Chapter 19
“You’re here!”
Kian had thrown open the front door to his town house, his dark eyes wide, like he hadn’t fully believed she’d show.
Riya shifted on her feet, surprised by his relief—and, if she was honest, by her own decision to come. She wasn’t sure when
logic had stopped feeling logical, only that after another round of dead-end research and a creeping sense of failure, she’d
found herself saying yes when he’d invited her after she finished her Student Council meeting.
Plus this was a good opportunity to adjust the variables. Switch environments, change tactics, try a new input. Just like
any stalled experiment.
That’s all this was. Not any morbid curiosity about him. Not . . . anything else.
“Can I come in?”
“Yes! Of course.”
Kian ushered her inside like a nervous host. “Do you need anything? Water, juice, tea, coffee? Are you cold? It’s getting
chillier—do you want a blanket?”
Soft-yellow walls, old curtains, the scent of something garlicky and fried curling through the air.
A warm space crammed with color and memory: a glass cabinet crowded with trinkets and catering awards.
A caramel-brown upright piano in the corner, layered with dust. On a tiny entry table beside a bamboo plant, a framed photo of a Filipino man with kind eyes, standing in a creek, holding a little boy in a sun hat, the child’s toothy grin missing a front tooth.
She read the handwritten caption beneath: CK & KK.
Crisanto Kho. His dad.
And notably, no mother in sight. Just as nothing had come up when Riya first googled Kian.
The absence rang louder than anything else.
“My dad just got home,” Kian said. “But we can work in the living room. He won’t bother us.”
Riya’s brow furrowed. “Where is he? I should at least say hi—”
“Nah, not necessary.” Kian ran his fingers through his hair, gaze dropping. “He’s probably locked up in his room.”
Before she could respond, Kian waved her forward. “Come on.”
She cast one last glance at the photo before following.
As they settled into the living room, Riya didn’t waste any time opening her backpack.
“I brought something,” she said, pulling out a stack of handwritten pages and a thin spiral-bound notebook annotated into
oblivion.
“A love letter for me?” Kian asked hopefully.
“A new strategy.” Her fingers rested on the edge of her notebook.
With the right touch of magic, her khala had said, we can help someone recognize what’s already in their heart.
But this wasn’t that. This was a curse. If it fed on anything in Kian, it certainly wasn’t love. No, whatever the curse was
feeding on, it was something simpler: loneliness.
Being near her brought relief, a kind of counterfeit warmth of being wanted. So he fixated, felt better, and the curse rewarded
him. It was a loop: loneliness à fixation à reward à repeat.
Her job was to break it by cutting off the reward.
“I’ve come up with a diagnostic protocol,” she said. “We’ll test the curse’s intensity under different emotional conditions—neutrality,
irritation, discomfort—and look for patterns. What makes it stronger. More importantly, what makes it glitch.”
Kian smiled. “Nerd.”
“I—” Riya’s cheeks flushed. “I’m just being thorough.”
“Exactly what a nerd would say. So? I’m assuming you have some kind of theory?”
“I do.” Riya’s pen hovered over the notebook, tapping a steady rhythm. “The more distance I try to put between us, the worse
your behavior becomes.”
Kian tilted his head. “Worse how?”
“Your poem. Dodgeball. The soccer game. You escalated the second I stepped back. So maybe the curse isn’t growing stronger
on its own—it’s reacting to resistance. Like it’s trying to satisfy a craving, almost.”
“I do crave you, it’s true.”
“But a craving escalates when you deny it,” she said, ignoring him, “unless you interrupt the loop.”
She paused. “On that note, you wouldn’t happen to have a heart rate monitor, would you?”
Within minutes, they had it set up.
The first test was what Riya called a Controlled Rejection Test.
“This first test tracks the curse’s reward response,” she explained, flipping to a new page. “We know that distance hasn’t
weakened the curse. Now I want to test whether rejection triggers emotional withdrawal.” She glanced at the heart rate monitor
on his finger. “I’ll say a few statements. Be honest about how you feel, even if it’s embarrassing.”
“Especially if it’s embarrassing,” he said.
“Statement one: I don’t think about you when we’re apart.”
Kian’s brow twitched, but he stayed silent.
“Statement two: I don’t enjoy spending time with you.”
This time, Kian flinched—barely.
“Statement three: If this curse ended tomorrow, I wouldn’t miss you.”
That one landed. The heart rate monitor beeped softly as his gaze dropped.
“Spike in systolic pressure,” Riya noted.
“Just to clarify,” Kian said, “you don’t actually mean that, right?”
“It doesn’t matter what I mean,” she said. “Only how it feels.”
He pouted. “Right. Totally comforting.”
Riya didn’t answer. The curse wanted him to crave her attention—to fold himself around her like a sun-starved vine.
She removed the monitor from his finger and flipped to a new page. “Next is a resistance test. I want to measure how much
self-control you still have under the curse.”
Kian raised an eyebrow. “Define ‘self-control.’ Because I think I’m already failing. For example, may I hold your hand?”
“No,” said Riya, pulling her hand away. “These will be simple commands. Just try to resist the impulse to obey me.”
“Will you call me a bad boy if I don’t?”
“Test one,” she said flatly. “Look at me. Maintain eye contact.”
Kian blinked. “So, wait . . . you want me to do the opposite?”
“I want you to try.”
“So you don’t want me to maintain eye contact?”
Riya tore off her glasses, massaging the bridge of her nose. “No. I want you to maintain eye contact. Can you resist doing it?”
Kian opened his mouth, closed it again, then sighed. Finally—reluctantly—he pulled his gaze from Riya and stared at the wall.
He held out for two seconds—maybe three.
Then he let out a loud, pained groan.
His head snapped back to her, cheeks flushed, and he rubbed his temples. “Honestly? That hurt like hell.”
Riya sighed and jotted latency delay in her notebook. If he struggled this much now, what would happen when the curse got worse?
Next was the Contact Desensitization Trial. Riya cleared her throat.
“Sit back,” she said. “I’m just going to adjust your hoodie, if you don’t mind. Don’t move.”
“My hoodie?”
“For the next part, I need you to associate physical proximity with casual indifference. No intimacy. Just . . . neutrality.”
“I’m not sure I get it, but I think that is the coldest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Kian replied. “Which somehow makes
it the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Riya kneeled beside him, tugging at the bunched fabric at his shoulder, smoothing it out. Her fingers brushed his collarbone.
His skin was . . . warm. Softer than she expected.
It shouldn’t have been a big deal. Except her pulse betrayed her, and Kian had gone very, very still.
She caught the quick rise of his breath. The way his hands gripped his knees, fighting the urge to move.
To reach for her.
Riya stepped back at once.
“Minor uptick in tension,” she noted, flipping to a fresh page. “Possibly psychosomatic.”
A fancy way of saying: Maybe it was the curse. Maybe it was just nerves. Maybe—annoyingly—it was her.
Kian was still watching her, so Riya stared at the page. Her notes were a mess of scratch-outs, half-formed conclusions, erratic
handwriting.
She took a deep breath.
“You’re fully compelled by the curse,” she said. “No natural resistance. No signs of independent emotional response.”
Kian sat up straight. “What does that mean?”
“It means”—Riya slammed her notebook shut—“we’re screwed.”
The moment hung in the air.
But instead of reading the room, her stomach decided to let out a low rumble.
Kian’s smile widened. “Hungry?”
“. . . Work burns calories,” she muttered.
Kian stood and stretched his arms overhead. “We did do a lot. Come on—let’s raid the kitchen.”
But before they could move, another figure appeared in the doorway.
Kian’s dad.
He looked almost exactly as he had in the photo: same sharp black eyes, same thick brows Kian had inherited. The bright-yellow
tank top had been traded for a soft-blue sweater, frayed at the cuffs. His hair, now dusted with gray, was longer but still
enviably full. Riya’s dad would’ve been jealous.
Kian changed like a light flicking off. Shoulders locked. Warmth drained. There was the boy who’d wrecked Mel’s mousetrap
car. The mask.
“Oh!” his dad said, brightening. “I didn’t know you had a guest.”
“Yeah,” Kian replied flatly.
Riya stepped forward. “I’m Riya. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Kho.”
“Riya! What a pretty name,” his dad said. “Is that Sanskrit? Arabic? I think I’ve heard it before—”
“Dad.”
His father chuckled. “Kian never has friends over. I’m just glad he finally—” He stopped, forced a smile. “Are you hungry?
I made lumpia. Have you ever tried it?”
“We can handle ourselves,” Kian interrupted. “You don’t need to feed us.”
The air tightened.
“I’d love to try it,” Riya said quickly. “I’ve heard of lumpia—you eat it with banana ketchup, right?”
“Some people do! I make my own dipping sauce, though—vinegar, fish sauce, chili—”
“We’re fine,” Kian snapped.
His dad flinched. “. . . Oh. I just thought she might be hungry.”
Kian didn’t respond. Just stared at the floor.
Riya bit her lip.
“I’ll leave some in the kitchen,” his dad said at last. He lingered for a moment, then left without another word.
Kian didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Riya glanced at Kian, unsure of what to say—unsure of what she could say. Finally, she settled on a question: “How is he, by the way?”
“Huh?”
“After he fell, at work. Is he feeling all better now?”
“Oh.” Kian exhaled. “He’s fine. Overworks himself. Ever since Mom ditched us, it’s been—” He shrugged. “Miracle he’s even
home.”
Ever since Mom ditched us. The words were a puzzle piece locking into place. That explained the lack of photos, the absence online.