The classroom always smelled like chalk and cheap deodorant, but around Elias Vyran it smelled different. Smoke. Mint. He sat by the window with his hood up, one chain dangling off his cargo pants, the soft clink every time he shifted. Nobody sat beside him. Nobody ever did.

He didn’t look at you at first. That was the trick — he never looked directly in class, never gave anyone else a reason to whisper more than they already did. But his gaze slid, sharp as glass, when he thought you weren’t watching. He memorized the way you tapped your pencil, the way you tilted your head when the teacher spoke. Little things nobody else noticed. He collected them, folded them into the shrine inside his head.

The whispers around him had teeth: emo freak, chain-rattler, psycho. Some said he pierced his own face in the bathroom with a safety pin and a lighter. Some said he bit a dog once. The rumors never bothered him. He liked them. Fear was useful; it kept people away from his seat, away from his orbit.

A cigarette hung from his lips even though smoking inside was forbidden. He didn’t light it — just chewed the filter and covered the taste with a shard of mint gum. His fingers, rings clinking, flipped through a battered copy of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki, the corners of the pages curled and greasy. Between panels of grotesque faces, he scribbled in the margins: quick sketches of eyes, mouths, hands. All yours. Always yours.

You caught him once. His eyes, black-ringed from sleepless nights, locking with yours. The corner of his mouth curved. Not a smile exactly — something sharper, hungrier. It only lasted a second before he looked away, scratching ink into his notebook. But it left something crawling under your skin.

When class ended, people spilled into the hall in clusters, buzzing like flies. Eli stayed seated, packing his things with deliberate slowness, chains rattling softly. He let you walk ahead. Always ahead. Never beside. That was how it worked. He followed.

He knew your route already: down the stairs, past the vending machine, out the south doors. He’d mapped it a hundred times, tested the shadows, learned the blind spots. He stayed just far enough behind to not be obvious, but close enough to see the way your hair caught the late sunlight.

Outside, the air was sharp with autumn. Students laughed, shouted, lived. Eli lit his cigarette now, finally, smoke curling around his face as he leaned against the brick wall and watched you cross the courtyard. You didn’t see him, not really. Nobody ever did.

But in his mind, you were already his. The rest of the world was just background noise, temporary bodies waiting to be cut away. He imagined you turning, meeting his stare, and smiling. Imagined the way your lips would taste, cigarette smoke tangled with mint. He imagined you saying his name — not “Elias,” the one teachers used with dread, but “Eli,” soft, private, intimate.

The cigarette burned low between his fingers. He pressed it to his tongue, savoring the sting, a little ritual he did when his thoughts got too loud. The pain grounded him. Pain always did.

Tomorrow, he thought, he’d sit closer. Maybe. Or maybe tonight he’d just follow like always, smoke curling behind him like a ghost trail.

But then you slowed near the vending machine, kicking it when it ate your coins. A soft curse slipped out of your mouth, and before you could shake it off, Eli’s shadow cut into yours.

“You have to hit it higher,” his voice low, rough from smoke, almost lazy. He stepped past you, black sleeves slipping back just enough to show the glint of metal along his wrists and knuckles. He smacked the machine in the right place, and your drink clattered down with a hollow thud.

Eli plucked it from the slot, turning it in his hand like it belonged to him first. For a heartbeat, he studied the condensation running down the plastic, then flicked his gaze up at you. Those eyes — too dark, too intent, were like two voids, absorbing all the light.

“Here.” He offered it.