Ficorpio
Chapter 1
The transfer student really did look like the Designated Heroine.
The floating reader comments were practically throwing confetti over her head.
Then I thought about it a little longer and frowned.
What were those comments calling her, exactly? The kind of girl who would copy homework from a boy before even getting familiar with the class? The kind of girl who could not hide her smile while asking for help? A soft, pretty, Fragile Innocent Type?
If a girl like that showed up in a novel, maybe she would be worth cheering for.
But in real life?
All I could think was: she had no sense of boundaries, and she was already getting close to the handsomest boy in school.
While I was silently sizing up the transfer student, the comments were in full shipping mode, squealing about how perfectly matched she and the campus heartthrob looked. That was when Ethan Sterling turned his head toward me.
He was annoyingly good-looking too, though not in the same bright, polished way as Aiden Prescott. Ethan was more like a lake at night: quiet, cool, and hard to read.
I thought the comments were wrong.
They had to be.
Because Ethan had once told me, very seriously, that his family name was Sterling, and yet the comments kept treating him like some future character named only by an initial. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe they had gotten him mixed up with someone else.
I decided he could not be the male lead either.
Mostly because the floating comments had never actually said his full name. They only kept repeating that the transfer student and “A” were destined to be together.
If those comments were right, then in the future the two of them would be wildly in love.
Ethan glanced over at me, his face still blank.
“Mia Bennett,” he said, “what college are you aiming for?”
I was so taken aback that for a second I had no idea how to answer.
It was too sudden.
And, honestly, a little too serious.
With his grades, he could go almost anywhere he wanted. He was good-looking, smart, and so calm it made people feel like nothing in the world could rattle him.
At the beginning of the school year, plenty of girls in our homeroom had secretly liked him. There had been whispered conversations, folded notes, girls asking around about his schedule. But after a while, all that excitement slowly faded.
Until the transfer student arrived.
Now everyone’s attention had shifted to her.
Chapter 2
I looked toward the front of the classroom. Celeste Hayes was standing beside Aiden, wearing the school uniform as if it had been tailored for her. She was smiling up at him, and from where I sat, they did look close.
To be honest, if you looked at their features one by one, Aiden was not impossibly handsome.
The problem was that he smiled beautifully.
Daniel Carter was the opposite. His face always seemed to carry a faint, weary tiredness, the kind of look that made people instinctively avoid bothering him.
Ethan, meanwhile, had an aloofness that felt almost deliberately sharp. He normally barely spoke to anyone besides me.
“Why are you staring at Daniel?” Ethan asked.
His voice was low, but there was something strange in it.
“Do you like him too?”
I froze.
Oh.
So that was why he had suddenly asked about college. Was he jealous?
That was ridiculous.
After all, Ethan had never acted like he cared about Celeste at all.
“Nothing,” I said.
I rubbed my nose and looked away.
“Let’s go together after school.”
The floating comments exploded again.
[Is Mia jealous?]
[Come on, she’s just a Background Character. What right does she have to be jealous?]
[Don’t tell me she thinks she can compete with the Designated Heroine.]
I stared at the bright, drifting lines of text and nearly choked on air.
Jealous?
Who was jealous?
They made it sound like Ethan and I had an appointment or something.
But when the final bell rang, and Celeste and Aiden left together in the middle of a noisy cluster of classmates, Ethan stood not far from the classroom door and looked straight at me.
“Why did you say that today?” I asked as I packed my bag. “And what’s with you lately? You’re this good-looking and the comments still act like everyone around you is blind.”
Ethan’s expression remained perfectly calm.
“Come with me,” he said.
“Where?”
“You’ll see.”
I had no idea what he meant.
When Ethan led me through the doors of the Sterling Estates sales office, I was still trying to figure out why we were there.
I secretly glanced at him.
His school uniform was worn loose, his jacket hanging open, his dark hair falling slightly over his forehead. He looked completely out of place and yet somehow as if he owned every inch of the room.
“What are we doing here?” I whispered.
The sales associate at the front desk seemed to recognize him at once.
“Mr. Sterling,” she said with a bright, practiced smile.
My brain stalled.
Mr. Sterling?
Here?
Ethan nodded faintly, as if this were normal.
“Is the model condo available?”
“Yes, of course.”
The woman led us toward the elevator with careful politeness. I followed beside Ethan, my mind full of static.
Only then did it hit me. Ethan had never compared himself to anyone at school because there was no need.
He had probably been born standing at a finish line most people could not even see.
Chapter 3
The model condo took up an entire upper floor. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over Ashton City, the kind of view that made the skyline seem like it had been arranged for someone’s private enjoyment. The living room was all pale wood, soft lighting, and furniture that looked casual until you realized every piece probably cost more than my family’s monthly expenses.
I stood in the doorway and did not move.
Ethan walked in ahead of me, then turned back.
“Do you like it?”
He looked at me with quiet expectation, his eyes darker than usual.
My heart gave one hard thump.
I had no choice but to tell the truth.
“It’s beautiful.”
Ethan’s mouth curved, barely enough to count as a smile. Then he turned and continued walking farther inside.
“If you like it, then from now on, you can live somewhere like this.”
I stared at his back.
For a moment, I could not understand what he meant.
Then my face went hot.
How could he say something like that so calmly? As if buying a luxury condo was the same as picking up a drink after school.
I trailed after him through the model condo, still dazed.
“Ethan,” I said at last, “is something wrong with you?”
He stopped beside the window.
For a second, the whole city seemed to hang behind him, bright and distant and unreal.
Then he looked back at me.
“I’m not sick,” he said.
But his gaze made me feel as if I was the one losing my mind.
The mess from the night before stayed lodged in my head.
I kept turning it over and over until the next morning, when Ms. Harper stood at the front of the classroom and tapped her lesson planner against the podium.
“Anyone who didn’t finish the homework, stand up.”
Grace Miller propped her chin in one hand and glanced sideways at me.
“Did you do it?”
“No.”
“You forgot?”
“Yeah.”
She stared at me as if I had personally betrayed the entire education system. “Mia Bennett, did a dog eat your brain?”
Before I could defend myself, I saw a familiar tall figure rise near the front of the room.
Ethan Sterling.
“Ethan,” Ms. Harper said, her brows pulling tight. “You’re careless on an ordinary day, fine. But now you’re not even turning in homework? Do you remember you’re the Class Representative?”
As she scolded him, another person slowly got to his feet.
My frown deepened.
“Daniel Carter.” Ms. Harper’s voice sharpened. “Other people skipping homework is one thing. You too?”
Daniel gave an awkward laugh.
“Well, everyone else who didn’t do it stood up. If I did it and still sat there, wouldn’t I look stupid?”
“You think this is funny?”
Ms. Harper slapped her planner against the podium.
I braced myself and stood up too.
A second later, Grace also dragged herself to her feet beside me.
Ms. Harper looked at us as if we had formed a criminal organization before second period.