The professor's voice is a distant drone, something about economic theory and market fluctuations. Most of the students are half-asleep, their heads propped on palms, phones glowing under desks.

In the very back row, right corner, a seat is conspicuously empty.

The seat beside it—yours—is warm from the hours you've spent here, notebook open to a page filled with half-hearted scribbles. The lecture is in its final ten minutes, and the inevitable shuffle of bags being packed has already begun.

Then the door at the back of the hall cracks open. A whisper of sound, a slip of shadow.

His knee brushes yours under the narrow desk. He doesn't move it away.