“Sahara.”

His father’s voice cut through the laughter at the dinner table. 

A moment later, Sahara felt a hand on his shoulder.

It was his father, who was guiding him into the hallway.

The noise faded behind them, the clinking plates, his sister’s birthday song until it was just the two of them in the dim light.

His father crouched to meet his eyes. “What’s wrong? You’re bringing down the mood. It’s your sister’s day, at least pretend to be happy.”

Sahara stared at the floor. “I don’t think the medicine’s working,” he whispered. “I can still see her.”

For a heartbeat, his father froze. Then, glancing down the hall, he leaned closer and lowered his voice.

“Don’t ever mention the pills whatsoever. To anyone.”

He pressed a small orange bottle into Sahara’s hand, the label scratched out in thick black ink.

That was the year everything changed.

That was the year he was supposed to stop seeing them.

The same classrooms.

The same people.

But everything felt off.

The air buzzed faintly, like static crawling just beneath his skin. Every face looked almost right, until he blinked. Then the smiles seemed stretched a little too wide, the voices a little too hollow.

What was happening?

Before, he would only see them.

But now they have manifested into a woman he couldn’t name.

He took his seat by the window, where sunlight slanted through the blinds, striping the desk in pale gold. Dust drifted in the air like ghosts.

He stared down at his notebook. The mazes filled the margins again, spiraling in on themselves. 

No exit. 

No center. 

Just endless turns leading nowhere.

Oddly familiar. 

Almost a feeling of home.

But he didn’t dare look up.

It sounded like her.

The one he wasn’t supposed to see anymore.

For a moment, he thought he caught a glimpse, a flicker of a figure on top of a desk.

That desk was empty.

His stomach tightened. He reached into his pocket, fingers brushing the familiar shape of the orange pill bottle. The cap clicked open like a secret.

“Take a pill and go to bed.”

His father’s voice echoed, hollow and worn.

But it was morning now.

And he was wide awake.

The teacher’s voice droned somewhere in the background, but all he could hear was the faint sound of typing, his own words from the night before repeating in his head like a broken record:

Why do we hold desperate

to what hurts us?

He pressed his hands to his temples. The sound wouldn’t stop. The typing, the crying, the voice calling his name, soft, pleading, almost kind.

He looked up again, clenching his rosary, then looking at his fingers.

His bruised knuckles, and his fingers.

Blood stained like ink onto them.

His breath caught.

“Sahara?” the teacher’s voice broke through.

He flinched. The vision scattered like smoke.

He forced a nod, hiding his trembling hands under the desk.

Outside the window, the world looked painfully bright, too normal, too alive. And for the first time in days, he wished he couldn’t see at all.

There was a new student that day.

Whispers rippled through the classroom as he stepped in. The usual curiosity, half-hidden behind notebooks and screens. The teacher introduced him, voice blending into the hum of fans and idle chatter. Sahara barely looked up at first. He’d stopped caring about new faces a long time ago.

Until now.

Time stopped.

Perhaps his heart did too.

The air seemed to still, as if even the wind outside had paused to see. For a moment, the noise in his head, the endless, aching buzz, fell silent for once. The world held its breath.

Beautiful.

Light spilled through the window, striking at just the right angle. Silky white hair fell over the newcomer’s neck, catching the gold of the sun. His face, sharp, yet soft, looked like it had been painted rather than born. 

Familiar, but impossible. 

Otherworldly, yet alive.

Sahara’s chest tightened.

Not in pain.

Not this time.

But in awe.

Not the wild flames of inspiration that drove him to write feverishly through the night. No, this was quieter. A slow, steady glow that settled beneath his ribs and refused to go out, an undying flicker of warmth. 

“Hey!”

The voice pulled him back. He blinked.

The classroom returned, the scraping of chairs, the dull hum of the lights.

He turned.

And there he was again.

The sunlight spilled through the windows, turning the floor into rivers of gold. Outside, the sky hung heavy with the warmth of evening, like the world itself was ripening.

That was the day they met.

The stranger, the boy who looked like art made flesh, had walked into Sahara’s life without warning, as if he’d stepped straight out of a story not yet written.

And Sahara had been captivated.

Not by charm, not by words, but by presence by the way he carried stillness, by the way his laughter felt unguarded, honest. When he looked at Sahara, it wasn’t pity or politeness. It was recognition. As if, for the first time, someone truly saw him.

He hadn't realized how empty he’d been until he was filled.

They hadn’t promised anything.

No declarations.

Just a shared glance, a quiet understanding.

But later, looking back, Sahara would remember that moment as the one his world quietly shifted.

He hadn’t had the words then.

It was hope.

And maybe, something dangerously close to…

The rest of the class faded into static. Words drifted around him, hollow and meaningless dates, formulas, instructions. None of it stuck.

Sahara’s gaze kept returning to the new boy.

The way his hair caught the light.

The faint shadow of his lashes when he blinked.

The curve of his hand as he wrote his name at the top of his notebook.

It was like trying to memorize sunlight. Every time he looked away, he feared he’d forget the details.

His own notebook lay open before him, half-filled pages, smudged graphite, and those familiar sketches: mazes, riddles, half-formed faces he could never finish. The faces always blurred into nothing. But this time, his pencil didn’t hesitate.

He began to draw.

A line.

Then another.

Soft, deliberate strokes.

The labyrinths on the page gave way to something new, a face.

His face.

He captured the tilt of his head first, the quiet focus in his eyes, the way the light fell across his cheek. The graphite caught every small tremor of Sahara’s hand, but somehow, it made the image more alive.

He flipped back a few pages to his old drawings.

Dark shapes.

Tangled paths.

Figures with no eyes, no mouths, lost in the endless loops of his imagination.

But this was different. There was no maze this time. Just open space, like his presence had broken something in Sahara’s mind that needed breaking.

He shaded the corner of the page carefully, tracing the lines again until the pencil almost tore through the paper. He wanted to get it right. To remember this moment, this feeling, before it slipped away like everything else.

A shadow fell across his desk.

He froze.

“Is that me?”

The voice was warm, curious, not mocking.

Sahara’s heart lurched. He shut the notebook too quickly, the sound sharp in the quiet between them.

“I, uh-it’s nothing.”

But the boy only smiled.

“That’s really good,” he said softly. “You draw a lot, huh?”

Sahara nodded, not trusting his voice.

The boy tilted his head, eyes glinting in the light. “What’s your name?”

“Sahara,” he murmured.

He repeated it once, as if testing the sound, letting it roll off his tongue like something sacred.

“Sahara,” he said again, smiling. “That’s funny.”

For a second, Sahara forgot to breathe. 

Then he gave a scornful look. 

Of course.

Why did he think that it was possible for him to be any different?

The bell rang, breaking the moment. Students packed up, chairs screeched, papers rustled. The spell shattered, but something of it lingered, quiet and steady, beneath the noise.

Sahara glanced down at his notebook. The graphite smudge of the boy’s face stared back at him. He brushed his thumb over it gently, smearing the edges.

A soft, secret smile tugged at his lips.

It was a nice moment of peace for him.

For the first time in a long while, he wasn’t drawing to escape.

He was drawing to remember.

The hallway smelled faintly of paper and rain, that clean, quiet scent that always followed the afternoon downpour. Students brushed past, laughter echoing off the lockers in waves.

Sahara walked slower than usual, his notebook clutched tight against his chest. He could still feel the echo of that smile, that voice saying his name like it meant something. Sahara.

No one ever said it like that before.

“Hey!”

He turned, startled. The new boy jogged up beside him, bag slung loosely over one shoulder. His grin was easy, like they’d already been friends for years.

“Hi..” He broke into laughter, “Sahar-Sahara,” He wiped tears from his eyes,

Sahara slapped his arm off him. “Get off me.” But he seemed to continue wanting to pester him.

“Grumpy are we?” He grinned, pointing at the window with the sun high in the sky, “Such nice weather we have today?”

He muttered under his breath, secretly sneaking a glance of the beautiful boy.

Rosy-pink cheeks that perfectly contrasted his pale skin.

One could see the blue and red veins under his skin, beating slowly like a heartbeat.

Long, wispy white lashes that glowed in the sunlight.

“Like what you see? Huh?” He chuckled.

Sahara walked further from him. “Hell no. Get lost you idiot.”

He dropped his sketchbook, his picture of the boy flying out.

Sahara tried to chase after it but Snow picked it up out the sky effortlessly despite Sahara being the taller one.

He broke out into laughter again.

Sahara prepared himself.

What a weirdo.

Who draws stuff like this?

“Beatiful? You think I’m pretty,” He gave the paper back after reading the notes in margin, “Thanks,” He grinned,

Sahara couldn’t respond, focused on his snaggletooth.

“Sorry.”

He took off in a rush, his face flushed with embarrassment. 

“Hey!”

The boy began to chase after him but lost him.

Then the bell rang again.

“There you are, Sahara! You ditched me again.”