Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

i. half-full cup of coffee & rainchecks

The table was small. A two-seater by the window, the kind meant for whispered secrets and coffee-stained pages, the kind Leo had always found romantic in a hopeless, indie-film sort of way. He had claimed it early, sliding into the seat like he belonged there, like someone would walk in and say oh, there you are , like it was normal to believe that waiting could be a form of love if you smiled through it enough.

Outside, the rain hadn’t started yet, but the sky was grey in that particular way clouds wore exhaustion—like they, too, were waiting for something to break.

Leo’s cup was already half-empty. Or half-full. Depending on the mood, on the hour, on how many times he’d checked the door and pretended not to. He twirled the spoon once, twice, until the foam disappeared beneath the swirl. It was his third time at this café in the last two weeks. The barista had started to remember his name.

Claude was late.

He’d said five. Leo had said I’ll get us the window seat, like it was a prize, like it mattered. Claude had laughed through the phone, not unkind, just distracted, as if Leo’s offer was background noise to something else—someone else. Probably Finana. He didn’t say it, not out loud, but Leo had been around Claude long enough to understand the pauses between his words, the weight of silences pregnant with her name.

The rain started while Leo was stirring again. It came soft at first, brushing the glass with the gentleness of fingers against cheekbones. Leo watched the people outside scatter beneath their umbrellas, hurrying to be dry. Funny, how quickly people ran from something so natural.

The phone buzzed at 5:24. He didn’t open it right away.

When he did, the message was short.
“bro, sorry. something came up. can we resched?”
A second one followed, two minutes later.
“finana needed help with the lab project. raincheck?”

Raincheck.

The word sat heavy in Leo’s chest, like it had turned from water into rust.

He stared at it for a while. The message, not the meaning. If he looked too closely at the second one, he knew he’d start tracing the letters like scars. He could still taste the coffee on his tongue. Bitter. He hadn’t added sugar this time.

He typed something back. Erased it. Typed again. Settled on:

“Sure. Hope it goes well.”

Claude’s reply was a thumbs up emoji.

Leo locked his phone and placed it face-down on the table. Outside, a girl dropped her umbrella, and her friend picked it up for her without missing a beat. They laughed about it. It was such a small thing—effortless. Seamless.

He wondered how it would feel to be chosen that easily.

To not always be the footnote to someone else’s urgency.

He tried not to spiral. He told himself it was one afternoon. That Claude was still Claude, the one who once skipped a lab to help Leo print his thesis when the department server crashed. The one who played Valorant games at 3 a.m. and made stupid jokes during horror movies, who sometimes walked too fast but always turned back when Leo lagged behind.

But then he remembered how Claude always answered Finana’s messages before Leo’s.

How Claude could quote every one of her voice tweets but forgot what Leo's thesis title was, even after he read the draft.

It wasn’t cruel, Leo told himself. It wasn’t intentional. Claude wasn’t ignoring him. He just... didn’t see him the same way. Not with the same light. Leo was the emergency exit—nice to have, comforting even, but only used when the real door jammed.

He knew he shouldn’t read too much into it. But he’d waited. Again.

He looked down at his cup. The foam had collapsed completely. The drink was lukewarm now, nothing like it had been twenty minutes ago—sweet, light, full of promise. He drank it anyway. He always did.

It was easier to stay in the chair than to leave. Like maybe, if he lingered long enough, Claude would still come, eyes bright, saying you won’t believe the day I had, and Leo would smile, and they’d pretend this was what they always did.

But the café started to empty. The rain thickened. Leo's reflection in the window looked tired.

Eventually, he stood. Slid his coat on. Paid the bill without waiting for a receipt. The barista gave him a look he couldn't name—familiar, maybe, or pitying. It didn’t matter.

Outside, the wind kissed his face with all the tenderness Claude never quite managed.

And as he walked away from the window seat, Leo told himself he wasn’t hurt.

He told himself it didn’t matter.

That maybe next time, Claude would stay true to the raincheck.

But the truth was—
Leo had brought an umbrella.

Claude never even checked the forecast.

ii. lit candles & unanswered questions

The table was round this time, cluttered with mismatched plates and the buzz of overlapping voices. A celebration of nothing in particular—maybe the end of midterms, maybe the start of something else. Leo had suggested it on impulse, half-hoping Claude wouldn’t say yes, half-hoping harder that he would.

He came.

Leo didn’t know which hope hurt more.

It was one of those restaurants that felt like someone’s living room: low lights, soft laughter in every corner, wooden chairs a little too small for comfort. The kind of place where time softened around the edges, and conversations turned into stories.

They were all here—Elira, warm and brilliant as always; Shu, easygoing and hilarious; Nayuta, who cracked jokes with a deadpan that always made Leo snort into his drink. Their voices filled the space, bouncing off the brick walls and the gentle hum of the playlist looping above them.

And then Claude, across from him. Just… there.

Present in body, maybe. In spirit—Leo wasn’t sure.

He tried, though. God, he tried.

He asked about classes, about the group project with Wilson, about that mech mod Claude mentioned weeks ago but never followed up on. Asked if he ever fixed the drone, if he was still watching that dystopian anime they both said they’d start together.

Each question was another open hand, reaching into the cold space between them.

Claude answered some. “Yeah,” for the drone. “Not yet,” for the anime. “Still thinking about it,” when Leo asked if he was joining the robotics competition.

The replies landed like leaves on water—touching, but never sinking. Never staying long enough to feel real.

Leo smiled anyway, added commentary, tried to match Claude’s energy even though it felt like mimicking a language he used to speak fluently but now stumbled through.

It didn’t used to be like this.

There had been a time when their conversations spilled out in all directions, when dinner bled into midnight walks and text threads that never died. When Claude would grin across the table, eyes sharp with interest, leaning in like Leo was saying something worth listening to.

But now, Claude’s gaze rarely met his. It drifted—not toward anyone, just… away. Like he was mentally somewhere else, somewhere warmer. Somewhere with brighter lights.

Leo caught himself watching Claude’s hands. They weren’t fidgeting this time, just resting on the table, idle. Still. Like even they had stopped reaching.

He tried again. “Hey, do you still have that playlist you made for your finals week? The synth one with the weird train sounds?”

Claude blinked, vaguely amused. “I think so. Why?”

Leo laughed, too brightly. “I’ve been trying to find it again. It actually helped me write.”

“Oh,” Claude said. “I’ll send it if I still have it.”

The conversation dissolved before it began.

Leo shifted in his seat. He kept his voice light, kept jumping in when the others laughed, kept passing dishes, refilling glasses, holding his brightness like a lantern no one asked him to carry.

Elira sparked the table into motion with practiced ease, steering the conversation toward karaoke stories until Shu was groaning into his drink and everyone was laughing. Nayuta chimed in with his usual deadpan brilliance, and the rhythm of the night found its beat again—easy, warm, familiar. Claude responded more to them, nodding, even laughing once. It wasn’t that he was silent. He just wasn’t present for Leo.

Leo sat there with the matchbook heart he always carried, striking it again and again against the flint of Claude’s absence. Hoping, maybe, that one spark would catch.

The candle in the center of the table flickered. A flame caught between breath and burn. Leo watched it, thinking it looked exactly like he felt—fighting to stay upright, pretending it wasn’t already down to its final inch of wax.

Leo stayed loud. He smiled too much. Laughed a little harder than needed. It was easier that way—if he kept the lights on, maybe no one would see the cracks in the walls.

When the bill came, they split it in quiet efficiency. Polite smiles. Folded napkins. Scraped plates. The usual.

And when they stepped outside, into the night air and the soft buzz of the city, Leo felt like a matchstick struck too many times. Dull at the tip. Splintered at the edges.

Claude lingered beside him a beat too long for nothing, too short for something.

“You heading home?” Claude asked, hands in his pockets, not quite looking at him.

“Yeah,” Leo said. He smiled. Always smiled. “Thanks for coming.”

Claude nodded. “No prob. Thanks for the invite.”

They parted.
Just like that.

No promises for another hangout. No let’s do this again . No lingering glance. Claude turned and walked, his silhouette folding into the city like paper into water.

Leo stood still for a moment, surrounded by the noise of his friends laughing behind him, the clink of plates being cleared through restaurant windows, the glow of brake lights and crosswalk signals blinking in time with his pulse.

He wondered when Claude had started answering out of obligation.

He wondered when Leo stopped being the reason Claude came at all.

iii. arcades & dashed hopes

Leo didn’t mean to stay so long. He’d only meant to kill an hour or two, shake off the weight of midterms, throw himself into the neon chaos of an arcade where everything was loud and blinking and demanding attention. It was easy here. You didn’t have to think too hard when your hands were full of tokens and your screen was counting down.

He took a photo without much thought—bright machines behind him, his reflection warped in the curve of a claw machine’s glass. He posted it to his story with a winking sticker and a caption that read grinding for high scores like it’s my thesis grade.

He expected a couple emoji reactions. A sticker reply from Shu. Maybe a flame from Nayuta, ironically.

He didn’t expect Claude.

“yo you still there?”

“might swing by if that’s cool”

Leo stared at the screen. His fingers froze mid-scroll. The lights above him shifted color.

He replied too fast.

“ofc! i’m at the rhythm corner!”

His reflection in the claw machine glass looked too bright. Too hopeful.

For the next fifteen minutes, every second stretched like a rubber band on the verge of snapping. He played a few rounds, half-heartedly. Checked the door. Checked his phone. Bit the inside of his cheek.

It was stupid to get excited. He told himself that. Over and over.

Hope was a dangerous thing—it always wore Claude’s name too well. Leo grinned to himself, almost foolishly. This was like the old days. Claude choosing to come to him, not the other way around. Claude reaching out.

It felt like something.

Then Claude arrived.

And Finana was with him.

Finana walked beside him, all glitter and ease, mid-laugh. Claude nudged her with his elbow, and she swatted at him with mock outrage.

“We ran into each other on the way,” Claude said, voice light, unconcerned. “She said she hasn’t been in an arcade in forever,” he added.

Leo smiled before he could think better of it. “Nice. Perfect night for it.”

“Yeah, Claude practically begged me to come along,” Finana teased.

Claude scoffed. “Excuse you. I simply allowed you to grace me with your dramatic commentary.”

“You need a witness for your misses ,” she quipped back.

Claude raised a hand to his chest, mock-offended. “Wow. Cold. That’s how you treat your ride?”

“Your ride hit every red light in the city,” she shot back, crossing her arms with an exaggerated pout.

Claude mimicked her voice immediately, pitching it higher and wide-eyed: “ Ughh Claude we’re gonna be lateee, your driving sucks, ughh! ”

She shrieked, laughed, hit his arm.

Leo laughed, too. Loud. Maybe a little too loud. “You’ve been practicing that voice, haven’t you?”

Claude grinned at him. “Gotta keep my impressions sharp.”

The three of them moved together into the deeper corners of the arcade, swallowed by LED and synth. On the surface, it was easy. Familiar. Like old times. Like friendship.

Leo tried to believe it.

They played rhythm games first. Leo’s element. He danced through a fast stage, finished with a high score, and turned toward Claude instinctively—like he used to, when a glance meant praise, when it meant you saw that, right?

But Claude was watching Finana try to navigate the beginner mode. She missed half the notes and threw her arms up in defeat. Claude burst into laughter and slung an arm over her shoulder for a second. “Tragic. You need training.”

“I need a better sensei,” she shot back.

“You’re looking at him.”

Leo watched the moment unfold like a spectator two rows back. Close enough to hear, but not close enough to matter.

Still, he joined in.

He teased her score, complimented her timing even when she missed, grinned wide like his hands weren’t clenched inside his hoodie pocket. Banter was his native tongue. He could speak it fluently even when his lungs were on fire.

It wasn’t new, this triangle they made. But something had shifted. The axis was off. The balance gone.

Claude’s attention had always been selective, but lately it felt curated. Every joke tossed to Finana. Every glance angled toward her. The teasing, the mimicry—it was affection, wrapped in laughter.

Leo could keep up. Of course he could. He had to.

So he jumped in when they moved to the claw machines. Finana squealed over a plush she wanted, and Claude tried twice to get it, dramatically narrating his failure.

Leo didn’t ask—he just stepped up, dropped a coin, and caught it on the first try.

Finana cheered. Claude clapped. Leo handed it to her with a small flourish.

“Show-off,” Claude muttered, bumping his shoulder lightly against Leo’s. The contact sparked something dull in Leo’s chest. Not quite pain. Not quite relief. Just the sensation of being briefly, momentarily noticed.

They moved on. More games. More flashing lights. More of Claude’s voice lifting just a little higher for Finana’s laugh.

Leo stayed bright. He kept the rhythm going. Told jokes. Threw compliments. Fought the pull of gravity in his chest.

But he was starting to feel like the NPC in a game he used to play together. Still coded to follow, still walking the path, even when the player had long since switched quests.

Eventually, the night thinned out.

Finana checked the time and winced. “I gotta run. Train’s gonna cut me off.”

“I’ll walk you,” Claude said immediately. No pause. No glance.

“Oh,” Leo said. His voice didn’t catch. “Yeah. Same way.”

The three of them walked beneath flickering streetlamps. Finana filled the space between words with idle chatter. Claude matched her beat for beat. Leo followed half a step behind, smiling when appropriate, nodding when needed.

At the station, she hugged them both.

“Thanks for the plush. And the chaos. You guys are the best.”

Leo smiled. “You too.”

Claude waved. “Good luck tomorrow.”

She vanished into the crowd.

Claude turned, thumb already flicking across his phone screen. “Gotta bounce. Early lab.”

Leo nodded. “Right. Yeah. Thanks for coming.”

Claude smiled. It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t cruel. Just distracted. “Anytime.”

Then he walked away.

Leo stood still beneath the dull hum of a streetlamp, his reflection stretched long on the pavement like a second self trailing behind, thinner, quieter, easier to overlook.

He walked home slower than usual, the weight of hope dragging at his feet like a co-op partner who stopped playing mid-game. 

Like someone who knew how the game always ended.

And pressed “Continue?” anyway.

iv. echo chambers & signals

Claude’s dorm hadn’t changed since the last time Leo had been here. Same cluttered desk. Same string lights that dipped in the middle like they’d given up trying to stay up. Same cracked whiteboard shoved behind the futon with formulas half-erased, like the ghosts of solved problems still wanted to linger.

But tonight, the air felt different. Warmer, somehow. Less hollow.

Leo was on the floor, cross-legged, laptop propped up on a cushion. Claude hovered at his desk, hunched over a different screen, tangled in the code of some overcomplicated robotics sim. He didn’t say much—never did when focused—but he didn’t ask Leo to leave, either.

That was something.

No, that was everything .

Because Claude had said yes.

It had taken nothing more than a casual offer earlier that day. Leo had expected another delay, another brush-off—maybe even just the faint hum of Claude pretending to consider. But instead, he'd gotten a quiet, distracted, “Sure.” The word had landed in Leo’s chest like a drop of rain in a long-dry well. Unexpected. Cool. Real.

So he was here. And Claude hadn’t changed his mind.
Leo clung to that.

The room buzzed with quiet: the soft taps of keys, the low hum of Claude’s old PC fan, and the lofi playlist playing through a tiny speaker on the windowsill. Leo had added half those tracks himself last semester. Back when this room had felt like part of his orbit. Back when Claude used to hand him the aux cord without asking.

Back when things still spilled over . Laughter, time, energy. Connection.

He missed that.

Leo reached for it again, careful not to be obvious.

“Hey,” Leo said after a pause, voice light. “Remember that custom Valorant game on Icebox? When you wallbanged me through tube and acted like it was pure skill?”

Claude didn’t look up. “It was skill.”

“You’d just whiffed three Sheriff shots right before that,” Leo grinned. “I think God took pity on you.”

Claude breathed out a small laugh. “Nah. I read your movement. You always jiggle peek right before committing. Textbook predict.”

Leo bumped his foot against Claude’s under the table, easy and teasing. “Textbook luck. Coward.”

It was dumb. Familiar. A memory dusted off and brought back to life for a few seconds.

Claude smirked, lips tugged into a crooked little curve. But it passed quickly, and he turned back to his screen, fingers moving again.

Still.
It was something .

Leo’s fingers curled tighter around his tea mug. He wasn’t used to hope feeling this thin. This weightless. Like a paper plane tossed toward a half-open window.

But he aimed it anyway.

“There’s a watch party next week,” he said, casually—so casually it made his ribs hurt. “Valorant finals. You in?”

Claude’s typing slowed. He didn’t turn, didn’t ask who else would be there, or if Leo really wanted him to come. He just said, “Yeah. Sounds fun.”

Three words.

Leo could’ve cried from them, if he were weaker than he was.

Instead, he just smiled at the screen, not really seeing the code anymore.

Later, as he packed up and pulled his hoodie on, Claude walked him to the door without being asked. It was late, and the hallway outside buzzed with the hum of other lives—door locks clicking, distant laughter, someone’s ringtone playing off-key. Claude scratched the back of his neck, looked at Leo just once.

“Thanks for helping.”

“Anytime,” Leo said, and meant it with his whole chest.

There was no hug. There never had been. But there had been something tonight. A flicker. A trace of what used to be.

Leo left with it clutched gently in his hands.

He walked home slower than usual, the night wind curling around his sleeves like it wanted to ask what had happened. The streetlights buzzed and flickered like tired thoughts. His hands were still warm from the tea, or maybe just from being in that room again. Being let in again.

It didn’t matter that Claude had barely looked at him.
Didn’t matter that their words hadn’t really landed.

What mattered was the yes .

Leo was still orbiting.
Still trying.
Still sending signals out into space, hoping one might finally be received—not distorted, not dismissed, not shrugged off like noise.

And tonight, he’d gotten something back.

Not a connection. Not yet.

But a pulse. A ping.

Claude was a planet Leo couldn’t stop circling.
Too heavy to escape, too distant to reach.
And Leo—foolish, bright, burning Leo—kept flickering like a satellite that didn’t know how to power down.

Maybe it didn’t mean anything.

Maybe it was just momentum.

But he’d take it.
He’d press “Continue?” again.
And again.
And again.

Until the signal came back clearer.
Or not at all.

v. reserved seats & realizations

The university lounge wasn’t full, but it buzzed the way quiet places did—low, warm light, the hum of vending machines in the back, the distant sound of laughter from some table playing cards like it was still the beginning of the semester, not the fading edge of mid-July.

Leo sat on the far couch with one leg tucked under him, a melting paper cup of soda cradled loosely in both hands. His elbow brushed the upholstery whenever he shifted. The seat dipped too much on one side.

Across from him, Claude was slouched on a beanbag that looked like it might swallow him whole, phone resting in both palms, thumbs half-committed to scrolling. Finana was beside him, angled in that effortless way she always had, one leg crossed neatly over the other, her voice airy and fast as she spoke. Something about café reservations, something about themed drinks, something that didn’t require Leo’s opinion.

He listened anyway.

He always did. Even when the conversation wasn’t meant for him. Even when the attention wasn’t his to hold.

He’d gotten good at staying nearby—close enough to matter, never close enough to be chosen.

It was Finana who said it first. Breezy, casual. Just a thread tossed into the room without weight.

“So what time are we meeting tomorrow?”

Claude didn’t look up. “For what?”

She laughed. “The café? Hello? You said you were free?”

“Oh. Yeah.” He chuckled. “Right. Totally forgot. Uh—early afternoon, I think?”

Leo turned his head slowly. The motion felt underwater. Off-sync.

“Wait,” he said. It came out soft. Gentle, the way you ask if you’re the one misremembering. “Tomorrow?”

Claude glanced over, eyes vague. “Yeah?”

“The Valorant watch party,” Leo said, with a smile that had no weight left. “I thought—we said. You said you’d come. Remember? I got the tickets already.”

For a second, silence took the shape of a knife.

Then Finana blinked. “Oh my god. What. Omg, nevermind then—”

Claude cut in without missing a beat. “No, it’s fine. Leo wouldn’t mind. We can go another time anyway.”

Finana hesitated. “Really?”

Leo smiled again. Brighter this time. Lighter. Like a balloon someone let go of by accident.
“Yup,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

It wasn’t nothing.

But it was easier to make it small. Easier to compress the letdown into something polite and ignorable. Something that wouldn’t make the room weird. Something that wouldn’t inconvenience anyone.

The conversation stumbled, then picked itself back up. They moved on to talking about seasonal drinks and whether taro or matcha was more photogenic. Leo’s name didn’t come up again.

He didn’t speak. Just sat there, nodding when the moment called for it, lips wrapped loosely around the edge of his soda. The ice had melted. The drink was watered down and lukewarm. He swallowed it anyway.

He stared at the wall across the lounge, where some old event poster still clung half-peeled to the corkboard—"Movie Night: Howl’s Moving Castle," faded ink, corners curled. He remembered sitting through that screening with Claude once. Claude had fallen asleep halfway through, and Leo hadn’t minded. He’d just watched the light flicker across Claude’s face and thought about how rare it was, to be near someone who made silence feel full.

But this was different.

Claude was next to him, but the silence felt like static. Like a radio tuned to a station just out of reach—Leo could talk, and talk, and talk, but the signal would never land. Not really. Not the way it used to.

He realized, distantly, that he wasn’t surprised Claude forgot. Not really.

Claude forgot things sometimes.

Not in ways you could point to, exactly—just in the quiet, cumulative kind. The kind that didn’t hurt on their own, but hollowed you out over time.

Little things. Things Leo thought might stick, might mean something. A song he sent. A quote he’d loved. A story he told that never got a reaction the second time. Plans made offhandedly that vanished by the next week. Conversations Leo remembered vividly, only to realize Claude didn’t remember them at all.

It was never cruel. Never deliberate. Just… indifferent.

Like Leo’s words existed in a lower resolution. Background audio Claude had trained himself to tune out unless prompted.

Leo kept talking anyway.

Kept reaching. Kept offering pieces of himself like they might matter, if only he arranged them right. Louder, softer, funnier, quieter—he’d tried every version.

But the silence that followed always sounded the same.

Leo always forgave it. Always chalked it up to Claude being distracted. Busy. Pulled in too many directions. He’d tell himself it wasn’t personal.

But it was.

It always had been.

Because Claude never forgot Finana’s plans. Or Finana’s coffee order. Or the dumb meme voice she likes using in conversations. He’d quote her perfectly. Repeat it like an inside joke, exclusive and effortless.

Leo just kept trying.

He’d reach out again and again like it meant something. Like consistency could be currency. Like showing up could earn him a fraction of whatever orbit Claude spun in.

How many times had he initiated? Sent the first message? Made the first plan? Offered the seat next to him without being asked? Invited Claude to dinners, to game nights, to those late-night study sessions he pretended weren’t just excuses?

How many times had he been told—gently, casually, thoughtlessly—that something else had come up?

He’d told himself this one was different.

He’d printed the ticket. Picked the seats. Imagined Claude beside him, watching the finals on that big screen, snacks between them, laughing at misplays and shoulder-bumping whenever their favorite duelist clutched a round. Something simple. Something theirs.

And Claude just forgot.

Gave the day to someone else.

Spoke over Leo’s name like it wasn’t even an interruption—just background noise to cut through.

Leo blinked hard.

His chest didn’t ache the way it usually did.

No sharp sting. No immediate tears. Just a slow, heavy quiet. Like he’d finally run out of whatever it was that kept him trying.

He looked down at his hands. His nails were short. A bit ragged at the edges from biting. The cup was crumpling in his grip.

He stood.

No one noticed.

He forced a smile as he reached for his bag. “Heading out. Early call tomorrow.”

Claude looked up. “All good?”

Leo nodded. “Yeah. Thanks for—”
He paused.
What was there to thank them for?

“Thanks.”

And he left.

The hallway outside was empty. Fluorescents buzzed overhead, flickering every so often like they were tired, too.

Leo walked slowly. Not out of drama. Not out of pain. Just… exhaustion. Bone-deep and quiet.

He felt like a message typed out too long, deleted before it could be sent.

Like a chair reserved for someone who never showed.

Like the quiet kid in a lobby chat who never gets picked for queue.

All those years of hoping. Of trying. Of reaching. And for what? A maybe. A raincheck. A seat beside someone who was always half-turned away.

Leo had spent so long orbiting Claude like that made him a part of something.

But maybe all he’d ever been was the satellite. Sending signals no one meant to answer.

Now, he didn’t want to circle anymore.

He walked into the night with nothing but the faint taste of soda and silence. No dramatic goodbye. No messages sent. Just the soft realization settling into his spine:

He’d been trying so hard for someone who wouldn’t even lift a finger.

And maybe, finally, that was enough.

+1. concrete steps & quiet gravity

The streets outside campus were quiet in that soft, indifferent way only late hours knew—like the world had already closed its eyes and left Leo walking through its echo. The air was still, save for the occasional breath of wind that rustled trees and tugged lightly at the hem of his hoodie. Summer trying to remember how to cool down.

Leo walked without direction.

His feet followed no map, only the rhythm of retreat. Not from Claude. 

From something more inward. A part of himself too tired to keep pretending that hope was harmless.

His shoes scuffed the sidewalk like they wanted to wear themselves out before he did. He passed familiar things—lampposts, the busted vending machine that ate his change, the campus fountain that had long since dried up but still pretended to be art. Every step was another unspooling thread.

He didn’t know what he was walking toward. Only that it wasn’t Claude.

He ended up near the humanities building. Back lot. Concrete stairs no one used unless they had nowhere better to go. The kind of place meant for phone calls you didn’t want to take, or breakdowns you didn’t want anyone to see.

Leo sat down slowly.

The chill of the concrete seeped through his jeans, grounding in a way he hadn’t asked for. His arms wrapped around his knees, loosely, like the shape of exhaustion was something his body remembered better than comfort.

He didn’t cry.

Not in the obvious way. Not loud. Not cinematic.

Just… quietly. On the inside. Like something folding in on itself without ceremony.

Because tonight had been the end of something. Not a relationship. That would’ve implied there had been one. No—what ended tonight was the last flicker of belief. That if he just tried a little harder, Claude would reach back. Would remember. Would choose.

He thought of the ticket still folded in his drawer. The one he bought as soon as Claude had said yes. How he’d circled the date, even highlighted it. Like it meant something.

It had meant something.
To him.

And Claude—Claude had given the day away without blinking. Had spoken over Leo’s name like it didn’t take up space at all.

Leo rested his forehead on his knees. The static inside his chest had gone quiet, but not in a peaceful way. Just the silence that comes when the signal finally dies. When there’s nothing left to try. No more clever ways to ask for care. No more gentle reminders.

He wasn’t even angry anymore.

Just tired.

Like he’d been trying to light a match in the wind. Again and again. Blistered fingers, burned edges, and still—he struck one more. Because maybe this time.

Because maybe.

He could feel it in his bones now. The damage of all the maybes.

The kind of tired that didn’t live in the muscles but in the marrow.

The kind that settles when you finally accept that the door will not open, no matter how long you knock.

A sound—quiet footsteps on gravel, approaching but not urgent. Leo didn’t look up. He didn’t care if someone saw him like this. Or maybe he just didn’t have the energy to pretend anymore.

The steps stopped nearby.

Then a rustle. A small clink.

A can of coffee landed gently on the step beside him. Still cold.

“You looked like you needed something that wasn’t nothing.”

The voice was unfamiliar. Soft, lower than Claude’s. Not bored. Not amused. Just... steady.

Leo lifted his head slightly.

The boy standing there was taller, loose-limbed, dressed in a hoodie that looked slept in. His sleeves were fraying at the wrists. His hair was pushed to the side like it never decided where it wanted to fall. He didn’t look at Leo too directly—just enough to mean it.

He didn’t wait for a thank you. He just sat—two steps down, knees drawn, gaze turned toward the empty quad. Not watching. Not waiting.

Just staying.

Leo stared at the can. He didn’t touch it.
Because to reach for it would mean admitting someone had seen him. Had chosen to stay in the quiet instead of stepping around it.

He looked away.

But he didn’t leave.

And neither did the boy.

They didn’t exchange names that night.
But Leo saw him again.

A few days later, another forgotten corner of campus. Same kind of quiet. Same kind of night. Leo had meant to go home, but his legs carried him elsewhere. Toward the edges. The emptier places.

He sat on the back steps near the gym, arms around his knees, ache pressed between his ribs like an old bruise refusing to fade.

Then—footsteps again. Unhurried. Familiar, though he couldn’t say why.

The boy from before.

He didn’t speak. Just sat down a few feet away and placed something beside Leo—a different drink this time. Not coffee. A juice box. Stupid, maybe. But cold.

No questions.
No small talk.
No careful phrasing that asked for a story in disguise.

Just presence.

And this time, Leo reached for it.

It kept happening.

Not in a routine way. Not scheduled. But often enough that Leo stopped being surprised.

The boy appeared in passing moments that stretched just long enough to hold someone else. Always on the sidelines. Always without expectation.

By the vending machines that never worked right.
Under the overhang during sudden rain.
On benches that looked too cold to sit on, until he made room.

He didn’t ask anything of Leo. He didn’t push conversation or look away when Leo didn’t offer it. He just... stayed. Near enough to be felt, far enough not to crowd. He brought things sometimes—a drink, gum, one time even an umbrella he didn’t use.

And Leo started breathing easier.

Not because the weight had lifted.

But because, for once, he wasn’t the only one holding it.

It wasn’t until later—weeks, maybe—that Leo finally asked.

They were sitting side by side on a low wall, their shadows stretched long by the parking lot lights. The night was warm in the way late semester evenings often were, full of a heaviness that hadn’t yet burned off.

Leo spoke without planning to.

“What’s your name?”

The boy turned, slow. Eyes steady. “Altus.”

Leo nodded. “Leo.”

A pause. Then:

“I know.”

And Leo didn’t ask how.

There was something in the way he said it—quiet, certain—not like he’d just learned it, but like he’d always been paying attention.

And that, somehow, was worse than kindness.

It was recognition.

Leo still ached.

Some mornings still stung. Some nights, Claude’s name still drifted into his thoughts like static. The memory of softness still lingered—moments that had felt like care, until they hadn’t. The night Claude forgot. The way he hadn’t looked back. The silence that hadn’t even known it was silence.

But now, there were other things, too.

New patterns forming in the stillness.

Altus never made him feel like he had to be lighter than he was. Never glanced at his watch. Never filled the air with plans or promises. He never made Leo feel like a second choice—because he never looked at anyone else when Leo was in the room.

He stayed, even when Leo had nothing to offer back. Not energy. Not words. Just the shape of hurt in a body trying not to take up space.

And Altus made space anyway.

No conditions. No reward.

Just the steady return of someone who chose to show up.

Leo didn’t smile much around him.

But sometimes—just sometimes—the air didn’t feel like it was pressing against his lungs.

And when he sat beside Altus, arms brushing or not brushing, silence blooming softly between them, it felt like something was healing. Not fixed. Not whole. But... seen .

And after so long chasing what couldn’t look back at him, that was enough.

Claude wasn’t looking for anything.

Just walking past the courtyard behind the library, earbuds in, half-tuned to music he didn’t even like. It was late. 

He almost didn’t see them.

Leo, sitting on the far bench—the one by the old vending machine that never worked, half-buried under rust and ivy. He was leaned forward, elbows on knees, hoodie sleeves pushed up, saying something Claude couldn’t hear.

And beside him: someone else.

A boy Claude didn’t know.

Leo laughed at something.

Soft. Real.

Claude stopped walking.

Just for a second.

He didn’t know why.

There was no sharpness to the moment. No gut-punch. No cinematic sting. Just the still, unremarkable quiet of watching something he hadn’t realized he missed until it wasn’t his to witness anymore.

Somewhere in his chest, a question formed—not loud, not sharp. Just lingering. 

A sense of something missing. 

A seat left open. 

A silence that wasn’t supposed to be permanent.

***  End of Leo's POV ***

Chapter Text

Somewhere in his chest, a question formed—not loud, not sharp. Just lingering.

A sense of something missing.

A seat left open.

A silence that wasn’t supposed to be permanent.

Claude didn’t expect Leo to just… be gone.

The first week without him, it felt normal.
Leo disappeared sometimes. Not in a dramatic way. Just the sort of absence that made Claude think, he’s probably catching up on assignments, or gaming until sunrise . They’d done this before—drifted for a few days and snapped right back like a rubber band.

The second week, Claude noticed himself opening Discord out of habit, hovering over Leo’s name without clicking it.
Not because he was worried.
Because Leo always came back.

By the third week, the quiet felt heavier—not sharp, just… dense. Like the air in a room you haven’t opened in too long. Claude thought about sending a message. A meme. A “yo.”
He didn’t.
Not because he didn’t care.

Because Leo had always been the one to close the distance first.

Claude assumed he still would.

Two years ago, Claude couldn’t have imagined this silence.

Back then, Leo’s presence wasn’t something Claude scheduled or earned—it was simply there, like gravity. Constant, invisible, shaping the way Claude moved without him noticing until later.

Leo arrived in moments the way sunlight did through half-closed blinds: uninvited, natural, impossible to resist. He’d drop into the cafeteria seat across from Claude without asking, grin already in place like they’d been mid-conversation all along. Sometimes he’d steal a fry with the same casual entitlement as breathing. Other times, he’d appear in the lab doorway with greasy paper bags of takeout, claiming Claude “looked too buried in code to feed himself,” setting the food down as if carrying Claude’s hunger had been no effort at all.

At 2 a.m., Claude’s phone might buzz with a grainy photo of the moon. Not a whole skyline, not an artful shot, just the moon, crooked between apartment buildings, the glow from streetlamps pooling at the edges. The caption would read, looks like you today. annoying but nice to see. Claude never replied with anything clever. Usually just a half-smile emoji. Shut up. But he kept the pictures. Always kept the pictures.

It had been easy.
So easy Claude never thought to question how much space it took up in him.

He remembered winter evenings in his dorm. The radiator ticking lazily, space heater humming like it was part of the soundtrack. Leo sprawled across the floor as if the carpet had been made for him, socks mismatched, controller in hand, feet braced against the side of Claude’s bedframe. Some co-op game splashed the walls with pixelated color, and whenever Leo laughed, the sound seemed to stretch the air wider—like it was making more room for both of them to exist without pressing against the edges.

They never talked about anything important those nights. They didn’t have to. Their words looped and overlapped the way background music does when you forget it’s playing — unremarkable, but impossible to imagine the room without it. Claude’s gaze would drift from the game to the way Leo’s hair slipped forward when he leaned in too close to read the HUD. The room smelled faintly of instant ramen and laundry detergent. Safe, in a way Claude didn’t have language for.

They’d walked to the convenience store for snacks they didn’t need, the kind of errand you take just to keep talking. On the way back, the streetlamps blurred in the snowfall, halos smeared soft against the dark. Leo balanced along the icy curb like it was a tightrope, arms out, head tipped back toward the sky.

“You’re gonna fall, idiot.” Claude said, hands buried deep in his pockets.

Leo grinned, still looking up. “Yeah, but I’m your idiot.”

Claude laughed — short, almost embarrassed — but the words sank deep, like a stone dropped in water.

He remembered thinking: this feels safe.

But safety, Claude learned, could feel like gravity.
And gravity meant being pulled.

Leo didn’t just show up. He leaned in. Always. Not with force, not in a way that cornered, but in a way that made space and then waited for Claude to fill it. His patience wasn’t idle—it was deliberate, the way someone holds a door and doesn’t mind if you take your time. There was comfort in that. A steadiness Claude had never had from anyone else.

He had a patience that was almost unnerving—the way he could wait for you to speak without filling the silence, hold the space for you without making it feel like an obligation. When Leo looked at him, it was never fleeting. It was the gaze of someone tracing constellations, mapping each star like it mattered, like every detail was part of the picture.

Claude knew that was rare.
Knew it was a gift.
And that was the problem.

Because Leo’s way of being there made Claude aware of being seen. Of being cared for. And buried under that warmth was the small, constant fear that if Leo saw too much, he’d notice the parts of Claude that weren’t worth the effort. 

He didn’t want to lose what all of this was.

The late nights that didn’t need talking, when the silence between them wasn’t a gap to be filled but a place to rest. The quiet steadiness in Leo’s voice when he said Claude’s name—not sharp, not hurried, but like the syllables themselves belonged to him and he’d never misplace them. The way being with him felt like standing under a light that never flickered, warm in a way you stopped noticing until you imagined it going out.

He wanted it intact. Untouched by mistakes, unshaken by absence. He wanted to keep it the way you want to keep a photograph from fading—knowing you can’t stop time from wearing it down, but wishing you could shield it somehow.

Because Leo wasn’t just in his life; he had threaded himself through it. In routines Claude didn’t think about. In the way his phone felt lighter when Leo’s name was on the screen. In the shape of his evenings, in the rhythm of his days. Losing that wouldn’t just be losing someone —it would be losing the architecture of how he lived.

And that was what scared him most.

Not the idea of Leo leaving on his own—that had never crossed his mind—but a quieter, more shapeless fear. The kind you couldn’t put into words without breaking its spell. A sense that if he wasn’t careful, if he let the wrong moment slip or stepped away at the wrong time, it would snap something delicate and permanent.

Because some things didn’t fray—they broke.
And when they broke, you didn’t get to gather them up and piece them back together like nothing had happened.

So he held it all too tightly in his chest, this stubborn, fragile thing between them. And because he wanted it so desperately to last, he lived with the constant ache that one day, inevitably, it would be his own hands that let it slip.

Leo never made him feel trapped. Not once. The cage was Claude’s own making—bars built out of self-doubt and the quiet knowledge that you can’t hold onto something precious without the risk of dropping it.

At first, it was intoxicating. To be seen in high definition. To be treated like a puzzle worth solving, a song worth memorizing. But in the quiet moments, Claude could feel the tremor under it—the fear that if he hit a wrong note, the music might stop, and it would be his fault.

It was a strange kind of weight: soft, but constant. Like a coat you forget you’re wearing until the sun comes out and you realize you’ve been carrying it all day. The comfort was real, but so was the quiet pull of responsibility that came with it—that sense that if he didn’t tend to it carefully enough, the gravity between them might weaken, and Leo might drift away.

He felt it in small, almost invisible ways—a faint tightness in his chest before replying to Leo’s messages, a pause he couldn’t explain before he spoke. Not worry exactly, not even guilt, just an unshaped tension, as if some part of him already knew these moments carried more weight than he could see.

It wasn’t a bad weight. But it was heavy in the way living plants are heavy—growing things you have to water, prune, protect. And the more Claude cared about not letting it wither, the more he could feel the possibility of failure breathing down his neck.

If he dropped this, it wouldn’t just fall.
It would break.
And it would be Leo in the pieces.

And Claude… wasn’t sure he was built to hold something that could break like that.

Then Finana started inviting him to things.

Not in a planned, “mark your calendar” way. Not like Leo’s messages, which always carried the shape of a whole day in them—where Claude could almost see the moments stacked ahead of time: the conversation that would stretch past midnight, the way Leo would tilt his head mid-laugh, the quiet pause on the walk home.

Finana’s invites were like throwing pebbles into a pond—small, light, rippling for a moment before disappearing.
Hey, wanna grab coffee?
Help me carry this stupid thing across campus?
Come see this bad movie with me, I swear it’s so bad it’s good.

They didn’t rearrange his week. They didn’t linger in his head before they happened. If he said no, she’d just send back an ok lol and keep going. No pause. No shift in the air.

With her, there was no quiet awareness of meaning. No subtle pressure, even the good kind, to show up in a way that mattered. Because nothing here could be lost.

It wasn’t that Leo’s presence was harder—Leo was the most natural thing Claude had ever known. But with Leo, every moment carried the invisible weight of being part of something that felt like it could last forever. That weight was a gift, but Claude didn’t always notice he was carrying it. With Finana, there was no such weight. The air felt thinner, lighter.

And maybe that was why, without thinking, he began to say yes to her more often.

Not to replace Leo. Not to step away from him.

But because the moments with Finana didn’t stir that faint, restless feeling in his chest—the one that made him want to protect what he had with Leo without ever putting into words that it might need protecting.

He told himself, and believed it, that saying yes to Finana didn’t mean saying no to Leo.

But that’s not how gravity works.
You can’t stay in two orbits.
And the one that pulls lighter never warns you when it’s pulling you farther from the heavier one.

The drift was slow, almost invisible.

A raincheck here.
A last-minute cancellation there.
Claude didn’t think twice.

Leo still smiled when they met. Still texted first. Still made space for Claude like he always had.
So Claude thought it was fine. 

He didn’t see that for Leo, each one was another hairline fracture.
Cracks too small to notice until the whole thing gave way.

Leo texted about a coffee shop—the one with the window seats he always claimed like a cat choosing its sunbeam. Claude meant to go. But Finana’s message lit up his phone first— Need help with the lab project. And Claude thought, Sure, I’ll just meet Leo another day.

He sent, Raincheck?
Leo replied, Sure. Hope it goes well.
Claude read it, sent a thumbs-up.
Didn’t think about how long Leo had been waiting.
Didn’t think about the untouched coffee cooling across from an empty chair.

One lap around the lighter orbit.

Then it was the group dinner. Leo had picked the place. Claude showed up late, sat across from Leo but somehow never ended up with him in the conversation. Every time he spoke, it was with the group, his eyes darting to whoever laughed first. Leo tried a few times to turn the current their way, but Claude’s answers stayed short, surface-level. He didn’t mean to keep it that way.

It just… felt easier to stay where the current was already moving.

Another lap.

Then the arcade night. That one was different. Leo hadn’t invited him to anything in a while, but this time he did, and Claude actually reached out first: yo you still there? might swing by.

And then he saw Finana on the way. Her face lit up when she heard “arcade,” and he thought, why not? She’d make it fun. She always did.

When they got there, Leo smiled, but it was the kind of smile Claude didn’t know how to read anymore. They played. Laughed. But Claude found himself pulled toward Finana’s banter—the elbow nudges, the mock complaints about his driving, the way she demanded a rematch at the rhythm game like it was a world championship. It wasn’t that he ignored Leo. It was just… she was right there.

Easier.

Another lap.

Each time, Claude told himself it was nothing. That Leo understood. That this wasn’t the sort of thing to tip a balance.

But, again, that’s not how gravity works.

Every small shift, every easy yes, every light pull took him farther from the heavy orbit that had once been home. And the farther you drift, the weaker the pull feels. Until one day, you don’t notice it at all.

And maybe that’s the cruelest part—the moment you realize you can’t even feel the thing you’ve been leaving behind.

The university lounge buzzed with that quiet, evening sort of noise—the hum of vending machines, the shuffle of cards from the group in the back, the glow of lamps that made the air feel warmer than it was. Claude sat half-slouched in the beanbag, phone in his hands, letting the soft pull of Finana’s voice guide him. She was beside him, crossing one leg over the other, chattering about some themed café they were going to try.

It was easy, being here. Too easy.

No undercurrent tugging at him to pay closer attention, no silent weight in the air if he didn’t answer quickly enough. Just Finana’s words floating light and quick between them, orbiting nothing in particular.

“So what time are we meeting tomorrow?” she asked.

Claude blinked up from his phone. “For what?”

She laughed, tilting her head like he’d just made a joke. “The café? Hello? You said you were free?”

And that was when the interruption came.

“Wait.”
Leo’s voice. Soft, but sharper than usual—the kind of sharp you hear in the air before you see the lightning. “Tomorrow?”

Claude turned, halfway. “Yeah?”

“The Valorant watch party.”
A smile on Leo’s face, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I thought—we said. You said you’d come. I got the tickets already.”

And there it was—that brief, undeniable jolt of weight in his chest. The heavy pull of an orbit he hadn’t been feeling lately.

For a second, Claude hesitated. He could still fix this, he thought. He could say, Right. Shit. My bad. Let’s go. He could lean back into that gravity.

But Finana’s presence was right there, light and uncomplicated. She didn’t even know this was a choice.

Claude’s mouth moved before he could think. “No, it’s fine. Leo wouldn’t mind. We can go another time anyway.”

He didn’t look at Leo’s face after that. Didn’t want to see if the pull was still there, or if it had already let go.

He told himself it was fine.
That Leo would understand.
That they’d reschedule, and it would be like always.

But the thought didn’t settle.
It moved through him like something caught in the air—a dust mote that wouldn’t fall, no matter how still he stood. It drifted between his ribs, catching on things he hadn’t touched in months.

Leo saving him a window seat without asking. Not the kind of seat you pick just for a view, but the kind you claim like you’re expecting someone specific to show up.

Leo leaning in during a dumb co-op game, pointing at the screen with the edge of his sleeve brushing Claude’s arm—so close Claude could feel the warmth even through the fabric.

Leo laughing in a way that didn’t just exist in the room, but shaped it. Filled it until the air felt bigger.

Those memories didn’t arrive like a montage. They came one at a time, slow and complete, each one with its own weight.

And that was the issue.

Every single one had weight.
Every single one had gravity.

Claude could feel them pulling—not back toward Leo exactly, but back toward the version of himself that used to stand close enough to feel that pull without thinking about it. Back when the orbit between them was so natural, so consistent, it didn’t need maintenance.

Now, each memory felt like a reminder that he’d stepped out of it. Not in one sharp move, but in a series of easy, careless steps, each one so small he hadn’t noticed the distance piling up.

And in their place, in the space where that gravity had been, there was just lightness. The thin, airy kind. The kind that didn’t ask for more, didn’t hold you in place.

It should have felt freeing.
It didn’t.

It had been months since Leo’s absence started. Claude still told himself it was temporary—an orbit gone wide, sure, but not broken. Not yet. The pull would return. It always had.

He carried that belief the way you carry loose change in your pocket: not thinking about it, but assuming it would be there when you reached for it.

That night, he cut across the courtyard behind the library. His earbuds were in, music he wasn’t really hearing humming at a low volume. The lamps were just starting to fog the air with their halos.

And then he saw him.

Leo.

Sitting on the far bench by the rusted vending machine, the one half-swallowed by ivy. Hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows, leaning forward slightly as he spoke. His posture was easy—not the kind of easy that meant careless, but the kind that came from being fully at ease in the company you kept.

The boy next to him—someone Claude didn’t know—sat angled toward him in that subtle, magnetic way of people who’ve learned the shape of your silences. He wasn’t talking much. Just there. Anchoring.

Leo laughed at something, and the sound carried across the space between them.
It wasn’t the big, room-filling laugh Claude remembered.
It was smaller, softer, like it had been set aside for this bench, this company.

Claude stopped walking.

For months, he’d told himself Leo was somewhere just beyond his line of sight—close enough that if Claude turned his head at the right moment, he’d see him again and everything would slide back into place.

But this didn’t feel like something waiting to return.
It felt... settled.

And for the first time, he realized the orbit they’d shared wasn’t just wide—it was gone. Leo had fallen into something else entirely, and Claude wasn’t even in the same sky.

It wasn’t a sharp hurt. Not a knife. Not even a break.
It was the quiet, suffocating weight of understanding that gravity isn’t a promise. It’s a condition.
And when it’s gone, you can’t will it back just because you miss it.

He didn’t know when exactly he’d crossed the point of no return. The raincheck. The group dinner. The arcade night. The watch party. Or maybe it had been a dozen smaller laps around the lighter orbit until, one day, the heavier one let go.
He’d told himself each time, Leo will understand. That there’d be no crack in the glass just because he stepped away once or twice.

But that was the very thing he’d feared from the start, wasn’t it?
Not the idea of Leo leaving, but the thought that he might be the one to undo it. That too many missed moments—too many empty seats left at tables meant for two—would wear something irreplaceable thin.
And still, in trying to keep it safe, he’d kept his distance.
And distance, it turned out, was just another word for letting go.

He stood there too long, music dying into static in his ears.
Not loud. Not sharp.

Just lingering.

A sense of something missing.

A seat left open.

A silence that was never supposed to be permanent.

Claude made himself move.
Not quickly—there was no reason to. Just one foot in front of the other, the slow rhythm of someone leaving a place they’d already broken long before tonight.

The courtyard air felt colder now, though the lamps still bled their gold across the concrete. He tried to focus on that light instead of the bench behind him, but the image stayed—Leo leaning forward, the soft curve of his smile, the stranger’s steady presence beside him.

It wasn’t the months apart that had made this happen.
It wasn’t bad timing or distance or any slow, cosmic drift.

It was him.

Every raincheck. Every easy yes to something else. Every time he told himself it’s fine, Leo will understand instead of showing up. Each choice had been a step toward the lighter orbit, and with every step, he’d made it easier for Leo to let go.

He’d thought gravity was permanent.
That no matter how far he drifted, it would always be there, invisible and certain, tugging him back into place. That it was part of the natural order between them—as fixed as the sun rising, as sure as the tide returning to shore.

But he’d been wrong.

Because it wasn’t the distance alone that killed the pull.
It was the way he’d taken step after step away from it—not in leaps, but in small, careless choices, each one so easy in the moment that he hadn’t noticed how far they carried him.
He’d tested that pull again and again, trusting it to hold.

And tonight, standing there in the glow of those campus lamps, he’d found out just how far was too far.

The realization didn’t hit like a crash.
It was quieter than that. Like walking into a room where something heavy had always been—a piano, a bookshelf—and finding an empty square of carpet where its weight used to sit. The absence wasn’t loud, but it changed the whole shape of the room.

He could feel it in his chest, that empty square.
Not the weight of Leo’s presence, but the ghost of it—the pressure he’d grown used to without realizing, now gone so completely that it made him unsteady.

By the time he reached the other side of campus, the music in his earbuds had stopped.
He didn’t bother pressing play again. The silence matched too well.

Somewhere behind him, Leo was still on that bench.
Still leaning in toward someone else.
Still laughing—that smaller, softer kind of laugh Claude hadn’t heard in months.

Only now, he understood why he hadn’t.

He kept walking.
Not because he wanted to—every part of him wanted to turn back—but because he’d already done all the walking that mattered months ago.

Those easy, thoughtless steps toward the lighter orbit. Those moments when he’d said Leo will understand instead of I’ll be there .

That was the real distance.
And it couldn’t be closed by just turning around.

***  End of Claude's POV ***