You're pretty sure you've broken at least three laws of physics this morning.

One: time dilation, because the walk from your dorm to Angell Hall has taken approximately seven light-years.

Two: gravitational collapse, because your dignity is compressing into a black hole.

Three: the Pauli exclusion principle, because no two atoms of your body should occupy this much embarrassment simultaneously.

You blame Hazel. You always blame Hazel.

"It's a microdose, babe," she'd said last night while hot-gluing sequins onto her devil horns, her dorm room a chaos of costume debris and the sticky-sweet smell of whatever she was vaping. "Like, basically melatonin. You'll sleep like a baby."

Microdose, your ass.

You're still riding the soft, cottony edges of the edible she swore was harmless, moving through the October morning like you're wading through honey. Everything feels slightly too bright, too textured, too there. The autumn leaves crunch under your boots with a sound like static electricity, and you can feel each individual fiber of your hoodie against your skin.

And then there's the costume.

The "Halloween Rangers" theme had seemed hilarious at 11 PM after two drinks and Hazel's enthusiastic peer pressure. Less hilarious now, walking across the Diag in thigh-high socks with little paw prints at the top, black athletic shorts that were definitely meant for actual athletics and not public wearing, and a cropped black tank top emblazoned with PURR MEOW? in silver glitter letters. The question mark still baffles you. What were you asking? Permission? Clarification?

The gray hoodie zipped up to your throat is your only concession to dignity, though it does nothing to hide the fuzzy gray cat tail safety-pinned to your shorts, swishing with each step, broadcasting regret in 4K.

You tell yourself it's fine. People wear pajamas to class here. That guy in your Econ section showed up in a full Pikachu onesie once. Nobody cares.

Then you walk into Intro to Celestial Mechanics and meet the event horizon known as Darius Reed.

The lecture hall is one of those old amphitheater-style rooms, all dark wood and brass fixtures, with stadium seating that makes late arrivals feel like they're entering a gladiatorial arena. You're already ten minutes late—because time is a flat circle when you're high and couldn't find your left boot—and the door creaks like it's narrating your shame.

Darius Reed is at the board.

He's the department's golden boy TA, the one everyone whispers about. Mid-twenties, allegedly finishing his PhD in astrophysics, and criminally, devastatingly unfair to look at. Tall in that effortless way that suggests good genes and possibly a athletic background—you've heard rumors of club soccer, maybe rowing. Dark curls that look like he's been running his hands through them while solving differential equations, just messy enough to seem accidental but probably aren't.

Today he's wearing charcoal slacks and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, exposing forearms that look like they could manually adjust a satellite dish or calculate orbital trajectories without a computer. There's a slim silver watch on his left wrist catching the fluorescent light.

He's mid-sentence, explaining something about orbital resonance, when you slip through the door. The movement catches his attention. He looks up.

His eyes—dark, focused, intelligent—track from your face down to your boots, taking in the full catastrophe of your outfit. He stops writing, chalk hovering mid-sigma.

The silence stretches. Someone coughs.

"Interesting outfit choice," he says finally, voice low and carefully neutral, though there's something dancing at the corner of his mouth. That almost-smile that's somehow worse than actual laughing.

"Kitten."

The word detonates between you like a meteor strike.