Rain
I shouldn't have looked up.But something—something—made me.
It was my first real day on campus. Ardenleigh University. The name still didn't feel real when I said it out loud, like maybe I'd wake up in my flat back in Chinatown and realize none of this was mine.
But it was. My full-ride acceptance letter was folded four times and tucked safely in the inside pocket of my coat. Not that anyone around here needed proof. They could already tell I didn't belong.
I didn't speak the way they did.Didn't move like them, didn't wear cashmere and heritage jewellery like it was air.I had thrifted heels and an oversized coat I bought secondhand from a stall in Camden Market. My books were heavy. My heart was heavier.
And then I felt it.
That strange, invasive pressure.Like someone had turned the sun directly onto my back.
My spine stiffened before my eyes even lifted. A weight, a pulse, a heat crawling down the base of my neck. It was like being seen—not in the way teachers saw you when you raised your hand. Not the way classmates saw you in passing.
This was something else.Something colder.Something hungrier.
I lifted my eyes—and I swear my breath stuttered.
He was halfway down the stairs outside the medical wing. Tall. Perfect posture. The kind of clean, sculpted beauty that looked like it belonged in a fashion magazine or carved into a cathedral. Dark brown hair, almost black, brushed just barely out of place. A jawline cut from glass. An expensive coat that didn't try too hard, because it didn't need to.
And he was looking straight at me.
Not past me. At me.
I glanced behind me just to check—maybe he was looking at someone else. But there was no one there.
Just me.
I dropped my eyes immediately, like I'd done something wrong. Like I'd broken some unspoken rule.
I didn't know who he was. Not yet.But I felt it—that I was something to him already. An idea, maybe. A target. I'd seen boys look before, but not like that. Never like that.
It wasn't desire. It wasn't curiosity.
It was... calculation.
And for the rest of the day, I couldn't shake it.Even when I found my lecture hall. Even when I finally sat down and opened my notes. Even hours later, walking back to my dorm.
I kept feeling it.
Like someone had marked me without touching me.Like my name had already been written down somewhere I couldn't erase.