By the following week, the laughter and stories of the festival had faded like sparks dying in the sky. In their place came the groans and sighs of students buried under exam prep. Teachers handed out review sheets like candy, piling them onto desks until backpacks sagged with the weight. The library, once a quiet escape, now overflowed with bodies, every table occupied by groups muttering formulas or flipping frantically through thick textbooks.
Eli threw himself into the chaos. His desk at home turned into a battlefield—highlighters scattered like fallen soldiers, notes covered in frantic scribbles, textbooks stacked into makeshift walls around him. He told himself it was necessary. Exams were important. Passing them was practical, responsible. Everyone was working hard; he was just doing the same.
But Eli knew better. Somewhere beneath the excuse of "studying," there was another reason—one he was too scared to say aloud. He needed space. Space to quiet his mind. Space to slow the way his chest tightened, the way his heart stumbled whenever Kai's presence lingered too close.
So Eli laughed a little less with his friends, giving quick smiles instead of joining in on jokes. He excused himself from group study sessions, claiming he focused better alone. More often than not, he slipped away to the library or stayed in his room late into the night, chasing the comfort of solitude beneath the pale glow of his desk lamp.
Kai noticed.
At first, he didn't say anything. He simply watched as Eli slipped out earlier, or as he turned down casual invitations. His gaze would flicker across the classroom, steady and quiet, almost as if he was waiting for Eli to come back on his own.
But one afternoon, when the bell rang and Eli began shoving his notebooks into his bag with unusual haste, Kai finally broke the silence.
"Leaving already?" His voice was calm, but it made Eli's hands still for a moment.
"Yeah," Eli said quickly, forcing a casual shrug. "Gotta study."
Kai tilted his head slightly. "I see." His tone stayed even, but his eyes lingered—longer than they should have, longer than Eli could handle.
Eli gave a strained laugh, waving him off. "Don't look at me like that. You should be studying too."
For a second, the corners of Kai's lips curved faintly. "I already do."
There was no sharpness in his words, no accusation—just a simple fact. But somehow, Eli's chest tightened all the same, as if Kai had peeled back the layers he tried so hard to hide behind.
"See you," Eli muttered quickly, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He left before Kai could say anything more, before the silence between them stretched into something he couldn't escape.
The days blurred together after that. Evenings bled into late nights, his notebooks filling with messy diagrams and highlighted phrases that seemed to blur if he stared too long. Eli repeated to himself that he was doing the right thing—keeping distance, keeping focus. This was what responsible looked like. This was what he needed.
And yet, every time he caught a glimpse of Kai—in the hallway with his calm stride, across the library with a book open in his hands, or in the cafeteria as he moved easily among their classmates—something twisted inside Eli.
A tug he didn't want to name.
And in the back of his mind, he couldn't shake the thought that maybe, just maybe, Kai already saw through all the space he was trying to build.