Luca stretched and stood up, brushing nonexistent dust from his jeans. "I'm going out for a bit," he said casually, grabbing his phone from the desk.
Noel didn't turn around. "Okay."
No reminder. No sarcastic remark about the assignment still half-done. Just that—okay.
The door clicked shut.
Only then did Noel lean back in his chair, one hand pressed against his chest. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
"Idiot," he muttered under his breath—at himself.
What the hell was that? Luca's voice had dropped—lazy, low, like he wasn't speaking but studying him. Like every word meant something more.
Noel ran a hand through his hair, then dropped his forehead to the table. His laptop chimed as the screen woke again, but he didn't lift his head.
"I'm not fourteen," he whispered, as if trying to convince himself.
But his heart… it hadn't settled.
He sat up again, blinked at the cursor on the screen, then rubbed his face.
"Focus," he ordered himself. "It's just Luca. Just being Luca."
But no matter how many times he told himself that, his hands still trembled slightly when he reached for the keyboard again.
Noel adjusted his posture, eyes narrowing at the blinking cursor like it personally offended him. He reread the same paragraph for the third time, but the words blurred together.
"Focus," he mumbled, tapping the trackpad.
He added two sentences, deleted one. Tried to fix a citation. Then stared at the blank space beneath it like the answer might appear if he glared hard enough.
Still no sound at the door.
Noel glanced over his shoulder—not that it mattered. The room stayed empty, quiet except for the soft whirr of his laptop fan.
He checked the time.
10:12 p.m.
He didn't even know when Luca left exactly. Just that he'd said "I'm going out for a bit" and vanished like it didn't matter.
Noel sighed, rolling his chair back and standing. He stretched his arms over his head, then paced once across the room.
When he reached the window, he peeked out—just dark trees and the quiet buzz of campus life winding down.
He stood there a moment longer, then returned to his seat.
The document waited.
He picked up his pen, hesitated—then let it drop.
"Come on," he muttered, shaking his head. "You've written under worse."
Still, the words didn't come easy.
It wasn't just writer's block. It was something else. Something that had Luca's breath still lingering against his ear, had the warmth of his body stuck in Noel's memory like a song he couldn't shake.
Noel rubbed the back of his neck, trying to push it down.
He needed to finish this.
Luca always came and went like it meant nothing.
And that shouldn't matter. But it did. More than Noel wanted to admit.
Noel finally hit the last period on the document, double-checked the citation, and let out a breath that felt like relief and exhaustion rolled into one.
"Done," he whispered to himself.
He closed the laptop slowly, rubbing his eyes. A wide yawn broke through as he stood and stretched, his back cracking in quiet protest.
Crossing the room, he pulled back the covers, climbed into bed, and sank into the mattress like it had been waiting for him all day.
No sound from the door.
Still no Luca.
Noel stared at the ceiling for a few seconds longer, eyes heavy.
Then he turned over, pulled the blanket up to his chin, and closed his eyes.
Sleep found him quickly—quiet, restless, unaware of the night still moving outside.
The morning light pushed through the curtains, soft but insistent.
Luca groaned, rolling over and burying his face deeper into the pillow. His hair was a mess, and the sheets clung to him like he was part of the bed itself.
He cracked one eye open—noel's bed was already empty.
Of course he's gone. Morning classes.
Luca sighed and stretched an arm out, grabbing his phone. A lazy scroll through notifications, a few unread messages, and one photo from Jordan story that made him chuckle half-asleep.
He dropped the phone to his chest and let his eyes flutter shut again.
"I don't have class till noon," he mumbled to no one in particular.
Then silence again, the kind that filled the room when it belonged just to him.
He pulled the blanket tighter and dozed off once more, unconcerned, unconstrained, and completely unaware of the shift already beginning to stir in his life.
The classroom was quiet—too quiet for Noel's liking. Pens scratched against paper, the occasional cough breaking the tension, but otherwise, it was the kind of silence that made mistakes feel louder.
Noel hunched over his desk, eyes flicking across the quiz sheet. Multiple choice, short answers, one essay question at the end.
He hated essay questions.
He tapped his pen lightly against the desk, rereading the prompt before writing his first line.
Behind him, someone sniffled. A chair creaked.
Noel blocked it all out.
Focus.
He scribbled, erased, rewrote. His mind darted briefly to the assignment he'd finished last night.
To the boy who hadn't helped much but somehow still lingered in his thoughts.
No. Focus.
He exhaled, pressing the pen to paper again.
The rest of the class melted away as he chased down his thoughts—one sentence at a time.
Noel's brows furrowed as he leaned closer to the paper, eyes locked on the quiz like it was the only thing that mattered.
The ticking clock overhead faded into a dull hum as he shut out everything else.
A graph. A data set. A theory to explain.
He worked through each question steadily, lips pressed tight in concentration.
The scratch of his pen was rhythmic, the kind that came from confidence built on hours of quiet study. This—this was his space, his calm.
His hand moved swiftly now, answering the short responses. Precise. Clean. No doodles, no smudges—he didn't leave space for mistakes.
When he reached the final essay, he paused, flexed his fingers, then dropped his pen to the paper.
His thoughts aligned one by one. Each word he wrote landed with certainty. There were no second guesses. Not here.
For the next fifteen minutes, Noel didn't look up. Didn't blink too long. His breath evened out, steady and deep.
This was who he was—disciplined, sharp, in control.
When he finally laid his pen down, He sat back quietly, breathing slow, hands folded in his lap.
Done.
And for a rare moment, there was peace in his chest.