Sweet Romance12 min read
"I Currently Have No Plans for a Relationship" — Rain, Files, and Public Reckoning
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I still remember the thunder like an opening note, the rain as if it were a curtain falling down on my plans.
"Don't be discouraged, there will be other chances," Torsten Brown said, his hand on my shoulder as if he were a kindly uncle.
"I know," I answered, my voice flat. "But this one was supposed to be Barcelona."
He smiled, practiced and warm. "Whether it's funded or self-paid, it's for learning. Be patient, Isla."
"Isla," I repeated to myself, tasting the word like a coin that had lost its shine.
They had me gather documents, fill forms, chase signatures for two months. I chased, they smiled, I ran errands, and I thought I was almost on the plane. Then the plane ticket was handed to someone else.
"Heard it's Hedda's place now," the rumor went. Hedda Fischer, Torsten's niece.
"How did you find out?" I asked, fingers numb with the cold that had nothing to do with the air conditioning.
Torsten kept smiling. "The selection isn't always transparent. Rewards for patience, Isla." He even suggested, in the same breath, that I apply for a scholarship instead.
I left the office holding a paper cup of meaningless coffee and a hollow promise.
Then came the thunder.
I stepped out into a sky that had decided to pour down every drop at once. The rain turned faces into watercolors and university corridors into rivers. I ducked under a narrow eave to cut my way back to the dorm.
"Sorry, I currently have no plans for a relationship," a clear male voice said from the shadowed alley.
I paused. There was a girl in a green dress wiping her face, and a boy standing so straight he could have been carved. The girl cried and ran off. The stranger looked over and his eyes caught mine — sharp, black, a little dangerous in that way that made me think of cliffs.
"Classmate," he said, polite and quick, "sorry."
"I'm not peeking," I said. "Just trying to get through."
He offered me an umbrella out of his backpack like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. I hesitated.
"Is your friend arriving?" he asked, watching me as if measuring the weather on my face.
"Yes," I lied. "She'll be here in minutes."
"Then wait," he said. "Rain will soak you more than a cold will."
He stayed, then. He wouldn't let me go until Esther arrived.
I hadn't meant to notice him beyond his tall frame and the way he held himself like someone used to papering over storms rather than weathering them.
"He's Emmett Belov," Esther whispered when I told her later.
"Emmett who?" I said.
"Emmett Belov," she repeated. "Architecture. Everyone notices him."
I blushed a little—because in my head I tried not to care—but the next time I needed help, I found myself sending a message. I needed a consult for an urgent translation job about ancient architecture. Dylan Martini, a friend, sent me Emmett's contact. I typed my request with my back to the wall, heart tapping in a rhythm I did not admit to.
"You ask," Emmett texted back. "You send. I'll look."
When he finally accepted my friend request, I felt ridiculous and pleased at once.
"Are you in a hurry?" he asked later over a voice note.
"A little," I replied and then added, "Can we meet?"
"Tomorrow, south gate café?" he sent.
"Okay," I typed. My thumb felt heavy. "Thank you."
The next afternoon Emmett arrived like someone stepped out of a photograph—quiet, focused, and in a way that made people glance. He explained "丁袱" and "天沟" with the kind of patience that takes a writer years to learn and an architect a lifetime to polish.
"Do you always teach like this?" I asked, stunned at the exactness.
"Only when the other person pretends they won't understand," he murmured. "Sit closer."
"Why?" I said.
"Because the table is wide, and I don't want to shout."
"That feels romantic," I joked, embarrassed.
"Then don't make it awkward," he said with a small smile.
He taught me terms, the meaning of structural joints, the soundness of wood and time. He pointed to images and named things in a voice that calmed me. I asked about the photos he promised to send from Shanxi.
"Send you tonight," he said. "If I forget, remind me."
"Deal," I said.
After that afternoon people began to notice the two of us to the point where someone photographed and spread it like gossip oil.
"Are you two dating?" Esther squealed when I showed her the message buzz.
"No," I lied, and then I wondered, very quietly, if maybe I already liked the idea of him.
Rosa Brantley, the art department beauty who had been rejected by him in the rain, pinged me a week later.
"Are you into Emmett?" she typed. "Because you sat with him."
"I'm not," I answered too fast.
"You're lying," she shot back. "You looked at him like everyone else looks at him."
This irritated me more than I expected. I was not there to be anyone's rival.
"Look, Rosa," I wrote, trying to be kind, "I asked him questions for work. That's it."
"Fine," she answered, but then she added, "If you actually like him, don't come near him."
I laughed and didn't send the follow-up I wanted: "What if he likes me?"
At night I sent my finished translation to the funding body and waited. The money arrived. A new short contract arrived. I felt buoyant and dangerous with the proof of my work in my inbox.
Then my laptop became an empty space.
I came back to the dorm, pulled my file, and watched the document that took me two weeks and all-night work evaporate from my desktop. It was as if a hand reached through the screen and wiped the page of my life. My fingers trembled. I opened the recycle bin. Nothing. I dove deeper, cursed over file recovery, stared at the monitor until it blurred.
"Did you delete something?" Ayane asked, poking her head in.
"My translation," I said.
"Check Emmett's copy," Esther said.
But I knew someone could delete my local file; they couldn't access the backup Emmett had. I messaged him like I was clinging to a raft.
"I have a copy," Emmett replied quickly. "Don't panic. Send whatever you have, I'll patch it tonight."
He stayed up that night, sending me a marked-up version and an entire annotated copy. I cried once, quietly, because of gratitude more than loss. He said, "You should rest."
"Thanks," I typed. "I owe you."
"No," he replied. "You don't owe me anything."
Then the accusations began. Kimber Wu, our roommate whose nerves were frayed before the exam, accused me of stealing her ID because she couldn't find it—then, a mess of fear and temper, she slammed the door and left. I found her ID later in the bathroom. I hid none of my irritation, and I told her she shouldn't jump to conclusions.
"You're right," she whispered later, voice thin, when she returned the ID. "I'm sorry."
I accepted the apology, but the dorm had shifted; suspicion had a way of settling on small things like lint.
Emmett and I talked more—on the phone, via late video calls while he worked between field trips. He was often away with Professor Gaspard Olivier visiting old wooden temples in Shanxi. He sent me photos by midnight, annotated and kind.
"You slept?" I messaged after he sent another file around three a.m.
"I sleep when the professor allows," he tapped back. "The text looks much better now."
When life gave me a small prize—a gap in the storm—I tried to use it. Torsten Brown's favor in the office came back to haunt me; he approached me with an offer: represent the department at the city cultural expo, the very event where foreign delegations would attend.
"You should go," he said, smiling too easily. "You'll meet people from Spain."
Hedda Fischer sat in my dorm doorway one day in a white dress and asked me to explain the exchange story to anyone who asked. I watched her try to bargain for a version of the truth that made her innocent. My patience snapped.
"If you cause one more rumor," I said, holding a water cup with fingers that did not shake, "I'll pour this on you in front of everyone. Then everyone will know exactly what you are."
She left, smiling in a way that tried to be fragile. Torsten called me a few days later and tried to pressure me at the library in a conversation I did not accept. I told him about Gene Leroy, my brother. "He's a lawyer," I said. "If you want legal work, I'm sure he can help. But this is not how we treat people."
"Noted," he said, all civility.
I did not expect the invitation to the expo to be the stage for anything but work. But sometimes truth likes an audience.
The day of the Cultural and Tourism Expo's opening, the main hall was a sea of suits, cameras, civic banners and foreign delegates. I held my folder and felt my heart knock like someone at a door.
"Isla," Emmett said softly, handing me a bottle of water. "You look tired."
"Thanks," I said.
"You ready?" he asked.
"No," I laughed, but I stood straighter.
The ceremony began with ribbon cutting and bright speeches. Torsten Brown, proud and beaming, took the podium for a short blurb about how home institutions lift future leaders. Hedda sat near him, fanning herself and playing the part of a humble student chaperone.
"Miss Flynn?" a city official asked, offering the microphone earlier than scheduled. "Are you ready to present?"
I looked at Torsten. I looked at Hedda. I thought of my two months of forms, my two empty hands, my archive of drafts erased, and my brother's warning: "Don't let them bully you."
I stepped up.
"Good afternoon," I said. "I was invited to help with the Spanish delegation."
There was polite applause. I pressed the folder in both hands and began.
"Before we begin, I want to share something important that affects us all—transparency in student opportunities." I opened the folder and set a slim stack of documents on the podium. "And something that affects me personally."
A murmur rippled forward.
"I want to show you a timeline," I said. "Emails, timestamps, and the forms I submitted. These are originals. I also have correspondence showing admissions were made secretly to another student before notifications went out."
People leaned forward. Emmett stood by, his presence a quiet assurance at my shoulder.
"Torsten Brown," I said, "you publicly said my case was an unfortunate product of missing a form. I have here the timestamps showing everything was submitted on time. Hedda Fischer was inserted into the confirmed slot a week before the 'selection meeting' that you told me would decide the spot."
A student in the front row gasped. Someone began recording on a phone. I felt my voice steady.
"Hedda Fischer," I continued, "did you receive assistance in getting past the department procedures?"
Hedda's smile faltered. "That is not—"
"Shh," a woman beside her said in an astonished whisper, and it was caught on a dozen cameras.
I opened the next set of pages. They were prints of telephone logs, notarized copies of emails, and a recording of an office conversation where Torsten explained the swap as a "favor that had to be done for family."
"You expected that to remain private?" I asked.
The sound of a hundred breaths was a wind tunnel. Emmett leaned slightly toward the audio console. He had prepared something in case we needed it.
The recording began to play out loud. Torsten's voice was clear. "We have to make sure the position goes to someone who won't cause trouble. We'll let Isla think she was the candidate—but it will be Hedda."
A dozen heads turned. A delegate's phone lit up and began to livestream. Hedda's lip trembled between shock and anger. Torsten went from composed to pale.
"That's a lie!" Torsten protested, but his voice lacked conviction. He tried to laugh it off. "Context—this was about logistics! We—"
"You told me to be patient," I said. "You told me I should accept scholarship consolation. You told me 'this is not my decision to make.' It was your decision to make."
"Stop," Hedda started, her voice thin. "I never—"
"You took a slot that belongs to another student," Emmett said, his tone low but carrying. "You benefited from decisions made in back rooms. The department promised fairness but chose nepotism."
I watched Hedda move through stages: initial disbelief, followed by a hard denial, then a sudden wilting as faces around her turned to cameras and phones, eyes narrowed and disbelieving.
"Isla, this is—" Torsten began.
"—administratively improper," I finished for him. "People should have a right to know. This isn't about me. It's about every student whose opportunities get bartered."
A line of students around the room started to murmur in agreement. Someone said, "So that's what happened?" Another voice: "My cousin almost had a spot that vanished, too."
"Torsten Brown," a reporter said, stepping forward, microphone already live, "are you resigning your post?"
Torsten's composure cracked. "This is an internal matter," he said, looking for backup that wasn't there.
A dozen phones recorded his face. Social media lit up like a wildfire. Hedda's pleas transformed into excuses, then into angry lashes and finally, a hurried attempt at apology.
"I was young," Hedda said. "I didn't know—"
"That is not an excuse," a faculty member objected loudly. "Nepotism hurts students."
Torsten tried to script a recovery: "We will open an inquiry. Procedures will be clarified." But the hall had already decided. People were not interested in promises. They wanted accountability.
Hedda's expression went through a collapse: first shock, then bargaining. "Please," she blurted, "I'll step down if that's what it takes. I didn't mean to harm her."
"No," I said, hearing the sound of my own voice like a bell. "You must explain, in front of the student body, how you came to accept the slot, and you must apologize to every student affected. Transparency is owed."
Phones recorded everything: students clapping, some with anger, some with relief. Torsten's shoulders sagged. The dean came forward, blotting at a face that suddenly looked older. Emmett slid me another page—official emails that Hedda had sent, thanking Torsten in a tone that suggested advance knowledge.
"Hedda," I said, softer now, "say it. Tell them what you offered, tell them what you were told. Tell them you knew."
Hedda's voice cracked. "My uncle told me—" she started, then stopped. The microphone captured the tremor. "He told me it would be taken care of. He said there would be no trouble. I...I didn't ask."
"But you accepted the place," I said.
She fell silent. Cameras rolled. Students began to chant, at first a ripple, then louder: "Fairness! Fairness!"
Torsten's lips moved but no words came that could stitch trust back.
Someone in the crowd stood and said, "We want a transparent committee now. The student union should oversee it." That person was filmed and interviewed live. The dean nodded, torn between institutional defense and the oncoming public tide.
Hedda's face changed again—humiliation, then panic. She fumbled with a paper, then dropped it. People murmured. A group of students began to record her apologies; some booed. Others simply looked away, disgusted.
Torsten tried to step closer to me, to take control.
"Stop," I said. "The platform isn't yours."
He looked stunned that I would interrupt him in front of the crowd he once controlled.
"You thought you could pass this off," I said. "You thought I would accept consolation without a fight. You were wrong."
He reached into his blazer, pulled out a nameplate, perhaps an instinctive gesture to reclaim dignity. Students recorded him fumbling for an executive line that no longer connected.
"Will you resign?" a parent shouted.
Torsten swallowed. He looked at the sea of faces—students, journalists, foreign delegates streaming live. He looked at Hedda, who had sunk into herself. A silence spread like dusk.
"An investigation will follow," he said, but the words were thin. They would not staunch the scandal.
The crowd's verdict was fast: outrage, then the sort of public shaming that makes cowardice audible. People took pictures, wrote hashtags, and the campus feed filled with "nepotism exposed" within minutes. Hedda left under a fan of condemnation, Torsten flanked by stern-looking administrators.
At the end, people came up to me.
"Thank you for speaking," a girl said, tears in her eyes.
"You were brave," another whispered.
Emmett reached out, squeezing my hand once—solid, warm. "You did well," he said simply.
Torsten would be investigated. Hedda would face academic review. The dean promised changes. The cameras caught their faces as they left: shock, humiliation, shame.
It was an ugly, necessary moment. The worst part for them was not a legal penalty—yet—but that everyone saw. Execution in public made their shame unstoppable: their confident faces turned to shock; their denials thinned into pleas; their attempts to bargain collapsed. Spectators filmed, reposted, and debated. Students cheered and clapped. Parents called. Men and women in suits asked questions and wrote notes. Hedda's voice, which had been so used to speech as armor, shattered. Torsten's posture unraveled until he looked like someone learning how to be small for the first time.
Afterward, students thanked me. Emmett stayed close the rest of the day. In the quiet hours that followed, as the expo lights cooled and banners fluttered listless, I walked with him through an empty gallery.
"That should have been simple," I said.
"It rarely is," Emmett replied. "But you did the right thing."
"Did I?"
"You did. And you were not alone."
We sat on a bench near an exhibit of old maps. He put his hand near mine, not holding, but close.
"Why did you help me like that?" I asked.
"Because I believe in fairness," he said. "And because I don't like people who hide things."
"That's not the whole reason," I pressed.
He looked at me, and for a long second the black of his eyes softened. "Because you didn't give up."
I laughed without sound and then, quieter, "Because you stayed."
We were both exhausted and strangely elated. The rain that had started my story had stopped months ago, but some rains only clear the air.
"Do you still have no plans for a relationship?" I teased, thinking back to the first line he had spoken in the rain.
He smiled a little and that smile was not the brevity of rejection this time. "I didn't then," he said. "But things change."
"Good," I said. "Because I don't like wasting good food. You still owe me dinners."
"Then remind me," he murmured. "And don't be a fool."
"I won't," I said, though my throat suddenly felt tight.
We walked back across the campus under a sky that looked cleaned. I had my files, my work, a small salary that would help me breathe. I had a brother who could be fierce, and friends who argued and laughed. I had been made small and told to sit down; I had stood up anyway. And I had Emmett, who proved to be less like a rumor and more like a presence—present, steady, a person.
That night I placed a small green umbrella by the door—an emblem of the day the rain introduced us—and I wrote down a phrase in my notebook so I would remember: "I currently have no plans for a relationship."
I looked at the sentence, and then tore out the page.
"Titles change," I said to the empty room. "So do people."
I kept Emmett's last message on my phone: "See you soon."
The next morning the university ran headlines. The student union organized a transparency review. Torsten's office was quieter. Hedda's name hung in whispers.
And me?
I made more coffee, opened my laptop, and began to write the dedication for the book I would one day translate: "To the rain that tells the truth."
The End
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