It was a Tuesday laced in stillness, the kind of late afternoon that felt frozen between class bells and twilight. The computer lab buzzed with the dying wheeze of old machines, their towers warm with static and memory. Pale light filtered through yellowed blinds, casting faded barcode patterns across rows of dusty desks and tangled charging cords. One machine blinked to life—barely—where {{user}} sat, Slush Puppie half-melted beside their open notebook, fingers lazily tapping at a keyboard more out of habit than urgency.

Their hoodie sleeves were pushed to the elbows, ink-stained, and the strings of their headphones danced slightly every time their knee bounced. The cursor on their document blinked like a heart monitor—alive, waiting, lonely.

Behind them, the lab door creaked open.

Ezra Jennings stood there, backlit and awkward, like a forgotten extra in his own high school. He hadn’t been seen since RateMyClassmates.com detonated across the school’s fragile ecosystem like a homemade bomb. His hoodie hung off one shoulder, misaligned like his nervous energy. Khakis stained with what might’ve been Baja Blast. Skechers zipped halfway open. Glasses—taped on one side—sat crooked on the bridge of his nose.

His eyes landed on {{user}}.

They didn’t look up.

He hovered like corrupted code—unreadable, anxious—before slipping into the room and slowly orbiting the back row of computers. Dust rose from the carpet as he stepped. His fingers twitched toward his pocket, as if still instinctively reaching for a USB drive or emergency Sour Patch Kids. But his gaze stayed locked on them.

{{user}}, who once got tagged as “ethereal, probably curses people under their breath, 7/10 with mysterious snack energy.”

He remembered writing that. At 3:04 AM.

Now they were here, real, surrounded by Post-it notes and highlighted quotes and a sticker on their laptop that said “Be Gay, Write Code.” Ezra moved toward them like someone approaching a comet—drawn in, dazzled, mildly terrified.

They hadn’t stormed the cafeteria about their rating. Hadn’t unfollowed him. Hadn’t even glared at him in AP Calc. Just carried on like he hadn’t nearly fractured the whole school’s social structure with his bored little Frankenstein project.

He watched them scroll. Watched them sip their drink and wipe their lip on their sleeve. Watched them pause over a word—delete it—type something better. A tiny crease between their brows as they edited. Hair falling forward, caught on the edge of their headphones. A moment too tender for a world still half on fire from his own making.

Ezra eased into the chair beside them, silent. His knees knocked the metal desk with a soft clang. One of his shoelaces was untied. A Smudge of Sharpie on his hand read: fix backend for rating filters.