1. Luis’s POV

CHAPTER 1

“Loosen up a bit, will you?” Chen continued to drag me toward the club entrance while I resisted with as much might as I could.

“I need to go home. My dad is going to be back from his work trip today,” I argued back.

“Forget about your old man and just have fun,” he continued as we finally reached the entrance, where the bouncers looked down on us like they wouldn’t mind bashing our heads together.

The thought gave me a headache as I realized that I could have escaped all this if I had just hurried home after my last paper, rather than waiting for my best friend only to get dragged to the club to have some ‘fun.’

I have always kept to myself and stayed the nerd of the class. No one approached me, and I didn’t dare to approach anyone. Not after that accident three years ago, where I lost the most important things to me and the meaning of life.

However, having my best friend Chen by my side has given me strength because I really don’t know how lonely my life would have been without him. But then, we were polar opposites, with only gaming as our common ground.

But right now, my best friend, who I thought knew me well enough to know that the club was the last place I wanted to be, was dragging me up the stairs and telling me how much fun we would have tonight.

My own definition of fun was staying cooped up in my room and maintaining my top-tier rank in Call of Duty and my other video games.

“Just loosen up, alright? Our other classmates have arranged for girls and booze,” he continued excitedly as we reached the front of a room that read VIP. But that wasn’t why I froze in shock. The reason was one word that he had said—‘friends.’

Like I said, I was a nerd who very much kept to himself, and while my best friend was just as nerdy as I was, he was the outgoing type of nerdy. Popular because he was the only link to his beautiful sister, so he naturally had other friends, while I had just him. And right now, it felt like I had cold water poured on my head. “Our friends.”

However, before I could get the chance to voice out my grievances, he had already removed my glasses and pushed the door open into the VIP room, and it was just like he said—except the ‘girls’ were missing.

This was something I was grateful for, as I hoped they wouldn’t come at all.

“Hey Chen, my man!” The big guy in the group, who I recognized as the school hunk, pulled Chen over with his hand draped over his shoulder.

My eyes followed their movement as I found a seat at the corner of the chair right by the door. Then, I felt someone drape their hand over my shoulder as well. I went as stiff as a log at the mere contact.

Blood stopped surging through my veins, and my heart seemed to stop beating at the same time.

“Look who we have here. If it isn’t the cute nerd of our classroom. Where are your cute glasses?” The person who had draped his hand over my shoulder was none other than Garber Yarros himself.

I would recognize the voice of the school’s top student anywhere, even though it was heavily draped with alcohol right now.

Garber was here too! How did he recognize me? Practically no one in school knew of my existence.

Upon hearing his voice, my heart started to beat again, his sweet scent intoxicating me, and I started to feel like I was on a new high.

Garber was the top student ever since the beginning of high school, excelling in everything that he ever ventured into, and because of his good family background, he was very much like the crown prince. Everyone admired him and wanted to get to know him better, and that included the girls whom he never failed to change every week like they were a pair of socks.

Everyone knew him to be a player, and thus it was no mystery that he was in the club right after the exams or during his exams. Garber was that much of a genius, and that was why he remained respected by all—including myself.

I idolized him a lot in freshman year, trying to get to know him to take study points from him. But that was before my life went to shit, and I basically lost all interest in putting effort into anything.

“Yo guys, don’t Garber and that new boy look like a couple?” The school hunk, with his hands draped over Chen, mentioned, and everyone else in the room turned their eyes to us. Six pairs of eyes in total, and I just wanted the earth to swallow me up at that moment.

My heart was still yet to recover from the close proximity between my lifelong crush and me, and someone was already mentioning something like this.

Couple? Was this a dream?

Did we actually look like a couple? I felt a small smile tug at the corners of my lips at this reference.

Also, did Garber think so? I’ve always been curious about what he thought of me. And I had my answer the next second as he immediately pushed me to the ground, spitting out the alcohol in his mouth with an unmistakable look of disgust on his face.

“Eww, that’s gay, Ethan. Disgusting!” he said without glancing a second look at me.

As if to prove a point, he got up and sat on the other side while adjusting his sleeves. The very sight of him doing this hurt my heart till it cracked.

I have never offended him, only admired him from afar. I have never crossed paths with him because I knew that he was far above my reach. I have never ever expressed my feelings for him, yet I already knew what his response would be if I did, and right now, I just wanted to get out of here.

“Gay? How disgusting. When are the girls coming in?” He shouted as he took a huge swig and gulped from his glass, and I felt my eyes sting from the tears threatening to spill.

“I’m sorry, man, I didn’t mean it that way.” Ethan apologized, as if us being a couple was that much of a sin.

“Just never joke like that with me again. It’s pussies for life, alright?” Ethan nodded and apologized again. “So when are the fucking girls coming in? I need to bang this out of my system.”

He said just in time for the door to be pushed open and for a lineup of girls wearing skimpy clothing to make their appearance. Despite the air conditioning in the room, I felt even more suffocated, and with one last glance in Garber’s direction, I got on my feet and ran out.

The feeling of being watched by him lingered until I was out of the corridor.

Was that guilt I saw in his eyes?