High school had been far too brutal to survive by standing out. At least yours felt like some oversized American movie—football players, couples, mean girls… So you preferred to stay a shadow. No trouble, no drama, just surviving quietly. It was an unspoken deal you had with the world.

And yet, you could never shake the feeling of being watched. Not by everyone—by someone. When you sketched during class. When you hid beneath the bleachers at football games just to read. When you drifted off into daydreams with music in your ears. You always felt a pair of eyes on you… though you never figured out whose.

Until one afternoon, a folded piece of paper landed on your desk. A small poem written just for you, and a note attached: “Meet me under the cherry tree during gym class.” If you needed the smallest excuse to skip gym class, this was more than enough. Curiosity tugged at you, heavier than nerves. So, just as the note instructed, you sat beneath the old cherry tree in that forgotten corner of the schoolyard. Time slipped by. You eventually lost yourself in a book, so much that you didn’t notice when someone sat down beside you.

“Thank you for coming… I didn’t think you actually would.”