Riddles of a Cold-Hearted Cutie

Volume 1 : A Departure's Echo

...❄️...

The air in the hallway was thick with the scent of floor wax and the frantic, electric hum of a new school year—a sound like a thousand cicadas screaming in unison, signaling a beginning that already felt like an end.

I clutched my camera bag’s strap, the leather biting into my shoulder like a reminder of a weight I wasn't meant to carry.

Before the lockers could swallow me whole, my mind drifted back. It was a reflex now, a mental sanctuary I retreated to whenever the pressure of the present became too heavy.

The memory was stained with the orange hues of a departing sun. Three months ago, the living room had been a battlefield of cardboard boxes and packing tape.

Reom, my eldest sister, stood by the door. She was the sun around which our family orbited—radiant, sharp, and intensely protective. She was headed to medical school, a world of sterile white coats and life-or-death stakes, yet her last concern wasn't her own future. It was my heart.

"Ryne," she had said, her voice dropping that playful lilt she usually reserved for teasing me.

She reached out, her fingers catching the collar of my shirt, straightening it with a precision that bordered on aggressive.

"Look at me."

I looked. Her eyes were dark pools of reflected worry.

"You have this habit," she whispered, the shadow of a smile flickering and then dying. "You treat your heart like a public well. You let anyone with a bucket come and draw from it. But Ryne, wells run dry. And people? They don't check the water level before they drop their buckets in. They just keep pulling."

I had laughed then, a small, dismissive sound.

"I’m just being helpful, Reom-nee. It’s what you taught me."

"No," she snapped, though not with malice. It was the sharpness of a surgeon’s scalpel—cutting to heal. "I taught you to be good. I didn't teach you to be a doormat. Don’t be too kind, Ryne. If you don’t set the price of your time, people will assume it’s free. They will abuse that kindness. They will take you for granted until there is nothing left of you but a hollow shell and a polite smile."

She leaned in, her forehead resting against mine for a fleeting second.

"Promise me. Don't let them bleed you dry."

I had promised. I lied.

The memory shattered as a stack of neon-bright flyers was shoved unceremoniously into my chest.

"Ryne! Thank God you're here early!"

I blinked, the sterile LED lights of the 12th-grade hallway snapping back into focus. Standing before me was Marcus, a member of the Student Council whose primary talent was looking busy while accomplishing nothing. He was sweating despite the morning chill, his tie crooked.

"The printer jammed in the council room, and the President needs these sorted, stapled, and posted on every bulletin board before the first bell," Marcus rambled, already backing away as if my touch might infect him with the work he was discarding. "I’d do it, but I have to, uh, coordinate with the caterers for the faculty lunch. You’re a lifesaver, man!"

I opened my mouth. The word No sat on my tongue, heavy and bitter like an unswallowed pill.

I thought of my camera.

I was supposed to be in the Media Club room right now, prepping the lens kits for the orientation coverage. I was a photographer. My job was to capture the light, not to be a clerical servant for the Council.

"Marcus, I actually have to—"

"You're the best, Ryne! I owe you one!" He didn't even wait for the end of my sentence.

He was gone, a blur of white shirt and vanished responsibility.

I stood there, a pillar of misplaced altruism. The flyers felt like lead in my hands. I looked down at them.

Welcome Back, Seniors! Let's Make This Year Unforgettable!

The irony was a physical ache.

My year was already becoming unforgettable for all the wrong reasons.

I walked toward the nearest bulletin board, my thumb pressing a tack into the cork with a rhythmic, dull thud.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Each tack felt like a tiny nail in the coffin of my own free will.

Why couldn't I say it?

That one syllable, so short and sharp, that could cut the invisible strings pulling at my limbs. It was as if my vocal cords were programmed to bypass my brain and go straight to my conscience.

Every time I saw someone "in need," a phantom weight settled on my chest, a suffocating empathy that told me their stress was more important than my peace.

By the time I reached the third floor, my fingers were stained with ink and my shoulder was screaming.

I was supposed to be a senior—the peak of the high school hierarchy. Yet, here I was, playing the role of the ghost who fixed the things everyone else broke.

I found a small alcove near the library, a place where the sunlight hit the floor in a perfect, golden rectangle. I leaned against the cool stone wall and let out a breath I felt I had been holding since Reom-nee’s departure.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small, weathered keychain—a little blue star. It was a gift from Reom-nee years ago.

Looking at it always brought back the "Cutie" stories.

Reom-nee had a way of turning the world into a storybook. She used to talk about a girl she admired—someone she called "Cutie" with a fierce, secret fondness. She never used the girl's real name around the house, only that nickname, spoken with a softness that made Reom-nee, the future doctor, seem like a smitten child.

"She’s like a riddle, Ryne," Reom-nee would say, staring at the ceiling of my room. "She looks like she’s made of sugar and glass, but she’s got a spine of steel. She’s the cutest thing in the world, but she doesn't let anyone get close enough to see it."

I wondered where that "Cutie" was now.

Reom-nee’s secret crush, the girl who lived in the margins of my sister's memories. I wondered if she was kind. I wondered if she had learned the lesson I was currently failing.

I thought how her life is now never knowing about the sister of mine who used to admire her in silence from the background.

The bell rang—a violent, jarring sound that signaled the start of homeroom.

I hurried toward my assigned classroom, 12-A.

My heart hammered against my ribs, not from the exertion, but from a strange, burgeoning anxiety.

This was it.

The final year. The year I was supposed to "find myself," according to every coming-of-age book ever written.

I slipped through the door just as the second bell chimed. The room was a chaotic sea of teenagers, a whirlwind of reunited friends and clashing personalities.

I scanned the room for a seat. There was one in the back, near the window.

As I moved toward it, I felt a sudden, inexplicable chill. It wasn't a draft from the window. It was a presence.

I sat down, carefully placing my camera bag under the desk.

To my right sat a girl. She was staring out the window, her profile as still and cold as a marble statue. Her hair fell in a wavy curtain of silk, shielding her face, but the aura she radiated was unmistakable.

It was a wall. A high, frosted glass wall that said Do Not Touch. Do Not Speak. Do Not Exist In My Space.

My breath hitched.

There was something familiar about the tilt of her head, a ghost of a memory from a playground years ago, but the girl beside me was a stranger. She was a winter morning in the middle of a summer heatwave.

I realized I was staring. I quickly looked away, my face heating up. I reached for my notebook, but as I did, my elbow knocked a stray pen off my desk. It rolled, clicking softly against the floor, and came to rest near her shoe.

I froze. The polite, kind Ryne—the one Reom-nee warned me about—sprang into action before I could stop him.

"Oh, sorry," I whispered, reaching down.

She didn't move. She didn't even blink.

I picked up the pen and held it out, expecting a nod, a glare, or even a dismissive wave.

"Here’s your—oh, wait, this is mine." I laughed nervously, the sound dying in the vacuum of her silence.

She slowly turned her head. Her eyes were sharp, calculated, and utterly devoid of the "warmth" I spent my days trying to provide to others.

She looked at the pen in my hand, then up at my face. It wasn't a look of anger; it was a look of profound indifference, as if I were a piece of furniture that had suddenly started making noise.

She didn't say a word. She simply turned back to the window, dismissing my existence with the grace of a queen and the coldness of a glacier.

I pulled my hand back, clutching my own pen like a weapon. My heart was racing for a different reason now.

Don't be too kind, Ryne. Reom-nee’s voice echoed in my head, louder than the chatter of the classroom.

I looked at the back of the girl’s head. If kindness was a currency, I was currently bankrupt, and this girl looked like she had never spent a single cent in her life.

I opened my notebook to the first page. My handwriting was shaky as I wrote the date at the top.

I was Ryne Alf F. Albedo. I was a brother, a photographer, and a serial helper of people who didn't deserve it. I was a boy who lived in the shadow of a sister’s warning.

And as I sat there, the weight of the flyers, the camera, and the unsaid No’s pressing down on me, I realized that the echo of Reom-nee’s departure wasn't just a memory.

It was a countdown.

The flyers were posted. The room was full. The girl beside me was a frozen riddle.

The year had begun, and as I looked at my ink-stained fingers, I realized I had already forgotten my promise. I was still the boy with the open palm, waiting for someone to take what I had.

But as the teacher walked in and the room fell silent, I couldn't shake the feeling that this time, the price of my kindness would be something I couldn't afford to pay.

The echo of the door closing behind Reom-nee three months ago suddenly felt like the sound of a trap snapping shut.

I glanced once more at the girl to my right. She was beautiful, yes, but it was a jagged beauty, the kind that cuts you if you try to hold it.

Cutie.

The word felt like a lie. There was nothing cute about the coldness in this room.

I turned my gaze to the front, my heart a dull, rhythmic ache against my ribs.

I promise, Reom-nee, I thought, even as I felt the person behind me tap my shoulder to ask for a spare sheet of paper.

I promise I won't let them take everything.

I reached into my bag and handed the paper back without looking.

The echo continued.

The cycle remained unbroken. And in the silence of the 12th-grade classroom, the riddles began to weave themselves into the very air I breathed.

...❄️...

...AerixielDaiminse...