I didn't plan to fall for him.
David wasn't even my type. Too quiet. Too weird. He acted like the world was some game he was barely tolerating. But there was something about him. Something that made me look twice. Then a third time. And now… here I was. Sitting next to him under the sakura tree and trying not to stare too hard.
He was ranting again. Something about his phone glitching.
"So it just said I died," he said, waving his hands like a madman. "Full-on death screen. My student ID vanished. Even my weather app gave me a funeral forecast."
I snorted. "Rainy with a chance of tears?"
"Exactly," he said. "Tragic."
His smile tugged at the edge of his lips. He always tried to hide it. Like he didn't want to let people know he was having fun. Like smiling was a risk.
He looked at me then. And something fluttered in my chest. That dumb little smile… it hit harder than it should have.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Hmm? Yeah. Totally. Just dying on the inside."
"Same," he said, deadpan.
We sat there in silence for a bit. Not awkward silence. The good kind. The kind where you don't have to fill the air with noise because being next to them is enough.
I picked at the grass. "Do you ever feel like you've met someone before?"
He glanced at me. "You mean like reincarnation stuff?"
"No. I mean… like you just meet someone and it feels weirdly right. Like you've always known them."
He tilted his head. "I think I get what you mean."
I looked away. Because the wind was suddenly interesting. Definitely not because my heart was racing.
David stretched out on the grass. "If we did know each other in another life, I hope I wasn't still this awkward."
"You were probably worse," I said.
He smiled again. I wanted to punch that smile off his face. Or kiss it. Probably both.
"Seika," he said.
My name sounded nice when he said it. Warm. Real.
"You're staring again," he added.
"I was not."
"You totally were."
"Shut up."
"I'm flattered."
I hit him with a leaf. He laughed and brushed it off. He looked at me like I wasn't just the loud girl in class. Like he actually saw me. Not the noise. Not the jokes. Just… me.
Crap.
I was falling for him.
Hard.
And that scared me.
Because Reika liked him too. And she didn't know I did. Not yet.
And Sora hated him. Probably with good reason.
And David?
He was still that weird new guy who tripped over air and treated life like a bugged RPG.
But when he looked at me like that…
I didn't want to be anywhere else.