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Marty Tiya had perfected the art of invisibility.
Not by design, but by some cruel twist of fate that made him the human equivalent of beige wallpaper. Present, but utterly forgettable. At seventeen, he'd come to accept his role as a background character in the grand narrative of high school life. He wasn't unpopular, nor was he disliked. He simply... was.
The fluorescent hum of classroom lights, the rhythmic scratching of pens on paper, the occasional stifled laugh from the popular kids. These were the sounds that underscored Marty's existence. He moved through the halls like a ghost, his presence barely registering on anyone's social radar.
Until Acorn Dotori happened.
Acorn wasn't like the others. Where most students at Anakt High broadcasted their personalities like neon signs, Acorn spoke in soft-spoken murmurs and subtle gestures. He wore oversized sweaters that swallowed his slender frame, his brown hair perpetually falling into his eyes. There was something almost poetic about the way he existed. Quietly, but with undeniable presence.
Marty first noticed him in AP Literature, where Acorn sat two rows ahead, methodically underlining passages in his battered copy of *The Great Gatsby*. While their classmates groaned about Fitzgerald's dense prose, Acorn's pencil moved with quiet reverence, as if each word held some secret meaning meant only for him.
It was during a particularly grueling pop quiz that Marty's world tilted on its axis. A sharpened pencil rolled off his desk, clattering against the linoleum floor. Before Marty could move, a pale hand appeared in his periphery, retrieving the pencil with surprising grace.
"Here," Acorn murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.
Their fingers brushed during the exchange, sending an inexplicable jolt up Marty's arm. Acorn's hands were unexpectedly warm, his fingertips calloused from hours of violin practice—a fact Marty only knew because he'd covertly memorized Acorn's schedule weeks ago.
"Thanks," Marty managed, his throat suddenly dry.
Acorn offered a small, crooked smile before turning back to his test, completely unaware that he'd just rewritten Marty's entire universe with a single act of kindness.
Weeks passed in a haze of stolen glances and carefully orchestrated "accidental" encounters. Marty found himself lingering by Acorn's locker between classes, pretending to tie his shoes for suspiciously long intervals. He started packing two lunches—one for himself, and one he'd conveniently slip into Acorn’s locker, just in case Acorn happened to mention he'd skipped breakfast.
Lee Durian, Marty's blunt and perpetually unimpressed best friend, watched these antics with growing concern.
"You're like a really bad rom-com protagonist," she remarked one afternoon as Marty agonized over which granola bar flavor Acorn might prefer. "Except less charming and way more pathetic."
Marty ignored her remarks and continued to carefully rearrange the snacks in his backpack by order of Acorn's hypothetical preference. "You don't understand. He's different."
"Yeah," Durian deadpanned. She threw her head back and chugged the rest of her grape soda. (Which she probably shouldn’t have been drinking in class but who’s Marty to care.) "Different in that he actually makes eye contact when you talk, which says more about your standards than his personality."
Marty was about to retort when disaster struck in the form of five innocuous words during Tuesday's study hall.
"That girl over there is my type."
Acorn's soft whisper cut through Marty's carefully constructed fantasy like a knife. Following his gaze, Marty's stomach dropped to his shoes.
Park Sua.
Student Council Vice President. Debate Team Captain. The human embodiment of an ice storm; beautiful, untouchable, and capable of reducing grown men to stammering messes with a single raised perfectly plucked eyebrow.
Marty watched in horror as Acorn's eyes lingered on Sua's sharp profile, his expression softening in a way Marty had only dreamed of being directed at himself. The way Sua's choppy black bob caught the light, the precise angle of her pencil as she took notes, even the way she tapped her foot impatiently, Acorn cataloged it all with quiet reverence.
Marty's heart performed an impressive imitation of a dying car engine.
The plan, if it could be called that, formed in Marty's mind fully realized like Athena springing from Zeus's forehead—if the hypothetical Athena was a terrible idea wrapped in desperation.
If Acorn liked Sua, then Marty would become Sua.
Or at least, a reasonable facsimile thereof. The Durian in his head was shaking her head, scowling at his idiotic idea.
Phase One: The Haircut.
Marty spent three hours scrolling through Sua's Instagram before settling on her signature look, a razor-sharp bob that looked like it could cut glass. He texted the reference photo to Durian with trembling fingers.
*I think I'm gonna get a haircut. Like this.*
The response came immediately:
Durian: 👍
No words. Just a single thumbs-up emoji that somehow conveyed the full depth of Durian's disappointment in him.
Two days and one traumatized hairstylist later, Marty stood before his bathroom mirror, staring at the stranger reflected back at him. The stylist had clearly panicked halfway through, leaving him with a jagged, asymmetrical mess that made him look like an emo shoujo harem protagonist but somehow worse.
It was perfect.
Phase Two: The Wardrobe Overhaul.
Gone were Marty's comfortable hoodies and broken-in sneakers. In their place emerged an army of pastel button-ups, tailored slacks, and most horrifying of all, polished dress shoes that squeaked with every step. He even procured Sua's signature accessory: a white velvet headband that made him look like a Victorian child with a bonnet.
Durian's reaction when he debuted the new look was nothing short of apocalyptic.
"What in the-," she breathed, taking in Marty's transformation with wide eyes. "Are you... okay?"
Marty struck what he hoped was a Sua-like pose. Chin tilted up, shoulders back, expression carefully neutral. "Never been better."
Durian's face cycled through approximately seven different emotions and the five stages of grief before settling on resigned horror. "You're cosplaying as Sua to impress Acorn."
"It's not cosplay," Marty corrected primly. "It's a strategic personality realignment."
Durian looked like she wanted to strangle him. "You're a disaster."
The school's annual talent showcase presented the perfect opportunity to cement his Sua-like persona. Marty signed up immediately, bypassing his usual drum performance for something far more ambitious; a cover of Sua's favorite song.
Sweet Dreams was, by all accounts, a terrible choice. The choreography was complex, the vocals were out of his range, and the overall aesthetic was about as far from Marty's natural abilities as possible.
Which made it perfect.
Weeks of secret practice in his bedroom culminated in what could only be described as a performance art piece about the death of dignity. From the moment the music started, it was clear something had gone horribly wrong.
Marty's movements were stiff and unnatural, his facial expressions cycling through what appeared to someone being mauled to death by a bear. Halfway through the routine, he misjudged a spin and nearly took out a microphone stand and someone in the audience, catching himself at the last second with a panicked yelp.
The audience's reaction was a symphony of discomfort. Somewhere in the front row, Sua's usually impassive face contorted in what might have been secondhand embarrassment. Beside her, Acorn stared at the stage with the wide-eyed horror of someone witnessing a train wreck in slow motion. Durian looked disgusted and the smack from her facepalm reverberated throughout the hall.
"Is he okay?" Acorn whispered to Durian, his voice laced with genuine concern.
Durian, ever the pragmatist, didn't mince words. "He thinks you like Sua. So he's trying to become her."
Acorn's ears turned an impressive shade of crimson.
He blushed and waved a hand dismissively.
Acorn blinked. "I like Sua, yeah... but not like that."
A beat of silence passed between them as Durian raised a single, judgmental eyebrow.
Backstage, Marty slumped against a wall, mentally cataloging every life choice that had led him to this moment. The scratchy fabric of his ill-fitting costume itched against his skin, the too-tight dress shoes pinching his toes. Somewhere in the distance, he could still hear the faint echo of his own off-key singing haunting him like a bad memory.
That's when Park Ivan materialized beside him like a particularly judgmental specter, slurping loudly from a juice box. He let the sound of the juice box go on for a few more seconds before glaring at Ivan.
"Noona doesn't swing that way," Ivan announced without preamble.
Marty blinked. "Wait, so what does that have to do with me?"
Ivan, Sua's perpetually bored younger brother, shrugged. "She told me last year. She's into cute girls with a cuter smile." He took another long sip, black eyes boring holes into Marty’s chopped haircut. "Acorn probably knows that, so... I think you have a chance."
The words hit Marty like a bucket of cold water. All this time, all this effort, all this humiliation—for nothing?
"Why the hell am I doing all this, then?" Marty groaned, pressing his palms against his eyes.
Ivan considered this for a moment before offering his juice box in what might have been solidarity or was it longing for a love he could never get? "Maybe focus on being you."
Marty slapped Ivan’s juice box away.
With the Sua obsession fading, Marty began seeing Acorn with new eyes. Not as an unattainable ideal, but as a person with flaws and all.
He noticed how Acorn's nose scrunched when he laughed, how he absentmindedly hummed show tunes while studying, how he always carried around two pencils in case someone forgot theirs. He saw the way Acorn's hands trembled before presentations, how he bit his lower lip when concentrating, how his eyes lit up when discussing his favorite books.
Most importantly, Marty noticed how Acorn looked at him. Not with the detached admiration he reserved for Sua, but with something far more terrifying. Something real.
This realization led Marty to his current predicament: lurking outside the school library like a particularly awkward stalker, rehearsing what he might say if Acorn happened to walk by.
As fate would have it, Acorn did walk by and immediately noticed Marty's suspicious loitering.
"Are you stalking me?" Acorn asked, arms crossed but amusement dancing in his eyes.
Marty's brain short-circuited. "No! Maybe? But not in a creepy way."
Acorn regarded him with mock suspicion, his lips pursed in a perfect pout. The afternoon sunlight caught the gold flecks in his brown eyes, and Marty was struck by the sudden, overwhelming urge to kiss him.
"You're adorable," Marty blurted.
The moment the words left his mouth, Marty wished for immediate death. He scrambled to backtrack, but Acorn was already laughing—a bright, unfiltered sound that made Marty's chest ache.
No dramatic rain. No sweeping orchestral score. Just two hopelessly awkward boys standing outside the library, hearts pounding loud enough to drown out the world around them.
"I like you," Marty confessed, his voice cracking embarrassingly. "Even before that weird Sua phase. You make my brain go soft."
Acorn's smile was small but devastatingly overjoyed. "That was weird. You're weird."
Marty shrugged. "And you're quiet."
"So we're both disasters."
"Well, do you want to be disasters together?"
Acorn didn't answer with words. Instead, he leaned in, closing the distance between them in one decisive motion. Marty met Acorn in the middle, their teeth clacking together before they got the hang of it. Their first kiss was clumsy and sweet, flavored with the cherry lip balm Acorn always used and the salt of Marty's nervous sweat.
Somewhere in the distance, Durian facepalmed so hard it echoed. Ivan smirked into his juice box like the little gremlin he was. And Sua, blissfully unaware of the chaos she'd inadvertently caused, continued being her effortlessly cool self, completely unmoved by the seismic shift in Marty and Acorn's universe.
But Marty didn't notice any of that.
All he saw was Acorn.
+his nuts