chap 1

The air in the room was thick with the scent of cardamom tea and the kind of mindless gossip that only happens on slow Sunday afternoons. Sana leaned back, her voice light, weaving a story from their shared past like it was just another piece of thread.

"It was during those exam prep sessions," Sana said, a small smirk playing on her lips. "The lobby was a mess. Kadi and the rest of us were just standing there when the world basically exploded. Two groups of boys, behaving like animals, honestly. And then he stepped out."

She could still see it if she closed her eyes—the dusty light of the tuition center lobby, the shouting, and the boy who had stomped toward them. He hadn't looked at them like girls; he had looked at them like obstacles.

"He shouted right in Kadi’s face," Sana continued, her voice dropping an octave. "He thought we were filming the fight. I remember the way my heart hammered against my ribs. He was terrifying, Auntie. And do you know who that was? Your friend Aria’s younger brother. Yaziel."

Sana laughed, expecting her aunt to join in on the absurdity of it. "And the funniest part? Kadi had the biggest crush on him after that. She even named her nephew after him years later. Can you imagine? Being obsessed with a guy who once screamed at you in a lobby?"

Sana didn't mention the rest. She didn't mention how Kadi had spent years chasing his digital ghost, or the brief, flickering months where they had flirted online before Yaziel cut her off with the cold precision of a surgeon the moment she confessed her feelings.

But her aunt didn't laugh.

The older woman’s face hardened, her tea forgotten on the table. The atmosphere in the room shifted, turning cold and clinical.

"Don't keep those ideas in your head, Sana," her aunt said, her voice unusually sharp. "His family... they aren't like us. Aria is strict beyond measure. And Yaziel? He isn't that type of boy. Stay away from that name."

Sana felt a prickle of annoyance under her skin. "Why are you saying that to me? I just told you, it’s Kadi’s crush. I didn’t even acknowledge him back then. He was just a loud boy in a lobby to me."

"Just making sure," her aunt muttered, but the warning lingered in the air like smoke.

The next day, the heat of the afternoon sun felt heavy on Sana’s shoulders as she walked out of the school gates. Being a history teacher was rewarding, but today, the weight of the past felt literal.

She pulled out her phone, seeking the mindless escape of a scroll. She opened Instagram, her thumb moving rhythmically until it froze.

Suggested for you.

It was a promotional post for an ICT Academy. In the center of the frame was a man.

Sana stopped walking.

It was Yaziel.

He wasn't the lanky, aggressive boy from the lobby anymore. He was standing in a sharp, dark shirt, his eyes narrowed slightly at the camera. He looked polished, intellectual, and utterly cold. He was a teacher now—working under his sister Maria, the very woman who had taught Sana years ago.

The coincidence felt like a physical weight. Yesterday, his name was a ghost in a conversation. Today, his face was a digital reality in her palm.

In the photo, he wasn't smiling. There was something in his gaze—something dark and disciplined—that made Sana’s breath hitch. He looked like the kind of man who didn't just teach rules; he enforced them.

She remembered her aunt’s warning: He isn't that type of boy.

Sana swiped the app shut, her heart doing a strange, jagged rhythm against her ribs. It was just an algorithm. A glitch in the system.

She didn't know that the system was already closing in on her. She didn't know that in a few weeks, "Yaziel" wouldn't be a suggestion on a screen, but a command she couldn't ignore.

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