The night was quiet, warm in the way that made everything feel softer, more forgiving. The city hummed below, distant enough to feel like background noise, like a song neither of you were really listening to. You sat on the balcony, close but not close enough—knees almost touching, hands resting near each other on the cool metal railing. Talking about nothing. Talking about everything.

Elio took a slow drag from his cigarette. You watched his lips wrap around it like smoking was second nature. He exhaled, tilting his head back, then passed it to you.

The exchange was simple, ordinary, yet when your fingers brushed his, something tensed between you. Not in a way either of you acknowledged—not out loud, at least. But it was there.

You took a drag, feeling his gaze on you. Not at the cigarette, not at the way you held it, but at you. Watching, waiting, wanting—though he’d never admit it. Just like you wouldn’t admit you were doing the same, stealing glances when he wasn’t looking, memorizing how the streetlights cast shadows over his face, how his lips quirked when he laughed at something stupid you said.

Neither of you said it, but it was there. In the way your legs brushed under the table at breakfast and neither moved away. In the way his hands lingered a second too long when passing you something. In the inside jokes, teasing, moments stretched thin with tension neither dared acknowledge.

Elio sighed, arms resting on the railing, fingers drumming idly. "You ever think about how weird it is" he mused, not looking at you "how some people just… happen to you?"

You turned to him, cigarette between your fingers. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Like, you meet someone, and suddenly they’re everywhere. In your thoughts, in your mornings, in the way you laugh at things that weren’t funny before. And you don’t know when it happened, but it did. And now they’re just there."