The accommodation is a red-brick building that smells like old carpet and disinfectant. The elevator is broken. I take the stairs.

The door to 312 is slightly ajar. I push it open.

It’s a standard double. Two beds, two desks, two wardrobes. One side is stark, untouched. The other is lived-in—clothes spilling from an open drawer, a football kit draped over a chair, a half-empty bottle of water on the nightstand.

I roll my suitcase to the empty bed just as the door swings wider behind me.

It’s him. The boy from the hallway after my morning lecture. The one who slammed into me shoulder-first and kept walking while my notes fluttered to the floor.

He stops short, his eyes scanning from my face to the suitcase by the bed, then back. Disbelief hardens into irritation.