Kinda Complicated

Afternoons & Connections

The campus quad buzzed with afternoon activity as students sprawled across the patchy spring grass. Ash leaned against an oak tree, watching as some lanky guy with perfect teeth stopped Micah on the walkway. The stranger touched Micah's arm while laughing at something he'd said, and Micah's face flushed pink as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Ash's jaw tightened involuntarily. He caught himself counting the seconds of their interaction, a strange hollowness forming in his chest that he couldn't name but couldn't ignore either. He tapped out a cigarette from the pack in his pocket, not lighting it, just rolling it between his fingers as he watched. He tried not to read into the conversation, but every gesture seemed unnaturally intimate; even the way Micah tucked a curl of hair behind his ear felt proprietary, as if inviting deeper attention. Jealousy was not a thing Ash had trained for. Accusation and detachment, sure, but jealousy? It gnawed at the edge of his composure with the slow, deliberate violence of rust.

The two parted, Micah glancing back once before plunging into the throng heading toward the library. Ash watched the stranger fade into the blur of students, then drifted toward Micah, pacing his approach so they'd 'accidentally' intersect at the main steps. He told himself it was nothing, just a coincidence, just a need to stretch his legs after his shift at the pawn shop, which had been haunted only by fluorescent light and the lingering smell of old tin. But even as he invented the excuse, he felt the burn of his own transparency.

Micah reached the library steps just ahead of Ash. He hesitated at the threshold, as if remembering some task he wasn't sure he wanted to perform, and then pivoted to stare at the side door as if it might blink first. Ash took the opportunity, sidling up with a nonchalance that fooled neither of them.

''Hey,'' Ash said, his voice carrying more gravel than usual.

Micah startled, but only a little. ''Hey, yourself.'' He was wearing a T-shirt with the architectural blueprint of a radio tower printed on it, fitted badly enough to seem deliberate. Under one arm he carried a folder swollen with handouts. ''New shift?''

''Yeah,'' Ash said. He tried to look casual, flicking the unlit cigarette between his fingers. ''Had to restock the glass animals. Big day for crystal dolphins, apparently.''

Micah smiled, the real one, the one that tipped his jaw up and made his eyes squint with honest happiness before he could discipline the reaction. ''They sell those?''

"Everyone wants a mascot for their broken dreams," Ash said. He forced himself to meet Micah's gaze and not look back at the memory of the other guy's hand on his arm. ''It's a biology thing. Or a capitalism thing. I confuse those a lot.''

There was a faint echo of tension around them, and Ash had the sudden, absurd idea that maybe he should just ask—was that guy your boyfriend? But he’d never had the muscle for directness, and besides, it was the kind of question that always sounded like an accusation, even when it wasn’t.

Micah looked at his own shoes, a pair of battered canvas slip-ons that had once been white. ''I walked through the fountains,'' he admitted, as if it were a crime. ''They put dish soap in again and the quad looked like something out of a carwash commercial. I guess I’m more Pavlov than Darwin, in terms of adaptation.'' He waggled his toes. ''They’ll never forgive me in the fine print of my lease agreement.''

Ash let the laugh escape, surprisingly unfiltered. Micah always did this—took the edge off by recontextualizing it in some new, ridiculous light, like the world was a broken window, and he was the only one who saw a pattern in the cracks.

They sank into step together, but instead of the silence congealing between them, Micah nudged: ''Aren’t you going to ask?''

Ash didn’t break stride. ''About the guy?'' He paused, weighing his next move—whether to bluff or go full honesty. He surprised himself by choosing the latter. ''I wanted to punch him in the teeth. Not that I would, but, you know. The thought was there.''

Micah startles and shakes his head, ''No, that wasn’t what I meant?'' Ash c****d his head, resisting the impulse to laugh too hard or too soft. ''Okay, then what?''

Micah chewed the inside of his cheek, mulling the words. ''I thought you’d ask me what I was doing here. Or why I looked like I was trying to break into the library at gunpoint.''

Ash scanned the concrete under Micah’s feet, like evidence might have pooled at the baseboards. ''Actually, that’s more your style. Armed with library cards and existential dread.''

Micah grinned, a flash of mischief breaking the tension. ''I’m on a hunt. They moved all the midcentury architecture books to the sub-basement, and now it’s like spelunking in a tomb for failed optimism. But I have a deadline, so I’m risking tetanus and academic ruin.''

They reached the entryway. The old brick of the library’s facade loomed overhead, the steps pitted and warped by decades of university abuse. Ash held the door, pretending not to linger on how Micah’s arm brushed close when he passed.

Inside, the air was heavy with that distinct cocktail of old glue, backpack musk, and exhausted ambition. There was an unspoken rule about voices: anything above a murmur risked instant exile, but Micah, apparently immune, spoke as if the world’s hush belonged to someone else. ''Want to help me carry a stack?'' he asked, already scanning the directory like he was mapping a heist target.

“Sure,” Ash said, with a shrug that failed to hide his relief.

The stacks got older and less forgiving the deeper they went. On the first landing, sunlight filtered through grimy windows, but in the sub-basement, only flickering fluorescents survived. Their footsteps echoed off the cinderblock, and Ash noticed how close Micah walked, like he was triangulating off Ash’s warmth. It was a new thing—subtle, but more deliberate than the accidental collisions of crowded parties or alcohol-buoyed evenings. Ash had to keep checking himself, compartmentalizing the flutter in his chest as just nerves, as just proximity, as just the slow grind of having let someone so close their gravity started causing tides in him.

''Here,'' Micah said, pausing in front of an ancient wire cart overloaded with periodicals from a century that promised a future which never came. ''Help me with these? If they see me with more than five, the desk staff gets territorial.''

Ash braced the cart while Micah sorted through bindings that looked like they’d been through at least two regime changes. ''You could just take photos on your phone,'' Ash pointed out, watching Micah cradle a volume with the reverence of handling a newborn.

''And miss the tactile satisfaction of knowing someone in 1964 underlined 'visionary' every time it showed up?'' Micah replied. He turned one page, showing Ash the frantic, compulsive highlights, each stroke evidence of some long-ago desperation, or at least a desire to be remembered. Micah’s thumbs skated over the margins with a kind of respectful intimacy; it occurred to Ash, watching, that he’d never seen anyone treat a thing so gently, human hands or paper alike.

They filled the crook of Ash's arm with eight volumes before retreating to a secluded alcove. The study carrels here were half-rotted plywood, initials scored deep in the surfaces, one leg on every desk perpetually uneven. Micah cleared a space with the back of his hand, sent a blizzard of dust motes swirling in the thin fluorescence. He sat, and Ash followed, cradling the pile to his chest until the circulation left his fingertips.

''I don’t think you’d understand,'' Micah said, already lost in the first book, voice half-muffled by the pages. ''Most people don’t. Architecture’s what matters to me, not because it’s beautiful, but because every building is basically a monument to what someone wished they could control.'' He stared at the columned photograph of a department store built like a fortress, its facade almost fascist in its optimism. ''All this effort to make something permanent, but it’s usually just a place for people to get lost in.''

Ash, slouched with his chin in his hand, let the statement hang. He watched the way Micah’s jaw worked as he read. The lines of his neck, the fretful dance of his thumb over the edge of the page.

''You like dead places,'' Ash said. ''You see them and it’s like… you find the bones sexy. Or at least significant.''

Micah gave a small, pleased smile. ''You’d make a better critic than you think. What about you? Is there anything you wish would last?''

The question landed so squarely in Ash’s ribcage he almost barked a laugh. Instead, he leaned back, let his head rest against the cold cinderblock wall, and breathed out, ''Nope. Every time I tried, it did the opposite.'' He shrugged. ''At some point, you just stop fighting the entropy.''

Micah shut the book, smiling over the top edge at Ash. ''That's defeatist.''

Ash raised an eyebrow, interested to see if Micah would chase down the thread. ''Isn't architecture just a fancy way of denying death?''

''For a while,'' Micah admitted. ''But at least some of them leave a mark. Even ruins mean somebody tried.'' He looked at the book on the table, letting his finger drum the spine. ''I like thinking about the hands that built things. How every thumbprint is still there, even after everything else vanishes.''

Ash watched the way Micah touched the book, and for the first time since arriving, felt the hostility in his own body go dormant. It was replaced by something gentler, a slow recognition that maybe what he felt right now had nothing to do with libraries or sub-basements or even the way Micah was looking at him. Maybe it was just relief, exposure and forgiveness in a single, unguarded moment.

Micah picked up on the shift. He closed the book, the report of the cover surprisingly loud in the stillness, then leaned forward, elbows folded, marshalling his words. ''Were you really jealous of that guy?'' he asked, finally, as if the question had been fermenting all along.

''It’s stupid,'' Ash said, and he meant it; his mouth curled into a smile that wanted to hide. ''I barely know how to spell ‘jealousy.’ But yeah. I saw him and I—'' He shrugged. ''Wanted to hit him, or maybe just push you behind me, which is… not how I work.''

Micah looked at him across the battered carrel, eyes so direct it felt combative. ''I didn't even know the guy. He's in two of my classes and thinks that means we're friends. Mostly he talks about CrossFit and the time his uncle fell off a Greek ruin.''

Ash huffed, the humor cutting through the last of his armor. ''Guess I'll have to stick to vending machine anecdotes.''

''I like your stories better,'' Micah replied—just as direct, but with soft imploring at the edges. ''They're honest. Or at least you don't pretend they're not broken.'' He tapped the table, as if punctuating the truth of it.

They sat in the hush, the only sound the far-off thump of books being reshelved somewhere above. Ash found his gaze drifting to Micah's hands, the way he spun a pen between his fingers, warmth still lurking just under the skin from where the other guy had touched him. Some ancient part of Ash wanted to ask if that handprint had faded—or if it ever would—but that would mean admitting how much space the idea of Micah took up in Ash’s head. So instead he said, “You’re weird, you know that?” The words came out soft, almost fond. ''You could have picked anything to obsess over, and you chose the graveyards of consumerism.''

Micah shrugged, feigning sheepishness. ''I like failed things. Makes the world feel less... final.'' He set the pen down, looked at Ash carefully. ''Also, you’re one to talk. Remember when you told me you wanted to break the world just to see if it would apologize?''

Ash blinked, startled by the memory. He did remember: a walk at four a.m., high on rain and insomnia, Mikey asking if the city ever felt sorry for anyone. He’d said it as a joke, but hearing it now, Ash wondered if it had been a truth he’d never let himself claim.

He reached absently for another of the books, but let his hand fall short, settling instead on the carved edge of the desktop. ''I wasn’t kidding, you know,'' Ash said, though he sounded more like he was borrowing bravery than making a confession. ''Some days I figure if I set things on fire, at least I get to watch what grows back.'' The joke landed like a brick in a bucket; Micah didn’t blink, just pressed his palm flat onto the fake wood, mere inches from Ash’s fingers.

Ash felt an i***t urge to close the distance. Maybe it was the dead air of the library, maybe the tunnel vision that came from losing time in someone else’s rhythm. But the world was quiet, and the sky outside was losing the argument with dusk, and so he brushed his pinky just barely against Micah’s hand, like testing the electric charge between two live wires.

Micah inhaled, not quite a gasp, not quite a laugh. ''You’re a mess,'' he said, smiling so much that the last syllable of the word caught in his throat and made him snort. ''That's what I like. Most people spend years putting themselves together, or pretending they ever could. Sometimes it's nice to meet a person who's just... in progress, you know?'' He tilted his head, watching Ash as though the right angle might allow him to see the shape of the thought as it formed.

Ash wanted to say he didn't like being a mess, but that would be a lie, and worse, an obvious one. So instead he flicked the corner of the book with his thumbnail and said, ''You’re not exactly a finished product, either.''

Micah looked down at their hands on the desk, then up again, the implication loud. ''No,'' he agreed. ''But I think I'd rather be under construction than condemned.'' He moved his hand, a quiet recalibration—fingers now parallel, then a soft slide closer until the knuckles almost touched.