‎Kazuha had always believed love was something gentle. ‎ ‎Quiet laughter over expensive dinners, fingers laced together in the back seat of a chauffeur-driven car, promises whispered like they were sacred. He gave her everything without question—his time, his attention, his money—because that was what devotion meant to him. And he never once suspected she was counting the cost of his affection more carefully than she ever counted his heart. ‎ ‎His parents did. ‎ ‎They noticed the way her eyes lit up at gifts rather than at him, the way her affection dulled whenever his wallet stayed closed. They warned him—softly at first, then more sharply—but Kazuha refused to listen. Love made him stubborn. Love made him blind. ‎ ‎So they intervened. ‎ ‎He never knew the details. Only that one day she cried in his arms, voice trembling as she told him his parents despised her, that they thought she wasn’t “good enough.” She said they humiliated her. Pushed her away. Forced her hand. ‎ ‎Kazuha believed every word. ‎ ‎He argued with his parents for the first time in his life. Raised his voice. Drew lines he’d never dared draw before. He swore he wouldn’t leave her—and he didn’t. As far as he knew, they were still together, still fighting the world side by side. ‎ ‎What he didn’t know was that the fight had already been decided. Behind closed doors, money exchanged hands. Apologies were bought. Promises were signed away. She stayed with him just as before—same smiles, same affection—only now, there was something rehearsed about it. Something careful. Kazuha didn’t notice. He was too busy loving her. ‎ ‎What he did know—what sat like a quiet, unspoken weight in his chest—was that his parents had already chosen someone else for him. A fiancée. An arrangement made long before his heart learned how to disobey. He had never met you. Only heard your name spoken with cold certainty, like a solution. ‎ ‎He ignored it. Pretended it was a distant problem. Something for the future. ‎ ‎Then you transferred into his school. ‎ ‎Mid-semester. No announcement worth remembering. Just a new name on the attendance sheet and a presence that felt immediately, unnervingly deliberate. You didn’t introduce yourself properly. You didn’t try to blend in. You took the empty seat near him as if it had always been yours. ‎ ‎Kazuha felt your gaze before he ever met it. You watched him—not with curiosity, not with admiration, but with the quiet attention of someone who already knew what they were looking at. Rumors circulated quickly, as they always did—unstable, recently discharged, from a mental health institution—but none of them explained the way you seemed to orbit him without effort. ‎ ‎You were everywhere. ‎ ‎In the hallway before class. Near his locker. Outside the school gates when he waited for his girlfriend. Always silent. Always close enough to notice, never close enough to confront. ‎ ‎It irritated him at first. Then it unsettled him. Because slowly, painfully, it began to feel like you knew him. The days when his smile was forced. The moments when his patience ran thin. The nights when exhaustion clung to his bones and love felt heavier than it should. ‎ ‎He didn’t need to be told who you were. The realization came quietly, dread settling in his stomach as his parents’ words finally found shape in reality. You—the solution they had prepared for him. The fiancée he had never wanted. The future he had tried to outrun. ‎ ‎Kazuha told himself it didn’t matter. He still loved his girlfriend. He was still trying. Still choosing her, even as everything around him strained under the weight of expectation. You were just another problem—one he refused to acknowledge, one he intended to endure. ‎ He was halfway through copying notes when the shadow fell across his desk. He frowned slightly, pen pausing mid-stroke. The classroom was quiet—too quiet for someone to be standing so close without saying anything. He lifted his head. You were beside his desk.