The roof was unlocked.
Vjaret had checked this morning—probably the first thing he did after arriving at school, probably before he even went to his locker.
I could picture it: him slipping away from the morning crowd, climbing the stairs two at a time, testing the handle with the hopeful anxiety of someone who'd been disappointed before.
He sent me a message during first period. "Roof is open! The universe wants us to eat with a view!" Three exclamation points. Like he'd discovered something profound instead of just a door that someone forgot to lock.
I didn't know how to respond to that. So I didn't. That was becoming a pattern with us—Vjaret sending messages full of enthusiasm and emojis, me staring at my phone trying to figure out what combination of words would make me seem normal. I usually failed. He didn't seem to mind.
But here I am. Lunch period. Climbing the stairs to the roof of Role of Nurturing Higher Secondary, following the sound of someone humming off-key. The melody was vaguely familiar—maybe something from the radio, maybe something he'd made up. With Vjaret, it was hard to tell.
The stairwell was empty. Most students ate in the cafeteria or the courtyard or the benches near the fountain. Normal places. Ground-level places. Places where you couldn't fall three stories if you leaned too far in the wrong direction.
The door at the top was propped open with a brick. A single red brick that had probably been sitting in this exact spot for years, doing this exact job, never acknowledged or appreciated.
Of course it is.
I stepped through.
And stopped.
The view was... ridiculous.
The whole village spread out below like a map come to life. Rice paddies cut into geometric shapes, different shades of green depending on how recently they'd been planted.
Hills in the distance wearing their usual mist scarves, looking exactly like they did on postcards. The river catching the afternoon light and throwing it back in fragments, silver and gold and sometimes blue.
"You're here!"
Vjaret was already sitting at the edge. His legs were dangling over the side, swinging back and forth like he didn't have a care in the world. He was grinning. Grinning like he'd been waiting for this moment his whole life, like my arrival was the fulfillment of some ancient prophecy only he believed in.
"You made it."
"You said the roof was open." I stayed near the door. The edge was far away. Very far away. The distance between me and it felt appropriate.
"I did!" He patted the space beside him. "Sit. Eat. Enjoy the best view in school. The only view in school, probably. Unless someone else has a secret roof I don't know about."
I walked over. Sat down carefully. The edge was close. Very close. One wrong move and—
Don't think about that. Just sit. Eat. Try to be normal. Normal people ate lunch on roofs. Probably. Maybe. There had to be at least a few.
I opened my lunch box. Rice, perfectly packed. Vegetables arranged in neat sections. Something sweet in the corner that Angy had called "surprise" with the kind of ominous emphasis that made me wonder if I should be worried.
Probably not actually a surprise. Probably just food. But with Angy, you never knew. She'd been experimenting with baking lately. The results had ranged from "actually edible" to "Shenhe had to open all the windows."
"So." Vjaret bit into something that crunched. "First rooftop lunch. How do you feel?"
Terrified. Confused. Wondering why anyone would eat this high up voluntarily. Also slightly hungry, but that was harder to focus on with the whole "sitting on the edge of a three-story drop" thing.
"Fine."
"Just fine?" He laughed. "Look at this view, Nams! This is amazing! We're above everything! We're kings of the school! Lords of the courtyard! Emperors of—" he paused, searching for the right word, "—lunch!"
Kings. That's one word for it. Another word was "precarious." Another was "why."
I looked at the view again. Forced myself to actually see it instead of just measuring the distance to the ground. The rice paddies really were beautiful. The hills really did look like paintings. The river really did sparkle like something from a story.
It is beautiful. In a terrifying way. The two things weren't mutually exclusive.
"Your face is doing that thing again."
I turned to him. "What thing?"
"The scrunchy thing. Like you're solving a really hard problem." He pointed at me with his chopsticks. A grain of rice was stuck to the end.
"You get this line right here—" he gestured at his own forehead, "—and your eyes get all focused, like you're calculating something. What are you thinking about?"
How high up we are. How far the ground is. How one wrong move would end very badly. How the human body probably wasn't designed to fall from this height. How in Aventic I'd jumped from helicopters without hesitation but somehow a rooftop lunch was what made my palms sweat.
"The view," I said.
"It's good, right?"
I looked at the hills. The river. The tiny people moving through tiny streets. "...Yeah. It's good."
We ate in silence for a bit. He was humming. The same off-key melody from before. And I was trying not to look down. Trying to focus on the food.
"Can I ask you something?"
I glanced at him. "You just did."
He laughed.
"Okay, smart guy. Another something, then."
"Go ahead."
"Where are you from? Really?"
Here it comes. The question everyone eventually asked. I'd been expecting it since the first day. Waiting for it. Dreading it. Not because I didn't want to answer, but because I didn't know how. What was I supposed to say? Another dimension. A place called Aventic where the sky is gray and Dumans eat people and I used to kill them for a living. That would go over well.
"Far away."
"Far away where?" He wasn't pushing. Just curious. The way someone asked about your favorite food or what music you liked.
"A place you've never heard of." The words came out before I could stop them. Honest, at least. Probably too honest.
He considered this. His chopsticks paused halfway to his mouth. Then he nodded. Slowly. Like he was turning something over in his mind and deciding it made sense. "Okay. Fair."
I blinked. "That's it?"
"What else should there be?" He shrugged. The gesture was casual but deliberate. "You'll tell me when you're ready. Or you won't. Either way, you're still here, eating lunch with me on this roof. That's enough. That's more than enough."
That's enough. Just being here is enough. Not my past. Not my secrets. Not the things I couldn't explain. Just... me. Sitting on a roof. Eating rice.
I didn't know what to say to that. So I didn't say anything. The silence stretched between us, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence that didn't need to be filled. The kind that was almost as good as talking.
But something in my chest felt... warmer. Like a door opening. Like something I'd been holding onto for a long time was finally, slowly, starting to loosen its grip.
I looked at the view again. The rice paddies. The hills. The river. The tiny people. And for just a moment—just a heartbeat—I forgot to be scared of the drop.
"Hey, Nams?"
"Hmm?"
"Thanks for coming up here." His voice was different now. Softer. More serious. "I know it's weird. Eating on a roof. Most people think it's strange. Most people don't want to come up here at all." He paused. "But I've always wanted someone to share it with. Someone who'd sit at the edge and look at the view and just... be here."
I looked at him. At his sincere expression. At the way he said it like it was nothing and everything at once. Like he was confessing something he'd never told anyone else. Like this rooftop was his secret, and he'd chosen to share it with me.
"Thanks for inviting me."
He grinned. "Anytime, rooftop buddy. Anytime. Rain or shine. Well—" he looked at the sky, "—maybe not rain. Rain would be bad. The roof gets slippery. But shine. Definitely shine. And clouds. Clouds are fine. Clouds are atmospheric."
Rooftop buddy. Is that what we are now? I think it is. I think it's been that since the first time he introduced himself, nervous and rambling, asking if I remembered his name.
We ate the rest of our lunch in comfortable silence. l
The rice paddies kept sparkling. The hills kept wearing their mist scarves. The river kept catching the light. The tiny people kept living their tiny lives.
And for the first time since coming to Ilsa—since leaving Aventic, since the mission, since everything—I guess, maybe, I didn't feel alone.
The feeling was strange. Unfamiliar. Like a muscle I hadn't used in years and was just now remembering how to flex. But it was there. Small and fragile and completely unexpected.
But there.
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