The room felt oddly still once the door clicked shut behind Luca.
Noel stood there for a moment, letting the silence settle like dust in the air. Without Luca's usual background noise—his humming, his bad EDM playlists, the click of a controller—it was easier to breathe. But somehow... also quieter than he liked.
He tossed his bag onto the bed and let himself fall beside it, arms stretched, eyes tracing the ceiling. Just for a minute, he told himself.
Five minutes later, he sat up with a sigh, sweeping his hand through his hair.
The mess caught his eye immediately: socks kicked into corners, a shirt dangling off the desk chair, half a granola bar abandoned on the nightstand like a crime scene. Typical Luca.
Noel got up and began tidying, methodically folding, tossing wrappers, wiping down the desk. He didn't mind doing it—not really. Cleaning helped him think, and thinking helped him feel like he was still in control of something.
But then came a sudden bzzz. Then another. And another.
Noel turned toward the sound. Luca's phone, left carelessly beside his pillow, lit up with missed calls and buzzing messages. It kept going, screen flashing every few seconds.
Noel hesitated. He wasn't the snooping type.
But the name glowing across the screen made his stomach turn slightly.
Kian.
Three missed calls. Two unread messages.
Against better judgment, Noel picked up the phone—not to open anything, just to silence it. But even in that brief glance, the preview of the last message slid into view:
"Hey Luca, can we meet tomorrow?"
Noel's hand froze.
He didn't want to assume. Didn't want to care. But something about that message—the familiarity, the weight of it—stung in a place he wasn't ready to admit was even open.
He set the phone down, more gently than necessary, then stepped back like it might burn him.
He hated how fast his stomach sank. Kian. Whoever that was, he mattered—and Noel wasn't ready to admit why that mattered to him.
He didn't mean to feel anything. But now there was something lingering in the room. A sharp tug in his chest.
Noel turned away and grabbed the mop again, forcing himself to focus on the floor. On the clean lines. On the quiet.
Anything but that name.
Anything but what it meant.
The vibrating finally stopped, leaving a strange silence in the room.
"Hey Luca, can we meet tomorrow?"
He hadn't meant to read it. He really hadn't. But now the words looped in his head like a quiet drumbeat he couldn't unhear.
Just then, the door creaked open.
Noel turned.
Luca stepped in halfway, breath slightly rushed, his hair pushed back like he'd been running. "Did I leave my phone here?" he asked, already scanning the desk.
"Yeah It was vibrating non-stop," Noel said, a little too calmly, gesturing toward it.
Luca grabbed the phone, barely checking the screen before stuffing it into his pocket. "Thanks, man. Totally forgot it."
"You're not done with class?" Noel asked, trying to sound casual, though the edge of his voice betrayed the question he wasn't really asking.
"Break. We've got like fifteen minutes," Luca said, glancing toward the door. "I just needed this for... something."
Noel nodded, but the tension in his jaw didn't go unnoticed.
Luca lingered for a second, like he might say something else—but didn't.
"See you in a bit," he said instead, backing out the door.
The silence returned as soon as it closed.
But this time, it wasn't empty. It was heavy. And the message on Luca's screen echoed louder than ever in Noel's mind.
The hallway buzzed with energy—students chatting, lockers slamming, papers fluttering as groups shuffled between classes.
Luca leaned casually against a wall, phone in one hand, the other buried in his pocket.
His silver-gray hair still held the soft waves from his rushed morning shower, though now slightly tousled from the breeze outside.
Beside him, Emily flipped through a notebook, eyebrows furrowed. "You didn't show up for the first half of class again," she said, glancing sideways at him.
Luca shrugged, offering a half-smirk. "Wasn't really in the mood for graphs and formulas today."
"You're never in the mood for graphs and formulas," she replied, unimpressed.
Luca chuckled, his gaze drifting across the hallway briefly before landing back on her. "Fair."
Emily narrowed her eyes at him, then nudged his shoulder. "So? You ran all the way back just for your phone?"
"Yeah," Luca said, tapping it against his palm. "Had something I needed to check."
Emily arched a brow. "From Kian?"
Luca didn't answer right away. He just let the question hang, staring at something in the distance like he was trying to act indifferent. But the twitch of his jaw gave him away.
Emily studied him, her voice softening. "You're really going to meet him again, aren't you?"
Luca shrugged, but this time there was no smirk. "It's just a talk."
"Hmm," Emily muttered, unconvinced. "You sure that's all it's going to be?"
Luca turned to her, finally meeting her eyes. "Honestly? I don't even know."
Before she could respond, her phone rang lecture alarm, and the hallway erupted with motion once more.
Luca pushed off the wall, sliding his phone back into his pocket. "Let's just get through the next class first."
Emily followed, but the look she gave him wasn't one of agreement—it was worry.
And behind them, the halls slowly emptied, leaving nothing but echoes and unspoken doubts trailing in their steps.
The classroom buzzed faintly as students trickled in, chairs scraping and soft conversations filling the air.
Luca took his seat by the window, Emily beside him, flipping to the right page in her textbook. But his focus was elsewhere.
He sat slouched, chin resting on one hand, the other idly spinning his pen as his gaze drifted to his phone screen again.
"Hey Luca, can we meet tomorrow?"
The message from Kian still sat there, unread but burned into his mind.
Emily glanced sideways. "You're not listening at all, are you?"
"Hm?" Luca blinked, pulled from his thoughts. "Yeah, yeah. Chapter five."
"That was twenty minutes ago," she deadpanned.
He chuckled lowly, not even trying to deny it. "Right."
As the lecture began, Luca leaned back in his chair, eyes trained on the board but mind elsewhere.
The words blurred into background noise, replaced by the memory of Kian's voice, his touch, the mess they never really cleaned up.
His knee bounced restlessly under the desk.
"Why now?" he muttered under his breath, barely audible.
Emily looked at him again but didn't press. She knew that look. And she knew better than to get between Luca and the things he wasn't ready to say out loud.
Meanwhile, back at the dorm, Noel had finished folding the laundry and stacked the books neatly on the desk. He glanced at the clock. Still early.
His gaze fell once more to Luca's bed—unmade as usual.
He didn't know who Kian was to Luca.
But somehow… the way that one name tightened his chest told him he might not want to find out.
Not yet.
He sat at his desk, pulled open his laptop, and tried to drown the unease in assignments.
But his heart kept whispering the same question:
Why does it bother me so much? And what if the answer was one he wasn't ready to hear?