And The Pain Was Heaven

part one

a/n: OH MY GODS THE DAY HAS COMEE EEEEEEEEE IM SO EXCITED FOR YOU GUYS TO READ THIS!!! so this fic is divided into 4 parts (bc it was intended to be a oneshot but got too long) and i will release another part every sunday. hope you enjoy and without any further ado her it is :)

***

The pain had been unbearable for little Aru's toddler soul. Seeing all the kids send her disgusted looks and distasteful glances broke her heart. It had taken all she had to stop herself from running home and bawling into her mother's arms with big fat tears. Instead, she sat behind the bookshelf, fiddling with her fingers, silently watching the other kids laugh and giggle and play without her.

"You don't want to join them?" The teacher had asked once.

A brief shake of her head was all Aru had given her.

Eventually, she learned to be invisible, to tuck away her "weird interests" and her "weird jokes". To hide herself among her playmates, pretend she didn't exist. It was a simple thing, she soon realized. Silence and silence and even more silence was all it took. Soon, Aru had mastered the art of invisibility. It became a skill she was proud of.

The spot behind that bookshelf became her home, a haven of books she could choose from when the jealousy bubbled up inside of her. When that happened, she'd turn around and run one little finger across the cracked spines of every book, wondering about its contents. Sometimes, she'd pull one book at random – maybe it would be a fantasy about some magical fairy, maybe it would be about a superhero like Spider-Man – and she'd read it. Aru would spend the entirety of recess indoors, her back hunched over the black letters of a story where her imagination prevailed.

Well, at least until the new boy arrived.

To be frank, the new boy fascinated her. He, too, had tawny skin like hers, but his was more smooth and tanned. His smile was wide and untroubled. And his eyes... his eyes were mystical, Aru had thought. She still does. His eyes held everything and nothing at once. They glimmered under the light, like a small ripple pulsing through serene water. He was... perfect. Too perfect. But instead of envying him like everyone else secretly did, Aru found herself staring at his face while he casually chatted with the boy seated next to him. As much as she wanted to, she never gathered up the courage to talk to him, not even a simple wave. Watching him from afar became her daily hobby. But one could never avoid fate's plans for long. It was only a matter of time before Aru would hear his charming voice in her ear from every day after their spontaneous meeting.

***

The move had been new for Aiden Acharya and the school even newer, but making new friends had proved to be an easy task for him. There seemed to be a magnetic field around him that had lured all the new kids and gotten them talking. Even the teacher seemed to have taken a liking to him, a plump lady with the kindest hazel eyes he'd ever seen.

Well. Everyone but one person.

A few days into school he noticed the girl. She was the only other student with skin like him, smooth and darker but beautiful all the same. Her hair was long, reaching halfway down her back—it was the only part of her he ever saw. Her back would always be turned away from the classroom, her nose deep in some book from the library nook. Every day it was a different one, he noticed, and once she'd gone through the entire collection, she'd start reading them all over again.

She must be bored, he thought one day, watching her through the corner of his eye as her eyes skimmed across the pages of a book with a pig on the cover. And lonely. Aiden found himself staying back before recess, his curiosity piqued.

"Hi."

***

"Hi."

Aru had jumped then, promptly dropping Charlotte's Web from her grasp. She scrambled to her feet, eyeing the boy in front of her carefully. It was the new kid, she soon realized, and she shrunk away from him. The rest of her class had left for recess; why hadn't he?