The second soju bottle was half gone.

Most of the chips were finished. The gummies were open. Dorian had eaten more crackers than any one person needed, while Qinny had eaten enough chocolate and soju in combination to know she would never do that again.

The night had settled into something genuinely cold now, the kind that asked questions about why you were still outside, and both of them were ignoring it.

Qinny pulled her knees up to her chest on the hood of the car.

"Okay," she said.

Dorian glanced sideways. "That tone means something's coming."

"Something is coming."

"I'm already concerned."

"We should know each other better."

Dorian blinked once. "…What."

"We're surveillance partners. Morally questionable coworkers. Whatever." She gestured between them. "We've been doing this for what, a week? And I still don't actually know anything real about you."

"You know I make spreadsheets and hate coffee."

"That's not a personality."

"It's a start."

"It is not a start." Qinny shifted to face him more directly, which given that they were both sitting on the hood of a car required a certain amount of ungraceful shuffling. "We're playing a game."

The look on Dorian's face was that of a man who already knew he was going to lose this negotiation.

"…No."

"Two truths, one lie."

"Absolutely not."

"Participation is mandatory."

"We're not in secondary school."

"Then stop acting like a child and be a good sport."

Dorian looked at her for a long moment.

Then sighed in a way that meant yes.

Qinny gasped. "You caved immediately."

"I'm choosing the option with the least long-term consequences."

"That's an incredibly sad way to agree to a game."

"It's accurate."

"Fine. Me first." 

Qinny held up a finger. "I broke someone's nose in primary school."

Second finger.

"I failed chemistry once."

Third.

"I stole a hamster."

Dorian looked at her.

Looked away.

Looked back.

"…The hamster."

Qinny's expression went immediately and suspiciously neutral. "Interesting guess."

"It wasn't a guess."

"You have no evidence."

"You have chaotic energy and you said it third, which means it felt most exposing."

"That is NOT how this game works."

"It worked."

Qinny pointed at him. "WRONG."

Dorian blinked. "…You didn't steal the hamster?"

"It was a guinea pig."

A pause.

Dorian's shoulders shifted.

Just slightly.

Qinny leaned forward immediately. "Are you laughing."

"No."

"Your shoulders moved."

"I shifted position."

"You are LAUGHING at me."

"I'm processing new information."

"DORIAN—"

"The lie is the nose," he said, very calmly.

Qinny opened her mouth. Closed it. "…How."

"You're too small to break someone's nose."

"I was SCRAPPY."

"You cried in a storage room."

"That was GRIEF—"

"Your turn," he said, like the matter was settled.

Qinny stared at him in genuine outrage for a solid three seconds before pointing. "You're going to pay for that."

Dorian almost smiled. "Noted. My turn."

He thought for a moment. The kind of pause that looked casual but probably wasn't.

"I got suspended once," he said.

"Lie," Qinny said immediately.

"I hate coffee."

"Already confirmed. True."

"And I cried during a film when I was nine."

Silence.

Qinny squinted at him. "…All three of those feel true."

"That's the point."

"Okay." She studied him. "You didn't get suspended."

"Correct."

"HA—"

"I didn't get suspended because the teacher intervened before it escalated."

Qinny froze. "…What does that mean."

"It means the suspension was narrowly avoided."

"That is NOT the same as the lie being suspension."

"The statement was technically accurate."

"You're a MENACE."

"I'm strategic."

"That's the same thing dressed up nicely."

Dorian took a calm sip from the bottle.

Qinny shook her head slowly. "You are so—" She stopped. Looked at him properly. "Okay, wait. You actually almost got into a fight?"

"In my defense, he started it."

"WHO STARTED IT?"

"Someone who was wrong."

"That is the vaguest answer I've ever received."

"The details aren't important."

"The details are EXTREMELY important, I feel like you're a completely different person right now—"

"Round two—"

"Don't you DARE change the subject—"

"You've had enough soju."

"I've had one and a half bottles of a drink I don't even like, I am completely—" She paused. Blinked. "Okay I am slightly warm."

"You're drunk already?"

"That's not drunk."

"You better not be. Rules are rules."

"Yeah, yeah." She waved him away, then glared. "You're telling me about the fight later."

"There's nothing to tell."

"There is so much to tell and you know it."

Dorian looked at her for a second. Something at the corner of his mouth moved — that almost-smile she was starting to recognize, the one he seemed to deploy specifically when she was saying something he found funnier than he was going to admit.

"…Later," he said.

"Promise."

"That feels formal."

"Dorian."

"Fine." A pause. "Later."

Qinny held his gaze for a second, checking for insincerity.

Found none.

Looked away.

The night had gotten quieter around them. The road was nearly empty now, just the odd passing car and the distant yellow glow of the Mix Store sign behind them. Somewhere further down the street, a cat crossed under a streetlight and disappeared.

Qinny leaned back against the windshield and looked up.

"I haven't checked my phone in two hours," she said.

It came out quieter than she intended. Less like an observation and more like something she was still figuring out what to do with.

Dorian was quiet for a moment.

"…Is that good or bad," he said.

"I don't know." She kept looking at the sky. "Both, maybe."

A beat.

"A week ago I was checking his messages every thirty minutes," she said. "Looking for something I couldn't even name. Some proof that I was wrong. Some version of things that made sense."

Dorian didn't say anything.

"And tonight I went two hours and didn't even notice," she continued. "And the weird part isn't that it happened. The weird part is that I only noticed just now."

The wind moved past them.

"I think that's probably what progress looks like," Dorian said eventually. "The part where you stop waiting for an explanation and start existing for yourself and not for anyone."

Qinny turned to look at him.

He was looking ahead. Not avoiding her gaze — just looking at the road the way he did when he was being honest about something and didn't want it to be a bigger moment than it needed to be.

"You exist very quietly for someone with a spreadsheet full of pie charts," she said.

Something in his expression shifted. Not quite a smile. More like a decision.

He reached into the bag beside him and pulled out the crackers.

"Don't," Qinny said.

"Don't what."

"Don't deflect with snacks."

"I'm hungry."

"You're deflecting."

"I can be both."

Qinny stared at him. He opened the crackers with complete composure and ate one.

She took the bag from him and ate one too.

They sat there for a moment in the particular silence of two people who have run out of performance for the evening and found each other still present on the other side of it.

Then Dorian said, very casually, looking straight ahead:

"I opened the Pending Chaos tab today."

Qinny turned to look at him immediately.

"…And?"

He reached into his jacket pocket and produced his phone. Opened the spreadsheet. Turned it toward her.

The Pending Chaos tab was no longer empty.

Qinny read it slowly.

Then looked up.

"Dorian."

"Mm."

"This is—"

"Efficient."

"I was going to say surprising."

"Hence, the word chaos."

She looked back at the screen. Her expression moved through several things — surprise, then something sharper, then the beginnings of a smile she wasn't entirely sure she should be having.

"…When did you do this."

"Last night."

"Why didn't you tell me earlier."

"You were busy crouching behind a Myvi."

Qinny let out a short, disbelieving laugh.

"We're actually doing this," she said.

"We were always doing this," Dorian said. "Now we have a plan."

She stared at the screen a second longer.

The plan was specific. Calculated. Several steps ahead in a way that was either very smart or going to cause catastrophic collateral damage to everyone involved.

Probably both.

Qinny handed the phone back.

Dorian pocketed it without ceremony.

The Mix Store sign hummed behind them. The street stayed empty. The night sat around them, cold and quiet and holding its breath a little.

"Same time tomorrow?" Qinny said.

Dorian glanced at her sideways.

"We have prep work."

"Is that a yes."

"It's a obviously."

Qinny smiled.

Not the tired kind from earlier.

The other kind.

The kind that came with a specific accompanying problem she was becoming increasingly aware of and wasn't sure what to do with yet.

She slid off the hood of the car and picked up her bag.

"Better get some rest then," She said, while tapping on her phone to request for a Grab*.
(*Grab=Uber)

"Goodnight, Dorian."

He didn't get to offer her a ride home this time, and instead watched her go, the way he had a habit of doing — not lingering, not obvious, just present in a way that she felt between her shoulder blades.

"Goodnight, Qinnara."

She walked to the road and waited for her grab to arrive.

And while she waited, standing alone under the orange wash of a streetlight, she pulled her jacket tighter around herself and thought: we have a plan.

And underneath that, quieter, more dangerous, and significantly harder to spreadsheet away:

I enjoyed talking to him.