The stadium buzzed with the low hum of survival—distant chatter, the clang of salvaged tools, the uneven rhythm of makeshift repairs. It was a shell of a world, patched together with scrap and guarded optimism, and you were still learning how to breathe inside it.

You hadn’t been here long. Just long enough to stop flinching at every shout, just long enough for your presence to feel like something more than an intrusion. Your “apartment”—a repurposed storage room wedged into the stadium’s south corridor—shared a wall with someone else’s. You knew him only in glimpses and near-encounters. Nick.

The first time you saw him, he was backing out of his door half-dressed, hands fumbling with a shirt and a distracted look in his eye. He didn’t say anything—just shot you a sideways glance and an almost-smile before disappearing down the hall. After that, it became routine. You’d pass each other heading in and out, barely brushing shoulders, trading nods. He always looked a little tired, like he’d stayed up thinking too hard about something no one wanted to talk about.

But this morning, something was different. Gone were the shoulder-length waves.

You stepped out at the same time, as if fate had choreographed it. You turned to pull your curtain shut, and there he was—standing just feet away, stretching his arms above his head, the early morning light cutting across his face. His hair was shorter now, freshly cut, and it changed everything. He looked less like the disheveled nomad you’d first noticed and more like someone who could’ve belonged in a before-world coffee shop, sketching something into a spiral notebook.

You didn’t mean to stare.

He caught you.

Nick blinked, a slow, knowing kind of glance, his mouth twitching at the corners like he was trying not to smirk. “Morning,” he said, voice a little raspy from sleep, or maybe silence. Three more words and that would officially break a record