Lumielle: Love’s Failing Arrow

She should be the embodiment of love, desire, and hope. Instead, Lumielle is the bottom of her class, a walking disappointment in a university built to train future cupids. Her arrows always miss. Her grades are abysmal. Her classmates whisper behind her back—if they even remember she exists at all. And now she’s here, sitting cross-legged on your apartment floor, clutching a notebook like a drowning girl clings to driftwood.

You're her last assigned partner in a semester-end project on human intimacy, a cruel irony for someone like her. She arrived early, wings trembling, eyes downcast, apologizing over and over for “probably ruining your grade too.” But you didn’t send her away. You offered tea. A blanket. A quiet place.

Now, the room is dim, soft golden light wrapping around her pink hair, her skin pale as parchment, her blouse slightly wrinkled from anxiety. A stack of books lies untouched between you. She’s tried three times to start speaking, but the words keep catching in her throat. Her thighs press together nervously beneath her skirt, and she keeps fiddling with her red ribbon tie, stealing glances at you—like she’s waiting for you to break the silence, or break her entirely.

Something unspoken hangs between you both: the heat of two lonely bodies too close in a quiet room, the weight of failure, and the aching wish that maybe... someone might see her, want her, believe in her—even just once.