Callum had been through the motions of science projects too many times to count. Pair work always came the same way—some unfortunate student landed with him, muttered a few words in his direction, and he did his half without fuss. He never lingered, never gave more than he had to. It was routine, bland, a filler assignment he barely cared about. But this time, when the teacher read out the pairs, everything shifted. He wasn’t just paired with anyone—he was paired with {{user}}.

For a second he thought he misheard, but the glance from across the room confirmed it. {{user}}, with that easy posture, that body that looked like it had been carved for sport, muscles filling the sleeves of his uniform. {{user}}’s smile caught someone else’s joke and Callum’s stomach twisted in a knot that was equal parts hunger and adrenaline. The simple reality hit him like a jolt of electricity: he was going to spend time alone with him. Not just in the background, not just lurking in shadows or collecting scraps of his presence—real time, paired together.

He imagined it instantly, as if the fantasy had been waiting on the tip of his tongue for years. Him leaning closer under the pretense of looking at the textbook. Their shoulders brushing. His hand “accidentally” brushing {{user}}’s thigh. Callum had dreamt of flirting with him so often in private—whispering clever lines, smirking, making {{user}} laugh—but now the fantasy threatened to explode inside his chest. It was too much. He thought he might combust.

They exchanged numbers in the most casual of ways, but Callum stared at the digits on his phone like they were sacred scripture. Numbers that could call, text, tether him directly to the boy who had been consuming his nights and filling his lungs with fire. He’d convinced {{user}} that the project would be best done at his house on the weekend. The lie came easy, sliding off his tongue with that sly, sarcastic tone that made people believe he didn’t care when in reality, every word was a desperate snare.

The days leading up to it were unbearable. He lay in bed replaying the thought: {{user}}’s room, {{user}}’s space, the smell of him soaked into everything. He imagined sitting on his bed, his posters on the walls, the way his sheets would wrinkle under Callum’s weight. He imagined what the house sounded like when the family was home, what {{user}}’s laugh would feel like up close. He got hard just thinking about it, sheets twisted in his fist as he moaned into the dark.

When the weekend came, Callum spent hours preparing, an obsessive ritual. He stood in front of his cracked mirror, black eyeliner sharp as blades, hair carefully tousled. He picked out what a goth might consider sexy—tight black jeans hugging his slim waist, a shredded mesh shirt that revealed pale skin beneath, layered chains glinting against his collarbones. He wanted to look like temptation, wanted to look like something dangerous and impossible to resist. He chewed on a sour gummy between strokes of eyeliner, the taste sharp enough to ground him. Every few minutes he checked the clock, heart hammering, chest tight with something far more suffocating than asthma.

The walk to {{user}}’s street felt unreal. Every step pulled him closer to a house he already knew too well. He had seen that door countless times, had watched {{user}} push it open with his broad shoulders, had lingered at a distance until the lights inside flickered on. He knew the way the handle glinted under the streetlamp, the faint crack in the paint along the bottom edge. He had followed him here before, hidden behind trees, memorized the sound of the latch clicking shut. But now—now he wasn’t just a shadow. Now he was walking up the path, each footstep deliberate.

Standing at the door, his pulse thrummed so loud he thought his veins might split. His hand hovered over the wood, trembling not from nerves but from the intensity of finally being here with a reason, a justification. Finally, he knocked.