Sweet Romance10 min read
A Quiet Girl, a System, and a Schoolyard Storm
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"Wake up, host. This is System 001. Complete the tasks and you can return."
I opened my eyes to white fog and a small, bright cloud hovering beside me. My chest felt hollow, and something in my memory bruised like a burned page.
"System?" I asked, voice small. "Am I... dead?"
"No, not dead," 001 said. "But almost. Your divine title was stripped. Your soul is shattered. The Heavens sealed your body and those you love to heal. You must enter the little world, complete the tasks, and bring them back."
My breath hitched. "My father? My mother?"
"They were hurt when you fell. If you do not complete tasks to restore your soul, they will remain trapped and your friends may not make it. You must act."
I swallowed a cold breath. My eyes opened to sunlight, and the smell of hot asphalt rolled against my face. I sat up under a tree at a school track. A math textbook lay across my lap like a neat shield. I looked down at myself—school uniform, white socks, black loafers. The part of life that had been safe, polite, small.
A voice near me said, "Class is starting."
I looked up. He was leaning on a wall, sun catching his jaw. He looked like a troublemaker who had been good for looking. He swung his long legs and wore an expression that made other people step back and stare.
"Don't be late," he added, tossing a glance that landed on me and warmed me like a sudden coat.
"Who are you?" I asked 001.
"Follow him. The plot will be delivered," 001 replied, all business.
I did as told. I followed the boy. He did not belong to the safe set of friends I expected in this world. He looked… different. A scruffy elegance in sunlight.
He walked ahead and I matched his pace.
"You coming?" he asked over his shoulder.
I sat next to him in class when the bell rang. Two empty seats at the back—he dragged a chair inward, and I sank into it, heart banging with a feeling I had no time to explain.
"You're quiet," he said softly.
"Studying." I kept my voice small and careful.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"I—" I hesitated. "Bella."
"Jalen," he told me. "Jalen Vazquez. I sit here. You sit there."
He was not like the boys who laughed too loud or looked for trouble. He watched me like he was cataloging a rare, delicate thing. I felt watched, and strangely safe.
"You're the new girl? The one with the heart problem?" someone whispered.
"Yeah," I heard. I let the memory and the cover story come over me. The original girl's life—the one whose memory I had inherited—had been small and careful, trailed by bottles of medicine and a cautious household. Her name, her story, all placed into my hands like a tea set to guard.
"Stay away from the big kids," 001 advised quietly. "Your main tasks are simple: stay alive, keep your parents safe, and—hidden task—prevent the boy Jalen from sliding into darkness."
"A villain?" I asked, eyeing Jalen. He was scribbling notes into his book, but he had a far look, like a storm inside.
"Yes. Stop him from becoming a broken thing. You can do it any way the world allows, but do it."
I had other tasks too: be kind to your parents, survive school life. That sounded almost laughable and also everything.
Days at school were small battles. A pretty girl named Aurora Ferrell showed up bright and soft and smiling, the famous "school flower." She asked me to eat with them. Her voice was like sugar. Her hand brushed mine, and she smiled in a way that claimed me.
"Will you come to the café later?" she asked.
"Maybe," I said. I had learned "maybe" was safe.
The café was the stage. Gage Peterson—tall, handsome, the smiling hero for everyone—sat with Aurora. They were close, the kind of close that hides things.
"She can come," Gage said smoothly.
"Of course," Aurora said. She had a light that made people give her seats. I had been brought along before as a shield: safe because people thought illness makes a person tiny and harmless.
I watched them. I felt like a puppet in a play I had to subsist through. I let them use me a few times, but I had a plan the system gave me—alert. Keep distance. Keep breathing.
Jalen kept watching me from the corner. One afternoon my chest stuttered like a failing clock. I clutched at my heart and felt panic slicing in. A warmth passed through my ribs, steady and soft. It was not System 001. It felt like him—Jalen's presence. He looked up, eyes bright, and handed me water. His voice trembled.
"Are you okay?" he whispered.
"I'm fine," I lied then, because I had pills and plans. Truth was, a strange calm had come when he was near, and I didn't know why.
He started to be there in small ways. He stood between me and whispered cruelty. He walked me home once as the sun lowered, as if keeping shadow at bay. He defended me in small ways.
"Don't drag her into your games," he snapped at Gage once, voice low and dangerous. Gage laughed it off, used his charm, played the wounded prince. Aurora pretended to look hurt, teary and righteous.
"You can't accuse me," Gage told me one evening, face pale with an actor's hurt. "We're friends. Don't toss me away."
"Friends?" I asked, sharp. "Did you know my family paid for your table? Did you think I was the free meal ticket?"
His smile froze for a second like ice cracking. Around us, people leaned in to watch.
"You don't get to talk to me that way," he said. His voice rose. "How dare you—"
"Stop." I stood. "I'm not your prop."
The room grew quiet. My words had snapped something. It felt like crossing a thin glass.
That night, I learned more about Jalen's background. He had a mother who left him, a father who did not believe his pulses. He had been punished by fate and boyhood. The ways the world had shaped him into a dangerous boy were clear like lines carved into wood. I was told, softly by System 001, that his future could end badly. The life thread might fray into a villainous storm.
He kept coming back to me anyway. He would stand silently at the school gate or drag a chair to sit beside me during lunch. He was not always gentle; sometimes his temper flared and his hands clenched. Yet when he looked at me, there was a softness I could not ignore.
"I like you," he confessed one night when he stood under my window. "I have for a while. I don't know how to be kind. I don't know how to ask, but I like you."
"Jalen," I said. "I can't promise you a future. My life is limited. I need you to know that."
"I know." He went quiet. "Just... let me be near, then."
We made small promises: study together, eat together, share small jokes. He softened. He came to family dinners. My parents—Quincy Schmitt and Judith Hart—loved that. They took to him like to a young son, because he cared for me.
But danger never sleeps. At a birthday celebration for Isabel Vinogradov—a bubbly classmate—an unstable girl named Haven Solovyov lurked nearby. Haven had a sharpness in her smile. She was obsessive around Gage. When she saw him with Aurora and me, her eyes turned red with something ugly and dangerous.
"You're hers now," Haven hissed at Aurora in a private corner. "You take him away and I'll make her disappear."
The breeze seemed to freeze. Aurora's pretty face blanched.
That night, the danger pushed a new current through the school. I had to act. I had to keep Jalen steady. I had to protect my parents' safe life. I had to unravel the plot that would ruin so much.
I learned to gather proof quietly. I used the café's cameras to record conversations. I used 001 to store files and display truthful evidence when needed. People think privacy hides sin; I learned it hides itself poorly.
One evening, I invited Aurora and Gage to a small meeting—deliberately public but controlled. I had copies of recordings and messages. They sat facing me, smug, because the world bowed to them. I started with small truths.
"Why do you need me there every time you two meet?" I asked. "Why does the café give you free meals only when I am present?"
Gage laughed. "Because it's convenient. You get to eat for free, Bella. We can't let you get lonely."
Aurora's lips trembled. "We are friends."
"Friends who use others for free meals," I said plainly.
Gage's smile tightened. He leaned forward, the stage lights catching him like a saint exposed in half-shadow.
"You can't say that." He lowered his voice, then tried to charm the assembled crowd. "There must be a misunderstanding."
"Let's see." I tapped a screen. 001 projected a soft panel of messages, of photos, of transaction records. The room felt suddenly full of glass.
"How did you—" Gage began. His face shifted from smug to puzzled to fear.
"It's all here," I said. "You used me as cover for your private dates. You let her think you were pursuing me, while you never intended to commit. You made my life a costume."
People around the table murmured. Phones tilted, catching the evidence. Aurora's breath hitched. She put her hand to her mouth like a child caught stealing candy.
"You can't be serious!" Aurora cried, then, "Gage, say it's not true."
Gage's face went pale. "I—this is nonsense."
The murmurs increased. Someone laughed nervously. A few people who had once idolized them shrank back, upset at the smell of deception.
"That's betrayal," I said. "You used me, and then you caused harm to the people I loved. You made my life dangerous. You pushed me toward a fall."
Gage found words: denial, excuses, anger. He tried to charm the crowd, to name me jealous and mean. He pleaded injustice, spun tales of being wronged, claimed a conspiracy against him. Aurora sobbed with a broken, practiced innocence.
But the evidence was cold and clear. People began to take photos. Voices rose, accusing. "How could you?" "Why would you do that?" "Is this true?"
Gage's smirk melted into confusion into panic. "No—no, that's not—"
"You were careful," I told him. "But you forgot cameras, and you forgot people watch. You thought your charm would hold a crowd. It doesn't hold when truth steps up."
He stood. "You can't—"
"Stay seated," I said. "Listen."
People recorded while Gage's mask slipped. He moved from confident to frantic.
"I didn't mean any of it—" he started to shout.
Someone in the crowd hissed, "Get a grip."
Aurora sobbed loud now, voice raw. "I didn't mean for it to hurt her," she said, shaking. "It was supposed to be a secret. I loved him."
"Love?" I looked at her. "Love is not hiding and using another's kindness. Love is standing when the world is hard. Love is not theft."
Around us, the bystanders' faces shifted in stages. They had adored Gage and Aurora. Now they watched the collapse. Phones lifted, hands shook; someone lowered glass to film. Others whispered, some clapped softly in approval at the unmasking.
Gage's eyes darted to the crowd. He had been loved. Now he saw pity and anger. He looked at Aurora, then at me, then the gears of his image ground to dust.
"You can't ruin my life," he croaked. "I'm not—this is slander—"
"Do your parents know?" I asked. "Do your donors know?"
Panic infected him; he lashed back with accusation and denial. "You're crazy. You're making things up."
"Recordings," I said. "Payments. Tickets. Photos. You thought you were a god. You were a petty man with petty plans."
He began to shake. The crowd drew closer. Someone took his hand and forced him to sit. He could not charm the sea of faces recording him. They moved from interest to outrage.
"Please," he begged suddenly, voice thin. "I'm sorry. Please, don't—"
A silence fell, a hundred devices pointed like small stars. People murmured anger and disappointment. Some approached with accusation. Someone shouted, "Save her. She doesn't deserve this."
Gage sank. His pride vanished. He stared at the floor. His chin trembled. He put a hand to his face, like someone trying to hold himself together.
"Stop," Aurora whispered, hugging herself. "I didn't know. I—"
No one blinked. A few people stood and filmed. One woman slapped him across the face—not hard, but publicly—then began scolding. "How could you? You hurt her. You used her."
Gage's expression twisted. He dropped to his knees in the middle of the room, suit crumpling, eyes wide.
"Please," he said, voice breaking. "Please, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"
The crowd did not move. Phones recorded the humiliation. People gasped, laughed, cried. Someone applauded the courage it took to stand and expose truth. Others panned the camera toward Aurora as she staggered with tears.
"It's all over the feed," one young man muttered. "They'll be viral tomorrow."
Gage reached up, palms trembling. "Forgive me—please—I'll fix it—"
"Fix it?" I stood over him, not triumph but a hangover of grief in my voice. "Fix who you hurt? Fix my family? You don't get that."
He slammed his hand against his head. Denial slipped into pleading into collapse. People moved away; some whispered that the man who had charmed the school had been stripped of his armor. Aurora sobbed into her hands and then tried to explain, "I thought—"
"Explain to them," I said. "Tell them you used me as a shield. Tell them you lied."
She shook her head. She could not find the courage to admit the truth in front of cameras. She covered her face and begged for privacy.
"Beg all you like," someone said. "You have to answer to the people you lied to."
The rest of that night was noise. The feed blossomed. The room filled with the sound of a public body judgment. Gage and Aurora had started the evening smug; they ended on a floor of glass.
People took side selfies with the evidence, posted, whispered, filmed. Some applauded. Others shielded their own phones, eyes flat with horror at how quickly idol fades.
The punishment was public, messy, and righteous. It was not my vengeance; it was the world learning to see. I did not dance on their ruin. I stood and watched them collapse. Jalen held my hand with a steadiness I had never expected, and I felt the warmth that had kept me alive those nights.
Afterward, the fallout reshaped the class. Aurora had to face questions she could not avoid. Gage's father—Cade Faulkner, a stone of a man—saw the ripple and then, later, took steps to minimize damage. The school talked less about parties and more about kindness.
Jalen and I, we focused on softer things. He studied harder. He learned to be kinder to himself. I learned to let people close carefully. We stole small joys: midnight noodles, shared notes, quiet walks. He promised to temper his temper because he could be a different kind of man.
The system whispered a hidden line: "Prevent his darkest turn. Keep him near kindness."
So I did.
Days later, at a school charity event, another scene unfolded. Haven—who had once been dangerous—came close again, but this time, she was watched and gently guided away by those who had once cheered for the wrong people. People who had seen the consequences would not stand silent again.
"Are you tired?" Jalen asked that night.
"A little," I admitted. "But safer."
"Good," he said. "Stay. I'll be here."
And I stayed. I had come to a little world to fix what was broken. I had done my work clumsily and humanly. I learned to see who people were and to help them become better before they became worse.
Sometimes the system surprised me—001 found small things to download, songs to carry, to make lonely nights less lonely. I taught Jalen a few maths tricks. He taught me to tie knots on my shoes so they would not tangle. We learned habits of care.
We did not cure every wound. The world still had cruel people. But when truth came, it came with people to bear witness.
The memory of the white fog and the bargain stayed with me. I would keep doing tasks. The system still awaited other worlds, another mission perhaps. For now, I had a family who loved me, a young man who was learning not to break, and an audience that would no longer believe pretty faces blindfolded.
I closed my eyes and let 001 hum a quiet song of stored novels. Jalen's hand found mine—warm, steady, human.
"You're safe," he murmured.
"I am," I said, and meant it.
The End
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