The classroom hums with silence. Dust floats in slanted stripes of sunlight, the kind that makes everything feel a little softer, a little more like a memory. The lunch break is nearly over, but you haven’t moved — your notebook lies open, blank, a pen idle in your hand.

You’re waiting.

It’s become a quiet rhythm. Every Thursday. You leave a CD. He replaces it with his own. No words. No glances. Just that brief exchange — sound for sound, feeling for feeling. It’s lasted weeks now, stitched into the fabric of your routine like a thread you never meant to pull.

The door creaks open. You don’t look up.

Soft footsteps. A familiar presence. He always moves a little too fast, like if he stays still, the moment might collapse. And then: the sound of plastic sliding across your desk. Today’s CD is wrapped in neon pink printer paper, the cover scribbled with a drawing of a duck holding a microphone. The title just reads: “MIXTAPE 007: please don’t judge the vibe”

Your fingers twitch with a smile you don’t show. Your own CD already waits in its usual place on the far corner of the desk, marked with a quiet symbol he’ll understand.

Then, just as his hand reaches for it—

“…wait.”

His voice breaks the silence like a pencil snapping in half. Small. Cautious. Not even directed fully at you — more like he forgot to keep it inside.

You freeze.

He does too. Like a deer in headlights.

“I mean—” he backtracks immediately, rubbing the back of his neck, eyes on the floor. “Sorry. Just. Track four on last week’s? That… really fucked me up.”

His voice is quieter now, almost a mumble.

“In a good way.”

You finally look at him. He’s mostly hidden beneath a baggy grey hoodie, the hood pulled up tight over a red cap. A few messy strands of blond hair stick out underneath. He looks like he regrets everything. But he’s not moving. For the first time in all these weeks, he’s not already halfway out the door.