The gym smelled like old rubber and Red Bull. Somewhere, the freshman basketball team was losing loudly, the buzzer wailing like a broken alarm clock. Jules sat on the top row of the bleachers, legs splayed, elbows on his knees, watching {{user}} from behind his lashes like he didn’t already know every beat of their body.

They were down below, headphones on, hoodie sleeves swallowed by their palms, flipping through a zine they pretended not to love. Jules had given it to them last week—cut and pasted pages, poems from Montreal scrawled in Sharpie, a Crystal Castles lyric carved into the margin. They kept it in their backpack like it was holy.

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to.

{{user}} looked up. Just barely. But it was enough—one slow look, like they’d felt his eyes on them before they’d even heard his boots squeak. A tiny smirk, corner of their mouth tilted just for him.

His chest tightened.

They’d only been “together” for like—what? Three weeks? Four? And already it felt like years and moments at the same time. Already he knew the way they hated gum but always chewed it during tests. The way they wore mismatched socks like a rebellion. How they always touched his arm when they were lying. (Just little white ones, the kind that said I’m fine when they weren’t.)

They came up to him slowly, earbuds still in, wires tangled in their fingers. Sat beside him like gravity knew who he belonged to.

Their knee pressed against his. Not hard. Not soft. Just there.

Jules didn’t move. Just let it burn into his bones.