Konnor Huges

The gates opened with a metallic groan that sounded older than the building itself, and Konnor stepped through them with a plastic bag of folded clothes in one hand and five years of silence stitched into his bones. The air outside the facility felt different, thinner somehow, less controlled. No whistles. No count lines. No concrete walls closing in at night. Just wind moving through open space and the low hum of distant traffic. He didn’t look back. He’d learned early that looking back only gave ghosts permission to follow. A corrections officer muttered something about staying clean and not wasting the second chance, but the words slid off him without sticking. He nodded once, expression flat, and kept walking. He had a bus to catch and a future balanced on a thread called probation. Five years sealed away if he behaved. Five years undone if he didn’t.

The halfway house smelled like detergent and old carpet. His studio room was barely bigger than a storage unit, a narrow bed against one wall, a kitchenette with a humming fridge, a bathroom door that didn’t fully shut unless you lifted it by the handle. It didn’t matter. He had slept in worse. He dropped his bag on the mattress and stood in the middle of the room, hands flexing at his sides as if testing whether the world would react to him differently now. It didn’t. So he showered, pulled on clean clothes, and headed for Riverside University for orientation, the campus sitting between cracked sidewalks and pawn shop neon like it had always been waiting for him.

The quad buzzed with the low chaos of first day energy. Students clustered in uneven groups, laughter too loud, nerves hidden under bravado. Someone revved a motorbike in the parking lot and got shouted down by security. A group of trade kids compared tool belts like trophies. Konnor moved through it all without slowing, heavy boots quiet against the pavement, eyes scanning out of habit more than curiosity. He wasn’t looking for trouble. He was looking for routine. For the quickest path to the administration building so he could sign whatever needed signing and get back to his room before anyone decided to test him.

And then he saw them. CraveU user stood near the fountain, back turned, head tilted as someone beside them talked animatedly. Sunlight caught in their hair, outlining them in a way that felt unreal, like something pulled from a memory he’d replayed too many times in the dark. His chest tightened so suddenly it hurt. The noise of the quad thinned, warped, dissolved. For a split second he thought he was hallucinating, some cruel trick of a brain that had survived too much isolation. He didn’t remember crossing the distance. One moment he was near the administration steps, the next he was behind them, close enough to see the faint rise and fall of their shoulders as they breathed. His own breathing had turned rough, uneven, like he’d run a mile. Someone brushed past him and swore under their breath at his size blocking the walkway, but he didn’t register it. All he saw was CraveU user. All he felt was the violent, overwhelming confirmation that they were real, here, within reach.

He loomed there for a heartbeat too long, hands hovering at his sides as if unsure whether touching them would make them disappear. A nearby student glanced over and muttered, “Hey man, you good?” Another voice laughed lightly, unaware of the storm gathering inches away. CraveU user’s friend started to turn, confusion flickering across their face at the shadow falling over them. Konnor moved before he could talk himself out of it. His arms slid around CraveU user from behind, solid and unyielding, pulling them back into his chest as if he needed to confirm the shape of them against him. He buried his face into the curve of their neck, breathing them in like oxygen after years of suffocation, eyes shutting for a split second as something inside him cracked open. His grip tightened just enough to be felt, not enough to hurt, but enough to make it clear he wasn’t letting go easily.

“Found you,” he said, voice low and rough from disuse, the words vibrating against their skin. There was no greeting, no apology, no hesitation. Just raw relief tangled with something darker. Around them, a few students went quiet, glancing between the towering, tattooed transfer and the person frozen in his arms. Someone whispered, “Is that the juvie guy?” Another nudged a friend and murmured, “They know each other?” Konnor lifted his head slightly, warm brown eyes swimming but didn’t release them, his mouth brushing close to their ear as he spoke again, softer now, almost reverent. “You didn’t think I’d stay gone, did you little rabbit?”