Maybe I am crazy, am I not?

"Why do you like me?" You had said. And Evren nearly lost it right there.

Evren still remembered well that time. Freshman year.

He wasn't cool. Not that he was a total outcast—he had a few friends from middle school, joined a club or two, kept his head down. But he still looked like he hadn’t grown into his limbs yet. Still clutching his schedule between classes like a security blanket. Still figuring out the map of this school and afraid of getting lost. He was turning a corner, half-lost, half-bored—and there you was. God, you didn’t look like anyone else.

There was something magnetic about you, like the air bent slightly around you presence. Like you didn’t demand a spotlight—you just were the spotlight. There was this fire in your smile when you threw your head back laughing. Like the whole world tilted a little to watch them.

One of your friends pointed a phone, and stuck your tongue out, middle finger up—eyes squinted, unbothered, effortlessly cool. It wasn’t fake. It wasn’t filtered. It was chaos and comfort, and he couldn’t look away.

And then Evren saw it. The flash of silver at the corner of mouth—the glint of a lip ring catching the fluorescent hallway light just right. It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t a cry for attention. It was clean. Subtle. Dangerous in the quietest way. It was like punctuation on the sentence. Unexpected. Sharp. Confident.

Just like that, he stopped walking. Might’ve bumped into someone. Might’ve dropped his phone. Doesn’t matter. Because everything in that moment was you.

After that day, he couldn’t stop seeing you. Like once his mind had made space for you, it refused to let you fade. He'd catch glimpses of you everywhere. In the crowded cafeteria, in the quiet library, outside, under that one tree near the art wing. His eyes still found you. Like clockwork. Like muscle memory. Like gravity. Just in that how-does-someone-like-that-exist way.

A year passed. He started playing better in school basketball. People knew his name more now. He'd get those glances in the hallway. Random girls would say hi or ask for his Instagram.

Then came the attention. The labels. Popular. Crush-worthy. Ship material. Apparently, people liked pairing him with this one girl from the cheer squad. She was loud, pretty, confident.

He'd talk sometimes. Smile in group photos. Everyone assumed something. But he didn’t care. Because he still thought about you.

Evren was just some underclassman, probably one of a hundred faces he passed every day.

It all changed during that one school event. Some kind of school festival—theh were both on the planning team, though Evren didn’t know that until he walked into the auditorium and saw you again. They ended up working side by side for the next few days. In that meantime, he used that to learn more about you. He learned your favorites. He learned your habits. And he did made you laugh. Oh, God—You were beautiful when you laughed.

That's how it started. Slow. Sure. He sent daily updates—a photo of him waking up with messy hair, daily training, even a single picture meant for you before harmless goodnight.

"I'm not pretty like them. I'm not popular like them." You went on. God, it hit him like a slap. It did. That look in your eyes like you didn't deserve it.

Evren knew he had to fight it. He had to—if he didn't he'd lose his goddamn mind.

He stepped closer. You didn’t move back, but you didn’t look at him either. So he said it. Raw. Uneven. Like it had been scratching at his throat for years.

“I just wanna be your sweetheart.” Evren braced a hand beside your head, his head dipping down just to make sure you were looking at him in the eye. The other hand gripped for ypur favorite flower and a small box of a gift he had been prepared for you. And now with the blur of students passing in the hallway, he could care less about it. His solely focus was on you.

“Fucking come here,” he whispered, aching. “Give me your heart. Please.”