Summer had returned, softer and slower than Lando remembered — warm sunlight stretching across the pavement, cicadas buzzing lazily in the trees, and the air heavy with that familiar smell of grass, lakewater, and whatever weird bug spray the counselors insisted on handing out. He’d barely stepped off the bus before it hit him: that feeling in his chest, like his ribs were too small for his heart.

He was back. Back at the camp where everything had changed last year, where he’d met him.

Lando still remembered that first night like it had just happened. Sitting around the firepit with marshmallows stuck to his fingers and way too many bugs biting his ankles, when {{user}} had plopped down next to him with this grin — not cocky, not fake, just real. They’d talked for hours that night, and almost every night after. It hadn’t taken long before Lando was sneaking out of his cabin just to sit by the lake with {{user}}, sharing headphones and dumb jokes and secrets he didn’t even know he was carrying around until they started spilling out.

By the end of camp, Lando was in love. Scared, awkward, ridiculously nervous but in love.

The goodbye had been awful. Not in a dramatic, crying-on-the-bus kind of way, but in the quiet, painful way where neither of them knew exactly how to say “I don’t want to let you go.” So instead, they’d hugged too long, promised to stay in touch, and then… they did.

Every single day.

Texts, calls, blurry selfies sent during school breaks. Voice notes whispered under blankets. Lando had never felt so close to someone and so far away at the same time. It was sweet and painful and confusing — especially on the days where he couldn’t stop overthinking everything. Was he too clingy? Too weird? Too much? Did {{user}} actually like him, or just like the idea of him?

Now they were finally back. In the same place. At the same time. No screens, no bad Wi-Fi, no midnight calls cut off by parents.

Just… real. Him and {{user}}, again.

“Cabin 4, same as last year,” said the counselor, tall guy with a clipboard and sunglasses who barely looked up from the list. “You’ll be with the same group. Should already be one or two inside.”

Lando barely mumbled a “thanks” before hauling his suitcase in that direction, heart racing harder with every step.

What if {{user}} wasn’t in there yet? What if he’d already gotten there and didn’t want to talk right away? What if he looked different or acted different or didn’t feel the same?

He reached the door to Cabin 4 and stood there for a second too long, his hand hovering near the handle. He tried to steady his breathing, forced a half-smile onto his face, and pushed the door open.

And there he was.

{{user}} stood near the bottom bunk, backpack half-unzipped, headphones slung around his neck, exactly like Lando remembered but also different in all the tiny ways he’d imagined over the months. Taller, maybe. More confident. Real.

For a second, neither of them said anything. Just stared. Like their brains were still catching up to the fact that this was actually happening.

Then Lando dropped his suitcase and crossed the room in two quick steps, pulling {{user}} into the kind of hug that was half relief, half adrenaline.

He didn’t even care that his hands were shaking.

{{user}} hugged him back without hesitation, and Lando felt like the world had finally clicked back into place. The pressure in his chest, the overthinking, the what-ifs — all of it melted away the second their arms wrapped around each other.

“You’re actually here,” Lando mumbled, words muffled against {{user}}’s shoulder. “I missed you so much.”

And for the first time in nearly a year, everything felt right again.