Michael learned quickly that Fridays behaved differently.
The campus loosened after interest groups ended. The rigid lines of the weekday softened — students lingered instead of dispersing, conversations stretched longer than they needed to, laughter came easier and louder. People were tired in a satisfied way, bodies drained just enough to dull vigilance.
Careless, in small ways.
Careless enough to miss him.
Michael had learned to read those shifts the way other people read weather. Fridays carried a different texture — less urgency, less discipline. People stood closer together without noticing. They checked phones mid-walk. They paused in walkways to finish sentences instead of stepping aside.
Perfect.
He positioned himself along the sheltered walkway that cut across toward the sports facilities. Not leaning. Not pacing. Just present enough to be explained by coincidence. From here, he could see the flow from multiple directions without being fixed to any one place — archery, silat, the bus stop, the junction where people decided whether to stay or go.
Visibility without attachment.
He waited.
Archery ended first.
The sports hall doors opened and students filtered out in small clusters, bows slung carefully, movements economical with fatigue. Shoulders rolled. Fingers flexed. People talked about missed shots and sore forearms. The rhythm of it was familiar now.
Michael's gaze sharpened automatically.
Then he saw her.
Hidayah stepped out with her bow case secured over her shoulder, posture straight despite the strain in her arms. There was a slight stiffness in her right shoulder — overuse, not injury — that he recognised immediately. She was walking beside Arnold.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Predictable.
Michael had learned his name without ever speaking it aloud. Picked it up from the way others addressed him, the way he moved with easy confidence through shared space. Not protective. Just present.
They talked easily.
That bothered Michael more than it should have.
Ease meant continuity. Ease meant she hadn't fractured. She hadn't shrunk.
Michael stayed still.
He didn't lean forward. Didn't adjust his stance. Stillness, he had learned, drew less attention than motion. He let his gaze soften, unfocus slightly, the way people looked when waiting for someone else.
He waited.
Several minutes passed before Jasmine appeared — approaching from the opposite direction, bag slung over her shoulder, hair slightly damp from rehearsal. The walk from W1 to the sports hall was long enough that she looked mildly tired, breath just a touch heavier than usual.
Her face brightened the moment she spotted Hidayah.
"There you are," Jasmine said, slowing as she reached them. "Choir ran long today."
Hidayah smiled. "Archery too."
The smile reached her eyes. Michael noted that.
Arnold nodded in greeting. "Hey."
Jasmine returned it easily. "Hi. I'm late as usual."
They fell into step together, the three of them angling toward the benches outside the sports hall. Their conversation was ordinary — complaints about schedules, shared exhaustion, a joke about Friday finally being over.
Ordinary was worse than hostility.
Ordinary meant she belonged.
Michael watched from a distance, careful not to track her directly. He let his attention drift, returned it, tested angles. The ease between them unsettled him. Not jealousy — not exactly — but displacement. He was not part of this configuration.
Not yet.
Hidayah adjusted her bow case as they walked. The familiar pressure settled between her shoulder blades again — faint, persistent. Not sharp enough to alarm. Just enough to register.
She didn't turn.
Didn't scan.
She had learned that turning too often fed imagination. That scanning indiscriminately made shadows everywhere.
Instead, she noted the sensation the way she noted muscle fatigue.
There is pressure.
There is no immediate threat.
Filed away.
Arnold checked his watch as they reached the junction toward the bus stop.
"I'll head off here," he said casually. "See you Monday."
"Text when you get home," Jasmine said automatically, already reaching for her phone.
He nodded, then paused — eyes flicking briefly toward the road.
A car had pulled up.
Khairul stepped out.
He didn't call out. Didn't wave. He simply waited.
Presence calm. Unmistakable. His attention was already on Hidayah — not urgent, not searching. Just there.
Something inside her eased before she realised it had been tight.
The shift was physical. Her shoulders dropped a fraction. Her breath lengthened without instruction. It unsettled her that she noticed it happening.
Arnold took the cue immediately.
"Looks like you're sorted," he said lightly. "I'll take the bus."
No questions. No lingering. He gave Hidayah a nod, waved at Jasmine, and turned away without looking back.
Michael's fingers curled slowly in his pockets.
Again.
Khairul opened the back door first. "Jasmine."
She smiled, climbing in without hesitation. "Evening."
Hidayah slid into the passenger seat, carefully placing the bow case at her feet. The door closed with a solid, reassuring sound. The engine hummed. The car pulled away smoothly, joining traffic without pause.
Jasmine filled the first stretch of silence with chatter — choir practice frustrations, a harmony that refused to lock in, a joke about one of the sopranos missing a cue so badly the conductor had stopped mid-song.
Hidayah listened, nodding, offering soft responses. She let the normalcy wash over her deliberately, the way one let warm water run over tense muscles.
Outside, campus lights blurred.
Michael remained where he was as the car disappeared into traffic.
He didn't follow.
Didn't move.
Three of them.
Always three.
Jasmine's block came up first.
The car slowed. Before stepping out, Jasmine leaned forward between the seats, her voice dropping instinctively.
"Text me later."
"I will," Hidayah replied.
Jasmine glanced at Khairul. "Thanks for the lift."
"Anytime."
The door closed. The car eased back onto the road.
The quiet that followed felt heavier, denser without the buffer of chatter. The absence of sound made Hidayah more aware of herself — her breathing, the faint ache in her arms, the way her fingers were still slightly tense.
Khairul didn't rush to fill it.
"You okay?" he asked eventually.
The question was neutral. Open.
Hidayah hesitated.
"Mostly," she said.
He waited.
"There was… someone around today," she continued carefully. The phrasing mattered. "Nothing obvious. Just too many coincidences."
His grip on the steering wheel tightened — not sharply, but enough for her to notice. A contained reaction.
"You didn't engage?" he asked.
"No."
"Good."
They drove in silence for a few moments, the road familiar, streetlights passing at steady intervals.
"If anything like that happens again," Khairul said, voice even, "you tell me. Immediately."
"I will."
She meant it.
As the streetlights slid past, Hidayah became aware of something else — how safe this space beside him felt. How completely her nervous system had settled without her permission.
The awareness made her uncomfortable.
Because safety, once acknowledged, became something she would notice if it disappeared.
Michael left campus long after dark.
He didn't replay the laughter. Didn't dwell on the way she stood comfortably beside other people.
What stayed with him was the moment she hadn't looked around.
The restraint.
She knew.
Not intellectually. Not consciously.
But her body knew.
The distance between them wasn't empty anymore.
It carried awareness.
It carried response.
And that, more than ignorance, thrilled him.
The space was charged now.
And it was narrowing.