Chapter Text
"Ali!"
Alicia’s voice cracked like glass shattering on marble as the monstrous wave rose up—towering, violent, alive. Her scream echoed off the walls of the derelict harbor, drowned by the roar of surging water. And then—
He was gone.
Swept into the sea like a leaf. Disappeared under its crushing blue.
“Ali!” Ejen Bakar’s voice followed, sharp and panicked. He rushed forward, scanning the surface, heart thudding like drums in his ears. The black-cloaked villain stood near the dock's edge, a wicked smile curling beneath their mask, manipulating the water like it was mere cloth.
“Alicia, stay back!” Khai shouted, grunting as he launched a sonic pulse toward the villain.
“Iman, flank left!” Moon commanded over comms, voice taut. “Backup is en route—ETA two minutes!”
But Alicia was no longer listening.
Her feet moved before her thoughts did, splashing through ankle-deep puddles as she stumbled toward the edge. Her hand reached out instinctively, as if she could somehow grab him from the water.
“Ali…” she choked, falling to her knees.
The wave had already dispersed—now just a ripple of foam lapping at the dock, cruelly quiet. As if it hadn't just swallowed someone she loved.
Loved.
The thought stabbed through her like a blade. Alicia's breath hitched. She never said it out loud. Not even to herself. Not fully. Ali was her partner, her best friend, the one who always challenged her, always annoyed her—but always saved her, too.
Now he is gone.
Her mind blurred, memory and guilt crashing over her like smaller waves. His smile this morning. That stupid joke he made about her hair. The way his eyes lit up when he saw her during missions.
He was supposed to always be there.
And Alicia is gonna make sure it stays that way.
In the meantime, Khai and Iman doubled down, moving in sync like the seasoned Ejens they were. Iman's eyes burned with silent fury, pelting the cloaked villain with focused psychic spheres. Khai’s tech-enhanced gear thrummed with blue energy, letting off a blast that forced the villain back.
Bakar ducked under a collapsing crate and called out again. “Ali! If you can hear me, signal us!”
Nothing.
Only silence, and the distant sound of sirens from the approaching backup unit.
Then, a crackle.
“...ka...”
Bakar froze. “Ali?! Say that again!”
Another weak buzz of static filtered through the comms. “...li...cia...”
Alicia jerked her head up. “Ali?” she whispered. “Ali!”
“I’m tracing it!” Moon said from HQ. “The signal is weak, but I’m triangulating… east side of the dock. There’s a storm drain entrance—he might have been pulled in!”
Bakar sprinted. Alicia was right behind him, skidding around crates, feet slipping in the puddles. They came to the grated entrance of the drain—a dark, cold opening no wider than a crawlspace. Water still poured in from above.
Without hesitation, Alicia knelt, yanked her gloves tighter, and began crawling in.
“Alicia, wait—” Bakar started.
“Cover me. If he’s in there, I’m not wasting another second.” Alicia said as she moved forward.
The metal tunnel was cold and narrow. Water gurgled beneath Alicia’s hands as she crawled. Her heart beat faster with every echoing thud of her palm.
And then—she saw him.
Slumped near a corner, partially submerged, his face ghost-pale and lips tinged blue.
“Ali!”
She scrambled forward, pulling him into her lap, shaking him lightly. “Ali, no. No, no, come on—wake up.”
His body was ice. The bio-monitor flickered weakly at his wrist.
“Moon,” she croaked, “I found him. He’s unconscious—hypothermia setting in.”
“Emergency med-drones dispatched. ETA thirty seconds. Hang tight.”
But Alicia couldn’t wait. She gently slapped his cheek. “Ali, wake up. Please. Please…”
Tears welled in her eyes. For the first time in years, her voice trembled not with anger, but with raw fear. “You idiot, you’re always rushing in. Always trying to play the hero. And I was too slow to stop you. Why do you always have to be so—”
His fingers twitched.
Alicia’s breath hitched.
Then a shallow gasp left his lips, and his eyes fluttered open.
“Ali…”
He blinked up at her, dazed and coughing weakly. “Did… did we win?”
She choked out a laugh between tears. “No, you moron. We didn’t. You almost died.”
His eyes adjusted slowly to her tear-streaked face. “Are you crying?”
“No.” She wiped furiously at her cheeks. “Yes. Shut up.”
Despite himself, Ali smiled faintly. “You came for me.”
“Of course I did,” she whispered. “I always will.”
The small storm drain echoed with that simple truth. Alicia stared at him, her heart pounding—not from panic now, but from something deeper. As the emergency drone zipped in with light and warmth, scanning him and preparing the stretcher, Alicia still couldn’t tear her gaze from him.
He was alive.
And for the first time, she let herself hold his hand tightly. She didn’t care if the others saw.
Ali looked at their joined hands, then back at her, his voice hoarse. “I dreamed I was drowning… and then I heard your voice. It pulled me back.”
Alicia’s heart squeezed. She wanted to say a million things—how scared she was, how much he meant to her, how if he pulled another reckless stunt like this she’d knock him into next week.
But instead, she leaned forward, forehead touching his gently.
“Don’t ever leave me like that again,” she whispered.
“I won’t,” he whispered back.
Later, at the hospital wing in MATA HQ, the doctors and nurses are running around as the team is admitted. The main cause is MATA significant agent, the one mastering S.A.T.R.I.A and I.R.I.S in his childhood.
Ali lay on a bed, draped in thermal blankets, color slowly returning to his cheeks. Khai sat by his side, smirking.
“You really have a flair for drama, don’t you?”
Ali gave a weak laugh. “I aim to impress.”
Iman folded her arms. “Next time, don’t aim for ‘nearly dead.’ We’re all grounded if you die.”
“I’m not dying. I just… got a bit wet.”
“A bit wet?” Khai echoed. “Bro, you were soggier than the cafeteria tofu.”
They all laughed, but Alicia stood at the doorway, quiet.
When the others stepped out for briefing, she walked over. Ali turned his head toward her with a smile that made her stomach flutter.
“You stayed?”
“I’m the one who dragged you out of that storm drain, remember?” she said, trying to sound cool. But her voice betrayed the emotion still clinging to her. “I wasn’t going to let you die on me. Not when you still owe me a rematch in drone combat training.”
Ali grinned. “Looking forward to it.”
She hesitated. Then, slowly, she reached out and brushed her fingers against his—tentative, warm.
Ali looked at their hands.
Then back at her.
“Hey, Alicia?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad it was your voice I heard… pulling me back.”
A silence passed between them, electric with meaning. Then Alicia leaned forward, just close enough that he could hear her heart beating too fast.
“You better keep hearing it,” she said, almost a whisper. “Because I’m not letting you go again.”
Ali smiled like the sun was rising.
And despite the beeping machines and sterile white walls, the room felt warm again.
Outside the Med Bay, Moon watched from the observation deck, arms crossed, lips twitching in a faint smile.
“They’re growing up fast,” she said quietly.
Rudy nodded beside her. “And growing stronger—together.”
“Let’s just hope they don’t blow up the HQ when they finally confess to each other,” Moon added.
Rudy sighed. “We’ll reinforce the walls in advance.”
General Rama who just visited Ali accidentally heard this and asked, “Who confesses to who?” The other Ejens present there stiffened up, frozen and immediately zipped their mouth.
***************************
The freshly waxed marble floors of Universiti Kebangsaan Cyberaya gleamed under the midday sun. Students bustled down the corridor, chatting about everything from bio-cybernetics to tactical defense theory, but everyone—even the usually sleep-deprived third-years—made room when Ali bin Ghazali and Alicia Kheng passed by for the first time in weeks.
Ali took 2 weeks off from university to recover from the mission and Alicia went to classes like usual, sometimes with her friends, Moon and Iman and mostly by herself.
“Well, well,” muttered one second-year student as he peeked from behind a tall stack of textbooks. “There goes Cyberaya U’s ultimate power couple.”
“They’re not a couple,” his friend whispered, wide-eyed.
“Oh, come on,” the first one scoffed. “They’re basically married in every group project. Have you seen the way she glares at him when he makes another corny joke? That’s love.”
“Or pure homicidal rage.”
“Same thing.”
Across the hallway, Ali was mid-laugh, hand on the back of his neck as Alicia leveled him with her signature half-lidded glare.
As years passed, Ali had grown to 1.8m (6ft for someone not using Metric measurement) and Alicia stopped growing at 1.65m.
“I told you,” she said, clutching her tablet like a weapon. “We were supposed to meet at the lab at ten sharp, not ‘ten-ish-but-oh-no-I-needed-teh-ais-first’.”
“I was ten minutes late! That's within Malaysian Standard Time! I have a Janji Melayu watch,” Ali protested, all charm and grin.
“You invented your own time zone, and I’m filing a formal complaint.”
“You’d have to submit that through the official girlfriend grievance portal,” Ali teased, giving her a pointed look without thinking.
Alicia narrowed her eyes. “You just said girlfriend.”
He paused. “No, I didn’t.”
She smirked. “You totally did.”
“Slip of the tongue,” he said, ears a little red now. “Or subconscious confession. Either way, please don’t kill me.”
Before she could fire back, Victor appeared from behind a vending machine, dramatically sipping an orange soda and wearing a too-satisfied smile.
“Aaaand there it is,” he declared. “Today’s episode of ‘Will They or Won’t They?’ starring our favorite emotionally constipated duo.”
Alicia turned slowly. “Victor.”
“General Victor, thank you very much. I’ve been promoted in all my fanfiction.”
Ali buried his face in his hands. “Why are you like this?”
Victor gestured grandly at the curious crowd gathering around the edges of the hallway. “You two can’t breathe near each other without someone writing poetry or memes about it on our uni forum. There’s even a subreddit now— #Aliship4ever .”
“I beg your pardon?” Alicia asked flatly.
“Oh, don’t worry. They’re weirdly respectful,” Victor said. “Lots of academic citations. Someone did a thesis on your body language patterns.”
“That’s not creepy at all,” Ali mumbled.
Victor tapped his soda can. “Also, you’re trending on Geng Cyberaya’s Discord server. Again. All because you shared your umbrella with her last week.”
“It was raining!” Ali cried.
“You had one umbrella!” Victor countered. “The romantic tension was practically weaponized.”
Alicia pinched the bridge of her nose. “Please tell me someone’s focusing on actual education in this building.”
“Oh, they are,” Victor said. “They’re studying you two like a scientific phenomenon.”
Alicia turned to Ali. “We need to transfer.”
“Agreed.”
Victor gave them a lazy salute. “I’ll let the masses know their OTP remains delightfully unresolved.”
Ali and Alicia walk faster now ignoring every stares, whispering and cooing from other students.
****************************
Ali leaned back on a stool in the empty robotics lab after their classes, watching Alicia tinker with a new magnetic stabilizer. Her hair was tied in a high ponytail and her green head band in place as usual, a pencil tucked behind one ear, face fixed in that determined Alicia-zone that usually meant three hours of silence and absolutely no tolerance for jokes.
Naturally, he tested the waters anyway.
“So… the girlfriend grievance portal,” he said lightly. “Do I need to sign up?”
Alicia didn’t look up. “You’d crash the server with the sheer volume of complaints.”
“Ouch. I thought I was charming.”
“You’re lucky you’re decent at field tactics, or I’d have disowned you as a partner years ago.”
He grinned, but there was something soft behind it. A warmth that wasn’t just from the fluorescent lights overhead.
“You know,” he said after a pause, “everyone keeps teasing us like we’re a couple.”
Alicia finally looked at him, an eyebrow raised. “Is this your way of saying you want to be?”
Ali blinked. “What? No! I mean, yes. I mean—only if you also… you know…”
She laughed. And it was rare, that genuine, musical sound she usually reserved for private moments. Ali felt his heart skip a beat.
“You really are hopeless,” she said fondly.
He shrugged. “Hopelessly into you.”
A beat.
Alicia blinked. “Did you just…”
“Yup.”
She stared at him.
“Twice in one day,” she said. “Ali bin Ghazali, are you flirting with me?”
“Depends. Is it working?”
She walked over slowly, stopping just a few inches from his stool. He was still taller even when seated, but she somehow managed to look down at him with that signature smirk.
“You flirt like you fight,” she murmured. “Recklessly. With no plan.”
He smiled. “But I always have your back.”
Her eyes softened.
That was the truth, and always had been. From their first clashing days in MATA Academy to now, Alicia could never deny that Ali was the only person who knew how to both challenge and comfort her.
“…What if I told you,” she said carefully, “I don’t mind the shipping jokes anymore?”
Ali leaned closer, playful. “Are you saying the fanfic writers were right all along?”
“I’m saying,” she said, poking her pen against his arm on the table, “that maybe they weren’t completely wrong.”
His heart fluttered. Ali reached for her pen fully this time, smiling softly. They both looked down at the gesture, and for once, neither pulled away.
Alicia rolled her eyes affectionately. “You’re grinning like a dork.”
“I am a dork. But I’m your dork.”
Alicia gave a half-laugh, half-sigh. “How are you still alive after years of saying lines like that?”
“I have plot armor,” he said brightly.
She smacked his shoulder. “You have me. That’s why.”
Their smiles are blinding, reserved for each other. The lab was quiet except for the faint hum of machinery and the sound of their breathing. For a moment, the world outside—the nosy students, Victor’s teasing, the fan-made music videos—faded away.
It was just them.
Grown-up, scarred, silly, and so full of emotion they didn’t always know what to do with it.
But finally, together .
**********************************
Back in the hallway
“Ali, he always ghosts me now. And I need to pick up his ass every time. Victor walked past the lab, glanced through the glass pane, and stopped in his tracks.
“ Walaoweh! ,” he said to himself in shock. But his hands immediately clasped his mouth, carefully not to make any sound interrupting the young couple's moment.
He pulled out his phone and started typing furiously in the group chat titled “Alishippers Anonymous”.
VICTOR: GUYS IT’S HAPPENING
VICTOR: THEY CONFESSED
VICTOR: THEY’RE STARING AT EACH OTHER
VICTOR: I’M NOT OKAY.
Dozens of replies poured in instantly.
[Nadia]: SEND PICS OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN
[Harris]: I’M SCREAMING
[Moon]: Took them long enough.
[Rudy]: I owe someone RM50.
Victor grinned and pressed send on a blurry (but unmistakably affectionate) snapshot through the window.
Inside the lab, Alicia paused mid-sentence.
“…Did you hear a camera shutter just now?”
Ali groaned. “I swear, if Victor’s building a scrapbook—”
Alicia playfully swatted his arm.
“It’s fine,” she said, voice unusually soft.
“Really?”
She nodded. “Let them talk. Let them write songs. Let them make memes.”
Ali blinked. “Who are you and what have you done with Alicia Kheng?”
She gave him a quiet smile.
“You’re worth the attention.”
His heart nearly exploded.
He gently brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
“Now who’s the romantic?”
She smirked. “Just balancing the chaos.”
And from that day forward, the hallway whispers changed.
They still talked, of course. That would never stop. But it wasn’t just about the ship anymore.
It was about hope.
Because if the once-bickering partners who nearly drowned in a storm could come back to each other—older, wiser, stronger—then maybe, just maybe, there was something real waiting for everyone else, too.
Even if it started with an umbrella and a missed lab appointment.