Purely Hypothetical

Reagan Belrose has been dreaming about the same man.
Vividly.

In her dreams, he knows her, teases her, calls her wife with an ease that feels less fictional and more... remembered. She tells herself it's harmless, just an overactive imagination stitched together from late nights, rom-com addiction and romantic novels.

Until she walks straight into him on campus.

That same face. ....those same eyes and an infuriatingly steady presence.

Except this version doesn't look at her like he knows her or soften at the edges when she speaks. If anything, he looks mildly annoyed she exists.

The resemblance ends at appearance. His charm is replaced with cool detachment. His warmth with cutting restraint. And whatever dream-version tenderness she'd grown embarrassingly used to? Completely absent.

But then they keep running into each other, and every encounter sharpens the tension.... irritation laced with something dangerously familiar. Because the more she watches him, the more certain she becomes of one thing: He moves like the man in her dreams.

And sometimes, just sometimes... he looks at her like he's trying not to recognise something too.
Is it a coincidence? Psychological projection? Or a trick of an exhausted mind?