Joel wasn't looking for anything.
He'd come back to grab the earphones he'd left in the music room, but the corridor outside the classrooms was eerily quiet. Most students had left, their chatter long gone.
As he turned the corner near the staff rooms, he slowed his pace.
Through the half-open door of Class 3B, he saw them.
Elena. Adam. Alone.
She stood in front of his desk, her shoulders tense, his gaze locked on her like there was no one else in the world.
Joel's smirk dropped.
They weren't touching. They weren't even saying anything, not in that moment.
But something hung in the air between them.
Something Joel recognized—not from books or classes—but from music. From the seconds before a beat dropped. From the silence before a lyric broke your heart.
Tension. Raw. Real. Dangerous.
Elena stepped back. Adam didn't follow. She turned toward the door.
Joel ducked back quickly, pretending to fiddle with the strap of his bag.
When she passed by seconds later, she didn't see him.
But Joel saw her.
The flush in her cheeks. The storm in her eyes. The way she clutched her notebook just a little too tightly.
He waited until she disappeared down the stairwell before turning to look at that classroom again.
The door was closed now.
Joel frowned.
So she's not just the quiet topper with a journal full of flowers and feathers.
There was more to her.
And something about that… didn't sit right.