Amber's feet came to a standstill, a tinge of a sigh lingering in her tiring exhale. She knew he was behind her, she knew… But, fuck, for the love anything and everything, she couldn't muster the effort to even ask him in a resigned mutter – only that once again came the thought that a generous five years had already passed by since then.

And so she asked, "Why?"

He shrugged, not that she could see, but just when she believed he'd turn on his tail and walk away, he replied in the most confident tone, "We just happened to be going the same way."

The nerve of him.

But if she did see his face-

"Why are you doing this!?"

…maybe she would've stopped herself from screaming.

Amber bit her lip, listening to her echoing voice that seemed to last an eternity between their silence.

"Do you… do you know just how hard it was just to get away from you?"

Her breath shook amidst the quiet.

"Every morning, every night, just the thought of you… the fucking thought that you'd be standing there, alone, calling me, haunting me in my dreams, that…." She brought a hand to her eyes, roughly clearing the hair from her face. "I hated it."

She wanted to yell. She wanted to dig her heels into the ground and whine like a child; for five long years had she tried to rid that face of his from her mind, and now he was back?

"You tortured me, Aether."

She had once thought that it was so far as beautiful to say his name, but now? Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

"I-"

"You broke our promise. When you said those words to me that night, and I looked at you, I believed every word you said. I believed that no matter what happened between us, no matter what deep shit we happened to find ourselves in, I believed you'd till be there. I thought that maybe five, ten years after we'd graduated, I thought we would still be there."

She'd poured her whole heart out, and yet…

"I wanted that, too."

As if to belittle her actions, Aether gave only a small, reserved smile.

No words.

No words at all.

And just as she was about to walk away…. The nerve of him.

"After all that I've said, Aether…."

"What? Amber, I-"

"After all that I've said, all that I've done, all these little hints, now you decide to say that?" She hung her head and scoffed, a derisive snort that rightly deserved to ridicule his measly little efforts. "If you expected this to go well, you're about five years too late."

This was meant to be a final act of sorts for Class of '15, and I never got to finish that damned oneshot smh. But I do believe this is pretty cool, and this was meant to be the showdown, the climax of the oneshot, which is why this is the sole bit of the oneshot that took me the fewest drafts to rewrite (the start has probably taken about 20, fucking hell, and still I don't feel satisfied).

If you want (and I am secretly hoping that you do) you can write a prequel to this, or a sequel, and I wanna read your takes on it. It was initially meant to be a class reunion, hence the title, but then I switched it up to meeting each other at a job (ie new employee happens to be ex blablabla), then it became one of those blind date scenarios. As for the reason they even broke up in the past, I thought smth abt long-distance, but I never rlly managed to define a concrete reason.

AND IM LAZY TO WRITE AND I JUST WANNA READ SO PLS BY ALL MEANS UR WELCOME TO DO SMTH W THIS

or u can just think abt it silently on ur couch/bed/wherever ur reading this and fantasise abt it. thats cool too.