The waterfront disappeared behind them.

Dorian drove. Qinny sat. The city moved past the windows in quiet amber smears and neither of them said anything for a while.

It wasn't uncomfortable.

That was the strange part.

It was just... tired. 

The kind of silence that had already done its grieving and didn't have anything left to perform.

Qinny watched the streetlights blur past and let her chest hurt the way it wanted to. Because it did hurt. Seeing Brennen and Yris out there under the harbor lights — laughing, easy, practiced — had done something specific and ugly to a place she hadn't finished protecting yet.

The club could've been a mistake.

One bad night. Too much to drink. Terrible judgment.

But tonight had looked like a regular day. The kind people have when something has already become normal to them.

She pressed her thumbnail against her palm quietly.

Beside her, Dorian loosened one hand from the steering wheel.

Qinny glanced at him.

His jaw was set. Not tight — just holding something steady. The way he did when he was thinking and had decided not to share it yet.

"…You okay?" she asked.

A beat.

"Define okay," he said.

"...Hmm."

The road stretched ahead of them, mostly empty. A red light caught them at an intersection and they sat in the glow of it together without talking.

Then Qinny groaned and slumped sideways against the seat.

"We crouched behind a Myvi."

"You crouched," Dorian said. "I was standing."

"You were spiritually crouching together with me."

"That sentence does not make sense."

"Well, you did bend your knees."

"I bent my knees to avoid being seen because you panicked and took me with you."

"And you followed anyway."

A pause.

"…Unfortunately," he said.

Qinny snorted despite herself. Then sighed. Then stared at the ceiling of the car.

"This is so embarrassing."

"A little."

"A LITTLE?"

The light turned green.

"We gathered confirmed evidence," Dorian said calmly. "The method was unorthodox. The results were valid."

"You sound like you're writing a lab report about us stalking our partners."

"I'm reframing."

"Is that what you call it."

"It helps."

Qinny turned to look at him properly. "…Does it actually?"

He didn't answer immediately.

Which was its own kind of answer.

"…Not really," he admitted quietly.

The city moved past them. A motorcycle somewhere. Qinny looked back out the window.

"I don't want to go home yet," she said.

She hadn't planned to say it. It just arrived, honest and slightly embarrassing, and she couldn't take it back.

Dorian glanced at her briefly.

Then, without a word, changed lanes.

The Mix Store* was small and overly lit and almost entirely empty at this hour except for a bored cashier scrolling on his phone and the low hum of a refrigerator unit near the back.
(*a convenience store)

Qinny walked in and immediately felt better.

She couldn't explain it. There was just something about the specific combination of fluorescent lighting and cheap snacks and nowhere in particular to be that felt like the universe offering a minor mercy.

She grabbed a basket.

Then started filling it with the focused energy of someone making important decisions.

Spicy chips. Gummies. Instant noodles. Canned coffee. A chocolate bar she didn't even particularly like but felt was necessary.

She turned around to find Dorian studying the back of a crackers packet with the same expression he gave the spreadsheet.

His basket contained: water, bread, a pack of crackers, headache tablets, tissues, and mints.

Qinny stopped beside him slowly.

"…Why do you shop like a divorced father who has the kids this weekend and wants to be responsible about it."

Dorian looked down at the basket. "These are practical."

"You bought headache medicine."

"Preemptively."

"For what."

He reached past her and picked up two bottles of soju from the shelf.

Qinny stared.

"…You planned this."

"I accounted for the emotional trajectory of the evening."

"That's either the most thoughtful or most unhinged thing anyone has ever said to me."

"Probably both."

Qinny looked at the soju. Then at her basket. Then back at him.

"…Should we be drinking right now?"

Dorian considered this with what appeared to be genuine sincerity.

"Probably not. As agreed upon rule number 3."

"Yeah, but two bottles won't get us drunk," Qinny debated.

So she took one of the bottles anyway.

Dorian sighed quietly and put the second one in his basket without comment.

Outside, the night air had gone properly cold.

Qinny climbed onto the hood of Dorian's car without asking. He watched her do it with the expression of a man who had accepted that some things were simply going to happen.

He set the bags down beside her and opened his bottle.

She opened hers. Took a sip. Immediately regretted it.

"Oh my God."

"You took it confidently."

"I thought I could handle it."

"You coughed like it was your first time encountering liquid."

"It tastes like betrayal."

"That feels symbolic."

Qinny pointed at him. "You're getting funnier."

"You're getting concerningly comfortable."

The words landed lightly. But they landed.

Both of them paused — just a half-second, just enough — before Qinny looked away toward the empty road and Dorian looked down at the bottle in his hands.

"Trauma bonding," Qinny said, to no one in particular.

"That sounds medically imprecise."

"Everything about tonight is medically imprecise."

Dorian sat beside her on the hood, and they fell into a quiet that felt different from the one in the car. Less heavy. More like two people who had run out of pretending for the evening and found it surprisingly manageable.

The snacks got passed back and forth. The bottle made its rounds. The city hummed distantly around them.

Then Qinny said, "What annoys you about her. Other than the obvious."

Dorian looked up.

"And don't give me a diplomatic answer," she added.

He stayed quiet for a moment. Turning the bottle slowly in his hands.

"…She doesn't really listen," he said finally.

Qinny waited.

"Not like, she ignores things. She doesn't." He frowned slightly, like the thought was still finding its shape. 

"She hears everything. She just doesn't… stay. She moves on fast. To the next thing, the next topic, the next version of the evening."

A pause.

"And sometimes I'd be in the middle of saying something that mattered to me, and by the time I finished she was already somewhere else entirely."

The wind moved quietly around them.

"I think she tried," he said, softer now. "I think she genuinely did. But I don't know if she ever really wanted what I was actually offering."

Qinny looked at him.

He wasn't performing composure right now. He was just being honest. Honest in the way people get at a certain hour of the night when the effort of maintaining anything has finally become more trouble than it's worth.

"What about Brennen," he said, turning it back to her.

Qinny exhaled.

"He's kind," she said. "Genuinely. He remembers everything — my orders, my habits, things I've said once and totally forgotten. He does all the small things right."

"But?"

"But I think he loves the easy version of me."

Dorian looked at her.

"Like — happy me. Fun me. The me that doesn't need anything complicated." She turned the bottle in her hands. "Any time something actually bothered me, he'd try to fix the mood instead of just sitting in it with me. Like the problem was the sadness, not the thing causing it."

She laughed quietly. Humorlessly.

"And the wild thing is I think he thought that was taking care of me."

Silence.

Then Dorian said slowly, "I think—" and stopped.

Qinny glanced at him.

He shook his head slightly. Started again. "I think people don't always cheat because they... because they stopped caring."

He wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the middle distance, like he was working it out in real time.

"I think sometimes it's more like…" A pause. A small exhale. "They find somewhere they feel less careful. And they go toward it without thinking about what they're leaving."

The air between them shifted.

Not dramatically. Just — noticeably. The way a temperature changes before you can name it.

Qinny looked down at the bottle.

Dorian looked at the road.

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

Then Qinny reached for the chip bag and opened it with significant force.

"…Huh," she said.

"Yeah."

"I need a second."

"Take your time."

"I might need several seconds."

"The chips will help."

"Chips don't fix emotional devastation."

"No," Dorian agreed quietly. "But they give you something to do with your hands."

Qinny chuckled, humored by his words.

He reached over and took a chip from the bag without ceremony.

And somehow, inexplicably, she started laughing.

Not loud. Not performed. Just — helpless and real and a little bit broken around the edges.

Dorian watched her laugh.

And this time, he didn't look away.