Chapter 1 A Painful Proposal
Never in her wildest dreams did Klishei Aizal think that she would be experiencing a proposal a day after she turned eighteen.
“Get up. You’re embarrassing me, Daevar!” she cried. Her classmates had their phones up. The girls couldn’t stop giggling while her male classmates were cheering for the boy who was kneeling in front of her with a ring in his hand.
“Go for it!” shouted Luka, her guy best friend. Klishei groaned in dismay. They were so into this.
The classroom was in such a frenzy that Klishei was afraid the teachers would reprimand them for their noise.
“I knew it immediately when I saw you. We were destined to be together. Please go out with me,” the boy sweetly said.
Daevar Proy finally lifted his head. His tone was irresistible. In addition to that, his face was regal, spotless, and frighteningly handsome. Yesterday, he was just a transferee and they only exchanged a few words. Now she comes to school to be greeted with a will-you-marry-me-question first thing in the morning. How could love be so quick?
Still, there was something in his face that made her want to immediately say yes. She rubbed one of her eyes. Did she imagine that or were his brown irises actually swirling and changing colors?
“Move,” a voice from her back boomed. When she averted her eyes off Daevar, she felt a sudden headache behind her eyes. The pain jolted her back to reality. She totally forgot that she was standing in front of the doorway of the classroom.
“Sorry,” she said as she craned her eyes to see her classmate who just spoke. “I didn’t mean—”
Klishei blinked. She didn’t know this boy. He was in their school uniform. They just got Daevar yesterday as a transferee. Was this boy another one?
Her eyebrows arched when she saw that he had an ID. That would mean this guy was an old student of their school.
‘Maybe he got the classrooms incorrect,’ she thought. Valhartt Academy had lots of corridors. It wasn’t unusual for students to be lost.
“Yeseus, over here!” Luka called.
Yeseus?
Klishei turned around to get a good look at him. He was two heads above her. Tan skin and black hair, he was an Asian through and through, especially with his narrow eyes.
“Luka, you know him?” she asked.
All of her classmates suddenly turned their heads toward her. The attention earlier was also on her but it was different this time. They were looking at her with question marks in their eyes.
“Uhm, Klishei? He’s our classmate,” Luka answered while scratching his head.
“Since when?” she asked.
Luka looked back and forth between her and Yeseus.
“What do you mean? He’s been with us since seventh grade.”
They were already in the last year of their high school. She could only stare at her ‘classmate’ who was supposed to have been with them since first year.
Yeseus sighed. “Are you going to move or not?”
“Oh, sorry.” She sidestepped and let him pass. Yeseus went to the back and sat at the last chair.
Was there always an extra chair there?
Klishei was so puzzled she forgot Daevar was still on his knees.
“Okay, class, to your seats,” the voice of Sir Hans, their art teacher, echoed in the hallway. The class moved in unison as they all went to their seats. Klishei shrugged off the thought that something weird was going on.
When she sat down, Daevar grabbed the chair beside her.
“This is not your seat,” Klishei firmly said.
“Oh, but this is mine starting now, right, Sir Hans?” Daevar smirked.
“No, it’s---“ When Sir Hans looked in their direction, his voice faltered. “Yes, yes, of course. From now on, Mr. Proy will be beside Ms. Aizal.”
What?
She looked at Daevar in unbelief. “How did you…”
“What? I talked to him earlier,” he snickered.
The rest of morning class was normal, save for Daevar. He would put his arm over the back of her seat and Klishei would immediately remove it. Daevar would also constantly stare at her too lovingly to the point that she felt like surrendering to his gaze. Never in her life did she experience someone looking at her like Daevar. It was like she was the most beautiful lady in the world.
But then, her head would throb in pain occasionally, snapping her back to the present. She remembered her dream career of traveling around the world. She was too young to think about love.
“Stop staring at me or else I won’t talk to you anymore. You’re getting into my nerves,” Klishei threatened.
In a normal conversation between highschoolers, it shouldn’t have been that painful. But somehow, Daevar took it to heart.
After she said those words, miraculously, Daevar never bothered him for the rest of the day. At lunch, her friends didn’t mention anything about Daevar’s proposal that morning. Her constant headaches also stopped. Everything was back to normal.
Or so she thought.
When their last teacher got out of the room, the class burst into the usual excited buzz of dismissal time. Klishei got out of the building. She could hear Daevar following closely behind her, calling her in an endearing tone. But she was so fed up with him that she completely ignored him.
When they were outside the school gates, Klishei’s eyes went seriously ominous towards Daevar.
“What the heck do you want? Why are you doing this to me?” She fumed.
“Because I love you.”
There he was again with his tantalizing eyes and smooth voice. Whenever he spoke to her, there was this feeling that they were isolated from the outside world like everything around them was blurry and all they could hear and see was themselves.
“Ack,” Klishei grunted. The sudden sting inside her head made her hold on to the wall for support.
“Klishei?” It was Luka’s voice.
Klishei rubbed her temples. “I’m fine.”
But she did not expect the figure following after Luka. Meanwhile, out of the corner of her right eye, she saw that Daevar flinched.
“You’ve had so many headaches today. Are you sure you can go home by yourself?” Luka asked. Before she could answer, he turned to Yeseus.
“Ah! Since both of your houses are in the same direction, Yeseus, why don’t you accompany her to make sure she makes it home safely?”
Klishei thought Luka must have lost her mind. Yeseus didn’t look like the guy who was soft towards girls, judging from their interaction earlier.
But what happened next left her dumbfounded. Without any questions or protests, Yeseus grabbed her fallen bag from the ground and walked past Daevar.
“Lady, let’s get going. I have a movie to watch,” Yeseus said in the most boring tone she ever heard.
“Wait!” She tried to catch up as fast as her legs could. She looked back to see Luka waving at them. As for Daevar, he had not moved but his eyes followed them.
Klishei was not sure if it was her headache or the sunset. But Daevar’s eyes were smoldering in a red color.