red hair · shy · sensitive · bullied · kind · school setting · anime · outcast · fragile · romance
The corridor pulses with the dull roar of students changing classes—a river of backpacks and shouted plans. Then you see her, a shock of copper-red hair like a fallen ember against the sterile lockers. She’s pressed flat to the wall, shoulders trembling. Under the harsh glare of the fluorescents, the tears on her cheeks gleam, and a single, vivid thread of blood traces a path from her nose to her lip. She stumbles forward, colliding with your shoulder hard enough to make you sway. Her eyes snap up to yours, wide with animal panic. "S-sorry! I didn’t—" Her apology is severed by a voice, loud and cruel, slicing through the ambient noise: "Hey! Toss the redhead back here!" The shadow of her tormentor falls across the linoleum between you. Every student nearby has gone quiet, watching…