Their Days of Nights

46 : Hint

Benjamin

I wake up in a strange dark room. I blink a couple more times, then I remember where I am and why I'm here.

I get up from Kim's bed and reach over the desk for my phone.

It's midnight already.

I missed some texts from my aunt—my mom's cousin, who's living alone in that house where grandma died. It's too late to go there nor to reply. I'm sure she's asleep by now. I still send her a message. I say I'm at Kim's and will drop by the ancestral house in the decent hours of the morning.

I turn on the light in the room. There's a pair of worn-out slippers on the floor next to the bed that wasn't there earlier. They're big enough for her, but just right for me. Kim must have left them for me to use.

"I know I heard a sound from here," she's already standing by the doorway before I reach it. "Are they good?" she points at my feet. "They're from my brother's old things."

"They're fine."

"There's take-out food in the kitchen."

That solves one thing because I'm starving.

I stretch my arms upward as Kim walks inside and drops her body down on her bed, where we cuddled and made out hours ago. Until I yawned, and she laughed. Then she walked out and left me here to catch up on sleep.

"My brother and I will visit the hospital first thing in the morning," she says to the ceiling. "You can join us, or you can stay here."

I drop my arms. "I, uh, I'd love to," I say, "but I have to show up at my aunt's."

"Oh, right. It's okay."

"What time did Kelvin landed here?"

"He's already walking around in there when I woke up at around nine."

I pull the chair from under the desk and sit on it. "How's the couch?"

"It's alright. How's my bed?"

"Eh."

"Can we go back to the Metro on Sunday night?" she asks while getting up, and I'm collecting my phone's charger from under the desk. She stops moving and squints. "Wait, that's tonight." And she laughs at herself.

"Of course," I smile and nod at her. "We'll leave tonight."

We hear a door closing from the back of the house, reminding us that we're not alone here anymore. We leave the room and head down to the kitchen.

Kim arranges the table while I use their bathroom. When I step out, her brother is standing next to the refrigerator, taking out a box of donuts.

"Is that your car in our driveway?" he asks me as he shuts the door. I can only sense that he's tired, so I can't tell if he's being neutral or cold to me.

"Yes. Well, technically, it's my sister's. I just use it when she's not around."

He nods and lays the box on their dining table next to the Chinese fast-food take-outs.

"How's it going?" he directs the vague question at me.

"Fine, I guess."

Kim goes back to the living room to get the packs of instant coffee that she bought earlier at the pit stop. She knows her parents only drink decaf, and we can't survive without caffeine.

I wait for her before I reach for the food. I ask her brother if he needs me to move the Vios when they leave in the morning, and he tells me not to worry about it. He doesn't want to drive that old pick-up anymore. He and Kim have no problem taking a jeep to the city.