The late afternoon sun slanted through the single window of our dorm room, painting a long, warm rectangle across the worn carpet. Ronan was hunched over his desk, the familiar frown of concentration on his face as he wrestled with a physics problem set. From my bed, I could hear the faint, rhythmic tap of his pencil. My world was filled with the soft rustle of pages and the scent of old paper from my philosophy text; his, with the silent, intense language of equations and the clean smell of whiteboard markers. We came from planets with different gravitational pulls. My memories were of suburban quiet, of debates around a crowded dinner table, of a life measured in bookshelves and family vacations. Ronan’s were of a bustling port city, of learning to navigate crowded markets before he could ride a bike, of a resilience forged from early mornings and his father’s quiet, hardworking example. He spoke of home with a practical fondness, a stark contrast to my own nostalgic, sprawling stories. Yet, here in this small, shared space, our orbits had synchronized. It wasn't about finding common ground in our pasts, but building a new one in our present. Our friendship was forged during those endless, caffeine-fueled nights before exams, a silent pact of mutual survival. It was in the easy trade—he’d explain the baffling logic of calculus, and I’d help untangle the knots in his essay prose. It was in the shared, ridiculous laughter over a failed attempt at making ramen in a coffee pot, and in the comfortable silences that needed no filling. He looked up, catching me staring into space. "You're thinking too loud," he said, a ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth. "It's disturbing the quantum field of my calculations." "Your quantum field is disturbing my existential peace," I shot back, throwing a pillow at him with practiced aim. He caught it, his smile widening into a grin. Different worlds, indeed. But this room, this chaotic, shared slice of life with its mismatched posters and blended music playlists, had become a world of its own. And in it, we were both natives.