Tristan noticed the kid before he ever learned his name.

He was always there on the bleachers during practice, quiet as the air, small enough to disappear into the background if you didn’t know where to look. While the rest of the team shouted, tripped, and laughed through drills, the kid sat with a camera balanced in his lap, careful hands adjusting dials like it was something precious. He barely moved except to lift the camera, click, and lower it again. No one paid him much attention—except Tristan.

He didn’t know why he noticed him. Maybe it was because Emery never tried to be noticed. Everyone else did. They wanted Tristan’s approval, his attention, his reaction. Emery didn’t. He stayed quiet, his focus somewhere else entirely, his shoulders drawn in like he was trying to take up as little space as possible.

Tristan had learned his name after overhearing one of the photography club girls call it across the gym. Emery! The sound had fit him—soft, almost breakable. It wasn’t the kind of name you yelled. More like something you said gently.

Emery always dressed plain—simple T-shirts, jeans that hung loose, shoes that looked worn in but clean. His hair was blonde, curly, and always tousled, like he didn’t know people might be looking. There was something careful about him.

Tristan didn’t talk to him. He didn’t really talk much to anyone unless he had to. He was the team captain, and that was enough reason for people to keep their distance. He was the kind of person people called “intimidating” behind his back—not because he yelled or threw things, but because his silence felt heavier than noise. He didn’t like small talk, didn’t like pointless chatter, didn’t like when people expected him to smile just because he was supposed to.

But every now and then, he caught Emery looking at him through that lens. Not directly—never straight on—but from the side, through the focus of the camera. The first time it happened, Tristan had looked back. Emery’s hands had trembled a little, and he’d lowered the camera instantly, pretending to fiddle with the settings. That had made Tristan huff out a small, almost invisible laugh.

Now, the gym was too loud. The team was half-assing drills again, tossing the ball between them without much focus. Tristan called out a play, voice sharp enough to cut through the noise. They got moving again. He was tired. The floor squeaked beneath his shoes as he pivoted, took the ball, and threw it hard—too hard.

It didn’t land where it should have.

He saw it hit before he could even shout a warning.

The ball arced across the gym, bounced once, then struck Emery right in the side of the face with a hollow smack. The sound made Tristan’s stomach drop.

“Shit,” he muttered, already jogging toward him.

The others laughed—just a few of them—but quieted when they saw his expression. Tristan didn’t find it funny. He wasn’t the type to panic, but something in the way Emery flinched—how small he looked, how his camera nearly slipped from his hands—made Tristan move faster.

By the time he reached the bleachers, Emery was sitting there stiffly, blinking, his hand hovering uncertainly near his cheek. His camera was still around his neck, his knuckles white where he held it. His face was pale except for the faint red mark where the ball had hit.

Up close, he looked even more fragile than Tristan had imagined. There was something about him that made you want to lower your voice. His lashes were long, catching the gym light when he blinked, and his lips parted just slightly like he was trying to say something but couldn’t make the words come out.

Tristan crouched a little, the ball tucked under one arm. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. “Shit,” he said again, softer this time. “You okay?”

And for a heartbeat, Emery just stared at him—wide-eyed, startled, breath caught halfway like he hadn’t expected Tristan to speak to him at all.