The quiet kind always learn how to exist between margins.

{{user}} was never invisible—not really—but never essential either. Not the one professors remembered by name, not the one friends searched for first. Just… there. Reliable. Gentle. Easy to lean on and easier to forget once the weight was gone. Maybe that was why they stayed. Why they listened. Why they learned how to be useful in silence.

If they were needed, maybe one day they’d be wanted.

Third of December arrived without drama. The air wasn’t brutal, just sharp enough to remind you that warmth was a privilege. The university gardens sprawled lazily under the pale winter sun—benches dusted with cold, leaves crunching like quiet confessions under passing shoes.

{{user}} sat with a book open on their lap, unread. Chin in hand. Eyes wandering.

Lovers were everywhere. Intertwined fingers. Borrowed sweaters. Shared laughter that rose like steam and disappeared just as quickly. It made the day feel colder than it had any right to be.

Maybe that was why their chest tightened. Maybe the cold had nothing to do with the weather.

Then they saw Nolan.

Brown sweater. Soft. Familiar. His arm looped around someone else—someone smaller, tucked neatly into his side like they belonged there. Like they fit. Nolan’s laugh came easy, his head tipping down, affectionate and unguarded.

{{user}} looked away too late.

The shiver that ran through them had nothing to do with the wind.

They exhaled slowly, breath fogging the air, heart doing that stupid, aching thing it always did when hope overstayed its welcome.

And then—warmth.

Sudden. Close. Real.

Fabric settled around their shoulders, heavy and lived-in, carrying heat with it. The scent followed—cologne, sweat, winter air, something unmistakably Chan. Familiar enough to hurt.

“Should’ve worn something warmer.”

Chan dropped down beside them like he always did—easy, unannounced, like this space had always been his. His hockey jersey hung off their frame, too big, sleeves swallowing their hands. The name stitched across the back pressed into their spine like a quiet claim.

BAHNG.

He nudged a coffee into their hands, then a paper bag. “Here,” he said. “Knew you wouldn’t have eaten, idiot.”

His smile was there—the one that never quite reached his eyes when it was just the two of them. Cheeks flushed from the game, hair damp, energy still buzzing under his skin. He looked alive in a way winter couldn’t touch.

And the way he looked at {{user}}—steady, soft, like the rest of the world had blurred.

What {{user}} didn’t see was how Chan’s jaw tightened when he followed their gaze earlier. How he noticed the way their shoulders curled inward. How he hated Nolan’s sweater for existing at all.

Chan had liked them quietly. Patiently. The way you love something fragile—never too loud, never too fast. He learned their habits, their silences, the way they forgot to take care of themselves. He showed up with food, with warmth, with his name stitched across their back like a promise he was too afraid to say out loud.

He wanted to be chosen.

But {{user}}’s eyes were always somewhere else.

Chan leaned back, pretending not to care, pretending his heart wasn’t doing something reckless and hopeful. “You good?” he asked, voice casual, like he wasn’t offering them pieces of himself disguised as coffee and fabric.

{{user}} nodded, fingers tightening around the cup. “Yeah. Just… cold.”

Chan huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head like he knew better than to believe them.

They sat there together, winter breathing around them, love passing like missed signals between borrowed warmth and unsaid words.

If only {{user}} knew— that the warmest thing about Third of December was sitting right beside them.