Winter had a strange way of making everything feel important—like the world slowed down just enough for moments to matter. The mornings were wrapped in fog, the corridors smelled like worn sweaters and cheap coffee, and the school bell echoed a little longer in the cold.
Every year, our school hosted the Winter Games—an excuse to run around in the freezing air, wear house-colored headbands, and pretend we were born athletes. I, of course, was not.
I had signed up for commentary duty, which basically meant sitting with a mic and making fun of my classmates trying to act sporty. I thought it was going to be a normal day—until she showed up.
I don't know how to explain it exactly.
She wasn't dressed any different—just a red hoodie, black track pants, hair tied in a messy bun like she didn't care. But there was something about the way she moved, like the cold didn't dare touch her. Confidence? Maybe. Or maybe it was the way the wind seemed to chase her instead of the other way around.
She was running the marathon.
And she was leading.
I remember watching her from the mic table, a cup of tea in my hands, trying to act disinterested but completely failing at it. She was quick, light on her feet, and she had this look in her eyes—focused, wild, like she wasn't running to win… she was running because it set her free.
Then, out of nowhere—
She fell.
It was one of those dramatic slow-motion falls: her foot twisted, she stumbled forward, arms flailing like she was trying to grab time itself… and then—bam. Face-first into the ground.
I laughed.
I know how it sounds. Cruel. Rude. Immature.
But come on—how often do you see the school's untouchable girl wipe out like a badly edited anime scene?
The crowd gasped. I laughed into the mic. She lost the race.
But what I didn't realize in that moment was that something else had started.
A small thought.
A crack in my daily routine.
A glimpse of someone I didn't really know… but suddenly couldn't ignore.
From that day, I started noticing her—not in a creepy, stalker way. Just… noticing.
The way she tilted her head when she was curious.
The way she laughed with her eyes closed.
The way she walked alone sometimes, lost in thought, like the world was too loud and she was trying to find her way out of it.
I didn't know her name yet.
But her presence had already started a quiet war inside me—between the guy who laughed at her fall, and the one who was now falling himself.