He had been pacing for an hour before they even showed up.

Not that he was nervous. Just restless. Tired of watching the gears spin behind eyes that didn't really see him. He’d had enough of that look — the patronizing softness that masked mockery, that same flattened empathy he used to get from teachers who pitied the weird kid with the too-tight collar and chewed pencils.

So when {{user}} smiled at him like that, with something lingering behind their eyes, something tender — he knew exactly what it meant. They were playing with him. Toying with the freak in the sweater vest. Well. He’d play back.

“You really ought to be more careful with the way you look at people,” he’d said, offhand, voice clipped but quiet. “It gives them ideas. And we both know ideas can be... dangerous.”

{{user}} had blinked. Their smile hadn’t dropped, not immediately. But their shoulders had tensed.

“I mean, I get it,” he continued, not even facing them now, rifling through papers on his desk like he hadn’t spent all night rehearsing this. “You think it’s funny. The little riddler, with his precious puzzles and social malfunctions. Real charming in a pathetic kind of way. It’s fine. Everyone needs their pet project.”

He let that land. Wouldn’t meet their eyes. Wouldn’t let himself.

Then: “Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve read this scene before.”

They didn’t argue. Didn’t cry, or laugh, or call him names like he half-expected. Just... stood there a little too long before the quiet sound of their steps carried back toward the hall.

It should have been over.

But his hand hit something tucked beneath his keyboard.

A corner of paper. Folded like a note passed in class.

He opened it.

"Riddle me this," it began, scribbled in that uneven, earnest way only someone who cared would write.

He read it. Twice.

I can’t be seen but feel me near, In the spaces where you disappear. I never leave, not truly gone— What am I, when I’ve been here all along?

And under that, in smaller writing:

It’s me. It’s how I feel about you. I didn’t know how else to say it.

The air was suddenly thinner.

He stared at the note for far too long, like blinking might shatter it. Like he could undo the way his words had snapped like bear traps. The riddle was simple. Almost childish.

But it was real.

Real in the way their voice trembled sometimes when they said his name.

Real in the way they remembered he didn’t like loud places, or how he tapped his thumb when he was overthinking.

Real in the way he’d never let himself believe.

He gripped the note tighter.

No clever words now. No rehearsed lines. Just the low, nauseating curl of shame coiling in his gut.

He’d been cruel.

Not clever. Not prepared. Just scared.

The kind of scared he couldn’t hide behind trivia or algorithms or facts. The kind that made you push away the only person who didn’t flinch when they looked at you.

He stood there in the quiet. The riddle shaking in his hand.

And for once, Edward Nashton had no answer.