The once cozy family of three soon became nothing more than a quiet shell.

Later, my parents felt sorry for her and treated her like their own daughter.

From that point, Calliope and I stayed close, almost never separating.

Calliope was always remarkable with outstanding grades and a pretty face.

And I was just a normal boy, plain looks, average grades, the only thing I did well was drawing.

But during those days, I never thought I didn’t match her.

She told me we gave her all the warmth a family should hold, that we were her real home.

She also told me I was the ray of brightness in her dark life.

In our first high school year, after night study, I walked back with Calliope as always.

Along a quiet path, we met her dad.

He was drunk, swaying, acting wild.

He had gone bankrupt, the lover who cheated with him had left, and now he came to take Calliope again.

She refused to follow, and he suddenly rushed forward, trying to drag her away.

At that second, I couldn’t think of anything else and moved in front of her without pause.

My knees shook from fear, yet I feared more that she might be harmed.

That night, Calliope held me firmly and promised that in her whole life she would only care for me.

After we entered high school, she grew even more outstanding, drawing attention from many boys.

She was always the top student, while I was just a normal art student.

I worried she might walk away one day, but she always smiled and pinched my hand, saying, “Dummy! Why would I leave you? I can’t repay what you, uncle and aunt, gave me.”

I thought we would stay happy just like that, until Arden showed up.

On a hot summer day, I was doing homework with Calliope at her home when sudden knocks sounded on the door.

Opening it, we saw a cheerful boy with a bright smile.

He said he had recently moved here and was Calliope’s new neighbor.

His soft tone seemed to ease the heat of summer, but inside me grew a quiet ten.

Maybe it was the glow coming from him, or maybe it was because I noticed the burning admiration in his eyes when he looked at her.

Later, I realized that the uneasy feeling wasn’t imagined; it became the main color of my remaining high school years.

The next morning, I found out that Arden not only became her neighbor but also moved into our school.

Right after the monthly test, the teacher was going over the results.

My grades were normally average, but I surprisingly took first place in English this time.

Just as the teacher praised me, Arden showed up at the classroom doorway.

The whole class burst into loud excitement; nobody cared about my result anymore, and everyone stared at him.

“Wow, our school actually has such a good-looking boy!”

“You fool, he must be new here, or we would’ve seen him earlier!”

Only then did I understand that he was now Calliope’s neighbor and soon also my classmate.

What I did not expect was that when choosing seats, Arden picked me.

“Rayne, you’re the only boy I know here, I’ll rely on you.”

“I know you and Calliope are close. Can you both take me along?”

He smiled like a gentle winter sun. And I… couldn’t think of any reason to say no.

From that moment, another person stepped into the place that once held only Calliope and me.

I didn’t have many classmates close to me, and after Arden came, people around us began to say Calliope, and he was the right pair, even though the girl who liked someone was Calliope liking me.

“School beauty with school prince, why is Rayne squeezing in?”

“Who knows, maybe a frog dreaming of a swan.”

Back then, I truly saw Arden as a buddy. I even asked if I really wasn’t worthy of Calliope.

But Arden only curved his lips and said, “How could that be? Though you really aren’t bright like others, Calliope doesn’t mind.”

“Oh, and she wants you to go to the amusement park this weekend. She’s too timid to say it, so she asked me instead. Don’t skip it.”

Even though what we shared was an unspoken love, that would have been our first day out like that.

That day after class, I left ahead of time. Even under heavy rain, I still went far to a mall to pick a present for her.

I chose a bottle of perfume.

The salesgirl asked whether it was for my girlfriend. I couldn’t stop the small smile and nodded.

Girlfriend

It was the first time someone called her that.

When amusement-park day came, I dressed up a bit. While standing at the gate, I wondered if I was doing too much.

But I waited until dark, and she still didn’t come.

My texts sank like pebbles into deep water.

My heart collapsed. I only feared she had met trouble.

It was too dim, and on the road back, I slipped and fell into dirty mud.

My neat white shirt became smeared with dirt. The scent I bought for her flew from my hand, too.

When I hurried to her place and pushed open the door, I saw Arden lying on her bed while she mixed cold-medicine tea for him.

The second she saw me, Calliope’s lovely face tightened in anger.

“Why did you show up only now? Where were you? I searched for you the whole day.”

“You didn’t know Arden got soaked yesterday and passed out with a fever early this morning? If I weren’t next door, who can say what danger it could have caused?”

No reason for missing our date, only blame thrown onto me.

In all the years I knew her, it was the first time she shouted at me like that.

Arden then lowered his face and spoke, “Rayne, I think something must have held you back, but you shouldn’t have taken my umbrella during such heavy rain.”

“My place had no cold pills. My mom and dad were not home. I sent you message after message, but you blocked me. Luckily, I fainted at Calliope’s house. If not, I really don’t know what might have happened.”

His tone sounded even more pitiful. “I just moved here, and I always treated you as my closest friend. Why treat me like that…”

Hearing this, Calliope’s anger rose.

I stood frozen right there. So in his story, I was the selfish one again.

After a long while, I finally opened my mouth and held out the present toward Calliope.

“I didn’t… I only…”

But she didn’t even glance at me. She simply passed the cup to Arden instead.

I became like a stranger standing in that room.

After some time, I walked out of her house. From that moment, we entered our first silent fight.

When classes resumed, I quietly switched my seat, no longer beside Arden.

The looks classmates gave me turned even more unusual.

Arden told others I picked on him because of Calliope, making himself seem like the wronged one.

Anywhere I appeared, the room swarmed with low voices about me.

“See? I told you he isn’t good enough for the class beauty. Yet he still kept hanging around.”

“Only the school hunk still bothers hanging around him. If that were me, I’d have gotten tired long ago. Yet he acts like he’s above everyone. What is he putting on a show for?”

In a blink, I turned into a pest everyone wanted to step on, even though I never did anything wrong.

Even Calliope stopped giving me the smallest look.

At that age, barely grown, how could I handle that shame?

In the end, I couldn’t hold myself anymore. After studying one evening, I went to speak with Calliope.

She was still marking Arden’s wrong answers on his papers. When she noticed I had come, a light shock flashed across her eyes.

We walked back together, and I told her everything on my mind, asking why she treated me like that.

But when I mentioned that Arden purposely tricked me into going to the amusement park and set me up with the umbrella, Calliope’s face tightened.

She quickly cut off my words, saying, “I don’t get why you’re always so against Arden. He isn’t the person you think he is.”

“Since knowing Arden, I found you to be so jealous. He treats you nicely, yet you point fingers at him again and again, just because he is better than you?”

“Do you even know how high his fever was that day? Even after you left, he kept blaming himself, wondering if he said something wrong.”

I froze.

I never thought that after all our years together, Calliope wouldn’t even believe me a little.

“Rayne, this is the first time you made me feel so sickened. Are you so average that you can’t stand someone more capable?”

I couldn’t accept that those sentences came from her.

Maybe she sensed she spoke too harshly, because she stretched her hand out to pull my sleeve.

“Sorry… that wasn’t what I meant.”

But I already had no hope left.

I ran back home as fast as I could and shut myself in my room for the entire day.

After that, I no longer talked to her.

I drowned myself in schoolwork, wanting only to escape this place as soon as I could.

I still kept in mind how, when we first entered high school, I once told Calliope that I would for sure study at the same University as her.

But now, I only wanted to get as far away from her as life allowed.

During the whole second half of senior year, we didn’t exchange even a single sentence.

After the college entrance exam, Calliope came to see me.

She stood at my door carrying a bunch of jasmine blooms.

“Rayne, I spoke too harshly before. Can you let it go?”

“I still don’t want us apart. I’m giving you jasmine, don’t leave me, Rayne.’”

She swore that she would never let anyone hurt me again, that I would always come first in her heart. And in the end, I softened.

We planned to head to the same city.

While filling out the application, we sat shoulder to shoulder.

We both chose schools in the capital.

She picked Hanford University, and I picked an art institute.

I thought maybe we could keep living happily like before. But I was wrong.

I forgot to logout my account on her computer.

When I didn’t get into any college, I learned that my options had changed.

All my backup choices were swapped for Universities far beyond my score.

I slipped through the system, accepted nowhere.

And the only one who could have done this, with reason and chance, was Arden.

Because he also filled his form at Calliope’s home, and he could reach her computer.

I went mad. I went to him and struck him across the face right before Calliope.

Holding his collar, I shouted, “Why?! Why ruin someone else’s future?!”