I was reborn, sent back to my teenage years alongside the girl I was destined to care for—Mia Malina, my childhood friend with autism. This time, however, Mia pulled her hand from mine. She fumbled through buying a bouquet of flowers and gave them to Alex Wang, the boy she considered her sunshine. All because Alex loved to tease her with crude, flirty jokes. After enough of his provocations, something in her snapped open. She decided she was cured. In my past life, I had spent over a decade painstakingly caring for her, teaching her how to express the simplest likes and dislikes. But in the end, the most casual and cruel words she ever learned were reserved for me. “You… are annoying. Not as charming as him.” From my window, I watched them below. The boy, confident and bold, pulled the girl into an embrace. The girl, shy and flustered, tried to pull away. Fine. So be it. I had no desire to spend another lifetime tethered to a patient. 1 “Hey, are you really autistic?” Alex Wang leaned in, poking Mia Malina’s arm with a playful finger. “Because you were pretty talkative in bed yesterday. What happened to the autism then?” Mia’s ears turned a bright, burning red. Her usually blank face flickered with surprise. “I… I wasn’t…” The classroom fell silent for a beat before erupting into whispers. “Oh my god, did you hear that? Mia Malina actually spoke! That’s the second time today, right?” “Hilarious. Guess the unorthodox methods work faster. Unlike some people…” The speaker shot a pointed look in my direction before trailing off. I kept my face impassive, my eyes fixed on the book in front of me, pretending I hadn’t heard them talking about me. It was true. This was the second time Mia had spoken voluntarily today. The first was when our teacher, planning a seating change, suggested I move next to Mia. For the first time ever, she voiced her own opinion. “I don’t want to.” The words were so smooth, so natural, that even the teacher froze at the front of the room. After a quick call with Mia’s mother, she’d nodded, relieved. “Alright, no changes then.” “And Alex,” the teacher added, “try to behave yourself. Don’t bully Mia.” As the murmurs continued, I stood up. Before I could even move, Mia spoke again, her voice sharp with a familiar disgust. “I told you, I’m not taking the medication anymore.” Her eyes were cold. “For every pill you try to give me, I’ll just throw it away.” For a moment, I was lost in a dizzying overlap of past and present. Her tone, her glare—they were identical to the last life. The whispers of my classmates wormed their way into my ears. “God, isn't this awkward? Mia must hate his guts. Who wants to be chased down with pills after school every day?” “And have you noticed? She talks a lot more around Alex. She seems pretty normal, actually.” “The brooding, silent girl and the cheerful sunshine boy? I ship it!” And the “cheerful sunshine boy” they were fawning over was now gently pinching Mia’s pale cheek. “Really? Am I that special to you?” he cooed. “Blushing again? So cute.” Mia’s eyelashes fluttered. She quickly averted her gaze, and for a split second, her eyes met mine. The warmth and emotion vanished, replaced by an icy wall. A thought struck me. Could she have been reborn, too? Is that why she refused the seating change? Heh. Even better. 2 After the final bell, Mia slung her backpack over her shoulder and walked out of the classroom ahead of me. Carl, the chauffeur waiting at the school gate, did a double-take. “Aren’t you waiting for Mr. Vance?” he asked, surprised. Mia pressed her lips together, saying nothing. Carl was used to her silence. He shot a resentful look at me as I caught up. “Leo,” he said, his voice low and chiding, “why weren’t you keeping up with her? If something happened to Miss Malina, how would I explain it to her mother?” See? He called me ‘Mr. Vance,’ but he’d never seen me as anything more than a glorified babysitter. It was the price of my family’s fall from grace. “Carl, let’s go.” Mia spoke again, her voice clear. Carl was so stunned he forgot the rest of his lecture. “Miss Malina, you… you spoke to me?” he stammered, a goofy grin spreading across his face. He was so caught up in the moment that he didn’t even notice a stranger approaching. “Whoa, Mia, is this your car?” Alex whistled, circling the black sedan. “This thing must have cost a fortune.” Carl’s brow furrowed. He was about to step in when Mia herself opened the car door. She tugged nervously at the hem of her uniform. “If you like it, you can have it.” Alex’s eyes went wide. “Hahahaha! Do you even know what you’re saying? You’d really just give it to me?” Mia nodded earnestly and even got out of the car, gesturing for him to get in. A muscle in Carl’s jaw twitched. Anyone who knew Mia knew how fiercely she guarded her personal space. It had taken me six months just to be allowed to ride in the same car with her. But Alex was different. Alex was an exception. A first. He ruffled her hair as if she were a well-behaved puppy. “Wow, you’re so naive. Aren’t you afraid someone will take advantage of you? Okay, okay, I’m just kidding. See you tomorrow, my cute little deskmate.” He walked away, humming a cheerful tune. Mia seemed to catch his infectious joy, a small smile playing on her lips. She watched him until he was completely out of sight before turning and slamming the car door shut right in my face. Carl, having completely forgotten I existed, looked like he couldn’t wait to race home and tell Mia’s mother the miraculous news. The car sped off, leaving me in a cloud of exhaust. I glanced at my phone. My ride-share was five minutes away. Good thing I hadn't counted on them. 3 That night, the Malina mansion next door was filled with laughter. My house was deathly quiet. “What happened? Why didn’t you come home with her?” my father roared. “Can’t you even do a simple thing like wait on someone? I swear, I’ve wasted years raising you!” My mother timidly offered him a cup of tea. “Don’t yell at the boy. Calm down.” He slapped the cup from her hand. It shattered on the floor. He stormed out, slamming the door behind him. The villa, already sparsely furnished, felt even emptier. My mother sighed, her voice soft. “Leo, did you and Mia have a fight? You know how she is. Just be patient with her. Our family is counting on the Malinas…” Back when my father hadn’t gambled away our family fortune, we were their equals. We never had to grovel for their favor. I paused in my cleanup of the broken porcelain. “Mom, I’m a senior this year. I’ll be in college soon. I can work and support myself. Why do we have to pin all our hopes on the Malinas, and on… him?” “Your father will change!” she insisted, her voice losing its conviction. “The Malinas gave him a loan. He can turn things around.” But Mom, don’t you know? Even if I appease Mia exactly as you wish, he’ll never stop gambling. He won’t stop until he’s mortgaged this very house, the last symbol of our family’s pride, and then thrown himself from the roof. We would still end up completely dependent on the Malinas’ charity. I clenched my fist, a shard of ceramic digging into my palm. The sharp pain pulled me back from the memory. My mother cried out, rushing to disinfect the cut. Just then, my phone buzzed with a message from Mia. [You’re disgusting. So annoying.] [Stay away from me from now on.] People with autism often lack a filter. They can be brutally honest, oblivious to the feelings of others. In my past life, it took me over a decade to teach Mia to express her dislikes kindly, instead of through screaming, throwing things, or spitting venom. She was a slow learner, but she had made progress. I remembered the time her mother brought her a glass of warm milk to help her sleep. Instead of her usual tantrum of smashing the glass, she had simply said, “I don’t want it.” Her mother had wept with joy. I had smiled, too, hiding the angry, permanent scar on my forearm where she’d once thrown a cup of scalding tea at me. I looked down at my phone and typed a single word. [Okay.] 4 The next morning, my father dragged me to the Malinas’ front gate, his face plastered with a sycophantic grin. “Is Leo ready? He hasn’t left yet, has he?” The Malinas’ butler gave him a cool, dismissive glance. “Miss Malina has already left for school. Mrs. Malina has given instructions that Leo will be going on his own from now on.” The butler offered a thin, apologetic smile. “You know how our Mia is. We can’t risk any emotional triggers.” My father’s face froze. He shot me a look of pure fury. I ignored him, dodging the slap he aimed at my head and walking calmly towards school. When I entered the classroom, Mia and Alex were already there, huddled close together, sharing breakfast. “Mia, I’ve lost my appetite,” Alex said with a theatrical sigh. “The only thing I want to eat is you.” Mia, who had been eating with quiet delicacy, flushed crimson. “Don’t… don’t say things like that,” she stammered. A friend of Alex’s laughed loudly. “Damn, Alex, you’ve got guts. Forget autism, you could probably make a mute person talk with lines like that.” Alex raised an eyebrow, triumphant. He grabbed my arm as I passed. “Leo, back me up here. Mia isn’t really autistic, is she? She’s just shy. It can’t be that she only talks this much around me.” I pulled my arm away. Before I could speak, Mia cut in, her eyes fixed on Alex. “You’re different.” Then, her gaze shifted to me, cold and flat. “He’s like my mother. Nagging and annoying. Not cute like you.” The other students’ faces were a mixture of amusement and pity. They were enjoying the show. A wave of profound exhaustion washed over me—not for myself now, but for the boy I used to be. Before I was assigned to be Mia’s shadow, I was the envied son of a wealthy family. But to fulfill my duty, I had debased myself, catered to her every whim, accommodated her every mood. You could train a dog to be grateful in less time. If it weren’t for that car crash on the way to the courthouse in our past life, I would have been legally bound to her forever. And still, she was like this. She had learned to interact with people, even smile at strangers. But with me, she was always sharp, always cruel, never once considering my feelings. Was it really Alex, her “sunshine,” who had brought her out of her shell? No. It was the result of more than a decade of my tireless effort. But of course, everyone gave the credit to him. I looked Mia straight in the eye and smiled. “Sorry, but I don’t have a daughter your age.” 5 In my past life, my entire future had been mapped out by Mia’s mother. Mia was going to a conservatory for music, so I had to study the niche field of music therapy. Using the music Mia loved to heal her—it was the perfect plan in Mrs. Malina’s eyes. It didn’t matter that I had no talent for music. It didn’t matter that the degree was useless for finding a job. All that mattered was that it was useful to Mia. In return, the Malinas would provide my father with capital and business connections. Back then, Mia was prone to sensory overload. A loud noise or an unexpected touch could trigger a complete meltdown. She would flip desks, claw at her own hands until they bled. And I would have to be the one to drop everything and calmly talk her down, all under the complicated stares of our classmates. Right. Where was her sunshine boy back then? Oh, he was in the crowd, whispering with everyone else. Mia was living in denial, but I hadn’t forgotten. On her eighteenth birthday, the Malinas threw a lavish party. It wasn’t just a celebration of her coming of age; it was a public declaration that Mia was miraculously “cured.” At the party, Alex was the guest of honor. He wore a custom-tailored suit, a diamond glittering in his ear. Under the bright chandeliers, he stood with his arm around Mia, greeting guests with a dazzling smile. They looked like a fairytale couple. I had no appetite. As the party wound down, I slipped out into the garden for some air. I stumbled upon them there, Alex laughing with Mia. He was holding a bouquet of sunflowers. “Why sunflowers?” he asked, a playful pout on his lips. “Everyone else gives roses…” Mia’s reply was utterly serious. “You are warm. Like a sunflower. Seeing you makes me happy.” “And what about Leo? He grew up with you. What is he like?” From my hiding place in the shadows, I saw the expression on Mia’s face. Her brow furrowed with a familiar look of impatience and disgust. “He’s like this,” she said, gesturing vaguely at the ground. At the clover patch. Not the lucky four-leaf kind. Just a common weed. The warm night air was filled with the frantic chirping of cicadas. It sounded just like my own racing heart, which suddenly fell silent, drenched in ice water. I watched as Alex smiled, stood on his toes, and planted a soft kiss on Mia’s cheek. Her ears turned pink. She shyly looked away—and saw me. The whole thing felt so pointless. I turned to leave. “Leo!” Mia’s voice stopped me. She ran over, her face still flushed. “My mom talked to me. She still wants me to go to the same university as you.” “She worries too much,” I said, my voice flat. “Alex is clearly a better fit for you.” Mia frowned. “But I told my mother I only want you.” I looked up, surprised. She turned her head away. “My episodes… they’re ugly.” So that was it. Of course. She saved her best self for Alex, and left the uncontrolled, violent, ugly parts for me to clean up. I was the full-time nanny, the one who had to force her to take her medication, manage her moods, and put her first in everything. The charming sunshine boy could never be bothered with that. From a distance, Alex called her name sweetly. “Come on, Mia, I’ll take you somewhere fun.” But she didn’t move. She was waiting for my promise. She knew my value; she just took it for granted. I smoothed my expression into a bright smile. “Of course. I’ll always be with you.” Satisfied, she beamed and ran back to Alex. The smile vanished from my eyes. Mia Malina, after the college entrance exams, you and your sunflower can go your separate ways. And I will finally leave you, content to be the resilient clover. I just wonder… when your next episode hits, will your sunshine boy still be so warm? I couldn’t wait to find out.
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