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I wasn’t sure why I agreed to follow Ethan into his mansion. Maybe it was the bunny. Maybe it was Joy's reckless confidence or Shun’s silent resignation. Or maybe it was Ethan himself—grinning like he owned the world and occasionally acted like he’d burn it down just to get a laugh out of me.

We stepped inside, and the place hit me like a memory wrapped in marble and overpriced cologne. I’d been here before, during a school party. #my first vodka experience.

Now, I was back. Voluntarily. Questionable decision-making was becoming my brand.

Joy whistled low, her voice echoing off the chandeliered ceilings. “Okay... this place is one thunderclap away from a horror movie.”

Shun tugged her hoodie tighter. “Gorgeous. In a haunted kind of way.”

Ethan glanced back at them, smirking. “Don’t be fooled. The marble's polished, but the secrets aren’t.”

He was already halfway across the foyer, leading us like this was a tour and we were the ghosts. I trailed behind, mentally checking off the ways this could go sideways.

Then a voice floated down from the staircase—light, precise, effortlessly in control.

“I see you brought guests, Ethan.”

I froze. Even Joy straightened up. Shun blinked like she wasn’t sure whether to bow or flee.

Ethan’s mother descended the stairs in a flowy robe that made her look like she walked out of a painting… or a final boss fight. Her eyes were sharp, but her smile didn’t bite—yet. She was beautiful in that way that said she was used to being listened to, obeyed, and possibly worshipped.

“Good morning,” she said. “Would you all like to stay for breakfast?”

Joy answered before I could. “We’d love to. Honestly, this house looks like it makes better pancakes than we deserve.”

Ethan grinned. “Before that… Mom, there’s someone I want you to meet properly.”

He turned, walked toward me, and grabbed my hand like that was a normal thing to do.

I blinked at him. “What are you—”

“This,” he announced, spinning me toward his mother like I was an exhibit at a science fair, “is Clark. My emotional support nerd. The guy who once screamed ‘bunny!’ like we were under attack. He's smart, morally complex, and deeply allergic to complements. Basically, he’s the Clark to my chaos.”

My brain short-circuited somewhere around “morally complex.”

Ethan’s mom arched a brow, smile curving into something dangerous. “Charming,” she said, eyes on me now. “You’re exactly the type I was hoping he’d bring home.”

Joy made a sound that was half gasp, half gleeful wheeze.

“I’m not— we’re not officially—” I started.

“You’re adorable,” she said smoothly. “Come, sit. We have avocado toast and milk.”

Ethan leaned in and whispered, “Before we eat, wanna see something in my room?”

I stared at him. “If it’s a portal to hell, I’m leaving.”

He smirked. “It’s better.”

I wasn’t sure what “better” meant in demon terms, but I followed him anyway.

Because if there was one thing worse than being dragged into a demon’s mansion, it was not knowing what Ethan actually wanted to show me.

And yeah, maybe I was curious.

Stupidly curious.

Terminally curious.

Maybe even… into him.

But one disaster at a time, right?

We walked up the stairs and into Ethan’s room. It wasn’t what I expected.

It was warm.

Not in the ‘sunshine and hot cocoa’ way—more like quiet lighting, navy walls, and an actual fireplace that probably wasn’t just for show.

There were shelves filled with books that didn’t look fake.

Real ones. Dog-eared. Annotated. A punching bag hung in the corner like it had seen things.

And on the far wall, a massive window spilled soft light onto a king-size bed that looked like it could eat mine for breakfast.

There were posters too—concerts, space maps, some abstract art that might’ve been either an explosion or a heartbreak. Typical demon ambiguity.

“Wow,” I said, immediately regretting how basic that sounded.

Ethan looked back at me, something smug and something soft flickering in his eyes. “Thought you’d say that.”

He crossed the room, shoved aside some socks, summoned his laptop from under a pile of half-folded laundry, and gestured for me to sit beside him on the edge of the bed.

I sat. Mostly because my legs weren’t currently accepting other commands.

“No jump scare videos, okay?” I asked.

“Worse,” he smirked. Then he pressed play.

The screen lit up.

And I saw… me.

Smiling. Quietly. That small, guarded kind I do when I think no one’s watching. Then another clip—me sitting on the bus, head bobbing to music, sneaking a glance at Ethan when I thought he was asleep.

Spoiler: he wasn’t.

The clips kept coming, stitched together like some kind of chaotic masterpiece. Max screaming about someone stepping on his chips. Joy and Mia singing off-key. Me shivering slightly in the cold morning air, Ethan wordlessly throwing his hoodie around me.

Every frame was perfectly, horribly, accurately me.

The laughter. The stumbles. The awkward pauses. My hand brushing Ethan’s for one second too long. The way I flinched when people raised their voices. The way I laughed like I wasn’t supposed to.

And underneath all that—him.

Always him.

Sometimes near, sometimes far, sometimes watching me like he was trying to solve a riddle with no answer.

There was the moment we’d snuck out—me whisper-yelling about breaking rules while Ethan climbed a fence like gravity was optional. The near-mauling (thanks, wild raccoon). Our camera falling into the river. A bird divebombing Max.

It was absolute chaos. Funny. Painfully us.

But what ruined me was the quiet.

The moments in between.

Where I didn’t realize I was being seen.

I blinked at the screen, trying not to look like my internal hard drive had just caught fire. “You… made this?”

Ethan scratched the back of his neck. “Kind of. Mia sent me raw footage to pick highlights for the documentary. But I started collecting stuff I knew we wouldn’t use. Stuff that… felt real.” “You edited all this?”

“Yep.”

“For me?”

He looked away. “Well, not for Max.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

And then I didn’t.

I sat there, frozen in the middle of a hurricane made of pixels and feelings, wondering when I’d handed him the keys to my entire emotional archive.

“I’m gonna combust,” I muttered.

“You already did,” he said. “It was beautiful.”

I turned to him, my throat doing weird tight things. “Why would you show me this?”

Ethan met my eyes. And for once, he wasn’t smirking. “Because you never see it, Clark. But I do.”

Then he reached forward and paused the video—right on a frame where I was smiling at him. Small. Honest. Open.

“I fell for this,” he said softly. “Thought maybe you did too.”

I didn’t answer right away.

Because I was too busy falling all over again.

Still reeling from the emotional sucker punch of Ethan’s video, a lightning bolt of unhinged genius hit me like a caffeine overdose. I sat up so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash.

“Wait,” I blurted, pointing a dramatic finger at nothing in particular. “The competition.”

Ethan looked up from where he was lazily poking at his phone, his brow lifting. “What competition? Is this another Clark Crisis?”

I ignored the sarcasm and pushed off the bed. “The documentary competition. Joy’s holy grail.

Mia’s entire personality. The reason we almost died like… twenty times.”

He blinked, still not following. “Didn’t we already miss that? Like, weren’t we supposed to have submitted it… two weeks ago?”

“Yes,” I said, grabbing his shoulders like I was about to deliver a prophecy.

“But remember when the students from Boulder High egg-bombed our bus? That threw the whole event into a controversy-fueled PR nightmare. Turns out sabotage and projectile lunch foods are frowned upon in scholastic events.”

“Go figure,” Ethan muttered.

“So,” I said, practically vibrating now, “the organizers extended the deadline by twenty-two days.” I stopped and calculated. “Meaning we have about, I dunno, three or four hours.”

Ethan sat up straighter, brow creasing. “And you’re telling me this now because…?”

“Because I think we should submit your video,” I said, pointing to the paused frame of me mid-laugh, hair a mess, joy ridiculously evident on my face. I looked… human. Real. Alive.

He frowned. “Clark, this isn’t a documentary. This is a chaotic mess of unfiltered teen drama. It’s got Max screaming in the background like he’s being sacrificed, our camera taking a nosedive into a river, and that one time you threw a sandwich at a bird that attacked Joy’s hair.”

“Exactly,” I said, eyes gleaming. “Not as a nature documentary. As something else. A teen field trip disaster masterpiece. A story about real emotions. How things went from awkward bus rides to something that feels like… I dunno, home. With you.”

Ethan looked like I’d just suggested we start a revolution.

Which, I kind of had.

“You’re serious.”

“As a caffeine addict during finals.”

He stared at me for a moment, then leaned back, running a hand through his already-messy hair.

“This is new. Clark—the guy who once emailed a teacher at 2:43 a.m. because he found a formatting error in a rubric—is suggesting we break multiple school rules and upload an unauthorized version of a highly public documentary using a school account.”

“I know the password.”

I guess being a smart student had its perks.

“Of course you do.”

“And I’ll write the report. Tie it all together. Just trust me, okay?”

He tilted his head, eyes narrowing in amusement. “Who are you and what have you done with my Ghost boy?”

I smirked. “He’s evolving. Like a Pokémon. And he’s got a rebellious influence, apparently.”

“Damn right you do.”

We sprang into action like two students who had absolutely no business doing what we were doing.

I wrote like my fingers were on fire—no, like my heart was.

Every word was me trying to bottle this hurricane of a trip.

The stupidity, the laughter, the quiet moments when I realized I wasn’t just annoyed by Ethan—I was hopelessly, irreversibly into him.

I wrote about Joy’s laugh, Mia’s dedication, Shun’s chaos-calm energy.

I wrote about sneaking out and falling in love with someone I thought I’d never like.

I wrote like the world was going to end and this was my final confession.

Meanwhile, Ethan cursed at the school’s painfully slow upload portal. “Why does the Wi-Fi suck in a mansion?” he grumbled, yanking at his hair. “We literally have a golden staircase but not 5G?”

After twenty excruciating minutes and one minor existential crisis on Ethan’s end, the file loaded. I triple-checked the metadata and report attachment. Everything was ready.

Well, almost everything.

We needed a title.

“Nature: A Symphony of Silence won’t cut it,” I said.

“Nope,” Ethan agreed. “This is less symphony, more… bird squawking over Joy’s singing and Max shouting about his missing snacks.”

We stared at each other.

Then we said it together:

“Survival of the Softest: A Field Guide to Teen Chaos, Love, and Mildly Aggressive Wildlife.”

It was ridiculous. And honest. And so us.

I hovered over the submit button. Ethan’s hand joined mine, warm, grounding. For a fleeting moment, he hesitated—as if not ready to share his edits with the world. He glanced at me briefly and grinned.

And then, we clicked.

Together.

The file disappeared into cyberspace, probably heading toward judgment by underpaid teachers and caffeine-fueled student interns. There was no turning back. If we got caught, the consequences would be ugly. We’d broken at least four school policies. Possibly six.

But I didn’t care.

Because with Ethan by my side, rule-breaking didn’t feel so reckless.

It felt like living.