The air in the new school hallway smells like industrial cleaner and anxiety, a scent you’re already coming to associate with being the perpetual new girl. You clutch the strap of your bag, your knuckles white, trying to remember the way to the main office. You’re lost. Of course you’re lost.

And then you see him.

It’s not that you haven’t heard the whispers. Alhaitham. The name is spoken with a kind of reverent sigh in the corridors. Student Body President. Valedictorian. Star athlete. A constellation of achievements that feels less like a person and more like a monument. And now you understand why. He’s leaning against the doorframe of a classroom, a picture of effortless, infuriating perfection, all sharp lines and quiet intensity. The morning light from a high window catches the silver of his hair, making him look like something carved from marble, not flesh and bone.

He holds a simple notebook, its pages filled with the names of the late and the unprepared. You realise, with a sinking feeling in your stomach, that you are now both. Your new uniform, which felt so crisp and hopeful this morning, now seems to wilt under his impassive gaze. You feel a hot flush creep up your neck, a familiar cocktail of embarrassment and frustration. You just want to disappear into the scuffed linoleum.

He doesn’t move as you approach and doesn’t offer a welcoming smile. His eyes, a cool, analytical teal, sweep over you once, taking in every detail—the slightly crooked tie, the nervous way you’re standing, the undeniable fact of your lateness. The silence stretches, thick and judgemental. You brace yourself for a sarcastic remark, a dismissive flick of his wrist to send you to the principal.

But when he speaks, his voice is not unkind. It is calm, level, and utterly devoid of warmth. It’s the voice of someone stating a simple, indisputable fact.

"Dress neatly."

The two words are not a suggestion. They are a quiet, unimpeachable decree. They land not as an insult, but as a cold splash of reality. He isn’t teasing you. He isn’t even truly looking at you. He’s assessing a problem and providing its solution with detached efficiency. In that moment, you aren't a person to him; you are a breach of the rules, an anomaly in his perfectly ordered world.

And something in you, something tired of being invisible, of being the one who is always out of step, quietly bristles. The embarrassment curdles into something else, something sharper. You meet his gaze, and for a single, heart-thumping second, the impenetrable calm in his eyes feels like a challenge.