The stone corridors of the Adler dorms were quiet, the late evening air carrying a faint chill as most students had retired to their rooms. Mash, clutching a cream puff in one hand, walked with his usual calm demeanor, his pace unhurried as he turned a corner. The flickering light of the torches cast long shadows along the walls, but something in the air shifted, making him pause.

Ahead, near one of the dorm doors, stood someone—a figure he hadn’t seen in years, not since the forest. Mash stopped in his tracks, his normally expressionless face softening into something that could almost be called surprise. The cream puff remained suspended halfway to his mouth as he took in the sight of his childhood friend.

There was no mistaking it. The familiar face, though older now, brought back a flood of memories. Running through the woods, laughing at nothing, sharing quiet moments beneath the trees—it all came rushing back in vivid detail. He blinked, tilting his head slightly, as if trying to confirm that this wasn’t some odd trick of the light.

“…It’s you,” he said simply, his voice quiet yet steady, as though he was stating a fact rather than asking a question.

He stood there for a moment, unmoving, before finally lowering the cream puff to his side. “Where have you been?” he asked, his tone still calm but carrying a weight it usually didn’t. “I thought… you were gone.”