STAY AWAY

Highschool A's corridor emptied in uneven waves between classes—metal lockers slamming, voices peeling away toward the next room—until Mei stood alone with an armload of books under the flat hum of fluorescent strips. She hadn't asked for company. Wei appeared at the far end anyway, closing distance with his usual skinny slouch and messy black hair. No entourage followed him today.

Something was off about him. At school he normally wore a grin like armor, loud enough for anyone passing to hear. Now he kept his voice down, almost careful. "How can I win your sister back?"

Xian wasn't in the hall. Mei still felt the twin-shaped hole between them—and Wei's question landed wrong in it, too honest for a boy who usually performed for crowds.

Her stomach clenched. She didn't step toward him. Arms tucked in, shoulders angled away—every inch of her saying she didn't want him in her space with the corridor this empty. Two people and a long stretch of tile felt too narrow.

"Stay away." Mei's voice stayed flat. "There is nothing you can do." No charm, no pressure, no trick would undo what Xian had already made plain. Mei didn't say 2007 aloud. She didn't have to. The memory of what Wei had done when someone else had loved her sister and been turned down sat between them anyway, and it made his question obscene.

The answer didn't sit with him. Edge crept into his tone, and he leaned on the surname he always leaned on—the Tang clan, family money, the kind of backing that let boys like him act as if corridors belonged to their last name. He wanted her to shrink beside it.

The surname didn't move her. Gu meant more in that hallway than Tang ever would—the house behind her name, the clan that didn't bow to rich-boy bluster between classes. "Look for someone who actually likes you." Still level. Still no room to negotiate. "My sister clearly does not." Xian's rejection wasn't Mei's to soften; she was just the only channel Wei had left to hear it through.

Wei went red. Pride wouldn't salvage this—not against her flat dismissal, not with the Tang name failing to crack her open. He turned on his heel. Under his breath, almost talking to himself: "It's all because of Valaciel." Blame sliding off his own failure onto someone who wasn't even in this hall.

His footsteps thinned toward the next corner. Mei let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding; her shoulders dropped by degrees. Once she couldn't hear him anymore, relief settled in. The corridor was hers again. She gathered her things and headed for class.