The music was too loud, the lights too sharp, but she didn’t care. Her circle of friends had dragged her onto the stage floor, and once she gave in, she forgot the rest of the world. She danced badly, laughed too much, hair flying everywhere, her movements more comic than graceful. It wasn’t elegant, but it was free. She wasn’t the quiet, careful girl who always slipped through corridors unnoticed. Here, in her circle, she was weird, playful, unafraid.
He noticed.
From the edge of the crowd, his eyes kept finding her. He had seen her before, often with a book pressed to her chest, earphones in, lost in her own world. The kind of girl you’d think didn’t even register the noise of college life. But now, she was alive in a different way. He stood still while the crowd moved, and something lodged itself inside him — fascination that would turn into a crush.
After that night, he couldn’t help himself. Different courses, no reason to meet. But the library gave him one. She sat there regularly, always at the same table near the window. He started coming too. At first, he pretended he needed books. Later, he stopped pretending. He just came to see her.
She didn’t notice. She was too absorbed in her notes. Even when he sat across the aisle, even when he timed his visits with hers. When she dropped a pen, he was the first to pick it up. When he tried to say something light, it came out stiff.
“Your handwriting is… neat,” he said once, pushing a notebook back to her.
She blinked, uncertain. “Thanks?”
Inside, he cursed himself. Idiot. That was supposed to sound charming, not like an observation about lab results.
Fate, or maybe just a lucky coordinator, tossed them into the same group for the annual programme. She thought of him as “that guy from the library corners.” He thought of it as divine intervention. Working together, she saw his serious side — focused, reliable, the type who didn’t speak much but delivered when needed. He tried to flirt again, but it came out the same: flat, serious, confusing.
“You dance… oddly well,” he said one evening after practice.
She tilted her head. “Oddly well? Is that a compliment or an insult?”
His ears went red. “Compliment.”
She laughed, shaking her head, leaving him both embarrassed and giddy.
Weeks passed, and the small things began to add up. He always had an extra pen. He noticed when she wasn’t in the library. He walked her halfway back after late practices. And then, one afternoon while gossiping with her friend, it hit her. She remembered every stiff compliment, every too-serious comment, every unnecessary library visit.
“Oh my god,” she muttered, covering her mouth. “He’s been flirting this whole time.”
Her friend snorted. “Finally.”
She laughed until tears ran down her face. And when she looked back at every moment, it all seemed different. His gaze when she talked. The way he always slowed his pace to match hers. The way he remembered small details she didn’t even remember telling him.
By then, her heart had already betrayed her. It was too late to stay neutral.
He slipped into her life like a constant presence. Not officially anything, but always there — the one who texted to ask if she had eaten, the one who lent his umbrella, the one who didn’t push but stayed. She let him. Somewhere between his awkward attempts and her obliviousness, something real was growing.
One evening, the library was closing, and they sat on the steps outside, books on their laps, the air cool and quiet. He looked at her for a long moment, then spoke in that same serious tone that had failed him in flirting but now suited the weight of what he felt.
“I didn’t come to the library for books,” he said.
She glanced at him, frowning. “Then why?”
“You.” His voice was steady, unshaken. “Since the first time I saw you dance. I don’t think you even noticed me then. But I noticed you. And I haven’t stopped.”
She froze, staring at him, her mind racing. Then, unexpectedly, she laughed. A soft, disbelieving laugh that broke into giggles.
“You mean… all those times… you were flirting?”
He winced. “Trying to.”
She leaned back, covering her mouth. “Oh god. It took me weeks to figure it out.”
“Better late than never,” he muttered, though the tips of his ears turned red.
Her laughter softened, and when she looked at him again, her chest tightened. The seriousness in his eyes left no room for doubt. This wasn’t a game, not for him. And the truth was, she felt it too.
“I like you,” she said, almost shyly, like testing the words aloud. “I don’t know when it started. But I do.”
Relief washed over him, almost visible. He reached for her hand, hesitant but hopeful. She let him take it, fingers sliding into his like they belonged there.
It was silly little moment they might remember forever.
