The thing about sitting next to Noel Chandra was that it made the concept of time dilation feel very, very real.
Evan Rivera wasn't sure how long he'd been pretending to take notes—two minutes? Ten? An hour?—because every time Noel leaned over to whisper something like "That's a flawed model of rotational velocity," Evan's brain melted like a planet too close to its sun.
The lecture hall lights dimmed as Professor Holt pulled up a slide about galactic voids. Evan blinked hard and tried to focus. The screen read:
"Absence Does Not Equal Emptiness: The Mystery of Cosmic Voids"
His notes read:
voids
big holes
space is lonely
Noel's voice is kinda low and nice
Beside him, Noel was scribbling furiously in his constellation notebook, completely focused, lips parted just slightly in thought. His eyes glinted with the light from the projection like he had stars inside them. Meanwhile, Evan was busy contemplating whether it was physically possible to fall in love with someone more than once in the same evening.
"You're not really here for the lecture, are you?" Noel murmured, eyes still on the screen.
Evan flinched. "W-what?"
Noel glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, expression unreadable. "You've written 'space is lonely' three times."
Evan shut his notebook with the force of someone who had been exposed.
"I like to... journal feelings," he said.
Noel actually huffed a small laugh. "Right. Emotional astrophysics."
Evan wanted to sink into a black hole. But then—
"I don't mind," Noel added, softer this time. "Most people avoid this stuff."
That drew Evan back up. "Why?"
"It's lonely work," Noel said simply. "People think it's cold. Distant. All math and nothing human."
Evan watched him for a moment, surprised by the shift in tone. It was like the starlight dimmed a little behind his eyes.
"But you still love it," Evan said, more certain than he meant to.
Noel turned to him—and for a second, their eyes held. "Yeah," he said. "I do."
And for the first time, Evan thought maybe he was seeing not the star student, but just Noel. A guy who looked at space and saw something worth loving, even if no one else understood it.
Before he could say anything else, the lights flicked back on. The lecture was over. Chairs scraped. People murmured goodbyes. But Evan sat there, blinking in the brightness, a new thought orbiting his brain:
Noel Chandra doesn't mind me sitting beside him.
"Hey," Noel said, standing and slinging his backpack over one shoulder. "There's a meteor shower tomorrow night. Real one. Not part of the curriculum."
Evan straightened. "Yeah?"
"I was gonna watch from the observatory roof. Want to come?"
Evan blinked. "Like... with you?"
Noel's lips twitched. "Unless you'd prefer the meteor shower alone."
"No! I mean—yes. I'd love to. With you. Definitely."
Noel gave a small nod, turned, and started walking. Evan scrambled to grab his stuff, then paused.
Did Noel just ask him to hang out?
He felt like someone had stuck a rocket under his heart.
And as he followed Noel out into the star-flecked night, Evan thought: This is it. I'm officially entering orbit.