Nara woke up before the alarm went off.
She reached for her phone at once, as though Raka’s message might change if she left it alone overnight. There were no new messages. Only yesterday’s conversation remained open, with Nara’s last sentence at the bottom.
Tomorrow I’ll still buy cat food.
Raka had replied: I know.
Nara read those two words once more, then turned off the screen.
At ten past six, she was already sitting on the edge of the bed. The room was still dark, even though morning had begun slipping in through the gap in the curtains. She didn’t turn on the light. The electricity bill hadn’t been paid, and the habit of counting her electricity usage had started making her switch things off before she truly needed them.
On the table, the blue lunch box she had washed yesterday was still open. Nara wiped the inside with a cloth, then closed it. She didn’t know why she was doing it. The lunch box wasn’t hers. Raka might come get it someday, or he might already have forgotten that he’d left it behind.
Nara put it in her bag.
After that, she opened the notes on her phone.
Buy cat food tomorrow. Go to the store tomorrow. Wake up tomorrow. Reply to Raka’s message tomorrow.
There was no new line.
She stared at the screen until the words looked like a list belonging to someone else. Then she added one sentence at the bottom.
Look for a job today.
The sentence made her stomach feel even emptier.
In the kitchen, the landlady was frying tofu. Hot oil hissed in the pan, and the small radio on top of the refrigerator was broadcasting news about rain that might fall that afternoon.
“Morning,” the woman said.
“Morning, ma’am.”
“There’s still rice.”
“I’m just having a drink.”
The woman didn’t look back. “If you’re only having a drink, your tea will get lonely.”
Nara stood near the door. She saw two plates on the table, one holding rice and a sunny-side-up egg, the other empty.
“I’ll pay you later,” she said.
“Who asked you to pay?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“If that’s not what you meant, sit down.”
Nara sat. The landlady placed the egg on her plate, then went back to the stove. She didn’t ask about the store, money, or Raka. Her concern always came in a form that left Nara no room to politely refuse it.
Nara ate slowly.
After a few bites, the woman said, “There’s a copy shop in the back alley looking for someone.”
Nara raised her head.
“The one near the repair shop?”
“Yeah. The owner’s niece says she’s quitting. Apparently the job is just watching the machines, taking orders, and occasionally carrying paper.”
“How much does it pay?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are the hours?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“So what do you know?”
“That the place exists.”
Nara looked at the rice on her plate. “I can check it out later.”
“Don’t wait until later if you can go now.”
“I want to look online first.”
“The internet doesn’t always know about jobs in the back alley.”
Nara didn’t answer. The woman was right, and truths delivered before breakfast always felt more irritating.
After finishing the egg, Nara washed her plate. She picked up her bag and put her wallet, phone, and the blue lunch box inside.
“Be home before dark,” the landlady said.
“I don’t know what time I’ll be back.”
“Then come home before you know it.”
Nara almost smiled.
The copy shop was at the end of the alley, wedged between a motorcycle repair shop and a house with a green fence. Its sign had faded. Several letters were missing, so “Fotokopi Sinar Jaya” read like “Fotokopi Sinar Ja.”
Nara stood outside the door for a long time before going in.
Inside, the air smelled of paper, ink, and dust. Two copy machines stood behind a long counter. A man around fifty was counting sheets of paper.
“Need something copied?” he asked.
“No, sir. My landlady said you were looking for someone.”
The man looked up. “Who told you that?”
Nara said the landlady’s name.
“Oh. You’re Bu Sari’s boarding-house tenant?”
Nara nodded.
“My niece is quitting at the end of this month. If you want, you can try it out first.”
“When would I start?”
“Monday.”
Today was only Thursday.
“What are the hours?”
“Seven-thirty until the afternoon. Sometimes later if there are orders.”
“How much does it pay?”
The man named a figure lower than what Nara had earned at the store. She had expected that. Even so, hearing it made something inside her slowly sink.
“You can think about it,” the man said. “If you’re interested, bring a photocopy of your ID tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“If you decide to.”
Nara nodded. He gave her a small slip of paper with the address and phone number. The paper immediately went limp between her fingers from the sweat on her hands.
Outside, the sun felt too bright.
She walked to the convenience store without any clear purpose. The tabby usually appeared around noon. Nara bought the cheapest cat food, then sat on a concrete bench behind the building.
The cat didn’t come.
Nara waited while checking her phone. There were no calls. No messages from her old workplace. No replies to the applications she had sent yesterday.
She opened the copy shop’s number and saved it as “Sinar Jaya.” Then she opened her conversation with Raka.
She typed: I might have found a job.
The sentence looked too soon.
She deleted it.
She typed: I went to look at a job today.
She deleted that too.
In the end, she didn’t write anything.
Her phone vibrated before she could close the conversation.
Raka: Have you eaten?
Nara looked at the time. It was past eleven.
She replied: Yes.
Raka: Seriously?
Nara: Eggs.
Raka: That’s not an answer.
Nara: Eggs with rice.
Raka: Better.
Nara put her phone in her pocket. A few seconds later, another message came in.
Raka: I’m on a break. Where are you?
Nara stared at the package of cat food in her hand.
Behind the convenience store.
She almost sent it, then stopped. Raka might come. Raka might not come. Both possibilities felt equally troublesome.
She wrote: Out.
Raka’s reply came a little later.
Raka: Out where?
Nara: Looking at a job.
Raka: Is there one?
Nara thought about the small slip of paper tucked into her wallet.
Nara: Maybe.
Raka: What kind of “maybe”?
Nara: The kind that might not happen.
Raka: So it is a maybe.
Nara didn’t reply. She poured the food into the lid of a plastic container and set it beneath the bench. When the food was almost gone, the tabby emerged from behind a stack of cardboard boxes.
The fur on one side of its neck looked matted. There was a thin red scratch near its ear.
Nara took the medicine pouch from her bag.
She opened the ointment, read the instructions, then closed it again. The cat backed away when Nara reached out her hand.
“It’s okay,” Nara said. “I don’t like being touched when I’m not ready either.”
The cat stared at her.
Nara placed the cotton and ointment beside the food, just as Raka had told her yesterday. She didn’t try to get closer again.
Her phone vibrated.
Raka: Don’t touch it if it doesn’t want you to.
Nara stared at the message.
Nara: I know.
Raka: I’m just reminding you.
Nara: I know.
Raka: Are you mad?
Nara: No.
Raka: You always say that.
Nara read the sentence for a long time. The tabby sniffed the cotton, then went back to eating.
Nara: I don’t feel like being asked questions right now.
Raka didn’t answer right away.
A few minutes later, his message came in.
Raka: Okay.
There was nothing else. No apology. No new question.
Nara thought she would feel relieved. Instead, the space between them seemed wider.
She turned off the screen and sat there until the cat finished eating. When she stood, her knees were a little stiff. She threw away the leftover food wrapper and put the medicine pouch in her bag.
On the way home, she passed the old store.
The front door was open. A new employee was arranging bottles on the shelf that had once been Nara’s responsibility. He looked younger, maybe still in college, and was working in a T-shirt with a university logo.
Nara stopped across the street.
From where she stood, she could see the checkout counter, the small fan, and the scratch marks on the back of the glass. Three short lines, one long line.
The new employee laughed when his boss said something. Their laughter didn’t carry across the street.
Nara touched the blue lunch box inside her bag.
She didn’t feel like going back. She didn’t feel like she had really left, either.
A motorcycle honked. Nara flinched, then continued on her way.
It was nearing evening when she reached the boarding house. The landlady was hanging laundry in the yard.
“How was the place?” she asked.
“It’s still a possibility.”
“How much does it pay?”
Nara told her the figure.
The landlady frowned. “That’s low.”
“Yeah.”
“But if there’s nothing else, you could give it a try.”
“I know.”
“Don’t just know it.”
Nara watched the laundry move slowly in the breeze. At one end of the line, someone else’s white T-shirt covered half the sky.
“I’ll bring my ID tomorrow,” she said.
The woman nodded, as though that answer was enough.
That night, Nara washed her clothes and hung them behind her room. She checked her account balance, counted her overtime pay again, then divided the money into three parts: food, electricity, and transportation in case the job at the copy shop really began.
There was no portion for anything else.
She opened her bag and took out the blue lunch box. She set it on the table, right beside her phone.
Raka hadn’t sent another message.
Nara opened their conversation. She typed:
Sorry, I didn’t feel like talking earlier.
She stared at the sentence. There was nothing wrong with it, but sending it felt like opening a door she had just closed.
She added:
I went to look at a job at a copy shop.
Then:
The pay is low.
The three sentences stood on the screen. Nara deleted them one by one.
Her phone vibrated.
Raka: I’m heading home. Don’t forget to eat dinner.
Nara stared at the message. She could reply with “okay.” She could leave it read. She could say that she didn’t like being reminded.
She typed:
I’ll try going to the copy shop tomorrow.
Raka replied not long afterward.
Raka: That’s good news.
Nara: Not necessarily.
Raka: But you’re going.
Nara looked at the blue lunch box on the table.
Nara: Maybe.
Raka: We’ll see tomorrow.
Nara smiled faintly. Not because everything felt easy, but because Raka didn’t turn “maybe” into a promise she had to keep perfectly.
She opened the notes on her phone.
Buy cat food tomorrow. Go to the store tomorrow. Wake up tomorrow. Reply to Raka’s message tomorrow. Look for a job today.
Nara added a new line.
Bring a photocopy of my ID tomorrow.
She looked at the sentence. The line didn’t promise a job, money, or a better life. It was only one small thing she could do before noon.
For now, that was enough.
Before going to sleep, Nara filled the blue lunch box with water and set it near the window. She didn’t know whether Raka would come get it. She didn’t know whether she wanted to give it back, either.
Outside, motorcycles passed one after another.
Her phone lit up one more time.
Raka: Good night, Nar.
Nara replied after a few seconds.
Good night.
She turned off the light.
Tomorrow she had to photocopy her ID, buy cat food, and maybe go to the copy shop.
Maybe.
For the first time, the word didn’t sound like a way of avoiding life.
It sounded like a door that hadn’t been opened yet.