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Disability Services (1) | Anton Lee

pairings: autistic!anton x (fem)reader

wc: a lot

synopsis: Assigned as a peer aide for a withdrawn college student no one seems able to understand, you expect awkward conversations, difficult schedules, and long silences. What you don’t expect is Anton.

Soft-spoken and selectively mute, Anton moves through campus like someone slightly out of step with the rest of the world. He avoids eye contact, struggles to process emotions in real time, and finds comfort in routines, textures, music, and beautiful things. Most people see him as strange before they ever try to know him. But beneath his careful silence is someone painfully observant, deeply sensitive, and desperate for connection in ways he doesn’t fully understand himself.

As the semester unfolds, your role in his life slowly becomes more than academic support. Anton begins seeking you out instinctively — waiting outside your classes, memorizing your routines, touching your sleeve without realizing how intimate it feels. He doesn’t understand the meaning people attach to closeness, only that your presence quiets the overwhelming parts of the world around him.

And somewhere between rainy walks across campus, quiet practice rooms, and conversations filled with unfinished feelings, you begin falling for him.

But loving Anton means learning patience. His emotions arrive slowly, often after the moment has already passed. He struggles to recognize jealousy, affection, and longing until they’ve already rooted themselves deeply inside him. While you begin understanding your feelings almost immediately, Anton has to discover his piece by piece — through trust, comfort, and the terrifying realization that for the first time in his life, someone stayed.

A quiet, emotionally intimate slowburn about tenderness, misunderstood affection, and two people learning how to exist gently beside one another.

The email had sounded simple enough when you first read it half-awake in bed that morning. Student accessibility services is assigning you as a peer aide for the spring semester. Flexible hours. Escorting between classes when needed. Organizational support. Occasional note-taking. The pay wasn’t terrible, and you needed another campus job anyway, so you accepted before really thinking about what it meant.

You regretted that decision a little when the counselor slid a thin folder across the desk and said, carefully, “He’s… not always easy with new people.”

The folder had almost nothing inside. Just a student profile and a class schedule.

Lee Chanyoung.

Preferred name: Anton.

Under accommodations, there was a longer list than you expected. Extended testing time. Alternative presentation formats. Excused absences during periods of overstimulation. Selective mutism.

“He usually communicates through typing,” the counselor explained. “Or writing. Sometimes verbally, but not often. Don’t pressure him to speak if he doesn’t want to.”

You nodded slowly.

“He’s very intelligent,” she added quickly, like she felt the need to defend him before you’d even met him. “He just struggles with certain social situations and transitions. Some aides have had difficulty because they expected him to respond in typical ways.”

Typical ways. You almost laughed.

“So what exactly am I supposed to do?”

“Mostly help him navigate campus life. Keep him on schedule. Make sure he actually eats sometimes.” Her expression softened faintly. “He responds well to consistency.”

That part stayed with you for the rest of the afternoon.

Consistency.

By the time you found the humanities building, the campus had settled into that gray lull between morning and evening classes. Wet footprints marked the tiled floors from the rain outside, and the air smelled faintly like old books and coffee grounds. You checked the room number twice before knocking lightly against the open classroom door.

Nobody answered.

Inside, students packed their bags noisily while the professor erased the whiteboard. Near the back corner, separated from everyone else by two empty seats, sat a boy with pale headphones hanging around his neck and a cardigan slipping off one shoulder. He was staring at his laptop screen with complete focus, fingers motionless over the keyboard as if he’d forgotten mid-thought what he intended to type.

You recognized him immediately without needing the student ID photo.

He was prettier than you expected.

Not handsome, exactly. Pretty in the way porcelain figures were pretty. Delicate wrists disappearing into oversized sleeves, soft mouth slightly parted in concentration, dark lashes low against his cheeks. His hair looked impossibly soft, falling over his eyes in uneven layers that almost hid his expression completely.

The room gradually emptied around him.

He didn’t move.

You approached carefully, suddenly hyperaware of your own footsteps. “Anton?”

His shoulders tightened immediately.

Not dramatically. Just enough for you to notice.

He looked up after a second, though not directly at you. His gaze stopped somewhere near your chin instead, uncertain and fleeting. Up close, he looked younger than a college student should’ve. There was something guarded about him, but not cold. More like someone constantly bracing for discomfort.

You offered your name gently. “I’m your student aide this semester.”

His expression didn’t change.

Then slowly, he reached for his phone.

The silence stretched long enough to become awkward before the screen lit up with typed words.

| You’re late.

You blinked. “Late?”

He turned the phone toward you properly this time.

| You were supposed to come at 2:40.

You checked the clock instinctively. It was 2:47.

“Oh.” Heat crawled up your neck. “Sorry. The office took longer than I thought.”

Anton stared at you for another quiet second before looking away again. Not dismissively. More like he’d already filed the interaction away somewhere in his head.

You noticed then that he had arranged everything on the desk with impossible precision. Laptop centered. Pens aligned parallel. Water bottle label facing outward. Even the edges of his papers stacked perfectly flush together.

Without warning, he stood.

You nearly stepped back from how sudden it was.

He slid his bag over one shoulder, then paused beside you awkwardly, fingers curling once against the strap. Waiting.

“For me?” you asked before thinking.

A tiny nod.

Right. Escorting between classes.

You followed him out into the hallway, trying not to make it obvious you were observing him already. He walked quietly, head lowered slightly, one hand tucked into his sleeve. Students brushed past in loud clusters, backpacks bumping into shoulders, sneakers squeaking against the floors. Every time someone came too close, Anton subtly shifted away before contact could happen.

He didn’t speak once. You weren’t sure if you were supposed to fill the silence or leave it alone.

“So… what’s your major?” you tried eventually.

Anton pulled out his phone again without stopping his pace.

| Composition and media studies.

“You like music?”

Another pause.

Then:

| I like beautiful things.

You glanced at him.

He remained completely serious.

Something about the answer caught you off guard. Not because it was strange, but because of how plainly he said it, like beauty was an objective category instead of a vague preference.

“What counts as beautiful?”

This time he took longer to respond. You could almost see the processing happening behind his eyes.

Finally, he typed:

| Certain voices.

| Clean piano sounds.

| Rain before it gets dirty.

| People with kind mouths.

Your chest tightened unexpectedly.

Before you could answer, a group of students burst through the stairwell doors laughing loudly. The sound ricocheted sharply through the narrow hallway. Anton flinched hard enough that you noticed immediately.

His hand caught your sleeve.

Not your wrist. Not your hand. Just the fabric near your elbow.

The contact seemed unconscious.

His fingers twisted lightly into the material while his gaze fixed somewhere over your shoulder, unfocused and distant for a moment. You could feel how tense he’d suddenly become, every muscle drawn tight beneath layers of soft fabric.

“It’s okay,” you said quietly without thinking.

Anton blinked once.

Then slowly looked down.

Like he’d only just realized he was touching you.

He released your sleeve immediately, but not before his fingertips dragged against your arm through the fabric. Light. Careless. Intimate in a way he clearly didn’t understand.

A faint pink flush spread across the tops of his ears. Not embarrassment exactly. More like confusion.

Neither of you mentioned it.

By the time you reached the music building, rain had started again outside the tall windows, turning the campus silver-gray. Anton stopped near the entrance to his next class, shifting his bag higher onto his shoulder while students filtered around both of you.

You waited for some kind of goodbye.

Instead, he stared briefly at the charm hanging from your bag. A tiny cat keychain.

His eyes lingered on it with open concentration.

Then he reached out suddenly and touched it with careful fingertips. Softly rubbing the plush fabric between his fingers once. Twice.

The movement was so absentmindedly gentle it startled you.

“It was from a friend,” you explained quietly.

Anton nodded faintly but didn’t let go immediately. His thumb brushed across the worn stitching near the ear before he finally withdrew his hand back into his sleeve.

Then he typed something quickly and turned the screen toward you.

| I don’t like most textures.

You looked at the message, then at him.

“But you like that one?”

A pause. Another small nod.

For the first time since meeting him, something in his posture loosened slightly around you. Not trust yet. Nothing that simple. But maybe curiosity.

The classroom door opened behind him.

Anton glanced toward the sound before looking back at you briefly, eyes flickering near yours but never fully meeting them.

Then his phone buzzed softly in his hand. Another message already typed before he turned away.

| You should arrive at 2:40 next time.

-

You spent the rest of the day thinking about him against your will.

Not in the embarrassing way your roommate immediately assumed when you mentioned meeting “a pretty quiet boy” during dinner, but in the persistent, nagging way people stayed in your head when you couldn’t fully understand them. Anton didn’t behave like anyone you knew. Every interaction with him felt slightly mistimed, like his responses existed half a step outside the rhythm everyone else moved to. He wasn’t rude. If anything, he seemed painfully aware of other people at all times. He just reacted differently, processing everything somewhere deeper and slower before deciding what to do with it.

You found yourself replaying small details while brushing your teeth that night. The way he’d described beautiful things with complete sincerity. The careful alignment of objects on his desk. The confused look on his face after grabbing your sleeve, like he genuinely hadn’t realized touching someone unexpectedly might mean something.

At exactly 2:38 the next afternoon, you walked into the humanities building carrying two coffees and an unreasonable amount of awareness about being on time.

Anton was already there. Of course he was.

He sat in the same corner seat from yesterday, laptop open, headphones on this time. His fingers hovered over the keyboard without moving while students shuffled noisily around him. Even from across the room, he looked disconnected from everything else inside it, tucked into his own atmosphere entirely.

You approached quietly. “Hi.”

He looked up immediately.

Not at your eyes. Never your eyes. His gaze caught somewhere near your mouth before flickering away again. His headphones slipped down around his neck as he noticed the drink tray in your hands.

“I didn’t know what you liked,” you admitted, setting one coffee carefully beside his laptop, “so I guessed.”

Anton stared at the cup for several long seconds.

You suddenly wondered if maybe you’d broken some invisible routine and made a terrible mistake.

Then he reached out and turned the cup slowly until the logo faced away from him.

Only after adjusting it did he pick it up.

His fingers were slender, almost delicate-looking, silver rings glinting softly beneath the fluorescent lights. You noticed his nails were neatly trimmed and slightly glossy, as if he buffed them absentmindedly.

He took one cautious sip.

Then another.

A pause.

His phone appeared in his hand a second later.

| Vanilla is acceptable.

You laughed before you could stop yourself.

Anton blinked at the sound, attention catching on your face immediately. Not startled exactly. Focused.

“You sound like you’re reviewing a product.”

He watched you type something into your own phone for class notifications while processing the joke several beats too late. You saw the exact moment understanding landed.

The corners of his mouth lifted faintly.

Tiny. Brief. But unmistakable.

It transformed his whole face.

Before you could comment on it, students started filing into the room more aggressively, conversations overlapping loudly enough that the atmosphere shifted from quiet to crowded within seconds. Anton’s posture changed almost immediately. His shoulders rose subtly. His hand tightened around the coffee cup. The soft crease forming between his brows looked more uncomfortable than irritated.

A boy dropped heavily into the seat beside him without noticing.

Anton froze.

Not metaphorically. Completely.

The student kept talking to his friend across the aisle, elbow spreading over the shared desk space while Anton sat perfectly rigid beside him, fingers curling tighter inside his sleeves.

You looked between them.

Then gently said, “Hey, I think he needs a little more room.”

The student blinked. “Oh. Sorry.”

He shifted over carelessly.

Anton still didn’t relax.

His breathing had gone shallow enough that you noticed it immediately now that you were paying attention. You leaned down slightly toward him.

“Do you want to wait outside until class starts?”

For a second you thought he might ignore you completely.

Then his hand moved under the desk and lightly caught the edge of your cardigan sleeve.

The same way he had yesterday.

Small. Quiet. Automatic.

You waited while he gathered his things with stiff movements before leading him back into the hallway. The moment the classroom door shut behind you both, some of the tension visibly left his body.

You leaned against the wall beside him. “Does crowded noise bother you?”

Anton nodded once.

Rain pattered softly against the windows nearby. Students passed through the corridor in uneven waves, but it was quieter here, the sounds more spread out and manageable.

After a minute, Anton typed something.

| He smelled too strong.

You blinked.

“Oh.”

| And his coat kept touching mine.

The seriousness of his expression nearly made you smile again. Not because it was funny to him, but because he explained discomfort so literally. No exaggeration. No attempt to make himself sound easier or more reasonable.

Just facts.

“You don’t like being touched?”

Anton stared at the screen for a long moment after reading the question.

Then slowly typed:

| I don’t mind when I know it’s happening.

Your heartbeat stumbled embarrassingly hard at the memory of his hand around your sleeve yesterday.

Before you could respond, the classroom door opened again. Students began settling down for lecture, voices quieter now.

Anton made no move to return inside.

“You still have class,” you reminded gently.

His gaze dropped toward the floor tiles.

Then his phone lit up.

| You come too.

“You want me to sit with you?”

A pause. Tiny nod.

Technically, student aides weren’t supposed to attend lectures unless necessary, but the way Anton stood there waiting made refusal feel strangely impossible. He shifted slightly closer while students continued walking around you both, the sleeve of his cardigan brushing your arm for half a second before he stepped away again.

You followed him back inside.

This time, Anton chose seats in the very back row.

You noticed he picked the one nearest the wall.

He sat down first, then hesitated oddly before placing his bag on the opposite side instead of between you. Like he’d considered creating distance and changed his mind halfway through.

Throughout the lecture, he barely looked at the professor. Instead, he typed constantly, notes impossibly organized across his laptop screen. Color-coded. Timestamped. Every heading perfectly aligned.

About twenty minutes in, you noticed movement beside you.

Anton had gone still again.

His fingers rested motionless over the keyboard while his attention fixed somewhere ahead, unfocused. The lecture hall lights buzzed faintly overhead. Someone behind you kept clicking their pen repeatedly.

Click.

Anton’s jaw tightened almost invisibly every time the sound repeated.

Without really thinking about it, you reached into your bag for your spare earbuds and placed them gently beside his laptop.

He looked down at them.

Then at you.

“They’re noise cancelling,” you whispered.

Anton stared for such a long time you thought maybe he wouldn’t take them.

Finally, he picked one up carefully between his fingers.

Not putting it in yet. Just feeling the smooth plastic surface.

His thumb brushed over it slowly.

Then, unexpectedly, he placed it back down and typed something instead.

| You notice too much.

You frowned slightly. “Is that bad?”

He read your lips while you spoke, eyes fixed there with quiet concentration.

Then he shook his head once.

A few minutes later, without warning, his shoulder tipped lightly against yours.

Not enough pressure to seem intentional.

Just there.

Warm through layers of fabric.

Anton continued typing with complete focus like he hadn’t noticed the contact at all.

You became aware of his shoulder long before you became aware of the lecture again.

Not because the touch itself was dramatic. It wasn’t. Anton barely leaned into you at all, just enough for the warmth of him to settle against your arm through the fabric of your sweater. But there was something dangerously intimate about how unconscious it seemed. He wasn’t testing boundaries or searching for reassurance. His body had simply decided you were easier to exist beside than everyone else in the room.

And apparently, that was that.

The professor’s voice blurred into background noise while rain streaked slowly down the windows. Anton kept typing steadily, expression soft with concentration. Every few minutes he paused to adjust something tiny: the angle of his pen, the brightness of his screen, the cuff of his cardigan slipping over his wrist. His movements were precise in a way that felt practiced rather than obsessive, like the world only stayed manageable if things remained arranged correctly.

The clicking pen behind you finally stopped.

Anton relaxed almost immediately afterward.

You weren’t sure why noticing that made your chest ache a little.

When class ended, students shoved chairs back noisily and crowded toward the exits in impatient waves. Anton didn’t move. He stayed seated beside you while the room emptied around him, fingers still resting on the keyboard even after the screen dimmed from inactivity.

“You okay?” you asked quietly.

His eyes lifted toward you briefly before drifting away again.

Then he typed:

| There are too many transitions in one day.

You read the sentence twice.

It was such a strange way to describe exhaustion, but somehow it made perfect sense. You thought about how often people expected immediate adjustment from one thing to another without hesitation. Loud cafeteria to silent lecture hall. Crowded sidewalks to empty dorm rooms. Conversation to isolation. Most people did it automatically.

Anton probably felt every shift like stepping between different temperatures.

“That sounds tiring,” you said softly.

His gaze flickered back toward your face then, lingering there a fraction longer than usual. You got the unsettling feeling he wasn’t used to people responding like that. Not dismissing him. Not trying to correct or simplify what he meant.

Just accepting it.

Outside, the rain had worsened into a steady silver downpour. Students hurried across campus beneath umbrellas while water gathered along the sidewalks in shallow reflective puddles.

Anton stood beside the building entrance staring outside with visible hesitation.

“You don’t have an umbrella?” you guessed.

He shook his head once.

“You could’ve checked the weather.”

A pause.

Then his phone appeared.

| I did.

| It said 40%.

You stared at him for a second before laughing again despite yourself. Anton’s attention snapped toward the sound instantly, distracted from the rain.

“What?”

His brows pulled together faintly.

| Why do you keep doing that?

“Doing what?”

| Making that noise.

“Oh.” You smiled a little. “Laughing?”

He considered the word carefully, like matching it to memory.

Then:

| You laugh more quietly than most people.

Something about the observation felt far too intimate for someone you’d known less than two days.

Before you could answer, Anton stepped out into the rain without warning.

“Wait—”

Cold droplets immediately soaked into the dark fabric of his cardigan, dampening his hair within seconds. He didn’t seem to care. Or maybe he cared and didn’t know what to do about it. You hurried after him beneath your umbrella, catching up just as he crossed the sidewalk toward the arts building.

“Anton.”

He slowed.

“You’re getting soaked.”

He looked down at his sleeve like he’d only just noticed the rainwater spreading through it.

Then he typed while still walking.

| I like rain before people touch it.

You almost told him that made no sense before remembering who you were speaking to.

“What does that mean?”

Anton paused near the crosswalk, watching water rush along the curb in thin rippling streams.

For a while, he didn’t answer. Cars hissed past on wet pavement while students crowded beneath awnings nearby. You thought maybe he’d abandoned the thought entirely.

Then:

| Rain is clean when it first falls.

| Afterward it becomes campus rain.

You looked at him carefully.

His hair clung damply against his forehead now, soft dark strands curling slightly at the ends from the moisture. There was something vulnerable about him standing there in the middle of the gray afternoon looking entirely consumed by a thought no one else would ever have.

“You think about things strangely,” you murmured before you could stop yourself.

The moment the words left your mouth, regret hit hard.

Anton’s expression changed immediately.

Not dramatically. Just quieting.

His fingers stilled against his phone screen.

You opened your mouth quickly. “I didn’t mean—”

But he was already looking away from you.

Shit.

The walk to the arts building suddenly felt much longer.

Anton stayed half a step ahead the entire time, cardigan sleeves pulled over his hands again. You replayed your sentence over and over in your head, trying to figure out exactly where it had gone wrong. You hadn’t meant strange in a bad way. If anything, talking to him felt oddly refreshing compared to the exhausting predictability of everyone else.

But maybe he’d heard that before.

Maybe people had spent his entire life calling him strange.

By the time you reached the building entrance, guilt sat heavily in your stomach.

“Anton.”

He stopped but didn’t turn around fully.

“I’m sorry,” you said carefully. “I wasn’t making fun of you.”

Silence.

Rain hammered softly against the glass doors nearby.

Then Anton finally looked toward you, eyes lowering automatically before they could meet yours completely. Up close, you noticed faint water droplets caught in his lashes.

His phone lit up slowly.

| I know.

But he still looked hurt.

The realization unsettled you more than it should have.

You stood there awkwardly while students brushed past into the building around you. Anton readjusted the strap slipping off his shoulder with damp fingers, movements slower than usual now.

Then, unexpectedly, he stepped closer.

Close enough that your umbrella tilted awkwardly backward from the movement.

His hand appeared near your sleeve again.

Not grabbing this time.

Just touching the wet fabric lightly between two fingers.

“You’re cold,” you said quietly.

Anton blinked once, looking down at where rainwater darkened the cuff of your sweater too.

After a few seconds, he typed:

| You came into the rain anyway.

You weren’t sure why that sentence lingered so heavily in your chest afterward.

Maybe because he said things so plainly that they stopped sounding plain at all.

You came into the rain anyway.

Like it meant something.

Anton followed you silently into the arts building, water dripping softly from the ends of his sleeves onto the polished floors. The lobby buzzed with low conversation and distant piano scales echoing from somewhere upstairs, students moving between practice rooms carrying instrument cases and sheet music folders pressed against their chests. Compared to the rest of campus, the building felt strangely warm, almost sleepy, lit gold by old hanging lamps instead of harsh fluorescents.

Anton visibly relaxed the moment the doors shut behind you.

Not entirely. He never seemed entirely relaxed. But his shoulders lowered slightly, and his breathing evened out again beneath the soft hum of music drifting through the hallways.

“You have class here?” you asked.

Small nod.

“What kind?”

He typed one-handed while wringing rainwater absentmindedly from the cuff of his cardigan with the other.

| Composition lab.

That explained the major, at least partially. You tried imagining him making music and immediately could. Not performance. Nothing loud or attention-seeking. Something intricate and emotional and probably far too beautiful for most people to understand properly.

A girl passing through the lobby slowed suddenly when she noticed Anton.

“Chanyoung!”

He stiffened instantly.

She either didn’t notice or pretended not to. “Professor Kim was asking where your revised arrangement went. Did you ever email it?”

Anton’s gaze dropped toward the floor.

Three seconds passed.

Five.

The girl’s smile faltered slightly as the silence stretched.

You watched panic build subtly beneath Anton’s expression, not dramatic enough for most people to catch. His fingers curled tightly into the soaked fabric hanging over his hands. His lips parted once without sound emerging.

He was trying.

Your chest tightened.

“He probably hasn’t had the chance yet,” you answered gently before the silence could become humiliating.

The girl blinked toward you like she’d forgotten other people existed. “Oh.”

Anton remained completely motionless beside you.

“Well…” She laughed awkwardly. “Tell him Professor Kim’s been emailing.”

Then she hurried off down the hallway.

The second she disappeared around the corner, Anton exhaled softly through his nose.

Not relief exactly. More like recovery.

You looked at him carefully. “You don’t like when people expect answers right away.”

His eyes shifted toward you. Then downward again.

After a moment, he typed:

| Sometimes words don’t arrive before the moment is over.

The sentence hit you so hard you almost forgot to breathe for a second.

You wondered suddenly how many people mistook his silence for indifference when really it was delay. Like his emotions and thoughts existed behind glass slightly thicker than everyone else’s.

“That sounds frustrating,” you said quietly.

Anton stared at the phone screen after reading your response. His thumb hovered near the keyboard as if he intended to say more.

But instead, he slipped the phone back into his pocket.

A nearby piano stumbled through the same wrong note three times in a row from one of the practice rooms upstairs.

Anton visibly winced.

“You can hear that from here?”

Tiny nod.

“That’s kind of impressive.”

Another wince at the fourth mistake.

Then, unexpectedly, he reached for your wrist.

Not dramatically. Not even fully.

His fingertips just settled there lightly, cool from the rain, before he began guiding you toward the staircase without explanation.

The contact shocked you enough that you followed automatically.

Anton climbed the stairs quietly, still holding your wrist with absentminded gentleness the entire way. Not possessive. Not nervous. Casual in the way someone might carry an object they’d already decided belonged beside them.

Meanwhile your heartbeat had become humiliating.

On the third floor, the hallway narrowed into rows of small soundproof practice rooms with rectangular windows set into each door. Music spilled unevenly through the walls anyway — violin scales, fragments of jazz piano, someone singing warmups badly enough to make Anton’s nose wrinkle slightly.

You smiled before you could stop yourself.

He noticed immediately.

“What?”

Anton tilted his head faintly.

“You make expressions even when you don’t talk much.”

A pause.

Then he let go of your wrist abruptly like he’d only just remembered he was touching you at all.

The sudden absence of warmth felt strangely noticeable.

Anton stopped outside one of the practice room doors and pushed it open carefully. Inside sat a keyboard, two chairs, scattered sheet music, and little else. The room was dimmer than the hallway, insulated from most of the outside noise.

You stepped inside after him.

“This is yours?”

He nodded once, already moving toward the keyboard.

The room changed him somehow.

Not personality-wise. More like the tension he carried around campus loosened in specific places here. His movements became smoother, more instinctive. Comfortable.

Anton sat down on the bench and adjusted the sleeves falling over his hands before resting his fingers lightly against the keys.

Then he froze.

You waited quietly.

After a few seconds, he typed into his phone again without looking up.

| You can sit.

“Oh. Right.”

You settled into the chair nearby while rain tapped softly against the narrow window beside the piano. Anton remained still for another long moment, staring at the keys with intense concentration.

“You don’t have to play for me,” you said gently, suddenly worried he felt pressured.

He shook his head immediately.

Then finally, he played.

The first notes were so soft you almost missed them.

Not a melody at first. Just careful fragments unfolding slowly beneath his fingertips, delicate and thoughtful and strangely lonely. The sound filled the small room without overwhelming it, each note lingering long enough to feel intentional. Anton’s expression changed while he played. Not happier exactly, but clearer somehow. Like music translated things his body couldn’t organize into speech quickly enough.

You watched his hands move across the keyboard.

Beautiful hands, honestly.

Long fingers. Silver rings glinting faintly under the dim lights. Sleeves slipping down toward his knuckles every few seconds before he impatiently pushed them back again mid-song.

The music deepened gradually, weaving into something fuller and aching enough that your chest hurt unexpectedly listening to it.

Anton never looked at you once while he played.

But somehow it still felt like being let inside something private.

When the final note faded, silence settled gently back over the room.

You realized only then that you’d stopped moving entirely.

“That was really pretty,” you whispered.

Anton stayed motionless at the keyboard.

Then slowly:

| You keep using that word.

“Pretty?”

A tiny nod.

You smiled faintly. “Do you not like it?”

For the first time since meeting him, Anton actually looked close to nervous.

Not externally. You were just beginning to recognize the signs now — the slight tension in his jaw, fingers rubbing together beneath oversized sleeves, gaze fixed stubbornly on the piano keys.

Finally, he typed carefully.

| No one usually means it kindly.

Something inside you softened painfully at that.

The practice room suddenly felt smaller, quieter, the rain outside reduced to a dull silver murmur against the windows. Anton kept his eyes lowered toward the keyboard after showing you the message, shoulders slightly hunched like he regretted saying it at all.

You thought about him walking across campus with his oversized cardigans and careful posture, about the glossy shine on his nails, the silver rings, the softness he didn’t bother hiding even though people probably noticed immediately. You could already imagine the kind of comments college boys made when someone didn’t fit neatly into whatever version of masculinity they found acceptable.

“You know I mean it kindly,” you said gently.

Anton didn’t respond right away.

His fingers drifted absentmindedly across a few silent piano keys without pressing hard enough to create sound. Thinking. Processing. You were beginning to realize he often needed silence the way other people needed conversation.

| I know now.

Now.

Not before.

Your chest tightened again.

Before you could answer, voices echoed loudly down the hallway outside the practice rooms. Several students passed by laughing, the sound muffled but sharp enough to pull Anton immediately out of whatever calm the piano had given him. His posture straightened. His hands stilled.

One of the voices paused near the door.

“Oh, he’s in there.”

Another laugh. “Of course he is.”

The doorknob rattled lightly.

Anton froze so suddenly it almost frightened you.

Not fear exactly. Anticipation. Like his body had learned to brace before his mind even caught up.

The door opened halfway before either of you could react. Two boys from what looked like an ensemble class leaned inside casually, both carrying instrument cases.

“There you are,” one of them said. “Kim keeps emailing about your arrangement.”

Anton’s gaze dropped instantly toward the floor.

Neither of them acknowledged you at first.

“You gonna answer him this year or what?” the other joked.

Silence.

You watched Anton’s fingers slowly curl into the sleeves covering his hands.

The first guy sighed awkwardly after a few seconds. “Right. Sorry.”

But he still lingered there waiting, clearly expecting some kind of response.

Anton’s throat moved faintly.

Nothing came out.

You could almost feel the pressure building inside the room.

“He said he’ll send it,” you interrupted quietly before the silence could turn cruel.

Both boys finally looked toward you.

The second one blinked. “Oh.”

Then, lowering his voice slightly but not enough, “Does he just not talk ever?”

The question landed heavily.

Anton remained perfectly still at the piano bench beside you, expression unreadable now in that way you were beginning to hate because it meant he’d withdrawn somewhere unreachable.

“He talks,” you answered before thinking. “Just not whenever people demand it.”

The room fell quiet.

One boy looked embarrassed immediately. The other shifted awkwardly against his instrument case strap.

“Right,” he muttered. “Whatever.”

They left a second later, the door clicking shut behind them.

Silence rushed back in.

Anton still hadn’t moved.

You exhaled slowly, anger simmering hotter in your chest than it probably should have after only two days of knowing him. “They were being rude.”

Nothing.

“Anton?”

His hand moved toward his phone slowly.

Then stopped halfway there.

Instead, he pressed both sleeves against his mouth briefly, eyes fixed somewhere distant across the room. Processing again. You could see it happening now — the delayed impact arriving piece by piece after the interaction already ended.

When he finally typed, the message appeared slower than usual.

| They weren’t trying to be mean.

“That doesn’t make it better.”

Anton stared at the screen after reading that.

Then:

| Most people become uncomfortable eventually.

The matter-of-factness of the sentence hurt more than self-pity would’ve.

Like he’d accepted it as inevitable.

“Well, I’m not uncomfortable.”

The room went very quiet.

Anton blinked once.

Then again.

You got the distinct feeling you’d said something unexpectedly important.

His attention lifted toward your face slowly, cautiously, eyes stopping just short of yours like always. For a second he looked almost disoriented, as if he didn’t know where to place the statement inside his understanding of people.

Then his phone buzzed softly in his hand.

| Not yet.

The words startled a laugh out of you before you could stop it.

Anton watched your reaction immediately, shoulders loosening just slightly at the sound.

“You’re kind of mean, you know that?”

A pause.

Then:

| You laugh when you aren’t upset anymore.

You stared at him.

Anton stared back in that indirect way he had, gaze hovering near your mouth while he read your expression carefully. Observing. Cataloging.

“You notice everything,” you murmured.

He processed that silently.

Then typed:

| Only things I need to remember.

The air in the room suddenly felt too warm.

Before you could recover, Anton stood from the piano bench in one smooth movement and crossed toward the stack of papers scattered near the music stand. He crouched to reorganize them with immediate focus, aligning the corners carefully against the floor before clipping them together.

You watched him for a second before kneeling automatically to help.

Anton went still beside you.

“What?” you asked.

His eyes flickered toward your hands gathering the loose sheets.

Then toward your knees pressed against the carpet beside him.

Finally:

| You don’t have to do that.

“It’s literally two papers.”

He kept s taring anyway.

Up close like this, you noticed how long his lashes were again. Ridiculously long, honestly. They cast faint shadows against his cheeks whenever he looked downward.

Without thinking, you reached over and brushed a damp strand of hair away from his eyes.

The second your fingers touched him, Anton stopped breathing.

Not metaphorically.

Actually stopped.

Your hand froze too.

His skin was cold from the rain. Soft.

You should’ve pulled away immediately.

Instead, both of you stayed there for one horribly suspended second, Anton staring at you with open confusion written across his face. Not discomfort. Something more startled than that, like his brain had failed to categorize what just happened.

Then, slowly, very carefully, he leaned forward.

Just slightly.

Into your hand.

Your breath caught so hard it almost hurt.

Anton didn’t seem to notice the effect he had on people when he did things like this. Or maybe he noticed reactions without understanding where they came from. Either way, the movement was small enough that another person might’ve missed it entirely — the faint tilt of his head against your palm, the way his eyes lowered halfway shut for a second like he was concentrating on the sensation.

Soft.

That was the first thought that hit you.

Not just physically. His entire presence felt soft in ways the world probably hadn’t handled gently.

Then realization flickered across his expression.

Anton pulled back immediately.

His hand came up halfway toward his face before stopping awkwardly in the air. You watched confusion move through him in real time, slow and visible behind his eyes as he tried to process the interaction after it had already happened.

“I’m sorry,” you said quickly, dropping your hand back into your lap. “I shouldn’t have just—”

Anton shook his head hard enough to interrupt you.

Not upset. Just overwhelmed.

He stared down at the papers scattered between you both, fingers tightening once around the edge of a music sheet before he typed something with abrupt intensity.

| Don’t apologize for touching me if it was kind.

The sentence settled heavily between you.

You looked at him carefully. “Has nobody ever told you there’s a difference?”

Anton frowned faintly.

“Between wanted touch and unwanted touch.”

He went still again.

Not frozen this time. Thinking.

You could practically watch him sorting through memories and information behind his eyes, reorganizing old experiences against the new wording. After a long silence, he typed slowly:

| People usually touch me accidentally.

Something about that answer made your chest ache.

You thought suddenly about crowded hallways brushing against him, strangers shoving past without warning, uncomfortable handshakes, impatient taps on the shoulder when he didn’t respond quickly enough. Touch that happened to him instead of for him.

And maybe because Anton processed emotions later than everyone else, maybe by the time discomfort fully arrived, the moment had already passed.

“That’s not the same thing,” you said quietly.

He read the sentence twice.

Then:

| You ask before doing things.

You almost pointed out that you hadn’t asked before touching his hair, but Anton continued typing before you could.

| Most people decide things for me first.

The practice room felt unbearably quiet after that.

Outside, someone played scales down the hallway while rain tapped steadily against the narrow windows. Anton gathered the rest of his papers into a neat stack again, movements slower now, attention split somewhere deeper inside himself.

“You think about people a lot, don’t you?” you asked softly.

He glanced toward you.

Then away.

A tiny shrug.

After a moment:

| I have to study people longer than other people study me.

You didn’t know what to say to that.

Because it was true, probably.

Most people would look at Anton once and make immediate assumptions. Quiet. Strange. Awkward. Difficult. Sensitive. Meanwhile he seemed to spend enormous amounts of energy trying to understand everyone around him properly while they rarely extended the same patience back.

Your eyes drifted toward the music sheets in his lap. The notes were impossibly neat, handwritten annotations arranged with color-coded precision along the margins.

“You really like organizing things.”

That earned the faintest reaction from him. Almost defensive.

| Things behave better when they’re organized.

You smiled slightly. “People don’t?”

Immediately, before even typing:

“No.”

The sound startled you both.

Anton’s eyes widened a fraction.

It was the first time you’d heard his voice.

Quiet wasn’t even the right word for it. His voice sounded soft in the same way fabric could be soft, low and airy from disuse, almost careful around the edges. Like speaking required more physical effort for him than most people realized.

For a second neither of you moved.

Then color rose slowly into Anton’s cheeks.

He looked away so quickly it almost gave you whiplash.

You tried not to react too strongly, suddenly aware that if you made a big deal out of it he might retreat completely.

But your heartbeat was going insane.

“You’re right,” you said gently, pretending your pulse wasn’t stumbling all over itself. “People are kind of impossible.”

Anton kept staring stubbornly at the floor.

The blush spread all the way to the tips of his ears now.

You bit back a smile.

“You have a nice voice.”

The reaction was immediate.

Anton’s shoulders drew up slightly, like the compliment physically struck him somewhere sensitive. He tucked his hands deeper into his sleeves and focused aggressively on aligning the papers again even though they were already perfectly straight.

Interesting.

“You don’t like compliments?”

A pause.

Then, quietly this time, barely above a whisper:

“I don’t know.”

You almost melted directly into the carpet.

Anton seemed startled by his own answer too. His throat moved faintly afterward, like he was still adjusting to the unfamiliar feeling of speaking aloud. But he didn’t fully shut down again. If anything, he looked more disoriented than distressed.

“You don’t know if you like compliments?”

Tiny shake of his head.

“Why not?”

He reached for his phone again, clearly more comfortable typing complicated thoughts than saying them.

| Sometimes people compliment me because they think I’m strange.

| Like observing an animal that learned something impressive.

Your expression must’ve changed because Anton immediately looked down again.

“I wasn’t doing that,” you said quietly.

He nodded before you even finished.

| I know.

That I know sounded different now too. More certain than earlier.

You sat there for another moment listening to the muffled music outside before your phone buzzed with a calendar reminder.

Work shift. Ten minutes.

“Shit,” you muttered, checking the screen. “I have to go.”

Anton’s attention lifted immediately.

“I forgot I’m covering someone at the library tonight.”

The atmosphere shifted so subtly you almost thought you imagined it.

Not disappointment exactly.

But something adjacent to it.

Anton looked toward the rain-streaked window automatically before typing:

| You don’t like leaving in the middle of things either.

You stared at him.

“No,” you admitted softly. “I guess I don’t.”

For a second he just watched you gather your bag and jacket. Or rather, watched your hands. Anton seemed to focus on hands often, you realized suddenly. Movements. Gestures. The physical shape of emotion instead of eye contact.

When you stood, he stood too.

Immediately.

Like it was obvious he should.

“You don’t have to walk me out,” you said.

Anton blinked once, confused.

Then:

| I know.

But he still followed you anyway.

The hallway outside the practice room had grown quieter by the time you left, most classes already in session. The muffled sounds of instruments still drifted through the walls in uneven fragments — piano chords from somewhere downstairs, a violin stopping and restarting the same passage over and over again, distant laughter echoing briefly before fading down another corridor.

Anton walked beside you without speaking.

Not awkwardly silent. Just present.

You were beginning to realize there was a difference with him.

Most silence between people felt empty because both parties waited for someone to fill it. Anton’s silence felt occupied already, crowded with observation and delayed thoughts and tiny details he seemed to absorb constantly without comment. Walking beside him made you hyperaware of your own movements in return — the squeak of your shoes against the polished floor, the shift of your bag strap on your shoulder, the warmth lingering in your palm from where he’d leaned into your touch earlier.

You tried very hard not to think about that too much.

At the stairwell landing, Anton stopped suddenly.

You nearly walked past him before turning back. “What?”

He looked distracted by something over your shoulder. Following his gaze, you noticed a girl descending the stairs carrying a bouquet wrapped in pale pink paper. Tiny white flowers peeked through the plastic.

Anton stared openly.

Not at the girl. At the flowers.

The intensity of his focus almost made you smile.

“You like those?”

His attention flicked back toward you, caught.

Then he nodded once.

“They’re just baby’s breath.”

Another small shake of his head this time. Incorrect.

Anton typed carefully while still watching the bouquet disappear downstairs.

| They look soft.

Of course that was his reason.

You wondered if he categorized the world entirely through sensory feeling. Soft. Sharp. Loud. Beautiful. Wrong. Safe.

The realization made him seem somehow even more vulnerable.

As you continued downstairs, Anton drifted closer beside you whenever groups of students passed in the opposite direction. Not enough to touch. Just enough that his sleeve brushed your arm occasionally before he corrected the distance again. Like his body naturally sought proximity before his mind remembered it was supposed to maintain space.

By the first floor lobby, the rain outside had softened into a fine mist coating the windows silver.

You adjusted your bag strap. “I’ll see you tomorrow before your lecture?”

Anton nodded immediately.

Then hesitated.

You could tell by now when something was stuck inside him trying to become language.

His fingers moved once against the edge of his sleeve before he finally typed:

| You don’t have to keep talking when I stop responding.

“Oh.”

You frowned slightly. “Was I talking too much?”

He looked alarmed instantly and shook his head hard enough that damp strands of hair fell into his eyes again.

Quickly:

| No.

| Most people become uncomfortable with silence.

You stared at the screen.

Then at him.

“Do you?”

Anton seemed genuinely confused by the question.

| With silence?

“Yeah.”

A long pause.

| Silence is easier because nobody expects immediate versions of you.

The words settled somewhere deep in your chest.

Immediate versions of you.

You thought suddenly about every rushed conversation you’d ever had, every moment people interrupted each other or filled pauses before anyone could truly think. Anton moved through interactions like someone translating feelings manually while everyone else operated automatically.

No wonder he got exhausted.

“You think really beautifully sometimes,” you murmured before you could stop yourself.

Anton went still. Not tense. Just attentive in that startlingly complete way he had.

Then slowly, carefully, he typed:

| You say things to me like they aren’t dangerous.

The comment confused you for half a second before understanding arrived.

Compliments. Kindness. Gentleness.

Things he’d apparently learned to handle cautiously.

Your chest ached again.

“Well,” you said softly, “they aren’t dangerous.”

Anton looked at you for a very long time after that.

Not direct eye contact. You still weren’t sure he’d ever fully meet your eyes comfortably. But his attention stayed fixed near your face with unusual steadiness, expression unreadable beneath the soft fluorescent lobby lights.

Then someone entered the building loudly behind you both, the door slamming harder than necessary.

Anton startled.

Not dramatically, but enough that his hand caught the fabric of your sleeve again automatically.

The movement happened so naturally now that neither of you reacted immediately.

His fingers stayed there lightly curled against your wrist while he glanced back toward the entrance, orienting himself. You looked down at the contact for a second before lifting your eyes toward him again.

Anton followed your gaze belatedly.

A flush spread across his face almost instantly.

He released you carefully this time instead of jerking away.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

The second the word left his mouth, surprise crossed his expression again. Like he still wasn’t entirely deciding when speech happened.

You smiled a little despite yourself. “You don’t have to apologize every time you touch me.”

Anton stared.

You watched the sentence process in real time.

Slowly. Dangerously.

His lips parted slightly before closing again. He looked down toward his own hand like it had become unfamiliar to him somehow.

Then his phone appeared.

| I think about it afterward.

“What part?”

| Whether I was supposed to know something.

Your heartbeat stumbled.

“About touching?”

Tiny nod.

The honesty of it nearly killed you.

You leaned against the wall slightly, trying to steady yourself before answering. “Most people attach meaning to physical affection.”

| Even small things?

“Yes.”

His brows pulled together faintly.

| That seems exhausting.

You laughed softly before you could help it. “It can be.”

Anton watched your face with quiet concentration.

| When you touch me it feels calm.

| So afterward I don’t understand why everyone makes those things complicated.

The entire world seemed to tilt sideways for one horrifying second.

Anton, meanwhile, looked completely sincere.

No flirting. No awareness of the effect he’d just had on you. He said things the way people described weather patterns — observationally, honestly, without understanding how intimate they sounded once spoken aloud.

You were absolutely doomed.

Before you could respond, Anton’s phone buzzed sharply in his hand. The sudden sound made him flinch slightly before checking the screen.

His expression shifted immediately.

“What is it?”

He turned the phone toward you.

A calendar notification.

Dinner — 6:00 PM

Underneath it, another smaller reminder:

Eat full meal. Not snacks.

You blinked.

Then looked at him slowly. “Did someone actually schedule meals into your phone?”

Anton took the phone back.

After a moment:

| I forget.

“You forget to eat?”

Tiny shrug.

| Other things are louder.

-

You looked at him for a moment longer than necessary after that.

Other things are louder.

Anton said sentences like they were simple facts, then left you standing there trying to recover from the weight of them afterward. You wondered if he had any idea how revealing he sounded sometimes, how easily little pieces of himself slipped into conversation before he could recognize them as personal.

Probably not.

“Have you eaten today?” you asked carefully.

Anton’s silence answered first.

You stared at him. “Anton.”

Another pause.

Finally:

| A banana.

“Since when?”

His eyes drifted upward slightly, thinking.

| Morning.

Your chest tightened in immediate irritation. “That’s not enough.”

He looked mildly confused by your tone, like your concern had arrived too intensely for him to categorize right away. You were beginning to notice that too — strong emotion seemed to make him pause longer, processing each word more carefully before deciding how to react.

“I mean…” You exhaled, softening your voice. “No wonder you’re tired.”

Anton leaned lightly against the wall beside you, cardigan sleeves pulled over his hands again while students passed through the lobby in scattered groups. He looked genuinely thoughtful now, considering your statement with unusual seriousness.

| I didn’t notice until you said it.

“That you were hungry?”

Small nod.

You weren’t sure why that made you sad.

Maybe because Anton seemed disconnected from his own body half the time, noticing discomfort only after it became impossible to ignore. Hunger. Overstimulation. Emotions. Everything arrived delayed.

“Well,” you said, adjusting your bag again, “you should eat before your next class.”

His gaze shifted toward the rain outside immediately.

Avoidance.

“You don’t want to go to the dining hall.”

Another tiny nod.

Too loud. Too crowded. Too unpredictable. You could practically map the reasons out yourself already.

“You could get takeout somewhere quieter.”

Anton didn’t answer.

You narrowed your eyes slightly. “You’re not going to, are you?”

| Eventually.

“That means no.”

Anton blinked slowly, caught.

The expression that crossed his face was so unintentionally cute you almost got angry about it.

Before you could stop yourself, you sighed and said, “Come on.”

He frowned faintly

“Where?”

“There’s a café behind the library that stays pretty empty around this time.”

You watched confusion spread across his expression in stages. Then surprise. Then something more hesitant underneath both.

“You don’t have to,” he said quietly.

The soft sound of his voice caught you off guard again. It was still strange hearing him speak aloud after spending most of the past two days communicating through typed messages and silence. His voice felt intimate somehow. Fragile in a way people instinctively leaned closer to.

“I know,” you said gently. “I want to.”

Anton stared at you for a second too long after that. Then lowered his gaze first.

You were starting to suspect he did that whenever emotions became too large to process immediately.

The walk to the café was quieter than usual because the rain had driven most students indoors. Damp leaves clung to the sidewalks, the entire campus washed gray and silver beneath the evening sky. Anton stayed close beside you without seeming aware of it, occasionally brushing against your shoulder before drifting away again.

At one point, your umbrella tilted slightly from the wind.

Anton adjusted it for you automatically.

Not taking it from your hands. Just reaching up carefully to straighten the angle so the rain stopped hitting your sleeve.

The gesture was so natural it took you a second to even process it.

“Thanks,” you murmured.

He nodded once like the action required no acknowledgment.

The café sat tucked behind the library exactly as promised, warm yellow light glowing through fogged windows. Inside smelled like espresso and cinnamon with soft instrumental music low enough not to overwhelm the room. Only a few students occupied the scattered tables.

Anton stopped just inside the doorway.

You turned toward him. “Too much?”

He looked around carefully.

Then shook his head.

Relief loosened something in your chest.

While you ordered at the counter, Anton lingered several feet away studying the dessert display with complete concentration. Not the food itself, you realized after watching him for a moment.

The colors. The arrangement.

Tiny fruit tarts lined perfectly in rows beneath warm lighting. Frosted cakes decorated with edible flowers. Soft pink macarons stacked like polished stones.

Beautiful things.

You smiled to yourself before ordering.

When you carried the drinks and food back to the table, Anton immediately moved his phone and sleeves out of the way for you with careful precision. You set a sandwich in front of him.

His eyes widened slightly.

“That’s too much,” he murmured.

“It’s half a sandwich.”

“It’s large.”

“You had a banana six hours ago.”

Anton stared at the sandwich like you’d handed him a complicated assignment instead of food.

“You remembered.”

The words landed strangely soft between you.

“Of course I remembered.”

Something changed in his expression again. Small enough that another person probably wouldn’t notice. But you were starting to recognize these tiny shifts now — the way his shoulders loosened when he felt safe, the faint unfocusing of his eyes when emotions became difficult, the careful stillness whenever he was trying to hold onto something internally.

Anton picked up the sandwich obediently after a moment.

You expected him to eat delicately.

Instead, he took one bite and immediately closed his eyes.

Not dramatically. Just briefly.

Processing.

“It’s good?” you asked, amused.

After swallowing, he typed one-handed:

| The bread texture is correct.

You laughed so suddenly a nearby student glanced over.

Anton’s attention snapped immediately toward your face.

Again.

Always again.

He watched your reactions with such complete focus it made your stomach feel strange.

“What?”

His fingers stilled against his phone.

| You laugh differently now than yesterday.

“Oh?”

Tiny nod. Less careful.

You looked down at your drink for a second, suddenly embarrassed by how comfortable you’d already become around him. It had only been two days. Two very strange, emotionally days.

Across from you, Anton continued eating in small precise bites while occasionally glancing toward the rain streaking the café windows. His damp hair had finally begun drying, soft dark strands curling slightly near the ends.

Without warning, he spoke again.

“You touch people a lot?”

You nearly choked on your coffee.

“What?”

Anton looked immediately concerned, like he’d skipped too many conversational steps again without realizing it.

“You…” He paused, visibly searching for the words. “Move close easily.”

“Oh.”

Heat crept into your face embarrassingly fast.

“I mean, not everyone.”

Anton processed that carefully while peeling the wrapper from his straw with meticulous attention.

“Only people you like?”

You stared at him across the tiny café table while he waited with complete sincerity for an answer, entirely unaware of how loaded the conversation had become.

“I guess so,” you admitted quietly.

Anton nodded once.

Then returned to eating like he hadn’t just destabilized your entire nervous system.

For a while, neither of you spoke again.

The café settled into a comfortable hush around you both, low music blending with the soft hiss of the espresso machine behind the counter. Rainwater crawled slowly down the windows in thin uneven trails, turning the lights outside blurry and gold. Anton seemed calmer here than anywhere else you’d seen him on campus so far. Not fully relaxed — you were beginning to think that state barely existed for him — but settled enough that the constant tension in his shoulders had eased.

You watched him absentmindedly peel the paper sleeve from his straw into perfectly even strips.

Not fidgeting.

Organizing.

His sandwich sat precisely centered on the napkin between bites.

“You always do that?” you asked softly.

Anton glanced up.

“With objects.”

Then his eyes drifted toward the neat pile of paper strips beside his drink.

“Oh.”

He looked faintly embarrassed for the first time all evening.

“I’m making a mess,” he murmured.

“No, you’re not.”

You reached over before thinking and straightened one of the uneven paper pieces he’d missed. Anton went completely still watching your fingers brush the table.

The silence stretched.

“You don’t get irritated by things?”

The question caught you off guard. “What kind of things?”

He gestured vaguely toward the strips.

“The wrongness.”

You looked down at the table.

Then back at him slowly.

“I mean… sometimes.”

Anton waited.

“But not like you do, I think.”

He stared at your mouth while you spoke, expression thoughtful and slightly distant again. Processing. You were getting frighteningly good at recognizing when he’d gone inward like that.

After a moment, he typed:

| Most people say I overreact to discomfort.

The ache in your chest returned immediately.

You wondered how many parts of himself Anton had spent years apologizing for simply because other people experienced the world less intensely than he did.

“Well,” you said carefully, “if something genuinely feels overwhelming to you, then it’s overwhelming. Even if other people don’t understand it.”

Anton stopped moving entirely. Listening.

You saw the exact moment your words landed somewhere important.

His fingers tightened once around the edge of his sleeve before loosening again. Then he lowered his gaze toward the table almost abruptly, like he suddenly needed somewhere else to look.

“You say things softly,” he said after a while.

Your heartbeat stumbled.

“What does that mean?”

Anton frowned faintly, searching.

“Like…” He paused again. “Like you don’t want them to hurt anyone.”

The sincerity in his voice nearly killed you on the spot.

You looked away first this time, pretending to focus on your drink so he wouldn’t notice how flustered you’d suddenly become.

Across from you, Anton continued studying you openly in that indirect way he had. Not eye contact exactly. Attention contact. Total and unnervingly observant.

Then his phone buzzed against the table.

The reaction was immediate.

His shoulders tensed before he even checked the screen.

You watched his expression shift as he read the notification. Not upset. Just… burdened.

“What is it?”

Anton turned the phone toward you after a second.

Mom calling

He stared at the screen while it rang. Didn’t answer.

The vibration stopped after several seconds before immediately starting again.

“You should probably pick up,” you said gently.

Anton looked genuinely distressed by the idea.

“She worries if I don’t.”

“Then answer?”

Another ring.

He swallowed faintly before pressing accept and lifting the phone to his ear.

You looked away automatically to give him privacy, but silence stretched so long you eventually glanced back.

Anton hadn’t spoken.

He sat perfectly still listening to the voice on the other end while his thumb rubbed repeatedly against the edge of his sleeve beneath the table.

Then, very quietly:

“Yes.”

A pause.

“No.”

Another pause.

“I ate.”

Something in your chest twisted at how carefully he said each word, like speech over the phone required even more concentration than face-to-face conversation.

His mother’s voice carried faintly through the speaker, too muffled to understand.

Anton’s gaze drifted toward you unexpectedly.

Then away again.

“Yes,” he whispered after another long silence. “I’m with someone.”

Your stomach flipped embarrassingly hard.

Whatever his mother said next made faint pink rise into his cheeks almost instantly.

“No,” he murmured quickly. “Not like that.”

You nearly inhaled your straw.

Anton looked absolutely horrified the second he realized you’d probably heard that.

His fingers tightened around the phone.

“No,” he repeated, quieter this time. “She’s my aide.”

The sentence shouldn’t have stung. It did anyway.

You hated yourself a little for that.

Another stretch of silence followed while Anton listened again, expression becoming more and more strained by the second. You could almost see the social exhaustion building in real time.

Then finally:

“I know.”

A beat.

“I’ll sleep.”

Another.

“Yes.”

And softer this time:

“Love you too.”

The call ended.

Anton immediately set the phone facedown against the table and exhaled through his nose like he’d been holding tension in his lungs the entire time.

You looked at him carefully. “You okay?”

He nodded automatically. Too quickly.

You didn’t call him out on it.

Instead, you stirred your drink quietly while Anton reorganized the paper sleeve strips again despite already arranging them perfectly. The café lights reflected softly against the silver rings on his fingers.

After a minute, he spoke without looking up.

“She asks if I’ve eaten every day.”

You smiled faintly. “Sounds like she knows you well.”

Anton’s expression shifted strangely.

“She remembers things even when I don’t tell her.”

The words lingered between you both.

Then, after another pause:

“You do that too.”

Your chest tightened so suddenly it almost hurt.

Before you could answer, Anton finally looked up fully enough that his eyes nearly met yours for half a second. It was the closest he’d gotten yet.

“She’ll think…” He stopped, visibly reorganizing the sentence mid-thought. “She’ll think you’re important.”

The café suddenly felt too warm again.

You stared at him across the table while he remained completely sincere, completely unaware of the effect he had when he spoke like this. He wasn’t flirting. He wasn’t testing anything. Anton just said honest things before understanding the emotional consequences attached to them.

And somehow that made it worse.

“What do you think?” you asked quietly before you could stop yourself.

The second the question left your mouth, Anton went still.

Slowly, carefully, his attention fixed near your face again while the entire café blurred strangely around you.

Then, after what felt like forever, he answered in a voice barely above a whisper.

“I think…” He paused. “I noticed when you were gone.”

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