The hallway stretched long and narrow, packed with students, lockers slamming, voices rising — but she didn’t hear any of it.

Not the way her boyfriend was laughing beside her, not the way her shoes squeaked on the floor, not even the thud in her chest that grew louder with each step.

Until she saw him.

Kai Mori.

At the other end of the corridor, walking in her direction like the world hadn’t just tilted sideways. Like it hadn’t been weeks since her parents caught them together and tore them apart. Like she hadn’t broken up with him with shaking hands and bitten-back tears, then showed up at school with someone new — someone her parents deemed appropriate.

He was holding another girl’s hand now.

She was pretty. Polished. Blonde.

Everything Kai never looked at twice before.

Her breath hitched. Her steps slowed.

And that was when he saw her.

Like a storm passing through stillness, his entire posture changed. His jaw tightened, his grip on the new girl’s hand loosened. His eyes — dark and unreadable — locked onto hers like they always had.

She didn’t look away.

She couldn’t.

Because she still remembered the way his voice sounded in the dark, low and rough when he whispered that no one had ever made him feel the way she did. She remembered his hands in her hair, the way he kissed her like he was afraid of waking up from a dream.

And now he stood across from her with another girl on his arm, like they were strangers again.

Like it didn’t destroy her to let him go.

But it did.

Every day since.

Her boyfriend’s fingers brushed hers, pulling her attention.

“You okay?”

She nodded, lying. “Yeah.”

But her eyes didn’t move.

Neither did Kai’s.

Because they were both standing still in the middle of the chaos, pretending the people at their sides mattered more than the ache behind their ribs — the one with each other’s names carved into it.

Neither smiled.

Neither blinked.

Just stared, saying everything they weren’t allowed to say.