A gas mask lovingly adjusted, a hand squeezed before approaching police lines and a frantic search through swirls of tear gas - Abby and Nick’s relationship has blossomed on the barricades during Hong Kong’s long summer of protest.
Most of the frontline protesters driving the months-long pro-democracy demonstrations are students -- so-called “braves” facing pepper spray, rubber bullets and arrest in defence of their city’s values.
Like Abby and Nick -- who are keeping their real names under wraps -- many are young, bookish and should be on the fast-track to well-paying jobs in the city’s financial services sector.
Instead a political awakening has thrust them onto the frontlines. For endless weeks they have fended off tear gas and run from police baton charges, an unlikely band of rebels -- labelled “rioters” by Hong Kong police and “terrorists” by China -- who have forged tight bonds over a long holiday of demonstrations.
Nick, 20, met Abby, a year his junior, at university in June as debate on an extradition bill to China began to fizz. Opposition to the bill fueled mass rallies. Peaceful protest gave way to pitched battles with police.
The pair have since spent hours together on the barricades facing riot police -- dates of sorts, spiced up by adrenaline and fired by the injustice at the city government’s refusal to give ground.