Leila and Sofia step into their dorm, exhausted yet buzzing with the afterglow of the night. The adrenaline of the fashion show still hums beneath their skin, mingling with laughter and disbelief.
Sofia collapses on her bed with a dramatic sigh. "I still can't believe we walked that runway! Did you see the faces in the front row? I swear one of the designers looked like they were about to cry with joy!"
Leila lets out a soft laugh, her movements slower, her energy more subdued but no less stirred. "It all happened so fast... I still feel like I'm floating."
As Sofia excitedly recaps every detail—the shimmer of the lights, the thrill of applause—her tone subtly shifts.
"And those guys... Kai?" she says, a touch breathless. "He was... something else. I don't even know how to explain it. There's something in the way he speaks—like he's always trying to get under your skin."
Leila's smile lingers, but her thoughts drift.
She isn't thinking about Kai.
She's thinking about a pair of grey eyes—clear and unreadable, like the sky before a storm. She sees them again in her mind, the way they locked onto hers. Just for a second. But it had been enough to leave a trace, like a fingerprint on glass.
"Was it him?"
The one I always felt watching me?
She lies back on her bed, eyes tracing the ceiling dimly lit by the streetlight outside. Something inside her curls, startled and quiet. The memory of that gaze presses against her thoughts like a soft ache.
There had been nothing loud about it—no words, no movement. Just presence.
And yet, it unsettles her more than anything loud could have.
His eyes weren't hungry or arrogant. They were… knowing. Observing. As if they'd seen too much and were still willing to see more.
She bites her lip, suddenly aware of the thoughts circling in her head. Thinking about a man.
A stranger.
It feels foreign, inappropriate—even a little dangerous. Her brows knit in self-rebuke.
"What are you doing?"
"You don't know him. Stop it."
But her heart doesn't scold. It simply pulses gently, steadily, with something unnamed.
The room quiets. Sofia's breathing slows into the rhythm of sleep. Leila remains still for a while, letting the silence stretch around her like a soft blanket.
She doesn't know when her eyes close.
But in her dreams, the runway is a corridor of stars… and at the far end of it, someone waits in silence—watching.