Distance returned in the shape of deadlines.
Juni spent long hours in the studio, the air heavy with paint and critique. Elian's days filled with lectures, group work, and reading lists that multiplied faster than he could clear them.
They didn't see each other for three days straight.
It should have felt disruptive.
Instead, it felt like a test.
Juni stayed late one night, refining a piece that refused to settle. His phone buzzed on the table beside him.
Elian: Still awake?
Juni smiled despite himself.
Juni: Unfortunately. You?
Elian: Same. Ethics paper is winning.
Juni leaned back in his chair, tension easing just from the exchange. Want company? he typed, then hesitated. Virtually, I mean.
Elian replied almost immediately. Always.
They stayed on the call without speaking much—Juni sketching, Elian typing, the quiet punctuated by occasional sighs and muted laughter. The silence didn't feel empty. It felt shared.
At one point, Juni paused, pencil hovering. "Can I say something stupid?"
Elian glanced at the screen. "You never ask that before saying things."
Juni smiled. "I feel… calmer when you're there. Even like this."
Elian's expression softened. "Me too."
The call ended after midnight. Juni returned to his work lighter than before.
The next night, Elian walked home alone after a late seminar, exhaustion settling deep in his bones. He called Juni without thinking, letting the familiar voice fill the space.
"Talk to me," Elian said quietly.
"About what?"
"Anything."
Juni did—about a classmate's critique, about a color that refused to cooperate, about nothing at all. Elian listened, the tension easing with each word.
Separate worlds didn't weaken what they shared.
They clarified it.
Juni realized then that Elian wasn't just someone he leaned toward when things were quiet. Elian was the point his days curved back to—even when they didn't meet.
An anchor didn't have to be visible.
It just had to hold.
And as Juni closed his laptop that night, the distance between campuses felt less like separation and more like proof—of trust, of patience, of something steady enough to endure being apart.
Unofficial, perhaps.
But no longer uncertain.