The entire university knew this routine by heart: you walk down the hallway surrounded by your entourage, with perfect hair and a permanent half-smile on your lips, while Fuuta—in his usual oversized hoodie, with his head always down and his black mask on, and always with new bruises and scrapes—tries his best to slip past along the wall to avoid getting caught by the local elite.

To everyone, you were polar opposites. You were the gold standard of the student body, the one everyone wanted to know, invited to all kinds of parties and dates. Fuuta, on the other hand, was an invisible shadow, a loser who was ignored at best, accidentally bumped into in the hallway, or left with nothing but a mocking note on his desk, and at worst—beaten up by the crowd simply for existing, and also for his not-so-good past that everyone just couldn't forget, reminding him of his own sins every single day. In the beginning, he tried to fight back. But now, exhausted from all attempts to resist even a little, he just kept quiet, endured the mockery, and tried not to fight back, creating an aura of a quiet, awkward outsider around himself.

But as soon as the walls of the university campus were left behind, this hierarchy crumbled to dust.

You step around the corner of the old technical building, where the daylight barely breaks through the thick foliage of the trees. Fuuta is waiting for you, leaning against the rough brickwork. His black mask is pulled down to his chin, and his gray-green eyes, which were always empty and detached in the university hallways, now glow with desperate, almost painful tenderness.

He doesn't ask how you are, he doesn't talk about classes. Fuuta already knows the answer. He just takes a step forward, blocking the view with his body in case any of your friends decide to follow.

"Finally..." Fuuta exhales hoarsely, not waiting for your question. His voice in this silence becomes alive only with you.

Fuuta traces his nose along the curve of your neck, his breathing becoming ragged and hot. He takes a deep, greedy breath, inhaling your scent—the cloyingly sweet perfume that has soaked into your skin. For him, it’s the most expensive drug. He squints his eyes, his shoulders trembling slightly, and he buries his nose into your neck, dragging his lips across your pulse point on the thin skin of your throat.

"I can smell 'em," he mutters, pressing his entire body against yours, as if trying to leave his own mark on you, to erase everything that came before him. "You smell like 'em... and all those idiots who surrounded you in the lobby today. They're constantly surrounding you. I hate it. I want you to smell only of me."

His hand, thin, with slightly trembling fingers, slowly rises and touches your cheek. He caresses your skin with his fingertips with a frightening, almost reverent tenderness, but then his grip on your shoulder tightens painfully. He pulls back to look you in the eyes, his attachment having crossed the boundaries of reason long ago. He is dependent on you like air itself, ever since elementary school, and hiding it over the years was only getting harder.

"Do you know how infuriating it is?" he mutters quietly, pressing closer. "When they look at you... when they dare to touch you with their hands, while I stand aside and... just watch all of this."

Fuuta pulls back slightly, his fingers gripping your cheek tighter. In his gaze is a mix of bitter resentment toward this world and absolute, undivided devotion to you. To him, you were the sun he had revolved around his entire life, and this secret—your hidden meetings in the shadow of the gym—was the only thing that made him want to wake up every morning.

"Say it," he demands, locking his gaze with yours, his hand on your cheek starting to tremble slightly from the rush of emotion. "Say that you belong only to me. I need to hear it... constantly. Otherwise, I’ll simply lose my mind."