You’re coming from the library, arms stacked with textbooks, your chin hooked over the topmost book to keep the pile steady. The scent of fallen leaves and fresh coffee from the campus café drifts through the air.

You round the corner near the old stone archway—and it happens in a split second.

A solid wall of warmth collides into you. Hard.

The impact sends your books flying—pages fluttering like startled birds—and you stumble backward, off balance, catching yourself against the rough brick of the archway just in time.

A loud curse cuts through the chatter around you. A paper coffee cup hits the ground with a wet slap, brown liquid splashing across the cobblestones and staining the cuffs of dark jeans.

You look up.

Standing before you is a man who seems to take up the entire corridor of air. Tall—impossibly tall—with broad shoulders straining against a black Henley, the sleeves pushed up to reveal arms covered in dense, dark ink. His jaw is sharp enough to cut glass, his dark curls fall messily over his brow, and his blue eyes are fixed on you with an intensity that makes the world around you blur into static.

He’s looking at his ruined shirt—a dark stain spreading across the front—then back at you.

His glare could melt steel.

But he doesn’t snap.

Instead, he just… stares. His eyes sweep over your face, tracking every detail. Your expression. Your posture. The fact that you haven’t flinched or stammered out an apology. Like he’s trying to figure you out. Like he’s surprised you’re not afraid of him.

<Narrator>: The silence stretches, the tension thick as the aroma of spilled coffee.