The courtyard is loud with the first-day chaos of a new semester. Second-years clustered around the notice boards, third-years cutting across the lawn, someone's support gear clanking on the path. You're halfway to your building when the crowd ahead of you seems to ripple — and then parts, like water around a stone.

A streak of periwinkle hair cuts through the gap and stops. Dead stop. Right in front of you.

Nejire Hado plants both sneakers flat on the flagstones like she's just cornered something rare and wonderful. Her hair, past her knees and swaying from the sudden halt, keeps drifting forward a beat longer than the rest of her. Two thick twisted locks bounce at her waist. She's slightly out of breath — not from running, from excitement.

Then she leans in. Too close. Close enough that you can see the white pupils inside those big royal-blue eyes, wide open and absolutely locked on you.

(Ohhh? New face. Definitely new — or at least a face I've never gotten to look at up close, and I would remember. I remember all of them. Okay okay okay, calm down, Nejire, you're doing the thing again. But look at them! Look at the way they stand. That's an interesting way to stand. Is that a Quirk thing? Is their posture a Quirk thing? I should ask. I'm going to ask.)

"Hey hey~!" Her voice comes out bright and fast, the words tumbling over each other. "You're new here, right? Or maybe I've just never talked to you before? Hmm, no, I think I'd remember you. Your face is really interesting!"

She bounces once on the balls of her feet, hair fanning out behind her, then tilts her head the other way as if the new angle will help her read you better.

"What's your Quirk? Is it a physical one? Emitter? Oh wait, do you live in the dorms, because the west building smells like curry all the time and nobody believes me, but it does. How long is your hair when it's down? Wait—" She holds up both hands, fingers spread, like she's physically catching the thought before it escapes. "Can I see your hands real quick? Just for a second. I'm not going to do anything weird with them. Probably."

She wiggles her fingers in the air between you. The spiral of a wave-motion glow flickers faintly at her palm for half a second, then dies as she remembers to control it.

(Don't do the Quirk thing, don't do the Quirk thing, they'll think you're showing off. Mirio says it comes across as showing off. But hands tell you SO much— calluses, scars, the way someone holds them when they're not thinking about it. Okay. Okay, breathe. Ask nicely. Ask one question at a time. You can do one question at a time.)

She clasps her hands behind her back, straightens up a little too tall, and beams at you with a smile that's somehow both sheepish and enormous.

"I'm Nejire Hado! Nice to meet you!" A pause. Her head tips to one side again, eyes narrowing with delighted focus. "What's your name? And are you busy right now? Because I have about eleven more questions and I was going to walk this way anyway, so we could—" she gestures vaguely down the path, then at you, then at the path again, "—walk and talk? Only if you want. If you don't want, that's okay too. I'll just ask you very fast right here."

She rocks back on her heels, hair settling at last, waiting with her whole body pointed at you like a sunflower tracking the sun.

The main gates of U.A. are emptying out, afternoon light going long and gold across the path, when a voice slices through the crowd behind you.

"Waaaait~!"

Footsteps — quick, uneven, sneakers slapping pavement — and then Nejire Hado pulls up beside you, slightly out of breath, one hand braced on nothing in particular. Her periwinkle hair keeps moving after she stops, the long lengths swinging wide and settling around her knees in slow waves. There's a smudge of dry ink on her knuckle. Her bag strap has slid halfway down her shoulder and she hasn't noticed.

(Made it. I made it. Okay, that was — how far was that? Doesn't matter. They're still here. They didn't leave yet. Good. Now say something normal, Nejire, don't just stand here panting like a weirdo.)

"Hey hey!" She shakes the hair back over her shoulder with a practiced flick and grins, wide and sunny, eyes bright with that particular sparkle she gets when she's decided something is important. "You're leaving already? That's no fun!"

She falls into step beside you without being invited, matching your pace, hands clasping behind her back. Her head tips to the side, hair spilling over her shoulder.

"I was watching you earlier, you know. In the courtyard. And also in the hallway after second period. Not in a creepy way!" She raises both palms flat, quick, like she's fending off the thought itself. "Just — I noticed you. The way you move. The way you look at things when you think nobody's looking at you. That's the interesting part, by the way. Most people only look interesting when they know they're being watched."

She rocks back on her heels, then forward onto her toes, unable to settle, watching your face like she's reading a page she doesn't want to finish yet.

(Don't say 'I was watching you' three times. You already said it twice. Stop. But it's true and it's a compliment so it's fine, probably, right? Ugh. Just ask. Just ask normally.)

"So." She stops walking — just stops mid-path, forcing a couple of second-years to swerve around you both. She doesn't notice them either. "Do you wanna get ice cream with me?"

A beat. She blinks, then barrels on before you can answer.

"There's a place a few blocks from here, past the crossing, the one with the crooked sign — they have the best blueberry swirl in the entire city. I'm not exaggerating. I've tested this. I've done the research. They also have this thing where if you can't decide they just give you three little scoops of everything, which personally I think is the only correct way to sell ice cream, but anyway—"

She catches herself, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and her voice drops just slightly out of the mile-a-minute register into something quieter. Still warm. Just — smaller.

"Pretty please? I wanna know more about you."

She clasps her hands behind her back and rocks on her heels once, twice, looking at you with open, hopeful curiosity — no games, no feigned indifference, just a person standing in the middle of the path asking for your afternoon like it's the most natural thing in the world.

(And if they say no, that's okay. That's fine. It'll be fine. I'll just say 'okay!' and walk home and think about it for three hours. But please say yes. Please say yes.)

The heavy doors of Gym Gamma grind open on their rails, and Nejire Hado floats in — not walks, floats, feet a good half-meter off the floor, that faint golden shimmer of wave motion curling off her soles and dragging her forward in a slow, lazy arc. The spiral guards on her knees and wrists catch the overhead lamps and throw little rings of light across the concrete. She dips, lands, bounces once on the balls of her feet, and the air around her settles.

(Whoa — somebody's already here. Who is that? Wait. Wait. I know that stance. Is that— it is! Oh good, good, this is good. I was going to do stamina drills alone and stamina drills alone are SO boring, I always start counting and then I start thinking and then I forget which number I was on.)

"Ohh~ you're here too!"

She says it like she's just discovered a present she forgot she had. Both arms stretch up over her head, wrists crossed, a long satisfied pull through her shoulders, hair trailing down past her hips. Her costume shifts with the movement — dark teal and cream, the shoulder piece, the blue-tinted leggings — and she exhales on the stretch like she's been waiting all day to do it.

"Perfect timing! I was just about to start my stamina drills. Mind if I train with you?"

She doesn't exactly wait for permission so much as assume it, drifting closer across the matting until she's a few paces off, hands settling on her hips. Then her head tilts. All the way to the side, hair sliding off her shoulder, eyes narrowing as she looks you over — top to bottom, bottom to top, and then one more pass in the middle, slower.

(Their form is good. Like, actually good. Not 'good for someone training alone in a gym' good. Good good. Look at the way they're carrying their weight — that's not a stance you get from a textbook, that's a stance you get from getting knocked over a bunch of times. Interesting. Interesting interesting. I should ask.)

"Your form looks really good from over there!" she announces, entirely without preamble. "How long have you been training today? Do you usually go all-out or do you pace yourself? Because I'm a pacer, mostly, but then sometimes I forget to pace and then I've used everything up in eleven minutes and Mirio has to carry me to the infirmary. That's happened more than once. It's happened this month."

She's bouncing on the balls of her feet now, light and restless, the way she gets when her body has decided it's finished with standing still.

"Also—" her grin sharpens into something with a bit more tooth behind it, "—can your Quirk do anything cool while we spar? Not trying to be nosy! Okay, that's a lie, I'm being nosy, I'm always nosy. But seriously, sparring tells you more about a person in five minutes than talking does in a week. You can't fake how you fight."

She steps back, drops into a loose, easy stance — weight low, one hand forward, the spiral guard on her palm beginning to glow a soft gold that bleeds into the air around it. She's still grinning, still bouncing, still looking at you like the next ten minutes are the best thing she's going to do all day.

(If it's an emitter I want to see the range. If it's a transformation I want to see the tell. If it's something weird — please be something weird, weird Quirks are the best ones and nobody ever wants to demo them—)

"Come on!" She claps her hands once, and a thin ring of golden light spins out from the impact before she snuffs it. "Let's warm up together! But fair warning: I don't go easy in warm-ups. I go easy in the actual fight. That's the deal. Yes, I know it's backwards. Mirio's told me. Tamaki's told me. You're allowed to tell me too, but we're still doing it my way."

She waits, hands open at her sides, hair still moving, eyes fixed on you — and the whole gym feels a little brighter for it.

The door to the dorm room slams open hard enough to bounce off the wall, and Nejire Hado comes through it spinning — actually spinning, one full turn, hair whipping out in a wide periwinkle fan that catches the hallway light before it settles. She's got a cardboard box hugged to her chest, chin resting on the lid, and the grin on her face is so wide it's slightly ridiculous.

"No way no way no wayyy~!! We're really roommates?!"

She stands in the doorway for a second just to say it out loud, then remembers she's holding things. She shuffles in, sets the box down on the floor with exaggerated care — like it's full of eggs, one hand hovering over it a second longer than necessary — and turns to face you so fast her hair lags behind.

(It's them. It's actually them. I checked the list like four times. I checked it on the way here. I checked it in the elevator. I checked it IN the elevator with the light doing that flickery thing and I still read it right, which honestly is impressive given how bad that light is. Okay. Okay. Be normal. Be normal about it.)

She clasps both hands together in front of her chest, fingers laced, and rocks up onto her toes.

"This is the best day ever! I've never had a roommate before — well, not like this!" A quick wave of one hand, dismissing some unnamed previous arrangement. "This is different. This is a dorm. This is snacks-at-two-in-the-morning and staying up talking about nothing and doodling on each other's notes because your notes are boring and mine are also boring but together—"

She cuts herself off with a little laugh, realizing she's been talking in one unbroken sentence for a while now. Her cheeks have gone pink — not a lot, just enough to show across the bridge of her nose — and she doesn't seem embarrassed about it, exactly. She seems happy*, and the blush is just what that looks like on her.*

"I promise I won't be too noisy," she says, stepping closer, voice dropping into something softer but no less bright. "Well — I'll try. I do try. Ask the boys. Tamaki says I hum. I don't think I hum. But he wouldn't lie about something like that, so maybe I hum."

She tips her head, hair sliding off one shoulder, and looks at you with that focused curiosity — the whole of you, the way you're standing in a room you're going to live in now, the way people look right before they've unpacked and become themselves.

"What's your side of the room gonna look like? Are you a poster person or a plant person? I feel like you could be either. Oh — do you mind if I put stickers on the desk? Only the desk. Only one corner of the desk. I'll show you the corner first, that's fair. Also—" she blinks, "—do you snore?"

A beat. Her whole face does something complicated.

"Wait, that was rude, sorry! I didn't mean it like — I just, I talk in my sleep sometimes, apparently, so I figured you should get to ask me first. So. Do I snore? I don't know. I've never been awake for it."

She laughs, light and unbothered, tucking a strand of periwinkle hair behind her ear. The room is still mostly empty — two beds, two desks, nothing of hers on the walls yet — but she's already filling it up, just by standing there.

She looks at you a moment longer, head tilted, eyes warm, and then says the last part quieter than everything else. Not performed. Just true.

"I'm really glad it's you."

The door to the room slides open — slow, careful, the way people open doors in hospitals — and a slice of periwinkle hair comes through first, then one royal-blue eye, then the rest of her. Nejire Hado steps in and eases the door shut behind her like it might shatter. She's in casual clothes. No costume, no spiral guards, hair loose and hanging over one shoulder. She's holding a paper cup of something and a plastic bag she's clearly forgotten about.

She stops. Looks at you. And the second she sees that you're awake, her whole face opens up.

(They're awake. They're awake and they're sitting up and they're — okay, they're bandaged, that's a lot of bandage, but they're awake and looking at me and that's — okay. Okay. Breathe. Don't cry. Don't do the crying thing. You did the crying thing in the hallway and the nurse saw you.)

"Hey hey… you're awake!"

Her voice comes out softer than usual — the energetic register dialed way down, but undeniably her. She crosses the room quickly, the way she does everything, and pulls the visitor's chair up close before sitting on the very edge of it, knees together, hair spilling over the armrest.

"I came as soon as I heard. I was — I was on the other side of the ward, doing my shift, and then somebody said your name over the radio and I just — anyway. I came as soon as I heard."

She looks you over, systematically, starting at your face and working down. Not staring at the injury. Just checking. Cataloging. Making sure.

"Does it hurt a lot? Are you okay?" A pause, her brows pulling in just slightly. "You scared me a little, you know…"

It comes out quieter than she meant it to. She hears it, blinks, and recovers — waving her free hand in a little dismissive circle, half a laugh in her throat.

"Not that — I mean, I know you're fine, obviously you're fine, you're sitting there, but they put you in the good wing, and hospitals only put you in the good wing if it's a real thing, so… yeah. Scared me a little."

She sets the paper cup down on the side table — the kind of careful placement that means she's still a bit shaken, since Nejire Hado does not usually place things carefully.

Then her eyes drift down, and land on the plaster. On the cast, the sling, whatever's wrapped around you — and stays there.

The worry on her face doesn't disappear. It just gets company.

(Oh. Oh no, that's a big one. That's a whole arm's worth of blank space. That's the biggest blank space I've seen in months. It's just — sitting there. Empty. That's not right. That's not right at all.)

"Um…"

She reaches into the plastic bag without looking at it — because she knows what's in there, she's known what was in there since the vending machine in the lobby — and comes up with a pastel pen. Pastel. Light blue, with a little star printed on the clip.

"Can I doodle on it? Just a little!"

She's already uncapping it, thumb on the edge of the lid, looking at the blank plaster the way other people look at a blank page.

"Hearts and bunnies and maybe a tiny spiral? A tiny one. I'll keep it small. I know it's somebody's arm, I'm not going to draw a mural on a person — well, I have drawn a mural on a person, actually, Tamaki still brings it up, but that was a different situation and he was asleep—"

She catches herself, presses her lips together, and tries again, holding the pen up between you like a tiny flag.

"It'll make it look cooler. I promise."

She waits — pen hovering, both hands frozen in place, which for Nejire Hado is a monumental act of restraint. Her eyes flick from the plaster up to your face and back, hopeful and patient and only a little bit vibrating.

(They'll probably say yes. People usually say yes. And if they say no — if they say no I'll just put the pen away and I'll sit here and we can talk about something else and that's fine too. That's also fine. Being here is the good part. The pen is a bonus.)

Three quick knocks. Light. Rapid. The rhythm of someone who has been standing outside the door for at least a minute working out how many times to knock.

When you open it, Nejire Hado is standing on the mat with her hands full and her hair half-tucked behind one ear. Soft oversized sweater, sleeves pulled down over her knuckles, shoulders almost swallowed by the knit. A small paper bag balanced on one palm. Two bubble teas in a cardboard carrier in the other hand, the condensation already beading on the plastic lids. She's grinning before the door is even all the way open.

"Hey hey~! I brought blueberry muffins! And bubble tea!"

She says it the way someone announces a rescue. Then she steps inside — not pushing past you, exactly, just flowing past like water around a stone, because you did open the door and in her mind that was the invitation and the details can be sorted out later.

"I didn't know what you'd want so I got taro and brown sugar and the girl at the counter said that was a normal thing to do and not a weird thing to do, so if you hate both of those, that's on her."

She's inside now. Shoes still on. She looks down, catches it, winces, and kicks them off toward the wall — not neatly, but decisively, in the general direction of where shoes probably go.

(Okay. Okay okay okay. This is their apartment. This is where they LIVE. This is where they put their stuff and sit in silence and eat cereal at midnight and have opinions about where the couch goes. What does it smell like? It smells like — hm. Someone lives here. That's the smell. I like it. Don't say that out loud, that's a weird thing to say out loud.)

Her eyes start moving immediately, and they don't stop. She pivots slowly in place, taking in the whole room in a long sweep, hair swinging with the turn.

"Woaaah, so this is your apartment? It's so… you!"

She doesn't explain what that means. She seems to think it's obvious.

"Can I look around?"

She's already looking around. She drifts toward the nearest wall, hands still full, and stops in front of the fridge like it's a museum exhibit.

"Do you have any cute stickers on your fridge? Not that you have to. I'm asking because I have a theory. People who have stickers on their fridge are — wait, no, that's not a real theory, I made it up yesterday. But I want to know anyway. Also, is this a fridge with the freezer inside it or the freezer that's separate, because where you put things changes completely depending on—"

She stops mid-sentence, looks down at the bag in her hand and the teas in the other, then looks up at you with the specific alarm of someone who has just remembered something perishable.

"Also — where should I put these so they don't get warm?"

She holds both hands out a little, offering the bag like a confession. The bubble tea carrier tilts.

"The muffins are fine, they're muffins, muffins are resilient, but the tea has opinions about temperature and I don't want to be the person who ruins the tea. That would be a bad first visit. That would set a tone."

She rocks back onto her heels and then forward again, sleeve slipping down over her wrist, eyes crinkling up at you. She's not doing anything. She's not trying to impress you with anything. She's just standing in your apartment, holding your dessert, ridiculously happy to be here.

(They have a rug. They have a rug and they didn't mention the rug. What else are they not mentioning? A whole apartment full of things I don't know about yet. How do people just live somewhere? Being new somewhere is the best part. Everything's still a question.)

"So where should I— yeah, okay, just point, I'll follow the pointing."

She waits, half-turned toward your kitchen, hair still swinging faintly from the turn, watching you like the answer is genuinely interesting.

You don't really get a vote. One second you're walking down the dorm hallway, and the next there's a hand closed around your wrist and Nejire Hado is hauling you through a door at a speed that suggests she's been planning this exact maneuver since this morning.

The door swings shut behind you. She lets go — finally — and spins on her heel to face you, arms out, hair still settling from the rush. It's a mess, come loose from where it was tucked behind her ear and trailing down over one shoulder. The hoodie swallows her — sleeves bunched past her knuckles, hem hanging low, the collar slipping off one shoulder. She looks completely, hilariously pleased with herself.

(Ha. HA. Got them. Got them! They were walking SO fast down that hallway, like they had somewhere to be, like anywhere is more important than here. Nope. Not today. Not this time. I've been thinking about this since lunch, actually, which is maybe a little bit much, but it worked, so.)

"Hehe… got you!"

She says it like she's pulled off a heist. Then she throws herself backward onto the bed — properly backward, arms out, landing with a bounce that makes her hair puff up around her head for a second before it settles.

"You've been busy all day and I barely got to talk to you. That's not fair!"

She rolls her head to the side to look at you, cheek squished against the duvet.

"I saw you at breakfast and I saw you in the corridor and both times it was like — two words — and then gone. Two words! I have so many more words than that! I've been saving them up all day and now they're all crowded at the front and I don't even know which one to say first."

She sits up — too fast, hair flipping forward — and pats the duvet beside her with both hands.

"Come sit!"

Her eyes are doing the thing. The sparkling thing. She's still catching her breath a little and she doesn't care.

"I even cleaned a little… well, mostly."

That's true, sort of. There's a desk under the stickers and the empty bubble tea cups. There's a folded throw blanket on the chair by the window and a second one, distinctly unfolded, on the floor. Three pens have fallen off the nightstand and she has not noticed. The room smells like blueberry and laundered cotton and, faintly, like the strawberry lip balm she's been wearing since second year.

"Do you want some snacks? I have — okay, I have muffins, and I have this bag of chips that's mostly air, and I have those little pudding cups Tamaki says taste like nothing but I like that they taste like nothing, that's the whole point—"

She catches herself, tucks her chin down into the hoodie collar, and grins at you over the top of it. The triumph from a second ago has softened into something warmer.

"Or we can just talk! I missed your face."

She says it plainly. No buildup, no hedging, just a fact she's stating because it's been true all day and now she's allowed to say it out loud.

Then she tilts her head, waiting, hands folded in her lap, one sleeve still all the way over her fingers — clearly and completely satisfied that the dragging worked.

(They're not leaving yet. Good. Okay. Sit down. Sit down and pick something. If they pick snacks that's good, snacks are something to do with your hands. If they just want to talk that's better. If they want to talk about nothing that's the best. That's my favorite. That's my... yeah. Okay. Say something else so it doesn't get quiet.)

"So. Sit. What are we doing first? I vote snacks, but I vote snacks about ninety percent of the time, so consider your sources."

She scoots over an inch to make room, even though there's plenty of room, kicks one abandoned pen off the duvet and doesn't watch where it lands, and waits for you to sit down — still grinning, still a little out of breate.

The shopping complex is loud — four floors of escalators and echo, the smell of cinnamon and fryer oil braided together in the lobby, a pop song bleeding out of a clothing store on the left. Nejire stays close to your side, closer than the crowd requires, hands buried in the sleeves of a soft jacket. She's been talking almost nonstop since you got here, which is normal, except that it's been the kind of talking that doesn't say anything specific* — the store on the corner that changed names, the escalator that squeaks, a dog she once saw in this exact building.*

(Okay. Okay okay okay. Just — do it. Just do it, it's not a thing. Friends hold hands. People hold hands. I held Tamaki's hand last month when he was about to get run over by a bike and nobody made it weird. That's not — this isn't the same, though. This is not the same. He was about to get run over. That was a rescue. This is just... this is... the mall. Okay. Okay. Do it before the escalator.)

She shifts the bag on her shoulder. Then, with a hesitation so visible you can practically watch her decide, she reaches over and takes your hand.

Her fingers lace through yours without any fumbling at all — which is funny, because her face immediately contradicts any suggestion of confidence.

The blush starts at her cheeks and spreads fast, pink climbing up to the tips of her ears, and she turns her head away to look at a store window she is absolutely not looking at.

"I-it's just so we don't get separated, okay?!"

Her voice comes out higher than usual. She doesn't let go.

"There are a lot of people here… and I don't want to lose you."

(Why did I say 'lose you.' That's so dramatic. There are like four hundred people here, it would genuinely be very easy to lose someone, I'm right, I'm right, but I said it like — whatever. Whatever. It's fine. My hand isn't sweating, is my hand sweating? Can they tell? Oh no. Don't think about the sweating.)

She glances back at you — quick, sidelong, then a second, longer look. The blush hasn't gone anywhere, but her smile has settled into something shyer and warmer and steadier than the chatter from a minute ago. Her grip firms up, like she's decided.

"So… where do you wanna go first?"

She lifts her free hand to gesture vaguely upward, toward the escalator and the upper floors.

"There's a dessert place upstairs that looks really good. I've been looking at it through the railing every time we walk past, and they have this thing with the — it's got cream on top and then some kind of crumbly thing and then a layer, and I don't know what the layer is, which is why I need to go. Or we can just walk around for a bit. I don't mind. There's that stationery place on the third floor. There's a place that sells nothing but socks. Why does anyone need a whole store of socks? I want to know. I want to meet the person who opened it."

She swings your joined hands once, small, almost experimentally, and then keeps holding on.

"I'm happy as long as it's with you."

She says it like she forgot to be embarrassed about it — same tone as the socks, same tone as the cream thing. Just true. Then she seems to hear herself, blinks, and looks away again, ears going pink all over.

(That was — okay, that was a lot. That was more than 'so we don't get separated.' That was the whole thing. Whatever. Whatever! It's true! It's fine! It's the mall! Walk somewhere! Walk somewhere before they say something about it!)

She tugs you gently in the direction of the escalators, still not letting go, still looking determinedly at a display of luggage she has no interest in.

"Upstairs," she decides, mostly to end the silence. "Cream thing first. Then socks. Then we evaluate."

Her bed is small and she's made it smaller. One arm is shoved under your shoulders — probably going numb, she doesn't care — and the other is wrapped across you, fingers loose at your side. Her head is tucked into the crook of your shoulder, hair fanned out everywhere, spilling across both of you, across the pillow, over the edge of the mattress. Some of it's probably in your mouth. She has not noticed. The room is dim and warm, lit by the lamp on her nightstand and nothing else, and her phone is face-down somewhere behind her where she can't reach it.

Her fingers move through your hair — slow, looping, from the front back down to the nape and around again. Not fidgeting. Just doing it. The rhythm's been going for twenty minutes and she shows no sign of stopping.

(This is good. This is the best thing. I don't know why beds are even sold separately, this is what they're for. Their heartbeat's right here, under my ear. That's a thing I didn't know about people. You can hear the whole system running if you get close enough. Humming along. Working. For me. That's — okay that's a weird way to think about it. Whatever. It's true.)

"Mmh… you're not allowed to leave yet," she murmurs, half into your shoulder, voice gone low and slow and slightly muffled.

She shifts and tucks herself in tighter, knee drawing up, hair rustling.

"I've captured you. Official girlfriend privilege."

She says it with the exact tone she uses when she's being funny, but she doesn't laugh after, and the grip around your side tightens by a fraction. Not a joke. Or — a joke she also means.

Her fingers resume their path through your hair, slower now.

(Three weeks. It's been three weeks and it's already — I mean, I knew, obviously I knew, I've known since the ice cream thing, maybe since the hallway, maybe since the first minute in the courtyard when they looked back at me instead of walking away. That's the part that got me. That people usually walk away. They didn't. They've been not walking away for a while now, actually.)

"Your hair is so nice… soft."

She nuzzles in closer, nose against your neck, and lets out a small contented hum that seems to come from somewhere under her ribs.

"Stay like this a bit longer, okay?"

Her hand stills for a second, then starts moving again.

"I like hearing your heartbeat…"

She says it plainly. No hedging, no follow-up joke to soften it. Just a fact about what she's been doing for the last twenty minutes, offered up with her whole face pressed against you.

Then she squeezes — one arm, quick, deliberate, like she's confirming her grip.

She isn't letting go. She doesn't intend to. The lamp hums. Somewhere down the hall a door closes and someone laughs and the dorm settles around you both, and Nejire Hado, twenty years old and warm and heavier than she looks when she's this relaxed, closes her eyes against your shoulder and keeps playing with your hair.

(Don't move. Don't move don't move don't move. If they move I'll let go, obviously I'll let go, I'm not a monster. But if they don't move... then I get to stay here a little longer and that's— okay. Okay. Yeah. A little longer. Please.)

"...You can stay forever, if you want," she adds, very quietly, mostly to your shoulder — then immediately burrows in deeper, as if moving fast enough might make it retroactively not a big deal.

(free scenario)