After nearly two hours of driving around, I began to notice that something had changed in Mira’s movements.
There was no obvious sign. She still drove calmly, both hands gripping the wheel at ten and two, the way our family’s private driver had taught her years ago. Her smile still appeared every time I pointed at a new building and asked its name or year of construction. But behind all that were small, unusual motions: she blinked a little longer, rolled her shoulders left and right at red lights, and once, thinking I was looking out the window, she yawned behind the back of her hand.
"Mira," I called softly.
"Yes, Young Master?"
"You’re tired."
"I’m not tired." The answer came out too fast, and too firm, like someone who had prepared that rebuttal long ago.
I held back a smile. "You’ve yawned three times since the Flyover."
"That’s not yawning. That’s deep breathing."
"Deep breathing that makes your eyes water."
Mira glanced at me briefly with a feigned offended expression, then went back to watching the road. The small crease between her brows showed she was losing this argument and knew it well.
"I just didn’t get much sleep," she admitted at last, her voice lowering. "Last night I waited until Miss Alya had really logged out. She only stopped playing near dawn, and I wasn’t at ease with her alone in the capsule with no one checking on her."
"So you slept less than four hours."
"Three and a half." Mira shrugged. "But I’m fine."
I studied the side of her face, lit by the noon sun streaming through the windshield. There were thin dark circles under her eyes that the light powder she’d worn this morning hadn’t managed to cover. And suddenly, something in my chest tightened with a sharp pang of guilt.
Every morning, at exactly 07:00, Mira stood at my door with a breakfast tray. Every night, she tucked in my blanket and made sure every pill was swallowed. Every day she prepared my meals, arranged my therapy schedule, checked Doctor Karin’s reports, and still found time to watch over my sister playing games until dawn. She never complained. She never asked for a day off. And I, who had received all of it for years, was only now noticing that the woman driving this car was also just a human being who could get tired.
"Mira," I said, "pull over."
"Eh?"
"Pull over for a moment. I have a proposal."
Mira looked at me doubtfully, but obeyed. She steered the SUV to the roadside, switched on the hazard lights, and pulled the handbrake with careful motions. Outside the window, a row of rain trees shaded the sidewalk with cool shadows, and a few pedestrians passed without paying us any attention.
"I want to go to the mall," I said.
Mira blinked. "The mall?"
"One of the new ones. The one we passed earlier, with the wave roof and the fountain in its plaza." I turned and looked at her directly. "I want to shop. And have lunch. And sit somewhere cool while you rest."
"Young Master, that’s too crowded. Your immune system..."
"It’s a weekday. And still before lunchtime. The mall won’t be as packed as on weekends." I raised my hand before she could protest again. "I’ll wear my mask the whole time. You can bring as much hand sanitizer as you like. And we’ll go home if you feel anything is uncomfortable. I promise."
Mira fell silent. Her eyes searched my face for signs of lies or coercion. But whatever she found made her shoulders slowly relax.
"And one more thing," I added, a little nervous, "this isn’t only about shopping."
"Then what is it about?"
I drew a deep breath. My heart, though healthy according to the checkups, was pounding hard enough to make me feel ridiculous.
"We’ve been together since we were little," I said quietly. "But all this time, whenever we went out together, there was always some other reason. Chemo schedules, doctor’s checkups, grocery runs, or just breathing the air in the park. We’ve never really gone out as... two people who love each other."
Mira’s eyes went wide. Her cheeks flushed from her neck to her ears.
"So," I continued, trying to sound casual though my voice trembled slightly, "I want to ask you on a date. Our first date outside the house, as a couple. With shopping, lunch, and all the silly things normal couples do."
Silence filled the SUV’s cabin for three seconds that felt like three minutes.
Then Mira covered her face with both palms, and her shoulders shook.
"Mira? Are you crying?"
"No," she answered from behind her fingers, her voice breaking in the middle. "I... I’m laughing. And crying. Both."
"Can that be done at the same time?"
"Evidently so." She lowered her hands, and her eyes were red and glistening, but the smile on her face was so wide and sincere that I nearly held my breath. "Yes. I want to. Of course I want to, Rian."
That name, spoken in a hoarse voice full of feeling, warmed something in my chest more than any medicine.
"On one condition," Mira added quickly as she wiped her eyes, "you wear a mask, no more than two hours, and rest every thirty minutes."
"Agreed."
"And you must not push yourself."
"Agreed."
"And I decide when we go home."
"That’s excessive."
"That’s a condition."
I raised both hands in surrender. "Agreed."
Mira laughed softly, drew a long breath to calm herself, then released the handbrake and turned the wheel. The SUV rolled back onto the road, and this time, I saw something different on her face. The exhaustion was still there, but now covered by a far brighter light.
The mall was called Arunika Walk.
The building had been visible from afar since we entered the main road, its curved roof like a giant silvery-white ocean wave reflecting sunlight in every direction. In the middle of the open plaza at its front, an interactive fountain shot jets of water from the stone floor in ever-changing patterns. Small children ran through the spray with soaked clothes and loud laughter, while their parents stood at the edge holding towels and phones.
Mira parked the SUV in the wheelchair-user area near the entrance. She got out first, opened the trunk to lift out the folding wheelchair, then helped me transfer with very practiced motions. This time I tried standing a little longer than usual before sitting, feeling my thigh muscles tremble softly under the load, and Mira held my elbow without saying anything.
"Slowly," she whispered.
"I’m fine."
"That’s what you always say before you get dizzy."
"And you always say that before telling me to sit."
"Because you always need to sit." She helped me down into the wheelchair, then made sure my feet rested properly on the footrests. "Ready, Young Master?"
"Ready, Miss Date Escort."
Mira snorted with amusement, her cheeks flushing again. "That’s not an official title."
"As of today, it’s official."
We entered the mall through automatic glass doors that opened with a soft hiss. Cool, air-conditioned air swept across my face, mixed with the aroma of coffee, toasted bread, and perfume from the shops along the corridor. The high ceiling with its large glass windows let natural light flow in, creating a spacious and warm atmosphere far from the stuffy feel of enclosed malls.
Sure enough, the weekday made the place far quieter than a weekend. A few mothers pushed strollers while chatting, a group of students who seemed to be skipping class wandered around laughing, and a few office workers sat in the food court with laptops open. No suffocating crowds. No long lines.
Mira pushed me at a relaxed pace, occasionally greeting security guards who bowed politely. I surveyed our surroundings with eyes that couldn’t stop widening. Clothing stores with modern-style mannequins. A bookstore with towering shelves. A toy shop with a big window filled with colorful teddy bears. A small cafe with rattan chairs and hanging plants from the ceiling.
"Where first, Young Master?" asked Mira.
"Clothes," I answered firmly. "For you."
"For me?"
"Of course. This is a date. A boyfriend buys clothes for his girlfriend."
"I don’t need new clothes."
"You don’t need them, but I want to." I pointed to a shop on the right with a large glass display filled with pastel transitional-season dresses. "That one."
Mira sighed long, with the expression of someone who knew that resisting would only waste energy, then pushed me toward the shop.
The shop assistant greeted us with a friendly smile and offered help. Mira, still nervous, only nodded politely. I, on the other hand, had already begun pointing at several dresses that caught my eye: a knee-length light blue dress with a clean white collar, a linen dress with a small floral pattern, and a long cream one-piece that looked perfect against Mira’s fair skin.
"Try these," I said, handing her all three.
"Rian, I..."
"Try."
Mira looked at me, then at the three dresses in her hands, then surrendered with a dramatic sigh and went into the fitting room, muttering that this was an abuse of boyfriend authority. I waited in front of the fitting room in my wheelchair, and the shop assistant, a young girl with a ponytail, stood nearby holding back a smile.
"Your girlfriend, sir?" she asked quietly, a little flushed.
"Yes," I answered, and the word came out more naturally than I expected. "My girlfriend."
"She’s so lucky to have such a thoughtful boyfriend."
"Actually," I chuckled softly, "I’m the lucky one."
The fitting room curtain opened.
I forgot to breathe.
Mira stood there in the light blue dress with the white collar, her black hair falling softly over her shoulders, her flushed face lowered awkwardly to the floor. The dress fell just below her knees, following her figure simply and gracefully. Its blue made her skin seem to glow, and the white collar framed her face in a way that made her look like a girl who had just stepped out of a painting.
"How is it?" she asked softly, biting her lower lip. "Strange, isn’t it?"
"No," I whispered. "You’re beautiful."
"You say that about every dress."
"I haven’t said anything about the other two yet."
Mira laughed shyly, tucking her hair behind her ear with a nervous motion that made me want to hug her right then. She tried the other two dresses, and each time the curtain opened, I found myself more and more at a loss for words. The small floral dress made her look fresh and cheerful, while the cream one-piece gave her a calm, mature aura.
"We’ll take all of them," I told the shop assistant.
"Rian!" Mira squeaked softly from behind the curtain. "Three dresses?"
"Three dresses, that white cardigan, and the knitted scarf on that shelf over there." I pointed to a thick light gray scarf. "That one is for the coming winter."
"You can’t be serious."
"I’m very serious. And before you protest, this isn’t from an employer. This is from a boyfriend. You can’t refuse."
"That’s abuse of authority," Mira muttered again, but this time a smile slipped into the corner of her voice.
I paid with the black card Mira usually carried in her small bag, and the shop assistant wrapped everything in paper bags with blue ribbons. Mira came out of the fitting room in her own clothes, holding the bags in both hands as if holding something fragile, her cheeks still red.
"Thank you," she whispered, very softly, as we left the shop.
"You’re welcome."
"But now it’s my turn."
"Your turn?"
"You need something too." Mira lifted her chin with a resolve hard to argue with. "And I’m the one paying."
"Mira, I don’t..."
"Couples buy things for each other, don’t they?" She smiled triumphantly. "That’s the rule you made just now."
I opened my mouth to argue, but found no gap in her logic.
Two shops later, Mira pushed me into a small accessory shop selling hats, scarves, and knitted gloves. She examined several options seriously, trying them on my head one by one, until she finally found a navy blue knit beanie with a thick folded brim.
"This one," she said with satisfaction, putting it on my head and smoothing the strands of hair sticking out. "You look like an adorable little kid."
"That’s not a compliment."
"It’s the best compliment I can give."
She paid for it herself with money from the small wallet in her bag, not from the family’s black card. I watched her movements, and something made my chest feel warm and aching at once. The beanie wasn’t expensive, far cheaper than a single shirt I’d bought earlier. But Mira paid with full awareness, like someone giving something with her whole heart.
"From my own salary," she said quietly as she handed over the small paper bag. "All this time I could only provide food and medicine for you. But something you choose for a sunny day, I want to be the one who pays for it."
I didn’t answer right away. My chest felt tight, and I had to look down at the blue beanie for a moment before I could speak.
"This is the best gift I’ve ever received," I finally whispered.
"It’s only a hat, Rian."
"It’s a hat from the person I love most."
Mira fell silent. Her eyes were glistening, but she only smiled and bent to kiss my forehead in the middle of the quiet shop. In the distance, a shopkeeper pretended to be busy tidying shelves.
Around 12:30, I realized my legs had begun to tremble again, and my breathing felt a little shorter than before. Mira noticed it faster than I did. Without asking, she steered my wheelchair to a restaurant at the corner of the second-floor corridor, with soft lighting and high-backed chairs.
"Rest," she said firmly.
"I can still..."
"Thirty minutes have passed. That was the agreement."
I surrendered with a resigned smile. The restaurant was called Dapur Rimbun, with an open kitchen in the middle and white-uniformed chefs cooking behind clean glass. Mira examined the menu carefully, reading each ingredient one by one with a furrowed brow, then asked the waiter something in a low voice. I caught fragments like "cooked thoroughly" and "no raw ingredients" and "for a patient with low immunity," and the waiter nodded seriously as he took notes.
"They have free-range chicken soup and rice," Mira reported as she closed the menu. "And steamed fish. The kitchen is open, so I can watch how they cook."
"You’re supervising the restaurant’s kitchen?"
"A bad habit from ten years of caring for the sick." Mira shrugged, unrepentant. "I won’t let anyone ruin my boyfriend’s lunch."
We sat at a window table facing the plaza, watching children still playing amid the fountain’s jets. The food arrived quickly, and its warm aroma made my stomach growl shamelessly. Free-range chicken soup with fried shallots, soft rice, and steamed fish with ginger and spring onion. A menu almost the same as what Mira prepared at home, but here, amid the clink of glasses and the soft conversations of other diners, it felt far more special.
"Mira," I said as I stirred my soup, "do you remember the last time we ate out?"
Mira thought for a moment. "The hospital canteen. Two weeks before the first chemo cycle."
"That’s the hospital canteen. That’s not eating out."
"It’s a public place."
"It’s a place where we waited for lab results." I smiled crookedly. "I’m talking about a lunch outside the house that’s actually lunch. And I can’t remember a single one."
Mira fell silent. Her spoon stopped in midair.
"When we were little," I continued quietly, "we used to eat together in the back kitchen. You were the one who secretly brought leftover cake from the main dining room, and we’d finish it under the pantry table while laughing at the gardener."
"That’s my best memory," Mira answered, almost whispering.
"I know. That’s why I want to add new memories. Ones that aren’t under the pantry table."
Mira drew a slightly trembling breath. "And ones without an IV drip."
"And ones without an IV drip," I repeated, smiling.
We ate quietly after that, now and then trading stories about trivial things. Mira told me about the neighbor’s cat that had sneaked into the backyard this morning and attacked her beloved lavender pot. I replied with a tale of a three-tailed white fox who last night chased silver fish among the floating lanterns and fell into the lake with a terrible scream. Mira laughed so hard that the diners at the next table turned and smiled knowingly.
The soup was finished without a drop left. The rice vanished. The steamed fish was reduced to bones. And for a while, we simply sat enjoying full stomachs and the quiet atmosphere of the afternoon.
"You look better," said Mira.
"Because the food is good."
"Because you’re happy," she corrected gently.
I didn’t argue.
After resting for nearly forty minutes and finishing a cup of hot chocolate that Mira forced me to drink to the last drop, we returned to the second-floor corridor. My legs no longer trembled so much, and Mira, with the dark circles under her eyes now looking fainter, pushed my chair with lighter steps.
We passed a small jewelry shop at the corner of the corridor, its glass display holding rings, necklaces, and hairpins neatly arranged on dark blue velvet. I had nearly walked past it when something in the corner of the display caught my attention.
"Stop," I said.
Mira stopped my chair. "What is it?"
I pointed toward the display. On the lowest velvet pad lay a small hairpin of pure silver in the shape of a crescent moon. It was tiny, no longer than the length of an index finger segment, with a milky white stone set in its curve, reflecting the shop’s light like a soft glow.
"Moonstone," murmured Mira, reading the small label beside it. "Moonstone."
I didn’t answer right away. That crescent reminded me of the altar by the lake, of the silver glow that had enveloped my body during the Baptism, of the trace of light reflected in the eyes of a group of dark-race players thankful for three extra seconds under the sun. And beside me was Mira, who, though she never said it, also carried something tied to night and blood in that same world.
"May we see this?" I asked the shopkeeper.
The shopkeeper, a middle-aged woman with gold-rimmed glasses, took the hairpin from the display and placed it on a small velvet tray. I picked it up, feeling the coolness of the silver on my fingertips, and handed it to Mira.
"Rian," Mira whispered, "this is expensive."
"It’s nothing."
"I just..."
"Mira." I looked into her eyes. "How many times must I say that you’re not just a maid?"
Mira didn’t answer. Her eyes glistened, and the hand holding the pin trembled slightly. I took the hairpin from her palm and carefully, like someone fastening something very precious, slid the silver crescent into her black hair, right on the left side, beside her ear.
"Perfect," I whispered.
Mira touched the pin with her fingertips, and tears finally fell, unstoppable. She didn’t wipe them away. She only smiled, the most beautiful trembling smile I had ever seen, and bent to hug me tightly in the middle of that silent shop.
"Thank you," she whispered in my ear. "Thank you, Rian. I’ll wear it every day."
"You don’t have to."
"I want to."
The shopkeeper wiped the corner of her eye with a handkerchief and pretended to check the cash register.
Before leaving the mall, we stopped at a small souvenir shop near the exit. On the front shelf, a row of three-tailed white fox plush toys stood neatly, complete with silver-blue eyes and red ribbons around their necks. I stared at the plush toys, then at Mira, and we both laughed at the same time.
"For Miss Alya?" asked Mira.
"Mandatory."
"She’ll bite me if I say these look like her."
"She’ll hug you half to death and not let go until tomorrow morning."
We bought two, one for Alya and one to put on the shelf in my room, so that the quiet room would have a white fox guarding the capsule. Mira held both bags with a satisfied smile.
At 15:10, we finally sat on a bench at the edge of the plaza, watching the fountain still spraying in cheerful patterns. The afternoon sun was beginning to soften, sweeping the water’s surface with a gentle gold. Mira sat beside me, both hands holding a cup of warm tea, and the silver crescent pin in her hair sparkled every time she turned her head.
"A lovely date," she said softly.
"You think so?"
"Very much." She turned and smiled. "Thank you for asking me."
I took her hand and laced our fingers in my lap, like a small habit we had long had. In front of us, children still ran among the water jets, laughing without a care, and a few adults walked past with shopping bags in their hands.
"We should do this again," I murmured.
"A second date?"
"A second date. And a third. And a fourth. Until we run out of malls in this city."
"That would take a long time," Mira laughed softly.
"I have plenty of time," I answered, and for a moment, those words felt more meaningful than any I had spoken before.
Mira rested her head on my shoulder, and the crescent pin touched my cheek with a gentle coolness. I gazed at the afternoon sky slowly turning orange, feeling the warmth of her hand, and let this simple happiness flow without being counted, without being recorded, without having to be justified by anyone.
A quiet day. A beloved beside me. And a small silver crescent moon, now shining in her hair.