HONKAI STAR RAIL | Stelle, Caelus, March 7th, Dan Heng, Sunday
SYNOPSIS | You confess your love to your true love! I was inspired by Planarcadia, I wanted to write this with all the new characters but I don't think we have gotten to know them so well so... ya..
𑣲CAELUS
Baseball Team Captain!Caelus x Tsundere!Reader
The rooftop is quieter than the field. Wind tugs at your hair, distant cheers fading like they belong to someone else entirely. You weren’t part of the team. Never were. Most people probably didn’t even notice you. You liked it that way—kept to yourself, invisible among the noise. But Caelus?
Despite the game ending not too long ago...he’s somehow already there. Lounging on the railing, one leg hooked over the edge, bat balanced lazily on his shoulder. That smirk—half teasing, half knowing—lands straight in your chest.
“Finally decided to show up!” he says. “I came because you insisted.” you mutter, eyes on the ground. Suddenly, at the realization it is just you two, heat creeps up your neck. This was ridiculous. Why did he always make everything feel so… intense?
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, grin sharp. “Cute how you act like it’s some huge sacrifice. You’ve been thinking about me, haven’t you?”
“I-I have not!” you snap, cheeks burning. “I just… wanted to see if… if you were… done being… a show-off or whatever!”
“Uh-huh,” he says, voice full of mock innocence. “…Sure. Totally believable. You’re just here for my batting technique, right?”
“I—shut up!” You cross your arms, turning slightly away. “…Not that it matters anyway!”
Caelus laughs, stepping closer until you can feel the faint brush of his sleeve. “Relax. I know you like me. I can see it, even if I have to dig it out of you myself!”
“…I do NOT!” you hiss, glaring but failing to hide the small heat in your chest. “Oh, really?” He tilts his head, grin teasing. “Because your face says otherwise."
Your stomach flips. “I-I’m no-! I just… you’re—ugh! You’re impossible!”
He chuckles, shaking his head, softening slightly. “Good. Because I like you too. Not the cheering, not the team… just you. The quiet, grumpy, impossible you.”
“…W-what?” you stammer, heat rising faster.
“Yeah,” he says, shrugging casually, eyes bright. “…You stick out, even when you try not to. Way more interesting than anyone yelling my name down there.”
You open your mouth to protest, then close it. He’s right. Of course he’s right.
A cheer rises faintly from the field. Caelus raises an eyebrow. “…Persistent. But we’ll let them wait.”
He steps closer, until the world below fades, leaving only the two of you. His fingers brush yours lightly, teasing, deliberate.
“…Stay a bit,” he murmurs, voice low but playful. “I like the quiet… only if it’s with you. And don’t even try to deny it—I know you like me too.”
“You are,” he interrupts, smirk tugging at his lips. “…And you know it.”
Your cheeks burn, but this time… you don’t pull away. The wind, the cheers, the world below—it all melts away. Here, with him, you’re exactly where he wants you, exactly where you almost can’t help but want to be.
𑣲STELLE
Baseball Team Captain!Stelle x Rival Team Captain!Reader
The stadium is still roaring when you slip into the empty dugout.
The scoreboard blazes overhead like it has something personal against you. Gloves are scattered across the bench, dirt ground into the floor, the sharp smell of grass and sweat still hanging in the air. Out on the field, her team is celebrating. You’re yanking off your batting gloves a little harder than necessary when someone steps into the dugout.
Battered cap tucked under one arm. Strands of silver-gray hair cling damply to her forehead, the rest tousled from nine innings under the lights. There’s dirt smudged along one cheek, and her amber eyes look just as calm as they did in the first inning. Expression unreadable as ever.
“You chased the third pitch in the seventh inning.” she says.
You stare at her. “Did you come here to gloat?”
“Yes...” and then she hesitates. For a flicker of a moment, it caught you off guard, it was so unlike the girl you've fought against. “…And something else...” She continues.
You scoff, turning away. “Go celebrate with your team, captain.”
“I will.” Her voice stays flat. “Later...”
You look back despite yourself.
She walks closer, cleats clicking softly against the concrete. No crowd. No teammates. Just her. The stadium lights catch in the pale strands of her hair, making her look sharper somehow—like she walked straight out of the glare and into your space.
“You adjusted after the fifth inning,” she says. “Your bunt in the sixth was smart.”
“You won. Why are you analyzing my game?”
“Because I always do. Call it a...bad habit...?”
That lands harder than the loss. How much more annoying...ly... cute...? can she get. The game just ended and yet here she is analyzing your gameplay. Truely an odd creature. She stops in front of you, close enough that the noise outside dulls into static.
“When there’s a chance to make a choice,” she says, “make one you won’t regret.”
You frown. “What does that have to do with anything?” You rolled your eyes.
“You’re stubborn,” she continues. “Too competitive. You glare like it does damage. Your team’s signals are predictable.”
“That sounds less like a confession and more like your a fan..."
“Whatever..." She says sort of sheepishly. For the first time tonight, the corner of her mouth lifts.
The words hit cleaner than any fastball. You can only stare. Stelle folds her arms. “You’re the only rival worth beating.”
A laugh escapes you before you can stop it. “That is a terrible way to flirt.”
She reaches out, brushing dirt from your sleeve with brisk, practical fingers. Up close, you can see the flush of exertion still lingering under the stadium lights, the loose strand of gray hair falling near her eyes.
“So,” you manage, “what now?”
“We stay on opposite teams.”
“That sounds complicated.”
“No.” She tilts her head. “It sounds fun.”
Outside, her teammates start shouting her name again. She glances toward the field, visibly unimpressed, then back at you. “They can wait another minute.”
You step closer. “Good. Because I like you too.” She goes still for half a second.
“…Good...” she repeats. Then she takes your cap off your head, settles it over her silver hair, and walks back toward the celebration like she won that too.
𑣲MARCH 7TH
Yearbook Club March 7th x Student Council!Reader
The student council room is quiet except for the scratching of your pen. Budget sheets. Event reports. Meeting schedules. Anything that could be sorted, stamped, filed, or signed had become your shield these past two weeks.
If your hands were full, you didn’t have to think. If your schedule was packed, you didn’t have to wonder why March 7th had been laughing so brightly with that new yearbook assistant in the courtyard. If you stayed here long enough, maybe the ache in your chest would eventually become background noise.
The door swings open. You don’t look up.
“We’re closed.” you say flatly.
“Good thing I’m not here for official business.” Your grip tightens around the pen. March 7th strides in without permission, camera hanging at her side, yearbook badge still clipped crookedly to her blazer. She’s slightly out of breath, like she’d been searching half the school.
You keep your eyes on the paperwork. “…Do you need something?”
“Yes,” she says immediately. “An explanation.”
“No, you’re hiding.” That makes your head snap up. She points at the mountain of paperwork on your desk. “You finished next month’s agenda yesterday. You reorganized your filing cabinet alphabetically and by color.”
You pause. “…How do you know that?”
“You’re avoiding me,” she fires back. “That’s worse.”
The room falls silent. You look away first. “There’s nothing to talk about.” March stares at you for a long second, then marches around the desk and plants both hands on it, leaning into your space. “Then why won’t you look at me?”
Your heart betrays you instantly. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me...” Her voice is softer now. No teasing. No bright performance. Just honest frustration.
“You stopped coming by the clubroom. You leave when you see me in the hall. You answer my messages with one word.” She frowns. “And your fake polite smile is terrible, by the way!”
You exhale shakily. “You seemed busy.”
“Your new assistant,” you mutter. “You were always together. Laughing. Taking pictures. I figured…” You swallow. “I figured you liked them.”
For one beat, she simply stares. Then she groans dramatically and drops her forehead onto your stack of paperwork. “You are impossible.”
She lifts her head, cheeks faintly pink. “They’re helping with layouts because they know graphic design.” She gestures wildly. “The photos were for the feature spread. The laughing was because they tripped over a tripod.”
“Oh?” March repeats. “That’s all you have to say after vanishing for two weeks and making me chase you through administrative offices?”
“You did.” She straightens, then reaches into her bag and pulls out a small envelope. You recognize your name written across the front in neat handwriting.
“The notes I was going to give you.” She opens it and spills folded slips of paper across your desk.
"Don’t skip lunch again."
"Come visit after meetings."
"Are you sleeping enough?"
Your throat tightens. March’s fingers press against the last folded note, keeping it closed. “I couldn’t give you this one,” she says quietly. “Because you kept running away.” She places it in your hand.
"I like you. More than I know how to write neatly."
The room goes completely still. You stare at the page, then at her. “March…” She’s blushing now, trying and failing to look composed.
“You really thought I liked someone else,” she murmurs. “When you’re the person I keep looking for in every crowd.”
Something in your chest cracks wide open. You stand so quickly your chair scrapes the floor. “I’m sorry,” you say. “I was jealous. And stupid.”
“A little stupid...” she agrees. Then she smiles—that warm, bright smile you’d been avoiding because it hurt too much to miss. “But mostly jealous.”
You laugh helplessly. She steps closer, smoothing the front of your uniform like she has every right to. “So, Student Council President,” she says lightly, eyes shining, “are you going to keep hiding in paperwork…” Her fingers lace with yours. “…or are you finally going to take me on a date?”
𑣲DAN HENG
Most Popular Boy!Dan Heng x Transfer Student!Reader
The classroom was louder than it should have been for first period. Desks scraped, gossip fluttered from row to row, and every few seconds someone glanced toward the windows like they were checking the weather. You stood in the doorway with your schedule in hand, already regretting transferring mid-semester. The teacher waved you in with tired mercy.
“Class, we have a new student today. Please introduce yourself.” You did your best. Name, previous school, one awkward little wave. A few students smiled politely. A few others barely looked at you, too busy glancing toward that same corner by the windows.
There was only one empty seat left. It was by the back window, washed in soft morning light. It looked less like a desk and more like a carefully staged painting. Perfect! You walked toward it, grateful to be done with introductions.
Conversations died one by one until the silence became so complete you could hear your own footsteps. Weird school, you thought. You set your bag down and turned—only to nearly run into someone standing beside the desk.
Tall. Dark-haired. Sharp-eyed. Handsome in that unfair, sculpted sort of way that made magazines rich. He was tall enough that you had to tilt your head slightly to meet his eyes. Dark hair, composed posture, sharp features softened only by the sunlight catching along the edges of him. He wore the same uniform as everyone else, but somehow it looked neater on him, as though the rules themselves preferred him.
Most striking of all was how calm he seemed while the entire class looked seconds away from collective collapse. You adjusted your grip on your bag. “Oh. Sorry. Is this seat taken?”
For a moment, he only looked at you. The silence stretched so long you began to wonder if you had accidentally violated some obscure school custom. Then he answered, voice low and even. “No.”
You smiled in relief. “Great.”
You slid into the chair, set your bag down, and pulled out your notebook. Somewhere behind you, something clattered to the floor. You turned instinctively, but no one said anything.
You learned his name before lunch. Not from him, but from three girls whispering in the restroom with the intensity of people discussing national security.
“She sat in Dan Heng’s seat.”
“I thought no one was allowed there.”
That last part was delivered with the kind of reverence usually reserved for miracles. You dried your hands and looked at your reflection in the mirror. “…Do we not have assigned seating?” They stared at you like you had arrived from another planet. No one answered.
Dan Heng, you discovered, occupied a strange place in the school ecosystem. He was top of the class, involved in more clubs than seemed humanly reasonable, and somehow admired by nearly everyone despite speaking less in a day than most people did before first period. Students watched him in the hallways. Teachers trusted him. Underclassmen moved aside when he passed.
He seemed completely uninterested in all of it.
During math, you forgot to turn in your worksheet until the teacher had already begun collecting them. You muttered under your breath and reached for it too late.
A page slid quietly onto your desk.
You blinked. It was your worksheet. Dan Heng had caught it before it disappeared into the stack.
“You skipped number six,” he said.
“You wrote the answer in the margin.”
You looked down. He was right.
He tapped the side of the paper lightly with his pen.
“Your method was faster.”
You turned to stare at him, but he had already returned his attention to the board as if complimenting you were as insignificant as noting the weather.
You spent the rest of class pretending to focus. Lunch was worse than first period. The cafeteria was overflowing with noise, nowhere to sit, and the distinct threat of having to socialize before you were emotionally prepared. After one lap around the room, you gave up and took the stairs to the roof.
The door creaked open. Dan Heng was already there.
He sat on a bench beneath the overhang with a book open in one hand and a bottle of tea beside him. Wind moved lazily through his hair. The city stretched behind him in pale afternoon light.
He glanced up when you entered. You hesitated in the doorway.
“Sorry. Am I interrupting some mysterious rooftop ritual?”
He closed the book, moved his bag from the bench beside him, and looked back out over the skyline.
The gesture was so small it might have meant nothing. Still, you crossed the roof and sat down. For a while, neither of you spoke. The silence felt less like emptiness and more like shade on a hot day.
Eventually, curiosity won.
You leaned slightly to see the cover of his book. “History?”
“You say that like it’s concerning.”
That earned the faintest shift in his expression. Not a full smile, but the beginning of one. You found yourself absurdly pleased by it. After that, your paths began crossing with suspicious regularity.
When you arrived to class, the seat beside him was always empty no matter how late you were. When teachers assigned pair work, he somehow ended up next to you. When you mentioned not understanding a chapter in chemistry, a neatly written summary appeared on your desk the next morning without comment.
He never made a show of helping. He simply noticed what was needed and did it before you could ask. The rest of the school noticed something else entirely.
Rumors spread with athletic speed. Planarcadia had a way with words it seemed.
You were secretly dating! You had known each other before transferring! You were childhood friends reunited by Aha! You had blackmailed him! That last one was insulting.
You found him in the library after school, sorting returned books into careful stacks. “Apparently I’m blackmailing you now.”
He placed another book on the cart. “Are you?”
“Whether it would be effective.”
You laughed before you could stop yourself.
His hand paused over the next shelf. He glanced at you briefly, and something unreadable softened in his gaze.
It struck you then that Dan Heng listened more than he spoke. He collected details the way other people collected gossip. Your favorite drink. Which teachers you liked. The fact that you hated thunder. The way you tapped your pencil when thinking. He remembered everything.
One afternoon, the library was supposed to close early for inventory. You knew this because a sign had been taped to the front desk in aggressive red letters. Unfortunately, you had noticed it only after settling into a corner table with your notes, three textbooks, and the determination to survive tomorrow’s chemistry quiz.
You stared at the formulas on the page. The formulas stared back with equal hostility. A chair across from you slid out.
Dan Heng set his bag down and sat without a word, already pulling a pencil from his case. “I thought the library was closing,” you said.
He glanced at your notebook. “You still have six chapters of panic left.”
“That is not panic! That is focused academic distress.”
Your pencil hovered midair. “What?”
You handed them over before remembering you had dignity. He studied the page in silence, then turned it around and rewrote the first equation in neat, precise strokes.
“You’re memorizing the steps,” he said. “That’s why it feels impossible.”
“It isn’t.” He tapped the paper lightly.
“You’re treating it like a list. It’s a pattern.”
Then, with the calm patience of someone explaining gravity to a confused planet, he walked you through the problem one line at a time. No sighing. No condescension. No dramatic declarations about how easy it was.
Just steady explanations, examples, and the occasional quiet correction whenever you tried to skip ahead and sabotage yourself. Somewhere along the way, the impossible thing became understandable! Thank Aeons!
You finished the next equation on your own and pushed the notebook toward him. He checked it...
You sat back in your chair like you had conquered a mountain. “I’m a genius!”
“That would be premature.”
“You ruin all my victories.”
The sound slipped into the quiet library and settled there between the shelves. Dan Heng’s hand paused over the next problem. For a moment, he looked at you in that still, unreadable way of his. Then he lowered his gaze and turned the page.
“We still have five chapters left.”
The lights flickered once to signal closing time. You packed your books with exaggerated suffering. “This was supposed to be independent studying.”
“It was,” he said, standing. “You independently required assistance.”
He lifted the heaviest textbook from your stack before you could protest and tucked it under one arm. You stared at him.
“You’re carrying my book.”
“You know I’m capable of carrying my own things.”
He started toward the door. And because apparently that was the end of the discussion, you hurried after him. The halls were nearly empty now, washed in amber evening light. Your footsteps echoed softly as you walked beside him.
At the staircase, he slowed just enough for you to match pace. “You’ll do well tomorrow,” he said.
You glanced at him. “How do you know?”
“Because you understand more than you think you do.”
There was no teasing in his voice, no casual politeness. Just certainty. The kind that settles into your chest and stays there. By the time you reached the front gate, he handed your textbook back.
Your fingers brushed when you took it. A tiny, accidental touch. It shouldn’t have meant anything but the way you wished for longer said otherwise. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” you said, suddenly too aware of your own voice.
Dan Heng gave a small nod. “Yes,” he said. “You will.”
The more time you spent with him, the more the version of Dan Heng the school worshipped began to feel incomplete.
They saw the perfect student. You saw the boy who forgot meals when he was reading. The one who rubbed at his eyes when tired. The one who stood slightly closer whenever crowds became too dense around you. The one who always walked on the side nearest traffic. The one whose voice turned unexpectedly gentle when saying your name.
Popularity had made him into something polished and distant. But in quiet places, he was simply real. And you liked him far more there.
It happened on an ordinary afternoon.
Lockers slammed. Students drifted through the hallway in loose clusters. Sunlight spilled through the high windows in warm gold bars across the floor.
You were kneeling to change your shoes when two girls nearby began whispering. Not quietly enough.
The words weren’t loud. They didn’t need to be. You kept your eyes on the laces in your hands. Then another voice entered the space between you all, calm and clear.
Dan Heng stood a few feet away, one hand on the strap of his bag, expression composed as ever. The girls stared at him for half a second before retreating in immediate embarrassment.
He stepped closer once they were gone.
“That was abrupt...” he said.
Your heart was beating so hard it felt unreasonable.
For the first time since you had known him, he seemed to choose his next words carefully. Then he said, softer than before, “Yes.” The world narrowed to the warmth in his eyes and the late sunlight around him. A laugh escaped you, shaky and bright. “Well,” you said, rising to your feet, “good thing I took your seat.”
This time his smile came without hesitation. Small, genuine, and entirely yours. “Yes,” Dan Heng said. “Good thing you did.”
𑣲SUNDAY
Solo Pianist!Sunday x Popular!Reader
Rain turns the whole street silver. It gathers in the gutters, taps against awnings, blurs the city into streaks of neon and shadow. Headlights smear across wet pavement. Storefront signs glow like watercolor left in the sun. Everything feels quieter in the rain, softer somehow—like the world has lowered its voice.
You and Sunday walk side by side beneath one umbrella that is definitely too small for two people. It has been like this for months now. Not the umbrella. The walking together. It started months ago, in fragments that never looked like anything important at the time.
You were everywhere in school—student council meetings, hallway announcements, group photos, assemblies where your name got called and people actually listened. You were known. Not quietly, not vaguely. Known like sunlight is known: impossible to ignore, even when you try.
People liked you. Trusted you. Followed your lead without thinking too hard about it. You were the kind of person teachers praised in passing and classmates waved to across courtyards. The kind of person who could disappear into a crowd and still somehow be the part everyone noticed. And yet—!
It began after school one day when the building had finally emptied itself out. You stayed late again—student council work piling up like an avalanche politely pretending to be paperwork. When you finally stepped into the hallway, the whole campus had gone soft around the edges, washed in evening quiet. There was no real reason to still be there.
At least, no reason you were willing to admit. A Piano. The sound moved through the empty corridor like light through water—clear, measured notes threading themselves neatly through the hush of rainfall. It wasn’t loud or performative. There was no audience to impress, no stage to command. That only made it impossible to ignore. You stopped walking before you realized you had.
You knew of him, of course. Everyone did. The upperclassman people spoke about in lowered voices, as though saying his name too loudly might disturb whatever strange balance he carried around himself. Some said he had won competitions and turned down offers from prestigious schools. Some said he practiced alone every day after class and never stayed for celebrations. Some said he was kind. Others said he was impossible to approach. Everyone agreed on one thing: he felt distant in the way stars felt distant—visible to everyone, reachable by no one. And annoyingly, offensively, unfairly hot.
You had never spoken to him. Which made your recent habit of taking the long route past the music room deeply embarrassing. You were not here for him. You were only… passing by. The melody shifted into something softer, slower. A lingering phrase that seemed to hesitate at its own ending before resolving beautifully. Your chest tightened for no good reason. Then the music stopped. Panic hit instantly. You took one step backward just as the door slid open. And there he was.
Sunday stood in the frame like he had been placed there on purpose. Sleeves slightly rolled, tie loosened just enough to suggest the day had actually touched him. Pale hair fell in soft disarray over his forehead, catching the gray light from the windows behind him. His eyes landed on you immediately. Not surprised. Never surprised. “…You’re here again.”
You straightened so fast your bag almost betrayed you. “I was passing by.”
He glanced down the empty hallway, then back at you. “Through silence. Beside a locked room. Repeatedly.”
“You’ve taken it three days in a row.”
A pause. Then, faintly, like a note only half-played, he smiled.
Your brain briefly stopped working. Because here was the problem: You were used to attention. You were used to people looking at you, talking to you, orbiting around you like you were some kind of center of gravity.
But Sunday didn’t orbit. It didn't bother you but something about that fact made you uncharacteristically shy. “You’re still annoying..." you muttered.
“And yet,” he said calmly, stepping out fully into the hallway and closing the music room behind him, “you continue returning.”
Heat climbed your neck. You hated that it was so noticeable.
“I have responsibilities.”
“You don’t look like it.”
That earned a small exhale from him—almost laughter, but restrained, like everything else about him.
“Fair.” Thunder rolled somewhere far outside the building, low and distant. The windows at the end of the hall flickered with shifting gray light as rain thickened against the glass. Sunday walked to the wall beside the door and retrieved a black umbrella. Your eyes widened and then you realized what you forgot at home this morning. Your umbrella.
“I won’t.” he said, already opening it.
You stared at him. “I can go home on my own.”
“Don’t say I told—” You opened your mouth, fully prepared to deny everything, but a low roll of thunder cut through the building. Both of you glanced toward the storm-dark sky outside. If anything, the rain had only grown heavier.
Another pause. Then, quieter: “You will still get soaked.” That landed too softly to argue with immediately. He adjusted the umbrella slightly, testing its balance like it mattered. “I would prefer you don’t...” he added.
You should have refused. You should have told him to worry about himself and marched dramatically into the storm. Instead, several minutes later, you were walking beside him beneath one umbrella, trying very hard not to notice the warmth of his shoulder only inches from yours. After that, you kept running into him.
Sometimes outside the music room when he finished late practice. Sometimes by the vending machines after meetings ran too long. Sometimes in the library, where he’d wordlessly slide the book you were reaching for off the top shelf before you could embarrass yourself trying to climb for it. Eventually, those coincidences became routine.
You’d wait outside the auditorium while he locked up. He’d walk you toward the station. On rainy days, he carried an umbrella large enough for both of you—as if he’d anticipated weather and your lack of preparation equally. He was quiet, but never cold, reserved, but strangely attentive.
He remembered how you took your coffee. Not because you told him, but because he noticed when your eyes sparkled at sugar packets. He knew when student council deadlines were coming because your shoulders tensed two days beforehand. He could tell when you were tired by the way you held your bag. And somehow, without asking permission, he became the steadiest part of your week.
Tonight, the rain is heavier than usual. Water drums against the umbrella while the two of you slow near a crosswalk glowing red. Sunday adjusts the handle slightly so more of the umbrella covers you than him. His own shoulder is getting wet.
“You’re doing it again,” you say.
“Acting like hypothermia is a noble sacrifice.”
A faint smile touches his mouth. “I thought it was subtle.”
The light changes. You cross.
Your heart has been loud all evening. Too loud. Loud enough to rival the rain. You had planned a proper confession. Something composed. Something elegant. But standing beside Sunday has always made rehearsed words feel unnecessary. You stop walking. He notices after two steps and turns immediately.
The streetlamp behind him catches in his pale hair, rainlight tracing gold along the edges. Even half-damp, even with droplets clinging to his lashes, he looks unfairly put together. “You’re staring...” he says.
“I’m suffering!” you reply.
That earns a soft laugh. Then your courage, apparently tired of waiting, shoves itself forward. “Sunday...” you say, too quickly now to retreat, “I like you.” The words hang there, bright and irreversible. For once, he says nothing. You continue before dignity can survive.
“I know you’re hard to read. I know you’re busy. I know you probably have some graceful, devastating rejection prepared in five languages, but I needed to say it, because every day with you has become the part I look forward to most, and I’m—”
He steps closer. Not dramatic. Not rushed. Just enough to stop the spiral. “You think I am hard to read?” he asks quietly.
“I have walked you home three nights a week for months.”
You open your mouth. Close it. He takes the umbrella from your stiff hand and sets it above both of you again. “I learned the meeting schedule of a club I do not belong to,” he continues. “I began carrying bandages because you keep collecting blisters from formal shoes. I practiced songs you once said you liked, despite your terrible taste.”
“It is survivable.” There is warmth in his voice now, threaded through that usual calm. Then he exhales, almost amused with himself.
“I was trying to be patient,” he says. “I thought if I stayed near you long enough, you would realize I wished to stay.” Your chest tightens so suddenly it almost hurts. “You mean…”
“I mean,” he says, gaze steady on yours, “I like you too.”
Cars pass in sheets of reflected light. Somewhere far off, a train horn sounds through the rain. You laugh once—small, disbelieving. “That’s it? You let me panic for ten full seconds?”
“I wanted to hear the rest of your speech.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
You step closer until there’s barely space between you. His expression shifts—something gentler, less polished, more real. His hand finds yours beneath the umbrella—quiet, certain, like it had always known the route. “Tomorrow,” he says, lacing your fingers together, “you stop pretending this was accidental.”
You squeeze his hand once, pretending it doesn’t matter. It absolutely does. “Fine,” you mutter.
A faint pause. Then, softer: “But you’re still getting soaked.”
Sunday glances at his shoulder. “…Worth it,” he says.
And for once, neither of you correct the silence that follows.
