The lecture hall filled slowly.
Muted conversations. Chairs scraping. The low hum of routine pretending nothing was wrong.
Ling entered first.
She took her usual seat—front row, aisle, perfect angle to the board. She placed her notebook down, aligned her pen parallel to the margin, posture straight, expression unreadable.
She didn't look around.
Rhea entered minutes later.
She saw Ling instantly.
She walked straight down the aisle and sat beside her.
Close. Deliberately close.
Ling felt it like a shift in gravity.
She stood immediately.
No pause. No reaction.
She picked up her notebook and walked to the last row, far corner, back against the wall. Distance. Control. End of conversation.
Rhea watched her go.
Then smiled.
She stood and followed.
Ling heard the footsteps. Measured. Unhurried. Unafraid.
Rhea sat again—this time closer. Their desks nearly touching.
Ling inhaled slowly.
She stood again, jaw tight, and moved one seat over—pressed now against the wall, desk corner digging into her hip.
There was nowhere else to go.
Rhea leaned in.
Ling didn't look at her.
She opened her notebook, uncapped her pen, and began writing like the room had emptied.
Her hand was steady. Her expression calm. Her focus absolute.
Rhea shifted closer anyway.
Too close.
Her knee brushed Ling's thigh.
Ling's shoulders tensed.
"Move," Ling said quietly, eyes still on the page.
Rhea didn't.
Instead, she leaned back slightly, amused, watching Ling's profile—the way her jaw flexed, the way she refused to look.
"You're running out of space," Rhea murmured.
Ling ignored her.
Her pen scratched harder now, ink pressing into the paper.
Rhea leaned forward, placing one hand on Ling's desk, boxing her in.
Ling's back touched the wall.
Still, she didn't look.
That was what finally broke Rhea's patience.
She smiled.
And snatched Ling's pen mid-word.
Ink streaked across the page.
Ling froze.
Slowly, she turned her head.
Their faces were inches apart.
Rhea twirled the pen between her fingers, eyes bright, unrepentant. "You're pretending I don't exist," she said softly. "But you're shaking."
Ling's gaze dropped—not to Rhea's eyes, but to the pen.
"Give it back," Ling said evenly.
Rhea leaned closer instead, voice dropping. "Why are you afraid to look at me?"
Ling's fingers curled once against the desk.
"I'm not afraid," she said.
Rhea smiled wider. "Then prove it."
For a long, dangerous second, Ling didn't move.
Then she reached out—not touching Rhea—just closed her fingers around the pen, pulling it from Rhea's grip with controlled force.
Their knuckles brushed.
Electric. Unwanted. Immediate.
Ling finally looked at her.
Cold. Sharp. Wounded in a way that didn't beg.
"Don't touch my things," Ling said quietly. "Unless you're prepared for what happens next."
Rhea's smile didn't fade.
It deepened.
"Good," she murmured. "You're still here."
The professor entered then.
The room snapped to attention.
Ling turned back to her notebook, jaw set, pen moving again—this time slower, more deliberate.
Rhea leaned back in her chair, satisfied.
Eliza called Mira
Mira answered on the first ring, breath already uneven. "Aunt—"
"How's Ling," she said calmly.
Mira hesitated, then rushed the words out like confession and complaint tangled together. "Rhea sat next to Ling on purpose. Ling moved. She followed. Ling tried to ignore her—she pushed closer. Took Ling's pen. Everyone saw. Ling warned her. But not really."
A pause.
Eliza's fingers tightened slightly around her phone.
"Professors?" she asked.
Mira said quickly. "No one stopped her. No professor intervened."
That was enough.
Eliza ended the call without goodbye.
She dialed another number.
Professor Halvorsen answered with forced cheer. "Mrs. Kwong—what a pleasure—"
"Why," Eliza asked softly, "is Rhea Nior no longer being corrected?"
Silence.
Then a careful breath.
"Mrs. Kwong," the professor said, choosing each word with surgical caution, "after yesterday's… conversation with your daughter, certain measures have been paused."
Eliza's expression didn't change.
"Paused," she repeated.
"Yes," he continued nervously. "Captain Kwong made it clear she was… observing. We felt it prudent to reassess visibility."
Eliza smiled faintly.
"My daughter warned you," she said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"We are simply maintaining neutrality," he added quickly. "We cannot appear to—"
Eliza cut him off.
"Do not confuse my daughter's presence with my approval," she said coolly. "Ling protects emotionally. I protect structurally."
The line went very still.
"You will continue," Eliza said. "Quietly. Indirectly. Without spectacle."
"But Captain Kwong—"
"—will not see it," Eliza finished. "That is your responsibility."
Another pause.
"Yes, Mrs. Kwong."
Eliza ended the call.
She stood by the window of her study for a long moment, city stretching beneath her like a chessboard. Ling's interference had been anticipated—but not this early, not this instinctive.
She's falling again and this time I won't let her, Eliza thought.
Her jaw tightened.
Across campus, Rhea sat in class, posture perfect, smile faint, unaware that the pressure had not lifted—
it had only learned to move around Ling Kwong instead of through her.
And Eliza Kwong, watching from far above, adjusted her strategy with the calm certainty of someone who had never lost a war—
especially not to love.
Nior-Mansion-Night
That night, sleep didn't come.
Rhea lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, replaying Kane's voice again and again—precise, calm, merciless.
Accept her.
Make her trust you.
Make her feel safe.
Kane had said it like strategy. Like instruction. Like love was something you deployed, not felt.
Rhea turned onto her side, fingers curling into the pillow.
Reassure her.
That was the word that stayed.
Ling's face surfaced without permission—the way she had stood still when Rhea crowded her space in class, the way she'd refused to look and yet had never stepped away completely. The warning in her voice. The restraint.
Rhea closed her eyes.
I have to do this, she told herself.
I have to make her believe I'm there.
That was the plan. That was the role Kane had carved for her.
If Ling trusted her—if Ling relaxed—then the fall would be deeper. Cleaner. Final.
That was what she told herself.
But beneath that justification lived something far more dangerous.
A quieter truth.
Rhea imagined Ling not guarded, not distant—but steady. Certain. Safe in a way she had never been with anyone else. Imagined Ling reaching for her without fear of losing control. Imagined staying—not as strategy, not as revenge—but because leaving would hurt too much.
The thought startled her.
She pushed it down immediately.
That's weakness, she thought sharply.
That's how you lose.
She rolled onto her stomach, breath tight, jaw clenched.
She told herself she only wanted to calm Ling so she could later walk away.
She told herself reassurance was a tool.
She told herself staying was temporary.
She did not allow herself to think about the part of her that wondered—quietly, shamefully—what it would be like to never leave at all.
That part scared her more than Kane ever had.
Rhea pressed her face into the pillow and breathed until the thought dulled.
By morning, her decision was set.
She would reassure Ling.
She would soften her.
She would become exactly what Ling needed.
And if somewhere inside her, a traitorous hope whispered that maybe—just maybe—she could stay even after she was supposed to leave—
Rhea refused to name it.
Because naming it would make it real.
And real things were the hardest to destroy.