The air between their beds had grown sharp overnight. It wasn't quiet in a peaceful way. It was a silence with edges. One that felt like walking barefoot across broken glass.
Arm got ready first. Brushed his teeth. Didn't look in Mix's direction once, but he felt the stillness behind him. He could tell Mix was awake. Breathing steady. Eyes open but pretending not to see him.
Hours later,
Mix sat with a book , flipping pages and taking notes
"I'm heading out," Arm mumbled, more to the floor than to anyone else.
No answer. Just the sound of a pen scratching across paper. A page turned. That was it.
He left without slamming the door. Barely closed it at all.
---
Tarn's text came late morning.
coffee? no poetry, promise.
Mix stared at the message for a full minute before locking his phone again. He didn't respond. Not right away. He tucked it under his textbook, then pulled his hoodie tighter around him and kept highlighting words he wasn't reading.
By the time he replied, an hour had passed.
ok
He didn't ask where or when. He just got up and left the room.
---
Meanwhile, Gun was leaning halfway across the counter at the campus bakery, trying to convince the cashier to give him one more chocolate roll without charging him for it.
Peat stood behind him, sipping black tea and watching the back of Gun's head like he was trying to decide if this was still the boy he fell for.
"You're unusually quiet," Gun said as they walked back toward the quad.
"I'm unusually tired," Peat replied. Then, softer, "That's not a complaint."
Gun looped an arm around his shoulder. "You sure?"
Peat nodded. But he didn't lean in.
---
Across campus, at the media building, Bave was chewing on a straw while watching Jack talk to a cluster of girls near the vending machines. He wasn't flirting. Not really. But he wasn't stopping them either.
They were laughing. Touching his arm. Asking him to sing something.
Jack didn't even glance her way.
He looked good, though. Hair styled like he didn't try, jacket hanging perfectly off his shoulders. He looked like someone famous already. Or at least someone halfway there.
Bave narrowed her eyes.
Jack finally caught her staring. He held up a finger like one minute. Then turned back to the girls.
She took her straw out of her mouth. Bent it clean in half.
---
At the café, Tarn was already seated when Mix arrived. One of those corner booths that looked casual but was absolutely planned.
He looked up and smiled. "You came."
Mix sat down. "You bribed me with caffeine."
"I'd do worse."
Mix didn't answer. Just stirred his coffee with slow, lazy circles.
Tarn leaned forward, voice lower. "You okay?"
"Are you asking because you care, or because you're curious?"
Tarn looked at him for a long moment. "Both."
Mix blinked. Then looked away. "Fair."
For a while, they didn't speak. Just let the ambient noise fill the spaces between them. Then Mix asked, too casually, "You know Jack, right? Bave's boyfriend?"
"Yeah. The idol trainee guy? He's in my elective."
"Think he's serious about it?"
Tarn snorted. "Serious enough that he turned down a summer internship to train full-time."
Mix nodded, filing the detail away.
Then: "Bave looks like she wants to punch someone."
"She always looks like that."
Mix smiled for real this time. "True."
Tarn tilted his head. "So... we're talking now?"
Mix stirred his drink again. "Only because you're not poetry."
"That's the meanest compliment I've ever gotten."
---
Back in the dorm, Arm sat on his bed, staring at the half-open drawer where the candy used to be. Just one was missing.
He stared at the space for longer than he meant to.
Then he closed it. Hard.
---
The studio lights burned hotter than expected.
Jack wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt as the camera operator reset for another take. The girls in the back row giggled again when he caught his balance wrong on a turn, but the instructor didn't laugh. She only said, "Again," and clapped twice, sharp.
He nodded, breath shallow.
Another take. Another song. Another perfect step.
Except his thoughts weren't here. They were with the unread messages piling up in his phone. With Bave's face this morning, her voice tight and smile thinner than usual.
He hadn't replied. Not because he didn't care. He just didn't know what to say when he was the one drifting away.
---
Later that evening, Bave slammed her locker shut and leaned against it. She stared down at the text Jack had finally sent:
sorry practice ran long rain check on the library thing?
Library thing. That's what he called it now. Thing.
She didn't reply.
Instead, she opened a new message. Typed out "You're not the only one with dreams" then deleted it before it sent. It was too dramatic. Too bitter. Too... true.
She left the building without saying goodbye to anyone.