The smell of floor wax and new stationery always made Cyan Zhang feel slightly nauseous.
It was the first week at North High, and the hallways were a chaotic sea of teenagers. Cyan kept his head down, his shoulders hunched as if trying to shrink his thin frame. In his hand, he gripped his sketchbook like a shield. To anyone else, it was just a book of paper; to him, it was where he actually lived.
He walked past the cafeteria, his eyes scanning the crowd until they landed on a familiar ponytail.
Li Jia.
His heart did a slow, painful somersault. He had liked her since eighth grade. He'd spent the entire summer rehearsing a single sentence: "Hey Jia, do you want to grab a drink after school?"
He took a shaky breath and started toward her. "Jia—"
Before he could even finish her name, a tall boy in a varsity jacket slung an arm around her shoulders. Jia laughed, a bright, easy sound, and leaned into him. The boy whispered something in her ear, and she beamed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
Cyan froze. The world seemed to go quiet for a second, leaving him standing there like a glitch in the background of someone else's movie. He turned on his heel so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet, his face burning with a heat that felt like it would never leave.
Stupid, he thought, ducking into the nearest empty classroom. So incredibly stupid.
He found his seat at the very back of his next class, sitting by the window. He opened his sketchbook, wanting to bury himself in ink and graphite. He felt like a ghost—invisible, awkward, and completely out of place.
Then, the door opened.
The chatter in the room didn't just stop; it changed. It became a focused hum of whispers. Cyan looked up, and for the first time that day, he forgot how to breathe.
Wang Meilin walked in.
She didn't walk so much as float through the room. Her uniform was perfect, her hair fell over her shoulders like silk, and she carried an air of effortless confidence that felt like a different species compared to Cyan's stuttering nerves. She sat down three rows ahead of him, laughing at something a friend said.
Cyan stared. It wasn't just that she was pretty—it was the way she carried herself. She was everything he wasn't. She was the sun, and he was a shadow.
Slowly, almost without realizing he was doing it, Cyan's hand began to move. He flipped to a fresh, crisp page.
He didn't look at his hand; he kept his eyes on the curve of Meilin's profile, the way the sunlight from the window caught the edge of her eyelashes. The pencil scratched against the paper—light, quick strokes. He captured the tilt of her head, the slight dimple when she smiled, the elegant line of her neck.
On the page, she looked like a goddess.
A loud thwack of a textbook hitting a desk nearby made him jump. He slammed the sketchbook shut, his heart hammering against his ribs. He looked around frantically, but no one was watching the quiet boy in the back row.
He looked at the cover of his book, then toward the back of Meilin's head. He knew he'd probably never have the courage to say a single word to her. But as he gripped his pencil, a new, strange ache started in his chest—sharper than the one Li Jia had left.
He opened the book just a crack, peeking at the secret portrait.