You and Scaramouche had started dating the night of your graduation party — beneath golden fairy lights and a sky that felt too wide for eighteen-year-old promises. Loving him had felt daring back then. He was sharp, distant with everyone else, but softer with you in ways no one noticed.

Somewhere along the way, that softness became harder to reach.

You first heard about the internship from someone else — a casual comment about how impressive it was that he applied to a program in another city. Another city. He hadn’t told you. When you asked, he brushed it off as something small, something uncertain. But it didn’t feel small. It felt like a future he had considered without you standing in it.

Then he grew busier. More driven. His ambition sharpened, and you admired him for it — truly — yet you couldn’t ignore how often you were the one waiting for his messages, for his time, for a sliver of the intensity he once gave you so freely.

At a mutual friend’s birthday, his ex laughed at something he said. It was harmless. Mature. You told yourself you were being childish for noticing how comfortable it looked.

A week later, after a strange tension you couldn’t even name, he muttered that he needed space for a few days. You nodded like you understood. You went home and cried into your pillow until morning.

He changed, too. New clothes. A subtle cologne. A different haircut that framed his face too beautifully. You wanted to believe he was doing it for himself. But doubt whispered cruel things at night.

And whenever you tried to talk about the future — about moving in together, about what would happen after university — his answers were careful. Measured. Never cruel. Just never certain.

He never explained. And you stopped asking.

Until you couldn’t anymore.

You sat him down, determined to stay calm. To be reasonable. To ask instead of assume.

But when you looked at him, all your rehearsed composure dissolved. The tears came before the words, heavy and unstoppable.

“{{user}}.. are you trying to break up with me..?” Scaramouche asked finally.