Aria's Apartment – 12:47 AM
The note sat on her desk, untouched since she found it.
Happy first day, Firefly.
She'd stared at it for hours. Turned it over like a puzzle. Held it under light, breathed over it, even sniffed it like some tragic romantic, as if scent could confirm the sender.
But deep down, she knew.
Only one person ever called her that.
She hadn't heard it in over ten years.
Not since her thirteenth birthday, when he vanished like smoke and left only silence in his place. No goodbye. No explanation. Just gifts in the mail every year, signed with a tidy, impersonal note.
"Wishing you well, Aria."
"Hope you're thriving."
"Stay strong."
She never replied. But she never threw them away, either.
The journal on her lap was dog-eared, full of smudged graphite and unsent letters.
She flipped to the most recent one.
---
July 18th
Dear Lucian,
You remembered.
That's what makes it worse, you know?
You remembered my first day. You knew. Somehow.
But you didn't call. You didn't show up.
You never do.
You leave me floating, flickering—
a firefly in a jar you refuse to open.
I want to hate you. I do.
But the worst part is…
I still wish you'd come back.
---
She closed the journal slowly, pressing the cover down as if trying to quiet her thoughts.
The city outside was humming, indifferent. But in the quiet glow of her room, something ached inside her that had no name.
ReGenesis Pharmaceuticals — Boardroom, 9:00 AM
Lucian sat at the head of the table, hands clasped loosely over a closed file. Executives flanked both sides, murmuring about expansion, partnerships, fiscal quarters.
He wasn't listening.
His mind was still in the lab. Still on the surveillance footage he shouldn't have watched again last night. Aria bent over her notes, biting her lip when she thought no one was watching.
He shouldn't care.
He told himself that ten times a day. She wasn't a child anymore. She didn't need him. She was a scientist now. An adult. A woman.
But he couldn't shake the guilt.
He hadn't meant to disappear back then. But when his adoptive father handed him the reins of ReGenesis, everything blurred. Expectations crushed affection. His life—suddenly inherited—left no room for softness.
She reminded him of too much.
He'd buried the watch from his father in a lockbox beside those old drawings she gave him. Crayon portraits with misspelled names and crooked stars.
He hadn't looked at them in years.
Now, he carried one in his wallet again.
He didn't know why.
Lab 7C – 11:22 AM
"Hey, you good?" Meilin asked, glancing up from her samples.
Aria jolted from her thoughts, eyes darting from the ceiling vent she'd been staring at blankly.
"Yeah. Sorry. Just... thinking about the compound."
"Uh-huh." Meilin raised an eyebrow. "Thinking about the compound while holding a pen upside down and staring into space like a ghost?"
"I like to call it creative microbiology."
Yusuf grinned from across the bench. "You're gonna fit in just fine, Aria."
She smiled, grateful for the distraction.
But the note still burned in her pocket.
She'd sworn she'd moved on.
But his voice still echoed in her head—soft, deep, gentle the way he only ever was with her. The way no one else ever spoke to her.
She still remembered the way he knelt when she was five and showed her how to tie her shoelaces with the patience of someone who had no place being kind.
She didn't understand why she missed him like a storm.
She only knew that she did.
Lucian's Office – 11:43 AM
He pulled up her file again.
Just to check her progress.
Just once.
That's what he told himself.
He didn't see the reflection of his own face in the screen, tired and pulled tight around the eyes.
Didn't see how much of her presence was already slipping through the cracks.