Chapter Text
The first problem was that Nene had graduated.
The second problem was that Amane Yugi looked entirely too pleased about it.
"You're late."
Nene stopped in the doorway of the science lab and immediately regretted every decision that had led her here.
Three months had passed since graduation, and just as long since she'd walked out of this room convinced she was finally finished with her former teacher and the complicated disaster of feelings he'd somehow managed to turn her into. Three months should have been enough time for distance to do its work.
Apparently, it hadn't been.
Not that she was here because of him. That would have been ridiculous.
The biology department at her university accepted supervised laboratory work toward certain elective credits, and practical experience looked good on applications. When he'd emailed her about a summer position assisting with the science department, replying had seemed like the sensible thing to do.
Officially, the job involved helping with summer school classes, preparing laboratory materials, organizing department inventory, and earning college credit before the fall semester.
Unofficially, it involved spending several hours a day in close proximity to Amane Yugi.
Nene was beginning to suspect that detail should have appeared much closer to the top of the list.
The fact that she'd accepted the offer less than three minutes after opening the email was, naturally, unrelated to anything.
At least, that was the story she intended to keep telling.
"I'm two minutes early."
Amane glanced at the clock mounted above the whiteboard. His gaze lingered there for a moment before returning to her.
"You were emotionally late."
The answer arrived so effortlessly that Nene felt a familiar surge of irritation.
Not because he was wrong, but because he wasn't.
The science lab looked exactly as she remembered, which felt faintly unfair.
For a moment, standing in the doorway, Nene wondered if someone had frozen the room the day she'd graduated.
Afternoon sunlight spilled through the tall windows in warm, slanting bands, catching dust that drifted lazily through the air. The black lab tables stood in neat rows beneath hanging models of planets and moons that swayed almost imperceptibly whenever the ventilation kicked on. The largest model—a slightly faded Jupiter—turned with slow, dignified stubbornness above the center aisle.
Glass cabinets lined the walls, crowded with beakers, microscopes, specimen jars, and enough expensive equipment to give any student nightmares about accidentally breaking something.
Astronomy charts occupied nearly every available surface.
Apparently, one childhood trip to a planetarium had been enough to permanently reroute the entire trajectory of Amane Yugi's life.
Some people found religion.
Amane had found space.
Nene's gaze wandered before she could stop it.
Her gaze snagged on the third row by the window.
Her old seat.
The realization struck with surprising force—not because the chair itself mattered. It was just a chair: scratched plastic, a slightly uneven leg, nothing special.
But she remembered sitting there.
She remembered pretending to take notes while listening to Amane spend twenty minutes explaining something that definitely wasn't on the curriculum. She remembered staying after class to argue over exam questions she already knew she'd gotten right. She remembered the way sunlight used to spill across that desk in the late afternoon while she stubbornly insisted she wasn't enjoying herself.
The embarrassing part was that everyone had known.
Her friends had known. The class had known. Amane had definitely known.
That last realization was particularly annoying.
"You've looked at that seat three times since you walked in."
Nene immediately snapped her attention elsewhere.
"No, I haven't."
"Hm."
The sound carried enough skepticism to make her want to throw a microscope at him.
A small one, probably.
She crossed her arms. "You don't know that."
"I do."
"You absolutely do not."
Amane finally looked up from the papers spread across his desk.
The corners of his mouth twitched.
"You've looked at it four times now."
Nene hated him.
Unfortunately, hating him had always been surprisingly difficult.
He looked slightly different than she remembered.
Not dramatically so, but just enough.
His hair had grown a little longer, falling carelessly across his forehead in a way that suggested either negligence or confidence. Nene wasn't sure which was worse. A charcoal sweater stretched across his shoulders, the sleeves pushed carelessly to his forearms as though he had no idea what effect that sort of thing had on innocent people trying to live their lives.
It was deeply inconsiderate.
"You were staring again."
Nene nearly dropped her clipboard.
"I was assessing the room."
"Of course."
The smile that followed was small, barely there, and far worse than a full grin.
Before she could formulate a response, he slid a folder across the desk.
"Inventory."
She opened it, read the first page, then the second, and looked back up.
"You hired me to count microscopes?"
"I hired you to assist."
"This is glorified counting."
"It's science."
"That's not science."
"It's the foundation of science."
Nene stared at him.
Amane returned the look with complete sincerity. The man could lie with a straight face when necessary.
The problem was that he usually didn't have to.
"You're impossible."
"You're receiving documented laboratory experience."
"You're exploiting technicalities."
"You're earning elective credit."
"Potentially."
"And a faculty recommendation."
"Potentially."
"Then why are you complaining?"
Nene opened her mouth, then closed it.
Because the truthful answer was that counting microscopes had never been the difficult part.
A laugh threatened despite her best efforts. She refused to give him the satisfaction.
Unfortunately, he noticed that too.
He noticed everything, which had always been part of the problem.
While she moved through the room taking inventory, he returned to grading papers. The quiet settled naturally between them, familiar in a way that felt strangely dangerous.
She hadn't realized how much she'd missed it.
The scratch of his pen. The occasional turn of a page. The soft hum that appeared whenever he concentrated.
Little things. Meaningless things, really. The sort of details that shouldn't occupy space in a person's memory.
And yet somehow they had.
Halfway through counting microscopes, her attention caught on something sitting near the back shelf.
A mug.
White ceramic decorated with cartoon planets.
Nene stopped moving.
The mug itself wasn't surprising.
Teachers owned mugs. Teachers drank alarming amounts of coffee and therefore required an equally alarming number of mugs.
That wasn't the problem.
The problem was that she knew that mug.
Two years ago, after enduring an entire class period of Amane passionately defending Pluto's dignity against what he called "historical slander," she'd bought the stupid thing as a joke.
The planets had smiling faces. Saturn wore sunglasses. Pluto had a tiny crown.
It had been ridiculous.
He'd laughed when she'd handed it to him.
And then—apparently—he'd kept it. Not tucked away in a cabinet somewhere or buried in storage. Not forgotten.
Used.
The handle showed faint signs of wear. A thin coffee stain lingered near the rim where the colors had faded slightly from repeated washing.
Something unexpectedly warm twisted beneath her ribs.
The mug looked lived with, which was a ridiculous thing to think about a mug.
And yet the thought refused to leave.
"Yashiro."
Her heart performed an unfortunate maneuver.
"What?"
Amane wasn't looking at the mug. He was looking at her.
His gaze flicked briefly toward the shelf before returning. Understanding settled between them almost immediately.
Heat climbed into her face.
"Don't."
His eyebrow lifted. "I haven't said anything."
"You were about to."
A brief silence followed.
Then, unexpectedly, he said, "I still use it."
No teasing. No trap waiting beneath the words. Just simple and unguarded honesty.
For reasons she couldn't explain, that landed far harder than any of his usual remarks.
The room seemed quieter afterward. The afternoon sun had shifted, painting long shadows across the lab tables. Somewhere outside, a lawn mower droned faintly across the athletic fields.
Amane looked away first.
A surprisingly rare occurrence.
"You missed a microscope."
Nene glanced down at her clipboard.
Sure enough, she had.
"You're unbelievable."
"So I've been told."
His attention returned to the stack of papers, and without looking up, he mumbled, "Mostly by you."
The laugh escaped before she could stop it. Bright and sudden, it bounced off the laboratory walls and filled the room in a way silence never could.
For the briefest moment, Amane forgot to smile.
The expression slipped away so quickly she might have imagined it.
Except she didn't think she had.
He was simply looking at her.
Not with the patient amusement he reserved for students, or the careful professionalism he wore like a second lab coat.
Just her.
Nene.
The look lasted less than a heartbeat before it vanished.
The familiar composure settled back into place as effortlessly as a curtain falling across a stage. But she'd seen it, and something inside her tightened.
Because the real problem wasn't that she'd come back.
The real problem was that some part of her had never managed to leave.
Three months had passed, yet her seat still waited by the window, the ridiculous mug still occupied its place on the shelf, and Amane Yugi still had the infuriating habit of noticing things she never said aloud.
Somewhere, in the deepest and most inconvenient corner of her mind, a quiet voice suggested that perhaps neither of them had moved on quite as successfully as they'd claimed.
Nene decided that voice was extremely unhelpful.
Then she promptly missed another microscope.