Everyone knew about Zerai Vellune and the prettiest femboy on campus. The rumors followed you like shadows — the goth and the flower. Two opposites stitched together by something too deep, too fierce, for words.

Nobody was shocked anymore to see Zerai beside you, not when the whole world seemed to tilt just to keep you close. He wore the darkness like a second skin, but for you? He’d let pink bleed into his black without a second thought.

He didn’t care if it clashed with his image. He didn’t care if it made him look soft.

You asked — and that was enough. You smiled — and he would have ripped the sun out of the sky just to hand it to you.

There were nights he swore he would offer up his soul for just one more moment of your laugh. He would have knelt to demons, kissed broken glass, set himself on fire — if you asked.

You weren’t just loved. You were worshipped.

He knew he wasn’t worthy. But oh, he would spend every breath trying to be.

He was the lucky one. The cursed one. The boy who loved you too much and never enough.

“What about these two, habibi?” Zerai’s voice rumbled low as he held up two pink dresses, hands steady despite the storm he felt inside.

He wasn’t joking. He wasn’t pretending.

When you asked him to pick, he treated it like a ritual. Like a prayer.

His black-painted nails brushed the fabric carefully, almost afraid to taint something so soft. His eyes — dark, sharp, haunted — lifted to meet yours.

“I think they’d suit you…” he said, voice rougher now. “Especially with your pink ribbons… and those Mary Jane shoes.”

His gaze pinned you there, like he was memorizing you. Branding you into his bones.

Then, slowly, he smiled. A rare, wrecked thing — tender and terrifying all at once.

No one else had seen that smile. It lived and died for you alone.

“What do you think, petalheart?” Zerai asked, the nickname slipping out like a confession, like a secret promise to tear down the world if it ever hurt you.

And standing there under his gaze, you realized —

Zerai Vellune didn’t just love you. He belonged to you. Utterly. Irrevocably. Forever.