Natalie Pierce hesitated for a moment before speaking.
"Wouldn't that take up too much of your time?" she asked, the words coming out a little too carefully. "Really, it's fine. You should go have fun with them. If I can't get a cab, I can just take the subway."
On the one hand, she was long used to doing everything alone. On the other, the thought of bothering Sabrina Myers made her shrink in on herself.
She kept thinking about how she'd just turned Sabrina down earlier. To then turn around and accept another kindness from her—she simply couldn't take it with a clear conscience.
It made her feel… strange.Like someone who only ever remembered the benefits that came her way.Like some sort of leech, living off other people's kindness.The word curled in her chest and made her skin prickle.
Sabrina, however, only looked utterly unconcerned.
"Who said I was going with them?" she replied blandly.
She turned her head toward Grace Barron and Oakley Ponciano, studied them for a beat, then said,
"I'm allergic to couple mush. Why would I run over there just to torture myself?"
Grace and Oakley turned their heads at exactly the same moment and exchanged a quick, speechless look.
Then Grace said to Sabrina,
"In that case, you can take Natalie home later."
Perfect.This way, she and Oakley could quietly make room for Sabrina and Natalie to be alone together.
Those two needed more time—real, private time—to let their understanding of each other deepen, inch by inch.
Yet just then, Natalie suddenly lifted her phone, the screen lighting up her face.
"I got one!" she announced, sounding almost too bright. "And it looks like it's already here… I'll head out first, okay?"
Sabrina's gaze dimmed, a shadow sliding over her eyes. Her lips tightened before she nodded.
"Oh."
Natalie didn't say anything else. She simply lifted her foot and walked away in that direction.
To Sabrina, though, it looked less like walking and more like escaping.
Once she slid into the back seat of the car and shut the door, Natalie checked the last few digits with the driver to make sure it matched the number on her app. Then, as the car began to pull away, she watched Sabrina's figure grow smaller and smaller beyond the window.
Suddenly, she dropped her face into both hands.
On the other side of the glass, Sabrina stood there, eyes following the car for a long time. She couldn't help tugging one corner of her mouth up in a humorless, self-mocking almost-smile.
To Natalie… was she really some kind of wild beast that needed to be guarded against at all times?
Did Natalie really not want to see her that much?Just because she'd confessed?
She paced once in place, then turned toward Grace, fatigue settling on her shoulders like a physical weight.
"I'm heading back too," she said, sounding tired in a way she rarely let show. "Honestly, I've got a ton of stuff piling up on my plate. If I don't head back now, I'll be pulling another all-nighter. It's already been a week. I'm about to hit my limit."
"Alright," Grace nodded. "We'll meet up again when you're free."
"Mm." Sabrina nodded back, then fished out her car keys and pressed the unlock button toward a car parked in one of the spaces. "I'm off."
With that, Sabrina walked away without looking back.
As always, she looked like someone who didn't care about anything at all. Untouchable. Untouched.
But Grace knew better.That kind of indifference was all costume.
She watched both cars disappear, thoughtful, lingering there for a moment longer than necessary.
Then she turned around, reached out, and gently took Oakley's hand.
"Thank you," she said.
Her head was tilted slightly down. The bridge of her nose was fine and straight, her lashes thick and dark, casting shadows on her cheeks. Under the faint wash of twilight, the smooth, fair skin of her face took on a pale, almost fragile translucence, and that cool, quiet air about her intensified, filling her whole silhouette.
"Why are you suddenly thanking me?" Oakley looked at her, half amused. "That came out of nowhere."
As far as she could tell, nothing special had happened just now. She certainly hadn't done anything worth a thank you.
Thinking of Sabrina, Grace threaded their fingers together, her thumb absently tracing the back of Oakley's hand.
"Thank you for not turning down my confession," she said softly.
Otherwise, her own mental state could never be much better than Sabrina's right now.
No—if anything, it would be worse.
Sabrina liked Natalie, that much was true. But the truth was, the two of them barely had any real, solid foundation between them yet. No proper history, no long stretch of days.
Grace, on the other hand, had already fallen all the way down into that pit called Oakley Ponciano a long, long time ago.
Sabrina was already that miserable without being in too deep.If their places were swapped… Grace was fairly sure she'd already be a wreck.
Oakley burst into a chuckle, her voice full of bright delight.
"Why would I reject your confession?" she said. "I've been dying for you to confess to me for ages, you know."
"Hm?"
Grace's fingertips continued to slowly stroke Oakley's soft, pale fingers. She looked down at their joined hands, then back up at her, and asked, one word at a time,
"You've been… dying for me… to confess to you… for ages?"
She'd suspected. Of course she had. She'd wondered over and over whether Oakley might have felt the same way, long before either of them said it out loud.
But suspicion was just that—suspicion.Without proof, it might as well not exist at all.
Oakley rolled her eyes at her and deliberately ignored the question.
"Tch. Come on," she said. "Let's go."
With that, she started walking toward the rental car that Grace had driven over earlier.
She didn't even make it two steps before Grace reached out and tugged her back to her side.
"So," Grace said, eyes bright with curiosity, "you've been secretly into me for quite a while, huh?"
She had always assumed Oakley had only started having feelings for her recently, sometime after they grew closer.
But could it be… that the truth went back much further than she'd thought?
Meeting that openly inquisitive gaze, Oakley had to fight the urge to ask if Grace had another middle name. Something like Miss Why, perhaps, or Encyclopedia.
"Yes, I've been craving you for a long time," Oakley drawled as she leaned in closer, her breath brushing Grace's cheek. "So what are you going to do about it?"
Grace laughed.
"When did it start?" she asked.
Oakley tilted her head, looking at her steadily, her body swaying ever so slightly. The small movement made her seem oddly charming, almost impish.
"Why don't you guess?" she replied.
"It couldn't possibly be…"
Grace actually took the time to think it through, serious as if she were working a puzzle. Then she narrowed her eyes just a little, her voice dipping low as she asked,
"Was it the first time the great flood hits?"
"You—"
That single, deceptively simple sentence instantly dragged Oakley's mind back to that night. Back to the heat and softness of skin against skin, to Grace pressed close, to the way they had melted into each other.
Just picturing it was enough to make her scalp tingle.
Oakley darted a panicked glance around them, as if someone might have overheard that absurd code phrase. Heat surged up her neck and exploded across her cheeks, as if someone had lit a slow, inescapable fire under her skin.
She lurched forward and reached up, trying to cover Grace's mouth with her hand, to stop any more of those scandalous words from slipping out.
Grace was far too quick for that.
She caught Oakley's hand and gently tugged it back down, then bent closer, her lips almost brushing the rim of Oakley's ear as she murmured,
"What are you so afraid of? No one else has any idea what that means."
It was true. From that one tossed-off phrase alone, how could anyone possibly know what they were talking about?
But precisely because of that single question, the earlier line about "the great flood" suddenly felt even more ambiguous, more soaked through with innuendo.
As Grace's breath skimmed across her skin, Oakley felt goosebumps rise wherever it touched, a shiver running straight down her spine. Her face, already flaming red, somehow managed to burn even hotter.
It felt like being struck by lightning; her nerves were no longer under her command.
Oakley pressed her lips together, glaring sideways at Grace as she muttered under her breath,
"You really have no shame."
Grace didn't even try to argue. She only looked at Oakley's profile and smiled, eyes soft.
"You trained me this way," she said.
"Hmph."
Oakley threw her one last accusing look, half scolding and half something warmer.
"I'm done talking to you," she said. "I'm getting in the car."
Grace stood there laughing for a good while before finally catching up. The two of them slid into the car side by side.
From here to Cupid Lane, where they were headed, was usually a drive of a little over half an hour.
But today the traffic was a bit heavy. The car moved in fits and starts, stopping and crawling forward, stopping and crawling again.
By the time they finally got close, the two of them had spent a good forty, maybe fifty minutes together in that small, shared space.
By the time they arrived, the sky had already sunk completely into darkness.
The night lay thick over everything, like ink spilled across the world. It soaked into the corners of the buildings, blurred their outlines, and turned the whole street into a wash of shadow and light.
Thankfully, this night market didn't close until well past midnight. At this hour it was still early, the very peak of its liveliness—lanterns blazing, voices weaving together, the air hot with smoke and chatter.
Grace Barron found a parking spot and eased the car in, cutting the engine. She stepped out, the cool night air brushing against her face.
"This looks exactly like a normal night market," Oakley Ponciano said, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other hand cupping her chin. "So why is it called Cupid Lane?"
She frowned slightly, the name tickling at something in her mind that didn't quite add up.
To be fair, though, the place was huge. When she looked down the length of it, the stalls seemed to stretch endlessly, dissolving into the distance.
Of all the night markets Oakley had ever been to, this was easily the biggest—wide as a river, bright as a fairground.
Inside, the stalls sold everything imaginable. Street food, trinkets, clothes, toys, handmade crafts—so many things that just looking at them felt like being hit by a kaleidoscope.
Grace strolled over, keys dangling from her fingers. When she reached Oakley's side, she slipped the keys into her pocket and said,
"Because there's a little Cupid shrine here. It was built a long time ago, and when the city later decided to redevelop this area as a night market, they didn't tear it down. They restored it instead, so they named the whole street after it."
"Ohh, that makes sense now," Oakley nodded, enlightened. "So that Cupid shrine must be pretty famous, huh?"
Otherwise, during urban redevelopment it would've just been flattened with everything else. How did it survive the bulldozers and even earn a makeover?
Usually, anything—or anyone—that manages to stand firm through time and bad weather is never ordinary.
"Yeah," Grace said. "Apparently it's supposed to be really effective. A lot of single people come here, and after they pay their respects they end up finding someone pretty quickly."
That's what people online were always saying, anyway. Post after post recommending the place.
Some of them were ridiculously over the top—swearing that if you came traveling here and skipped this shrine, your whole trip didn't count.
Underneath those posts, there were loads of comments from people claiming their wishes had come true.
Of course, Grace knew hype when she saw it. A lot of that kind of buzz probably came from paid promotions. This was the age of traffic and clicks; whatever you did, you had to learn how to pull eyes in.
If you didn't throw in some flashy gimmicks, who was going to care?
Still, even if you stripped all the marketing away, the place was worth visiting. It actually had a bit of history behind it, unlike those brand-new commercial "spiritual" spots built purely to make a quick buck.
Coming once wasn't exactly a loss.
"In that case…" Oakley tilted her head, looking at Grace. "Since we're already together now, we don't really need to go pray, right? We can just go straight in and walk around the market."
Grace turned to look at her.
For a moment, her expression was hard to read. It was as if something deeper was moving under the surface, so instead of answering right away, she just stared into the flow of people.
"What?" Oakley couldn't help it; she reached out and poked her shoulder. "You actually want to go?"
"We're already here," Grace said, eyes narrowing slightly in that way she had when she was thinking something through. "Might as well, right? It's like a house. Once you build it, it doesn't hurt to reinforce it a little."
This place wasn't only for the single and searching.
If you were alone, you prayed to meet someone.
If you were dating, you prayed to make it to the altar.
If you were married, you prayed for a long, steady life together.
Oakley took in Grace's serious face, and a laugh slipped out of her.
"What, you really that worried the house is going to collapse?"
Grace thought for a few seconds, then decided not to dress it up.
"To be honest?" she said quietly. "Yeah. I kind of am."
Oakley hadn't expected her to answer that frankly.
She was just about to tell Grace that something like that would absolutely never happen when Grace, still looking ahead at the endless stream of people, smiled faintly and said,
"When I was a kid, I honestly thought my parents and I were going to be together for a long, long time. I'd already planned out what I wanted to do when I grew up."
"At the time, my plan was: study hard first. Then, once I was older, work hard and make good money, so I could buy them a big, big house."
"I even knew exactly what it would look like. I'd already designed the layout in my head. I knew how I wanted to decorate it, too."
"I wanted to make Mom a huge walk-in closet, fill it with beautiful high heels and dresses, and glittering jewelry."
"And for Dad, I wanted to build a big wine cellar and fill it with all the drinks he loved."
"But then… not long after that, they were in a car accident."
"A lot of things in this world just happen with no pattern at all," Grace went on. The smile on her face turned soft around the edges, tinged with a quiet sadness that made her look oddly defenseless. "That home of ours—one day it was there, and the next it was gone."
Under the warm, slightly yellowish light of the night market, her features were lit with a thin veil of sorrow.
Lost in the past like that, even her usually steady presence seemed to turn fragile, like glass that might crack if you looked at it too hard.
Oakley's brows drew together. Almost without thinking, she tightened her hold on Grace's hand.
"Hey," she said, voice steady and sincere. "You don't have to worry. Our little home now isn't going to end up like that. We're not going to fall apart, and nothing bad is going to happen to us. We're going to live a long, safe life together and grow old, side by side."
Grace turned to her, eyes gentle, and nodded.
"Mm."
"Come on!" Oakley immediately linked her arm through Grace's, as if to physically anchor what she'd just promised. "Let's go inside and light a candle for Saint Cupid or whoever's in charge here. We'll pray and make a wish. With him watching over us, I know he'll keep us safe."
Grace smiled, the sadness in her expression softening into something warmer.
She reached up to catch a loose strand of Oakley's hair and tucked it neatly behind her ear.
"Okay," she said. "Let's go."
More than anything, she thought, since they'd come all this way, it would be a shame not to.
Arm in arm, the two of them walked to the small window by the entrance and each bought a candle—thin sticks of red wax with little golden bands around them. Neither of them knew much about proper ritual etiquette, so they did what most people did in unfamiliar situations: picked the more expensive ones and trusted the price tag to buy them some extra peace of mind.
They took the candles to a side altar, lit them, and placed them together on the tall metal stand, where dozens of other flames were already flickering.
Then they turned and made their way into the main hall, which was dressed up in red from floor to ceiling, glowing like a beating heart in the middle of the night market.
At the far end of the hall, a statue sat enthroned.
The figure was robed in crimson, with snow-white hair and a youthful, kindly face. In his slightly open hands lay a loop of red cord, draped between his fingers.
That, clearly, was their resident Cupid.
Despite the gentle smile carved into his features, the statue still radiated a solemn stillness, a hush that settled over the hall and dimmed the noise from outside.
Maybe that was just how holy figures worked.
Their timing was good: no one else was queued up.
Just as they stepped inside, the couple kneeling in front of the statue rose and quietly left, leaving the space open.
Grace knelt on one of the padded prayer cushions, pressing her hands together. Her posture shifted, her usual relaxed air replaced by a simple, focused reverence.
Oakley knelt at her side, mirroring her movements.
Grace bowed two, three times, her forehead dipping toward her folded hands, her eyes closed as she offered up whatever wish she carried in her chest.
After a few moments, she opened her eyes again and got to her feet with Oakley.
"Let's go," Grace said.
"Mm~" Oakley's smile curved bright and sweet. She hooked her arm back around Grace's as they turned toward the exit.
Just as they were about to walk out, something at the edge of Oakley's vision caught her attention—a small stall tucked near one of the side walls, lined with little red bracelets.
They were simple, but pretty—like small sparks of color in the half-lit temple.
She glanced around and saw that several couples had already bought a pair. The bracelets circled their wrists as they walked side by side, a tiny, matching flash of red. Sweet. Intimate. Obvious in the best way.
Immediately, Oakley bounced on her toes and tugged on Grace's arm, pointing eagerly.
"Look," she said. "Everyone's wearing those."
Grace followed her gaze and then laughed softly.
"Translation," she said. "That means you want us to wear them too, right?"
Oakley bit down on her lower lip and nodded.
"You're really smart," she said.
Grace's lashes dropped as she smiled.
"Alright," she said. "Let's go buy some."
She laced their fingers together and led her over.
But when they got close, Grace realized the red bracelets were not just one simple style.
Besides the basic version most people were buying—a single red thread with one round bead in the center—there were others that looked far more intricate.
On those, the red cords were woven into complicated patterns, layered like petals. Between each fold of "petal," glossy beads were threaded in, stacked over and over until the bracelet was less a string and more a tiny red flower garden.
It was, without question, the most dramatic thing on the entire table.
"Which one do you want?" Grace asked. "I'm fine with anything. We can go with your taste."
"Okay," Oakley said, bending over with exaggerated seriousness. "Then let me pick."
She lifted one, examined it, put it down. Lifted another, squinted, changed her mind again.
After a long, careful process that would have suited the selection of a wedding dress, she finally picked up two of the most over-the-top bracelets and said,
"I've decided. Let's get these."
Grace blinked.
"You're sure?"
She honestly hadn't expected Oakley to choose those.
"Can I ask why you went for the…" She caught herself just in time before the phrase "ugliest ones" could escape, and swapped the words out mid-thought. "The biggest ones?"
Oakley lifted her chin and looked at her with complete seriousness.
"Because I want to be an attention magnet," she said.
"You want to be an attention magnet…" Grace pressed her fist lightly to her lips, shoulders shaking as she tried—and failed—not to laugh. "What does that even mean?"
At this rate, she thought, her cause of death in the future might well be: laughed to death by Oakley Ponciano.
Oakley took a moment to think it through properly, then explained,
"I just want to stand out," she said. "I want anyone who glances at us, even just once, to know immediately that we're together."
She sounded exactly like a child on a holiday who's just gotten a new dress—someone who then insists on pairing it with the wildest hairstyle possible before running out the door to show the entire neighborhood.
"Alright," Grace laughed, picking up the oversized bracelets. "Then tonight, we can be walking neon signs together."
"Mm-mm," Oakley nodded earnestly, like a little bird pecking at seed, her eyes glued to the bracelet that soon circled her wrist. She looked so pleased it was almost ridiculous.
After they paid and fastened the bracelets around each other's wrists, they stepped back out of the shrine and wandered deeper into the night market.
"Finally, I get to walk a night market with you!" Oakley was practically vibrating with excitement. She couldn't stop rubbing Grace's arm, like she needed to confirm every few seconds that this was real.
"Is going to a night market with me really that exciting?" Grace asked, smiling.
"It absolutely is," Oakley shot back.
The first time they'd gone to a night market, Grace had gone with Evelyn Luke. Oakley had gone with Ellisa Cheney. In the end, it had felt like walking alone in parallel instead of actually being together.
Later, when Grace had gone to another night market on that business trip, Oakley had practically wanted to sprout wings so she could fly over and wander the stalls at her side.
But dreams were generous, and reality was stingy. Back then, it simply hadn't been possible.
Now, finally, they were here together.
Just thinking about it made her happy.
Even though this particular market wasn't as pretty as the one Grace had visited before, it was enormous. The variety of food was outrageous—at a glance, it almost looked like someone had scooped up specialty snacks from all over the country and dropped them here in a single, chaotic heap.
You could walk around for hours and still feel like you hadn't seen everything.
Soon after they stepped fully inside, Oakley's attention got snagged by a stall selling deep-fried skewers.
Grace noticed the way her eyes lit up and asked,
"Want some?"
Oakley's first instinct was to nod. But then her brows pinched together, as if a sudden thought had struck. She shook her head quickly.
"Better not," she said. "Let's look around first."
"Alright."
Grace kept walking.
A little while later, they passed a stall selling grilled squid on a sizzling iron plate.
The squid there were enormous, each of them skewered with thick bamboo sticks. They were plump and glossy, and when the vendor slapped one down on the hot metal and pressed it flat with a spatula, the oil hissed and spat in such a sinful way that even people standing far off would start to salivate.
Grace saw Oakley swallow and asked again,
"Want some grilled squid?"
Surely she wouldn't say no this time, Grace thought.
And then she was wrong. Again.
Oakley shook her head firmly.
"I just want to walk around for now," she said.
"…Okay."
Grace couldn't shake the feeling that something about Oakley was off tonight.
Only browsing, never buying. Looking, but refusing to eat. That wasn't like Oakley at all.
If anything, it reminded her of Hazel Barron, her sister, who announced a new diet plan every few days and then suffered heroically through it.
Still, Grace didn't voice her questions. She just stayed at Oakley's side and walked with her.
Before long, they reached a huge barbecue stand.
This one was impressive enough to count as a landmark in its own right.
The entire grill area was piled high with every kind of ingredient you could imagine for skewers: meat, seafood, vegetables, unfamiliar mushrooms, oddly shaped roots.
Some of the produce was so strange that even Grace and Oakley, who liked to think they'd seen a fair amount, didn't recognize it. It looked like it had been shipped in from far-off places.
Because there were so many unusual options, the line here was long.
Grace and Oakley craned their necks along with everyone else, taking it all in.
"What about this place?" Grace asked. "Do you want to try it? It's not every day you see a barbecue stall with this much variety."
But Oakley just bit down on her lower lip, thought for a second, and then shook her head again. Her expression was unwavering—steady as a soldier at attention.
Grace finally couldn't hold it in anymore.
"What is going on with you tonight?" she asked, baffled. "How come you're suddenly not interested in anything?"
It was strange enough that she half-expected to reach out and find Oakley burning up with a fever.
Oakley Ponciano, suddenly listless around junk food—it felt like a sign the world was ending.
Oakley's brows knit tight, and she pressed her lips together.
"I just feel like all of this is really greasy," she said. "And, I don't know, it probably has a ton of harmful stuff in it."
On the surface, it was quite a reasonable argument. But something in it still felt off.
Maybe because it was so unlike her usual style.
Wasn't this the same girl who used to worship junk food? Even when they weren't traveling, when they were just lazing around at home, she loved ordering takeout.
The fridge was always stocked with different sodas.
On her food delivery app, barbecue, skewers, and spicy hotpot always dominated the order history.
And now this very person was giving her a health lecture.
"Miss Oakley Ponciano," Grace said, "can I get an interview? What on earth happened to make you start thinking about things like this?"
Oakley folded her arms around her waist.
"Because I want to live healthy now," she said.
"…Huh?" Grace raised a brow.
Oakley frowned down at her own fingers, counting something on them as she spoke, head tilted in that painfully earnest way she had when she'd made up her mind.
"I was thinking," she said slowly, "if I don't take care of myself and I keel over early, what are you supposed to do later on?"
"I already said I'm never going to let our home fall apart. So I have to keep myself in good working condition."
When she finished, she bit her lip again, as if she'd already leapt ahead to picture what Grace's life would look like if she really did leave too soon.
Grace just stared at her, momentarily forgetting how to speak.
So Oakley had… actually taken her words seriously. Completely, literally, to heart.
Grace stood there for a long moment, then burst out laughing, bending forward as the laughter shook through her.
Finally, she reached out and scrubbed her hand gently over Oakley's hair, ruffling it.
"How," she said, voice bright with affection, "are you this cute?"