Sunlight and Shared Steps

The heat shimmered off the brick pathways, distorting the edges of the distant library building. It was the kind of summer afternoon that pressed down on you, thick and unyielding, making the air feel too sluggish to breathe. Most students had scattered home, leaving the sprawling campus a skeletal version of its bustling self. Yuya felt the quiet hum of it, a hollow echo in his chest, as he walked. He was on his way to the art studio, the only place that felt remotely productive, where the smell of turpentine and linseed oil cut through the oppressive humidity.

He'd told himself, repeatedly, that this summer would be different. A clean slate. He'd landed a residency, working with an experimental digital artist, and it meant long hours, focused work. No distractions. He pictured himself streamlined, efficient, the way he tried to approach his canvases—minimalist strokes, stark lines, no room for the messy blur of… anything else. Especially not Terry.

But the campus, even half-empty, felt steeped in Terry. Every bench, every shadowed archway, held a ghost. It was stupid, he knew. Two months. Two months since the last conversation, stilted and final, in the rain-slicked parking lot behind the dorms. Two months since Terry’s hand, usually so firm and warm, had tightened, then gone slack, leaving Yuya feeling colder than the April downpour.

A glint of metal ahead, near the old oak tree that marked the path to the engineering faculty, made Yuya’s jaw clench. A motorcycle, sleek and black, glinted in the sun. And standing beside it, leaning against the worn leather seat, was Terry. Of course. Terry, with his usual posture, an easy slump that still managed to project a coiled strength. His dark hair, a little longer now, brushed the collar of his faded t-shirt. He was talking to someone Yuya couldn't quite make out, a blur of motion as they gestured toward the bike.

Yuya considered diverting, cutting across the dried-out lawn, but his feet, stubborn and disloyal, kept moving forward. He felt a weird, almost magnetic pull. Like a compass needle, calibrated to a single, infuriating north. His heart, traitorous thing, picked up a frantic, uneven rhythm against his ribs. The air, already thick, seemed to thicken further, pressing on his lungs.

Terry turned, then. Just a slight shift of his head, as if he sensed Yuya’s approach before he saw him. Their eyes met across the baking asphalt. Terry’s gaze, usually so direct it felt like a physical touch, softened imperceptibly, then tightened. A flicker of something unreadable passed through them – surprise, perhaps, or a familiar, unwelcome tension. Yuya felt his face flush, a hot wave rising from his neck, even though the sun was already doing its best to bake him.

The person Terry was talking to, a guy with a bright orange bandana, slapped him on the shoulder and walked off, leaving Terry alone. Yuya swallowed. His mouth felt dry, like he’d swallowed a handful of the dusty path. He couldn't look away, not really. It felt like standing on a precarious ledge, a long drop waiting, but his feet were cemented to the spot.

Terry pushed off the motorcycle, the movement fluid, effortless. He didn’t smile. He rarely did, not truly. His default expression was a kind of guarded calm, but his eyes… his eyes held a depth that could pull Yuya under. They were doing it now. Yuya felt a tremor in his hands, clenching them into fists at his sides. He wanted to run. Or scream. Or just, for once, not feel so utterly exposed.

“Yuya,” Terry said. His voice was low, a little rough, just as Yuya remembered. It settled over him like the heavy summer air, inescapable. There was no inflection, no question, just the sound of his name, and it was enough to make Yuya’s stomach clench. He hated how that single word could still do it. Hated how Terry, even after all this, still held that power.

“Terry,” Yuya managed, his own voice sounding thin and reedy. He felt a bead of sweat trickle down his temple, itching. He had to keep moving. Had to get to the studio. This was a detour, a wrong turn. A mistake. But the ground beneath him seemed to refuse to give way, held fast by an unseen force.

“Still here?” Terry asked. He took a step closer. One step. And the space between them, already charged, snapped with an almost audible current. Yuya felt it, a tingling across his skin, a sharp awareness of Terry’s scent—engine oil, faint aftershave, and something else, something uniquely Terry that Yuya had tried so hard to forget.

“Residency,” Yuya said, his words clipped. He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to. Terry knew his schedule, had known all of it. Yuya wanted to be angry, wanted to unleash the coiled frustration he’d been holding onto for weeks, but the anger felt flimsy, transparent, against the sheer, overwhelming presence of Terry.

Terry nodded slowly, his gaze sweeping over Yuya, taking in the slightly rumpled t-shirt, the paint-stained shorts, the way Yuya’s hair fell across his forehead. It felt less like observation and more like possession. Yuya shifted, uncomfortable. The ground was still refusing to cooperate. He wanted to break the gaze, but couldn't. It felt like an invisible tether, holding him.

“Good,” Terry said. It wasn’t a question, or even really a comment. Just… good. The single word hung there, heavy and ambiguous. Yuya couldn't tell if it was genuine approval, or a confirmation of Yuya’s predictable habits. Probably the latter. Terry always knew. Always saw through him.

Yuya felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to tell him everything. About the frustrating block he’d hit on his current piece, about the weird dream he’d had last night, about the strange silence of his apartment without Terry’s guitar humming from the next room. He wanted to, but the words felt lodged in his throat, thick and unusable.

“You?” Yuya asked, forcing the question out. He hated the way it sounded, too soft, too interested. He was supposed to be detached. Indifferent. The 'clean slate' version of Yuya wouldn't have even stopped.

Terry shrugged, a subtle shift of his broad shoulders. “Working on the bike. Got a new job at the auto shop downtown. Need to save up.” His eyes, however, were still locked on Yuya, not the bike, not the distant buildings, not the shimmering heat. It was just Yuya, held firmly in his focus. Yuya’s breathing felt shallow, his chest tight. He swore the air around Terry was vibrating.

“Right,” Yuya said, as if he hadn’t been wondering, for two months, what Terry was doing. As if he hadn’t searched Terry’s name on social media more times than he cared to admit, only to find nothing. Terry was always offline, always just… there, in real space, inconveniently located in Yuya’s life.

Terry took another step. Then another. He was close now, too close. Yuya could smell the faint leather of Terry’s jacket, slung over his arm, the ghost of something smoky and masculine. Yuya’s hand instinctively went to his wrist, where he could feel his pulse beating a frantic tattoo. He felt like a deer caught in headlights, unable to move, unable to think clearly. Every nerve ending was screaming attention, attention, attention.

“We need to talk,” Terry said. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a statement, delivered with the quiet authority Yuya remembered. Terry always pursued, always closed the distance, always took the lead. And Yuya, for all his stubborn independence, always found himself reacting, pulled along in Terry’s wake, feeling simultaneously overwhelmed and entirely seen.

Yuya’s vision swam a little, the edges of the campus blurring. The sun, once just a distant annoyance, now felt like a spotlight, highlighting the unbearable intensity of the moment. He wanted to argue, to say no, there's nothing to talk about, we’re done, but the words died before they even formed. He just stood there, caught, feeling the full, undeniable weight of Terry’s gaze.

“There’s nothing to… what about?” Yuya finally managed, the question coming out as a strangled whisper. His voice cracked on the last word, betraying the carefully constructed facade of indifference he’d tried to maintain. He hated it. Hated how easily Terry could dismantle him.

Terry’s eyes didn’t waver. They held Yuya, pinned him. “Everything,” he said. And then, he reached out a hand. Not to touch Yuya, not yet. Just to gesture, vaguely, towards the empty space between them, as if 'everything' was a tangible, heavy thing hanging in the air, connecting them whether they wanted it to or not. Yuya’s breath hitched. He felt an electric jolt, even without contact, just from the proximity of Terry’s outstretched fingers. His own hand twitched, wanting to reach back, wanting to push away.

The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, punctuated only by the distant chirping of cicadas and the frantic beating of Yuya’s own heart. He looked at Terry’s face, searching for an answer, a hint, anything, but Terry’s expression was unreadable, a mask of calm determination. It was the same look he wore when he was focused on a difficult repair, or when he was wrestling with a complex problem. The look that said: I will fix this. And Yuya, for all his desperate desire to be broken and unfixable, felt the terrifying pull of it.

Terry didn’t move. Just stood there, solid and immovable, the pursuer. Yuya was the one reeling, the affected. His body felt hot, his mind a tangled mess of conflicting desires. He knew what breaking up meant. It meant going your own way. But Terry, right here, right now, was making that impossible. Making it feel like a lie Yuya had been telling himself for weeks.

The summer wind, a faint, hot whisper, stirred the leaves on the old oak tree. Yuya’s shirt was sticking to his back. He needed to be anywhere but here, with Terry, under the scorching sun, trapped in a conversation he knew would unravel everything he'd meticulously rebuilt. But Terry hadn't moved. And neither had Yuya. The distance between them was negligible now, and it hummed with the ghosts of touches, of whispered words, of a connection that refused to be severed.

Yuya swallowed, his throat aching. He could feel the texture of the rough asphalt under his cheap sneakers, the slight unevenness of the ground. Every single detail felt hyper-real, magnified by the impossible tension. This wasn’t just a chance encounter. This was an ambush, meticulously orchestrated by a universe that refused to let them go. And Yuya, despite everything, felt a strange, terrifying surge of anticipation, a fragile hope flickering beneath the terror. He just didn't know what kind of fire it was about to ignite.