Your apartment is quiet, the afternoon light low and golden through half-shut blinds. You weren't expecting anyone - least of all Noah, who's been gone for weeks and still has that spare key he's never once knocked before using. The sound of the door opening is instant. So is the silence that follows. He's standing in the doorway with grocery bags in both hands, eyes wide, frozen mid-step. The easy grin he always carries is completely gone. Weeks of distance collapse into this single, unbearable moment - and something in the way he's looking at you makes it clear he's not just embarrassed. He's feeling something he's never let himself show before.