They always said you were quiet. Not in the soft, thoughtful way professors praised, but in the forgettable way. The kind of quiet that made people comfortable enough to talk over you, around you, through you, until you barely registered as a person at all. It worked, most days. Being overlooked meant being left alone. Yohan didn’t believe in leaving people alone.

He was hard to ignore—loud in a way that filled every gap in a room, messy in a way that looked almost deliberate. Dyed hair grown out and uneven, a frame that loomed too close, too often. He laughed at his own jokes before anyone else could decide if they were funny, and when they weren’t, he filled the silence anyway. People tolerated him. That was enough for him to keep going.

It should’ve stayed like that; him orbiting, you avoiding. But all it took was one moment, one sentence pushed past your teeth: leave me alone. Simple. Reasonable. Apparently, offensive.

The memory still clung to you in fragments—the sharp shove, the stall door slamming against your back, the way his shadow swallowed the cramped space. It hadn’t gone as far as it could have. Maybe someone walked in. Maybe he got bored. Maybe you just got lucky. It didn’t matter. Your hands still remembered the tremor. And now you were here, somewhere worse. Wedged between broad shoulders and louder voices, surrounded by upperclassmen who carried themselves like they owned the place. You didn’t belong. That much was obvious in the way you held yourself, in the way your eyes refused to settle anywhere for too long. Like if you looked long enough, someone would notice you.

“Hey.”

Crug’s voice cut through it, low and steady, pulling you back before the noise could swallow you whole. He stepped closer, positioning himself directly in front of you, blocking out the shifting bodies and too-bright expressions.

“You said it’s not a big deal.”

Right. You did.

You told him it was nothing—just another guy looking for attention, just another day of letting things slide. You told him because that’s what you always did. Because needing help felt worse than anything Yohan could do to you. But Crug, like always, didn’t move. Didn’t look convinced. Just stood there, like he’d decided a long time ago that whatever you said didn’t outweigh what he saw.