Samantha stood at the front of Form Four Lily, nervous but smiling. Her fingers brushed the edge of the attendance book as she introduced herself, voice calm but a little too careful—like she was trying not to disturb the room's natural rhythm.
The students, however, had no intention of letting her settle gently.
"Teacher, got boyfriend?" one piped up immediately.
"Are you married?"
"Your skin looks so nice—what brand you use?"
Samantha laughed, surprised. "I'm just here to get to know you," she said. "But I promise, no secrets—only after you tell me yours."
She began the icebreaker—"One thing I love, one thing I hate, and one secret I've never said out loud." The girls responded in waves, giggling, teasing, whispering to each other while blurting out half-truths and candy-coated drama.
But Nadra didn't speak.
She sat back, arms folded loosely, gaze unreadable.
Usually she led the charge in provoking new teachers—blunt questions, harmless sabotage, soft rebellion. That was her role. The silent queen with a wicked tongue. But with Samantha, she felt…paused.
There was no edge to this new teacher. No need to defend her silence with sarcasm.
Her friends nudged her. "You not feeling well?"
Nadra shrugged. "Just tired."
She stared at the floor, then at Samantha's skirt hem, then back at her friends. The cotton clung faintly to Samantha's hips, not tight—just enough to suggest the lines of her body beneath without offering them. Nadra's gaze paused there longer than she meant to.
A flash of discomfort sliced through her—not sharp, not clean. More like pressure beneath skin. Like something pressing against glass, waiting to fracture. Her throat tightened, uninvited. She hated it.
The softness blooming in her chest felt traitorous. It wasn't the kind of lust she could joke about, shrug off in locker-room banter. It wasn't practiced, wasn't performative. It felt inward. Quiet. It curled into her ribs like heat under blankets—private, unwelcome, impossible to explain.
She told herself it was just exhaustion, just curiosity. Maybe just the novelty of a young teacher who didn't wear eyeliner, who blushed when she spoke, whose beauty was strange and slow, not Insta-shiny and loud.
But her chest ached anyway, in that frustrating way where attraction doesn't thrill—it unsettles. It rewrites the rules.
And when her friends poked her again, teasing her for being unusually quiet, she blinked, exhaled, and forced her shoulders into the shape of indifference.
"Tired," she muttered. She pushed the word like armor across the table.
But inside, the word was cracking. Behind the shrug, behind the smirk she couldn't summon, something was stretching—longing without a name, something warm and low and already dangerous.
When class ended, the girls filtered out in swarms, chattering. Samantha stayed behind to write notes on the board, careful and neat. Nadra watched her through the window for a moment. She didn't know why.
She cycled home alone that day, sky streaked with early grey. Just as she turned past the school gates, the rain opened up—fast, warm, and heavy.
She swore softly and pedaled faster. But then she saw Samantha.
Running. No umbrella. One hand over her glasses, blouse clinging already to her torso, soaked.
The rain painted her—thinner fabric, damp skin. Nadra's breath stumbled.
Her monologue flickered—
She's soaked. Rain isn't just falling—it's sculpting her.
The blouse clings like wet silk, see-through now in patches, revealing more than Samantha knows. The cotton sticks to her chest, transparent enough that Nadra sees the pale curve beneath—soft flesh caught beneath plain white cotton, the bra outlined in intimate detail. Not lace. Just a simple cut with a slight lift, as if offering the shape of her in quiet surrender.
The curve of her breasts, now visible through wet fabric, isn't loud or intentional—it's accidental. It's the worst kind of erotic: unconscious.
Her skirt is heavy with water, pressed to her thighs as she walks, revealing the way her hips sway under the weight. Nadra traces each motion with her eyes—unspoken, breath lodged tight. She can see the slight indent of Samantha's navel, the faint line of her lower ribs, like clues to a softness untouched, unaware.
Her hair is damp, stuck to her neck. Her glasses fog up slightly. She wipes at them with the inside of her wrist like she doesn't realize how exposed she's become. She's not hiding—but she's not showing either. And that's exactly what makes Nadra ache.
Samantha looks fragile, undone, sensual not because she's performing—but because the world peeled her layers away and she didn't notice.
And Nadra—seventeen, proud, practiced in defiance—feels her mind spiral.
I want to know the warmth trapped under that fabric. I want to know how she breathes when she's flustered. I want to see if her back arches naturally or only when she's—
Stop.
She's a teacher. This is wrong.
But the rain keeps falling. And Samantha's blouse keeps clinging. And Nadra's restraint is cracking like thunder above them.
Samantha reached the bus stop, dripping and breathless, clutching her tote bag against her chest. Nadra parked her bike nearby and walked toward her slowly, sweat mixing with rain, unsure why her legs were moving.
"You okay?" Nadra asked, voice almost steady.
Samantha looked up, startled, then softened. "Yes. Just wasn't expecting the rain."
"You don't have umbrella?"
"No." She smiled. "Still learning to plan ahead. First-day blindness."
Nadra nodded, silent. She told herself to keep walking—but instead leaned on the bench, arms still folded. Samantha watched her for a moment, something kind behind her eyes.
"You live nearby?"
Nadra shrugged. "Half hour ride."
Samantha tilted her head slightly. "You ride in this?"
"Used to it."
"You're very brave."
Nadra said nothing.
There was a small silence—weighted. Not uncomfortable. Just waiting.
Rain fell in sheets around them, and for once Nadra didn't want to run. Something in her wanted to stay there, next to this soaked woman with her quiet voice and strange beauty. She felt her throat tighten, the way it does before a question you don't want to ask.
Samantha was a teacher. Nadra was seventeen. And still, something had begun.