Oakley Ponciano pushed back the strands of hair Grace Barron had just mussed up, smoothing them with her fingers.
"Out of nowhere you start calling me cute," she said, laughing. "You're so weird."
"Ha. You just don't get it. Weird, fine, I'll take it."
Grace didn't particularly care what label it came with.
To her, Oakley was cute.
Even if the sky caved in one day, she'd still be cute.
"It's rare that we get to come out like this," Grace went on, thinking it through carefully. "We're here to have fun, right? So we should eat whatever we feel like. Otherwise it's just… joyless sightseeing."
She paused, then added,
"As for the whole 'healthy lifestyle' plan… you really do need to cut back on how much junk food you inhale. But let's keep that for everyday life. Not tonight."
Oakley thought about it and found that what Grace said made a lot of sense.
They were traveling. The entire point was to enjoy themselves. If she had to police every bite while supposedly having fun, then what was the point of all this?
Besides, having a little once in a while wasn't going to kill her. No one just dropped dead from one extra skewer.
"Then… okay, fine~ But just so we're clear, this isn't me wanting to eat it. You're the one telling me to," Oakley said. Her willpower, which hadn't even lasted fifteen minutes, had been completely steamrolled by Grace's reasoning, and she still needed something to cover how flimsy it had actually been.
So she gave herself a loophole, a decent excuse to justify caving in.
Grace ruffled her hair again, her eyes warm with indulgence.
"Mm. Right. Exactly," she said softly. "You can put the blame on me."
The tangled look on Oakley's face vanished in an instant, swept away and replaced by pure, unfiltered delight.
Grabbing Grace's arm with both hands, she leaned into her side.
"Then let's go see what we can get!"
The Oakley who'd just been planning to enforce strict self-discipline had instantly reverted into a runaway horse, hooves up and bolting.
"Alright." Grace looped her arm through Oakley's and steered them forward at an easy pace. "What do you want to eat?"
"Let me look."
Leaning against Grace, Oakley looked left, then right.
There were simply too many good things on this street. She didn't even know where to begin.
Rich smells hung in the air, tangling together—grilled meat, spices, sugar, fried dough—all of it rising in waves that crashed gently but persistently against her brain, making her mouth water.
She hadn't been particularly hungry before. Now, her stomach chose that exact moment to growl.
After they'd walked for a few minutes through the shifting current of people, a small stall appeared ahead, instantly grabbing Oakley's attention.
Above it hung a bright red sign with big looping white letters: "Lisa's Mashed Potato Noodles."
Oakley had seen this dish on social media countless times.
Every video did the same thing: when it came time to toss the noodles, the person behind the camera would zoom right in, giving a close-up of the noodles coated in thick mashed potato, the sauce clinging to them like silk.
The sight was almost indecent.
Each strand of noodle looked like it had been specially designed to make taste buds riot.
Every time one of those videos popped up on her feed, Oakley would be so hungry she practically saw stars. She'd gone to sleep more than once imagining what it would feel like to put a bite of that into her mouth.
Soft mashed potato combined with springy noodles—how could that not be good?
Unfortunately, back in Skylark, no one had decided to be the brave soul to start selling it.
For some mysterious reason, no one had seized that particular business opportunity.
So there had been no supply to match her craving.
She'd searched all over the city and never found it, forced instead to watch other people's eating videos online and torture herself.
And now here it was, right in front of her.
Her curiosity toward this particular street food skyrocketed to an all-time high.
Oakley squeezed Grace's arm and said in quick succession,
"Grace—Grace! Look, it's the legendary mashed potato noodles!"
"Where?" Grace asked.
"Ten meters ahead, to your right, on the left side." Oakley fired off the directions with surgical precision.
"Ah. Yeah. I see it." Grace glanced over and the corners of her mouth lifted.
"Hurry up, let's go!" Oakley urged. "I need to see it up close."
"Okay."
Urged along by her eager pushing, Grace lengthened her stride and headed toward the stall with her.
The owner was a middle-aged woman with a gentle face, her hair tied back into a simple ponytail. She wore a black padded jacket and a black-and-white checkered apron. Her voice was clear, her movements quick and practiced. She looked like someone who'd been at this spot for a long time.
On the counter were piles of loose, cooled noodles, a metal tub full of smooth mashed potatoes, and containers of various sauces and toppings.
It made you wonder what the final bowl would look like, what kind of fireworks would explode on your tongue when these ingredients collided.
"This looks so interesting," Oakley said, licking her lips despite herself. "I'm already dying to try it."
It wasn't even that she was that hungry. She just wanted to eat.
She was also very sure her stomach could still handle another round.
Back at dinner, she'd intentionally avoided any heavy carbs for precisely this reason—so she'd have space later for the good stuff.
Grace laughed.
"Then I'll get one."
"Yes, yes—hurry!" Oakley was already practically vibrating with anticipation.
While the owner had just finished mixing a bowl for another customer, Grace stepped forward and said,
"Hi, can I get one bowl of mashed potato noodles?"
"Sure thing~"
The owner wiped her hands quickly on her apron, then grabbed a stainless-steel mixing bowl and a pair of chopsticks.
First she picked up a serving of noodles and dropped them into the bowl, then scooped several generous spoonfuls of velvety mashed potato and piled them on top, turning the whole thing into a little mountain.
Finally, she added a few ladles of her thick house sauce, sprinkled in various toppings, and mixed everything together quickly, noodles and potato binding into a sticky, fragrant mess.
Not long after, she tipped the mixture into a bowl.
A heaping, slightly gooey, almost absurdly tempting creation landed in Grace's hands.
"Here you go," the owner said.
"Thank you."
Grace took the bowl and two pairs of chopsticks, then led Oakley to a small empty table nearby.
She snapped apart a pair of disposable chopsticks, rubbed them together to remove the splinters, then handed them to Oakley.
This dish was carbs on carbs, a one-way ticket to feeling stuffed.
Since they'd already had dinner barely over an hour ago and weren't fully digested yet, they'd decided not to order too much—just one bowl to share.
Oakley picked up a bundle of noodles and popped it into her mouth.
Her eyes flew wide open.
She nodded again and again, muffling an exclamation,
"This is so good—this is exactly how I imagined it!"
Sticky, soft, fragrant—the kind of flavor that fogged your brain in the best way.
It sounded like something from the "forbidden experiment in the kitchen" category, but surprisingly, it was delicious.
The real magic was in the sauce the owner had made.
Whatever she'd put in there, it clicked perfectly with the noodles and potatoes—everything just worked.
"Now I'm curious," Grace said. She dipped her chopsticks into the bowl and lifted some noodles herself. "I need to try it."
Even eating street food, she was unhurried.
Her movements were calm and refined, as if good manners were something that came with her wherever she went.
Oakley often felt like Grace had come down from some other world just to experience hardship for a while.
"Pretty good, right?" Oakley asked eagerly as soon as Grace had taken a bite.
"Yeah, it is, just…"
Grace hissed softly, her brows lifting.
"…just a little spicy."
As expected, her tolerance for spice wasn't great. A bit of heat and her tongue was already protesting.
She put her chopsticks down and pressed her fingers to her forehead, taking a moment to recover before turning back to the owner to ask for a bottle of water.
When she twisted the cap off and took a drink, a thin layer of sweat had already formed on her forehead, a few strands of hair sticking to her skin.
Watching this, Oakley couldn't help it—she snorted out a laugh.
"Hey, Grace," she said, grinning. "Maybe you should just stop. If you wreck your stomach with spice, that's not going to be fun."
Grace hesitated, then asked quietly,
"If I let you eat it alone… would you feel like it's not as fun?"
She really couldn't handle spicy food, and she really could put away a terrifying amount of carbs when she wanted to.
Not to mention, they'd already eaten a full meal not that long ago.
But she kept thinking: Oakley was so excited to walk the night market with her, to eat together. If she bowed out, wouldn't that take some of the joy away?
Oakley picked up more noodles and laughed.
"What kind of question is that?" she said. "If you can't eat it, then don't. Do I look like the kind of unreasonable person who'd force you to eat something that doesn't agree with you?"
"I don't have a hobby of torturing my girlfriend, you know."
"…Fair point."
Relieved, Grace put the chopsticks down for good.
"But…"
Oakley finished another bite, dabbed her lips with a napkin, then looked at her curiously.
"What made you think like that?"
Grace thought for a moment.
"When I was in middle school, there was a girl in my class," she said. "She'd get upset about this kind of thing. Whenever a group of us went out to eat, she'd want everyone to order what she wanted. If people ordered different things, she'd suddenly lose her enthusiasm and sulk."
Back then, Grace hadn't understood what was going through that girl's head.
She'd just found it bothersome.
Only later did she gradually realize the girl was probably just starved for affection.
She wanted to share every little thing with the friends she'd decided were important to her, and if she couldn't, she'd feel like she was being shut out.
"Wow," Oakley said, pausing mid-bite to look her over with exaggerated suspicion. She deliberately sharpened her tone with a bit of mock jealousy. "And who was this girl, exactly?"
"Just someone I was… on good terms with back then," Grace said, twisting open the water again and taking another sip to chase down the lingering burn.
She wasn't sure if her tongue had gone numb or what, but after a few gulps she felt a lot better.
"'On good terms,' huh?" Oakley bit her lower lip and stared at her. "Some people sure were popular from an early age."
Grace almost choked on her water.
"Not that kind of 'good terms'!" she protested. "She wasn't into me."
"Oh?" Oakley kept her skeptical expression firmly in place, scanning her up and down.
Grace coughed twice into her hand.
"You know how it is with teenagers," she said. "They can be weird about friendships. Let's say she decided I was her best friend. Then, if she, me, and Evelyn Luke went out together, and Evelyn and I ordered the same thing but she got something else, she'd be upset."
"It wasn't just with me—it was the same with others sometimes. That's just… how she was."
As she explained, she was uncharacteristically serious, dissecting the memory as if she wanted to make absolutely sure every detail was clear.
Oakley listened until she couldn't hold it anymore and burst into giggles.
"Why are you so nervous?" she asked.
"I just wanted to make it clear," Grace said, still solemn. "There was nothing between us."
She really didn't want Oakley getting the wrong idea over something so small.
"Silly," Oakley said, stirring the noodles again with her chopsticks, still smiling. "I was messing with you. I can tell you didn't have anything going on with her."
"…Right."
Grace slumped just a fraction, the tightness in her chest finally easing.
"Who hasn't met someone like that during their teenage years?" Oakley added. "I did too."
Grace lifted her gaze.
"You mean… Ellisa Cheney?"
Grace would never forget the way Ellisa had once wrapped an arm around Oakley and stared her down, staking her claim like a jealous cat.
It was in that moment Grace discovered something new about herself: she had a jealous streak. A big one.
She'd almost exploded on the spot—though from the outside you wouldn't have seen a crack. She'd just been holding it all down by sheer force.
This time it was Oakley's turn to almost choke on her water.
"You remember her that clearly?" she spluttered.
"How could I not?" Grace said flatly. Just thinking about Ellisa made something in her chest tighten.
Oakley pressed her lips together.
"Don't worry. I don't talk to her anymore."
After that last big argument, when Ellisa had blocked her in a fit of temper, Oakley had never reached out again.
It was that incident that made her realize how small Ellisa's world really was.
She'd even begun to suspect that Ellisa had never truly liked her, not in the real sense of the word.
It was just that Oakley had treated her better than her own mother ever had, and Ellisa had wanted to cling to that warmth without limits.
"Mm."
Grace didn't feel like talking more about that person. She glanced around and said,
"To be honest, this whole thing—sitting at a random stall in a night market—really takes me back to when I was a student."
It had been a long time since she'd eaten street food like this.
She suddenly found herself flooded with memories.
Back then, she and her friends had often come to places like this.
Their parents hated it, of course.
So after eating, they'd always sniff each other to see if the smell had stuck to their clothes.
If the scent was mostly in their mouths, they'd down water and chew gum, trying to cover it up.
If it was on their clothes too, they'd take a couple of extra laps around the neighborhood before going home, hoping the night air would wash it away.
"Same," Oakley said. "It reminds me of university. I used to love the barbecue place by the back gate. Every time I went, I'd order a mountain of food."
In the dorm, she'd been famous for her appetite.
Her roommates were always asking her how she managed to eat so much and never gain weight.
The truth was simply: she'd won the genetic lottery.
"I remember," Grace said. "You always had to order at least ten skewers of grilled wheat gluten."
Even now, she could still picture Oakley striding back onto campus at night, clutching ten skewers in her hand like a victorious predator dragging home a kill.
She'd looked exactly like a tiger that had just taken down an antelope.
Back then, Oakley had been completely bewitched by grilled wheat gluten.
It was like she'd been hexed.
Oakley paused mid-chew, staring at her.
"How do you even know that?" she asked.
Grace smiled.
"Because you went so often," she said. "I passed by that stand all the time, and almost every time, I'd see you."
Back then, she'd been dividing her days between campus and her father's company, going back and forth constantly and often returning to school late at night.
And almost every night she came back, she'd bump into Oakley sneaking out in search of food.
Oakley laughed.
"So your memory's that good, huh? Then do you remember what my roommates liked to order?"
"Uh?" Grace blinked. "Your roommates?"
She couldn't even clearly remember their faces.
"Yeah, they'd usually come with me."
"…In that case," Grace admitted, "I have no idea."
"So you only remembered me?" Oakley teased.
"I did," Grace answered honestly. She turned to look at her, long lashes lifting. "Is that… a problem?"
Her eyes were dark and deep, steady in a way that made it hard to look away.
Oakley froze for a second.
Then she cleared her throat, cheeks flushing faintly.
"Pfft," she said, making a dismissive sound and looking away.
Like she didn't care at all.
Meanwhile, inside, she felt like fireworks had gone off, petals blooming one after another.
After they finished the noodles, they stood and moved away from the stall, drifting further into the night market.
A short walk later, they came across a tiny stand selling scented sachets.
It was a small setup, with rows of little fabric pouches hanging from thin strings.
Under the warm yellow light, the gold-thread patterns embroidered on each of them glinted softly, catching the eye.
"Scented sachets!" Oakley stopped and tipped her head back to look up. "I haven't seen anyone selling these in ages."
"Want to take a look?" Grace suggested.
"Mhm."
Without another word, Oakley headed straight over.
The seller seemed like an artisan who did this for love more than profit. All the sachets carried a faint floral scent—light, balanced, never overpowering.
Exactly the kind Oakley liked.
She hovered between one that smelled of lavender and another that smelled of jasmine, torn between the two and trying to decide which one to take home.
Just then, voices drifted over from beside them—two girls chatting as they browsed.
One, with short hair, said,
"Don't you feel like the older you get, the harder it is to feel genuinely happy?"
The other, long-haired girl made a soft sound of agreement.
"Yeah. When we were kids, we couldn't wait to grow up. And then once you get there, you realize being a kid was better. Back then, a new cartoon, a good snack, a fun game—that was enough to make me ridiculously happy."
"But now? None of that really moves the needle anymore."
Short Hair sighed.
"Guess that's what people mean when they say the threshold gets higher," she said. "So everything ends up feeling kind of pointless."
…
They kept talking quietly until they'd paid for their things. Then they drifted off into the crowd.
Oakley didn't follow them with her eyes.
She paid for the lavender sachet and left the stall with Grace, slipping her arm through Grace's again as they continued down the lane.
The whole time, she never stopped touching her.
One moment she was swinging Grace's hand back and forth like a child.
The next she was pressing Grace's fingers into her palm, kneading them like dough.
Laughter never left her face, and her eyes shone brighter than the stars overhead.
Grace let herself be treated like a toy, smiling the whole time as Oakley pushed and pulled, squeezed and stretched.
Even though most of the food they passed was fairly common—nothing particularly rare or awe-inspiring—they didn't feel bored.
On the contrary, it felt good just to walk slowly like this, side by side.
Even if they did nothing but watch the lights in other people's windows, it was enough.
Grace realized that ever since she'd run into Oakley again, the whole world within her line of sight seemed… lighter.
Brighter.
As they walked, Oakley suddenly remembered the two girls at the sachet stall.
"Actually," she said, breaking the silence, "sometimes I kind of get that feeling too—the whole 'things aren't like they were when we were kids' thing. Do you?"
Grace tilted her head.
"You mean, the older you get, the harder it is to feel happy?"
"Yeah." Oakley nodded. "I used to think I was the only one who felt that way. But later I realized… there are a lot of people who do."
Sometimes she couldn't help wondering what time had taken away.
She was still herself, and yet so many of her thoughts and feelings had turned into something altogether different.
"To be honest, I used to think that too," Grace said quietly. "That growing up meant less happiness."
"But then…"
She paused, choosing her words.
"Later I realized that happiness isn't actually some rare luxury."
Oakley kept playing with her fingers absently, rolling them between her own.
"Mm?"
Grace looked ahead, a small smile curving her lips.
"For a while," she said, "I thought there was only one path to happiness: earning a lot of money and proving my worth through work. I honestly believed that if I didn't manage that, I'd never really touch the word 'happiness' for real."
"But then I realized something."
"There are other paths to it too. Turns out, getting happy can be very simple."
She really did sound like someone who'd achieved enlightenment.
Her words were cheesier than anything Oakley had ever written herself.
Oakley rubbed her chin, then glanced sideways at her, curious.
"So," she asked, "what are your paths?"
Grace's smile deepened.
She stopped walking.
Under the dim sky and soft night wind, she turned slightly toward Oakley, long lashes lowering.
"It's easy," she said. "I just need…"
"…to have a woman named Oakley Ponciano by my side."
Oakley looked up.
Under the lights of the night market, Grace's features were clean and fine, and in her eyes something flickered—light moving over water—drawing you in without effort.
"Ugh, you're impossible," Oakley said. She froze for one beat, then burst out laughing, clapping a hand over her mouth as she smacked Grace's shoulder lightly with the other.