Jate started keeping a journal.
He couldn’t handle the idea of Thanom leaving. He hadn't realized how much he cared until Thanom said he would leave. Every morning, his eyes darted to Thanom’s cot before he even took a full breath. If it was empty, his heart punched down through his gut.
He hated the terror of waking up not knowing if he had skin—if he was still there, or if he'd simply dissolve into the night and become a memory no one thought to keep. He didn't know how to write about feelings, so he wrote down what he could. He grabbed a grid-lined notebook from the supply closet and a black pen. He sat straight up on his cot, pressing the pen hard enough to leave grooves in the pages beneath it.
Today
- 06:15: Thanom is still here. He woke up late, then checked on Mali and Art.
- 17:42: Art skipped dinner and went to the garden. He hums sometimes, maybe when he thinks no one’s listening.
- 19:00: The wind shifted north. The glasses girl from the other day stared at Peach from the playground.
He called it journaling. He would record the people around him—their actions, their habits, their words—thinking maybe he could hold onto them. Keep them safe. To survive, he had to convince himself that the people he cherished were permanent. That he, too, was permanent. He convinced himself to step back, to be an outside protector. He wasn’t leaving. He wasn’t changing the rules. Just ensuring that he himself wouldn’t be breaking them anymore.
Sometimes his power made him feel weak—every sound and movement in the dorm was too loud, too close; his own body was unreliable. But he was going to use it to observe and protect. If he could predict the world, maybe he wouldn't dissolve into it. Maybe no one would leave.
He sat at his desk, watching a pencil lying still on the surface. Jate closed his eyes and gently nudged it. It rolled toward the edge.
Three, two, one. Off the edge.
His hand snapped out. The wood slapped against his palm, solid and captured.
He did it again. And again. Until catching the pencil felt less like a reflex and more like remembering something that had already happened.
He moved on to his friends. People weren’t as predictable.
He watched Peach talking to a stray dog near the fence. Jate studied the muscles in her jaw, the way her mouth moved even before she spoke.
She’s going to say "blue."
“You’re a sad blue boy, aren't you?” Peach cooed at the dog.
Jate marked a checkmark in his notebook. His chest hurt. He wanted to go sit beside her, pet the dog. Instead, he wrote down the time.
One afternoon, he found Phun at the water pump. The heat was oppressive, the seasonal crop fires turning the sky a brownish, hazy orange. Phun was filling a tin cup, looking spacey, his eyes tracking a dragonfly fluttering near the spout. The water was overflowing the rim of the cup, slicking the metal sides.
Jate leaned against the wall. He saw Phun’s fingers relax. He saw the water make the tin slippery. He wanted to reach out and grab it, but his feet felt glued to the floor.
“You’re going to drop that,” Jate said.
Phun jumped. He looked at Jate, startled. “No, I’m—”
His grip shifted. The wet metal slid against his skin.
Clatter.
The cup hit the stone. Water splashed over Phun’s bare feet.
“—oops.”
Phun stared at the cup, then up at Jate. His eyes were wide, confused. "How did you know?"
Jate looked at the spilled water. He had ruined a quiet moment just to prove to himself that he could. He hadn't said it to be mean—he just couldn't stop seeing the outcome before it happened.
"Friction," Jate mumbled, hiding his hands in his pockets. "And... you were looking at the dragonfly."
He turned and walked away before Phun could ask him anything else. He was trying to prove to himself that he was real. That he was here. He realized the flashes of what was about to happen were getting clearer. The more he worked on it, the sharper they became. If anything went wrong with Thanom again, he would be ready. He had a way to protect him.
⁕ ⁕ ⁕
In the evening, Jate’s sense of isolation felt more immediate.
He sat in the upper dorm window. The glass was cool against his forehead. Outside, the smog of the burning season turned the moon into a blurry smear of light. It was after twilight, and an encroaching darkness was settling over the world.
Jate looked down into the courtyard.
There they were.
Art and Thanom were walking near the garden wall. They were moving in perfect sync, shoulder to shoulder. The tension and awkwardness from the past few days were gone.
Near the banyan tree, Mali was dancing, her shadow stretching long against the wall. She was laughing at something Peach had said, who was pantomiming and making funny faces. Phun sat cross-legged nearby, smiling and sketching by the light of a small lantern that sat in the middle of the group.
They looked like a family. And Jate was up here. Behind the glass.
He pressed his hand against the pane. His reflection ghosted over the scene below—transparent, insubstantial. A boy made of mist, barely there.
He watched them. He watched the steady way Art’s hand brushed the wall. He watched the confident way Thanom guarded the space. He watched Phun’s easy, open grin.
Jate looked at his notebook, full of grids and times and checkmarks. He had all this information. He knew their patterns better than they did. He knew exactly when Thanom would laugh. He knew exactly when Mali would trip. He didn’t have to write it down anymore.
But as he watched Art stop and wait for Thanom to catch up, Jate realized there was one thing he couldn't figure out.
He knew what they would do. He just didn't know how to go down there and be part of it. He had pulled so far away lately that he could feel the gap widening.
He closed the book. He sat in the dark, watching the people he loved, feeling like he was reading a story he had written himself out of.
⁕ ⁕ ⁕
Read ahead on Ream ↓
