The sky over the city had gone deep orange by the time they all came back.
The evening light caught the overgrown street in a way that made it look almost intentional, the vines along the fences glowing amber, the tall grass casting long shadows across the cracked pavement.
One by one they came through the front gate, carrying things, and the house received them the way a house does at the end of a working day.
Elina and Aryan set their bags down in the living room first.
Elina had brought clothes for herself and Mina, she unfolded each piece and held it up, turning toward Mina with the quiet expectation of someone who has good taste and knows it.
"This one's yours," she said, holding up a long-sleeved top, dark and fitted, practical without being severe. "And this." A jacket next, lightweight, good at the collar.
Then she held up trousers with deep pockets and a reinforced hem. She laid them out one by one on the couch while Mina sat forward, touching each one, checking the feel of the fabric between her fingers.
"These are good, Elina," Mina said, and she meant it. She held the jacket up against herself. "Very good."
"They'll move well," Elina said. "That's what matters."
She showed her own choices next, similar in quality, slightly different in cut.
Mina looked at each one and nodded, and when Elina folded them back up there was a quiet satisfaction between them, the simple pleasure of a task done well.
Behind them, Aryan was already laying things out on the other side of the room.
He had brought five sets for each of them, not uniform, but matched in quality. Durable fabrics, good stitching, nothing that would restrict movement or fall apart in a week.
He started with Toviro's.
"Here." He held up the first piece, a structured shirt, dark grey, clean lines. Then a second. A third.
Toviro reached out and took each one as it came, running his thumb along the seams, checking the weight of the material with the same focused attention he brought to most things.
"Good fabric," Toviro said, folding one over his arm. "Breathable. This one especially." He held it up briefly against the light. "You chose well."
Aryan didn't say much. He nodded once and moved on.
Mayo's turn next.
Aryan pulled them out one by one, five pieces, same standard as Toviro's, slightly different cuts suited to someone who moved the way Mayo did, which was to say unpredictably and at short notice.
Mayo picked up the first one and held it out. Dark with a good collar. He looked at it, then at Aryan.
"This is actually nice," he said, with the mild surprise of someone who hadn't been sure what to expect.
"It'll hold," Aryan said. "That's the point."
Mayo checked the second one. Then the third. "Did you actually think about fit when you picked these?"
"Obviously."
"Because these are—yeah, these are good." He held the fourth up against his chest. "Aryan, I'm serious, I didn't know you could do this."
"Pick clothes?"
"Pick anything that isn't about fighting or strategy."
Aryan looked at him for a moment. "Clothes are strategy too."
Mayo opened his mouth. Closed it. Put the jacket down. "Okay. Fair."
Then Aryan turned to Ozair.
Ozair had been waiting. He was sitting on the arm of the chair with the patience of someone who had been watching everyone else get their things and was doing the mental math on what remained. Four bags were out.
His was still in Aryan's hand.
"Alright," Ozair said, leaning forward. "Let's see it."
Aryan began pulling things out one by one.
First piece, Ozair took it, checked the quality, nodded slowly. Good. Second piece, same. Third and fourth, both solid, practical, the kind of thing that would survive whatever was coming.
Ozair ran his thumb along a collar and actually looked mildly impressed.
"Aryan," he said, not looking up. "I didn't think you could pick clothes."
"People keep saying that today."
"No, genuinely—these are good. Like actually good." He stacked them on his knee. "Thanks, man. I mean it."
Aryan gave the small nod that meant you're welcome without wanting to make a thing of it. Then he said, "There's one more."
Ozair looked up. "What?"
"A special one." Aryan's expression was entirely neutral. "I wanted to surprise you."
Ozair's eyes lit up. He sat up straighter. "Seriously? Show me."
Aryan reached behind his back, slowly, building suspense, and brought the last item forward.
Ozair took it, and pulled the bag away.
The clown costume unfolded in his hands. Full suit. Enormous buttons. A red nose tucked into the breast pocket like it was proud of itself.
The room went quiet.
Ozair stared at it.
Then he looked at Aryan. Aryan was smiling, that rare, controlled smile that meant he was genuinely delighted with himself.
"It's a good one," Aryan said. "When I saw it, I thought of you immediately. You should try it on."
Ozair set the costume down very carefully.
Then he launched himself across the room.
Aryan went over backward, still smiling, and Ozair landed on top of him, both hands grabbing his collar.
"You bastard—" Ozair said. "Why don't you try it? Go on. Put it on. The nose and everything."
"It was made for you," Aryan said, from the floor, completely composed. "I can tell by the measurements."
"I will end you—"
Toviro crossed the room in three steps, one hand going to Ozair's chest and the other bracing against Aryan, pushing them apart with the resigned energy of someone who had done this before and expected to do it again.
"What," he said, looking between them, "is the problem now."
"Ask him," Ozair said, pointing.
Aryan, still on the floor, looked up at Toviro and said, with complete calm, "Imagine him in it. Specifically the red nose."
Toviro looked at Ozair. Looked at the costume on the floor. Something moved across his face that he didn't fully suppress.
He turned away. His shoulders did something.
"I saw that," Ozair said.
"I don't know what you're referring to," Toviro said, walking back toward the window.
Aryan started laughing then—not the controlled kind, the real kind, the kind that takes over, and Mayo, who had been watching from the side with growing delight, suddenly shouted across the room, "Come on, Ozair, you can do it! Go for him!"
Ozair turned on Mayo. "You want to join him on the floor?"
"I'm just cheering," Mayo said, taking a step back. "I support both parties."
Across the room, undisturbed by all of it, Mina and Elina sat together on the couch.
Elina was folding her new clothes. Mina was folding hers.
Behind them, Aryan and Ozair had resumed fighting, approximately, Toviro was attempting to separate them again, and Mayo was providing running commentary at an unnecessary volume.
Mina sipped her tea.
Elina smoothed a collar flat.
"They'll settle eventually," Mina said.
"They always do," Elina agreed.
—
Dinner was warm and unhurried.
Mina had made enough for everyone and a little extra, the way she always did, and they ate around the table while the evening outside went from orange to blue to dark.
The conversation moved easily, nothing heavy, nothing about tomorrow, just the small ordinary talk that fills the space between things.
At the end of it, when the plates were mostly clear and the cups had been refilled one last time, Toviro set down his spoon.
"Tonight," he said, "sleep early, and rest properly." He looked around the table. "We leave at three in the morning."
A pause.
Ozair looked at him. "Three in the morning."
"Yeah."
"As in, three hours after midnight. On purpose."
"If we move at three we're clear of the main roads before the light draws attention. Yes. On purpose."
Ozair sat back. "I'm going to be unconscious."
"Then sleep now," Toviro said. "You have time."
"I literally just ate—"
"Ozair."
"Fine." He pushed back from the table. "Three in the morning. Brilliant. Love that."
The table cleared slowly, dishes carried to the kitchen, cups rinsed, the last of the food put away.
Then the living room light went off, and the hallway light, the house settled into the particular silence of people trying to get enough sleep before something begins.
Mina and Elina took Mina's room.
The door closed softly.
Toviro, Aryan, and Ozair headed for Mayo's room with their blankets, and the familiar process of turning the bedroom into a camp played out again, Aryan and Toviro taking the floor with quiet efficiency, arranging their things without fuss.
Ozair stood in the middle of the room.
Mayo was already in bed. He looked at Ozair.
He recognized the look on his face.
"No," Mayo said.
"Your bed is good," Ozair said.
"The floor is right there."
"I know where the floor is."
"Ozair, I am asking you, as someone who genuinely needs sleep tonight—"
Ozair lay down beside him.
Mayo was pressed against the wall before he could finish the sentence, staring up at the ceiling with the expression of someone making peace with their circumstances.
The room went quiet.
Aryan's breathing slowed first, then Toviro's.
Outside the window the city was still, the street dark, the wild plants motionless in the windless night.
Three moons sat above it all.
Then, in the silence, with absolutely no warning, Ozair farted in his sleep—and the smell hit.
Mayo's eyes went wide.
He pulled his blanket up over his nose.
Pressed himself harder against the wall. There was nowhere to go. There had never been anywhere to go.
He lay there, completely trapped, eyes watering slightly, staring at the ceiling with the quiet dignity of someone enduring something they can't change.
He closed his eyes.
He opened them.
Closed them again.
Sleep took him eventually, despite everything.
Something shook his leg.
"Mayo."
He was aware of a hand on his ankle and a voice that expected him to respond.
"Mayo. Wake up."
He opened his eyes. Toviro was crouched at the foot of the bed in the half-dark, his expression alert, the room around him already lightless and still.
"Is it already time?" Mayo said. His voice was slow, the words forming a second behind his thoughts. "How did the whole night—"
"Everyone's waiting downstairs. Wake Ozair." Toviro stood and moved to the door, paused. "Actually wake him. Don't just try."
He left.
The hallway light fell across the floor in a pale strip. Mayo lay there for a moment processing, then turned his head and looked at Ozair.
Ozair was asleep on his back. His mouth was open. He was snoring with the deep, settled confidence of someone with no idea that anything was required of them.
"Ozair," Mayo said.
Nothing.
"Ozair."
He prodded him with his foot. Nothing.
He called his name twice more, each time slightly louder, each time getting no response beyond a slight adjustment of the snoring pattern.
Mayo looked at him for a moment. Then he gathered himself, braced against the wall, and shoved Ozair with his full body weight.
Ozair's eyes flew open. He lurched upright, looked around the room, looked at Mayo.
"What happened," he said.
"It's time to go."
Ozair looked at the window. It was dark outside, the deep, decided dark of very early morning, the city quiet in a way it only is before the rest of the world remembers it exists.
"It's still night," Ozair said.
"It's three AM," Mayo said, getting up.
Ozair considered this.
Then he stood, raised both arms above his head, stretched his entire body with a long, uninhibited groan that probably carried through the wall, and dropped his arms back down.
"Right," he said, like a man accepting a sentence. "Let's go."
They went downstairs.
The living room lights were on, warm against the dark outside.
Their bags and supplies were stacked near the front door, organized and ready.
Mina, Elina, Aryan, and Toviro were already there, sitting, standing, quiet in the particular way of people who've moved past nerves into something steadier.
Ozair and Mayo stepped in from the hallway.
For a moment no one spoke.
Outside, the city waited. The road was dark. The sky above it was clear, the three moons lower now, approaching the horizon, as if they too were preparing for something to begin.
They had packed everything.
They had rested as much as the night would allow.
They were together.
It was time.