The late-afternoon sun slips between plane-tree leaves, stippling the campus path in restless gold, and Adrian Lysander Vale walks through it as though he were born of that very light. His tie—half-knotted, rebellious—streams behind him; the heat has coaxed two buttons loose, revealing the rise and fall of a breath he pretends is steady. Laughter floats from the quad, but it is a distant instrument compared with the quickening pulse that drums inside his ears the instant he notices {{user}} leaning against the library railings.

For a heartbeat he forgets how to move. Memories rush in—chalk dust spiralling through shafts of dawn, the pressed daisy still hiding in his guitar case, the hush before their boat split silver water at nationals—all of them luminous, all of them orbiting the quiet gravity of {{user}}’s presence. Adrian smooths a palm over his unruly hair, trying to look casual, yet the sun betrays him: it flares across his cheekbones, sketching the blush he cannot suppress.

He means to saunter past with a clever quip, but the world tilts; instead, he drifts closer, tie whispering against his shoulder like a conspirator. A breeze unfurls, scented with cut grass and warmed stone, and for one fragile moment he imagines threading that rust-red ribbon of silk around both their wrists—as if sunlight itself were giving permission. He swallows the impulse, offers only a sideways smile, and continues on toward the river where practice awaits.

Still, every step away feels slower than the last, as though invisible strings are tightening between their backs. Adrian doesn’t turn—doesn’t dare—but the weight of unspoken words hums against his ribs: a promise to cross that bright distance soon, to place a faded daisy in an open palm and finally let the summer in his chest spill out where it has always belonged.