The rain came unexpectedly.
Eli watched the droplets blur the windows of his dorm room, smudging the city lights into gentle colors that looked like watercolors on a trembling canvas. The kind he would usually sketch on sleepless nights—except tonight, his sketchbook was closed.
Because tonight, Riven was sitting on the edge of his bed, damp from the rain, shoulders tense like he didn't know where he belonged.
Eli handed him a towel. "You should've waited under the café awning."
"You didn't answer my last message," Riven said quietly, rubbing the towel over his hair.
"I was drawing. And… thinking."
Riven nodded but didn't press. Instead, he glanced around the small, tidy room. It smelled like paper and rain and faint coffee. The bed was unmade. The desk was scattered with unfinished sketches. The soft yellow lamp in the corner cast everything in a warm, forgiving glow.
"This room feels like you," Riven said.
Eli tilted his head. "How so?"
"Quiet. Safe. A little messy but honest."
That made Eli pause.
"You always say things like that," he said, almost a whisper. "Things that sound simple but hit too deep."
Riven shrugged, like he didn't mean to—but he did.
They sat in the thick silence that only comes when both people are scared to break it. The space between them felt fragile, like glass.
So Eli crossed it.
He sat beside Riven, their knees barely touching. The air was charged.
"Do you want to stay?" Eli asked, not meeting his eyes.
Riven didn't answer right away. "Do you want me to?"
"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't."
That was enough.
Riven slipped off his wet jacket, carefully folded it, and placed it on the desk chair. His eyes scanned the room again, then landed on the small pile of folded blankets near the foot of the bed.
"I can take the floor."
"No," Eli said quickly. "Stay with me. Just… if that's okay."
Riven stilled. Then nodded.
And suddenly the room felt warmer.
---
They lay side by side, not touching at first. The space between them held the weight of a thousand unspoken feelings. Eli stared at the ceiling. Riven stared at the window.
And then slowly, slowly, Eli turned onto his side and whispered, "I'm scared too, you know."
Riven turned to him. "Of me?"
"Of how much I want you to stay."
The words hung there, trembling.
And Riven reached out—tentatively, like he was afraid he'd be denied—and gently tucked a piece of Eli's hair behind his ear.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said.
Eli's breath hitched. "But you're still holding back."
"I am," Riven admitted. "Not because I want to. But because I've never let myself fall. And with you, I'm falling hard. It's terrifying."
"You don't have to say the words yet," Eli whispered, "just… don't run from them."
Riven nodded.
And then, for the first time, he pulled Eli close—not with desperation, but with care.
Their limbs tangled naturally. Their breathing slowly synced. Their hearts beat near enough to touch.
Eli felt safe.
Not because Riven promised forever—but because he promised tonight.
And sometimes, for people like them, tonight was enough.
---
Sometime in the early morning, Eli stirred and found Riven still beside him, asleep but holding on to him like he belonged there.
He smiled softly.
Then, quietly, he whispered into the darkness, a confession only meant for the night:
"I think I'm falling in love with you."
---
Flashback: Before Words Were Said
Riven's POV
The university café always smelled like burnt espresso and cheap pastries, but it was quiet—and Riven needed quiet.
It was his last class-free hour of the week, and he'd claimed his usual table by the window. Half a review book lay open in front of him, but he wasn't reading it. His eyes kept drifting to the far corner.
There he was again.
The quiet boy with the black hoodie, hunched over a sketchpad. Same corner, same black coffee. Always alone.
Riven didn't know his name. But he'd noticed him more than once.
The boy drew with a kind of intensity that fascinated him. Like the whole world disappeared when he put pencil to paper. Sometimes he bit his lip. Sometimes he smiled at nothing. But he never looked up.
That made Riven want to look even more.
He told himself he was just curious. That the boy was interesting the way you find a painting interesting in a museum—safe, distant, untouchable.
But the truth was: he looked peaceful.
And Riven hadn't felt peaceful in a long time.
One day, when the boy got up and accidentally left his pencil behind, Riven reached for it. Just to see.
It was smudged with graphite and worn from use. Cheap, ordinary—but somehow intimate. Riven held it like it meant something, then quietly slipped it into the lost-and-found box before the barista could toss it.
He never said a word.
But that night, the image of the boy drawing followed him home.
---
Eli's POV
He'd seen him first on a rainy Thursday.
Riven Castillo. Everyone knew his name—top of his med class, always dressed like he had somewhere important to be. Handsome in that cold, unreachable way.
Eli had never spoken to him.
But he always noticed when Riven entered the café. The way the door opened and somehow the whole room shifted slightly—like gravity tilted in his direction. He sat near the window, always alone, always pretending to read.
Eli pretended not to stare.
But sometimes, when the lighting was just right, Riven looked like a painting—sharply defined, quietly aching.
So Eli sketched him.
Never the whole face—just the curve of a wrist, the shadow of his jaw, the tilt of his shoulders. He filled pages with fragmented pieces of Riven like he was building a puzzle from memory.
He told himself it was practice.
But one day, while sketching from afar, Riven looked up. Just for a second. Their eyes met.
Eli panicked.
He closed his notebook fast, cheeks burning, heart hammering.
Riven had looked away almost immediately. No smile. No reaction. As if it didn't matter.
But Eli didn't draw anyone else for a week.
Because it did matter. And he didn't know why.
---
They didn't speak for months.
But the space between them…
Held something electric.
Something inevitable.
Even before a single word passed between them—
They were already pulling toward each other.
Just like stars.
Just like fate.
Just like… two souls converging, even if not destined.
---