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When Jacob stepped out of the teaching building, he found Julia waiting downstairs.
She stood quietly beneath the winter sky, her presence carrying that effortless quality she always had — the kind that drew the eye before the mind could catch up. She had always been beautiful, but where she had once carried the bright, open warmth of summer, there was something different about her now. Quieter. More like a plum blossom holding its ground in the cold.
Beside her stood Amira and Kyle.
The moment Amira spotted Jacob, her expression darkened. She hadn't forgotten the sight of Julia sobbing her eyes out that day, and she held Jacob directly responsible. If Julia hadn't held her back, she would have found a way to make him regret it. She settled for glaring.
"Jacob, you're finally out." Kyle's face broke into a wide grin as he jogged over. "I figured you had to be in there — the principal called in the top two from every year, right?" He leaned in slightly and lowered his voice, though his grin made the subtlety pointless. "Since you're here, Amira and I were actually just about to head off — take a walk around campus, you know how it is. So you can see Julia home."
Jacob blinked. Julia looked equally caught off guard.
Amira, however, didn't look surprised at all. She let Kyle steer her away with a resigned expression, saying nothing.
She knew exactly what he was doing. A few days ago, Kyle had tried to rope her into this scheme and she'd turned him down flat. But then, over the past week, she had caught Julia alone more than once — quietly opening her chat with Jacob, scrolling through his social feed, checking to see if he'd posted anything new. Julia never said a word about it. She just closed the screen whenever she noticed Amira nearby.
Amira had made up her mind after that. Julia hadn't moved on. She was just hiding it — and doing a poor job of it. So when Kyle came to her again today, she went along.
She hoped, genuinely, that the two of them could sort things out. She had heard Julia mention Jacob almost every day for as long as she could remember. The lock screen on Julia's phone was still a photo of the two of them on the podium at the High School Cup — unchanged, all this time.
Kyle, walking away, kept glancing back at Jacob, winking and flashing a thumbs-up with the enthusiasm of someone who believed he was very smooth.
I've got this handled. Just relax.
Their figures grew smaller and finally disappeared around a bend, leaving Jacob and Julia alone under the glow of a streetlamp. The night was quiet.
Jacob looked at her. The lamplight caught her shoulder-length golden hair and the clean lines of her face, and for a moment she looked less like a person and more like something out of a painting.
Julia felt his gaze. She reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then turned her head to look away. Her lashes trembled slightly.
Whatever composure she was projecting, her heart was clearly doing something else entirely.
"I'll walk you to the gate," Jacob said quietly. His voice came out a little unsteady.
"That's not necessary." Julia shook her head politely, then looked up, meeting his eyes for just a moment before glancing away again.
"I'm heading out through the side gate anyway," Jacob said, keeping his tone easy. "It's on the way. I'll leave once you're through."
A pause. "...Alright, then."
They walked together through the campus, the dim path stretching ahead of them, their shadows lengthening under each streetlamp they passed.
Neither of them spoke for a long while.
The quiet between them was fragile — the same kind that had settled over them the night Jacob had confessed. He wanted to say something. Several times, words formed at the back of his throat and dissolved before they reached his lips.
What would he even say? That he had two girlfriends — Nina and Raya?
So he said nothing.
They were a few minutes from the side gate when Julia finally broke the silence, her voice soft. "Jacob... how have you been lately?"
"I'm alright," he said after a beat. "Busy, mostly. You?"
"Same as always. Classes, training." A small smile crossed her face — the kind that looked familiar but felt like it belonged to someone he was only just meeting. Their exchange had the rhythm of old friends reconnecting after years apart. Comfortable on the surface, but with something guarded underneath.
Julia smoothed her hair again, a habit of hers, and slowed her pace almost imperceptibly. She glanced at him sideways with an expression carefully arranged to look casual.
"Actually — how are things with your girlfriend?"
The question was out before she could stop it. She regretted it immediately. She knew she shouldn't have asked. But standing next to him like this, she hadn't been able to help herself.
Because she still didn't know. Jacob wasn't close with many girls — she could count them on one hand — and whoever it was clearly had a complicated enough situation that he'd kept it secret. She'd been turning it over in her mind for days, and every time she ran through the list, she kept arriving at the same answer.
Nina.
The more she'd thought about it, the more it fit. They spent the most time together. They'd trained side by side through multiple Secret Realm expeditions. And then there was Jacob's birthday — she'd had plans with him that afternoon, but he'd said he had something to do with Nina. At the time it hadn't seemed like anything. Now it felt like the most obvious thing in the world.
She thought of Nina's figure — tall, long-legged — and then reminded herself, with perhaps more satisfaction than was entirely dignified, of certain other comparisons that came out in her favor.
She was still working through this mental accounting when Jacob's voice cut through her thoughts.
"It's... going okay."
His expression had gone a little stiff.
She pressed on, keeping her voice light. "Who is she? Can you tell me?" A pause. "It's Nina, isn't it?"
Jacob looked mildly surprised — and inwardly directed a string of silent accusations at Kyle.
I haven't even decided anything yet, and you already told her? Kyle, you absolute blabbermouth.
He assumed, naturally, that Kyle had let it slip. There was nothing else to do but go with it.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "It's her."
Julia absorbed that without changing her expression.
"...How did you two get together?"