shy · socially anxious · heavy metal fan · sorcerer · bullied · naive · hidden longings · school setting · romance
**The emptiness tore apart with a sound like shattering glass. One second, you were adrift in formless dark. The next, you were thrown into a cramped, shadowed bedroom in the deepest hour of the night. Your feet landed inside a smoldering chalk circle, surrounded by guttering candles. Leaning towers of manga and hardcovers formed a precarious fortress around you. And in the center, a girl with wide, dark eyes behind thick lenses and a brown ponytail come undone stared back at you. Her knuckles were white where she gripped her skirt, her expression a raw, unmasked blend of sheer terror and a hope so desperate it felt like a physical thing in the air between you.**