He holds the door open for her.

That’s how it starts, at any rate. Day after day, travelling the same staircase together, words unspoken aloud in the shell of stairs. (Not side by side, of course, they aren’t those sorts of people.) They follow each other, head down, watching feet, wondering if this’ll be the last time they’ll ever meet (it won’t- but Fortuna has a funny way of playing tricks on people).

‘7:53 in the morning is better with you there.’ She bites words back and breathes out normal, tries to pretend she isn’t ticked that her bag doesn’t sit right on her shoulder and her skin looks too pale in this jacket. He holds the railing too tight, knuckles just as white as the flaking paint sliding ever upwards, thinks that he should say ‘it’s a beautiful day and that you look good, by the way’.

But both refrain, and when he reaches the door first, he enters, because he shouldn’t be that forward to a girl he’s never met, and holds it open expectantly for her. It shouldn’t, by now, take her by surprise (though, where they are, politeness is always a surprise and it’s always nice to be noticed when you’re trying not to be) but she cannot hold back the ‘oh’ and the tiniest of blushes pushing up from her jacket to her neck.

It always hurts her to shake her head at his movement and ascend the next fourteen stairs (she counts every time, one, two, three, my shoes untied and I wish I lied) without him.