By the third week after returning, the campus had developed a new rhythm.
It was the rhythm of people pretending they were fine.
Students still attended lectures. They still submitted assignments. They still lined up for coffee and complained about deadlines. But the way they did it now felt different, like the surface of everything had been tightened.
No one wanted to be the first to admit they were afraid.
XH felt it in every conversation that ended too quickly. In every laugh that sounded forced. In every group chat where people used too many emojis to hide what they were really asking.
Are we safe here?
He tried to focus on the program, on what he came here for in the first place. He had chosen this track because his high school marks had fallen short of the local government medical university requirements. He had accepted that reality and found another path forward.
But now, even the path was shaking beneath his feet.
And that wasn't the only thing.
His phone had become a second heartbeat.
Not because he was obsessed with messages, but because he could feel the weight of them piling up inside him.
June's words.Kitty's quiet requests.NS's warning.The unspoken tension that followed him like a shadow.
Every day he told himself he would talk properly.
Every day something delayed it.
A quiz.A lab.A group assignment.A rumor.A sudden call from home.
And if he was honest, the biggest delay was fear.
Fear that one honest conversation would collapse the fragile balance he had maintained for so long.
That morning, in biochemistry, the lecturer spoke about reactions that moved forward only when the conditions were right. Catalysts. Inhibitors. Thresholds.
XH listened, pen moving across his notebook, but his mind translated everything into something personal.
Conditions.Thresholds.
He glanced sideways.
June sat near the front, attentive, sharp. She took notes like she was building a weapon. Efficient. Controlled.
Kitty sat farther back, quiet, careful. She wrote less but absorbed more, eyes moving between the lecturer and her book, as if she trusted memory more than ink.
Two different ways of surviving.
And he was stuck in between them.
After class, Kitty approached him by the corridor where students gathered around the notice board. She waited until the crowd thinned, then spoke softly.
"You said we could talk," she reminded him.
XH nodded immediately. "Yeah. I did."
Kitty's expression stayed calm, but her eyes were steady in a way that made it impossible to dodge. "When?"
He hesitated for half a second.
That half second was all it took for her to understand.
Kitty looked down briefly, then back up. "Not tonight?"
XH swallowed. "Tonight works."
Kitty nodded once, like she had just secured a fragile agreement. "After dinner. The quiet bench near the side garden."
He nodded again. "Okay."
Kitty left without adding anything else.
That was her strength.
She did not beg.She did not pressure.She simply placed the truth on the table and waited to see whether he would pick it up.
XH watched her walk away and felt a strange mixture of gratitude and guilt.
At lunch, June sat with them but barely touched her food.
JP noticed first, of course.
"You're eating air again," he said. "Is this a diet trend?"
June gave a small smile, but it did not reach her eyes. "Not hungry."
TZ raised an eyebrow. "That's how you know she's stressed."
NS stayed quiet, but his gaze flicked between June and XH.
June's phone buzzed.
She checked it and her jaw tightened slightly.
XH saw it.
Kitty saw it too.
June set the phone down carefully, as if the movement itself needed control.
JP tried to lighten the mood. "We should start charging tuition for our emotional suffering."
TZ laughed. "We'd be rich."
June's eyes finally met XH's across the table.
Not angry.
Not pleading.
Just direct.
Later.
That look said.
Or maybe it said something harsher.
How long are you going to keep doing this?
The rest of the day blurred into classes and small conversations that carried too much weight. XH felt like he was constantly adjusting his tone, constantly choosing words that sounded neutral enough to not cause damage.
By evening, he realized he was exhausted.
Not from work.
From holding tension in his body all day.
Dinner came and went. JP complained about the cafeteria food. TZ stole fries from his tray. NS ate quietly, then left early.
XH checked his phone.
No messages from June.
One short message from Kitty.
Kitty: don't disappear.
XH exhaled, stood up, and walked toward the side garden.
The bench Kitty had mentioned sat under a tree whose leaves were sparse now, branches thin against the darkening sky. The campus lights cast a soft glow that made everything feel slightly unreal.
Kitty was already there.
She sat with her hands folded in her lap, posture calm, eyes forward.
When she heard his footsteps, she turned.
"You came," she said simply.
XH sat beside her, leaving a respectful space between them. "I said I would."
Kitty nodded. "You've said a lot of things."
The sentence was not cruel. It was not accusatory. It was honest, delivered like a fact.
XH looked down at his hands. "I know."
They sat in silence for a moment, letting the air settle.
Then Kitty spoke again.
"Do you remember when we first got close?" she asked.
He glanced at her. "Yeah."
Kitty's gaze stayed forward, but her voice softened. "Back then, it felt simple. Not easy. But simple."
XH swallowed. "It did."
Kitty turned slightly, her eyes searching his face now. "And now?"
He did not answer right away.
Because now was complicated.
Now was fear and waiting and messages that carried hidden meanings.
Kitty's voice stayed steady. "I'm not asking you to choose right now."
XH looked up sharply.
Kitty continued. "I'm asking you something else."
He waited.
Kitty took a slow breath, like she was deciding how much of herself to place in the open.
"Do you know what you feel?" she asked.
The question did not sound romantic.
It sounded like a survival question.
XH's chest tightened. "I don't know if I do."
Kitty nodded, absorbing it. "Okay."
XH blinked. "Okay?"
Kitty's lips curved slightly, but the expression was sad. "At least you didn't lie."
He wanted to reach for her hand.
He did not.
Kitty spoke again, quieter. "Everyone thinks I'm calm all the time."
XH nodded. "You look calm."
Kitty's gaze dropped to her hands. "Looking calm is a skill. I learned it because I don't like being pitied."
XH felt something in his chest shift.
Kitty continued. "But I'm not calm when it comes to you."
He turned toward her fully now.
Kitty's eyes met his.
She did not cry. She did not raise her voice.
She just said it.
"I don't want to keep waiting for a version of you that will someday be brave."
The words hit him harder than any argument June had thrown at him.
XH opened his mouth, but no words came.
Kitty looked away briefly, as if giving him space to breathe.
"When we came back from the trip," she said, "I thought maybe things would become clearer."
He nodded slowly.
"They did," Kitty said. "Just not in the way I wanted."
XH's throat tightened. "Kitty…"
She turned back to him. "Tell me the truth. Not the polite truth. The real one."
He stared at her, realizing there was no safe answer.
Kitty's voice softened again. "Do you want me to keep hoping?"
The question hovered between them like a fragile object.
XH felt his pulse in his fingertips.
He thought of June.
Her urgency. Her fear of lost time.
He thought of Kitty.
Her patience. Her refusal to beg.
He thought of himself.
How he kept delaying, thinking delay was kindness.
Maybe delay was selfishness.
XH tried to speak.
"I care about you," he said.
Kitty's eyes narrowed slightly. "That's not what I asked."
XH swallowed hard.
"I don't want to hurt you," he said.
Kitty nodded slowly. "You already are. But I'm still here."
Silence again.
Then Kitty added, quieter, almost like she was speaking to herself.
"I just need to know if I'm standing in front of a door that will never open."
XH felt a surge of emotion so sharp it almost made him dizzy.
He wanted to answer.
He couldn't.
Not yet.
Kitty looked at him and something in her expression shifted, not into anger, but into a kind of quiet resignation.
"I understand," she said softly.
XH blinked. "You do?"
Kitty stood slowly. "I understand that you're still afraid."
XH stood too, instinctively.
Kitty turned slightly, facing him fully now.
"One day," she said, "you're going to realize that waiting is still a choice. Even when you pretend it isn't."
She stepped back, not leaving dramatically, but creating distance.
"Good night, XH," she said.
And then she walked away.
XH stood there alone, bench cold behind him, the night air sharp against his face.
His phone buzzed.
June's name appeared on the screen.
June: did you talk to her?
XH stared at the message, heart pounding.
He typed slowly.
XH: yeah.
The reply came immediately.
June: and?
He stared at the screen.
Then locked the phone.
Not because he didn't care.
Because for the first time, he understood that the talk he kept postponing was no longer optional.
It was inevitable.
And he had just watched Kitty take one step away from him, not out of hatred, but out of self respect.
XH walked back toward his room, every step heavy.
Above him, the campus lights glowed steady and indifferent.
Inside him, something was breaking and rearranging at the same time.
He had spent so long trying to protect everyone from pain.
He was starting to understand.
Pain was coming anyway.
And the only question left was whether he would finally be brave enough to meet it.