The project stopped being theoretical the moment her supervisor stopped asking questions and started making statements.
"This needs tightening."
"This section isn't clear enough."
"You'll have to justify this decision."
The words were calm. Professional. Delivered without malice.
But they landed differently than before—heavier, more exacting.
Hidayah sat with her notebook open, pen poised above the page, listening as her supervisor walked through the framework of her industry project. This was no longer an exploration. No longer a draft shaped by possibility and suggestion.
It was being evaluated.
She nodded where appropriate. Asked questions when clarity was needed. Wrote quickly, efficiently, capturing key points before they could slip away.
Her handwriting stayed neat. Controlled.
Inside, something tightened just behind her ribs.
Not panic.
Pressure.
The kind that came when expectations crystallised. When reassurance gave way to accountability. When effort alone was no longer enough—only outcome mattered.
She recognised the feeling immediately.
It was the same sensation she felt standing at the shooting line, bow raised, arrow nocked—when the target was no longer hypothetical, and release meant consequence.
When the meeting ended, her supervisor closed the folder and looked at her directly.
"You're capable of this," he said. Not encouragement. Assessment. "But you'll need to be precise."
Hidayah nodded once. "I understand."
And she did.
Walking out of the room, notebook pressed against her chest, she felt it settle fully into place.
This wasn't about proving she could survive anymore.
It was about proving she could deliver.
——————
The project had a timeline now.
Milestones.
Checkpoints.
Deliverables that didn't bend just because she was tired or learning or human.
She spent her Wednesdays deep in analysis—cross-referencing industry standards, aligning her observations with actual operational outcomes, rewriting sections that once felt solid but now revealed their weaknesses under closer inspection.
What she thought she understood, she had to prove.
And what she couldn't yet prove, she had to learn fast.
There was no room for assumption. Every choice needed a rationale. Every recommendation needed evidence to hold it upright. She learned to read reports the way others read stories—searching not just for information, but for gaps, for contradictions, for the quiet places where things failed without anyone noticing.
Some evenings, she left the office with her shoulders drawn tight, jaw aching from hours of holding herself together. She rode the bus home staring out the window, city lights smearing into soft lines against the glass, replaying conversations she hadn't known would linger.
This needs tightening.
Justify this decision.
By the time she reached her stop, her bag felt heavier than it should have.
Back in her room, she kicked off her shoes and sat on the edge of the bed, laptop still unopened on the desk. For a few minutes, she did nothing but breathe—counting inhales, feeling the floor solid beneath her feet, grounding herself the way training had taught her to.
This, she reminded herself, was different from fear.
Fear made her flinch.
This made her sharpen.
Eventually, she stood, rolled her shoulders once, and opened her laptop.
The screen glowed to life.
The work waited.
And she met it.
—————-
The pressure wasn't constant.
It came in waves.
Some days, she rode it easily—focused, almost buoyant, the work slotting into place with satisfying precision. Other days, it hit all at once, heavy and unrelenting, leaving her braced against it without quite knowing when it would ease.
One afternoon, after a particularly dense feedback session that left her notebook crowded with margins and arrows, an email slipped into her inbox and made her blink twice.
Internship end date confirmed.
Six months.
Almost complete.
She stared at the screen longer than necessary, reading the line again, as if time itself might shift under her attention.
Six months meant Singapore.
It meant her mother's cooking—quiet, reliable, nourishing in ways no other food ever quite managed. Her father's presence in the house, solid and unobtrusive. Jasmine's voice beside her instead of flattened into a speaker. Khairul—not as a notification lighting up her phone, but as a presence she didn't have to schedule around.
The thought warmed her chest unexpectedly, a small, steady heat that surprised her with its intensity.
She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
One minute.
Exactly one.
She let herself imagine it—arrival halls, familiar roads, ordinary evenings that didn't need to be planned or guarded. A future that didn't require vigilance to exist.
Then the minute passed.
She opened her eyes, closed the email, and reopened her project draft.
The cursor blinked, patient.
The end didn't mean she could loosen her grip now.
If anything, it meant she had to finish strong.
——————
Her routine tightened.
Workdays blurred together—meetings stacked back-to-back, observations that demanded sharper attention, revisions that no longer tolerated approximation. She asked more questions now, not out of uncertainty but precision. Questions that cut closer to implementation. Questions that assumed the next problem before it surfaced.
She started anticipating issues before they were raised, adjusting her approach preemptively—reframing sections, shoring up arguments, closing gaps before they became vulnerabilities.
Her supervisor noticed.
"You're thinking further ahead," they said once, almost casually, flipping through her work. "That's good. That's what this stage requires."
It stayed with her the entire day.
Not as praise—but as confirmation.
That night, she called Khairul while reviewing her notes, phone propped against a stack of books, highlighter uncapped in her hand. Her room was quiet except for the low hum of traffic outside and the soft rustle of paper as she turned a page.
"I think they're pushing me harder," she said.
"That's usually a good sign," he replied without hesitation.
"I know," she said. "It just… feels heavier. Like there's less room to misstep."
There was a pause on the line—not empty, just thoughtful.
"You're near the end," he said gently. "Pressure always peaks before a release."
She smiled faintly, eyes still on her notes. "You make it sound simple."
"It's not," he said. "But you're not doing it alone."
When the call ended, she didn't move right away.
She looked at the darkened screen for a moment longer, letting the words settle—not as comfort, but as steadiness. Then she set the phone aside, capped her highlighter, and returned to her work.
The pressure was still there.
But so was her footing.
And tonight, that was enough.
——————
Some excitement slipped through despite herself.
She started counting—not days, but moments.
The last Wednesday report she would submit before everything shifted.
The final supervisor endorsement, inked and official.
The flight she hadn't booked yet, hadn't even searched for properly, but had already imagined in quiet detail—boarding gate announcements, the weight of her carry-on, the hum of engines lifting her away and bringing her back at the same time.
She mentioned it casually during a Skype call with her parents, as if it were just another update and not something that had begun to take shape in her chest.
"Six months is almost done," her mother said, eyes brightening in the small square on the screen. "Time really moves."
"It does," Hidayah replied. She sounded calmer than she felt.
Her father nodded once. "Finish well. Come home steady."
Always the same advice.
Always the right one.
After the call ended, the room felt unusually quiet. Not empty—just paused. She sat for a while without reaching for her laptop, hands folded loosely in her lap, letting the thought settle without rushing it.
I'm coming home.
Not tomorrow.
Not yet.
But soon.
And for the first time, that future didn't feel fragile.
———————
The project pushed back.
A revised section came back with more comments than before. A justification she had been certain about—had felt certain about—was questioned again, margins crowded with notes that were precise and unforgiving. She spent hours restructuring an argument, chasing clarity line by line, only to realise she needed a stronger foundation entirely.
Not a tweak.A rebuild.
One Wednesday evening, she closed her laptop harder than necessary. The sound echoed briefly in the room, too loud for the quiet she'd been holding.
Frustration crept in—sharp, unwanted. It tightened her shoulders, prickled behind her eyes.
She stood. Paced the room. Pressed her palms flat against the wall, cool paint grounding her.
You know how to do this.
The thought wasn't encouragement. It was instruction.
She returned to the desk, reopened the laptop, and started again—this time slower. Less attached to what she had already written. More willing to dismantle what wasn't holding its weight.
By the end of the week, she submitted a revised draft that felt… different.Not perfect.But grounded.Less defensive. Clearer in its intent.
Her supervisor reviewed it in silence, scrolling slowly, expression unreadable. Hidayah kept her gaze on the table, breathing evenly.
"This is better," they said at last.Not praise.But progress.
She exhaled without realising she'd been holding her breath.
That night, she walked a little longer than usual, letting the city move around her instead of through her. Beijing glowed softly—shop lights spilling onto pavements, snippets of conversation floating past in a language that now felt less distant.
Not home.But not foreign either.
She messaged Jasmine a short update as she waited at a crossing.Hidayah: Almost done. I think I survived.The reply came immediately.Jasmine: You didn't just survive. You leveled up.
Hidayah laughed out loud, the sound surprising even herself. A passerby glanced at her, curious, before moving on.
She kept walking, smile lingering.
Somewhere between pressure and persistence, she had found her footing again.
——————
Sunday arrived quietly.
No alarms. No urgency. Just the slow unfolding of a day that asked very little of her.
She did laundry in the late morning, folding clothes with methodical care, the repetitive motion soothing in a way she hadn't realised she needed. She reorganised her notes after lunch—old tabs closed, files renamed, loose thoughts gathered into something more orderly. By mid-afternoon, she drafted the outline for the coming Wednesday's submission, earlier than required, sharper than usual.
It felt good to be ahead of herself for once.
When evening came, she moved to the window with her phone in hand, sitting cross-legged on the floor as the sky dimmed. One by one, lights flickered on across the city—apartments, offices, streets below threading themselves into glowing lines. Beijing hummed softly in the background, distant traffic and muted voices drifting upward.
Khairul called.
"Countdown mode?" he asked, his voice warm with familiarity.
"A little," she admitted. "But I still have things to prove."
"You always do," he said without hesitation. "That's not a bad thing."
She leaned her head back against the wall, eyes closing briefly. The cool surface steadied her.
"I miss you," she said, the words slipping out unguarded.
"I miss you too."
He didn't rush to fill the silence that followed. He didn't need to. The simplicity of his reply grounded her more than reassurance ever could.
They didn't talk about dates or flights.
Didn't speculate about schedules or logistics.
Didn't mark the ending with numbers.
They talked about small things instead—what she'd eaten, a passing comment about the weather, something amusing he'd overheard at work. Ordinary details, stitched together across distance.
And somehow, that was enough.
When the call ended, Hidayah stayed where she was, watching the city breathe below her. The future no longer felt like a cliff edge or a finish line.
It felt like a shape forming slowly in the dark.
The end wasn't here yet.
But it was already taking shape.
——————
As she prepared for another Monday, she realised something quietly significant.
The pressure hadn't broken her.
It had sharpened her.
She packed her bag carefully, checked her documents, glanced once more at the project timeline taped beside her desk.
Six months, almost complete.
One more push.
And then—
Home.