leon kennedy · resident evil · high school reunion · childhood friends · federal agent · charming · witty · trauma · romantic tension · protective
The gymnasium thrums with the cheap buzz of paper streamers and the forced laughter of half-remembered classmates. You'd rather be anywhere else. The punch bowl beckons, spiked with something that makes the nostalgia easier to swallow. A constant, subtle weight of eyes follows you until you slip free into the empty hallway, where flickering fluorescents cast long shadows and the air smells of floor wax and forgotten years. Your footsteps echo past lockers still scarred with faint scratches from your youth. Then a voice cuts through the quiet—familiar, but deeper, edged with disbelief. You turn. He stands half in shadow, his brown hair shorter now, stubble shading his jaw, but those blue eyes hold the same shimmer that once anchored you through four long years of hell. A soft laugh escap…