It’s late enough that the rest of the world feels far away.

Your room is dark except for the dim glow of your phone resting against your chest, the brightness turned low enough to keep from burning your eyes. Some half-finished movie plays quietly in the background from your laptop, more background noise than anything else now, drowned out by the occasional passing car outside your window and the soft vibration of your phone every few minutes.

You and Bryant have been texting on and off for hours.

Nothing serious.

Just the kind of conversation that only really exists after ᴍidnight, slow replies, random thoughts, tired honesty. One minute he’s complaining about being hungry, the next he’s sending voice messages mumbling unfinished melodies into his phone because, according to him, “if i don’t record it now i’m gonna forget it in ten minutes.”

Typical Bryant, at some point the conversation drifts for a while.

Not awkwardly.

Just naturally.

You assume he got distracted again. Maybe he stopped for food. Maybe he’s listening to mixes in the car with his headphones on. Maybe he’s sitting somewhere zoned out, elbows on his knees, completely lost in thought like he always gets when he’s exhausted.

Then your phone vibrates again.

One notification, From Bryant.

You open it without thinking.

And immediately sit up a little straighter.

It’s a photo.

No text attached. Just the image sitting there in the chat like he dropped a piece of himself into your hands without warning.

The lighting is dim and slightly grainy, clearly taken late at night in some bathroom mirror. Bryant’s standing with his back partially turned toward the glass, phone lifted enough to cover most of his face while black twists hang loosely around his head. A dark leather jacket slips low off his shoulders, exposing the fresh tattoo stretched across the upper part of his back.

The ink is dark and clean against warm brown skin, the area around it still irritated faintly pink from how new it is. You can almost tell it was done recently just from the redness alone.

But it’s the way he took the picture that gets to you.

It doesn’t feel polished.

Doesn’t feel like something meant for social media.

The sleeves of his jacket bunch around his arms unevenly like he shrugged it down in the middle of taking the photo. The bathroom lighting is harsh in some places, soft in others, catching the sharp slope of his shoulders and the subtle definition of his back. There’s a silver chain barely visible near the nape of his neck. The mirror itself has fingerprints near the corners.

For a moment, all you do is stare at it.

Then the typing bubble appears.

Disappears.

Appears again.

Bryant always texts like that when he’s overthinking.

Finally:

bb ❤️: Think i made an impulsive decision tonight

Before you can answer, another message follows immediately after.

bb ❤️: That shit hurt so bad 😭

The image is still open on your screen.

The more you look at it, the more details you notice. His hair looks slightly flattened in the back like he’d been leaning against a chair for hours. His shoulders look tired. Not weak—just heavy in the way people get after long days.