“Currents swept you out again—and you were just gone.” taylor swift — this love

https://open.spotify.com/track/4d1CG5ei1E2vGbvmgf5KKv?si=kRGrOSpjR2eHYvhsRfC4_w

This morning, something has kind of shifted in my house somehow. It feels more… alive, even only at the addition of two more people. As I go down to the dining room, I see Madre and Miles’ Mom—tante Naomi—having a conversation on the kitchen counter. Miles is on the backyard with Padre, feeding the koi.

The koi pond has been there for as long as I can remember—and to my recall, Padre takes such a good care of it that most of the fish live quite long for its kind. During our high school days, Padre decided to add two more Koi and named them Miles and Cea. They’re still thriving up until this day and it has become Miles’ ritual to talk to them whenever he’s in this house.

I talk to them too, sometimes. When nobody is around. Koi Miles and Koi Cea are always together—they’re inseparable. Padre always says that he never once saw them strayed too far away from one another, even tho the pond is quite spacious.

Maybe the only universe where Miles and Cea could be happy together is the universe in that koi pond…? I don’t know.

It’s such a bizarre sight to behold as I watch Padre and Miles talking about his beloved koi. They laugh in unison; and somehow these scenes are glazed in something golden. Their sounds are muted to my ears—maybe caused by the immense warmth, or maybe the sugar rush courtesy of the chocolate milk I just drank, or maybe I teleported from the future just now.

Teleported from a place called what could have been.

“Morning, Oceanna!” Miles looks at me with his delighted eyes as he walks towards me—with his hands bandaged, but I can see his heart no longer is. I feel like my heart’s about to explode out of my chest as I catch his musky scent. I’ve seen his morning look for a million time already, why is it different today?

As he approaches me, the phone on the credenza rings—his. He looks at its screen and signals me for help since he still can’t hold his phone properly with all the bandage. “Can you help me put my airpods on?”

I steal a look at the phone screen—it’s a facetime call. And Clara is visible under the caller id.

He named her Koi.

As I help Miles put his airpods on, my mind starts to wander into places I should’ve never been. Imagining the meet-cute they might have, or whatever fuzzy back story or scenario they might have experienced that made him name her that.

If I’m being honest, I could take anything else—but Koi.