The cart rattled softly beneath them, its wooden wheels grumbling over the dirt road back to Kalentang Village. Horses huffed clouds into the fading afternoon light, their hooves steady and rhythmic. But inside the cart, silence reigned.
It wasn't the kind of silence that offered peace or reflection. It was the kind that lingered in the chest, pressing down like wet cloth, threatening to drown you in everything you couldn't say.
Arya sat at the front, reins in hand, his silhouette sharp against the dipping sun. His shoulders didn't flinch. He hadn't spoken since they departed. Just drove. The shadows of the trees flitted over his back like memories he refused to carry.
Nala was beside him, her spear resting across her lap like a sleeping beast. Her eyes were fixed ahead, unreadable.
Dyah Netarja sat beside Jaka, quiet as well—but present. She didn't fidget, didn't force words. She just sat near, calm in the way only those who had stood beside death without blinking could be. A lighthouse in fog.
Jaka hadn't looked up in hours.
His wooden sword sat across his knees, the smooth handle worn from years of training. He gripped it now—not tightly, but with a kind of reverence. Like a child clinging to a memory.
Well, he's still 10 years old.
And he couldn't stop seeing it.
In that moment, the man, Jaka drove a sword—not his own—into flesh, and blood spilled forth.
It hadn't been supposed to go that way. He wasn't supposed to actually—
I killed a man.
It echoed in his skull. Over and over. Like a curse.
He carried the wooden one his master gave him. It was symbolic—comforting. A reminder of who he wanted to be. What he trained for.
But that moment, in the heat, in the panic... when the bandit's blade was knocked loose, and Dyah Netarja was in danger—he grabbed the nearest thing.
He couldn't even remember how it felt—just the moment it sank in, and everything after went quiet.
I was trying to protect her.
His eyes drifted to Dyah Netarja then. Her face was calm. Still. But her eyes... they weren't distant. They were watching him. Not prying. Just... there.
She didn't say a word. Didn't press. Just sat beside him, steady and solid like the earth. It should have been comforting. Maybe it was. But it also cracked something inside him.
He looked away, guilt tightening in his throat like a noose.
Jaka exhaled, his voice low. "I used to train with spoons," he said suddenly, the words slipping out like water from a cracked cup.
Dyah turned to him slowly, her expression unreadable. "Spoons?"
He nodded once. "As a kid. I'd sneak into the kitchen, grab the biggest spoon I could find, and... pretend it was a sword. I'd run around the yard fighting invisible monsters or chasing some angry chickens." He let out a half-laugh, dry and brittle. "My mother thought I was possessed."
Dyah tilted her head, curious but not mocking. "Why spoons?"
Jaka stared down at the wooden blade in his lap. "I didn't have anything else. Wooden sword came much later. But back then? I used what I had. Thought if I trained hard enough, I could become... someone dangerous. Someone strong."
He hesitated. Then, with a bitter smile, "I wanted to be like John Wick."
A pause.
Dyah blinked. "John who?"
He groaned softly, dragging a hand over his face. "Right. Sorry. Old story. About a man who lost everything, then became this unstoppable fighter. Cold. Precise. Deadly. But instead of pencils, I used spoons."
That earned a faint twitch of her lips—just barely.
"I thought," he continued, quieter now, "if I could become someone like that... I'd never be afraid again. I'd never have to feel weak. Turns out I'm not John Wick. Just... Joke Wik."
He gave a short, hollow laugh that died too quickly.
But Dyah Netarja didn't laugh. She didn't look away, either. Instead, she tilted her head, her eyes soft and steady.
"I don't need to know who you're talking about," she said quietly. "I understand you. I do."
Jaka swallowed, feeling the weight of her words press into him. He'd expected her to brush him off, or worse—pity him. But instead, she just saw him.
And for a moment, the mask he'd tried so hard to wear cracked.
He almost wanted to laugh again, but it came out more as a shaky exhale. "That's... honestly scarier than fighting a room full of bandits."
Dyah still didn't smile, but her gaze held something deeper. Something steady. "It's not scary, Jaka. It's human."
He shook his head, a dry chuckle escaping him. "No. It's... pathetic. I used to think I could be this untouchable forces. But now? I'm just a guy who killed someone and can't even look at a sword without feeling like a piece of me is broken."
She was quiet for a long moment. Then, gently, she placed a hand on his arm—no pressure, just presence. Grounding.
"You're not pathetic," she said. "You're still here. You're still you. And that's enough."
The cart continued its slow, creaking path down the road. A crow called somewhere overhead, the only other sound in the fading light.
Jaka closed his eyes for a second, feeling the weight of everything he hadn't said and everything he still couldn't say. When he opened them, he met her gaze again.
"I never wanted to be afraid," he whispered. "I thought I could handle it all... be strong enough. But now? All I feel is scared. I don't even know who I am anymore."
"You don't have to have all the answers right now," Dyah Netarja said softly. "Just... don't face it alone, okay?"
He stared at her hand on his arm. Then nodded.
"I won't," he said.
He wasn't okay.
But he wasn't alone.
And maybe—for now—that was enough.
The village was still a few miles off, but already he could feel the weight of what waited there—questions, consequences, people who would look at him and see something different now.
He would have to answer to that. To himself. To his friends. To the ghost of the man whose blood was on his hands.
But maybe—just maybe—he wouldn't have to do it without help.
He looked down at the wooden sword in his lap, tracing the faded carvings with his thumb. The handle was scuffed and worn, the grain smoothed by years of training. It didn't feel like a weapon anymore. It felt like a memory.
He used to believe that if he trained hard enough, he could become someone else.
Now, he wasn't so sure. Maybe he didn't need to be John Wick. Maybe he just needed to be Jaka. Broken, scared, uncertain—but moving forward.
Turns out, even waifus can't magically heal depression.
But they sure as hell help you stand.