Chapter 2 :- Start of something golden (part-1)

Aurora stood in front of the massive, glass-panelled building of Chrestvelle Aerospace College, breathless and wild-eyed. Her shoes were untied…, her ID!? It was dangling awkwardly from her hoodie’s zipper, and her bag— too full, too heavy— that it was slipping off one shoulder.

Her heart thundered in her chest.

She was late.

On the first day.

“This is bad… so bad,” she muttered under her breath, clutching the schedule in one hand, her cheeks warm with panic. She glanced at her watch.

The class had started fifteen minutes ago.

Fifteen whole, embarrassing minutes.

She took a breath, held it for a second, and pushed the door to Lecture Hall A3.

A low hum of the professor's voice met her ears as she stepped inside — cautiously, hopefully, like maybe she’d go unnoticed.

But fate had other plans.

“Miss…” the professor’s voice cut through the air, loud and clear.

Aurora froze like a deer caught in headlights.

“…Whoever-you-are, you’re blocking the light and my lecture. What an entrance. Were you expecting a red carpet too?”

A chuckle rippled through the room. Aurora's ears burned as two hundred eyes turned toward her.

“I… I’m Aurora,” she mumbled, clutching her bag tighter, “First-year…”

“Ah. A freshman transfer student. That explains the dramatic flair,” the professor said, closing the holographic diagram mid-air with a flick of his fingers. He was middle-aged, sharply dressed in a grey suit with a spark of sarcastic youth still alive in his eyes. His name tag read: Professor Altair Vance.

“You’re fifteen minutes late,” he added, tapping his watch. “That’s fifteen minutes worth of orbital dynamics you’ve already missed. At this rate, we’ll be calculating your gravitational pull.”

Another laugh from the class.

Aurora's face was pure crimson now.

“I’m sorry, sir… I was—”

“I’m sure the planet didn’t spin fast enough this morning. Perhaps you’d like to pilot a clock next time instead of a spacecraft.” Professor Vance quipped. “Happens to the best of us. Just don’t let it happen again.”

She nodded quickly, mouth dry, and scanned the room for an empty seat. Most of them were taken — except one near the front, directly under the spotlight of judgment.

Of course.

As she sat down, adjusting her bag and trying desperately to shrink into her hoodie, she heard a soft giggle behind her — a girl with a big glass translucent frame hugging her nose passed her a note:

“Bold move, coming in late to Vance’s class. You're either brave or suicidal.”

Aurora turned over her shoulder and offered a weak smile. Somewhere deep inside her, panic was already being replaced by awe — awe for the soaring ceilings, the space models rotating gently in the air, and the beautiful chaos of finally being here.

She had made it.

She was finally at Chrestvelle.

Even if her first step was a little… loud.

…

Aurora let out a long, exhausted sigh as she finally stepped out of her last lecture. Her backpack felt like it was filled with bricks, and her brain? A fried motherboard.

Honestly? She breathed back to life with the last lecture Professor finally declaring something about gravitational calculations and impending doom if anyone missed another class. Aurora practically bolted out of the hall, hugging her notes, while muttering quiet apologies to her aching stomach— she'd skipped a proper breakfast in her morning rush, and now it was almost lunch time.

The corridor of Chrestvelle Academy’s east wing was bustling with the high-tide rush of students, the hum of chatter echoing under the old glass chandeliers that cast delicate reflections across the polished floor. Students moved in clusters, laughter and footsteps echoing beneath the skylight roof.

Aurora adjusted her hoodie, lowered her gaze, and tried to blend into the sea of strangers.

But her day couldn’t be worse than it already was, at the very least she thought so.

Aurora stumbled slightly, her tote bag slipping off her shoulder as the folder tucked in the crook of her arm slipped and burst open like a firework of loose papers and freshly printed notes. Her hair, deep brown and silky, spilled forward like a velvet curtain as she dropped to her knees, scrambling to gather everything before the hallway stampeded over her.

Her breath hitched.

“Ah—sorry!” she breathed out, clearly flustered, tucking a stray strand behind her ear.

That’s when he appeared — seemingly from nowhere.

A tall boy, hoodie sleeves pulled halfway up his forearms, had a face sculpted by the cosmos itself. Tousled, sun-burnished hair framed intense hazel eyes, like a dense forest full of mysteries , his gaze similarly matched its deep intense eye colour and his smirk? Infuriatingly attractive.

He leaned down and silently gathered a handful of her pages with a quick grace that startled her. His fingers brushed hers as he handed them over.

“You, okay?” his voice was low, calm — but firm in a way that settled the flutter in her chest.

Aurora blinked. His expressions were unreadable. She only managed a small nod, her amber-sunset eyes wide.

“You-you, don’t have to do this-,” Aurora blurted out, cheeks burning.

But before he could respond, two guys flanking him stepped in. His friends. Tall, broad, and clearly not amused.

“Whoa,” came a voice — deep, unbothered, almost amused.

She looked up, blinking.

“Watch it, freshman,” one of them snapped.

“You think crashing into Leo is some shortcut to popularity?” the other sneered.

Leo? her heart stuttered.

But before things could escalate further, the boy — Leo — lifted a hand lazily.

“That’s enough,” he said calmly, tone smooth like velvet.

Both of his friends stopped mid-rant, confusion flickering in their eyes.

“She’s new,” Leo added, continue picking up her scattered notes. “Cut her some slack.”

Behind Leo, those two guys— leaned against the lockers, snickering among themselves. One elbowed the other as their eyes roamed across Aurora. Even beneath the oversized hoodie she wore, her soft curves hinted at a natural elegance, her smooth, glowing skin catching the hallway light like honey.

Leo handed the pages to her, and for a second, his fingers brushed hers — warm, confident, steady.

Aurora blinked up at him, too stunned to speak.

Then, as if the moment never happened, Leo turned, smirked faintly, and walked away down the hall — hands in his pockets, gaze never once turning back.

His friends exchanged bewildered looks before jogging after him, their complaints forgotten.

Aurora stood there, still crouched halfway, her notes clutched to her chest.

“What… was that?” she whispered aloud.

“You don’t know?” came a whisper near her ear.

Aurora looked up to see a girl with bubble-gum-pink hair and dramatic eyeliner gawking at her.

“Know what?”

“That was Leo Callahan,” the girl said, wide-eyed. “Third year. Flight Engineering track. Captain of the Aero Blade team. Literal hotshot. Every girl here either loves him, hates him, or both. And that?” She pointed dramatically down the hall where he had vanished. “That was the first time he’s ever… helped someone.”

Aurora blinked. “He seemed… nice?”

Another girl popped into the conversation, she was the very same girl who passed her that note earlier, in the Professor Vance’s class, the girl with a big translucent glass frame. “Leo doesn’t do nice, sweetheart. He does parties. Detention. Hookups. That smirk is practically school property.”

“I… didn’t even knew his name, like a few seconds ago!” Aurora said in her ‘I don’t give a fuck’ tone.

But her heart was fluttering.

Not out of infatuation, but from confusion — like some invisible wire had tied that moment together. Like there was more to what just happened.

And as she clutched her notes tighter, one thought whispered in her mind:

Why did it feel like he’d been waiting for an opportunity to make an acquaintance with me all along?

“Damn,” one of Leo’s minions muttered under his breath. “She’s like... drop-dead sunset. Did you see her eyes? Does that walk? I didn’t even know hoodies could look that good.”

The other grinned. “You think she’s new? Bet she’s got transfer student written all over her.”

Leo’s head tilted slightly.

He didn’t say a word.

He just looked at them — sharp, slow, and dangerous. Like a blade sliding from its sheath without a sound.

The laughter died instantly.

The air tightened.

A chill crawled down their spines.

“Bro—” one of them tried, chuckling nervously, “we didn’t mean anything. Just... appreciating the view, Y’know? Why’d you even help her? I mean... she’s smoking, so like... was that the reason?” The laughter died instantly Leo didn’t stop walking.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and gave a crooked, unreadable smirk — that half-lazy, half-sinister expression that made it impossible to guess what was really going on in his head.

He didn’t answer.

Just turned his back to them, his steps drifted further, farther away from the corridor where Aurora stood.

The two boys exchanged a long, bewildered glance.

“…What just happened?”

“Do he like her?”

“Or did we just mess up... big time?”

Neither of them could tell.

But they knew one thing for sure: Leo didn’t usually get involved. And when he did, it meant something. Something they weren’t sure they wanted to poke at.

Not if it meant facing that look again.

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