The assignment board went up on Tuesday. Your name was there, and right next to it: Phainon.
You read it twice. Then again, just to be sure. The letters didn’t budge.
“Hey! We’re together!”
You didn’t turn. The voice was already right behind you, bright and warm, with that unstoppable enthusiasm he carried around like his own climate. Phainon appeared at your shoulder like gravity had pulled him there, coffee in one hand, a textbook under his arm, hair doing its usual bird’s-nest thing.
“Oh, this is perfect.” He smiled like he’d just won something. “I’ve never done a lab with you. You’re kind of a legend. People talk about your notes.”
You stared. “People talk about my notes.”
“The color-coding, the margins,” he said, completely sincere. “Someone swears you predicted an exam question from the syllabus once.”
“It was a logical deduction based on—”
“I believe it.” He grinned, the kind that explained why the cafeteria always seemed to give him extra fries. “I’m Phainon. Aviation engineering. I fly gliders. Trying to, anyway. Last week I almost landed in the dean’s rose bushes.” He laughed at himself. “He was weirdly chill.”
You blinked. “Why are you telling me this?”
He shrugged. “So you know I’m not great with manuals. But if someone explains, I can follow. We can take it slow. I won’t mess up how you do things.”
“Huh.”
The lab buzzed under fluorescent lights. The spectrometer sat on the bench like a metal toad. Phainon perched on his stool while you opened the manual like it was a sacred text.
“You already read all of that?” he asked, impressed.
“Of course.”
“Okay.” He lifted his hands. “I’m not touching anything unless you tell me. Deal?”
It turned out to be easy. You pointed, he followed. When he reached for the wrong dial, he stopped the second you corrected him, then waited like you’d set the tempo and he wasn’t about to rush it. Somewhere along the way, you realized you weren’t bracing for him to get bored.
“So when you fly,” you heard yourself ask, “you just… feel the air?”
His face lit up. “Yeah. You can’t force it. You listen, you read what the sky’s doing. Thermals are like invisible roads, and you either fight them or ride them.” He leaned forward, animated, then caught himself and gave you space again. “It’s science, just… science you do with your whole body. And when you catch it right, everything goes quiet.”
You glanced at him. “And you trust that?”
“I trust practice,” he said with a shrug. “And the rules once I learn them. The sky has rules. I’m just slower at the fine print.” He nodded at your notes. “You’re good at the fine print. I’m more concepts.”
“The manual recommends adjusting both frequency modulators together for optimal resonance,” you said.
“Together,” he echoed, stepping in beside you without crowding. “Show me.”
You indicated the dials. He set his fingers on the secondary control, careful, eyes flicking to you for confirmation. You moved at the same time.
A sharp, clean burst of light flashed across the bench, bright enough to blank the room for an instant.
Morning arrived like a punch. Wrong ceiling, wrong light, the hush of someone else’s room.
You sat up too fast.
Aircraft posters. A flight jacket on a chair. A motorcycle helmet on the desk. The air smelled like soap and something warm and woodsy.
You threw the blanket aside, then froze. That wasn’t your hand. The fingers were longer, the knuckles rough, a faint tan line on the wrist like a watch had lived there for years.
Your heart kicked hard. When you stood, the floor felt too far down, your balance off. This body carried different weight. You made it to the mirror on instinct.
You reached the glass, but it was Phainon who stared back.