THE HUNTER .

Every goddamn day is the same.

People out there waking up to forehead kisses and good morning texts like they're the protagonists of some soft, Pinterest-filtered romance.

People getting head pats, breakfast in bed, warm fucking sunlight landing on their skin like angels are hand-delivering their serotonin.

And me?

I'm standing in the middle of class like a criminal in a courtroom. My knees locked. Spine stiff. Head down like I'm mourning my dignity.

Because apparently, being the class coordinator means shit when you've got a GPA that's actively committing suicide and a professor who looks like she eats failing students for pre-lunch snacks.

"Miss Arshila Eshaal Mirza," Professor Dr. Vaughn says my full name like she's about to recite an execution order. Her accent is crisp, her tone colder than my mother's side of the family during wedding arguments. "Do you know what a coordinator is supposed to do?"

I bite my tongue. Hard. Because what I want to say is:

Yeah, someone who ruins their life to make sure yours goes smoothly.

But I'm not trying to get buried alive today, so I stare at the floor tiles instead. One of them's chipped. Wish it would open up and drag me into hell.

"Well?" she demands.

I mumble something that sounds like a mix between a yes and a dying pigeon.

"Speak up, Miss Mirza. Or has your voice also started bunking classes like you?"

Laughter ripples through the room, and I swear on Shakespeare's grave, I imagine stabbing every single one of them with a fountain pen. Repeatedly. In iambic fucking pentameter.

"If your goal," Dr. Vaughn continues, walking toward me with the grace of a serial killer, "is to sleep through every single lecture while texting under the desk and passing notes like it's 2003-then congratulations. You're thriving."

Okay, now she's being dramatic.

"You are the coordinator. You are supposed to be a bridge between me and the students, and yet somehow, you're the one leading them into the damn river."

More laughter. My hands are curled into fists at my sides, nails digging into skin, and I'm mentally writing her eulogy. It's got metaphors. And fire.

"I told you two weeks ago," she says, turning to face the class now, arms crossed like she's about to go full TED Talk, "to submit your comparative literature projects. Due date was last Friday. It is now Wednesday. Miss Mirza-have you submitted yours?"

I lift my head half an inch. "No, ma'am."

She smirks. Oh, bitch is glowing. "Of course you haven't."

I want to say: I had a plan. I even opened the Word document. Then I got distracted arguing with Ruby over whether Shakespeare was hot or not, and then Ifrah pulled me into some weird psychological breakdown she found on Reddit, and somehow-boom-five hours passed.

And now I'm standing here like a half-cooked egg.

"This entire class," she announces, sweeping her gaze across everyone like the queen of academic disappointment, "will have exactly until Monday morning, 8AM sharp to submit their projects, or you can kiss twenty percent of your final grade goodbye."

I feel Ruby shift beside me. Ifrah's probably vibrating in stress. Shaiza? Dead silent. She knows better than to poke the angry professor-dragon.

Dr. Vaughn turns back to me with the look of a woman who's waited her whole career for this moment. "And let's not even start on your sleeping schedule."

Oh no.

"You have what I would call a Ph.D. in Napping Through Education."

The class loses it. Even Ifrah's trying not to snort.

"You've got the form down. Head tilted to the left, jaw slack, sometimes even drooling depending on the day. Truly, a master at work. Should I give you attendance for existing in the classroom or haunting it like a lazy ghost?"

I close my eyes. Let it end. Just end me.

She paces in front of the board now. "And the way she talks through my lectures-like I'm some background noise in her sitcom of a life. Whispering, laughing, doodling-one day I looked down and she was drawing a battle between Hamlet and Naruto."

That was a masterpiece.

"And let's not forget her sidekicks," she says, pointing her dry erase marker like a sword. "Ifrah-top student, yes, but even toppers fall when they start orbiting chaos like this one." She jabs it toward me.

Ifrah lowers her eyes. Ruby is giggling like she's watching a roast on Comedy Central. Shaiza mouths, you're dead, which-accurate.

Dr. Vaughn takes a breath. "You are not stupid, Miss Mirza. Which is why this is even more disappointing. You've got the brain. You just refuse to use it."

I lift my head a little more. Her tone has shifted. Just slightly. Less executioner, more exhausted war veteran.

"You think this is a joke. You think these years are a throwaway. But life doesn't hand out participation trophies. You will either burn yourself alive trying to keep up later, or you'll get your shit together now. That's your choice."

She lets it hang in the air.

Then she claps her hands once. "Everyone, sit down. And open your notes to the second section of Woolf's A Room of One's Own."

I sit. My legs feel like noodles. Ruby leans over and mouths, "RIP."

Ifrah passes me a mint and whispers, "Want my notes?"

I nod and rest my face on the desk, biting the inside of my cheek so I don't fucking scream.

I hate being the coordinator.

I hate projects.

I hate that cracked floor tile.

And I really fucking hate Dr. Vaughn's accurate psychoanalysis of my life.

I don't say anything for the next twenty minutes.

No wisecracks. No muttering under my breath. No passing stupid comments to Ruby about how Woolf could've used a good orgasm and maybe then she wouldn't be so obsessed with rooms and independence.

Just silence. The kind that sticks to your ribs.

I sit there, pen between my fingers, eyes on the board, scribbling down notes like my life depends on it. My handwriting's messier than usual-angled, aggressive, sharp slashes across the page like each word is a goddamn stab.

Every sentence Dr. Vaughn throws at the class lands heavy, but I keep my face blank. Stoic. Bored, even.

Fake it. Mask on.

Because if I let anything real slip-if I let even one crack show-someone like Ruby might try to cheer me up with her stupid candy voice, or Ifrah will drop a motivational quote like I'm a Pinterest board in distress, or worse: Dr. Vaughn will think she got to me.

And no. Fuck no. She doesn't get that.

So I sit straight, chin up, jaw locked so tight it's starting to hurt.

I'm listening now. Every word of the lecture is burning its way into my skull. I don't know if it's to prove a point or punish myself or maybe both.

Virginia Woolf said a woman needs a room of her own and money to write fiction.

Cool. What I need is a goddamn bunker, a time machine, and maybe a second soul to carry the damage.

Shaiza shifts beside me.

She doesn't look at me directly-smart girl. Just a little nudge to my elbow, soft like she's testing if I'm made of glass today. "You okay?" she mumbles, voice low so it doesn't carry.

I don't turn. Don't even blink. Just go: "Mmm."

That's it.

Not a yes. Not a no. Just that useless, shitty syllable people use when their throat's blocked with something they'll never say out loud.

She doesn't say anything back.

Doesn't press.

That's why she's my favorite. She knows. There's a kind of silence only your real people respect. The kind where they can see the storm behind your eyes and they don't throw you an umbrella-they just stand near enough to catch the same rain, but not so close that you feel cornered.

I keep taking notes. Don't know what half of them mean. Doesn't matter. I need something to do with my hands. Something to drown the leftover burn of Dr. Vaughn's voice digging into my ribs.

I still feel it. That lecture? That roast? That wasn't just a public humiliation. That was a scalpel dressed as words. Precise. Brutal. And goddamn accurate.

Because yeah-I do sleep in class.

Yeah-I joke too much, talk too loud, care too little.

Yeah-I've been a fucking disaster of a coordinator.

But hearing her say it like that, in front of everyone? Like I'm some train wreck spiraling through a syllabus with no brakes?

That did something.

And I hate that it did.

Because I don't cry in class. I don't spiral in public. I don't let a room full of classmates-half of whom can't even spell 'Woolf'-see me bend.

So I keep the mask on. Eyes on the board. Notes flying. And when the ink smears a little on the edge of the page from where my hand slipped, I wipe it off fast, like it never happened.

The lecture drones on. Dr. Vaughn is deep into feminist theory now, voice steady, posture stiff. I wonder if she knows. If she meant it to hurt. Or if she thinks she's helping. She probably thinks that was a wake-up call. Like she's the strict mentor in some coming-of-age novel, dragging the troubled genius back to greatness with a single harsh truth.

But I'm not in a fucking novel.

I'm in a cramped classroom that smells like cheap cologne and broken dreams, and I'm trying not to scream.

Bell rings forty-five minutes later.

People start packing up. Chairs screech. Bags zip. Laughter returns.

I move slow.

Still taking notes even after she's stopped talking. Still pretending the world around me doesn't exist. I can feel Shaiza watching me from the corner of her eye, but she doesn't say anything. She just sits there, waiting.

And I'm thankful. Because I don't know what I'd say back.

"Mmm," is all I've got right now.

And maybe that's enough.

"Stand up," Shaiza says, nudging me with her elbow. Her voice is soft but sure, like she already knows the answer and is just being polite. "Class is over. We have to go."

I don't even lift my head.

"I need a break," I mumble. "You guys go ahead. I'll catch up."

I can feel her hesitate. I know that silence. It's her calculating how much I mean it, how much she should argue.

"Arshila..."

"I said go," I cut her off. Not yelling. Just flat. Cold. Like I'm pressing a mute button on the whole damn world.

Shaiza sighs and doesn't try again. She knows better. There are moods of mine she can read from a mile away-the ones with blood under the fingernails and barbed wire in the voice. This is one of them.

Footsteps shuffle. Bags zip. Her voice, low and reluctant, "We'll be in the courtyard."

Then silence.

The room empties. Chairs stop squeaking. Lights buzz quietly overhead like they're the only ones left with something to say.

And I rest my head on the desk.

Hard.

Eyes closed. Breathing slow.

My own pulse is loud inside my skull. Throbbing behind my temples like it's trying to remind me I'm still alive even when I feel fucking hollow.

God, I hate this.

I hate that she got to me. That Vaughn's voice still echoes like a shitty loop. I hate the eyes that watched, the smirks, the silence afterward, the way people never say what they're thinking but you know exactly what they're thinking anyway.

I hate that I felt small for even a second.

Because I'm not.

I'm not fucking small. I'm not weak. I'm not lost.

I'm her.

I'm me.

A fucking disaster, yes. But I've built hurricanes out of worse days than this. I don't fall apart just because someone finally called me out on the mess I already know I am.

Fuck 'em.

Fuck her PhD.

Fuck this classroom.

Fuck the idea that I need to be palatable to be worth something.

I press my forehead harder against the cold wood and whisper under my breath, "I'm still gonna be her. I'm always gonna be her. No matter what the fuck they think."

And then I feel it.

A presence.

Not footsteps. Not sound.

Just weight in the air. A quiet shift of gravity. Like the oxygen tilted.

I glance up, just a little-and freeze.

Shadin.

He's sitting beside me now. Not across. Next to. Like he's always been there.

Long legs stretched. One arm lazily on the desk. The other curled under his head.

His face is tilted toward mine. Calm. Casual. That kind of stillness that's too deliberate to be natural.

And then he lowers his head, resting it on the desk beside mine-fucking mirroring me-and now we're two idiots with our heads on the same scarred table like it's some kind of confessional altar and neither of us knows what the hell we're doing.

His dark eyes slide over to mine. Calm. Careful.

"Moody?" he says. Voice low. A little too soft. A little too fucking knowing.

I stare at him.

And I mean stare. Dead in the eyes. Because he's not supposed to see this. This side. This mess. He's not supposed to walk into the battlefield after the bullets stopped and just lay there next to the dead like he belongs there.

I narrow my eyes. Let my mouth curl into that signature venom-tipped smile I keep for moments exactly like this.

"Fuck off," I whisper. Slow. Sharp. Controlled.

His lips twitch. Not a smile. Just... amusement. Like he expected that answer and somehow still finds it interesting.

He doesn't move. Doesn't speak for a beat.

Then, "That bad, huh?"

I roll my eyes. "You wanna play therapist now? Go find someone who cries on Instagram and sells sad poetry on Etsy."

He chuckles. Soft. Barely-there.

"You are moody," he says, like it's an observation and not a judgment. "But it's cute."

I lift my head just slightly, eyes narrowing into blades. "Say that again and I'll stab you with this pen and tell the cops you fell on it."

His eyes flick to the pen in my hand. "Wouldn't be the worst way to die."

God. He's annoying. Always this calm, composed shit with a hint of mystery like he was raised in a goddamn noir film.

"Don't you have something better to do?" I mutter, shifting my head back down.

He mirrors me again. "Nope."

I breathe in. Exhale slow. "You're seriously just gonna sit here? With me? After that whole show?"

"Yep."

I hate that it... helps.

Even just a little.

Even if I don't want to admit it.

Even if I want to stab him and myself.

Because right now-right here-I don't feel entirely alone. And it pisses me off.

I close my eyes again.

And for a minute, we don't say anything.

Just two heads on one desk. Two moods that don't make sense. Two people who probably shouldn't be in the same scene but somehow always end up side by side.

And I don't know what that means.

I don't want to know.

So I say nothing.

And neither does he.

The silence hangs between us, soft but heavy.

My cheek is still pressed to the desk. His too. Like we're lying on opposite sides of the same battlefield, waiting to see who flinches first.

The overhead light flickers slightly-just once. One of those old-ass fluorescent tantrums. I blink. He doesn't.

"You know," Shadin says suddenly, voice low like he's thinking out loud, "I like you."

I blink again. "Excuse me?"

He doesn't look at me. Still has that half-smile on his face. Like he just said the weather's nice. Like he didn't drop that sentence between us like a live grenade.

"I said," he repeats, very fucking casually, "I like you. Because you're you. Not the version people want you to be. Not some filtered, polished, agreeable little digestible cupcake. You. The chaos. The mess. The bite in your words. The 'fuck off' in your eyes. I like all of it."

I stare at him like he just tried to confess something in ancient Greek.

And then, because I don't know how else to process something so fucking... unreal, I narrow my eyes. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Now he looks at me.

Right at me.

Dark, steady eyes that don't waver-not even a little. Not even under the full weight of my confusion and razor-blade suspicion.

"I like that you're unapologetically real," he says. "Even when it pisses people off. Even when professors go full TED Talk on you mid-lecture and try to humiliate you in front of thirty bored assholes."

I blink. Again.

"How the fuck do you know that?" My voice is sharper now. Defensive.

He shrugs. Still calm. Still maddeningly unreadable.

"Because I was here."

I scoff. "What? Hiding under the goddamn floor?"

He chuckles-quiet and deep. "No. I was passing by. Before it started. Before you even noticed me. I sat in the back. Didn't think you'd care."

My throat's dry suddenly.

"You watched?" I ask, voice low now. Disbelieving.

"I saw," he corrects. "I saw the way you didn't flinch even when she tore through you like you weren't even human. I saw how you took it. All of it. No tears. No defense. Just clenched fists and that fucking storm brewing in your jaw."

I don't speak.

I can't.

Because goddamn-he did see.

And that's not okay.

It's not okay that someone looked too long. That someone understood something I wasn't ready for them to get. That someone sat in the dark part of the room and read me like I was a chapter with no title.

"I don't need pity," I mutter, trying to look away.

His voice gets softer. "It's not pity."

"I don't need validation either."

"Didn't give you any."

I look at him now. Hard. Jaw tight.

"Then what the fuck is this, Shadin?"

He rests his chin on the desk, still facing me. His expression... it isn't playful now. It's something else.

Something deeper. Older. Like he's been carrying it around too long and finally set it down just to see what I'd do with it.

"This is me saying," he murmurs, "don't change. Don't bend. Don't start pretending just because some bitter professor with a superiority kink decided to take a dump on your soul in front of everyone."

My heart stutters in my chest.

"I like you," he repeats, gentler now, "because you're not like them. Because even when your voice is shaking, your eyes aren't. Because even when you're hurting, you don't hand it to anyone. You hold it in your fucking teeth and you dare them to come closer."

I hate the way my chest tightens.

I hate the lump forming in my throat.

I hate that he knows.

I stare at him. Stare hard. "You don't know me."

His eyes flicker. "I do. Maybe more than you think."

"You don't," I snap. "You see what you want to see. Some badass bitch version of me that doesn't give a shit and has everything under control, but I'm not-"

"I know you're not okay." His voice cuts clean through mine.

And I stop breathing.

"I know you're tired. I know it gets loud in your head sometimes. I know you pretend you're fine even when it's all falling apart. I know you hate being the coordinator. I know you think you're screwing it all up. And I know you think no one notices."

He shifts closer-just slightly.

"But I do."

I swallow.

Hard.

My fingers curl against the edge of the desk, nails digging in.

He says it so simply. Like it's not an earthquake in sentence form.

"I see you," he adds, so quiet I almost don't catch it. "And I always will."

That fucking sentence.

I hate the way it hits. Like it was shaped for a wound I didn't even know I had.

I look away.

Because fuck.

I don't have the strength to deal with this right now.

And I don't know what this is.

Friendship? Something else?

Doesn't matter.

I'm not ready.

I clear my throat, roll my shoulders back like it'll roll off the weight of his words too.

"Well," I mutter. "That's grossly sentimental for someone who once watched me trip over my own shoelace and laughed for ten minutes."

He smirks. "Still funny."

I give him the finger.

He grins. "Still hot."

"Still fuck off."

He shrugs. "Still not leaving."

And neither of us moves.

Two heads. One desk. Too much unsaid between.

But maybe... maybe just enough said to get through today.

I finally lift my head off the desk.

Neck stiff. Jaw tighter.

He's still there. Still fucking there. Elbow on the table, cheek resting in his palm, eyes half-lidded like we're just two friends hanging out and not locked in some slow-burning emotional car crash.

God, I hate how calm he is. Like he isn't saying shit that rearranges my bones.

I run a hand through my hair. Breathe through my nose.

"Go fuck with your blonde stalker," I mutter, voice sharp. Acidic. Aimed straight at the part of him that's way too composed for my liking.

His mouth twitches.

Oh?" he says. "Jealous?"

I stare at him. Flat. Expressionless. The way murderers look at knives.

"No," I say. "Disgusted."

He laughs-just a low, amused exhale. The kind that makes the corner of his mouth pull up, slow and boyish. Way too charming for someone who just had his soul casually kicked in and didn't even blink.

"She's not my type."

I raise a brow. "What, breathing?"

Another soft laugh. "No. Desperate. I don't like people who orbit like they've got no gravity of their own."

I scoff. "Wow. Romantic."

"I didn't say I was romantic."

He leans closer.

Eyes dark. Voice lower.

"I said I prefer this."

My stomach does a very fucking annoying flip. I ignore it. I bury it under sarcasm and salt.

"This?" I echo. "What the fuck is this?"

He smiles like he's been waiting for that question.

"This," he says, voice smooth as black coffee, "is you pretending you don't care. Me pretending I believe it. You stabbing me with your words. Me refusing to bleed. You pushing. Me staying."

I open my mouth.

No sound.

He goes on.

"This is your temper throwing punches and my patience catching them. This is the way you burn and the way I like the heat."

He taps his fingers once on the desk between us. A soft, slow rhythm that feels like it means something.

"I prefer the fire," he adds. "Even when it scorches."

For a second, I forget how to breathe.

Then I remember I'm me.

And I do what I do best-push back.

I lean forward, elbows on the desk, eyes locked on his like I want to set him on fire with just my stare.

"You're so full of shit," I say, too calmly.

"Maybe," he says. "But I'm full of your kind of shit."

That draws a laugh out of me.

A short, involuntary one that escapes before I can swallow it.

"God, you're annoying," I mutter.

He grins. "And yet here you are. Still talking to me. Still letting me sit here. Still listening."

I glare at him. "I'm letting you because murder is illegal."

He hums. "Is it, though? Some people would argue it's just creative problem solving."

"You are the problem," I say, half under my breath.

He leans in again-close enough I can smell his cologne. Something cool and sharp, like rain on concrete. It makes my pulse hiccup.

"Then solve me," he whispers.

Oh.

Fuck.

I stare at him.

Not because I don't know what to say, but because he doesn't break eye contact.

Not for a second.

And it's not fair. The way he looks at me. Like I'm not something to figure out or fix. Like I'm a poem that only he understands. Like I'm not a mess-but a method.

I scoff. Look away. "You've been watching too many Netflix dramas."

He leans back finally, smile still etched on his face like he carved it there.

"Maybe. But this episode? Kinda my favorite."

I groan. Loudly. "Leave."

"No."

"Get out."

"Make me."

"Fine. I'll scream."

He grins wider. "Then I'll cover your mouth."

I blink. Once.

Twice.

Heat flares somewhere it shouldn't.

"I hate you," I say slowly.

"I know," he says, eyes glittering. "You

say it so lovingly."

I shove his shoulder.

He doesn't move. Just chuckles.

Still here.

Still fucking here.