Chapter 1: In the quiet of his gaze

Liora sat quietly at the back of the classroom, her caramel-colored eyes fixed on the board but her mind drifting, as it often did. The air-conditioned hum of the room was a constant backdrop, soothing in its monotony. She was used to it by now—the calm, controlled environment of the physics class, the rhythm of lessons that had become familiar and comforting in their predictability.

But today, there was a shift.

Across the room, Kaito sat among his friends, the same group he always seemed to gravitate toward. He didn’t stand out in the traditional sense—he wasn’t the loudest or the most flamboyant—but there was something about him that made people look, even when he wasn’t trying to be noticed. Liora felt it too, though she didn’t want to admit it.

She didn’t know why, but every time his gaze slipped toward her, it set off a fluttering in her chest. It wasn’t anything obvious, nothing she could name, but it lingered—a small, quiet discomfort that tightened around her heart. It was just a glance. Just a fleeting moment. But it was enough.

Her thoughts were never entirely her own when Kaito was near. It wasn’t just the way he looked at her. It was the way everything seemed to pause for a second. Liora would catch his eyes, and in that small moment, a thousand thoughts would swirl in her mind, none of them making sense. Was it something in her expression? Something about the way she sat? Or was it just her own mind, overthinking every interaction, reading too much into something that probably wasn’t there?

Liora wasn’t sure, and that uncertainty gnawed at her. She wasn’t used to feeling like this. She liked her space, her quiet corner in the world where nothing was complicated. She didn’t like attention, especially not from people who, by all rights, should have been just another face in the crowd.

And yet, there was Kaito, effortlessly capturing her attention without ever saying a word. His presence was like a shadow, following her whether she acknowledged it or not. His eyes, dark and unreadable, would always find her, just for a moment, before flicking away. But Liora couldn’t shake the feeling that it meant something more.

She wasn’t naïve. She knew people looked, but this—this felt different. It wasn’t the casual glance of someone simply passing the time. There was something in his gaze, something that unsettled her, something that made her question herself. Why did it make her heart race like this? Why did she feel this tension every time his eyes brushed against hers, as if some invisible force was pulling her in despite every instinct screaming to look away?

The class went on, but Liora’s thoughts were fractured, lost in the quiet storm of her own uncertainty. She wasn’t one to let emotions guide her—she had always been the type to keep her distance, to observe rather than participate. But Kaito’s gaze seemed to breach that distance, leaving her with questions she couldn’t answer.

Nova, sitting next to her, scribbled away with her usual focus. Liora could feel her friend’s occasional glances toward her, the unspoken words hanging in the air. Nova knew. She could tell. But Liora wasn’t ready to voice it, wasn’t ready to admit that there was something about Kaito that she couldn’t ignore, something that made her heart beat just a little faster whenever he was near.

“Stop looking at him,” Nova murmured, barely audible.

Liora stiffened, her cheeks burning despite herself. “I’m not.”

Nova raised an eyebrow, not buying it for a second. “Sure you’re not.”

Liora didn’t answer. Instead, she focused on the teacher’s next words, the familiar rhythm of his voice grounding her once more. But even as she tried to push the thoughts away, she could still feel the weight of Kaito’s gaze, lingering just at the edge of her awareness. She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to feel this unease. But it was there, uninvited, and there was no escaping it.

It wasn’t a crush. Liora didn’t believe in those. It was just—curiosity? She told herself that was all it was. A fleeting, meaningless thing.

But as the class continued, she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that it was more than that. And for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t sure what to do about it.

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