I was at my desk by eight.

The Mr Zedd Abu Dahar campaign had been sitting at ninety percent for three days and ninety percent was the most dangerous place a project could live. Close enough to finished that you stopped seeing the flaws. Close enough to done that one lazy decision could ruin the entire thing right at the end.

I needed fresh eyes. An early morning. Two uninterrupted hours.

The fresh eyes part was debatable.

I had slept better than I had in months and walked into the office carrying this strange warmth in my chest that kept catching me off guard. Every couple of minutes I would look at my screen and almost smile for absolutely no reason like some idiot in a romance movie.

Which, frankly, was concerning.

I opened the final asset package and went through everything one more time. Promotional banners. Merchandise layouts. Event collateral. Signature integrations. I checked spacing, verified export quality, compared colour profiles against the print specifications and ran final export tests on every deliverable individually because rushing the final stage of a project was how people ended up unemployed.

By the time Kuro walked into the studio I had already packaged the campaign for client review.

He stopped beside my partition and stared at me.

"Bro," he said. "You’re in early."

"Final touches on the Zedd campaign," I replied without looking up. "Event’s coming fast."

He walked around and leaned against the neighbouring desk.

"You’re done already?"

"Just finished."

"Jesus." He folded his arms. "You’re on a roll lately."

I saved the final folder and leaned back slightly in my chair.

Kuro narrowed his eyes at me.

Something about that expression immediately irritated me.

"What."

He tilted his head slowly.

"Something’s different about you."

I frowned. "Different how?"

"I don’t know." He squinted harder. "You just look..." His eyes widened slightly. "Wait."

I already hated where this was going.

"Are you getting laid?"

"Kuro." I glanced around the office. "Lower your voice. We’re literally at work."

He immediately dropped into an exaggerated whisper.

"Am I wrong though?"

"Very."

"Then what is it?" He sat on the edge of my desk. "Because I’m not the only one who’s noticed. The guys were talking about it yesterday."

I stared at him.

"The guys were talking about me?"

"We were concerned."

"You were gossiping."

"Concerned gossiping," he corrected. "Huge difference."

I picked my pen up again.

"So what’s going on?" he continued. "You’re either seeing someone or you finally started sleeping properly for the first time in your adult life."

I paused for half a second.

Then sighed.

"I’m seeing someone."

Kuro froze completely.

Actually froze.

Then he sat up straight so fast the desk shook slightly.

"Holy shit."

"Kuro—"

"Sorry." Back to whispering immediately. "Sorry. Ethan, that’s huge. Who is she?" He paused. "Or he?" he added with a grin.

"I’m going to need you to stop talking."

"I’m being inclusive."

"You’re being annoying."

"I know you like women," he said. "I’m just saying it has been a very long time since you’ve dated anyone and I was starting to think maybe you’d quietly given up on the entire concept."

"It hasn’t been that long."

It had absolutely been that long.

I was not admitting that out loud.

Kuro pointed at me dramatically.

"What’s her name?"

I hesitated just enough for him to notice.

Which was a mistake.

"Raina," I said.

He repeated it slowly.

"Raina..."

Then his entire face changed in real time.

The grin disappeared.

Returned wider.

Much wider.

"Hold on." He pointed harder. "THAT Raina?"

"Yes."

"No." He shook his head immediately. "No way. You bagged Raina? Lumi♡Live, Soul Beauty, brand deal Raina? Millions of followers online Raina?"

"That Raina."

"Bro."

He smacked my shoulder with an open palm.

"Congratulations. Genuinely." He stared at me in disbelief. "I called it too, by the way. From the very first session. I knew she had the hots for you."

"You literally told me she didn’t like you."

"Exactly." He pointed between us. "Different thing entirely. She wasn’t interested in me because she was already staring at you like you personally invented oxygen."

"That is not what happened."

"That is exactly what happened."

Jade walked into the studio carrying coffee and stopped halfway across the room when he noticed the energy around my desk.

"What are we celebrating?" he asked.

"Ethan’s dating Raina," Kuro announced immediately.

Jade blinked.

"Raina Raina?"

"Yes," both of us answered at the same time.

He walked over and shook my hand with genuine sincerity.

"Congrats man. Seriously."

"Thank you."

Jade studied my face for a second.

"Actually...yeah."

I frowned. "Yeah what."

"The glow."

"There is no glow."

"There is absolutely a glow," Jade said immediately.

Kuro nodded aggressively beside him.

"THANK YOU."

"You walked in this morning looking like someone who had a fantastic night and slept like a baby afterward," Jade continued.

"We just started dating."

Kuro looked at me.

Then at Jade.

Then slowly back at me again.

"Oh my God," he whispered dramatically. "You haven’t even—"

"We just started dating," I repeated.

Both of them burst out laughing.

"Bro," Kuro said through laughter. "That glow is insane for one date."

Before I could defend myself Brian knocked twice against the glass partition.

"Conference room. Emergency meeting. Bring a pen."

He walked off immediately without waiting for responses.

Kuro looked at me with narrowed eyes.

"Saved by management."

I grabbed my notebook and followed everyone down the corridor.

The conference room already had someone sitting beside Brian at the head of the table.

Sharp suit. Headquarters ID badge. Professional posture. The kind of person who travelled between branches giving speeches people pretended to enjoy.

Within a few minutes the room filled completely.

Brian gestured toward him.

"This is Mr Grant Justin from the Creative Standards and Professional Development division at headquarters. He’s here for a workplace conduct and client relations seminar."

Mr Justin stood and smiled politely.

"What is the most important trait a graphic designer can possess in client-facing work?"

I wrote the question down automatically.

And immediately stopped listening.

Not intentionally.

My brain just drifted.

Straight back to the bowling alley.

The rain hitting the awning above us.

The reflections in the puddles outside.

The exact moment before the kiss when she looked at me and I realised neither of us was going to step away from this anymore.

And then the kiss itself.

I stared at my notebook.

I had dated Susan for almost two years in college. We had been good together in the comfortable way relationships sometimes were at that age. Easy. Familiar. Predictable.

But this—

Whatever this thing with Raina was—

It felt different already.

Different in a way I didn’t fully understand yet.

I looked down.

At some point during the seminar I had apparently written Raina’s name across half the page in different handwriting styles like a mentally unstable teenager.

Jesus Christ.

I immediately flipped the page over before Kuro saw it and ruined my life.

The seminar dragged on for another forty minutes.

I surfaced occasionally, caught fragments of information, wrote down a sentence or two and drifted again.

By the end I had maybe four usable notes and an entire page full of Raina’s name.

Mr Justin went around shaking hands afterward.

When he reached me he glanced briefly at my ID card.

"The Zedd campaign came through headquarters review this morning," he said quietly. "Strong work."

"Thank you."

He nodded once and moved on.

Across the room Brian caught my eye and gave a small approving nod.

That felt good.

The day finally ended at six.

I didn’t drive today. Petrol prices had become something I actually had to think about after the hospital bills started stacking up and the bus route won most financial arguments lately.

I stopped at the hospital before heading home.

My mother looked better than she had in weeks.

That was the first thing I noticed walking into the room.

Colour back in her face. Energy in her eyes. The version of her that had felt dimmed after surgery finally starting to return properly.

She was sitting upright in bed with the television on, though judging from the volume she wasn’t actually watching it so much as using the sound as company.

We talked for almost an hour.

Work.

Nathan.

Food.

Whether I was sleeping properly.

She repeated three stories I had already heard before and I listened to all three because the stories themselves weren’t really the point.

Then eventually she pointed toward the door.

"Go home."

"I’m fine here."

"Ethan." She gave me the look only mothers could give. "Go sleep."

"I’ve actually been sleeping really well lately."

That made her pause.

She studied my face carefully.

Far too carefully.

"Hm," she said.

I narrowed my eyes. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Mum."

She smiled slightly.

"Go home."

I kissed her forehead and left before she could start interrogating me properly.

The bus dropped me two blocks from my apartment a little after eight .

Cold night.

The kind where the air hit your face sharply the second you stepped off the bus.

I shoved my hands into my pockets and started walking.

I was halfway through mentally reviewing the Zedd campaign checklist again when I felt it.

That feeling.

Not a sound exactly.

Not something visible.

Just instinct.

That strange awareness at the base of your skull when something behind you feels wrong before your brain has caught up enough to explain why.

I kept walking.

Steady pace.

Listening.

Footsteps.

Behind me.

Not perfectly matching mine.

Adjusting to mine.

Trying not to be obvious and failing slightly.

My stomach tightened

The building was half a block ahead.

I walked faster.

The footsteps sped up too.

Then—

A sharp scrape of rubber against wet pavement echoed behind me.

Too close.

My stomach tightened instantly.

A cold wave crawled slowly down my spine.

I turned around immediately.

Fast.

No hesitation.

The street behind me was empty.

A parked car.

A flickering street lamp.

Wet pavement reflecting light across the sidewalk.

Nothing else.

I stood there breathing for a second.

Waiting.

Nothing moved.

No sound.

No person.

Nothing.

I turned back around and walked the remaining distance home with my shoulders tense and the feeling of the empty street sitting heavily between my shoulder blades the entire way.

By the time I locked my apartment door behind me I had mostly convinced myself it was nothing.

Mostly.

Not completely.