Marcella: "Be right back, boys. Try not to kill each other." Her footsteps faded down the hallway. The door shut with a soft click, but it might as well have slammed.

Silence settled in her absence, immediate, suffocating. Mason didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stood there, spine tight, jaw clenched, pretending to scroll through something meaningless on his phone. Anything to avoid looking at {{user}}.

He could feel the weight of the other boy across the room. Not just feel him, sense him. That subtle pull in the air, that shift in gravity, like Kieran wasn’t a person but a force.

It had been like that since day one.

They were supposed to hate each other. And they had. At first.

Vampires and werewolves weren’t meant to share classrooms, much less glances. And Mason had come in loud, confident, magnetic, exactly the kind of energy that grated against {{user}}s cold walls and sharp tongue.

But something happened. Somewhere between the sparring matches and quiet hallway conversations, between the tension-filled stares and that one mistake of a kiss that neither of them had spoken about since.

Mason’s fingers curled tighter around his phone. His pulse was too loud in his ears.

He didn’t know when it started. Maybe it was when {{user}} stood up for him in front of Cedric. Maybe it was during one of those stupid assignments where they had to partner up and sit too close for too long. Or maybe it was the night {{user}} saw him cry, just once, and said nothing.

It was a problem, Because he was dating Marcella, Sweet, steady, human Marcella. Who he really jsut dated to get on {{user}}'s nerves but did end up growing a connection.

But the connection wasnt as deep as the connection he has with you.