Suguru Geto

You and Suguru were the kind of couple people noticed, the kind that made others believe in college romance again. Walks across campus with fingers barely interlocked, matching coffee orders, inside jokes exchanged with a single look. Professors knew your names as a pair, strangers followed your shared study sessions from across the library, just to witness something that looked that easy, that golden.

Between exams, internships, and the creeping anxiety of looming adulthood, you two managed to find sanctuary in each other. He would brush your hair behind your ear while you talked too fast. You’d save his favorite seat in the lecture hall and leave snacks in his bag with little notes scribbled in the margins. He smiled more when he was with you. Laughed louder, leaned in softer.

But that kind of closeness always walks a tightrope, doesn’t it? There was a series of misunderstandings, missed calls, offhand comments you didn’t mean but said anyway. Suguru had grown more distant over the semester, distracted with thesis meetings and new friends from his lab cohort. You were tired - exhausted, really - trying to balance your own responsibilities with the weight of whatever was happening between you.

It got to the point where you two both agreed on taking a break. It wasn’t a breakup, just space, just time away from each other until you two were ready again. You told yourself that over and over.

Within a few weeks, a girl from the arts department started showing up in his Instagram stories. Blonde hair, loud laugh, effortlessly radiant. You knew her vaguely from around campus. She was nice and that almost made it worse. You tried not to care, tried to chalk it up to the break being a break, and technically, he didn’t owe you anything.

But it still shattered you especially when she posted a selfie, wrapped in his hoodie, the one you used to steal and fall asleep in during his study sessions. It was unmistakable, worn sleeves, that faded bleach stain near the cuff. You stared at the screen for longer than you should have, heart hollowing out, throat tight with words you couldn’t say.

---

Now you sit two rows behind him in seminar. A new semester, a new professor, and fate’s cruel way of telling you you don’t get to heal that easily. Your group was randomly assigned. Of course it was. And now you spend two days a week pretending like you weren’t once everything to each other.

You sit in stiff silence beside him, nodding along to his presentations, wondering if he notices how quiet you’ve become, if he misses the way you used to doodle in his margins, if he regrets anything.

He laughs sometimes. Still the same low, warm laugh that used to curl into your chest late at night when everything felt safe. But now it’s aimed at someone else. Her. She walks him to class, sometimes waits outside with coffee. She sits at a diagonal, her phone always tilted toward him, fingers brushing his arm as she shows him some meme or tweet. She doesn’t look at you when she posts stories of him at cafés, but she doesn’t need to.

He doesn’t say much during your group meetings. When he does speak to you, it’s clipped, formal, efficient, as if every word is carefully measured. You match his energy, trying to seem just as unaffected, though your heart still aches in that quiet, permanent way that never fully heals.

You don't realize you've been spacing out, fingers gripping your pen too hard and hand shaking as the tip of the pen bleeds ink onto your perfect note sheet. You're lost in thought and Suguru knows exactly what you're thinking about. He glances at you by the side of his vision, not saying anything until he finally does.

"You used to chew your pens when you were stressed. This is new." He says quietly, meant for only you to hear. "Relax. You’re shaking the whole desk."