"I…I don't even know who you are anymore," he whispered dramatically. "You're like… some undercover romantic assassin."
I raised an eyebrow. "Pretty sure assassins don't win stuffed foxes and carry people with sore feet."
"That makes it WORSE," he hissed. "That's couple-core. That's soft-boy cinematic moment energy. You did a K-drama piggyback in public. Do you understand the emotional gravity of what you've done?"
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Sky—"
"No. No. Don't you dare tone-of-sigh me," he said, pointing. "My best friend is secretly the male lead in a festival romance arc, and I found out from the GROUP CHAT?!"
I tried — for maybe two seconds — to hold back a smile.
It didn't work.
Sky pointed again, scandalized. "And you're SMILING. Oh, you're GONE-gone. Kiss-your-brain-cells-goodbye-gone."
I tossed a pillow at him.
He dodged with reflexes I didn't know he had and—because karma enjoys timing—his chair spun too far and sent him crashing into the floor.
There was a loud thud.
A groan.
A muffled, "I hate gravity."
I walked over and offered him a hand.
He took it dramatically, like I was rescuing him from a cliff edge and not two feet of carpet.
Once he was upright, he exhaled and regarded me with a seriousness that didn't match his hair sticking up like electrocuted seaweed.
"Okay," he said. "Real talk. Are you…dating her?"
I hesitated.
Not because I didn't know.
But because I did.
And the answer was messy.
"…It's complicated."
Sky blinked. "Dude. When someone says complicated, it usually means: 'Either we kissed and aren't talking about it,' 'someone might commit homicide,' or 'feelings are happening and I'm panicking.'"
"…Option three with a sprinkle of two," I muttered.
Sky nodded slowly. "Ah. The scary kind."
There was a short silence — not awkward, just weighty.
Then:
"You like her," he said, softer than I expected.
It wasn't a question.
For a beat, I didn't respond.
My mind flickered — the sparks under the overpass, her voice steady and warm under festival lanterns, her laugh pressed against my shoulder, the way she trusted me to walk that night like she wasn't carrying a dozen secrets.
"Yeah," I finally admitted. "I do."
Sky didn't grin.
He didn't make a joke.
He just gave a small, thoughtful nod.
"…Then don't mess it up."
Sky was still mid-rant about "romantic betrayal" when my lens flickered — subtle enough that he didn't notice, because he was dramatically hugging the stuffed fox like a Victorian widow saying goodbye to a lover at sea.
I kept my face neutral and opened the notification.
[NEW DIRECTIVE — PRIVATE.]
My heartbeat immediately slowed— not from fear, but from training.
Sky continued loudly, oblivious:
"—and then, AND THEN, you carried her like some Pinterest boyfriend tutorial and— wait, are you even listening?"
I wasn't.
The message unfolded:
[Good work yesterday. Lopez reports your coordination was efficient.]
Another message followed.
Sharper.
Colder.
[But you are being watched.]
My posture didn't change. Not a blink. Not a breath out of rhythm.
Sky, however, was fully in performance mode.
"…I expect emotional reparations. Possibly snacks. Definitely snacks."
I scrolled.
[Unknown third party captured images of you at Sunfire.]
A slow exhale left my chest — controlled. Quiet.
Not panic.
Just recalculating.
Sky clapped loudly, thinking that would get my attention.
It almost did.
Then the final line appeared:
[Your face has been identified.]
Followed by a timestamp.
I blinked once.
Sky immediately gasped, placing a hand to his chest.
"Oh no. ONE blink. That's the I'm-in-love-and-trying-to-pretend-I'm-not blink."
I stared at him.
"You're unbelievable."
"I KNOW," he said proudly.
My phone buzzed—normal ringtone
[We know you 😊]
I glanced at Sky, who was still processing my "We know you 😊" notification like it had personally insulted him. His eyebrows were doing that dramatic upward arch thing he did when he was about to explode into a hundred questions at once.
"Sky… I—uh… something urgent just came up. Gotta go."
His jaw dropped, and he scrambled to his feet. "Urgent? You're not telling me what it is, are you?!"
I shook my head, already heading toward the door. "Can't. Very confidential. Top-secret. Life-and-death. You know, the usual."
He threw his hands up in theatrical defeat. "Marx Cartez! You're literally the worst at this friendship thing!"
I didn't answer. I just stepped outside, closing the door softly behind me, and immediately spotted her. Isabella. She was standing a few doors down, her phone in hand, face calm but alert. She'd obviously gotten the same message.
Without a word, she started walking in the same direction I was heading. I fell into step beside her. No introductions. No explanations. The city stretched before us, alive and loud, but our pace was deliberate, synchronized — like we'd done this countless times, though we both knew we hadn't.
Sky appeared on the balcony behind us, framed by the morning light and the door he hadn't quite closed fast enough. His mouth opened and closed. Then he raised a hand. "Wait! Where are you going?!"
I didn't turn. Isabella didn't turn. We just kept walking.
Sky's voice broke through the hum of the street below: "Are you seriously leaving me out of this?! I demand details—"
I waved vaguely over my shoulder. "Relax, Sky. I'll fill you in. Later."
His jaw dropped again, and this time he stayed put. "Later?! That's a code word for panic, isn't it?"
We disappeared around the corner before he could formulate a proper protest. Sky lingered there, arms crossed, muttering, "They're going somewhere… together… without me. Why do I feel like I'm going to regret this?"
We got out of campus and We moved through the streets with purpose, slipping past pedestrians and vendors, blending into the early festival prep crowd.
"lets try the park," she suggested and we headed there.
A small picnic table sat under a leafy tree, sunlight patching the surface in gold.
We stopped.
Without saying anything, we set down our phones. The memo glowed faintly on my lenses, overlaid with the contact's notes, still fresh in my vision. Isabella leaned against the edge of the table, arms crossed loosely, eyes trained on the message as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
"what are we going to do?" I asked as we settled trying to maintain a low profile. For a long beat, we just sat there, side by side, letting the city buzz fade to background noise. Then, silently, we started going through the memo together.
Step one: identify threats. Step two: strategize containment. Step three… survive without anyone noticing.
The picnic table became our temporary command center. And somewhere far away, Sky still waited, hoping for scraps of information that would never come until we were ready to give them.
And I didn't need to tell him yet.