로그인JULIAN The realization was nothing new to Julian. He’d known for two years of his life and it was just until a few weeks ago at the frat party, that he felt he could actually do something about it.It should have been alarming when he realized he had fallen for that mean barista boy. The few who knew him, the handful that understood him at any real depth, would have found it... kinda alarming.Julian Cross usually didn’t allow himself to get "gone" for anyone. He was too careful for that. Too used to keeping an appropriate distance from anything that had the potential to cost him something even when having sex with it.But right now, sitting in the dark with Ellis’s breathing finally steady beside him, it felt inevitably embarrassing.For years, he’d built walls around himself that had turned out to be pretty sturdy. People rarely got close enough to even matter.Most relationships felt like they were transactional, pleasant and manageable, based around what each party wanted from th
JULIANThe room went quiet after he and Ellis whispered goodnight to eachother.Not completely silent, though. Outside, the storm still raged against the apartment, with rain hammering the windows in relentless waves as if it was on a mission to break the window planes, and distant thunder rumbling in slow intervals through the night.But compared to the noise inside Julian’s head, all of it might as well have been complete and dead silence.He glanced at the ceiling for a moment, then at the shape curled up next to him under the blanket.Ellis had turned away the instant he said goodnight, a clean, decisive pivot, the body language of someone executing a tactical retreat and hoping it would go unnoticed. It was a move Julian had come to recognize over the weeks of watching Ellis turn away from him.Whenever things got too close to honest, whenever the conversation drifted to the thing sitting between them like an elephant nobody wanted to talk about, Ellis would retreat and run for h
ELLISI still didn’t know what to do with that memory. It had been rolling around in my mind all week like a forgotten item in a coat pocket, real and specific and undeniably mine, but still unexplained.If Julian were anyone else, I could’ve filed it under crowd participation, sports entertainment, meaningless. But he wasn’t anyone else, and I had long since stopped being able to label anything about him as meaningless, and the more I tried, the clearer it became that my filing system was broken.What kind of person kisses another person in front of a crowd and then goes home to wait in a dark apartment, climbing into bed with them days later and laughing like everything was easy?And more importantly: what kind of person kept thinking about it?That familiar tightness in my chest came back, and I let it, because fighting it had become more exhausting than just accepting it.Beside me, Julian shifted, a small movement, just enough to remind me that the space between us was a defined
ELLIS My argument and yelling stopped immediately. The storm, considerate as it was, kept going, oblivious to the specific crisis happening in Room 25. He was close. So close! The kind of close where the darkness made it even more intense, because without clear visibility, my other senses kicked in, the warmth radiating off him, the faint cedar scent, the change in his breathing, which had quieted a bit, like he was focusing on something. His face was right there. In the dim gray light, I could make out the lines of his features, the hint of his eyes, and the look on his face which was — Not teasing. Not the smirk I’d expected. Something else, something that had gone still. I couldn’t quite make out his expression in the dark. But I guessed that it was surprise. Neither of us moved. Then he blinked. "Oh." "Oh?" I replied, my voice coming out a lot smaller than I planned. "Sorry." "Sorry?" "You moved." "You moved—" "This is your fault by the way." And there it was. The
ELLISThe words came out flat, tired, and didn’t carry the authority I wanted. And trust me, I wanted lots of authority because this was my bed, and I was the one who’d been here first, with very clear feelings about the whole deal.But, surprise, surprise...Julian didn’t fucking budge.If anything, he seemed more at ease, even making a small shift like someone who’s found a comfortable spot and is letting it know he plans to stay and no one could ever change his strange ass mind.Again...kill me now.Outside, the storm was still throwing its weight at the windows, rain hammering the glass in waves while distant thunder rolled lazily across the sky, like it had all night to get wherever it was going.The apartment was cloaked in darkness since the power was out, with just enough dim light sneaking through the curtains to make out the unmistakable shape of Julian lying next to me like this was just a normal setup that didn’t need any explanation."Did you catch that?" I asked, unwillin
ELLISSo what happened was...the sky had been ominously darkening, all afternoon, the kind of heavy blanket that signals a storm before it actually breaks. By the time I was trudging back to Pinnacle Hall, the rain had made its choice and was falling in sheets that eagerly slipped under my collar.I staggered inside looking like I’d just gone through a car wash. Shaking my head to get the water out, I left damp footprints on the way to the elevator, stepping into the apartment with the kind of exhausted relief that comes after an unexpectedly long journey.The apartment was dark.Not just evening-dark. I mean completely dark with no lights, no hum from the fridge, no soft glows from the fancy electronics. It took a moment to realize something was off since I’d never seen the place without power, and it felt wrong, like a part of the building was missing.I stood at the doorway for a second, blinking in confusion."Power’s out," Julian called from somewhere near the window.I spotted h







