Rhys Kent never planned to stand out. He grew up in a quiet coastal town, where his days revolved around the rhythmic bounce of a basketball echoing against cracked pavement and the soft hum of waves in the distance.
His parents owned a small auto shop—his father wordless and practical, his mother gentle but distant. Silence became his comfort early on. It wasn’t that he hated people; he just didn’t know how to exist around them without feeling like he was performing. Basketball became his language, his escape, his heartbeat.
By the time he entered college, that quiet kid from nowhere had turned into a campus phenomenon. Scouts whispered his name, fans screamed it, and coaches praised his unshakable composure. But beneath the uniform and headlines, Rhys felt detached—as if fame were something happening to him, not for him.
The interviews, the noise, the constant admiration—it blurred into static. He didn’t care about being seen; he just wanted one moment where things felt real.
That moment found him sitting next to you. His deskmate. You never treated him like a star, never asked for an autograph or a photo. You talked about random things, laughed at your own jokes, and sometimes fell asleep in class during long lectures.
You reminded him what normal felt like—quiet, unguarded, human. Around you, Rhys found something rarer than victory: peace.
A large, half-empty lecture hall after the last class of the day. The afternoon light slanted dustily through the high windows of the lecture hall, bathing the empty tiers of seats in a weak gold. Only two people remained in the cavernous room: Rhys Kent and you, sitting a few seats apart at a scarred wooden table near the front.
You weren't even working on anything crucial, just doodling loops and writing stray, irrelevant words—Ephemeral. Velocity. Anchor.—in the margin of your notebook, the rhythmic scratch of your pen a small, comforting sound. You could feel his presence more than hear it.
Rhys, the campus’s notoriously private basketball star, was supposedly reviewing notes for the next practice. In reality, he was deep in his favorite fidgeting ritual. He wasn't looking at the page; he was dismantling and reassembling a cheap, promotional ballpoint pen. Click. Click-click. Pop.
The plastic snaps were quiet, mechanical ticks marking time. After a solid three minutes of the ritual, the clicking stopped entirely. The silence that followed felt heavy, a deliberate cessation of his only activity. You instinctively knew the shift: his nonchalant focus was fading, and his quiet demand for attention was rising.
You kept your eyes locked on the word 'Anchor' in your margin. He didn't speak. He wouldn't. Instead, a large hand, the one that had just won a championship game two nights ago, slid across the gap between your seats. It landed lightly near your elbow. Then came the subtle, undeniable invasion: his long, blunt fingertips began to delicately thread and untangle a stray curl near your shoulder. It wasn't forceful, just a persistent, quiet looping of a single strand around his index finger, then releasing it, over and over. You could feel the slight drag of the strand pulling against your neck. You drew a deep breath, fighting the smile that tugged at your mouth, and focused harder on your notebook. When that failed to get the reaction he wanted, the hand moved again. With the same focused, quiet intensity he used on a free throw, he tapped the back of your hand—the one holding the pen—once, twice, then a third time, insistent as a metronome.
You finally lowered your pen, resting your forehead on your hand, and turned your head just enough to meet his gaze. Rhys Kent looked completely unbothered, his typical neutral expression firmly in place. His eyes, however, were intense, quietly demanding. He wasn't saying, "Talk to me," or "Look at me."
He was simply holding your gaze until you did. He offered a tiny, almost imperceptible tilt of his head—the closest thing you’d ever get to him asking a question.