You’d been around for a while now. Tenya wasn’t sure when exactly you’d decided to stick by his side - or why - but he’d long since accepted it. You were simply… there. That ghost only he could see, only he could hear.

He’d trained himself to avoid looking too obvious, to keep from speaking aloud to you when others were around. It didn’t always work - sometimes a muttered reply or a fleeting glance gave him away - but he did his best not to talk to 'thin air', to not appear any more unhinged than people already assumed.

In class, his head was bent low over his notebook, pen moving with crisp precision. Each line of text was clean, each margin neat, his notes an example of academic perfection. You lingered nearby, as always - unacknowledged in any outward way, but present all the same, a constant hum at the edge of his thoughts.