They ended up at the campus café because Lucien finally hit his limit. "If I don't feed you people right now," he muttered, steering them toward the entrance, "you're going to start a civil war over a bowl of instant noodles."
"I'd win," Mira said, not even looking up from her phone.
Seris didn't skip a beat. "You'd trip over your own shoelaces before the first strike."
"Rude."
"You literally tripped yesterday, Mira. On flat pavement."
"That was strategic falling," Mira shot back, sliding into their usual corner booth by the window.
Nox sat down last, his movements stiff. Same table. Same view of the quad. He remembered sitting here in his first life, but back then, he hadn't realized how loud they all were. The sheer volume of their existence felt like a physical weight.
Garrick dropped into the chair beside Mira with a heavy, bone-tired sigh. "I brought eggs. Real ones. We have protein, so can we please stop the noodle discourse?"
"You clearly don't understand the emotional value of leftovers, Garrick," Mira said, pointing at him with dramatic flair.
Kaida leaned forward, her expression clinical. "Emotion is just a social construct designed to mask entropy."
"Stop," Lucien said flatly.
"Please," Orion echoed, already hiding behind his drink.
Nox watched them. His gaze drifted to Lucien, who was leaning back, balancing his chair dangerously on two spindly legs. In the past, that habit had driven Nox crazy; he remembered snapping at him to sit properly once. Lucien had just laughed it off. Now, Nox just stared, unable to look away from a ghost that was still breathing.
Lucien noticed. He leveled a look at Nox, a slow smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You're staring."
"I'm not."
"You definitely are."
"I'm observing."
Mira gasped, leaning into the conversation. "Oh, he's judging you. That's way worse."
"Am I passing?" Lucien asked, his eyes locking onto Nox's.
Nox was the first to break the contact, looking down at his hands. "You're just loud."
Lucien blinked, his smirk softening into something more confused. "You keep saying that like it's an insult."
"It is."
Seris, who had been quiet, narrowed her eyes at Nox. "You didn't sleep."
"I did."
"Liar. You're blinking slowly."
"That's called being alive, Seris."
Kaida leaned across the table, squinting at Nox as if she could see the subatomic particles shifting around him. "He's different," she murmured.
Lucien stopped rocking his chair. The playfulness vanished. "Different how?"
"Like he swallowed a secret and it's fighting its way out."
Nox nearly choked on his coffee, coughing into his napkin. "Dramatic," he managed to say.
"But accurate," Orion added quietly.
Lucien's gaze didn't leave him. For a second, the café noise faded into a dull hum. In his first life, Nox hadn't realized how much Lucien actually watched him. Now that he knew the ending, seeing that level of scrutiny was terrifying.
"Field trip!" Mira suddenly announced, standing up so fast her chair screeched. "We're walking. I can't sit still anymore."
"You can't sit still for five minutes, period," Garrick grumbled, though he stood up anyway.
__
They ended up cutting across the campus lawn, the grass still damp from the morning dew. Mira walked backward, gesturing wildly as she talked. "Okay, so: road trip. Before midterms. Before life ruins us and we all become corporate shells."
"You almost failed calculus last year," Seris reminded her, sidestepping a puddle.
"I survived! That's what matters. And I only survived because Nox tutored me." Mira spun around, beaming at him. "He's my academic anchor."
Nox barely heard her. He was watching the sky. It was clear—unnervingly so. The blue felt too bright, like a saturation filter had been turned up too high.
Lucien slowed his pace, falling into step beside him. "You're really not okay, are you?"
"I'm fine."
"You keep saying that."
"And you keep asking."
Lucien bumped his shoulder lightly against Nox's. "Because you're a terrible liar. Always have been."
That almost earned a smile. Almost.
Ahead of them, Mira let out a sharp yelp. "DOG!"
She flailed as a golden retriever darted across the path, nearly taking her out at the knees. Garrick caught her by the hood of her jacket just before she hit the dirt.
"You're officially banned from walking unsupervised," Garrick said, letting go of her hood once she had her balance.
"I was ambushed! It had intent!"
Lucien laughed—a bright, genuine sound that hit Nox like a physical blade. He remembered the last time he'd heard that laugh; it had been strained, thinned out by exhaustion and blood. He shook the memory away, his jaw tightening.
"Hey," Orion said, his voice dropping an octave.
Nox looked at him. Orion wasn't looking at the dog; he was looking up. "You saw it too, right?"
Nox's chest tightened. "The sky?"
Lucien frowned, looking between them. "What about it? It's just blue."
But for a split second, it wasn't. It shimmered—a jagged ripple like heat distortion against glass. Nox stopped dead in his tracks.
"You didn't see that?" Nox asked.
Mira shielded her eyes, looking up. "If aliens are finally coming to abducted us, I'd like a five-minute warning to fix my hair."
"There's no seismic activity," Seris noted, though she looked uneasy.
"Birds," Garrick muttered, pointing toward the tree line.
A flock of birds suddenly exploded upward. They didn't scatter; they fled. They circled erratically, a black smudge against the blue, before vanishing toward the city skyline. The campus dog began to bark; a frantic, rhythmic sound that grated on Nox's nerves.
The air grew heavy. For three heartbeats, it felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of the quad. Then, as quickly as it started, the pressure snapped. Students around them kept walking, laughing, and checking their phones. No one else had felt the world skip a beat.
Lucien lowered his head slowly, his expression guarded. "Okay. That was weird."
"Probably a weather front," Seris said, though her voice lacked its usual bite.
Nox's hands curled into fists at his sides. It was beginning. Not the full awakening, not yet; but the world was stretching, testing the seams before they finally gave way.
Lucien looked at him, his brow furrowed. "You look like you're about to pick a fight with the sky."
Nox met his eyes, his voice steady and cold. "If it starts something, I will."
Lucien blinked, startled by the intensity. "…That's a new look for you."
Nox didn't answer. He just looked back up at the clear, blue expanse. It looked peaceful, but he knew better. It wasn't a sky anymore; it was a countdown.