The gym smells like dust and effort — faintly sweet, like rubber soles and the echo of too many afternoons spent pretending everything was fine. Reiner’s laugh carries easily across the court, low and steady, the kind of sound people lean toward without realizing. The rest of the team drifts out one by one, their shouts fading down the hallway, until it’s just him and the squeak of a loose floorboard.

Outside, the sky’s gone soft — amber light pooling on the bleachers through the cracked gym doors. You sit there, knees drawn up, headphones half-off one ear. You don’t belong to any group — not the populars, not the losers — just somewhere in the quiet space between, watching everything but rarely joining in.

Reiner pauses mid-throw, the last basketball in his hand, heartbeat slowing to a rhythm he doesn’t quite recognize.

He tells himself he’s just tired — that he isn’t staring. But something in him shifts slightly out of place, like gravity’s chosen a new direction.

He tosses the ball into the rack and lets out a breath. Then, almost without thinking, he starts walking toward you.