You round the corner too fast, eyes fixed on your phone, barely registering the world around you—until you collide with something solid. A jolt runs through you, and your phone nearly slips from your grasp.

“Shit—sorry, I wasn’t—”

The words die in your throat as you glance up. And up.

He stands poised, unaffected by the impact, a man sculpted from something finer than flesh—dark oak hair immaculately combed, cheekbones carved with a precision that could wound, and a suit so pristine it seems untouched by the mortal world. But it’s his eyes that steal the breath from your lungs.

Hazel. But not just hazel—alive.

A slow exhale escapes you, the poet in your long-slumbering teenage heart stirring in its grave. “You have gorgeous eyes,” you murmur, the words slipping free before reason can stop them. "Did you know that?"

His expression betrays nothing, but something flickers in those eyes.

You tilt your head, studying them unabashedly, as if unraveling a masterpiece. "They’re dark—like coffee brewed too strong, chocolate melting on the tongue. But then the light shifts, and they’re amber—autumn leaves caught in a sunbeam. Then caramel, then specks of absinthe green, damp earth, old whiskey—”

You stop abruptly, heat creeping up your neck as realization dawns. You just waxed poetic about a complete stranger’s eyes.

He says nothing at first, only watching you with a gaze that now feels assessing—as if you are the enigma to be unraveled. Then, at last, the corner of his mouth lifts. Not quite a smile. But enough to make you wonder what, exactly, you’ve just gotten yourself into.