Hidayah
Hidayah learned that peace didn't arrive all at once.
It did not announce itself or demand to be acknowledged. It settled instead in layers, thin and careful, accumulating over time until one day she realised she had stopped bracing for impact.
Morning came first.
Not the sharp, restless kind she used to wake into, heart already racing, mind scanning ahead for whatever might go wrong. This was a softer morning, one that slipped into the room without urgency. Sunlight filtered through the curtains in pale bands, dust motes floating lazily in its wake. Nothing felt rushed. Nothing felt sharpened.
The house was awake in its familiar ways. Her mother hummed quietly in the kitchen, the tune uneven but recognisable, the same half-remembered melody she always returned to. Her father sat at the table, flipping the newspaper pages with the same steady rhythm he had kept for years—lift, turn, smooth. The sound grounded her more effectively than any spoken reassurance ever had.
Ordinary noises, unremarkable and repetitive.
Anchors.
Hidayah sat at the table and drank her tea slowly, letting the warmth travel down her chest and settle there. She focused on the simple weight of the cup in her hands, the faint bitterness softened by milk, the way her shoulders lowered without conscious instruction.
A year ago, she would have catalogued every sound. The scrape of a chair. The closing of a door. Footsteps outside the gate. Her body would have responded before her thoughts had time to catch up.
Now, she didn't.
The absence of that vigilance felt almost startling when she noticed it. As though a background noise she had lived with for years had finally been switched off. That alone felt like progress—quiet, uncelebrated, but real.
Her phone buzzed once on the table.
She glanced at the screen.
Khairul: Morning. Slept okay?
She smiled before she realised she was doing it, the expression small and private. Her thumbs hovered over the keyboard, not from hesitation but from ease.
Hidayah: Yeah. No weird dreams for once.
A pause, brief but familiar.
Khairul: Good. Eat properly.
She let out a soft breath, something close to a laugh. It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't poetic. There were no grand declarations, no promises wrapped in carefully chosen words.
But it was constant.
And constancy, she had learned, was its own kind of safety. Not the brittle kind that depended on perfection, but the durable kind that held even when days were unremarkable. Especially then.
She packed her bag with deliberate care. Laptop. Notebook. Wallet. Phone. Each item placed where it belonged, not out of anxiety but habit refined into calm. She checked once, then closed the zip without reopening it.
There was no pepper spray tucked into the side pocket anymore. No keys threaded tightly between her fingers, metal pressing into skin as she walked. Not because she had become careless—but because fear no longer dictated her posture or her movements.
Her shoulders stayed relaxed. Her gaze remained level. She moved through the house without rehearsing exits.
That hadn't come easily. It had been built, slowly, from good mornings and ordinary conversations, from days that passed without incident and nights that ended in sleep rather than exhaustion.
She slung the bag over her shoulder and paused briefly at the door.
This, she knew now, was what peace looked like.
Not the absence of memory, but the presence of choice.
And she had earned it.
—————
Michael
Michael's release wasn't called a release.
It was termed Conditional Reintegration.
Language mattered. Words framed reality. They shaped expectations. They defined the boundaries within which influence could be exerted. He read the phrase once, twice, letting it sink into the architecture of his mind. Conditional. Reintegration. Each syllable deliberate, precise, carrying both limitation and potential.
He signed the forms carefully, each signature neat, controlled. He read every clause, not for restriction, but for opportunity. He absorbed the conditions like a blueprint. Weekly check-ins. Continued psychiatric evaluation. No contact with the involved party.
No contact didn't mean no awareness. It meant restraint. And restraint, Michael had learned, was power. Control was never about absence; it was about timing, patience, the subtle shaping of expectation. One could bend outcomes without touching them directly, as long as one understood the rules of engagement.
He considered each point in the document with the same precision he had once applied to movements within a cell. A footstep too quick, a glance too long, a word misplaced—small, measurable consequences. Now, the rules were laid out plainly. He could calculate the next steps, adjust, and advance.
The caseworker smiled when he nodded through the explanation. Her voice was careful, neutral, almost warm.
"You've been very cooperative," she said. "That works in your favour."
Her words had weight, but not power. He accepted them, catalogued them, and returned the smile with measured warmth, the kind that reassured without revealing thought.
"I want to do things properly this time," he said.
That was true. It was also tactical. Properly meant exactly as required. Properly meant compliant enough to satisfy scrutiny, restrained enough to avoid error, patient enough to wait for moments to present themselves.
The forms were folded neatly and returned. Michael observed the motions, each gesture like a rehearsal of control—his hand steady, the edges of paper aligned. Every detail mattered. Every detail could be used.
The caseworker's eyes lingered briefly, approving but cautious. She did not ask the questions he had anticipated. She did not probe the spaces between words. That was correct. She never did.
He felt the quiet satisfaction that came from understanding the limits imposed upon him—and the limits that could be gently tested. No contact was not absence. It was preparation. Observation. Waiting. Learning when to advance, when to hold, when to align circumstances so that when action arrived, it arrived precisely as he desired.
Outside, the afternoon light fell across the office floor. Shadows stretched, moved, and receded. Michael noted the pattern. Timing was everything.
He stood, adjusted his jacket, and left the room with calm assurance. He had performed exactly as required. He had acquiesced, and in that acquiescence, he had carved his space.
Properly. Precisely. Patiently.
Power, he thought, had never felt so quiet—or so inevitable.
—————-
Hidayah
Campus felt lighter than she remembered.
Not because anything about it had changed. The buildings stood where they always had, concrete and glass softened by trees that dropped leaves without ceremony. The same paths curved between lecture halls. The same notice boards sagged under outdated flyers. Nothing had been rearranged to accommodate her return.
The difference was quieter than that.
She walked without counting her steps. Without mapping exits in her head or measuring the distance between herself and strangers. Her pace was unhurried, guided by intention rather than avoidance. Her body moved the way it was meant to—balanced, responsive, unafraid of its own shadow.
For a long time, she had lived as though impact were inevitable. As though every open space concealed a threat, every crowd a narrowing. Now, her shoulders remained loose. Her hands swung freely at her sides. The tension that once lived permanently between her ribs had loosened its hold.
Her body belonged to her again.
"Hidayah!"
The voice cut through the air behind her, bright and unmistakable.
"Oi! Wait up!"
She turned just in time to see Jasmine jogging towards her, hair escaping its tie, bag bouncing awkwardly against her hip. The sight startled a laugh out of her—an unguarded sound that rose and fell without being checked.
"You walk like you're late even when you're not," Jasmine complained, breathless as she reached her. "One day I'm going to start charging you cardio fees."
"Habit," Hidayah said lightly, the word carrying less weight than it once had.
They fell into step together without effort, their strides aligning the way they always had. Jasmine filled the space between them with talk—complaints about cafeteria food, snippets of internship gossip, a new song she had been playing on repeat to the point of obsession. None of it was important. That was what made it perfect.
Hidayah listened.
Not with half her attention diverted elsewhere, not while cataloguing the movement of people around them or bracing for sudden noise. She listened the way she used to—present, responsive, occasionally teasing Jasmine when she grew too animated.
She didn't scan faces as they passed.
Didn't tense when someone laughed too loudly nearby.
Didn't flinch when a group of students crossed their path unexpectedly.
The campus flowed around her, and for once, she flowed with it.
She noticed small things instead: the way sunlight caught on the edges of windows, the uneven rhythm of footsteps on pavement, the faint scent of coffee drifting from somewhere nearby. Details that had always existed, waiting patiently for her to have the space to notice them.
For a long time, survival had taken up all the room she had.
Now, there was space for living.
As they reached the steps leading towards their building, Jasmine bumped her shoulder gently, still talking, still laughing. Hidayah smiled, not because she was trying to convince herself of anything, but because the moment required nothing else.
She existed.
And for the first time in a long while, that felt like enough.
—————
Michael
Michael returned to campus on a different day than he used to.
Different routes. Different timing. Deliberate choices, made to avoid coincidence, to avoid the unnecessary. He had no reason to cross paths with her—no structural overlap in their diplomas, no shared modules, no scheduled meetings. Parallel worlds. That was acceptable. Proximity wasn't required. Awareness was.
He moved through the crowd with practiced neutrality, shoulders relaxed but prepared, eyes scanning without intent, absorbing patterns as if the campus itself were a living diagram. Faces shifted constantly, some new, some familiar. Buildings remained the same, solid, immovable. The rhythm of the place, once dominated by his presence in sport, now flowed around him like a current he did not disturb but understood intimately.
Rugby had been loud.
It had demanded attention. Visibility had been noisy, commanding. The roar of teammates, the snap of the ball, the occasional groan of the pitch under strain—he had once thrived in that chaos. It had suited him, sharpened him, given him authority without question. People had watched. People had followed. Presence had been his weapon.
Now, that energy lingered somewhere beneath the surface, dormant but intact. Anger, once raw and immediate, simmered quietly. The memory of tackles made in controlled precision, the surge of competition and the sharp taste of victory—it all lingered, a pulse beneath restraint. He did not release it here. He did not allow it to push him forward. He had learned that impulse was inefficient. Impulse was noise. The bigger picture required patience. Observation. Timing.
From a bench near the edge of campus, he observed the students moving in clusters. Laughing. Arguing. Living. Bodies in motion, voices overlapping. The textures of ordinary existence—so familiar, so tantalisingly out of reach. He felt a flicker of frustration: their freedom, their noise, the careless way the world moved for them. But he parked it neatly, sliding the feeling aside like a tool to be wielded later.
He was not excluded.
He was simply apart. That distinction mattered. Progress had its own subtle markers: distance that could be measured without isolation, awareness that could be cultivated without intrusion, patience that could be refined in silence. Every glance, every step, every observed interaction fed the blueprint he carried in his mind, teaching him what to anticipate, what to ignore, what to integrate later.
Quiet suited him better now. Not because he lacked the capacity for noise, for authority, for immediate dominance—but because he understood its limits. The world would move, as it always did. His role was not to clash with it, not yet, but to align himself within it, to wait for the moments where control could be applied efficiently, without spectacle, without waste.
Anger remained, sharp and contained, a low heat beneath his measured exterior. He allowed it to exist without spilling, storing it for occasions when it would serve a purpose greater than the satisfaction of immediate release. For now, it was observation, calculation, and quiet.
From the bench, he watched the campus unfold. Awareness, he reminded himself, was progress. And patience, properly applied, was power.
—————
Hidayah
Her afternoon passed without incident.
A consultation that ended on time. A short group discussion where no one spoke over her. A shared joke—badly timed and unexpectedly sharp—that caught her off guard and made her laugh too loudly, the sound escaping before she could soften it. For a moment she'd been embarrassed. Then she noticed no one flinched. No one stared. The moment passed, intact.
Normalcy, she realised, wasn't dramatic.
It didn't announce itself or demand to be felt.
It accumulated.
By the time she checked her phone again, the corridor had begun to empty. Late afternoon light slanted through the windows, long and forgiving. There was a missed call from Khairul.
She stepped aside near the stairwell before returning it, resting her shoulder against the cool wall.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey," he replied, and there was a smile in his voice she'd learned to recognise even before he spoke again. "Just checking in. You sound okay."
She smiled without thinking. "I am," she said—and meant it. The words landed easily, without testing.
There was a pause. Not the kind that begged to be filled, but the kind that lingered comfortably, as though neither of them felt the need to rush away from it.
"That's good," he said, quieter now.
She could picture him—where he might be standing, the way he probably had his phone tucked between shoulder and ear, the crease he got between his brows when he was listening rather than speaking.
"Still," he added gently, as though the thought had been there all along, "I'll fetch you later."
It wasn't framed as a question. Not because he assumed—but because he offered it the way one offered something already meant to be shared.
Hidayah felt something warm settle in her chest. Not excitement. Not relief. Something steadier than both. The comfort of being considered without having to ask.
"Okay," she said softly.
She didn't hear him smile this time.
She felt it.
—————
Michael
Michael attended his first follow-up session that afternoon.
Dr Lim observed him quietly, sitting upright behind her desk, hands folded neatly, eyes sharp but not unkind. She said nothing at first, letting the room settle, letting the silence carry its own weight. The clock ticked steadily; the soft hum of the air conditioner filled the gaps.
"You're back in the environment," she said finally. "How does that feel?"
"Familiar," Michael replied evenly. "But different."
"How so?"
He shifted slightly in his chair, measured movement, and chose each word carefully. "I'm not chasing anything," he said calmly. "I'm just… aligning."
She tilted her head, studying him, pen poised but unmoving. "Aligning with what?"
Michael considered the question with precision. "With reality," he said finally, as if reporting an observation.
Dr Lim nodded slowly. Her expression remained neutral. The answer satisfied her—for now. The session continued in a quiet, deliberate rhythm, every gesture, every word measured, unhurried, controlled.
—————-
Hidayah
When Khairul's car pulled up later that evening, Hidayah didn't hesitate.
She slid into the passenger seat, the familiar leather warm beneath her fingers, and exhaled without realising she'd been holding her breath all day. The tension she hadn't known she was carrying seemed to unravel in that single motion, dissipating quietly into the space between them.
"How was it?" he asked, his voice calm, not prying, but patient enough that she felt safe answering honestly.
"Quiet," she said. "In a good way."
He nodded, and for a moment, the small gesture was enough—simple, considered, carrying reassurance without overstatement. He started the engine, and the familiar hum of the car became a steady background, grounding her in the moment.
They drove without rushing conversation. The city lights blurred past, neon and amber washing over her in streaks. The roads were familiar, yet somehow softer in this evening light, less hurried, less demanding. She watched the reflections on the windscreen, the way passing streetlights bent around their movement, and realised she could breathe here. She didn't have to calculate every turn or anticipate every possible interruption.
Khairul's hand occasionally brushed the gear stick or rested lightly on the wheel, gestures so mundane they could have been unnoticed—except she noticed. She noticed the ease in his posture, the steady cadence of his driving, the faint scent of his shampoo that always lingered even after he'd stepped away. It was ordinary, and yet, in that ordinariness, there was care.
For the first time in a long while, Hidayah didn't feel like she was outrunning something. The constant vigilance she'd carried for months—the tight coil of anticipation in her chest—was absent. She didn't scan the streets for danger. She didn't rehearse exits or count the distance to nearest safe points. She simply existed in the car, letting the movement carry her rather than pushing against it.
She felt something else, too. Something quieter than relief, steadier than ease. She felt herself moving towards something. Not a plan or a goal, exactly—nothing as tangible—but a warmth, a possibility, a space where she could belong without proving herself, without negotiating every breath. She glanced at Khairul, catching the corner of his smile in the rear-view mirror, and found herself returning it, small, tentative, and real.
The city unfolded around them, familiar streets bending into memory, and for once the night didn't press in. It simply stretched, and she stretched with it. Words were unnecessary. Shared silence was enough. Even when he hummed softly along with a song playing quietly on the radio, the gesture was so small, so unassuming, it felt intimate in a way that made her chest tighten pleasantly.
Hidayah leaned back in her seat and let her shoulders drop. The day's tension, the months' unease, the habitual watchfulness—all of it ebbed. She wasn't running. She was moving forward, slowly, gently, and finally in sync with someone she trusted enough to share the rhythm with.
And that, she realised, was a kind of quiet joy she hadn't allowed herself in a long time.
—————
Michael
That night, Michael sat at his desk, the room quiet except for the soft hum of the lamp and the occasional distant traffic. He spread the documents before him again, reviewing the boundaries that had been carefully delineated: No contact. No approach. No fixation. Each restriction was clear, absolute, unyielding. They were rules, yes—but rules were not walls. They were tools.
He read and reread the language, noting the nuances, the clauses, the phrasing. No contact did not mean unawareness. It did not mean disinterest. It meant restraint. Observation within limits. Patience within parameters. No approach did not forbid calculation. It forbade haste, impulsive movement. He could still position himself strategically, move within the shadows of circumstance. No fixation did not demand forgetfulness. It demanded discretion, a careful alignment of thought with timing.
Compliance, Michael reminded himself, was not surrender. It was positioning. Every concession recorded, every boundary observed, built trust and credibility. Every nod, every measured word, every act that demonstrated control and predictability, expanded the space he could occupy without breaking the rules.
He sorted his mental maps as he had once sorted physical ones. Paths crisscrossed through schedules, lectures, and common areas. He marked temporal gaps when she might be unobserved, noting where shadows fell across hallways, which classrooms emptied earlier than others, where supervision thinned and patterns repeated. He imagined interactions as probabilistic events—approach not immediate, but inevitable if conditions were properly aligned.
Some paths did not intersect immediately.
They curved. They diverged. They bent around the obstacles of circumstance. And in each curve, Michael found opportunity: a pause where anticipation could be stored, where observation could refine understanding, where patience could be practised. He did not rush. He did not force alignment. That would be reckless. That would signal impatience, and impatience had its own consequences.
He catalogued variables mentally: schedules, habits, routines, casual gestures. Minor details that could reveal patterns over time. Every glance at a corridor, every variation in her stride, every pause before entering a classroom—all were pieces of data. Compliance created freedom within constraint. The rules he followed were the boundaries that shaped his method.
He closed the file with care, the snap of the folder crisp in the stillness. He switched off the lamp. Darkness was as ordered as light when understood properly. Paths might not intersect tonight, tomorrow, or even next week. But they would intersect. When they did, it would not be by chance. Not by accident. Everything built to that moment would be intentional, precise, fully prepared.
Michael lay back in his chair, hands folded neatly over his chest. The rhythm of his breathing was slow and controlled. Patience, after all, was a form of devotion. Not to another, but to purpose itself, to design itself, to the inevitable unfolding of carefully plotted strategy.
In the quiet of the room, the shadows shifted without notice. Time stretched around him, pliable, manageable. Each day observed, each rule obeyed, each calculation stored was a step toward alignment. Nothing was left to coincidence. Everything would unfold exactly as it must—controlled, inevitable, complete.
And Michael waited.