I pushed open the door to our room as quietly as possible. The lights were off. Murin was in bed, facing the wall, completely still.

  Asleep. Except I knew he wasn’t. He was breathing like he was trying too hard to seem asleep. You know, that thing people do when they don’t want to talk to you.

  I stood in the doorway for a long moment, bag still on my shoulder, dirt still on my clothes, mosquito bites itching like hell. Should I say something? Wake him? Apologize again?

  But what would I even say?

  Sorry I forgot about you while teaching two idiots who couldn’t be bothered to attend their own rotations?

  Sorry we almost got arrested and you had to climb a tree to avoid getting punished?

  I closed the door softly, set my bag down, and changed into clean clothes as quietly as possible. The whole time, Murin didn’t move or acknowledge that I existed.

  I climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling.

  Was this even my fault? I mean, technically, the twins had kidnapped me. I’d told them no. Multiple times. They were the ones who dragged me to the anatomy lab. They were the ones who triggered the fire alarm. They were—

  I stopped that train of thought because I knew exactly where it was going. Straight into bullshit territory.

  Obviously it was my fault. Kind of like always. I rolled over and closed my eyes. Tried to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be hell.

  And it was.

  The next two days blurred together in a haze of surgery rounds, OR cases, and late-night teaching sessions with Tonny and Bonny. Dr. Okafor continued his pattern of simultaneously being the best and most confusing attending I’d ever worked with. He’d grill me on anatomy one minute, completely ignore me the next, then suddenly ask my opinion on surgical approach like I was a senior resident instead of a third-year student.

  The twins showed up every night at the empty tutorial room we’d claimed in the main academic building. We went through the cardiovascular exam, the respiratory exam, and the abdominal exam. I demonstrated. They practiced on each other. Slowly, they started to get it right.

  But Murin… Murin was gone. He left before I woke up. Every single morning, by the time my alarm went off at 5:30, his bed was already empty and made perfectly clean, like he’d never been there at all.

  We always woke each other up. Always walked to the main gate together, at least as far as our paths diverged. Always had tea at the stall near the entrance — the one with the old man who never remembered our orders but made good tea anyway. Now I walked alone.

  I’d go to the mess hall for breakfast. He wouldn’t be there. For lunch, we used to eat together — always, the three of us, or at least two when someone had a conflicting schedule. Now I’d show up to the cafeteria and scan the room. Sometimes I’d spot him in a corner, eating alone, earbuds in, staring at his phone like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

  I tried approaching him once. I got halfway across the cafeteria before he stood up, threw his trash away, and left.

  Message received. So I started eating alone too. The weird thing was… no, the devastating thing was, I knew Murin hated eating alone.

  “What’s the use of you two if I have to eat alone? And you call us friends!” That’s what he’d said. First week in the hostel, three years ago, when we were still figuring out how this whole roommate situation was going to work.

  Flashback: Three Years Ago — First Week of Medical School

  I’d come back to the room after a brutal anatomy lecture, brain fried from memorizing muscle origins and insertions, ready to collapse. I found Murin at his desk, already studying at 6 p.m.

  “Who studies on the first day?” That was Akki, sprawled across his bed like he owned the place, controller in hand, some racing game blaring from his laptop. “We just got here! Freedom! No parents! No curfew! This is the promised land!”

  I ignored him and looked at Murin. I didn’t know anything about him yet, except that he was quiet and organized and seemed uncomfortable with Akki’s volume, same as me. We hadn’t spoken much. I got the sense he wasn’t the type to initiate conversation. Akki, unfortunately, was.

  I sat at my desk. I opened my own textbook. Tried to look like I was studying. Mostly just stared at the same page for twenty minutes.

  Then Akki bounced off his bed and landed next to Murin’s desk, peering at whatever he was reading. “What’s that? Homework already? We haven’t even had our first class properly!”

  “It’s not homework.” Murin’s voice was flat. “It’s the course syllabus.”

  “The syllabus? You’re reading the syllabus? For fun?”

  “To understand what we’ll be covering.”

  “That’s the same thing as homework! You’re doing homework before homework exists!” Akki grabbed my shoulder. “Ashru! Tell this guy he’s crazy!”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  I looked up from my books. “He’s not crazy. Preparation is important.”

  Akki stared at both of us. “Oh no no no. They’ve given me two of them. Two study-obsessed robots as roommates. This is a conspiracy. No, actually this is worse than a conspiracy! This is fate! The universe wants me to suffer!”

  I went back to my books. Akki, apparently not finished, threw himself on my bed, scattering my carefully arranged anatomy notes. “Tell me about yourselves. Where are you from? What do you like? Do you have girlfriends? Hobbies? Secret talents? Can you juggle? I bet you can’t juggle.”

  “I’m from the city,” I said, rescuing my books. “I don’t have a girlfriend. I don’t juggle.”

  “Murin! You!”

  Murin looked up, expression unchanged. “I don’t see how this is relevant.”

  “Relevant? We’re going to live together for years! We need to know each other! Bond! Become brothers!”

  “We’re not brothers.”

  “Not yet! But we will be! Brotherhood is earned through shared suffering and terrible decisions!” Akki grinned. “And I have a feeling we’re going to make a lot of terrible decisions.”

  I didn’t know it then, but he was right.

  Three weeks later, Murin needed to go home for the weekend. I needed to go to the market for supplies. Akki appeared with a motorcycle.

  “Where did you get that?” I asked.

  “Borrowed it from a friend.”

  “Since when do you have friends with motorcycles?”

  “I have many friends. I’m very popular.” He patted the seat. “Get on. We’ll drop Murin at the station, then hit the market.”

  “It’s a two-seater. There are three of us.”

  Akki looked at the bike. “One of you can sit on the back. The other can sit… creatively.”

  “Creatively?”

  Murin was already getting on behind Akki. “Just get on, Ashru.”

  “I’m not sitting on that thing.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “I’m not scared, okay. I’m sensible.”

  Akki laughed. “Sensible is boring. Get on.”

  I got on. Squeezed between Murin and the tiny metal rack at the back. My legs were at weird angles. My hands had nothing to hold except Murin’s shoulders, which he did not appreciate.

  “This is unsafe,” I said.

  “This is living!” Akki revved the engine.

  Akki drove like he was actively trying to kill us. He ran two red lights. Nearly crashed into a bus. I was screaming the entire time. Murin smacked him in the back of the head twice, which did nothing because Akki couldn’t be stopped once he decided something was happening.

  We ended up at a club. Akki killed the engine and grinned at us. “You’re welcome.”

  “This isn’t the station,” Murin said.

  “No, it’s better.”

  “My train leaves in an hour.”

  Akki grabbed both our arms and dragged us toward the entrance. “When was the last time you two did something fun? Something not studying or organizing books or reading syllabi?”

  Murin and I looked at each other. Then we both looked at Akki. “That’s what I thought.” He pushed the door open. Music blasted out. Colored lights. “Welcome to your first terrible decision. Don’t worry, there will be many more.”

  There were many more.

  Inside the club, Murin met someone. A girl with dark hair and a shy smile who somehow found his quiet intensity attractive. They talked for hours. Exchanged numbers. I watched from across the room, stunned, because I’d assumed Murin was incapable of small talk. Well, she ran off three weeks later, but for one night, Murin was happy. Akki danced terribly and loudly and didn’t care who saw. I stood near the wall with a drink I wasn’t drinking, watching the chaos.

  Later, when the club closed and we stumbled out into the pre-dawn streets, Akki threw his arms around both of us. “See? This is what friends do! They drag each other into terrible situations and somehow survive together!”

  Murin extracted himself. “You didn’t answer my question. When did we agree we were friends?”

  “Yeah,” I added. “You keep saying that. We never said anything.”

  Akki looked at us like we’d grown extra heads. “You’re seriously asking that? After tonight? After I rescued you from a life of syllabus-reading and book-organizing and being sensible?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s the only answer you need!” He spread his arms wide. “Look at us. Three idiots standing outside a club at 4 a.m., exhausted, broke, and mildly traumatized by my driving. If that’s not friendship, what is? Now, since it’s our first official night as lifelong friends—”

  “We never agreed to lifelong.”

  “—I will fulfill one wish each. One thing you want. Anything within my power. Go.”

  I was too tired to argue. “I’ll think about it and tell you later.”

  “Cool. But I want something from you now.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “I want to borrow your clothes, occasionally. Both of you. Especially Murin’s suits and his cologne. And you can’t say no.”

  “What? No. Absolutely not.”

  “You agreed to one wish! Congrats, that’s my wish!”

  “That’s multiple wishes disguised as one wish.”

  “Too late! I’ve declared it!” He turned to Murin. “Your turn. What do you want?”

  Murin looked at us for a long moment. “I want us to eat together,” he said quietly.

  Akki blinked. “That’s it? You could ask for literally anything. Girls’ numbers, connections, a motorcycle, help with exams…”

  “I want us to eat together.”

  “Like… every meal?”

  “All three of us. Or at least two if someone’s schedule doesn’t work.”

  Akki looked genuinely confused. “That’s the weirdest friendship wish I’ve ever heard.”

  “Then we’re not friends.”

  “No, no, we are! Fine! We’ll eat together!” He shook Murin’s hand like they were sealing a business deal. “But why? Why is that your thing?”

  Murin shrugged. “I don’t like eating alone. What’s the use of you two if I have to eat alone? And you call us friends?”

  “I mean, yeah, obviously we’re friends. Then we eat together.”

  “Deal.”

  And we did. Every day. For three years. Until now.

  Present

  Now Akki was in a coma and I was eating alone in cafeterias and Murin was avoiding me like I was contagious.

  I know he’s upset. So am I. But everybody expresses it differently. Does he think I don’t feel bad about Akki? That only he does? Because I smile sometimes? Because I’m not walking around with a permanent look of devastation?

  No. I know Murin isn’t that paranoid. He’s not thinking that. He’s just… hurt. And I don’t know how to fix it.

  What the hell am I thinking? I pulled on my jacket and walked out.

  I don’t remember the walk to the hospital. Don’t remember any of it until I was standing in front of the ICU doors.

  Akki’s room was quiet. Just the machines humming, the monitors beeping, the ventilator hissing. I pulled up the chair and sat down.

  “Hi, idiot.”

  No response. Of course.

  “Must be nice, lying there. No rotations. No exams. No twins kidnapping you at night.” I leaned back. “Murin’s not talking to me. I fucked up. Again. Surprise, surprise.”

  The machines beeped.

  “I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know if I can. He won’t even look at me.” I rubbed my face. “You’d know what to say. You always knew what to say. Even when it was stupid, it worked.”

  Silence.

  “I need you to wake up, Akki. Because…” I stopped and swallowed. “Because I can’t do this without you. Any of it. I can’t. I know that’s selfish. You’re the one in the coma. You’re the one who almost died. But I’m saying it anyway.”

  I stood up. Looked down at his still face.

  “Wake up soon, okay? Murin’s eating alone. You know how much he hates eating alone.”

  Then I walked out without looking back.