Campus security arrived before Derek could leave the conference room.

They did not handcuff him. They did not make a spectacle of it. One officer asked him to sit back down while another placed the cracked black phone into an evidence pouch and photographed the screen.

Derek stared at the clear plastic as though the phone had betrayed him.

Ethan understood the feeling.

For days, a single object had been allowed to shape the story everyone told about him: a wallet under Lucas's bed, an envelope of cash, a phone screen with messages. The objects had seemed more convincing than the people who knew the truth.

Now the same kind of object had turned against Derek.

"I didn't make that recording," Derek said.

Naomi looked at him. "Then who did?"

"I don't know. Somebody used my voice."

"And took photographs of Ethan's wallet on your desk?"

"Those could be edited."

"The original image files contain location and device data," the officer said. "We will verify the records."

Derek's gaze darted around the room. Miles looked down at the table. Lucas sat very still beside Ethan, their hands no longer touching, but close enough that Ethan could feel the warmth of him.

"This is because Vale has money," Derek said again. "You all want to make him look like some hero."

Lucas flinched almost invisibly.

Ethan had once believed Lucas's money was a wall between them. A thing so obvious it had to matter more than anything else. Now he saw the shame behind it—the way Lucas disliked attention whenever people assumed wealth made him invulnerable, the way he gave quietly because he did not know how else to help.

"Nobody is making Lucas a hero," Ethan said.

Derek turned toward him.

"And nobody is making me a victim," Ethan continued. "You stole from me. You planted my wallet. You lied about both of us because you thought it would make us easier to control."

Derek's mouth hardened. "You think you know everything?"

"No," Ethan said. "But I know enough."

The officer asked Derek to step into the hall. He went without a fight, but when the door closed behind him, the conference room seemed to exhale.

Ethan's legs suddenly felt weak.

Naomi collected the papers in front of her. "Residence Life will issue interim no-contact instructions today. Derek will be relocated while the investigation continues. Housing will also offer both of you temporary rooms if you do not feel comfortable returning to Room 318."

Lucas looked at Ethan.

The offer should have been simple. A solution. Safety.

Instead, it made Ethan's stomach knot.

Room 318 had been where Lucas was a stranger, where Northstar was only a voice, where Ethan had learned how easily a person could be both known and unknown. It had held the worst parts of the story.

It had also held the beginning.

"I don't want another temporary room," Ethan said.

Naomi nodded. "You do not have to decide now."

But Ethan knew he had already decided.

That night, they returned to Room 318 only to pack.

Derek's side of the room had been sealed with a temporary notice taped over the door. A housing staff member stood outside while Ethan and Lucas filled laundry baskets with clothes, books, cables, and the ordinary clutter of students who had expected a semester to stay ordinary.

Lucas folded his clothes with geometric precision. Ethan threw T-shirts into a duffel bag until Lucas quietly started folding those too.

"You don't have to do that," Ethan said.

"I know."

They had both learned that phrase from each other.

Ethan watched Lucas smooth a wrinkled shirt with his palm.

"I meant what I said," Lucas said without looking up. "About being wrong."

"I know."

"No, you don't." Lucas set the shirt down. "I was wrong about your money. I was wrong to think you owed me an explanation just because I was scared. And I was wrong to make our friendship online feel safer than treating you with basic kindness in person."

Ethan sat on the edge of his mattress.

"You weren't the only one who did that," he said. "I used the secret because I wanted you to feel what I felt. I made every conversation into a test. I kept setting traps and then acting surprised when you got hurt."

Lucas finally met his eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me in the bathroom?"

The question had been waiting between them since that day.

Ethan thought of the steam, the phone pushed under the door, Lucas's voice through the wall. He thought of being terrified that the one person who knew him best might not want to know him at all.

"Because I was afraid you would look at me and decide Marigold was better than Ethan."

Lucas's face changed.

Not pity. Not surprise.

Grief.

He came closer but stopped a few feet away.

"Ethan," he said, "Marigold was never better than you."

Ethan tried to smile. "You didn't know they were the same person."

"No. But I knew I liked the way he explained things when he was nervous. I knew I liked how he got quiet before he laughed. I knew I wanted to hear from him when something good happened and when something terrible happened. Those things were you."

The room blurred at the edges.

Lucas looked down at his hands. "And I noticed you before I knew it was you. I just didn't know what to do with that."

"You noticed me?"

"Of course I noticed you."

The answer came so quickly that Ethan's breath caught.

Lucas gave a small, unhappy smile. "You leave the desk light on when you're worried. You buy the same terrible instant coffee every week. You hum when you think nobody can hear you. I knew all of that."

Ethan felt the last of his anger shift. It did not disappear. It became something less sharp, something that might eventually heal.

"Then why were you so distant?"

Lucas looked embarrassed. "Because I am terrible at this."

"At what?"

"Wanting someone where they can actually see me."

Ethan laughed softly. "That might be the most honest thing you've ever said."

"I have been trying."

"You have."

Outside, a cart squeaked down the hall. The staff member coughed politely. Time was moving forward whether they were ready or not.

Lucas's eyes dropped to Ethan's mouth, then returned to his eyes.

"Can I kiss you?" he asked.

The question was so careful that Ethan nearly cried.

He had imagined this too many times—Lucas leaning close after a late game, Lucas smiling through a screen, Lucas saying something soft enough to make Ethan forget how afraid he was.

None of those imagined moments had contained a choice.

This one did.

"Yes," Ethan said.

Lucas crossed the small distance between them.

The kiss was not dramatic. It was warm and tentative, a question answered slowly. Lucas's hand rested at Ethan's jaw, steady but not demanding. Ethan curled his fingers into the front of Lucas's shirt and let himself feel the solid reality of him.

No headset.

No username.

No lie protected by a screen.

When they pulled apart, Lucas rested his forehead against Ethan's.

"Hi," he whispered.

Ethan smiled against his mouth. "Hi, Northstar."

Lucas laughed, breathless and disbelieving.

"You can call me Lucas."

"I know."

Their foreheads stayed together for one more second before Ethan stepped back.

"We still have to figure out housing," he said.

"We do."

"And I cannot afford some luxury apartment because you feel guilty."

Lucas's expression sobered immediately. "I don't want to buy your forgiveness."

"Good."

"I want to find a place we can both afford. Or work out a split that is fair."

Ethan raised an eyebrow. "That sounds suspiciously mature."

"I'm an architecture student. I can make a spreadsheet."

"That's not the same thing."

"It is the same thing in my heart."

Ethan laughed. The sound surprised both of them.

Lucas looked at the half-packed room, then back at him.

"Pick one with me," he said. "Not for you. With you."

Ethan looked at the two beds, the empty space beneath the frame where the wallet had been found, the bathroom door that had changed everything.

Then he nodded.

"With me," he said.