Maya materialized at his elbow, chuckling at the reluctance written all over his face.

Maya Scarlett: the rambling, disaster-magnet who'd helped him to escape out of a construction-site kidnapping, the only person outside his harem he trusted with the jagged truth of his life, the one who'd spent weeks watching him disappear into empty classrooms or bathrooms with Sierra and Maddie wearing that patient, starving-wolf expression she thought was subtle.

"Come on, pretty boy," she said, hooking her arm through his with shameless confidence. "Can't hide forever."

"Watch me."

"Nope. In we go."

She tugged.

He let her.

Every step toward those doors felt like walking onto a stage lit by a thousand judgmental suns.

The doors swung open.

And oh boy.

The entire cafeteria went dead quiet.

Five hundred heads swiveled in perfect, eerie synchronization. Conversations died mid-sentence. Forks hovered halfway to mouths. Someone's phone clattered to the table.

Every pair of eyes locked onto him

And Paradise—poor, unsuspecting Paradise—would never be the same.

Not a slow freeze, not a ripple of attention spreading outward like polite gossip. No. It was instantaneous. Brutal. As if some cosmic remote had slammed the pause button on three hundred privileged teenagers mid-bite.

Every head snapped toward him in perfect, horrifying unison.

Every conversation died with a strangled gasp.

Every pair of eyes—three hundred pairs, give or take, in Ashford Elite's vaulted, cathedral-ceilinged feeding temple—locked onto Phei Maxton like he'd just descended from Olympus wearing nothing but charisma and mild irritation.

Some were—predatory, awestruck, envious, hungry, terrified, worshipful.

Prey and predator and main event, all rolled into one unfairly beautiful package.

The Dragon had entered the building.

The silence stretched exactly two heartbeats.

Then reality shattered.

"Oh my god—"

"It's him, it's—"

"PHEI!"

A girl at the nearest table launched upright so violently her chair toppled backward, clattering into the shin of the boy behind her. She didn't notice. Didn't care. Just stood there clutching her chest like she'd been shot by Cupid's entire arsenal, eyes shining with the manic gleam of someone teetering on the edge of religious conversion.

"He's here," she whispered, voice cracking. "He's actually here."

The dam broke.

Whispers detonated into a roaring tidal wave of hysteria.

"I thought he was absent today—"

"Someone swore he had mono—"

"Do I look okay? Shit, is there kale in my teeth—"

"Move, you're blocking the shot—"

Phones materialized like conjuring tricks. Dozens. Hundreds. The cafeteria strobed with camera flashes, turning the marble floors into a paparazzi red carpet from hell.

A sophomore girl vaulted onto her table for elevation. Her tray went flying—soup arced beautifully through the air like modern art. Her friends didn't scold her. They climbed up too, forming a human pyramid of desperation.

"Smile! Please smile for us!"

"Over here! Phei, look over here!"

"PHEI! PHEI, I LOVE YOU!"

They were screaming his name.

Screaming it like he was the main dancer of a world-tour K-pop group who'd just landed at Incheon. Like he was BTS surrounded by an ARMY of fans at the airport. Like he was Jesus Christ returned—if Jesus had cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass and a rumored body count that included two Legacy princesses.

Phei's left eye twitched.

"Maya."

"Yeah?"

"What the actual, entire fuck is this."

Maya—traitorous, delighted Maya—was biting her lip so hard it was a miracle she hadn't drawn blood. Her shoulders shook with barely contained laughter. That patient, wolfish hunger she usually wore around him had been temporarily evicted by pure, unadulterated glee at his expense.

"Welcome to idol life, superstar," she managed, voice wobbling. "Should've stayed in your cave, dragon boy."

"I was perfectly happy in my cave. You kidnapped me."

"And I regret absolutely nothing."

A cluster of junior girls had formed an impromptu barricade near the salad bar. Not hostile—just… stationary. A wall of glossy hair and designer perfume, all staring at him with tear-streaked devotion. Several were openly crying.

Actual saltwater tears.

Over a boy walking to get lunch.

"Excuse me," Phei said, attempting a polite sidestep.

One of them let out a sound like a kettle realizing it had been left on the stove too long. Another seized her friend's arm in a death grip that would leave fingerprints for days.

"He spoke to me," the first one hissed, reverent. "He said 'excuse me.' To me. Did you hear his voice? Did you—"

"I WAS STANDING RIGHT HERE, I HEARD EVERY SYLLABLE—"

"It's even better up close, I'm not okay, I'm never going to be okay again—"

"I think I'm going to faint. Someone catch me if I—"

She did not faint, but she did sway dramatically, and her friends propped her up like she'd been wounded in battle.

"Someone should remind if I'm in a wrong country... this is not America." Phei navigated the gauntlet with the grim focus of a man defusing bombs, hyperaware that one sudden movement might trigger a full-scale riot.

He made it ten whole feet before the next ambush.

A girl stepped directly into his path—pretty, brown hair, green eyes, the kind of symmetrical face that would've ruled the school if Phei hadn't accidentally rewritten the hierarchy. Now she looked like a pilgrim presenting an offering, hands trembling as she held out a box.

Pink. Heart-shaped. Extravagant ribbon curled with surgical precision. A tag in elegant calligraphy: For Phei ♡

"Phei," she breathed, like his name was sacred scripture.

"…Yes?"

"I—I made you something."

She thrust the box forward as if it might explode if held too long.

"Chocolates," she rushed on, cheeks crimson. "Handmade. Well—my family's pastry chef supervised, but I chose every flavor myself. Dark chocolate with sea salt, milk with raspberry infusion, white with matcha and—"

"Thank you," Phei said, because murder was still frowned upon in Paradise, and what else was there?

Her face ignited like a sunrise.

"You're welcome! I mean—thank you for accepting them! I mean—" She made a small, mortified squeak. "I rehearsed this for three hours in the mirror and now your eyes are looking into mine and they're unfairly blue and I—I have to go—"

She bolted.

Full sprint, nearly bulldozing a freshman carrying a tray of sushi in her panic to flee the consequences of her own courage.

So... cute, they're all so cute. He thought a slime dancing on his lips watching her leave.

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