Michael waited three days.
Not because he had to — but because restraint sharpened intention.
The urge to act had been there immediately after he saw her again. It had arrived whole, not frantic or jagged, but settled. Warm. Certain. The kind of certainty that did not need affirmation because it did not doubt itself.
That was the difference between impulse and resolve.
Impulse lunged.
Resolve waited.
He let the days pass deliberately. Monday folded into Tuesday. Tuesday into Wednesday. He observed patterns from a distance, not because he needed confirmation — but because confirmation made execution cleaner.
Certainty chose its moment.
By the fourth morning, Michael knew exactly what that moment would look like.
———
The campus moved the way it always did — students crossing paths without meaning, conversations dissolving into background noise, bodies sharing space without registering one another. It was a system built on anonymity. People believed that being surrounded made them invisible.
Michael understood the flaw in that thinking.
Anonymity worked only until someone paid attention.
He positioned himself near one of the secondary walkways — not the main thoroughfare where encounters felt forced, but not hidden either. This path served as a spillover, a place students used when they were early or unhurried. It was transitional space. Liminal.
Encounters here could be framed as coincidence.
That mattered.
He leaned casually against the railing, phone in hand, posture relaxed. His weight rested comfortably on one leg. Nothing about him announced intent. Anyone passing would see a student killing time between classes.
And then she appeared.
Walking alone this time.
Michael felt the quiet satisfaction of alignment settle into place.
She was earlier than usual.
That was good.
Early meant she wasn't rushing. It meant her attention wasn't fragmented by urgency. It meant she would notice without being startled.
She slowed slightly when she saw him — not enough to alarm, just enough to register presence. Her gaze flicked toward his face, then away, a reflexive check before the mind caught up.
Michael waited.
Let the moment breathe.
He waited for her to pass him.
Then—
"Hidayah."
He said her name calmly, evenly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if he had spoken it yesterday. As if nothing had intervened.
——-
Her body reacted before her mind did.
Hidayah stopped.
Not abruptly — just enough for her weight to settle fully into her feet. The pause happened somewhere beneath conscious thought, a reflex responding to a stimulus before language arrived to make sense of it.
That was the first mistake.
She turned slowly, already knowing what she would see, and the recognition landed all at once.
Michael.
Her heartbeat didn't spike into panic. It sharpened instead, drawing her awareness inward, tightening focus the way it did when something required attention.
Alertness.
Memory sliding into place.
"Yes?" she said.
Her voice came out steady. Neutral. Controlled.
She didn't step back.
She didn't step forward.
Michael smiled — not wide, not eager. Just enough to register warmth. A measured expression, calibrated to signal familiarity without pressure.
"I wasn't sure if it was you," he said lightly. "Didn't want to call out and be wrong."
That was how he framed it.
Casual. Reasonable. Almost considerate.
Her instincts flared — a low, insistent warning that something was off — but there was nothing overt to point to. No raised voice. No accusation. No intrusion she could name without sounding dramatic.
"I'm in a hurry," she said.
And then she hated herself for saying it.
Because it explained herself to him.
—///
Michael noted the phrasing immediately.
I'm in a hurry.
Not don't talk to me.
Not leave me alone.
A justification.
He kept his expression open, unthreatening.
"I won't keep you," he said easily. "I just wanted to say… I'm glad you're doing well."
He meant it.
Well meant stable.
Stable meant reachable.
Her eyes narrowed — barely perceptible, the kind of micro-expression most people missed.
"That's all?" she asked.
"Yes," he said immediately. No hesitation. "That's all."
He stepped back half a pace, ensuring his hands remained visible, posture loose. A physical de-escalation. A visual cue of compliance.
People responded to cues. Michael had always understood that.
He watched her assess the interaction — searching for threat, for overreach, for something she could point to and reject.
She found nothing she could articulate.
That hesitation wasn't rejection.
It was recalibration.
——-
Everything in her wanted to leave.
Not because he had done anything overt — but because her skin felt tight, like she had brushed against something cold and hadn't realised it until afterward.
"Okay," she said finally. "Goodbye."
She turned and walked away without waiting for a response.
Her pace stayed measured for several steps, pride keeping her movements controlled. Only once she felt the space between them widen did she allow herself to move faster.
Her thoughts didn't spiral into fear.
They sharpened instead.
That was nothing.
That was just… a greeting.
And yet—
Her chest felt heavy, like something had settled there without permission.
——-
Michael didn't follow her.
That would have undone everything.
Instead, he stayed where he was, watching until the crowd absorbed her completely — until her figure became indistinguishable from every other student moving through space.
She hadn't yelled.
She hadn't accused him.
She hadn't told him to leave her alone.
Most importantly—
She hadn't said never speak to me again.
Michael exhaled slowly.
This was progress.
——-
Later, alone in his room, he replayed the encounter carefully.
Not obsessively — methodically.
He examined it from every angle, isolating variables, testing interpretations.
Her body language had been guarded, but not hostile.
Her voice had been controlled, but not angry.
Her eyes had held recognition — not disgust.
That mattered.
People who truly wanted nothing to do with you didn't look like that.
They erased you.
She hadn't erased him.
She was cautious.
Caution was reasonable. Expected, even.
She had been influenced. Warned. Conditioned to interpret him through the lens of others' fear.
That conditioning could fade.
Especially now.
Especially now that she knew he was back.
——-
The rest of the day passed for Hidayah in a blur of normalcy that felt just slightly misaligned.
She attended class. Took notes. Answered questions when called on. Her pen moved steadily across the page, handwriting neat and consistent.
Outwardly, nothing had changed.
But every so often, her thoughts slid back to the sound of her name spoken in his voice.
Not raised.
Not demanding.
Just… familiar.
That unsettled her more than anger would have.
At lunch, she found herself scanning faces without realising it, eyes lifting automatically each time someone passed too close.
Michael didn't appear again.
That almost made it worse.
——-
He didn't need to appear again.
Not today.
The first contact had never been about closeness.
It had been about proof.
Proof that he could exist in her space without the world collapsing. Proof that she would not scream, run, or freeze. Proof that her boundaries — while present — were not absolute.
Michael understood something most people didn't.
Boundaries were not walls.
They were doors.
And doors could be opened.
He justified the next thought carefully, examining it until it felt clean enough to keep.
If she had truly moved on —
If she were truly happy —
Then seeing him would not have unsettled her.
It would have meant nothing.
The fact that it meant something told him everything he needed to know.
She was still processing.
Still unresolved.
Still his.
Not actively.
Not yet.
But in essence.
——-
That night, lying in bed, Hidayah stared at the ceiling longer than usual.
The encounter replayed — not dramatically, not in sharp flashes, but insistently, like a phrase she couldn't quite stop repeating in her head.
He hadn't threatened her.
He hadn't touched her.
He hadn't even raised his voice.
And yet—
Something about the interaction felt wrong in a way she couldn't articulate.
Not danger.
Assumption.
Like he believed he was entitled to speak to her. Like the space between them had always belonged to him — and always would.
Her phone buzzed beside her.
A message from Khairul.
She turned onto her side, the familiar comfort of his name grounding her. She read the message, felt her breathing ease slightly.
She didn't mention Michael.
Not yet.
She wasn't sure how.
——-
Michael slept well that night.
Better than he had in a long time.
The first move had been correct.
He hadn't forced anything.
He hadn't frightened her.
He hadn't exposed himself.
He had simply reminded her that he existed.
From here on, everything would be incremental.
Harmless.
Natural.
Unavoidable.
And when the time came — when confusion softened into familiarity again — she would remember what they had been.
People always did.
Because history didn't disappear.
It waited.