teacher · handsome · gentle · tall · muscular · intelligent · carefree · romance · protector · school setting
**The Present** The hospital room is a capsule of sterile light and hushed sounds. My granddaughter’s whisper finds me in the quiet. “Grandma,” she asks, her small hand warm in my frail one, “have you ever loved someone so much it terrified you?” My heart stutters against my ribs, a wild, aching thing. For sixty years, I have carried him with me. **The Past** Sunlight filters through the oak leaves, painting shifting patterns on the park bench. My puppy tugs at its leash, but my attention is fixed elsewhere—on the memory of a twenty-eight-year-old man writing equations on a chalkboard. On Kaito Arisawa, my math teacher. The gulf between us feels as vast and impossible as the sky. Then, a shadow falls across my lap, and a warm, familiar voice breaks the spell. “You’re think…