Chapter 1: Flowers

˚⊱✿—✦✦✦—✿⊰˚

Let’s get one thing straight before we begin. 

My name is Yveine. Just call me Yve.

And for the last eleven years, I’ve been running. 

Not physically—despise wasting energy on pointless motion, honestly. 

I run inwardly. Constantly. 

Picture a quiet, calculated sprint toward a finish line you never actually chose for yourself. That’s my life. 

Mother calls it a purpose. Father calls it a destiny. 

Personally? I call it a binding contract signed before I could even speak. I’ve been trying to outrun it ever since. 

But some things are just written too deeply into the fabric of existence to ever escape. 

They are as absolute as the laws of physics. As certain as the turning of the seasons. 

Like morning light piercing through silk curtains at exactly 5:47 AM—forcing me awake before my alarm even has a chance to ring. 

It used to feel like discipline. 

Now? Just the rigid blueprint of a life I never asked for. 

Bedrooms tell you everything about their owners. 

Mine is essentially a museum of my mother’s obsessions. 

High ceilings. Restrained furniture. 

White orchid resting on a marble pedestal, pristine and lifeless. 

Everything is in its place. Everything exactly as it "should" be. 

Gradients of pale green stare back from the mirror as I pull a pair of dark sunglasses over my eyes. 

Reflection wears the kind of absolute composure that only comes from years of forced practice. 

She doesn't look like someone who’s been running. 

In fact, she looks like she has always known exactly where she’s going. 

Maybe that’s the true difference between actually running and merely appearing to. 

One leaves you breathless. The other leaves you prepared. 

And I am always prepared. 

The morning routine is the same as it's always been. 

Shower. Temperature: exactly 38°C. Four minutes. No more, no less. 

Skincare. Three steps. Toner, serum, moisturizer. Each bottle placed in its designated spot, like offerings to a god I don't believe in. 

Hair. Brushed one hundred times. A habit I inherited from a grandmother I've never met. 

Rhythm is soothing. Predictable. 

Clothes. Crisp linen shirt. Tailored white blazer. Silver cufflinks. 

Navy midi skirt that moves like it was cut for me. 

Because it was. 

Everything in my life has been cut for me. Shaped. Measured. Altered until it fit the image of what I was supposed to be. 

Girl in the mirror doesn't complain. 

She doesn't have to. I do enough complaining for both of us. 

Just... not out loud. Not where anyone can hear. 

"Your father wanted to see you before you left." 

Mother's voice suddenly drifted through the open doorway, breaking my focus. Soft and careful. 

Way she speaks when she's testing my mood. 

"He can see me at dinner." 

I didn't break my rhythm, adjusting the cuffs of my blazer. 

A pause. I can feel her watching me, even though I don't turn around. 

"Yve." 

"I have a schedule." 

"I know." 

Words themselves were neutral, but I catch the edge beneath them. 

Quiet disappointment that never quite reaches her eyes anymore. 

I used to be bothered by it. Now I just... file it away. 

Another thing to run from. 

Drive to St. Jude's is indistinguishable from every other morning. 

Same familiar roads. Same silent driver. 

Same stretch of countryside blurring past the tinted windows like a landscape painting I had been forced to look at one too many times. 

I spend the ride reviewing my academic schedule on my tablet. 

Extended Physics. Chemistry. Biology. 

I've already completed most of the coursework, but I review it anyway. There was comfort in repetition. Certainty in the known. 

Tablet glows softly in the morning light. Numbers blur together, and for a moment, I let myself drift. 

Eleven years. 

Eleven years since that winter in Beijing. Since the contract. 

Since the boy with grey eyes who drew maps in the frozen sand. 

I don't think about him often. There's no point. 

He was nothing more than a name on a legal document, a forced future, and a permanent reminder that my life was never truly mine to begin with. 

Yet sometimes, late at night, when the house is silent and the stars are visible through my window... 

I wonder what he's doing. 

If he remembers. 

If he's running too. 

˚⊱✿—✦✦✦—✿⊰˚

Courtyard at St. Jude's is chaos, but it's a controlled kind of chaos. 

Hierarchy, rules, and a system that rewards the right people and discards the rest. 

I've always been one of the right people. 

Family name opens doors. Mother's reputation precedes me. Father's lineage ensures I'm never questioned, never challenged, never allowed to fail. 

It it exhausting, being one of the right people. 

I walk through the gates with my chin high, my stride unhurried. 

Other students part around me like water around a stone. 

I feel their eyes on me, their whispers, their curiosity, but I don't acknowledge it. 

They don't matter. None of them matter. 

Then, a voice cuts through the noise. Loud. Unfiltered. Utterly without self-awareness. 

"Well, hello there. Proper diva, aren't ya?" 

I stop. 

Voice belongs to a boy in a hoodie. 

Backpack slipping, face flushed with the energy of someone who has just lost a race against time. 

Eyes—crescent moons, sharp and unbothered—lock onto mine like we're already old friends. 

He is chewing bubblegum. Loudly. 

I look at him coolly, slowly pushing my dark sunglasses down the bridge of my nose to get a proper look. 

Elevated heart rate. Mild perspiration. Questionable wardrobe. 

Psychological profile indicating a severe absence of self-preservation instinct. 

"Do you require neurological evaluation?" 

My voice is flat. Clinical. 

"Because that is the only logical explanation for your verbal output." 

His smirk widens. 

"Nah, my brain's at ninety-four percent capacity..." 

Idiot keeps yapping. 

Words blur into background static. 

I pushed my sunglasses firmly back into place. Turned on my heel. Walked away. 

I do not look back. 

But I feel the weight of his gaze on my back, lingering longer than it should. 

And somewhere, beneath the carefully constructed layers of my composure, I wonder. 

Who is he? His face reminds me of "him." 

˚⊱✿—✦✦✦—✿⊰˚

A few hours later.

Greenhouse is my sanctuary. 

At least, that's what I tell myself. 

Quiet. Absence of performance. 

Plants simply exist without expectation or judgment. 

"You're hiding," Tessa says, finding me here, as she always does. 

Conny follows behind her, arms crossed, expression carefully neutral. 

Blythe trails at the back, her pink hair catching the afternoon light. 

"Thinking." 

"Same thing." 

Conny settles on the bench near the research bed. 

"You're thinking about that winter boy again." 

"I'm not." 

"Liar." 

There's no point in denying it. She knows me too well. 

Explosion comes without warning. 

One moment, the greenhouse is still and warm. 

Next, the sky splits open with a sound that vibrates through bone and glass and the carefully constructed walls around my composure. 

Tessa screams. Conny grabs my arm. Blythe stumbles backward. 

I don't move. 

Through the glass, smoke rises from downtown—a thick, black column near Caelum Industries. 

One of St. Jude's primary corporate sponsors. 

Energy output. Distortion radius. None of it adds up. 

"What are you doing?" Tessa's voice cuts through my calculations. 

"Observing." 

"We need to go!" 

"You go. I'll catch up." 

She hesitates. Conny is already pulling her toward the door. 

Blythe lingers for a moment, her rose-coloured eyes searching my face. Then she turns and runs. 

Door swings shut behind them. 

I stay. 

Outside, the courtyard is chaos. 

Students scatter. Teachers shout. 

Air thickens with dust and panic. 

From behind the glass, I watch the smoke rise. Sirens wail. 

Cold static clings to the air—ancient, wrong, out of place. 

Something happened today. Something that shouldn't exist. 

And beneath my composure, something stirs. 

Curiosity. 

I don't know how long I stand there. 

Minutes. Maybe longer. 

When I finally move, the greenhouse is empty and silent. Chaos has drifted elsewhere. 

Courtyard is still. 

I walk back toward the main building. 

No thoughts about the explosion. No thoughts about anything except the next step. 

But the weight of what I saw settles in my chest. 

Something is coming. 

˚⊱✿—✦✦✦—✿⊰˚

That night, the house is silent. 

Stars are visible through my window, cold and distant. 

Not the explosion. Not the chaos. 

Static in the air. Wrongness of it. 

No answers. Only questions. 

And for the first time in my life, I don't know if I want to find them.