"Don't touch me."
Ginevra's voice was cool, clipped, the pen still pressing lightly against Jayna's forehead.
In her mind, that should have been the end of it. A clear boundary, a firm line—enough to make this troublesome deskmate retreat and stop bothering her.
But when she glanced up again, the other girl wasn't angry at all.
She was… laughing. Quietly, with her lips pressed together, shoulders hitching in a small, amused shake.
"What are you laughing at now?" Ginevra asked.
"I just didn't expect Nanping's number-one genius to have a touch of a neat-freak thing going on," Jayna said, grinning so wide her eyes nearly curved shut.
Her forehead still stung faintly from the pen, but she obediently took a step back and put on an expression of exaggerated misery.
"I thought you'd keep your promise and teach me," she went on, voice softening. "I even told Calista to go on ahead without me. If you don't help me now, I'll have to go home alone. Ms. Harper will yell at me again in French class tomorrow, and on top of that, it gets dark early… walking home by myself at night isn't exactly safe, you know."
Ginevra drew in a slow breath.
In the few days they'd known each other, she had learned at least one thing: she could not win with this girl when it came to arguing.
Saying yes to Ms. Harper had been a lapse in judgment.
"A child beyond educating"—that old phrase floated through her mind. If anyone fit it, it was this girl: no interest in studying, dragging others into her chaos.
"You don't actually want to learn," Ginevra said flatly. "So why insist on me teaching you? It's a waste of time."
"Hey, wait," Jayna said quickly.
She blocked her path, swung her bag onto the desk, and promptly upended it.
Ginevra watched, torn between exasperation and disbelief, as a small avalanche of candy wrappers, snack packets, and miscellaneous junk spilled out.
So that was what was in there.
At last, out of this mess, Jayna fished up a notebook and held it out.
"Here," she said. "Take a look."
There was no gracious way out, so Ginevra took it and flipped it open.
The first page stopped her.
Line after line of neat handwriting, every word clean and evenly spaced. The vocabulary and phrasal verbs from that morning's English class were written out in full, with translations, example sentences, and notes in the margins. Even the extra things Ms. Harper had casually mentioned, off-syllabus, were there—captured exactly.
For a moment, Ginevra wondered if she was looking at the wrong notebook.
"Don't give me that look," Jayna said, reading the doubt on her face. "It's mine. I wrote all of it. I figured if I didn't show you, you'd keep thinking I don't care at all and refuse to teach me."
She flashed a smile, showing both of her small tiger teeth.
Maybe it was that she genuinely did want to improve.
Maybe it was just that her smile was too open, too guileless, hitting some place in Ginevra's heart that had been quiet for a long time.
For a second, the edges of her own expression blurred. The coldness she wore like armor softened almost imperceptibly.
Without another word, she pulled out the chair and sat down beside her.
Jayna's eyes lit up.
So this sealed-shut, unsmiling desk partner wasn't completely heartless after all.
She bent her head over her book and began copying out the English phrases again. Her pen scratched steadily across the page for a few minutes—until another notebook landed on her desk with a soft thump.
She looked up.
"What's this?"
"Rote memorization is the hardest way to remember things," Ginevra said. "Try to understand them instead."
Jayna opened it and blinked.
There were charts, arrows, highlighted patterns. Groups of phrasal verbs linked by meaning, subtle differences explained in short notes, small jokes in the margins to help with memory. It was structured, logical, and strangely human at the same time.
Her eyes went round.
"Is this… is this the legendary secret manual of Summit Ridge High's top student?" she gasped, putting on a dramatic look of awe.
Her over-the-top tone, hovering somewhere between admiration and comedy, nearly cracked Ginevra's composure. The corner of her mouth twitched before she caught it.
Refusing to be dragged along by this girl's ridiculous energy, she pulled a book from her own bag and opened it, pretending to read.
Jayna turned, wanting to say thank you, but seeing the book in her hands, she swallowed the words back down.
Instead, she rested her cheek against her palm and studied the profile beside her.
She didn't really understand why she wanted to know more about this deskmate.
Something about that straight back, that quiet, self-contained air… made her curious.
What sort of life produced a person this rigid on the surface, this cool down to the bone?
Her imagination, never in short supply, went to work: strict parents with impossible expectations, harsh punishments for the tiniest drop in grades, a distant father and a sharp-tongued stepmother, all the cliché tragedies stacked up one on top of another.
By the time she finished inventing scenes in her head, her heart was full of a kind of aching sympathy.
She found herself looking at Ginevra with a softness just shy of pity.
"What are you reading that's got you so engrossed?" she asked quietly.
She slipped out of her seat and padded behind her, leaning down just enough to see the open page.
"'The reason I like you,'" she read aloud, "'is that you haven't fallen in love with me.' Wow. That's a good line. I like The Quiet Reason too."
The words snapped the quiet like a twig.
For the first time, genuine embarrassment flickered across Ginevra's face.
She snapped the book shut at once. As she turned, a faint, clean scent of shampoo brushed past her senses.
Jayna was far too close.
Her hair had slipped forward, soft strands falling over Ginevra's shoulder. Her breath warmed the shell of Ginevra's ear.
"In other words," Jayna continued, lowering her head a fraction, eyes locking onto Ginevra's, "love doesn't need to be returned. The fact that I like you is real—and the fact that I don't need you to know is also real."
"…"
Silence pooled between them.
Ginevra stared at her, stunned, the meaning of the words sinking in more slowly than they should have.
For a beat or two, she forgot to look away.
Jayna saw the tiny tremor in those cool, usually steady eyes. The faintest quiver, like the surface of a river when a single stone drops in.
Had she gone too far with the joke?
She frowned, suddenly self-conscious, and rushed to add, "That's just… my interpretation of the line."
"Don't you think you're standing a bit too close?" Ginevra said.
Her voice had returned to its usual calm, but it felt thinner, stretched tight.
"Ah—sorry."
Jayna straightened at once, backing off as if burned. She could practically feel the cold arrows shooting from Ginevra's gaze, puncturing her one by one.
She dropped back into her chair, eyes on her notebook, posture suddenly textbook-perfect.
The air thickened.
Silence—heavy, awkward, pressing—settled around them, the kind that made Jayna's skin itch.
She couldn't stand it. She opened her mouth.
"Just now I—"
"Actually—"
They spoke at the same time.
Both stopped.
Jayna glanced over, meeting Ginevra's eyes again. On the surface, Ginevra still looked calm, but there was something just slightly off about her expression, a stiffness around her mouth that suggested she wasn't as unaffected as she wanted to be.
"You first," Jayna said, spinning her pen in her fingers.
Ginevra pressed her lips together, hesitated, then said quietly, "Actually, school rules don't allow us to read those."
"The novels?"
She nodded toward the bag where Ginevra had just hidden the book.
"Yes."
"I know," Jayna said. "So?"
Her honesty was so casual that it took Ginevra aback. She had half-expected mockery, a smirk about the "good girl" hiding a banned book.
"Nothing," she said finally, sliding the book fully into her bag.
"The rule that says 'no books unrelated to your studies allowed' is ridiculous anyway," Jayna muttered. "As if reading anything else deserves public criticism. Since when are great Russian novels off-limits? What's wrong with stories about love? I like them."
She shot Ginevra a sideways look, a quick, teasing squint, and then bent over her vocabulary again.
Watching her, Ginevra had to admit that when this girl was actually focused—back straight, pen moving, brows slightly pinched—she did look like a real student.
And surprisingly, the sight didn't bother her.
"This word is wrong," she said suddenly.
She pointed to a clumsy scribble midway down the page.
"You even copied it wrong. Is it really that hard to remember?"
Could she say it was because someone had been looming beside her, watching her write, making her nerves knot up?
Of course not.
"I'm just slow," Jayna said with an exaggeratedly foolish grin. "Hard to cram things into this brain."
Ginevra didn't snap at her.
Instead, she lifted her own chair, scraped it a little closer, and sat where she could see the page clearly.
She began explaining—not just what the word meant, but how it was used, where else it could appear, how to tie it to the ones beside it.
Jayna blinked, genuinely surprised.
"I didn't expect you to be so… warm-hearted," she said.
Ginevra gave her a sideways look. "You talk too much. Are we studying or not?"
"Studying, studying," Jayna said quickly. "How could I pass up a one-on-one masterclass with Summit Ridge's top student? Normally something like this would cost hundreds an hour."
Ginevra ignored the nonsense and pulled out more of her notebooks, laying them open, flipping to the relevant pages.
She had made a promise in front of the whole class; not following through would damage her own pride more than anyone else's.
So she taught.
And for once, Jayna listened.
…
By the time Jayna could fluently rattle off all thirty phrasal verbs and had not only memorized but actually understood the next unit's content, her stomach produced a loud, miserable growl that echoed off the classroom walls.
She checked her watch and nearly yelped.
"God, it's ten to eight already? We've been studying for an hour and a half…"
Her voice trailed into a groan as she began stuffing books back into her bag.
Ginevra shot her a glance.
If anyone was to blame for the time, it was her.
She'd had to start from the very beginning, reorganizing the material and guiding her through every single example. Still, the progress was undeniable.
She pushed down an odd little flicker in her chest.
I really did spend all that time…
Enthusiastically, no less.
"Come on," Jayna said, standing up and stretching her arms over her head. "I'm buying you barbecue."
She almost draped an arm over Ginevra's shoulders in a burst of instinctive friendliness, but remembered at the last second that her deskmate came with a personal-space alarm.
So she settled for hooking a finger in the strap of Ginevra's bag instead, giving it a small tug.
"Barbecue?" Ginevra repeated.
"Yeah," Jayna said, eyes brightening. "I know a place that's really good."
Seeing that Ginevra still didn't look convinced, she pressed on, voice taking on a rare sincerity.
"It's late already. I'd feel awful if I didn't at least feed you after making you tutor me this long."
"No," Ginevra said at once.
The refusal was almost reflexive.
"Think about it again?"
Jayna stepped in front of her, blocking the path to the aisle. "You've stayed to help me until almost eight. Let me treat you, okay?"
"It was nothing," Ginevra said. "A small effort."
"That's exactly the problem," Jayna said. "You're making it sound meaningless."
She didn't move.
Ginevra looked at the girl standing in front of her—someone she had known for less than a week.
They weren't close. At least, not in any way she recognized.
She wasn't even particularly hungry. Missing a meal wouldn't kill her. And grilled food—barbecue—wasn't exactly a healthy choice. All char and grease and smoke.
She opened her mouth to refuse again.
And then Jayna tugged gently at the sleeve of her blazer, looking up at her, eyes imploring.
"You really have the heart to turn me down?" she asked. "Eating alone is so boring. I promise this place is amazing. The food's good, the environment's nice. You won't find anything to complain about."
"So in the end, this is all because you want to eat, isn't it?" Ginevra said dryly, glancing at her.
They really were opposites in every way.
Jayna pressed her lips together, then let them curve.
"Don't say it like that," she protested. "I'll take that as you agreeing, okay? I'm inviting you for real."
…
The nearer they got to the strip of shops, the brighter the neon signs glowed, until they painted the whole street in pulsing color.
The smell reached them first—a warm, rich scent of charred meat and spices drifting on the evening air.
Ginevra wasn't quite sure how she had ended up here.
One minute she'd been in the quiet, empty classroom; the next she was being towed through a bustling side street by a girl with curls that bounced every time she turned her head.
It was the first time in her life she'd gone out to eat with someone her age.
The noise hit her like a wave: the clink of beer bottles, the scrape of chairs, men's voices raised in boisterous laughter.
"Too late to back out now," Jayna said cheerfully.
She had caught the tiny shift in Ginevra's stance, the way her weight tipped backward, body instinctively starting to retreat. She tightened her grip and steered them forward.
"I'm not used to this kind of place," Ginevra admitted.
She preferred quiet restaurants, the kind where conversations never rose above a murmur and you could hear your own thoughts while you ate.
"See, that's your problem," Jayna said, half-chiding, half-affectionate. "You're too strict with yourself. Streets like this, with their greasy grills and loud uncles, that's where real life is. Listen—most of the shouting is from those guys out there drinking. We'll sit inside. They have booths, with partitions. You won't even see them."
"But—"
"Hey, isn't that little Jayna?"
A loud voice cut her off.
A stocky man in his forties emerged from the doorway of a small barbecue joint, a long skewer of lamb still in his hand. His apron was stained with smoke and oil, his smile broad enough to split his face.
"Mr. Max!" Jayna waved, all smiles. "I brought a friend. Do you have any seats?"
She tugged Ginevra a step closer.
"This is my friend, Ginevra Volkova," she said with mock formality. "Summit Ridge's number-one student."
"Top of Summit Ridge High?" Uncle Max's eyes widened. "Now that's impressive. Come, come. Have some lamb first, fill your stomachs."
Before Ginevra could react, he had already pressed several skewers into her hands. The meat was still sizzling, juices hissing softly where they met the cool night air.
She automatically tried to give them back, but the skewers vanished from her grasp—snatched neatly away by the girl behind her.
"It's fine," Jayna said. "Mr. Max and I go way back. Eating a few of his skewers won't bankrupt him."
Mr. Max laughed, delighted.
"You little fox," he said fondly. "You two go on in and sit down. Mark whatever you want on the order slip."
"Got it," Jayna said.
She bit into one of the lamb skewers then and there. The flavor exploded across her tongue—smoky, salty, just the right amount of spice. She let out a long, satisfied sigh, eyes closing for a second in bliss.
Then she picked up another skewer and held it out toward Ginevra's mouth.
"Here," she said. "Try it."
Half unwilling, half yielding, Ginevra accepted one and stepped inside.
Eating on the street was a line she wasn't willing to cross. She didn't relax until they were seated in a small booth at the back, partition walls blocking most of the noise and chaos.
Only then did she take a small bite.
The meat was tender and hot, juices flooding over her tongue, the spice warming her throat in a slow, pleasant burn.
"Very particular, aren't you," Jayna said, amused, as she slid into the seat opposite.
She gnawed her own skewer happily, one leg bouncing under the table, the day's fatigue washing away in the heat and noise and the shared, fragile quiet between them.