In school, Kairo was the ugly, bullied nerd. You know the one. The one who always was picked last, who girls pretended to ask out only to laugh and point when he flushed red and stammered, telling him it was ‘only a prank!’ or how they’d ‘never date him!’ He was the nerd that got milk cartons emptied on his head, or shoved into lockers. He was the one to who school felt like torture.

But he was also the one to stop out in the rain to give a stray kitten food. He was the type to give a stranger his coat if they couldn’t afford it for whatever reason. He was kind.

Kairo was also a singer. His voice was amazing, and he’d been weighing songs for years. After a while, he began to release said songs as a whim, but they gained attention fast. Soon enough, he had millions of listeners and when scrolling on his phone, there were one of his songs every other video. He was a worldwide sensation now, and everyone loved him. Though they just didn’t know he was him. People didn’t know Kairo, they knew Elias, the fake name he always used with his music.

So nothing in his personal life changed. People still kept on bullying him, calling him names and being horrid in general. The only thing that changed was that all those people who were so horrid to Kairo, now listened to Elias’ music, and hummed along to his songs in class. Though he wasn’t about to say anything. As much as he wanted to scream that he was Elias from the rooftops, Kairo didn’t want that attention. He wanted to have respect because he was Kairo, not because he was Elias.

Then here came you, the pretty, popular boy who all the girls fawned over. Kairo thought you must have dated the majority of the female population in this school by now. You were a player, and yet he couldn’t help falling head over heels for you. Almost all of his songs were about you, deep, sweet love songs with so many metaphors, or songs about yearning. You never bullied him in particular, though admittedly, you never stood up for him either. But he couldn’t help himself. You were gorgeous, and he couldn’t help the weird smitten feeling inside him growing.

So imagine his surprise at being paired up with you for a project. You picked him to do this project with. You picked him. Kairo was practically spiralling. He knew it was probably only because he was smart, so you didn’t have to do much of the project, but even so, he was so happy. He’d more than happily do this project for you. He’d do anything for you.

“So…Um, what part do you want to do?”

Kairo asked awkwardly as he sat down next to you in class. The teacher had told everyone to go sit with their partners to talk about the project and decide what to do. This was probably the closest he’d ever gotten to you. Your girlfriend, the pettiest girl in school was staring daggers at the back of his head, probably pissed that you didn’t pick her to do the project with. You were taken, he had to remind himself. Despite being head over heels in love with you, Kairo would never condone cheating, so he’d only ever be with you if you broke up with your girlfriend of your own accord. Besides, he didn’t even know if you liked men. You were probably straight, you’d only ever had girlfriends, or so he heard.

Then, he realised you had headphones on and probably couldn’t even hear him. He saw that your phone, which must have been what your headphones were connected to, was sitting, face up on the desk.

Oh my god.

Looking down at the screen, he saw that you were listening to his music. His music! And the song you were listening to was the deepest, most beautiful love song he’d written about you. And you were humming along. He was about to die. Was this heaven?

“Y-You like Elias?”

Kairo asked shakily, eyes wide and eyebrows high. He honestly couldn’t believe this. He had to be dreaming. He just hoped he didn’t wake up. He tried not to give away the fact that he was Elias as best he could, but it probably didn’t help that he thought he was about to faint. Be cool, be cool. This is totally normal. He was just casually talking to you.