June's lips stopped one breath from mine.
"Say it again," she whispered.
Rain ran from her hair onto my face. The lazy river moved around our waists, carrying empty tubes past us while the artificial waterfall roared against the stone wall.
"Stay," I said.
June kissed me.
There was nothing careful about it.
Her arms closed around my neck. My hands found her waist beneath the warm water. For one second, surprise held me still.
Then I kissed her back.
The first kiss broke when we needed air.
June looked into my eyes, giving me enough time to step away.
I did not.
I pulled her closer, and our mouths met again beneath the rain.
Months of restraint disappeared between us. The Grand Fountain. The Wall. Her question about whether we could have remained a couple. My joke about marrying her if we survived. Every unfinished answer returned through one desperate kiss.
June's fingers moved into my wet hair. My thumb traced the line of her cheek. Water pressed our bodies together while rain hid the rest of the park behind a silver curtain.
For those few seconds, there was no A.V.
There was no future.
There was only the girl I had spent years almost choosing and the terrible relief of no longer pretending I could stop wanting her.
Kitty saw everything.
She stood beneath the palm trees with my towel folded across both hands.
She saw June kiss me first.
She saw me hesitate.
Then she saw me place both hands around June and kiss her as if hesitation had never existed.
The towel slipped from Kitty's fingers.
Nobody heard it hit the wet pavement.
Bunny and Cherry were arguing near the raft photographs. NC had gone to find JP. Most visitors faced the darkening sky or hurried toward the locker building.
Kitty remained alone beneath the rain.
Her mouth opened, but no sound came.
She had told me to speak honestly with June.
She had not told me to answer with my mouth.
Kitty lowered her head and walked away.
Rain covered her face before anyone could see whether she was crying.
Almost anyone.
NS stood on the exit stairs of the family raft ride.
From that height, he saw the lazy river.
He saw me and June.
Then he saw Kitty leaving without her towel.
He did not shout my name.
He followed her.
The first thunder arrived two minutes later.
Three sharp whistle blasts crossed the park. The safety flag changed from yellow to red. Lifeguards entered the shallow pools and ordered everyone out of the water.
June and I separated.
The present returned through whistles, announcements, and visitors climbing toward shelter.
"All water attractions are closed," a lifeguard called. "Please move to the covered areas and remain out of the pools."
I looked toward the palm trees.
My towel lay abandoned beside the path.
Kitty was gone.
"She saw us," June said.
Her voice sounded smaller than it had inside the water.
"How do you know?"
"Because that is your towel."
I pushed toward the pool steps.
The lifeguard caught my arm when I tried to climb over the side instead of using the marked exit.
"Stairs," he ordered.
Even guilt had safety rules.
By the time I reached the path, Kitty had entered the locker building.
NS waited outside the women's changing-room entrance wearing only swim shorts and a towel around his shoulders. Rainwater ran from his hair. He sent one message to NC.
Please check Kitty. Don't ask questions yet.
Then he returned to the men's locker room, changed faster than he ever had in his life, and removed the small black umbrella he had carried in his day bag despite everyone's mockery that morning.
When Kitty emerged, she wore dry clothes but had not dried her hair.
Her eyes were swollen.
NS opened the umbrella above her.
"I don't need that," she said.
"I know."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because the shuttle isn't."
She tried to walk past him.
NS moved with her, keeping the umbrella over Kitty and allowing the rain to soak his own shoulder.
He did not touch her.
He did not ask what she had seen.
He simply matched her pace while she walked with her head lowered toward the main exit.
Aina found them beside the pickup lane.
Leaving the park early required more than disappearing into a taxi. The exchange program had responsibility for every student it brought. Aina recorded their names, changed the return manifest from twenty-four to twenty-two, and arranged for a Mashara campus vehicle rather than allowing two distressed foreign students to travel alone.
"Do you need the clinic?" she asked Kitty.
"No. I need the dorm."
Aina looked at NS.
"You are escorting her?"
"Yes."
"Message when both of you arrive."
The driver checked their residence address before moving away from Water Boom.
Kitty sat beside the window in the second row. NS sat on the other side of the vehicle, leaving the middle seat empty.
Rain turned the green hills into blurred shapes beyond the glass.
For ten minutes, neither spoke.
Then Kitty asked, "Did you see them?"
"Yes."
"How much?"
"Enough."
"I told him to talk to her."
"You asked him to be honest. What he did with that honesty belonged to him."
"I sent him toward her."
"Kitty."
She turned from the window.
"Don't tell me I knew this could happen. Don't tell me our relationship was complicated. Don't tell me June loved him first. I know every intelligent sentence already."
"I wasn't going to say any of them."
"Then what are you going to say?"
NS looked at the rain between them.
"That it hurt."
Kitty's face collapsed.
She covered her mouth, but the sob escaped anyway.
NS moved only when she reached for him.
Kitty crossed the empty seat and pressed her forehead against his shoulder. He placed one arm around her carefully, as if holding something wounded that had not given him permission to repair it.
He did not tell her she deserved better.
He did not tell her to choose him.
He let her cry until the campus appeared beyond the rain.
At Water Boom, June and I stood beneath the locker-building roof while thunder closed every pool.
I called Kitty.
The call ended without an answer.
I called NS.
He sent one message.
She is safe. We are returning to Mashara. Do not follow tonight.
"Give me your phone," I told Farid. "I need a car."
"The campus vehicle already left," he said. "Another will return after dropping them off. You cannot leave the program location without being signed out."
"Kitty is hurt."
"And she is with an approved escort. Running into an unfamiliar city will not make her safer."
I hated that he was right.
June sat on the bench behind me.
"Go when the car returns," she said.
"What am I supposed to say to her?"
"The truth."
"That worked extremely well today."
June flinched.
"Don't make the kiss mine alone."
I turned toward her.
"I didn't."
"You kissed me back. You held me. If you regret hurting Kitty, say that. If you regret kissing me, say that too. Do not combine them because you want one innocent sentence."
The rain hammered the metal roof.
"I don't regret wanting you," I said. "I regret wanting you like nobody else existed."
June looked away.
Her waterproof phone pouch lit on the bench.
A.V.: You went quiet. Did something happen?
She turned the phone off without answering.
"Somebody always exists outside the moment," she said.
This time, both of us understood who she meant.
Mashara's female residence allowed registered visitors only inside the ground-floor common room.
NS checked Kitty in with the residence supervisor, sent Aina the required arrival message, and bought two cups of hot tea from the vending counter.
Kitty changed into dry clothes upstairs. NC and Anna offered to remain with her, but she asked for ten minutes alone with NS.
They sat across from each other in the empty common room.
The black umbrella dripped into a plastic stand beside the door.
"Why do you keep doing this?" Kitty asked.
"Buying bad tea?"
"Showing up when I am humiliated."
"You aren't humiliated."
"I watched my boyfriend make out with my friend in a pool."
NS's jaw tightened at the word boyfriend, but his voice remained gentle.
"They should be ashamed of hurting you. You do not have to be ashamed of seeing it."
Kitty wrapped both hands around the paper cup.
"Are you waiting for me to choose you now?"
"No."
"You answered too quickly."
"Because I decided the answer years ago."
"What does that mean?"
NS leaned back, putting more space between them before saying it.
"I have loved you since Foundation Year."
Kitty stopped breathing for a second.
"NS..."
"The first month at Campus 2," he continued. "Before any of us understood what we were becoming. You carried spare pens because other people always forgot theirs. You remembered who hated coffee and who pretended not to be hungry. You laughed before JP reached the punch line because you didn't want him to feel ignored."
Kitty stared at him.
"Those are tiny things."
"That is why I knew it wasn't a performance. I kept noticing them when nobody was watching."
"You flirted with June."
"Yes."
"You let me believe you wanted her."
"Sometimes I wanted the easier version of my life. June looked toward me when she was angry with XH. You looked toward XH even when you were angry with him. Being wanted was easier than waiting."
He did not make the admission noble.
"I hurt people because I was jealous," he said. "I confused attention with love. I will answer for that."
"I liked being wanted by June. I cared about her. I was angry at XH. I made a mess of all of it. But underneath those things, it was you. It was always you."
"Why didn't you say that before?"
"Because you chose him. Because saying it while you loved him would have turned my feelings into pressure."
"And saying it now doesn't?"
"It might. That is why I am not asking for anything."
He moved his untouched tea toward her when hers became empty.
"You asked why I stayed. That is the answer. You do not owe me a different ending because I told you."
Kitty began crying again.
This time, she did not move into his arms.
NS remained across the table and let her keep the distance she chose.
That restraint was the oldest proof of his love.
The group returned from Water Boom after six.
The red safety flag remained raised. Rain covered the road all the way to campus.
I went directly to the female residence.
NS waited beneath the entrance canopy with the black umbrella closed beside him.
"Is she okay?" I asked.
"No."
"I need to apologize."
"Not tonight."
"You don't decide that."
"She did."
He showed me Kitty's message.
Please don't let XH or June come upstairs. I can't see them tonight.
I read it twice.
"What did she tell you?"
"That is hers."
Anger rose because shame needed somewhere easier to stand.
Then I remembered the dormitory board asking what would stop me from confusing different kinds of fighting again.
I stepped back.
"Tell her I will wait."
"I will tell her you left when she asked."
It was not forgiveness.
It was the first useful thing I could give her.
June reached the entrance several minutes later. She held the Empress card Jihye had left inside her bag for safekeeping.
NS gave her the same answer.
"Not tonight."
June did not argue.
Aina arranged a spare bed in NC and Anna's room. Kitty would not be forced to share a room with the person who had just broken her.
Before walking away, June placed the Empress card on the common-room windowsill.
The painted woman sat among water and growing fields, promising care, desire, and protection.
None of us had understood that those things could point in different directions.
Near midnight, Kitty woke on the common-room sofa with a dry blanket around her.
NC and Anna had gone upstairs after she finally slept. The residence supervisor sat behind the front desk. Rain continued beyond the glass doors.
The black umbrella remained in the stand.
Kitty's phone showed one message from NS.
I am back at the men's residence. If you need anything, I am awake. I will not contact XH unless you ask.
No promise.
No request.
No attempt to turn her broken heart toward him.
Kitty held the phone against her chest and closed her eyes.
Across the courtyard, NS sat fully dressed beside his own window, waiting beneath a sky he could not protect her from.
He had loved her long enough to understand that tonight the deepest form of love was leaving the choice in her hands.