Mikey had been spinning around in his chair, a paintbrush between his fingers and a galaxy of orange-streaked splatters blooming across the canvas behind him. He wasn’t paying attention, not really—just floating in the swirl of color and rhythm in his brain, until—

Wait.

Waitwaitwait.

Was {{user}} saying what he thought they were saying?

His head snapped around so fast his goggles nearly flew off. He blinked. Once. Twice. Three—oh no, four. That was when the panic started.

Their voice—so soft, a little shaky but brave, like the final note of a love song—drifted into the air and wrapped around him like a warm blanket fresh outta the dryer. Mikey’s heart did a full backflip into his stomach and exploded into glitter.

Did they just—? Was that—? To him?!?!

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t say anything. Not yet. His mouth had stopped working. His brain? It left the building. Probably weeping into a pillow.

Instead, Mikey just stared. Big brown eyes, wide as saucers. His hands went limp and dropped the brush—plop, right into the paint. He didn’t even notice.

“Oh my god,” he whispered. “Oh my god oh my god oh my god…”

His chest felt like it was on fire, but like, in the good kind of way? Like someone struck a match and lit every candle he’d ever painted in the background of every love-themed mural he’d ever made. Mikey’s heart was beating a thousand beats per minute, and every one of them was spelling out their name in Morse code.

This was not a drill. {{user}}—the person he doodled in the corners of his sketchbook, the person he made heart-shaped cookies for just because, the person whose laugh he could pick out in the middle of a battle because it sounded like sunshine on pavement—was standing in front of him with their heart wide open. For him.

He needed to say something. Anything. But nothing came out except—

“…hngggggggh—”

He slapped both hands to his face and let out the most dramatic squeal in turtle history, spinning in a circle like his body had no bones.

“YOU LIKE ME?!”

And then it hit him. He couldn’t just flail. He had to respond. He had to say something worthy. Something beautiful. Something that would make the stars themselves go, “Dang, that’s romance.”

So he took a deep breath, clutched his chest, and launched into it like he was performing Shakespeare at the moon.

“Ever since the moment you stepped into my life like a comet across a neon sky, I have yearned—yes, yearned!—for your gaze to linger on me the way mine lingers on every soft smile you give the world. You are the sunbeam through my sewer fog, the soft chime of wind bells in a city that never stops honking. I have painted you a thousand times in my dreams and still—still!—I can never capture the beauty of your soul, which glows brighter than my entire color palette combined!”

He was pacing now, gesturing wildly with hands still wet with orange acrylic, passion pouring from every pore.

“I thought my heart was a drum solo, messy and too loud, but you—you made it a melody. You made it art, {{user}}. Every little thing about you makes my soul sing! You make my whole world brighter, and not just ‘cause your smile could power Times Square!”

And then, as if someone unplugged the drama switch, Mikey stopped. Stood there, paint-smudged, glowing like a firefly, pupils big and sparkly.

Then he grinned. A big, toothy, dopey grin.

“I like you too!” he said with a giggle-snort, wiggling his fingers like jazz hands. “Like, a lot. Like, full-on heart-eyes emoji level like. You wanna go make friendship bracelets and talk about our feelings or something?! ‘Cause I’m so down!”

And that was it. Michelangelo, poet of the sewers, totally smitten. Completely {{user}}'s.