Emma’s alarm rang three times before she opened her eyes.  

Her phone blinked with messages from Sophie, each one a pep talk wrapped in sarcasm.  

*Don’t spill anything today.*  

She groaned, rolled out of bed, and promised the ceiling, “No coffee disasters, no chemistry explosions, no embarrassment before noon.”

Outside, Brookvale was crisp and gold. Leaves scraped across the sidewalk as she hurried to class. The ocean wind carried the faint scent of salt and fried food from the boardwalk. It almost masked her nerves.

She arrived barely before the bell, sliding into her seat just as Ms. Green started taking attendance. Liam Carter sat two rows ahead, posture straight, pencil tapping once every three seconds. The rhythm was painfully exact.

He didn’t turn when she sat down, but she noticed a new shirt—white again. Clean slate. Literally.

After class, Ms. Green handed out new guidelines for their joint project.  

“Add a short reflective log,” she said. “Each partner should record how taste influences emotion throughout the week.”

Emma wrote *curiosity tastes like cinnamon* in the margin.  

Liam wrote numbers.

By lunch, her brain was mush. She reached into her backpack and froze. No lunch box.  

“Not again,” she whispered.

Her stomach growled its protest.  

Across the cafeteria, Liam sat alone, scribbling equations beside an untouched sandwich.

She crossed the room before doubt could catch up.  

“Hey. Still not drinking coffee?”  

“Still spilling it?” he asked without looking up.  

“Not today. I forgot lunch.”  

“Statistical pattern forming,” he murmured.  

“Har har. Mind if I sit?”  

He gestured to the opposite chair. “Do what you want.”

She dropped her trayless hands onto the table. “You ever actually eat that?”  

“Eventually.”  

“You ever smile?”  

“Rarely.”

She laughed. “At least you’re honest.”  

“Efficiency requires clarity.”

A moment passed. She watched sunlight creep across his notebook until it reached the sandwich.  

He noticed her stare and pushed it forward. “Take it.”  

“What?”  

“Control variable: hunger.”  

“You’re giving me your lunch for science?”  

“Call it field data.”

She took it. “Fine. Field data accepted.”  

The first bite surprised her—the bread soft, slightly sweet, with a hint of rosemary.  

“This is… really good.”  

“My mom baked it.”  

“She must be worried a lot.”  

He looked almost amused. “She’s a data analyst.”  

“Figures.”

For a while they ate in quiet rhythm—her chewing, his pen scratching.  

Then she said softly, “Do you ever think taste could mean more than molecules?”  

He didn’t answer immediately. “I think people read too much into chemistry.”  

“Maybe chemistry’s just another word for connection.”  

He paused, pen hovering. “Interesting hypothesis.”

The bell cut through their moment. He packed up neatly.  

“See you in the lab, flavor theorist.”  

“See you, logic machine.”

As he walked away, she realized her pulse had picked up again—like caffeine without the spill.

The afternoon sun turned the classroom windows into sheets of gold.

Emma balanced a beaker between her fingers, waiting for the timer to beep. The experiment was simple—measure how temperature changed the perception of sweetness—but with Liam as her partner, even simplicity became an equation.

“Record the results,” he said, glancing at the thermometer.  

She jotted down the numbers, adding a doodle of a cupcake in the corner.  

He frowned. “That’s not standard notation.”  

“It’s emotional context,” she replied. “You’d be amazed how much science needs decoration.”  

“Science requires precision.”  

“Art requires purpose,” she countered.

He looked like he wanted to argue but didn’t. His silence felt almost like respect—or resignation.

Ms. Green walked past, smiling. “Good collaboration, you two.”  

Emma flashed a grin; Liam muttered something about correlation versus causation.

When class ended, they cleaned up their station. She grabbed her notebook, hesitated.  

“Hey,” she said. “Thanks for the sandwich earlier.”  

He nodded. “Field data was successful?”  

“Yeah. Conclusion: kindness tastes like rosemary.”  

That earned the smallest curve of his lips—a half-smile, gone before it fully formed.

They stepped into the hallway together. The crowd swallowed them in noise and color.  

Emma adjusted her backpack strap. “You always this serious?”  

“Depends on the control group.”  

“Right. So, if I smile, do you run a regression test?”  

“Only if it’s reproducible.”  

“Guess I’ll have to smile again tomorrow.”

He glanced sideways, an almost invisible shift. “I’ll take notes.”

At the stairwell, they split—she turning left toward the art wing, he right toward the science labs.  

For the first time since transferring, the corridors didn’t feel foreign.

That evening, Emma filmed a short stream for her anonymous channel, “Taste of You.”  

The kitchen lights glowed soft amber as she whisked sugar into cream.  

“Today’s flavor,” she told the camera, “is coincidence. It’s the moment something unexpected sits next to you and changes everything.”

She tasted a drop of the whipped cream, smiling.  

“Sweet, with just a hint of rosemary.”

Across town, Liam typed his lab notes. Under “Observations,” he wrote: *Unexpected variable improved engagement.*

He stopped, erased it, and rewrote: *Conversation improved results.*

Outside, the streetlights flickered on, casting halos through the window.  

Somewhere between science and sweetness, connection had already begun.