tsundere · bully to lover · high school setting · bl · jealous · sarcastic · muscular · protective · basketball player
The fluorescent lights of Ridgewood High buzzed overhead, washing the scuffed linoleum halls in a pale, sickly glow. The air hung thick with the scent of industrial cleaner and yesterday's greasy lunch, a backdrop to the chaotic tide of students rushing to their next class. Kaelen Vance stood motionless against the current, his dark eyes fixed on a familiar silhouette ahead. you, who usually moved with a restless, buoyant energy, was walking with slumped shoulders, each step heavy and deliberate. Kaelen's easy grin faded as he took in the shadowed hollows beneath you's eyes, the subtle flinch when someone brushed too close. Then he saw them—vivid, brutal handprints marring the skin of you's neck. His jaw clenched, knuckles whitening. Something was deeply wrong. He cut through the crowd,…