AISA NEVER believed me when I told her she talks in her sleep.

"Sure I do. Now grab a bucket and give me a hand or two will you?" I imagined her all kneeled up in her favorite maroon tee as she remarked, pretending to build that overrated sandcastle with a drawbridge. She's eighteen, but I hand her the empty bucket of popcorn chicken anyway.

Perhaps because it's the only thing I've ever told her when we went to Dan's Diner after homecoming, wishing we were at Santa Monica.

I never told her the entire story of how my gruesome friend of four years takes the form of a seventy-six year old man with an existential crisis when she's asleep. Or how sometimes she won't stop talking to the stars.

I don't effing know. Maybe it's an Asian thing. All I can say is she's definitely a two-brain under those sheets.

"Over here. Look, a starfish!"

"Ow!" I flinched as an imaginary piece of the hard and spiny starfish bounces over the top of my head.

"Really, Aisa?" I gestured, holding up the metal fork she threw my way.

Ah, Dan's Diner, the only fast food place in California that still used silverware instead of plastic cutlery. Dan's Diner was a classic and anyone who'd been there knew it was the perfect hangout spot for any lousy teenager my age. It was dimly lit, had a striking red retro look, and was doused in tons of lavish merchandise from the 90's. Best of all, Dan's strawberries and cream milkshake was to die for.

"Why has it never occurred to me that you are both a murderer and an immature psycho?"

"Sorry. Did you want something better over your head?" She bit into one of Dan's famous and overly greasy burgers when she burst into laughter, drizzling the ketchup all over my brand new suit and tie.

Oh, it was so on.

"That's it, I'm not having it!" I jumped up the slippery metal seat and began to strangle her, splattering the remaining ketchup on her bright pink ballgown.

She choked momentarily, hitting my face with a bucket and trying her best to kick me back onto my seat. Sadly, she managed to do just that using her stilettos that I completely paid no mind to. The blow on my stomach felt like that of an awfully strong baby horse. At once, my legs lost their balance, forcing my entire body to roll down and hit the dirty checkered flooring.

After being knocked out by a pair of high heeled shoes, I put my hands forward slowly and crawled back to my spot thinking she was done getting back at me. But boy was I wrong. She started to grab the remaining packs of ketchup, throwing them at me in every way possible, and I was certain that I broke a few nails trying to stop her.

It was an understatement, but me and Aisa were a recipe for disaster.

Luckily, nobody else was at the diner when we trashed it. After a few minutes of wrestling one another, we decided to call off the fight. Time had always been our white flag. We began counting to three and I nicely let go of her leg while she, calmly let go of my hair. We were beyond exhausted. Aisa closed her eyes for a brief moment and rested her head back, laying her arms on the table.

No way was I letting her off like that.

It was probably too late when she realised that the tip of her elbows were starting to get drenched in gatorade. I giggled, and it was a terrible giggle. A tiny little smirk crept up on my face as I waved goodbye to the juicy pieces of Swedish fish sliding off the table.

And it was at that moment I tipped her Gatorade slushie that I knew I was about to fall off the face of the earth. Yes, Aisa Kwon put Swedish fish in her Gatorade slushie. I too was weirded out, but I guess those unbelievable quirks were what brought us knuckleheads together. After all, I do put milk before cereal first.

"Bon Voyage!" I shouted with the most irritating enthusiasm.

The stern look on her face after that did not suit her little black bob. Her hungry eyes preyed on me, clearly saying she was enraged. Back then I could only pray for what was about to happen next.

She pounded her fists on the table.

"Ra!"

But despite all that cat and dog, chasing, and sleeping, what got to me the most about her was how Aisa constantly blabbered on about the billions of humans being in the world. She almost always says that we humans are only ever presented with two things.

She says it matters to keep the two in perfect balance.

Funny, she has her eyes closed when she says it. But when I ask her what those two things are, it's almost automatic that my proud Korean friend never answers.

And so whenever I got the chance I pondered upon those two things. I even pondered upon it at the diner.

Even when I wasn't asleep.

"Hey." Aisa waved her slim hand extra violently in front of my face.

I jolted, caught off guard staring blankly out the window beside our seat.

Aisa looked like a toothless iguana accidentally opening the camera for the very first time. She tried to stop herself from smiling but two seconds in and she's going off again like a loaded popcorn machine hitting the poor table.

"Sorry. I was just..." I licked my lips. "thinking."

"What're you thinking, dude? You seem buzzed." She put her legs up the seat, revealing the Stan Smiths she changed into underneath her ballooned dress.

"Whatever. Let me give you three things you should be thinking about."

"Number one. It's homecoming and you weren't king," She started, her tone dragging and pushy.

"Two, you didn't ask Sydney to the dance floor."

"And last but not the least you broke a wine glass and you almost passed out after a fruit punch."

"See? This whole day was a massive wreck. But guess what? You're in a diner drinking the best strawberry milkshake in town with the coolest girl in Cali."

"Who wouldn't want that?" She sneered, focusing on sipping her newly ordered Blue Bolt slushie. I was never a fan of the drink, and she was a huge one.

"What do you mean? All you drink is gatorade. Plus c'mon, you say it like this isn't the only diner in town."

"Do I?" She smiled and nodded, rolling whatever's left of her eyes out.

***

Two large servings of Chili con Carne fries later and both our weary eyes are fixated on the clock. We were crouched on the top of our table, purposely seated at the farthest end of the diner.

11:29PM

Only fifty-two seconds left, I think.

Hell, I lost count.

I nervously slid my feet back and forth onto the ground when I heard Aisa counting.

Hana.

Dul.

Set!

Then it happened, strawberry and gatorade oozed down the table. Our tall milkshake glasses flew across the black and white tiles. It was Friday night tradition that we'd race each other to the counter. Last one to get there had to clean the whole place up.

And that was definitely worse than having to pay for the bill.

After a lot of slipping, bouncing, and minor casualties I finally met face to face with the master of milkshakes, Dan Cooper, first.

Aisa patted herself on the back, convincing me she did a good job as we caught our breath and laughed the night away. A while later she raised her hands up in total defeat and took the mop and bucket back to the other side of the diner.

Stepping in front of the cashier, I took out my hungry wallet and handed Dan a crisp twenty.

To my surprise, Dan coughed unusually as I approached him. He tied back his apron securely with an indescribable look on his face and began to clean the grill. He obviously didn't want to take the money.

I threatened to leave it on the counter but the guy was way persistent than I thought.

"My call, Buddy. Not yours." He immediately snatched it and pressed the dollar bill back into my hands.

I scoffed at his generosity and punched his shoulder lightly, thinking we never did miss a single trip to the diner all summer. The large-built ginger guy was a family friend, and here at the diner if we weren't already having the time of our lives we knew he'd guarantee it.

I thanked him saying I owed him one and came back to our seat. I nudged Aisa on the cheek.

Let me just say that woman was extra good at cleaning, some gift I never had to begin with and so the diner was clean in a jiffy. I told her it was getting late and that we needed to head back home before I received her umma's Korean-style scolding.

"Hang on, speedy. You do realize this might be our last Ra & Aisa night out at the diner." Aisa scratched her fingernails on the chipped tabletop. She stood up anyway and we walked absolutely slow.

"No, this is just our last night together as a bunch of immature highschoolers."

"You're right. But even if it wasn't homecoming I'm pretty sure you'd still chicken out on Sydney Miller."

"Oh get lost, AK." I pushed her out the door.

"Will do, as long as your short American ass doesn't go around looking for me." She shot back, her shoulders laughing with her as we chased around the parking lot.

And I've lived every day since, dying, knowing Aisa Kwon did go missing that night.

A MONTH LATER

The roaring tides near the pier of Santa Monica were colder than I. My chapped lips blew a short whistle as I took in a deep breath of salty, ocean water.

Aisa wouldn't be thrilled to know I paid her hometown a visit.

The hometown she loved because of the sunsets and the one she hated because she was an immigrant. It was the hometown she thought she "borrowed" that she couldn't so much as pay a visit herself.

But I felt like I had to be there, even for just a little while.

I lay on the sand restless, scooping it up with both hands before throwing the grains deep into the endless blue pit.

Stupid me.

I huffed. The beach smelled different than I remember, somewhat stronger that my eyes began to burn. Still, I fought the ground and kicked it, debating myself on whether or not I should've come there.

"Ack." I jerked as my toes caught on something slimy in the water.

I propped myself up immediately and scanned my feet for the culprit.

Seaweed.

I pulled out the long gross strands of sea hair sprawled on my toes only to fish out a near empty bottle of Blue Bolt Gatorade tangled into it.

I studied the moist, plastic bottle carefully and shook it. It crackled.

Something was in it.

Quickly, I twisted the cap and before me were two oddly familiar items: a wet post-it and a pack of Swedish fish.

"Thanks, AK, but you're scaring me. " I raised the bottle to the sky.

I hastily ignored the candy and went straight for the post-it. I flipped the soggy paper over and read.

I'm sorry, but I have to do this. -AK

No. I must've read it wrong.

I read it again and again. I read every word over and over until the letters began to scramble.

Aisa would never.

I held the back of my neck, confused. But as soon as I lifted my head, I was dazed and I faltered, causing me to let go of the Gatorade bottle.

***

"Impossible." I breathed.

My body tingled, forcing my hairs to rise in a way they never had before. It was as if they had sensed something odd, something odd yet strangely regular.

My view began to brighten, and the biggest wave of familiarity washed over my being as I spotted a thick black bob on a small wrinkled face.

I was back at the diner.

"Over here. Look, a starfish!"

"Ow!" I flinched as an imaginary piece of the hard and spiny starfish bounced over the top of my head.

"Really, Aisa?" I gestured, holding up the metal fork she threw my way, again.

"Why has it never occurred to me that you are both a murderer and an immature psycho?"

"Sorry. Did you want something better over your head?" She bit into one of Dan's famous and overly greasy burgers when she burst into laughter, drizzling the ketchup all over my brand new suit and tie.

Oh, it was so on.

"That's it, I'm not having it!" I jumped up the slippery metal seat just like I remembered, but just as I was about to attack her I caught sight of the wall clock in my peripheral.

I glanced at it once more, just to be sure.

I was right. The hands were drawn much closer than I had previously remembered.

It read exactly 11:00PM.

It read exactly an hour before we left the diner, and exactly an hour before she went missing.

I was frantic and wanted to throw up.

"Ra, what's going on?" Aisa sensed a change in my demeanor.

I couldn't move. Something in me froze and I just took her into my arms, hugging her tight.

Surprisingly, Aisa didn't tell me to get off her, and oddly enough she didn't fight me back. Instead, she shoved me out of the way and bit her tongue, gasping out the pain I never knew she had.

And I watched her, with my own damn eyes as she pressed her hands deeply over her waist, as the dark red lines came seeping through her dress.

"AK," My voice shrudded in anger, maybe in fear.

Naturally, I was afraid. Not of the scars, but the truth that had come with it. The truth that had taken me out any moment I was off guard. I was afraid of the pieces that weren't there, the ones that I didn't see when Aisa Kwon had needed me the most.

Still, I vented at her.

"Why didn't you?" I yelled.

She turned her head to face me and her swollen eyes pierced right through mine.

"What? Tell you?" she paused. "No. You tell me, Ra." She pointed her finger almost straight at me and spoke.

"Why would anyone want to drag someone into their mess?"

"And why would anyone, anyone in their right mind, ever want to share a broken soul?" her eyes pleaded, and for the first time, the look she wore that day proved to me that my best friend had been miserable all along.

So I couldn't talk. So we just sat there on the top of our table, silent, me crying and her lying on my shoulder.

And we decided to stay like that for the longest time, maybe for almost the entire hour, before I decided to speak.

***

"Aisa."

"Hm?"

"Do you remember that conversation we had at this exact same spot at the diner? The one where I told you you talked in your sleep?"

"And? What about it?" She asked. Aisa had been facing the ceiling, flicking the invisible dust.

"Well, there's something else I haven't told you about."

"Okay, so tell me."

"You see. You didn't just talk at night." I began. "You my friend, had talked about the Terracotta warriors."

"Hell, you talked about asteroids and how to make a spam musubi." I mused. "As a matter of fact, you were so down under that at one point, you badly wanted to know how mummies were kept in perfect condition."

"And most of all, you always ended talking about these things. I don't know, two things you said that had to be in perfect balance."

"Like Yin and Yang, I guess." I said.

Aisa grinned a funny grin. She cracked up and spat out, squirting her Gatorade for the nth time that night.

"You wanna know something?" She cleared her throat.

"About those two things, I wasn't talking about all that right and wrong or good and bad."

"I was thinking more salty and sweet. Y'know? Hm...Like Gatorade and Swedish Fish."

I frowned internally at the false remark.

Clearly, there was something she hid from me, something much worse than her blind metaphors. Her views and hatred for prejudice were much much stronger and I respected that.

"Like Ra and Aisa?" I stated jokingly.

"Mhm, exactly like Ra and Aisa." she finished.

"Ra, I have a confession to make too." she went forward, leaning my head closer with her hands.

"Listen, I was never asleep." she whispered into my ear. "but right now, you are."

"What do you mean?" I said.

And the next thing I knew was Aisa Kwon stabbing my thigh with a fork.

"Ah!" I blinked.

But there was nothing. I felt no pain at all. Something wasn't right.

"It's time to wake up, Ra." Aisa smiled, and it was the sincerest I'd ever seen her.

Suddenly, everything inside the diner began to spin. The whole scene was fading, Aisa was fading, and they were all coming together in one single blur.

"Aisa?" I shouted.

Then everything turned black.

***

My crusted eyes hurt as I forced them open. I was completely soaked. My hands reached out beside me, feeling the soft, buttery sand.

I was back at the beach.

Once awake, I immediately struggled for air. My hands climbed up my neck and I began to breathe. I breathed many times; so many times that I felt that the air around me was again, very different. The wind at the beach smelled strong and instead of relief, every breath had choked me. I welled up and it stung real bad as if my eyes were burning.

But to me it didn't quite matter then, as I remembered something that did. I remembered my visit and how I opened that bottle in that very same place.

And so I started to pat the ground, digging and shoving. Soon, I was crying and desperately trying to reach every inch of sand beneath me.

Damn, they had to be there.

The seaweed. The Gatorade. The note. The fish.

But they weren't.

[a/n: story soundtrack - Always by Panic at the Disco]

Then I heard somebody screaming.

There were lots of screaming and shouting, and the air was filled with faint chattering noises. So I followed my instincts and located the sounds. I crawled and I stumbled and I came closer to the voices.

Until finally, I stopped.

He was there, the man who was speaking. I spotted the middle-aged man in the soaked white uniform standing underneath the pier. He approached me and asked me if I was all right. In fact many things had been said and done that night, but it was that one sentence that broke me.

He said he had found the body.

And you think it'd get easier after a day of mourning.

Maybe twenty-nine days.

You think that life would just run its natural course like you didn't lose a huge part of yourself in the process. But clearly that's just the bull you tell yourself everyday because it doesn't. And one day when you aren't looking, you'd just fall right through.

That was my day.

And instantly I knew, it was Aisa that smelled so strong. Man, she reeked of the formaldehyde she poured all over herself.

I walked closer.

"So I found your Gatorade." My voice is shakily low and barely audible.

"And Bro, that was s-so not cool."

The louder I talked, the more my jaw began to stiffen. And the closer I walked, the more I felt the world caving in.

"You d-didn't even bother rinsing it out for me." I chuckled, completely losing it.

And at that exact moment I felt like I was back to square one. Everything hurt like the first time. Hell, even harder. I fell right next to her and tried to calm myself. I tried to breathe and buried my head in her shoulder, crying like an idiot.

Because I remembered how I left Aisa Kwon that night, and it was the same way I found her.

I remembered her shiny black bob and awfully pink dress. I remembered the diner and how hard she hit me. I remembered the games we played and all the times I should've let her win.

And I remembered hugging her at that beach, tightly, this time the hardest a friend ever could, hoping just that once, Aisa speaks.

Hi, Favorites!

First, I hope everyone is in ship-shape, I wish you are all safe and well.

Okay, so I just really really wanted to voice my thoughts out on this one because wow you guys, today feels like an awfully twisted dream. Someone pinch me! I still can't believe it.

(ahh hobi we made it!) I gotta say I had my hopes up, but really winning? and to be recognised by seven or so different communities on Wattpad? I feel tremendously euphoric. I've been here on Wattpad since 2014, but I was only able to join contests this year. It's an attempt at a heart-tugging English short, so I hope I pulled some strings and won your favor, tee-hee!

To FreeThePOC, a lot of love and a big thank you from my cheery soul. This is a real biggie and I am once again humbled by this achievement. In all honesty, this week hasn't been the best but when all things seem to crumble, I find God working in ways unseen to uplift me.

Lastly, to wrap things a bit I hope everyone keeps in mind and in heart the real reasons behind me writing this story: first, a lifelong advocacy to love and free the POC. Always remember that all of you are beautiful, strong, and perfectly valid. And second, a call to raise suicide awareness. Love, even the sun wants to see you smiling. You matter, so always always choose to keep going.

hugs and serendipity,
dilagmakata