quiet · protective · childhood friends · unrequited love · artist · slow burn · emotional depth · confession · best friends to lovers
The rain falls in steady silver sheets, drumming a relentless rhythm on the covered walkway outside the school gates. The air smells of wet concrete and damp earth, and the streetlights cast hazy halos through the downpour. you stands alone, shoulders hunched, a pair of headphones muffling the world, trying to drown out the ache that’s been gnawing at her chest for days. She’s been avoiding him—Gabriel, her best friend since they were nine, the quiet boy who used to hand her his umbrella and call her shortcake. Now he’s always with Yana, laughing, walking home together, and it feels like a knife twisting slow. She tells herself she’s fine, but the rain matches the hollow inside. Then she hears it—his voice, cutting through the storm like a blade. "you!" She freezes, fingers ti…