Even Then

Chapter 10: Stillness in the Noise

The province always smelled like smoke and soil. Not bad — just different. Cleaner in some ways, heavier in others. The kind of heavy that sits in your chest when you wake up at 5:30 a.m. to the sound of tin pots clanging in the kitchen, and the realization that your life in the city now feels like someone else's dream.

I'd been here for days now. Maybe a week. Time was moving weird again.

My brother still hadn't woken up.

The doctor said there was no major damage, thank God — just a mild traumatic brain injury from the accident. No surgeries, no long-term effects if all went well. But he was still under observation, and that meant hospital visits twice a day, sometimes more. Sometimes I'd bring my laptop and work beside his bed, sipping lukewarm coffee from a vending machine and trying not to notice how still he was.

When he sleeps normally, he kicks the blanket off. But now, he didn't move at all.

I hated it.

⸻

My days became this strange choreography — cooking breakfast while checking emails, scrubbing dishes while replying to chat threads, reviewing spreadsheets in the hospital lounge where the Wi-Fi was weaker than my will to live.

I hadn't seen Gyu since the night I left the city. I never even said goodbye.

He had messaged a few times — short ones, simple check-ins. I didn't respond. Not because I didn't want to, but because I didn't know what to say.

What do you text someone who saw a sliver of your calm persona cracking right before you sprinted out of the office?

What do you say to someone who makes you feel light, when your world just turned heavy again?

⸻

My work still got done. Of course it did. I didn't know how to stop.

I'd send files between peeling carrots and folding laundry. Answer emails while rocking my youngest sibling to sleep with one foot. Finish reports in between arguments about what merienda to eat.

I was exhausted. And I looked fine.

My boss was kind — gave me leeway, asked if I needed more time. I always said no.

"No, kaya ko po."

No, I can manage.

No, I'm okay.

Always okay.

Except for the nights when I wasn't.

⸻

One evening, I stepped outside the hospital after checking in on bunso. The night was soft and blue, stars dusting the sky in a way they never did in the city. I leaned against the railing, feeling the cool metal press into my back, and just... let myself breathe.

It didn't help much.

I stared at the stars, thinking of things I hadn't let myself think about in days.

How tired I was. How scared. How lonely.

And how much I missed—

No. Don't go there.

I pulled out my phone, intending to scroll or distract or disappear. A new message sat unopened.

Mingyu.

"I don't want to bother you. But if you ever need anything — anything at all — I'm still here."

It had been sent two days ago.

I read it three times. Maybe four. The blinking cursor waiting for a reply that wouldn't come. Not yet.

I locked the screen and clutched the phone to my chest.

I didn't cry loud. I never do.

But that night, in the silence of my province, with my family asleep and my world a little too quiet...

I let the tears come. Quiet, stubborn ones. The kind that slipped out in spite of me.

Because I missed everything.

Because I didn't know what was next.

Because someone had noticed I was breaking — and still wanted to stay.

And I didn't know if I was ready for that.