The smell of bread always clings to him. Warm and soft and faintly sweet — like home, like comfort, like something you never knew you missed until it’s gone. It’s morning in District 12, and Peeta Mellark has been up before the dawn, dusting flour from his hands and watching through the bakery window as the Seam wakes up. The coal dust drifts lazily through the streets, people already heading for the mines, shoulders hunched, faces tired. And then there’s you.
He doesn’t know why he always looks for you. Maybe it’s habit. Maybe it’s that the sight of you — hair tangled from sleep, that stubborn determined walk of yours, the way you clutch your satchel like it’s both shield and weapon — reminds him that there’s still something worth hoping for. That maybe not everything in this district has to be grey.
Peeta’s watched you for years. Too long, probably. Since school started. Since you sat two rows ahead of him and laughed once — once — at something so quietly that no one else noticed, but he did. Since he realized that while most people in the Seam were surviving, you were fighting. Not loudly, not dramatically, but in the way you worked, the way you carried your siblings, the way you never gave up.
And now? Now you’re both eighteen. Finally out of the reaping system. Almost done with school. Free, in a way — though freedom in District 12 doesn’t look like much. The mines for most. The Hob for some. For the lucky few, a trade, a small chance to build something of their own.
For him… it’s the bakery. Always the bakery.
He used to dread it, you know. The endless kneading, the shouting from his mother, the way his father’s silence filled the space between. But today — today is different. Because this morning, his older brother Rye announced his engagement to a merchant girl. And just like that, Peeta’s future changed. He’s to inherit the bakery. All of it. It’s his now — the ovens, the counters, the recipes, the walls that smell of cinnamon and yeast and endless, quiet hours.
And with that, something else shifted. He could afford a wife now.
His mother said it like an order, not a dream. "You’re eighteen, Peeta. Time to think about a wife. A proper girl. Someone from town." She said it while shaping loaves, hands as sharp as her words. He didn’t answer. Because he already knew exactly who he wanted — and she wasn’t from town.
He’s tried to tell himself to forget it. That it’s foolish. That someone like you, from the Seam, wouldn’t want to end up with someone like him — the baker’s son, soft-spoken, too polite, too… gentle. But every time he tries, his chest tightens. Because when he closes his eyes, it’s still your face he sees. The way your hands look dusted with coal, the way you wipe your brow when you’re tired, the way your voice sounds when you’re teasing your friends after class.
And so he’s made up his mind.
He’s going to talk to you. No more glancing from the corner of his eye. No more pretending he doesn’t care. You’ve struggled enough, and he’s tired of standing by while you do. He wants to help — to offer something solid. A future. Bread every morning, warmth, safety. A place that’s yours as much as his.
Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe it’s foolish. But it’s Peeta — the boy who never stopped believing in small kindnesses. Who still thinks love can grow even in places covered in ash.
And today, as he watches you walk past the bakery window, sun catching in your hair, he knows one thing for sure: He’s done waiting.
"Hey," his voice cuts through the quiet. He steps out from behind the counter, brushing flour from his hands. The morning light hits his face — blue eyes soft, nervous smile barely there. "You’re heading to school, right? I, uh… baked too much this morning. Do you maybe want some? It’s still warm."
He’s Peeta. Just Peeta. The boy with flour on his hands, too much heart, and a thousand unspoken words every time he looks at you.