#studydateau

✧ TITLE: This Is What Falling in Love Feels Like ✧ PAIRING: Odysseus x Penelope ✧ SONG: This Is What Falling in Love Feels Like – JVKE ✧ FANFIC TYPE: soft · college au · fluff w/ emotional intimacy · sunshine boy x quiet genius · “i didn’t realize it was love until i fell hard” · comfort

Feel like sun on my skin—so this is love, I know it is.

Penelope’s life runs on caffeine and deadlines. The smell of burnt espresso clings to her sleeves, her laptop hums like an anxious heartbeat, and her planner—colour-coded to the minute—leaves no room for chaos.

Odysseus is chaos.

He’s late to every class but somehow aces every presentation. He doodles constellations on his notes instead of formulas and leaves sticky notes on Penelope’s laptop that say “you look nice when you forget to breathe.”

He’s everything she swore she didn’t have time for.

It starts like sunlight through a cracked window. One of those warm, golden afternoons where campus feels almost gentle.

She’s sitting under the old oak by the philosophy building, trying to finish a paper. Ody plops down beside her, out of nowhere, holding two smoothies.

“Got you mango,” he says, breathless from running. “You look like you need vitamin D and divine intervention.”

Penelope eyes the cup. “You bribing me or pitying me?”

“Neither,” he grins. “Just loving you responsibly.”

She blinks. “You—what?”

“Loving,” he teases quickly, “as in, platonically feeding your mortal shell.”

But there’s a flicker in his tone. Something softer, something that makes her chest ache before she can laugh it off.

That’s how it goes. Little moments that start to stack like Polaroids.

Late nights studying in his dorm. Fingers brushing when they share a blanket. His laugh—bright, boyish, real—echoing through the quiet.

He’s always making her look up, away from the screen, into the world. “Look,” he’ll say, pointing to some stupidly beautiful thing: a sunset over the dorm roofs, a stray cat sleeping on the quad, a broken vending machine that hums in the key of F.

And every time, she feels something inside her loosen.

Like exhaling after years of holding her breath.

One Friday, he drives her to the edge of town. “Trust me,” he says, eyes gleaming.

The car smells of takeout fries and old vinyl seats. Wind whips through her hair as the city fades into golden fields.

When they stop, the sun is melting into the horizon. He turns up the radio. JVKE’s voice hums through the static.

Feel like sun on my skin / So this is love, I know it is…

Penelope laughs softly. “You’re so dramatic.”

“Can’t help it.” He tilts his head, watching her instead of the sunset. “Everything’s cinematic with you in it.”

She tries to roll her eyes, but he’s smiling that honest, crooked smile. The one that looks like coming home.

He talks about everything and nothing. About how he doesn’t know what to do after graduation. How he’s scared of failing. How he wishes life could just slow down.

Penelope listens. And somewhere between the jokes and the honesty, she realizes she’d stay in this moment forever if she could.

His fingers find hers without a word. It feels natural—like something that’s always been waiting to happen.

The air is warm, humming with the quiet rhythm of the song still playing.

I know it sounds super cliché / But you make me feel some type of way…

He looks at her then—really looks—and says, “You make everything make sense, Pen.”

She blinks. “That’s not possible.”

“It is,” he murmurs. “You’re like… sunlight after a storm. I didn’t even realize I was cold until you showed up.”

Her throat tightens. “You’re just saying that because you’re scared of the dark.”

He smiles. “Maybe. But I think I’d follow you through it anyway.”

Later, when he drops her off at her dorm, she lingers at the door. “Thanks for the drive,” she says quietly.

“Anytime.”

He hesitates. Then adds, softer: “You make me look forward to the end of the day.”

She wants to say something, anything, but words fail her. So instead, she leans up, kisses his cheek, and whispers, “Goodnight, Ody.”

He doesn’t move for a long moment after she disappears inside. Just stands there under the porch light, smiling to himself, replaying her voice in his head.

And later that night, lying in her bed, Penelope can still feel it— The warmth of his hand in hers. The sunlight through the car window. The sound of his laugh.

It’s all the same thing, she realizes. It’s all him.