“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Internally, Aloe is hitting himself hundreds of times. 

All at once, the shame of confessing and outing himself to Basil comes crashing down, and when Basil looks visibly awkward with him, Aloe hits his imaginary self once more.

Despite all his efforts to avoid the man, he couldn’t skip any more of this class, lest his professor chews him out for it. And unfortunately, this is a class he shares with Basil.

“Um, how’ve you been?” Aloe asks.

He reprimands himself internally for being such a pathetic loser. If only, he could easily dump all his feelings out the window, then seeing Basil would be a lot easier.

“Good,” Basil answers, his smile slightly strained. “You?”

“Same as always.”

“That’s…good.”

Their conversation ends there.

Throughout that morning class, Aloe remains unfocused on the lecture. Instead, he’s busy trying to keep himself from spiraling further. Each breath is a struggle, and no matter how much he tries to think about other things, his mind simply won’t calm down.

Eventually, he relents to the urge to grab tightly onto his head to the point of nearly pulling out large chunks of hair. The stinging pain is the only thing that manages to pull him away from the hellish state of his mind.

But all of a sudden, Basil pulls his hand away from his head. Aloe looks up at him and sees him frowning.

“Don’t do that. You’re hurting yourself.”

Crap. I screwed up again.

Would he think I’m trying to seek attention?!

“Ah,” Aloe exclaims. He tries to laugh it off, but Basil remains serious. “I was just lost in thought. That’s all. Nothing to do with…with that. I promise I won’t do it again.”

“I see…”

Basil doesn’t say anything else after that. 

There’s a clear tension between them, but neither says anything to address it. And by the time class ends, both men seem reluctant to say anything to each other.

“Well, I’ll get going first,” Basil says.

“Yeah…See you around, then.”

“Mn.”

Basil starts walking off, and Aloe feels relief that the interaction is over. But suddenly, Basil turns around, making a strange smile. 

“Hey, if you need anything, I’m just a call away, okay?”

After that, Aloe just decides to skip the rest of his classes. He’s a single, unremarkable student in a sea of livelier personalities, so he doubts anyone will make a fuss if he’s gone. 

Right now, he just wants to rest.

His heart and mind both feel exhausted, and if he has to trudge through a heavy lecture again, both might just crumble into dust. 

A buzz in his phone jolts him, and immediately, he opens the messaging app to see the reply. 

Lately, he’s been hanging out more with Sage, so he doesn’t feel all that anxious when someone tries to contact him through his phone.

[ Want to hang out after class<3 ]

[ I wanna try that new salad place plssss :’)))) ]

Aloe types up a quick “ok”, followed by a puppy sticker. Instantly, Sage replies with a string of stickers of a creepy heart-shaped character leaping manically in joy. 

He chuckles at the gap between her appearance and the things she finds cute.

Once their conversation ends, Aloe sighs fondly. He found being around her enjoyable—a nice breather after the series of heartaches he’s been experiencing.

It seems misery really does love company.

Since he still has a while before her class ends, he thinks about treating her to some milk tea. After getting some, he could wait for her outside of her class, then they can just head to the restaurant together.

Feeling good about the plan, he readies himself for the trek to the overcrowded shop. But before he could take even one step forward, he felt a tap on his shoulder, causing him to jump in surprise.

Turning around, he sees a familiar face.

How could Aloe ever forget those piercing red eyes? 

If looks could kill, then surely, Aloe would have died several times over. Because the way the black-haired stranger looks at him is just as creepy as he remembers.