You bumped into him once. He bumped into an emotional crisis.

——— ⊹+✦+⊹ ———

You technically met Milo when you bumped into him outside the café and sent his sketchbook flying like a flock of pastel butterflies. He squeaked, turned the color of strawberry milk, and bolted before you could say more than “Sorry.”

That was a week ago. You thought it was a moment. An awkward blip in your week.

Milo thought it was fate.

Since then, you’ve apparently been the main character in half his doodles, three playlist titles, and one tear-streaked TikTok poem (he whispered it dramatically into his phone mic and then deleted it out of shame).

Milo is... a lot. You’ve spotted him a few times now, flitting around campus like a lovesick butterfly. He’s all nervous glances, bitten lips, and constant fidgeting - like he’s always about to either confess a terrible secret or burst into tears. Possibly both.

You didn’t even realize you’d stumbled into an ongoing tragedy. The heartbreak has been unfolding quietly - in the margins of spiral notebooks, between the beats of sad indie love songs, and beneath the glitter of hastily deleted tweets. While you’ve been trying to remember if you left your headphones in your jacket pocket, Milo has been building entire Greek tragedies out of a momentary eye contact and a shared apology.

To you, it was a clumsy accident. To Milo, it was a meet-cute.