diff --git a/test/cli/run/esm-bug-leak-fixture.mjs b/test/cli/run/esm-bug-leak-fixture.mjs
index 9884aa394222..294d0b9b5d25 100644
--- a/test/cli/run/esm-bug-leak-fixture.mjs
+++ b/test/cli/run/esm-bug-leak-fixture.mjs
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 import { createRequire } from "node:module";
 const require = createRequire(import.meta.url);
-const dest = await import.meta.resolve("./esm-leak-fixture-large-ast.mjs");
+// require.cache is keyed by absolute path; the file:// URL import.meta.resolve()
+// returns never matches an entry, so deleting it would not evict the module.
+const dest = require.resolve("./esm-leak-fixture-large-ast.mjs");
 // ASAN's quarantine retains freed allocations (default 256 MB) so RSS deltas
 // run far higher under bun-asan; widen the threshold to avoid false positives.
 const isASAN = process.execPath.includes("bun-asan");
@@ -14,6 +16,11 @@ for (let i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
   delete require.cache[dest];
   await import(dest);
 }
+if (!(dest in require.cache)) {
+  console.log("require.cache has no entry for", dest, "so deleting it never evicts the module");
+  console.log("\n--fail--\n");
+  process.exit(1);
+}
 if (typeof Bun !== "undefined") Bun.gc(true);
 const baseline = rss();