She hated being the first person to stand up after the seatbelt sign dinged off, so Bri waited. It was a small rebellion—if she let everyone else shuffle their bags and block the aisle, she wouldn’t have to watch herself awkwardly balance her own overstuffed backpack, wouldn’t have to feel the back-of-the-neck stare from a full plane of people who all, she was convinced, knew exactly how scared she’d been. Or, failing that, they’d just take one look at her and know she didn’t belong here.

Noah waited, too. He stayed in his seat, straight-backed and composed, as if his only goal in life was to make everyone else’s impatience look childish. Maybe it was. When the logjam in the aisle finally started to move, he stood, stretched, and in one smooth motion plucked Bri’s bag from the overhead and set it in front of her. “Ready?” he asked, as if they were about to walk into a party and not a fluorescent-lit gauntlet of customs, classmates, and whatever fresh hell awaited at the gate.

“Not remotely,” she said, but she looped the strap across her chest anyway, a nervous habit. The bag’s weight steadied her. Or maybe it just gave her something to hide behind.

The jetway was narrow, clear, and overbright. Sydney’s air was warm and heavy even inside the terminal, and it hit Bri like a wet sock to the face. She was halfway convinced her hair would start frizzing on contact. All she wanted was to vanish into the crowd—except, with Noah walking two steps behind her, everyone in their little group moved aside automatically. They looked up, took in the white mask, and then her, and then immediately found something else to care about.

Except for the girls at the end of the corridor.

"Well shit. My fourth least favorite person. There was no way around. Yui Shisho was the kind of person who could make a terminal bench look like a throne. She sat with one leg crossed elegantly over the other, blazer sleeves rolled to the exact same length on each wrist, the Veritas crest gleaming on her lapel like a warning sign. Next to her, Lorna Kobayashi’s black to rainbow-tipped hair spilled over the seatback in a waterfall onto Mako’s shoulder, where the latter was busy dissecting a phone screen with two perfectly pink fingernails. They were a study in practiced, engineered perfection. Even jet-lagged and shaken up with that crazy flight, their makeup was unbothered, their shoes shined, their uniforms in a state of deliberate but acceptable noncompliance.

Bri wanted to walk past without making eye contact, but Yui’s gray gaze was a laser beam. “Oh, look,” said the Queen B, in a tone that managed to sound bored and predatory at once. “Did you make it through in one piece, McDavid? We had a bet you’d need the barf bag before Tokyo Bay.”

Lorna didn’t even look up. “I said two hours.”

Mako said, “I said before beverage service.” Her eyes flicked up, pink and catlike. “I win, right?”

Yui smiled, all teeth. “They probably counted the cost of cleaning before they let her on board.”

Bri felt her throat clamp shut, like her body had just closed a door against the cold. The only way to win this was not to play, so she said nothing. She kept walking, but Yui’s voice followed, just loud enough for the boys ahead of them—and maybe half the terminal—to hear.

“Don’t take it too hard, McDavid. The cruise is mostly smooth. Unless you get seasick, too?”

Bri’s cheeks burned. She was pretty sure they’d go nuclear if she let herself respond, so she walked a little faster.

Noah didn’t, though. He slowed, matching her stride, and if he noticed her discomfort, he gave no sign. But when they passed the Queen B’s, he paused. For one dizzying second, Bri thought he’d actually say something—maybe a dry joke, maybe nothing at all—but what came out was so perfectly controlled, so Noah, that she felt her jaw drop a little.

“That’s rich, Shisho,” he said, not even pausing to face her. “I heard you spent two hours in the lav on the last flight to Singapore.”

The effect was instant. Lorna’s hair bobbed as she laughed, then cut off when Yui shot her a look so sharp it could have sliced through steel. Despite the tension, Bri almost laughed. Mako blinked, and then giggled into her sleeve. Yui, to her credit, didn’t miss a beat. “Whatever.”

Noah didn’t even flinch. “Same. You might catch up eventually.” He moved on, never looking back.

Bri had to hustle to keep up. They emerged into the main concourse, and she was hit with that airport smell: over-chlorinated air, fried food from a distant food court, and the faintest tinge of something antiseptic. They must have repainted the walls in the last six months, because everything looked aggressively white. Fresh, in a way that made her skin itch.

They navigated the terminal’s endless corridors. It was nothing like Narita, which was all careful silence and soft lights. Here, the world was louder and messier, full of strangers moving with urgent purpose, eyes fixed on screens or on the baggage carousels ahead. She felt microscopic. Like an exposed nerve.

As they moved, Bri noticed the boys again. Cain and Beau, walking just ahead, perfectly groomed and perfectly indifferent to everyone around them. Cain’s hair was a shock of white in the crowd, like he was his own emergency flare. He glanced back over his shoulder once, met Bri’s eyes, and held them for a second too long before looking away. No smile, no acknowledgment, just a clinical scan. Beau, dark where Cain was light, for all his height and easy stride, barely registered her existence.

The boys peeled off toward customs, the diplomatic line. Seriously, they weren’t diplomats. Must be nice to be entitled. Bri hung back, not wanting to draw attention. But Noah stayed with her the entire time. Which meant she ended up in line with the next wave of Queen B’s. She pulled out her phone and pretended to check messages. Her hands shook. Noah stood beside her not saying a word. But his presence was enough of a deterrent to keep the less aggressive girls at bay.

It was over so fast. The customs guy was old and bored and didn’t care about her existence. He stamped her passport, barely looked at her photo. As she re-packed her documents, she caught the Queen B’s in the corner of her eye, drifting through security like they’d done this a thousand times. As an airport executive kid, I’d flown a lot and went through the staff line too.

Past customs, the crowd thinned. The noise faded. She let herself breathe for a second, then heard footsteps behind her.

Yui, again. She’d lost her bench, but not her crown. Lorna and Mako flanked her like well-dressed bodyguards. They moved in a perfect wedge, cutting through the crowd.

Yui didn’t bother with hello. “Don’t get used to the mask, McDavid,” she said, glancing at Noah, who was now getting his passport stamped, “He swaps them every term. New favorite every season.”

“I think it’s an upgrade,” Mako said. “Better than that airhead from last semester. What was her name again?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Yui. “Point is, try not to get attached. It’s embarrassing for everyone.”

Lorna just looked at her, not unkindly, but with a sort of neutral curiosity—like she was waiting to see if Bri would do something interesting, or just fold up like a paper cup.

Bri thought about trying a comeback. Then she thought about how little energy she had left, and how much worse it would feel if it bounced off and left her even smaller.

So she shrugged. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m allergic to attachment.”

Mako blinked. Yui arched an eyebrow. Lorna let out a small, surprised laugh, and this time, Yui didn’t even try to shut it down.

“Good,” said the Yui, and for once, her voice wasn’t coated in venom. “You might actually survive the week.”

They walked on, the wedge dissolving as quickly as it had formed, swept into the crowd.

Noah rejoined me. “Hey. I need to stop by the restroom. Don’t wait for me.” Bri took a sharp left toward the nearest restroom, desperate for a quiet moment before the next onslaught. She stopped, turned back to look for Noah—he was already gone, lost in the crowd. She didn’t blame him. If she had a way to disappear, she’d use it.

She stood in the doorway for a long second, breathing in the chemical tang of disinfectant, feeling the chill of the overpowered AC on her face. She looked at her reflection in the silvered glass panel beside the sink.

Her hair was wild. Her glasses were smudged. She looked like she’d been through a minor natural disaster.

But she was here. She was alive. It was enough.

Bri squared her shoulders, pulled her jacket tighter, and stepped into the blue-white light.