They were almost at the cafeteria doors when a voice called out: “Maya! Thought you were meeting me ten minutes ago!”

A tall guy jogged over, hoodie sliding off one shoulder, basketball tee half-tucked, hair slightly between effort and chaos. He moved with the relaxed confidence of someone who didn’t have to try hard to be liked. A tote bag swung from his shoulder, that said ‘Books. Ball. Balance.’

Maya groaned but didn’t stop smiling. “Speak of the human delay himself.” She turned slightly. “This is Kian. My boyfriend. Allegedly.”

Kian offered a fist bump, grinning. “New face. Music program?”

“Film,” Reyhaan replied, bumping knuckles. “Well—Film and Media. Just started last week.”

“Ah,” Kian nodded sagely. “Fresh meat. Good luck decoding the editing suite. The left monitor has commitment issues.”

Aria stifled a laugh beside him. “Kian moonlights as our tech whisperer. When he’s not being accidentally popular.”

“I’m only popular with professors who think basketball is a metaphor for narrative tension,” Kian deadpanned.

 

Reyhaan smirked. “That... actually sounds like something I’d watch.”

Maya looped her arm through Kian’s. “He’s full of nonsense. But very persuasive. Like a rom-com character who wandered out of a physics lab.”

“Still more reliable than half the guys in Literature,” Aria murmured.

Kian laughed. “I’ll take that as high praise.”

Inside the café, sunlight spilled through the tall glass wall, washing the space in that warm, late-afternoon kind of hush—soft and unhurried. The four of them queued up, ordered drinks, then slid into seats by the window, where the light caught their mugs like they were props in a scene someone had bothered to light just right.

Reyhaan let himself sink into it—the layered sounds of spoons clinking, laughter drifting from the next table, Maya’s voice launching into a dramatic retelling of something that had definitely not happened that dramatically. Kian kept adding punchlines like well-timed percussion. Aria, ever steady, filled in the gaps others forgot—sometimes with a look, sometimes with a line that shifted the whole mood sideways into something gentler. But even then, Reyhaan noticed the way she paused before speaking, like she was quietly running her words through a filter first. She wasn’t withholding—just careful. As if still learning the edges of belonging here.

Then she said something dry and deadpan in response to one of Maya’s exaggerations—something about the dramatic reenactment being eligible for an award in “Selective Fiction.” Her timing was perfect.

Reyhaan blinked in surprise—then smiled. There you are, he thought. Like catching a flicker of something hidden but real. Not performative, not loud. Just her.

It wasn’t loud. But it was full.

And for the first time in a long time, Reyhaan didn’t feel like he was watching a scene from the outside, trying to memorize it before it passed.

 

He felt like maybe—just maybe—he was part of it.

Not as a name. Not as something known. Just… as himself.