The first thing Hidayah noticed was how ordinary everything felt again.
That, more than anything else, unsettled her.
Morning light spilled through the kitchen window in familiar angles, warm and soft, landing on the dining table where her mother was already plating breakfast. The radio murmured quietly in the background—news headlines, traffic updates, nothing urgent. Her father sat with a mug of kopi in hand, skimming the newspaper with the same unhurried movements he'd had for as long as she could remember.
Nothing was wrong.
And yet.
Hidayah paused just inside the doorway, fingers tightening briefly around the strap of her bag, before stepping fully into the room.
"Morning," she said.
Her mother glanced up, smiling. "Morning. Sit, food's almost ready."
She did, sliding into her usual chair. The chair creaked faintly, familiar in a way that grounded her. For a moment, she let herself believe—really believe—that the worst had passed. That the system had worked. That danger had been contained.
"You've been sleeping better," her father remarked casually, folding the newspaper and setting it aside.
Hidayah blinked. "Have I?"
Her mother hummed in agreement. "You don't wake up as often anymore. No pacing. No light on at odd hours."
Hidayah hadn't realised they'd noticed.
"I guess," she said softly.
Her father studied her for a second longer than necessary, then nodded, as if deciding not to press. "Good," he said simply. "That's good."
Safety, she thought, had a sound.
It sounded like cutlery against plates. Like the low rustle of paper. Like her mother asking if she wanted more sambal.
It sounded like life continuing.
And that was precisely what made her wary.
—————-
Campus greeted her with the same indifference it always had.
Students streamed through the gates in clusters, laughter rising and falling in familiar waves. Someone complained loudly about an early lecture. Another sprinted past, coffee sloshing dangerously close to the rim. The security guard nodded at her as she passed, the gesture brief but intentional.
She noticed that, too.
She walked with her shoulders back, posture composed, but her awareness stretched wider than before. She clocked exits automatically. Reflected glass caught her attention. Every raised voice registered before she could stop it.
This wasn't fear, she told herself.
This was calibration.
In class, she took her usual seat. Opened her laptop. Lined up her pens parallel to the notebook's edge. When the lecturer began speaking, her notes were neat, precise—almost aggressively normal.
If anyone was watching, they would see nothing wrong.
That was the point.
Between classes, Jasmine found her near the lockers.
"You look like a corporate wellness poster," Jasmine announced. "Very put-together. Suspiciously so."
Hidayah huffed. "Is that a compliment?"
"It's a concern dressed as sarcasm," Jasmine replied, looping an arm through hers. "Are you eating properly?"
"Yes."
"Sleeping?"
"Yes."
"Overthinking?"
Hidayah paused. Then smiled faintly. "Also yes."
Jasmine squeezed her arm. "Checks out."
They walked together toward the canteen, and for a few minutes, conversation drifted easily—assignments, deadlines, someone's dramatic breakup that Hidayah only half-remembered hearing about. It was easy. Familiar. Almost comforting.
Almost.
She caught herself scanning the room when they entered, breath steady, movements subtle enough that even Jasmine didn't notice.
No Michael.
The absence sat there quietly, like an empty chair no one acknowledged.
—————
That afternoon, she reorganised her bag twice.
Once in the library, carefully returning each item to its designated place. Again at home, spreading everything out on her bed—laptop, charger, notebooks, wallet—before packing it all back in with methodical care.
Order, she had learned, was a language she trusted.
Khairul messaged sometime after dinner.
Khairul: How was today?
She considered the question longer than necessary.
Hidayah: Normal.
A beat.
Khairul: That's good or bad?
She smiled slightly at the screen.
Hidayah: Both.
His reply came a moment later.
Khairul: That makes sense.
No pressure. No follow-up questions. Just understanding, offered without insistence.
She set the phone down and leaned back against her pillows, staring at the ceiling.
Normal didn't mean untouched.
Normal meant choosing to keep going, even when part of you remained alert. Even when your body remembered what your mind was trying to put away.
She would return to routine.
She would rebuild rhythm.
She would let life resume.
But she would not forget.
And for now, that balance—between ordinariness and awareness—was enough.
—————
The announcement came during what should have been a routine briefing.
Hidayah was half-listening, half-typing—bullet points, dates, reminders about internship paperwork she already knew was coming. Second Year, Second Semester. The shape of the future had been looming for months now, familiar enough that it no longer startled her.
"…and for the upcoming overseas internship placement," the coordinator continued, voice amplified slightly through the lecture theatre, "we have finalised the list of selected students."
Hidayah's fingers stilled.
Her attention sharpened, narrowing instinctively—not with alarm this time, but anticipation. Around her, chairs shifted. Someone straightened in their seat. A low hum of interest spread through the room.
"Four students have been chosen for the Beijing placement."
A murmur rippled outward, like a wave passing through the rows.
Her heart began to pound.
Not fast.
Heavy.
"Congratulations to—"
The coordinator glanced down at her list.
"Hidayah Kamari."
For a second, the world tilted.
It wasn't dramatic—no ringing ears, no sudden rush of sound. Just a strange, suspended quiet inside her chest, as if her body hadn't caught up with what her ears had heard.
Her name.
Her.
She didn't react immediately. Couldn't. The sound of her name felt unreal, hovering somewhere between disbelief and possibility. Like it belonged to someone else. Like it had been spoken into the wrong room.
Someone nudged her gently from the side.
"Hey," a classmate whispered, eyes wide. "That's you."
Hidayah blinked.
The room rushed back in all at once—applause breaking out, chairs creaking, a few heads turning in her direction. Heat climbed up her neck, not embarrassment exactly, but something close to awe.
She lifted her hand slowly, almost cautiously, in acknowledgement.
Her breath came out shaky.
Beijing.
Overseas.
Internship.
The words threaded together in her mind, forming a future that felt suddenly vast and terrifying and bright all at once.
She barely heard the rest of the names.
—————
After class, the corridor buzzed with excitement. Conversations overlapped—speculation, congratulations, frantic calculations about costs and visas and whether they'd survive winter in China.
Hidayah stepped aside, leaning against the railing overlooking the lower level. Her phone was already in her hand, screen lighting up faster than she could process.
Jasmine: YOU??? BEIJING??? HELLO???
Her mother, almost immediately after.
Mama: Your father just called. Is this true?
Then Khairul.
Khairul: Beijing? I knew they'd see it.
She stared at his message longer than the others.
Her lips curved into a smile before she could stop herself—small, incredulous, deeply felt.
Hidayah: It still doesn't feel real.
A reply came quickly.
Khairul: It will. And I'm proud of you.
Pride.
The word settled warmly in her chest, not loud, not overwhelming—just steady. Earned. Offered without conditions.
She let herself lean into the railing, shoulders relaxing for the first time that day. Around her, life continued at its usual pace, students flowing past, laughter echoing down the corridor.
For the first time in a long while, the future didn't feel like something she had to endure.
It didn't feel like something she needed to brace herself against.
It felt like something she could choose.
And that, more than Beijing, more than the prestige or the benefits or the promise of distance—itself felt like freedom.
—————
That night, lying in bed, Hidayah stared up at the ceiling and let her thoughts wander.
The room was dark except for the faint glow of the streetlamp outside, light slipping in through the gap between curtain and wall. The fan hummed softly above her, steady, familiar. Her body was tired in a normal way—not the brittle exhaustion of vigilance, but the kind that came from a full day.
Beijing meant distance.
New routines.
A different city, different streets, different air.
She imagined it in fragments first—cold mornings, unfamiliar signage, a hotel lobby that smelled nothing like home. Long corridors. Polished floors. A version of herself in a uniform that didn't yet exist.
Part of her welcomed it eagerly. The challenge. The proof. The widening of her world.
Another part—the quieter, more cautious part—registered the relief beneath the excitement.
Distance was safety.
Not running.
Just… space.
No familiar corridors. No shared campus. No chance encounters. No need to constantly calculate exits or scan faces in passing crowds.
She exhaled slowly, turning onto her side.
Her hand reached for her phone before she thought about it, the screen lighting up her face as she typed.
Hidayah: I keep thinking about how far it is.
The reply didn't come instantly. That, somehow, made it better.
Khairul: Far doesn't mean gone.
Her lips curved into a faint smile.
Hidayah: You're very calm about this.
A pause.
Khairul: I trust you. And I trust us.
The words settled gently, not like a promise that demanded belief, but like a statement that simply existed. Steady. Unforced.
She held the phone against her chest for a moment before setting it down on the bedside table.
The fan continued its slow rotation. Somewhere in the house, a door clicked softly as one of her parents moved in the night.
Still, sleep didn't come immediately.
Because beneath the relief—beneath the pride, beneath the careful optimism—something else lingered.
A sense of quiet.
Not peace.
Not yet.
The kind of quiet that follows a storm when the air hasn't quite decided what comes next.
And Hidayah lay there, listening to it, aware that this new chapter was opening not with certainty—but with space.
—————
Sleep came in fragments.
Not nightmares—nothing vivid enough to remember—but shallow intervals broken by the sense of surfacing too quickly, as if her body refused to sink fully into rest. When morning came, it did so gently, sunlight touching the edge of her curtains with the same familiarity as always.
Hidayah woke tired, but not afraid.
She moved through the next few days on habit alone. Classes. Training. Meals. Conversations that required just enough attention and no more. Her laughter came easily now—light, unguarded. People remarked on it, the way they remarked on weather changing for the better.
"You seem… lighter," Jasmine said one afternoon, watching her stir sugar into her kopi.
"I feel lighter," Hidayah replied, surprised to find it true.
Even Khairul noticed it.
"You're breathing differently," he said once, during a quiet walk after dinner. "Not rushed. Not braced."
She glanced at him. "Is that a good thing?"
"It is," he said. "It means you're not living on edge."
She believed him.
That was the problem.
The sense of being watched didn't announce itself dramatically. It didn't come with footsteps or shadows or the tightening of her chest the way fear once had. It arrived instead as misalignment—a fraction too quiet, a pause where sound should have filled in naturally.
Once, in the library, she looked up from her notes convinced someone had just been standing at the end of her table.
There was no one there.
Another time, waiting for the lift, she felt a sudden certainty that she should not turn around.
She didn't.
Nothing happened.
Each time, she dismissed it with reason. Trauma echoes. Hypervigilance. The body learning to stand down after months of tension.
She knew the language for it now.
At home, things continued smoothly. Her mother began asking practical questions about Beijing—clothes, weather, food. Her father looked into paperwork, passport validity, insurance. Their confidence wrapped around her like reassurance she hadn't asked for but gratefully accepted.
One evening, as she helped clear the table, her mother said casually, "It's good you'll be away for a while."
Hidayah paused, plate in hand.
Her mother met her eyes, gentle but firm. "Not because you're running," she added. "Because sometimes distance lets things finish settling."
Hidayah nodded slowly. "That's what it feels like."
Settling.
As if everything had already been decided.
Later that night, she stood at her bedroom window, watching the street below. A car passed. A cat darted between shadows. Somewhere down the block, someone laughed.
Ordinary sounds.
Ordinary life.
She rested her forehead lightly against the glass.
The sense returned—not sharp, not urgent. Just… present.
Like a thought that hadn't finished forming.
"You're safe," she told herself again, more firmly this time.
And she was.
Legally. Logically. Structurally.
Still, as she turned away from the window and reached to draw the curtains closed, the quiet followed her into the dark.
Patient.
Waiting.
—————
Safety, she was learning, did not announce itself loudly.
It arrived without ceremony, slipped into habits and schedules, folded itself into mornings and meals and conversations that did not carry weight. It disguised itself as normalcy so convincingly that you almost forgot what vigilance had felt like.
Almost.
Safety allowed you to breathe again.
To plan.
To imagine a future measured not in exits and contingencies, but in calendars and maps and cities far away—places where your name would be unfamiliar, your history unremarkable.
It felt like relief.
And yet—
As Hidayah drifted toward sleep, that relief did not fully carry her under.
One thought surfaced unbidden, sharp in its clarity, unsoftened by fatigue:
This isn't the end.
Not because she sensed danger waiting just beyond the door.
Not because fear had returned.
But because something deeper—older than logic, quieter than anxiety—remained alert.
An instinct that had learned, the hard way, that resolution was not the same as closure. That some stories did not end when boundaries were drawn or doors were closed.
They simply learned patience.
They learned how to wait.