable person being driven to unreasonable behavior by external circumstances."

"Noted." He pushed his phone toward her. "Text first."

---

She told Brennen that Maya was having a crisis involving a broken ceiling fan and what she suspected was a stress rash.

Dorian told Yris his cousin had locked himself out of a new apartment across town and had somehow also lost his spare key and his neighbor's number.

It was, objectively, a lot of detail for a lie.

"You over-explained," Qinny said.

"Specificity builds credibility."

"Specificity builds suspicion."

"Yris doesn't fact-check."

"Brennen absolutely does not think that hard."

They both looked at their phones.

Waited.

And soon, their phone rang at the same time.

Brennen 
aw no :( okay babe, hope maya's okay i'll probably just hang out with the guys then

Hui Yi
awww okay dear 😞 i'll go out w the girls then hehe

Silence.

Qinny and Dorian read each other's text.

"…'The guys,'" she said.

"'The girls,'" Dorian echoed.

Another silence.

"Ask where they're going," Qinny said.

"That feels invasive."

She stared at him.

"You have a spreadsheet with a legend."

"…." He sighed, picked up his phone, then paused. "What do I say."

"Something that sounds like you're being supportive and not like you're building a case file."

"Those are not mutually exclusive for me."

"I know. That's the problem." She held out her hand. "Give it."

"Absolutely not."

"Dorian—"

He hesitated. She used the hesitation and took the phone anyway. Typed quickly. Handed it back.

Dorian
Have fun tonight. Where are you all heading?

He looked at it.

"No smiley."

"You're not a smiley person. She knows that. Forcing warmth reads suspicious." Qinny was already texting Brennen the same question. "Trust me."

"I trust the method," he said. "I'm reserving judgment on the practitioner."

"That's the nicest thing you've said to me."

"It really isn't."

Her phone buzzed.

Brennen
waterfront probably haha, wish you could've joined babe~

She set it down slowly.

Dorian's buzzed a second later.

Hui Yi
waterfronttt u know the usual 😘

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

The library was quiet around them. The air conditioning hummed. Someone nearby was highlighting something with aggressive focus.

Dorian closed the laptop.

"We're going."

Qinny looked at him. "You want to physically go to the waterfront."

"We have confirmed location, confirmed timing, and two people who have no idea we know where they are."

"That's a very calm way to describe stalking."

"I prefer field observation."

"That's worse."

"Are you coming."

Qinny looked down at her half-eaten notes.

Then at her phone.

Then at Dorian, who was already standing, keys in hand, watching her with the patient certainty of someone who already knew the answer.

She stood up.

"If we get caught," she said, "I don't know you."

"Likewise."

"And I'm using a fake name."

"What name."

"Something elegant. Sofía, maybe."

Dorian looked at her for exactly one second.

"If that's the case... Let's go, Sofía." He teased.

Qinny chuckled lowly, trailing him from behind.

---

They found them almost immediately, which felt like the universe had a cruel sense of comedic timing.

Brennen and Yris, waterfront promenade, walking close in the amber glow of the harbor lights. Not touching — not quite — but the kind of close that had its own language. 

The kind that looked normal.

Like a normal couple. 

Yris said something and Brennen tipped his head toward her to hear it, laughing before she'd even finished. Like he already knew he was going to.

Qinny watched from behind a parked Myvi near the entrance and said nothing.

Dorian stood beside her, also saying nothing.

There was something worse about this than the club. The club had been shock — raw and immediate and over in seconds. This was a weekday evening. Harbor lights. Two people taking a casual walk like the world outside them didn't exist.

Like we don't exist, Qinny thought.

"This looked practiced," she said quietly.

"Yes," Dorian said. Just that.

Across the promenade, Yris scanned the crowd suddenly — one of those idle, habit-of-being-seen glances.

Qinny moved without thinking.

She grabbed Dorian's arm and pulled him down with her behind the car — too fast, too hard, no coordination whatsoever — and he went with the motion and then immediately had nowhere to go.

His hand hit the side of the Myvi above her head.

The other caught her arm before she could stumble.

They ended up entirely too close, the way that happens when momentum makes decisions before people can.

Qinny looked up.

Dorian looked down.

The harbor sounds continued — laughter, music from somewhere down the promenade, water against the seawall — but it all felt very far away suddenly.

His grip on her arm didn't loosen immediately.

She didn't step back immediately.

She couldn't.

The streetlight caught the line of his jaw, the careful way he was holding himself still, the way his eyes stayed on her face like he was trying to figure something out and not doing particularly well at it.

"…They were across the street," he said. Quieter than he probably meant.

"I panicked," she said. Also quieter than she meant.

"I noticed."

Neither moved.

One second.

Two.

Then Dorian exhaled slowly through his nose, looked away, and straightened. His hand dropped from her arm. He put a careful foot of space between them and turned back toward the promenade like the last thirty seconds had been a footnote.

Qinny pressed the back of her hand against her cheek.

Warm.

She was warm.

That was a problem she was choosing not to address right now.

They peered over the car. Brennen and Yris were gone — disappeared further down the waterfront, swallowed by the crowd and the evening like none of this had happened.

Qinny straightened slowly.

"We should go," she said.

"Yes."

Neither moved right away.

Then Dorian turned toward the car, keys in hand, and Qinny followed, and they drove back in the kind of quiet that had too many words in it to actually be silent.