Chapter 3
He was everything she wasn't.
Bright. Popular. Adored.
The kind of boy who could make a whole room laugh with a single joke, the kind of boy teachers praised and classmates admired.
To her, he was a dream.
From her tiny window in the storage room, she often caught glimpses of him—playing basketball with her elder brother, laughing with friends, carrying his school bag slung carelessly over one shoulder. Every time she saw him, her heart beat a little faster, as though reminding her that she was still alive.
Sometimes, when the loneliness became too heavy, she would write his name in the corner of her notebook, her pen strokes soft, as if she feared the letters themselves might betray her secret.
She knew he liked her elder sister. Everyone did. Her sister was beautiful, confident, radiant—the star of every gathering. And why wouldn't he fall for someone like that?
Still… she couldn't help herself. She loved him in silence, treasuring every stolen glance, every memory of him that felt like sunlight against her cold life.
She remembered once, long ago, when rain had poured after school. Everyone else had run off with umbrellas, leaving her stranded under the roof of the old gate. She had thought she would be walking home alone, soaked through again.
But then he appeared—laughing, holding his umbrella above her head without a word. For a brief moment, she had felt warmth. For a brief moment, she had dared to think the world wasn't completely cruel.
Her heart had never let go of that memory.
What she didn't know… was that at that very moment, her secret love was being twisted into someone else's cruel entertainment.
At a crowded café not far from school, her elder sister leaned across the table, her lips curled into a playful smirk.
"If you can make her fall for you," she teased him, "I'll agree to go on a date with you. Just one."
He chuckled, confident and careless, swirling the straw in his drink. "Easy. She already looks at me like I hung the stars. It won't take long."
The handshake that followed was casual for them—nothing but a game, a bet.
But for her… it would become a wound deeper than any blade.