I was going to Physique class.

That's the only reason I was in that hallway at all. Tuesday , 10:15 AM. The same walk I'd done a dozen times before. Nothing special about the light. Nothing special about the air. Just the usual crowd of students shuffling between buildings, heads down, late for something.

I wasn't looking for him. I wasn't looking for anyone.

And then — suddenly — my eyes fell on him.

I don't know how to explain it. It wasn't like I scanned the hallway and chose him out of a crowd. It was more like… my gaze *stopped*. Like my eyes had found something they'd been searching for without telling me.

He was standing by the window, surrounded by friends. Three of them, maybe four. They were laughing about something — I couldn't hear what, and honestly, I wouldn't have been able to tell you even if someone put a gun to my head. Because I wasn't looking at his friends.

I was looking at his smile.

Not a polite smile. Not a smirk. A real one — the kind that starts somewhere deep and reaches his eyes before his mouth even moves. His head was tilted back slightly, just a little, like the laugh had surprised him. His teeth were white. His cheeks had the faintest crease on one side.

And my heart — my stupid, traitorous, never-done-this-before heart — slammed against my ribs so hard I felt it in my throat.

I stopped walking.

Someone bumped into me from behind. Muttered "sorry." I didn't move. Didn't blink. Didn't breathe.

He turned to say something to his friend. The smile didn't fade. It just… shifted. Became softer. Private. Like I was watching something I wasn't supposed to see.

*What is happening to me?*

I'd seen cute boys before. I'd thought, "Oh, he's handsome," and kept walking. This wasn't that.

This was my chest caving in. This was my palms going damp. This was the hallway tilting sideways and my feet refusing to take another step toward Physique class because how could I sit in a lecture hall and think about *forces and motion* when that smile existed in the world?

He and his friends started walking. Toward me. Past me.

He didn't look at me. Of course he didn't. Why would he? I was just a girl in a hallway, frozen like an idiot, clutching my notebook like it could save me.

But as he passed — three feet away, maybe less — I caught the edge of that smile one more time. A dying ember of it. And I knew.

I knew I was in trouble.

I didn't know his name. Didn't know if he was kind or cruel, smart or average, single or taken. Didn't know anything except the shape of his mouth when he was happy.

And I didn't care.

I watched him disappear around the corner. The hallway went back to normal. Students shuffled past. Somewhere, a door slammed.

I stood there for a long time. My heart was still pounding.

Then I whispered it to myself — not out loud, but in my head, like a secret I was finally admitting:

*This is my first love.*

After that first morning, I thought about him for three days straight.

Not in a dramatic way. Not like the movies where the girl writes his name in hearts on her notebook. I didn't even *have* a name to write. He was just… there. Behind my eyelids when I closed them. In the corner of my vision when I walked to class. In the quiet moments before I fell asleep, when my brain had nothing else to do.

*Who was he?*

I didn't go looking for him. That's what I told myself, anyway. I just… walked a little slower past the window where I'd first seen him. Took the long way to the cafeteria. Sat facing the door in every lecture hall, just in case.

And then, five days later, I found him again.

Or maybe he found me. That's not right either. He didn't *find* me — he never even glanced my way. I just… spotted him. Across the quad. Sitting on a low wall, eating an apple, scrolling through his phone with one thumb.

No friends this time. No laughing. Just him, ordinary and quiet and so beautiful it made my stomach hurt.

My heart slammed. Same as before. That hard, stupid, uncontrollable pound against my ribs.

I stopped walking again. Stood there like an idiot, clutching my backpack straps, while students flowed around me like water around a stone.

He bit into the apple. Chewed. Scrolled. A tiny crease appeared between his eyebrows, like he was reading something annoying.

*Even his annoyed face is perfect,* I thought. And then I wanted to laugh at myself. Or cry. I wasn't sure which.

I didn't approach him. Of course I didn't. What would I even say? *"Hi, I've been thinking about your smile for five days. I don't know your name. I don't know anything about you. But my heart stops every time I see you."*

No. I just watched.

From across the quad, I watched him finish the apple. Watched him toss the core into a bin ten feet away — he missed, then got up and picked it up and put it in properly. Watched him sling his backpack over one shoulder and walk toward the science building.

*He picks up his own trash,* I noted. Like that meant something. Like that was a sign.

It wasn't a sign. It was just a boy being decent. But to me, in that moment, it was everything.

---

The weeks that followed were a blur of heartbeats and hallway corners.

I learned things about him. Small things. Stolen things.

I learned that he always walked on the left side of the hallway, even when it was crowded. I learned that he bit his lower lip when he was thinking. I learned that he had a favorite gray hoodie with a frayed cuff on the right sleeve. I learned that his laugh — his real laugh, not the polite one — was loud and sudden and made people around him smile whether they meant to or not.

I learned all of this without ever getting closer than twenty feet.

Someone told me his name eventually. I don't even remember who. A girl in my English class, maybe. I'd described him once — badly, clumsily, trying not to sound insane — and she'd said, *"Oh, you mean Arakh?"*

Arakh.

I turned the name over in my mouth like a secret. *Arakh.* It sounded foreign. Sharp. Beautiful. Like him.

After that, I had a name to whisper to myself at night. *Arakh.* It didn't change anything. He still didn't know I existed. But somehow, having a name made it worse. Made it *real*.

This wasn't a crush on a stranger anymore. This was Arakh. The boy with the smile. The boy I'd never spoken to. The boy who owned my heartbeat without ever asking for it.

I was falling. Quietly. Deeply. From a distance so far away, I wasn't even a shadow in his world.

And still, every time I saw him — across the cafeteria, down the hall, three rows ahead in a lecture I'd started attending just to be near him — my heart pounded.

*Thump. Thump. Thump.*

*You don't even know my name,* I thought once, watching him laugh with his friends.

*But I know yours,* I answered myself. *And that's the problem.*

It was a Tuesday.

I'd learned his schedule by then. Not on purpose. Well — maybe on purpose. I knew where he'd be and when. I told myself it was just... awareness. Not stalking. Just knowing.

That Tuesday, I knew he had a class in Halsey Hall at 11 AM. I didn't have a class anywhere near there. But I took the long way to the library anyway. Just in case.

Just in case of what? a voice in my head asked. I ignored it.

I turned the corner at the end of the hallway. And there he was.

Arakh.

Standing outside his classroom door. Leaning against the wall like he had all the time in the world.

And in his hand — a coffee cup. White, disposable, the kind from the campus café. He wasn't drinking it. Just holding it. Swirling it slightly. Like he was waiting for someone.

My heart did its usual thing. Thump. Thump. Thump. I pressed my back against the lockers, trying to look casual. Trying not to stare.

Then she walked up.

A girl. I hadn't seen her before. Long hair, pulled back in a loose ponytail. Jeans. A backpack slung over one shoulder. Ordinary. Pretty in an ordinary way. The kind of pretty I could have been, maybe, if I'd had her confidence.

She smiled at him. And he —

He smiled back.

But not his usual smile. Not the loud, sudden, laughing-with-friends smile I'd been memorizing for weeks.

This was different.

Softer. Slower. Like his face was relaxing into something private. Something just for her.

Oh, I thought. Oh.

She said something. I couldn't hear the words — the hallway was too loud, lockers slamming, feet shuffling. But I saw her lips move. Saw her tilt her head. Saw the easy way she stood in front of him, like she'd done it a hundred times before.

He laughed. That real laugh. The one that made people around him smile whether they meant to or not.

But this time, he wasn't just laughing near her.

He was laughing at her. With her. For her.

He handed her the coffee.

She took it. Didn't say thank out loud — just smiled, and he smiled back, and the air between them was so warm and so easy and so theirs that I felt like an intruder just standing there.

I was thirty feet away. He didn't know I existed. And still, I felt caught.

That's how he looks at someone he cares about, I realized.

My chest didn't pound this time. It just... ached. A dull, heavy ache, like something inside me was collapsing very slowly.

She took a sip of the coffee. He said something. She laughed — a real laugh, not a polite one — and reached out and touched his arm. Just for a second. Just a brush of her fingers against his sleeve.

He didn't pull away.

Of course he didn't.

I watched them for another minute. Maybe two. The girl finished the coffee. Handed the empty cup back to him. He threw it in a bin without looking — didn't miss this time — and held the door open for her. She walked into the classroom first. He followed.

The door closed.

The hallway went back to normal. Students shuffled past. Someone dropped a pen. Someone else cursed quietly.

I was still standing there. Back against the lockers. Hands cold. Chest hollow.

He brings her coffee, I thought. He holds doors for her. He looks at her like she's the only person in the hallway.

I'd never even spoken to him. I'd never been close enough to touch his sleeve. I'd never had him smile at me like that — soft, private, hers.

I pushed off the lockers. Walked toward the library. Didn't look back.

The funny thing was — I wasn't angry at her. She hadn't done anything wrong. She hadn't stolen him from me because he was never mine to begin with. You can't lose something you never had.

But it still felt like losing.

That night, I lay in bed and replayed the image over and over. His smile. Her hand on his arm. The way he held the door open like it was the most natural thing in the world.

He can look at someone like that, I whispered into the dark.

Just not at me.