The P.A. system crackled to life across Jade High, cutting through the mid-morning hum of classrooms and corridors alike.
"Students, please come outside to welcome our inspectors."
What followed was not an orderly response.
Within moments the hallways flooded with bodies, chairs scraping back mid-lesson, bags abandoned, the pretence of academic focus dissolving entirely. The energy was immediate and electric, the kind that travels faster than announcements and arrives before anyone can explain why.
But it was not the inspectors everyone was moving for.
Word had already spread the way word always spread at Jade High, fast and unstoppable and slightly out of breath. And the name on everyone's lips was not a title or a position.
It was Tesni.
Phones rose above the crowd like a forest of small screens, angled and ready, everyone jostling for the angle that would make the best video, the clearest shot, the content that would live on their feeds for the next three days. Because Tesni Mendoza was not simply popular in the way that school presidents or star athletes were popular. She existed in a category entirely her own. The most recognised teenage face across every level, elementary through college, a hyperteen in the truest sense of the word, the kind of person whose presence at an event transformed it into something worth documenting.
And she had dressed accordingly.
A gold mini-skirt that caught every available light. A crop top fitted with the confidence of someone who had never once questioned whether she could carry it. Boots that announced each step before she took it. She moved through the crowd the way she moved through every space, like the space had always been hers and was simply being returned to her now.
"You are looking wonderful today, Tessy!" voices called from every direction, overlapping, eager, slightly reverent.
Tesni's smile came as easily as breathing. "Thank you, seniors."
She said it warmly, without performance, which somehow made it land even better than performance would have. That was the thing about Tesni that could not be manufactured or studied or replicated. She made every person she acknowledged feel briefly, genuinely seen.
At the entrance, the school president and vice president stepped forward with composed formality, straightening slightly, the occasion requiring a version of themselves that was several degrees more official than usual. Formal greetings were exchanged, measured and appropriate, the institutional welcome of one school receiving another.
But around them the crowd pressed in, phones still raised, the energy still humming, the institution quietly competing with the spectacle for everyone's attention.
The spectacle, as always, was winning.
"You are welcome to Jade High," they said.
"Thank you," Tesni replied warmly, her smile unhurried and genuine, the kind that cameras loved and people loved even more in person.
Henry stepped forward, adjusting slightly into his official register. "Thank you, everyone. You can return to class now."
The crowd began to disperse in reluctant waves, the energy unwinding slowly, people drifting back to where they were supposed to be with the mild disappointment of an audience after a show.
Tesni leaned toward Jokull, dropping her voice to something easy and casual. "Can I go to the washroom?"
"Sure," he said.
She slipped away from the group with the quiet ease of someone who had long mastered the art of disappearing from official settings without anyone quite noticing the moment she left.
The washroom was blessedly empty.
Tesni exhaled, set her bag on the counter, and took a moment simply to look at herself in the mirror. Then, with the practiced efficiency of someone who had done this a thousand times, she unzipped her makeup kit, propped her phone against it at exactly the right angle, checked the light once, checked it again, and went live.
The little red indicator blinked on.
"Hello, viewers!" Her reflection smiled back at her, bright and immediate, the camera finding the version of her it always found, warm, present, completely at ease. "I'm now at Jade High for the inspection and I honestly cannot believe it."
The comments arrived before she had finished the sentence, flooding in the way they always did, fast and overlapping and slightly breathless, the particular energy of an audience that had been waiting.
How did you feel when you arrived?
Tesni laughed softly, the sound genuine rather than performed. "Run-2," she said, using the shorthand her viewers knew well by now. "I felt shy and nervous when I first stepped in. Honestly. But the way my seniors welcomed me made me so happy." She pressed a hand briefly to her chest. "I wasn't expecting that at all."
The comments kept coming, scrolling faster now, the numbers climbing in the corner of the screen.
Do you know anyone there already,like do you have a sister there?
Tesni's expression shifted almost imperceptibly. Just for a fraction of a second. Something passing behind her eyes that the camera caught but that most viewers would scroll past without registering.
Then the smile returned, seamless and warm.
"Well," she said, tilting her head with the practiced lightness of someone choosing their words more carefully than they appeared to be. "You could say that."
She reached up and adjusted a strand of hair, her reflection gazing back at her with an expression that gave nothing further away.
The comments continued to flood in.
The little red light kept blinking.
Who is she? the comments buzzed, arriving faster now, the curiosity of thousands pressing through the screen all at once.
Tesni shook her head gently, something protective settling into her expression. "She likes to keep it low-key, so I can't disclose that to you. I'm sorry." She looked directly into the camera, sincere and unhurried. "It's her privacy and we respect that."
Can you tell us a little about her?
She considered for a moment, her eyes drifting slightly upward the way they did when she was choosing her words with more care than she let on.
"Okay," she said finally, a small smile finding its way onto her lips. "She's mostly quiet. Always on her phone. Some say she's the exact opposite of me." The smile deepened at the thought, something fond and entirely unperformed. "But don't think we don't mingle. She doesn't keep quiet for a single second when she's around me."
You have a great sister then, someone typed.
Tesni went still for just a moment. The kind of stillness that is not emptiness but fullness, something too large to move around quickly.
"Yes," she said softly. "I really do."
So how will your relationship be when you graduate to High?
She paused. That flicker again behind her eyes, brief and honest, the kind that slipped past her curated warmth before she could catch it.
"I don't know," she admitted quietly. "But it will be painful to pass by her without talking to her."
The comment section absorbed it without ceremony, scrolling onward, the way the internet always does, never quite understanding the weight of the things it receives.
Then the tone shifted.
Tessy, Tessy — behind you!
Tesni frowned, her brows drawing together. "What is that?"
Someone took a picture of you through the window.
She spun around immediately.
Nothing. Just the empty window, the glass catching the pale light from outside, the corridor beyond it still and unremarkable.
She turned back slowly, her expression neutral, reading the comments as they continued to pile in.
Is the person stalking you?
"No," she said, her voice calm, her shoulders easy. She gave a small shrug that carried just enough nonchalance to be convincing. "Maybe he just wants a picture."
But her eyes moved once more to the window before she looked back at the screen. Briefly. Privately. A check she did not announce.
We want you to always be safe and sound, her viewers typed, one after another, the words appearing in a quiet cascade that felt, in its own strange digital way, like something genuine.
Tesni looked at the screen for a moment without speaking.
"Thank you," she said softly.
She ended the live.