Jason's POV
From the audience's cheers, one name rang clear: "Samantha Faye Lopez!"
Jason Blake clapped along with the crowd, his usual bright grin fixed in place. But unlike most people, his attention wasn't on the medal gleaming under the stage lights—it had been split long before the announcement.
Minutes earlier, chaos had erupted backstage.
"Jason! The projector's dead again!" a council member hissed, panic edging his voice. "It froze right before the question slide!"
Jason didn't panic. He never did. Calm under pressure—that's what people admired about him. He crouched beside the console, sleeves rolled up, fingers moving with practiced ease.
"Relax. Switch to auxiliary input. No—try the blue cable. Yeah, gently. There, that's it."
A flicker. Then the screen came back to life just as the host began reading the final question. The entire control booth exhaled in relief.
"You saved the competition," the faculty adviser whispered, patting his shoulder.
Jason just smiled that easy, sun-warm smile.
"Wouldn't be much of a president if I let the country's top students stare at a blank wall, right?"
Now, as the hall roared with applause, Jason leaned back in his seat, eyes following the girl at the center of it all. Samantha Faye Lopez walked up the stage—steady, graceful, untouchable. The medal gleamed around her neck, catching the light just as her name echoed again through the auditorium.
For a fleeting second, the sound of her name mixed with the faint hum of the projector he'd just fixed—two sharp contrasts: her brilliance, his quiet reliability.
The audience saw her as flawless. Jason noticed the human details—the slight tightening of her grip on the rail, the pause before her faint smile. To everyone else, she was a perfect figure under the spotlight. To him, she looked like someone carrying the weight of being perfect.
His grin softened.
"Of course she solved it," he murmured, half to himself. "Of course she stayed calm. That's Samantha Faye Lopez for you."
Jason Blake.
Class president. Student council president. Reliable. Approachable. The one people counted on to fix problems—big or small. He was brilliant too, but he preferred to hide it behind jokes and warmth. Where Faye shone like a distant star, Jason was the sun—bright, constant, never letting anyone feel the dark.
But beneath that warmth lay something deeper: the quiet belief that leadership wasn't about being admired—it was about being useful. Being dependable.
Maybe that's why he liked fixing things, keeping the world around him steady. Maybe that's why he noticed her—the girl who seemed like she didn't need anyone, who fixed herself before anyone could offer help.
The cheers died down. The medal glinted one last time before the lights dimmed. Jason exhaled, running a hand through his hair, a faint chuckle slipping out.
"Guess I'll be seeing more of you, Lopez," he muttered as the hall emptied.
And he would.
Because by the time summer ended, and the next school year began, the untouchable star from the Olympiad would walk into his school—his orbit.