The train smells like yesterday's sweat and this morning's optimism—a combination of cheap cologne, fried dough from the platform vendors, and the particular metallic tang of old steel grinding against older rails. Arkar wedges himself into a corner by the door, one hand gripping the overhead bar, the other thumbing through TikTok with the sound off because his earphones died somewhere between his bed and the street.
6:42 AM. Late again.
His phone buzzes. Mom's third text in ten minutes: Did you eat? Are you on the train? Answer me.
He pockets the phone without replying. She'll worry anyway. That's what she does now—worry in place of conversation, check his location instead of asking how he slept. Three years since Thidar disappeared in the Fade and his mother still sets the table for three every morning, still leaves the guitar case untouched in the corner like a shrine to someone who might walk back through the door.
Arkar shifts his weight as the train lurches forward, the ancient carriage groaning like it's personally offended by the concept of motion. A woman with a baby strapped to her chest stumbles into him, apologizes in rapid-fire Burmese. He mumbles it's fine, angles his body to give her more room, and goes back to scrolling.
The video on his screen is some kid in Mandalay doing a dance challenge. Twelve million views. The algorithm thinks this is what he wants. What he wants is to not be on this train. What he wants is to have remembered to charge his fucking earphones so he wouldn't have to hear the crying baby, the off-key humming of the old man two seats over, the constant chatter of students comparing exam notes like their lives depend on memorizing the exact date the British left Burma.
The guitar pick hanging from a thin chain around his neck swings with the train's rhythm. He catches it reflexively, thumb running over the worn edge. Thidar gave it to him for his fourteenth birthday, three months before the Fade. He can still hear her voice: "You're gonna be better than me, little brother. Just stop being such a pussy about performing."
He wasn't. He didn't. And now she's gone.
The train slows for the next stop. Arkar watches the platform through the grimy window—vendors selling samosas and sweet tea, a monk in saffron robes waiting patiently with his alms bowl, a cluster of university students shouting over each other about something that sounds political but is probably just gossip. Yangon in the early morning is a specific kind of chaos: everyone moving like they're late for something, nobody actually running because what's the point? The train will be late. The bus will be late. Time itself feels negotiable here.
The doors rattle open.
A girl steps on.
Arkar notices her the way you notice a pothole—reflexive, automatic, already cataloging the information for later use. New face. Transfer student, probably. She's got a canvas messenger bag covered in K-pop stickers (BTS, Blackpink, someone he doesn't recognize), ripped jeans that look expensive, and the kind of nervous energy that comes from not knowing where to stand on a crowded train.
She makes eye contact for half a second when the train jerks forward and she stumbles into the center pole. Her hand shoots out to steady herself, fingers wrapping around the metal just above where his hand grips the overhead bar. Close enough that he can smell her shampoo—something floral, probably cheap, definitely better than the ambient train smell.
She smiles. Awkward. Apologetic.
Arkar looks away.
His phone buzzes again. Group chat.
Phyo Pyae: YO anyone see the new girl in 12-B??? 🔥🔥🔥
Hein Latt:bro its 6am how do you know this
Phyo Pyae: Saw her at the admin office yesterday. Transfer from Mandalay. She's in our homeroom
Ei Phyu: you're a creep
Phyo Pyae: I'M JUST OBSERVANT
Phyo Pyae: Arkar you on the train? Look around. Canvas bag. Can't miss her
Arkar glances up despite himself. The girl with the messenger bag is still standing near the pole, now holding onto a plastic handle with both hands, swaying slightly with the train's movement. She's scrolling through her phone, earbuds in, completely absorbed in whatever she's watching. There's a slight furrow between her eyebrows, the kind of focused concentration that makes her look older than she probably is.
He types back one-handed: on the train. dont care
Phyo Pyae: LIAR you totally looked
Arkar doesn't respond. He shoves his phone into his jacket pocket and stares out the window instead, watching Yangon slide past in layers of corrugated metal roofs, laundry lines strung between buildings, satellite dishes pointing at a sky already hazy with heat and pollution. The sun is climbing, turning everything the color of old brass.
The train rounds a bend and the girl loses her balance again—this time bumping into an older woman who shoots her a look that could curdle milk. The girl apologizes profusely, backing up until she's almost pressed against Arkar's side of the carriage. She mutters something under her breath that sounds like this is fine, totally fine, just a normal first day.
Arkar catches the edge of it and almost—almost—smirks.
But then his phone vibrates with another text from his mom (Please eat something. I left money on the table) and the moment passes. He pockets the phone again, this time with more force than necessary, and the guitar pick swings forward, catching the light.
The girl notices. Of course she does.
"That's cool," she says.
Arkar blinks. Looks down. Realizes she's talking to him.
"The pick," she clarifies, nodding at his chest. "Do you play?"
Her voice is softer than he expected. A little breathless, like she's not used to talking to strangers on trains. Which—fair. Nobody talks to strangers on trains in Yangon unless they're selling something or trying to scam you.
"Used to," he says.
It comes out more clipped than he intended. She seems to take the hint, nodding quickly and turning back to her phone. But there's a flicker of something across her face—disappointment, maybe? Curiosity? He can't tell and doesn't want to.
The train slows again. His stop is coming up in three more. He should put his earphones away (they're dead anyway), should check if he has his student ID (he doesn't), should think about literally anything other than the fact that this girl smells like shampoo and optimism and all the things he stopped believing in when his sister vanished.
Instead, he shifts his grip on the overhead bar, thumb still rubbing the edge of the guitar pick.
Used to.
The words sit heavy in his mouth, bitter like overbrewed tea.
... ... ...
The train spits him out at his stop along with thirty other students, all of them funneling toward the same crumbling school building three blocks away. Arkar lights a cigarette the moment his feet hit pavement—a habit his mom hates, which is exactly why he does it. The first drag burns his throat in a way that feels clean, clarifying.
His phone buzzes nonstop as he walks. The group chat is on fire.
Phyo Pyae: Arkar update. Did you talk to her
Ei Phyu: leave him alone he's antisocial
Phyo Pyae: HE'S NOT ANTISOCIAL HE'S DEPRESSED THERE'S A DIFFERENCE
Hein Latt: same thing
Phyo Pyae: NOT THE SAME THING
Arkar mutes the chat and keeps walking. The street is already packed—motorbikes weaving between trishaws, vendors shouting about fresh sugarcane juice, stray dogs nosing through garbage piles. A monk passes him going the opposite direction, alms bowl tucked under one arm, and Arkar reflexively nods in respect before remembering he's supposed to be too cool for that shit.
The school comes into view, a three-story concrete block that's seen better decades. The gate is propped open with a brick, the guard asleep in his plastic chair, and the courtyard is full of students clustering in their usual groups. Arkar spots his people immediately—Phyo Pyae gesturing wildly near the flagpole, Hein Latt and Ei Phyu sitting on the low wall, sharing a bag of fried chickpeas.
"THERE HE IS," Phyo Pyae announces at a volume that makes several people turn and stare. "The ghost of 12-B. Did you talk to her?"
"No," Arkar says flatly.
"Did you at least look at her?"
"She's a human being, not a science experiment."
"That's not a no," Ei Phyu observes, crunching a chickpea.
Arkar flips her off and steals the bag from her hands. She squawks in protest but doesn't actually try to take it back. They've got a system: she buys breakfast, he pretends to steal it, everyone gets fed. It's worked since tenth grade.
"She seems nice," Hein Latt offers, ever the diplomat. "Quiet."
"She was on my train," Arkar admits through a mouthful of chickpeas. "Asked about my guitar pick."
Phyo Pyae's eyes light up like he's just won the lottery. "AND? WHAT DID YOU SAY?"
"That I used to play."
"Jesus Christ, Arkar."
"What?"
"That's the saddest thing you could possibly say. You might as well have told her your dog died."
"I don't have a dog."
"METAPHORICALLY."
The bell rings—a shrill, rattling sound that cuts through the courtyard chaos. Students start shuffling toward the building, slow and reluctant as cattle. Arkar finishes the chickpeas, crumples the bag, and tosses it toward a trash can. Misses. Ei Phyu sighs and picks it up for him.
"You're a disaster," she informs him.
"Yeah," he agrees. "I know."
... ... ...
Homeroom 12-B is on the second floor, third door on the left, and it smells like whiteboard markers and teenage hormones. Arkar slides into his usual seat—second row from the back, window side, close enough to look engaged but far enough to nap if necessary. Phyo Pyae claims the seat directly behind him, already pulling out his phone to film something for TikTok.
The room fills slowly. Familiar faces, familiar routines. Hein Latt and Ei Phyu take the seats to his right, already bickering about something inconsequential. A couple of girls near the front are comparing nail polish. Someone's blasting music from tinny phone speakers until the teacher walks in and glares them into silence.
And then she appears.
The girl from the train. Canvas bag, K-pop stickers, nervous energy. She hovers in the doorway like she's not sure this is the right room, even though the giant "12-B" painted on the wall makes it pretty fucking obvious.
The teacher—Ms. Aye, mid-forties, perpetually exhausted—spots her immediately.
"Ah! Our transfer student. Come in, come in."
The girl steps inside. Every head in the room turns to stare, because that's what teenagers do when confronted with novelty. She keeps her eyes down, fingers tight around the strap of her bag.
"Class, this is Thinzar. She's transferring from Mandalay. I expect you all to make her feel welcome."
Polite murmurs. A few scattered smiles. Phyo Pyae leans forward and whispers directly into Arkar's ear: "Dude. Thinzar. That's a beautiful name."
"Shut up," Arkar mutters.
Ms. Aye gestures toward the empty seat two rows ahead of Arkar, near the window. "You can sit there. We'll get you caught up on what you've missed."
Thinzar nods, makes her way down the aisle. As she passes Arkar's desk, her eyes flick toward him for just a second—recognition, maybe? Acknowledgment of their brief train encounter? He can't tell. She sits down, carefully arranging her bag beside her chair, and pulls out a tablet covered in more stickers.
Phyo Pyae is practically vibrating with excitement behind him. Arkar can feel the energy radiating off his friend like heat from a busted radiator.
Ms. Aye launches into morning announcements—something about university entrance exams, something about a school festival in two months, something about behavior expectations that nobody's listening to. Arkar zones out immediately, pulling his own notebook from his bag and opening it to a random page.
Except it's not a random page.
It's covered in chord progressions. Half-finished song lyrics. Sketches of musical notation that probably don't make sense to anyone but him. He'd forgotten this was in here—remnants from before, when he actually gave a shit about music.
His thumb finds the guitar pick again. Rubs the worn edge.
You're gonna be better than me, little brother.
He flips the notebook shut.
... ... ...
The rest of homeroom drags. Ms. Aye talks about upcoming exams with the kind of grim determination usually reserved for military generals. Someone asks a question about extra credit. Someone else falls asleep and gets a marker thrown at their head. Standard Wednesday morning chaos.
Arkar spends most of it staring out the window, watching the city wake up beyond the school walls. Motorbikes streaming past, vendors setting up carts, the endless hum of Yangon moving through its routines. Somewhere out there, his mom is probably at work already—cleaning offices in a high-rise downtown, coming home smelling like bleach and exhaustion.
He should text her back. He won't.
When the bell finally rings, there's the usual scramble—bags zipped, chairs scraped, conversations picked up mid-sentence. Arkar's slower to move, letting the initial wave of bodies clear out before standing. Phyo Pyae is already halfway out the door, shouting something about bathroom break, while Hein Latt and Ei Phyu linger near the windows, deep in conversation about some drama he hasn't been paying attention to.
And Thinzar.
She's still at her desk, tablet open, stylus moving across the screen in quick, practiced strokes. She's drawing something—he can't see what from this angle, but she's completely absorbed, bottom lip caught between her teeth in concentration.
Arkar watches for a second longer than he should.
Then he grabs his bag and leaves.
... ... ...
Break time means the courtyard, which means the usual corner near the rusted basketball hoop where his group claims territory. Phyo Pyae has already bought a bag of samosas from the vendor outside the gate and is distributing them like he's the UN delivering aid to a disaster zone.
"One for you, one for you, and THREE for me because I paid."
"That's not how sharing works," Ei Phyu points out.
"It's exactly how sharing works when I'm the one with money."
Arkar accepts his samosa without comment, biting into the flaky pastry and letting the spiced potato filling burn the roof of his mouth. Pain is grounding. Pain means he's here, present, not drifting through his own head.
"So," Phyo Pyae says, waggling his eyebrows. "Thinzar."
"Don't start."
"I'm just saying—"
"Don't."
"—she seems cool. And she was totally looking at you during announcements."
Arkar takes another bite of samosa. "She was looking at the window behind me."
"Same thing."
"Not the same thing."
Hein Latt, ever the voice of reason, interjects: "Maybe we should actually talk to her instead of speculating like creeps."
"THANK YOU," Ei Phyu says, shooting Phyo Pyae a pointed look.
But Phyo Pyae is undeterred. "Fine. Let's go talk to her. Right now."
"She's literally sitting alone by the library," Hein Latt observes, nodding toward the far side of the courtyard where Thinzar has claimed a bench, tablet propped on her knees.
"Perfect. Let's go."
"Absolutely not," Arkar says.
But Phyo Pyae is already moving, samosa in hand, confidence in every step. Hein Latt and Ei Phyu exchange a look—half amused, half resigned—and follow. Which leaves Arkar with two choices: stay behind and look like an antisocial asshole, or follow and participate in whatever social nightmare Phyo Pyae is about to create.
He follows.
Because at least if it goes badly, he'll be there to witness it.
... ... ...
Thinzar looks up as they approach, stylus pausing mid-stroke. There's a flicker of something across her face—wariness? Curiosity? She closes the tablet cover slightly, like she's not sure if she should be guarding whatever she was working on.
"Hey!" Phyo Pyae announces, at a volume that suggests he's never heard of subtlety. "You're Thinzar, right? From Mandalay?"
She nods slowly. "Yeah. Hi."
"I'm Phyo Pyae. This is Hein Latt, Ei Phyu, and..." He gestures broadly at Arkar. "This is Arkar. He's tragically antisocial but we keep him around for his sparkling personality."
Arkar glares. Phyo Pyae grins back, shameless.
Thinzar's expression softens into something that might be amusement. "Nice to meet you all."
"Can we sit?" Ei Phyu asks, already moving to claim a spot on the bench before waiting for an answer. Hein Latt follows suit, and suddenly Arkar is left standing awkwardly while his friends settle in like they're planning to stay awhile.
He sits. Because standing would be weirder.
Thinzar shifts slightly to make room, tucking the tablet more securely against her side. Up close, Arkar can see the details he missed on the train: the chipped black nail polish on her left hand, the small scar near her eyebrow, the way her eyes are slightly red-rimmed like she didn't sleep well.
"So," Phyo Pyae continues, apparently appointed spokesperson for the group. "How are you finding Yangon so far?"
"Hot," Thinzar says immediately. Then laughs, a little self-conscious. "I mean, Mandalay is hot too, but this is... different. More humid."
"Welcome to hell," Arkar mutters.
She glances at him, and for a second there's that recognition again—oh right, train guy. Her mouth quirks slightly, not quite a smile.
"What were you drawing?" Ei Phyu asks, nodding at the tablet.
Thinzar hesitates. "Just... sketches. Nothing special."
"Can we see?"
Another hesitation. Then, like she's decided to trust them for reasons Arkar can't fathom, she opens the tablet cover and angles the screen.
It's Yangon. Or a version of it—stylized, digital, rendered in bold colors and sharp lines. The circular train winding through the city, buildings stacked like children's blocks, the Shwedagon Pagoda gleaming gold in the background. It's good. Really good. The kind of good that makes Arkar irrationally annoyed because he used to be good at something too, once, before he gave up.
"Holy shit," Phyo Pyae breathes. "This is amazing."
Thinzar ducks her head, embarrassed. "It's just practice. I want to study digital art. Maybe abroad, if I can get a scholarship."
"You totally could," Ei Phyu says with the confidence of someone who has no idea how scholarships work but wants to be supportive anyway.
They fall into easy conversation after that—Phyo Pyae dominating as usual, asking rapid-fire questions about Mandalay, about her family, about why she transferred. Thinzar answers with the kind of careful politeness that suggests she's still figuring out whether these people are safe to trust.
Arkar doesn't say much. He finishes his samosa, wipes his hands on his jeans, and lets the chatter wash over him. But he's watching. Noticing the way Thinzar's fingers tap against the tablet case when she's thinking. The way she laughs a little too quickly at Phyo Pyae's jokes, like she's trying to fit in. The way her eyes keep drifting back to her drawing, like she'd rather be alone with it than sitting here with strangers.
He gets that.
The bell rings eventually, cutting through the moment. Everyone groans, gathering bags and trash. Thinzar stands, slipping the tablet back into her messenger bag with practiced efficiency.
"See you in class!" Phyo Pyae calls as they scatter.
She waves, small and uncertain.
Arkar lingers for half a second, watches her walk toward the building alone. There's something about the set of her shoulders—like she's bracing for impact, even though nothing's coming.
He knows that feeling too.
... ... ...
The rest of the day is a blur of classes he doesn't pay attention to, teachers he doesn't respect, and subjects that feel increasingly pointless the closer he gets to graduation. What's the point of calculus when the world ended three years ago and nobody bothered to tell the education system?
By the time the final bell rings, Arkar's exhausted in the specific way that comes from doing nothing all day. He skips the usual post-school hangout—Phyo Pyae's inevitable trip to some street food vendor—and heads straight for the train station.
The platform is packed. Rush hour in Yangon is like trying to breathe underwater. He finds a spot near the edge, far enough from the crowd to avoid getting crushed when the train arrives, and pulls out his phone.
One new message from Mom: I'm working late. There's rice in the cooker.
He types back: ok
Deletes it.
Types: thanks
Sends that instead.
The train screeches into the station, brakes screaming, metal protesting every second of its existence. Doors clatter open. The crowd surges. Arkar lets himself be carried forward, wedging into a corner near the door, one hand gripping the overhead bar.
And then, like the universe has a sense of humor, Thinzar boards.
Same spot on the train. Same nervous energy. Same canvas bag.
Their eyes meet.
She smiles. Tentative. Hopeful.
Arkar looks away.
But as the train lurches forward, grinding along its ancient tracks, he finds his thumb rubbing the edge of the guitar pick again.
Used to play.
The words echo in his head, bitter and true.
Outside the window, Yangon slides past in shades of gold and rust. The sun is setting, painting everything the color of old brass, and somewhere in the distance, a monk is chanting evening prayers.
Arkar closes his eyes.
The train rattles on.