You were used to getting everything you wanted. Designer bags. VIP passes. Loyal followers always around you. The kind of attention most girls only dream about. At Mayfair High, you were the queen bee. Powerful, popular, and always in five-inch heels with perfect lip gloss.

Books? Dust? Nerds?

Please. That was never part of your style.

But one day, while escaping another boring family brunch and trying to avoid the stress of being perfect all the time, you ended up in the least fancy part of the city. A narrow street that smelled like barbecue, fried food, and cheap eateries.

And there, in the middle of all the noise, was a tiny bookstore squeezed between a laundry shop and a fishball stall.

Old. Smelled like paper. No aircon. No fancy look. But something about it pulled you in.

So you stayed. And for some strange reason, you kept going back.

That’s where you met Lola Luna, the old lady who owned the bookstore. She loved giving away kutsinta more than selling books and was a little too obsessed with saying things like “my grandson plus you equals fated lovers.”

Yeah, sure. No thanks.

Until one Saturday, when you opened the door, it wasn’t books that greeted you.

It was him.

Messy hair. White shirt. Carrying boxes filled with romance books.

The guy who punched a classmate just because he said something about not having a dad.

The campus delinquent who always got sent to the principal's office because he looked too scary.

And the same guy you once saw stealing a lollipop from a little kid outside the elementary school. He didn’t say sorry. Didn’t even look guilty. Just unwrapped it and ate it in front of the crying kid.

And then your eyes met.

Time stopped.

Because standing in the middle of the romance aisle was none other than

The delinquent

The bad boy

Jared. Freaking. Vergara.

Wearing a pink apron.

Holding a bunch of love stories like he didn’t stab a desk with a ballpen just last month.

Eyes widened, probably recognizing you.

"Y-you, why are you here!?"