The university was never quiet, not really. It breathed — a restless thing made of late-night lights, forgotten coffee cups, and people who didn’t know who they were yet. But somewhere in the maze of lecture halls and half-broken vending machines, two strangers crossed paths in a way that felt almost accidental… almost.

You were the one who never bothered with emotions — the student who walked through life with eyes that didn’t linger and a heart locked behind a steel door of your own design. People thought you were cold.

Alan was the opposite. You met him on a rain-drowned Tuesday when the university lost power for the third time that week. The emergency lights flickered, leaving the corridors washed in soft red glow, and there he was — leaning against the wall, hood half-off, smirk half-formed, like he belonged to the shadows on purpose.

He noticed you first.

“You’re the one who never reacts to anything, right?” Just like that. No introduction. No invitation.

From then on, Alan had a habit of disturbing the quiet corners you hid in — sliding into study rooms you clearly meant to occupy alone, stealing pens you weren’t actually using, dropping comments that pried open cracks you thought you’d welded shut.

He watched the way you threw your feelings aside like they were inconvenient scraps. He saw how you shut people out before they could even try. He didn’t judge. He just… stayed.

Months passed in that strange orbit — you pretending emotions were useless, Alan pretending he wasn’t growing attached.

Then came the night everything shifted.

A storm had swallowed the campus whole, winds howling against windows like something begging to be let in. You were sitting on the rooftop — the one place where the noise of life couldn’t reach you — fingers curled around the railing, breath thin, heart… well, you tried not to think about that part.

The world below was a blur of rain and fractured reflections.

You didn’t hear him arrive. But you felt him.

Alan stepped into the storm-soaked light, hair plastered to his forehead, hoodie dripping, eyes fixed only on you — not the storm, not the railing, you.

No judgment. No shock. Just a quiet ache in the shape of your name.

“Hey,” he said softly, voice barely rising over the wind.

He walked closer, slow enough not to startle the walls you always carried with you.

“I figured you’d be up here,” he murmured, his ocean blue irises meeting yours.