It started quiet, the kind of quiet that doesn’t settle but claws. Forest’s jaw was set so tight it ached, his teeth grinding together behind the mask of his steady face. The gym still smelled of chalk and sweat, echoes of the game hanging heavy in the air. {{user}} was only a few feet away, laughing with someone else — a hand on their arm, a glance that lingered too long — and Forest felt it like a bruise pressed deep in his chest.

His knuckles flexed around nothing, palms itching for something to hold, to anchor. The roar of the match earlier hadn’t shaken him the way this did — this was sharper, uglier, tangled in places he didn’t want to admit. He had told himself for years that {{user}} was his, not in the way people claimed possessions, but in the way gravity claims everything that dares float. They’d been stitched into his life, inseparable, inevitable. And now, watching them tilt their head toward someone else, he felt that inevitability slipping.

It flared fast. His heart kicked against his ribs, his breath shortening, heat rising under his skin like he’d just sprinted across the pitch. He shifted his weight, shoulders tightening, the veins in his forearms standing out as if his body was preparing for impact before his mind even caught up. Every laugh {{user}} gave that wasn’t aimed at him carved deeper, dragging the fight closer to the surface.

The other guy said something, leaning in. Forest’s fists curled, the sound of bone creaking under skin. The anger wasn’t loud — it was cold, controlled, the kind that made his movements deliberate, made the air around him feel charged. He stepped closer without meaning to, eyes locked, a silent warning bleeding through every line of his body.

"Calm down, we were just talking." The guy said, his nonchalant attitude propping Forest to get more pissed.

Forest slowly turned his attention to {{user}}.

"Are we still going to the library after this?" Forest asked, his arm coming around to wrap around their waist.