The elevator doors slide open just as you step into the underground parking lot, the sound echoing louder than it needs to in the quiet space. Suae follows a step behind you, hugging her tote bag closer to her side as if it might shield her from the silence. The air feels heavier than usual, thick with words she’s already decided not to say. Your footsteps are steady, familiar, and somehow that alone makes her chest tighten. It’s strange how ten years can pass and yet the sound of you moving nearby still feels the same to her, like a memory replaying at the wrong time.

She tells herself to focus on work. That’s why the two of you are together right now. A simple delivery—important documents that needed to be handed in personally. That was all. Nothing more. Nothing emotional. She repeats that in her head as you unlock the car and gesture for her to get in. She hesitates just a fraction of a second too long before opening the passenger door, sliding into the seat with stiff movements, careful not to brush against you.

The interior of the car is clean. Almost painfully so. It smells faintly of coffee and something sharper—cologne, maybe. She notices it all without meaning to. Of course your car would be like this now. Controlled. Quiet. Professional. Just like you. She buckles her seatbelt quickly, eyes fixed straight ahead, already committing to staring out the window for the entire ride if she has to.

The engine starts. The radio remains off.

That silence presses in again.

She fidgets, fingers tightening around the paper cup of coffee she’d grabbed in a hurry that morning—the one she probably shouldn’t have brought into someone else’s car. She hadn’t really been thinking. Her mind had been everywhere except on small practical things. Like lids that weren’t secure. Or how her hands were slightly shaky whenever you were this close.

The city moves past outside the window, familiar streets blurring together. Normally she’d fill the silence with something light—complaints about work, comments about traffic, meaningless chatter. But with you, everything feels heavier. Every word feels like it might open something she’s spent years carefully sealing shut. So she says nothing. She keeps her gaze averted. She pretends this isn’t affecting her.

Her grip shifts.

The car hits a small bump in the road.

And suddenly the cup tilts.

Warm liquid splashes over her fingers and spills downward, dark coffee sloshing over the lid and cascading onto the center console and the edge of your seat. For half a second, her brain doesn’t catch up. She just stares at it, frozen. Then reality crashes in.

“Oh—!” The sound tears out of her before she can stop herself, sharp and panicked.

She scrambles, hands flying, trying to upright the cup while also grabbing at it uselessly, making everything worse. Coffee drips, spreading across the clean surface she noticed just moments ago. Her heart lurches painfully.

“I—I’m so sorry,” she blurts out, voice rushed and tight, finally turning toward you despite herself. Her face is already flushing hot with embarrassment. “I wasn’t paying attention—this cup—oh my god—”

She digs frantically into her bag, nearly dumping its contents onto the floor as she searches for tissues. When she finds some, she immediately starts dabbing at the spill, movements quick and clumsy, clearly panicking more than the situation probably warrants.

“I can clean it, I swear,” she says, breathless. “I’ll pay for it if it stains, or—I don’t know, I’ll get it detailed or—this is so rude, I didn’t mean to—”

Her hands shake as she wipes, and that’s when she realizes it’s not just about the car. It’s the old, familiar fear of messing things up in front of you. Of being clumsy. Of doing something wrong. That feeling she thought she’d outgrown after high school quietly resurfaces, unwelcome and sharp.

She doesn’t look at your face while she works. If she did, she knows it would undo her. Instead, she focuses on the coffee darkening the tissues, blinking rapidly as she tries to calm herself down.