The Man Who Found Me Through a Video

Ethan stepped up then.

Snapping out of my shock, I glanced at him. I looked calm, but my heart was racing.

Would he misunderstand?

I wanted to explain, but I didn’t know how to start.

Hazel nudged me with her elbow and quietly handed the water she’d been holding to me.

I took it, my mind blank. Usually I’m quick-witted, but around Ethan my brain always short-circuited.

Then Hazel shoved me hard on the back. I lost my balance and lunged forward, falling right into Ethan.

He reacted fast and grabbed my arm to steady me.

He’d just been playing; his palm was slightly sweaty, but I didn’t mind at all.

With a face like Ethan’s, he could sit on the ground picking at his feet and I’d still think he looked good.

Yep. I’m a complete sucker for a handsome face.

Once I was steady, Ethan politely withdrew his hand. I was nervous and instinctively glanced at Hazel—only to lock eyes with her look of exasperated disbelief.

She made a “go on” gesture and immediately turned her head away.

I bit my lip and looked back at Ethan.

Girls usually bring water to boys shyly, voice soft as water. I stuck to my cool, aloof persona, threw the bottle at Ethan, and in my characteristically laconic way said, “Here.”

Behind me I could almost hear Hazel’s silent comment about how ridiculous this pursuit of a crush looked.

The bottle sailed in a nice arc and landed squarely in Ethan’s hands.

He wasn’t surprised—he opened it, took a drink, and then smiled at me. “Thanks.”

I smiled back and didn’t say anything.

The next game was about to start. Ethan handed the bottle back.

I blinked, confused. Wait, he already drank it—why return it?

When I didn’t take it, Ethan laughed. “Hold it for me. After the game I’ll buy you guys dinner.”

I snapped to and obediently took the bottle, not missing the word: “you guys,” not “you.”

Before I could even decide whether to accept, Ethan was called away by his friends.

Halfway down the court he turned, smiled at me, and said, “Miss Claire, remember to record me, okay?”

I blinked in surprise and automatically took out my phone.

But the video turned out tougher to shoot than I thought. In the second half, Ethan and Liam actually butted heads.

It wasn’t a formal match—just a casual scrimmage—but they went at each other like sworn enemies.

Everyone else was baffled; I knew exactly why—this was a fight fueled by jealousy.

Liam probably liked me and resented that I’d just given Ethan water. So he targeted Ethan the whole half.

Ethan wouldn’t give in either. I guessed he had seen Liam ignore Hazel’s water and wanted to stand up for the girl he secretly liked.

I sighed and told Hazel what I figured. She stared at me, shocked, like she’d been looking at a fool.

As expected, Hazel said bluntly, “Claire, are you stupid or what?”

I looked down at her, puzzled.

She reached up and poked my forehead. “Can’t you see? Ethan likes you.”

Ethan likes me?

I was silent for a long moment, then murmured, “I thought he liked you.”

Hazel didn’t argue further. She caught the hand holding my phone and raised it toward Ethan. “Forget it. Getting you to catch on is hopeless. Just film him.”

At her reminder I remembered the real task—recording Ethan.

Whenever I filmed him I got especially serious. My eyes and the camera were totally on him, leaving no attention for anyone else.

While I filmed I kept thinking: I should get a real camera.

Ethan is too pretty—shooting him on a phone almost felt disrespectful.

So we stayed on the sideline. I watched Ethan. Hazel watched Liam. And I kept filming.

Maybe it was my imagination, but Ethan seemed to be looking at me a lot.

Every time he scored or paused, he’d turn his head and scan the crowd—then his eyes would land on me, only to look away quickly.

It was so quick I couldn’t tell if he meant to seek me out or if our eyes just happened to meet.

Dusk fell.

Just as I was getting too restless to sit still, Ethan and his friends finished.

After talking with the guys, Ethan walked over to us.

I stayed put on the bleacher with Hazel, my heart pounding.

Ethan crouched in front of me and naturally took the water from my hand. He tipped his head back and drank half the bottle in one go.

When he tightened the cap, a drop of water hung at the corner of his mouth.

Without thinking I reached up and, with my fingertip, wiped it away.

The air hung frozen.

Ethan’s movements seemed to stiffen for a moment. I blinked, then quickly withdrew my hand.

So embarrassing.

Sometimes I actually admire myself. No matter how mortified I feel, I can keep a straight face.

Like right then—I wanted the ground to swallow me up, but I still managed to say casually, “There was a drop of water. I just wiped it off.”

Ethan gave a small, awkward smile. “Thanks.”

Awkwardness lingered in the air. Thankfully, Hazel jumped in to break it. “Hey, do you want to watch the footage Claire took of you?”

Ethan nodded, smiling. “Sure.”

Relieved, I pulled up the video I’d just shot.

He watched intently, leaning over my shoulder, focused on my screen.

Hazel winked at me and egged him on: “See? Claire makes you look way hotter than you do in real life. Love is blind, huh?”

Hazel meant to fan the flames, but her words accidentally snapped something into focus for me.

It had been a whole day since Ethan added me on WeChat, and I finally realized something: How did he know those videos were mine?

Weird. That account was a throwaway—only secretly filmed clips of Ethan’s back, nothing that revealed who I was.

Yesterday when he added me, I’d assumed it was because the videos had blown up and somehow everyone found out I liked him. But nobody actually knew the account belonged to me.

So how did Ethan figure it out?

I was mulling it over when my phone buzzed. A message popped up on my screen, where all three of us could see it: “Claire, did you sleep with that Shaw boy yet? /evil grin/”

Silence.

Absolute silence.

The message came from my big-mouthed cousin Maya. We’d been close since we were kids; I never pretended around her and told her everything.

For a moment I even wondered if she’d planted a tracker on me—how else could she send that message so fast?

I flushed, stole a quick glance at Ethan.

He looked awkward too, eyes darting away, then he cleared his throat to cover the embarrassment.

I inhaled, hesitating how to explain, but when I opened my mouth it came out flat as ever. “She’s lying.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Ethan nodded and didn’t press it.

For a second I felt like the husband caught cheating, trying to act nonchalant while explaining to his wife, and Ethan was the aggrieved little spouse.

Luckily the notification vanished quickly and I straightened up, finally breathing out.

Then I looked up and saw someone in the crowd—my beloved cousin, Maya.

She was standing at the edge of the gym, laughing way too happily at me. When she saw me look her way she even waved her phone at me.

“Damn it!”

I couldn’t hold it and swore out loud.

Maybe she read my lips because Maya laughed harder, then wiggled her hips as she walked away.

Before she left she reached back and made a little thumbs-up cheer at me.

Real classy.

I tore my gaze away and found Ethan watching me with a puzzled look. He glanced toward where Maya had gone. “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

I lied, shrugging. “I thought I saw a big black dog run by—got startled.”

Maya was wearing a pure black dress, by the way.

“A big black dog?”

Ethan looked confused but didn’t pry.

Thank goodness Hazel bailed us out at just the right moment. She wiped sweat from her forehead and fanned herself with her hand. “I’m kinda hungry. Want to grab a late-night bite?”

She shot me a look.

I pressed my lips together, feeling awkward; the word “yes” was stuck in my throat.

Ethan beat me to it. “Sure.”

He turned to me, and maybe it was just me, but his eyes seemed softer than usual. “What do you want to eat?”

We were still practically shoulder to shoulder. That close, I got nervous again, so I mumbled, “Barbecue.”

Ethan smiled. “I know a place near school that’s good. Come on, I’ll take you.”

No sooner had he said that than Hazel’s phone rang at the most convenient time. She answered with an over-the-top expression: “What? You’re in the hospital? Where are you? I’m coming!”

She hung up, glanced at me, then said to Ethan, “My friend’s in the hospital. I’ll go see them.”

“Go on, you two eat!”

She didn’t wait for an answer—she just ran off.

I watched Hazel leave, exasperated. Could she at least have kept the alarm screen out of sight while pretending it was a phone call?

In the blink of an eye it was just Ethan and me.

He looked at me and asked softly, “So—shall we go eat?”

Maybe it was the haze of my crush, but when he looked down at me I always felt like something sparkled behind his dark eyes.

I couldn’t hold his gaze.

“Okay,” I said.

That’s how we ended up shoulder to shoulder at Harper’s BBQ outside the campus gates.

Ethan seemed like a regular; he was friendly with Mrs. Harper and had already ordered a pile of special dishes while I was zoning out.

When he looked ready to keep ordering, I cut him off. “Enough! We’ll waste it if we can’t eat it.”

Ethan didn’t argue. Mrs. Harper, jotting things down, chuckled and gave me a squinting smile.

After ordering, we sat facing each other. Neither of us spoke first.

My palms were sweaty, but I couldn’t have us sit in silence forever. I sipped tea to buy courage and forced myself to ask, “How did you know… those videos were mine?”

Ethan hesitated, then took out his phone, opened a page, and held the screen out to me.

He pressed his lips together and spoke low: “This is mine.”

I followed the direction of his hand and froze.

It was him.

How was it him?

Of the three followers on my alt account, two were obviously bots. The one real follower was Ethan—or rather, his alt account.

I’d already scrolled that account before; it had only two landscape videos that suggested the same city but offered no personal info you could trace.

I had never in a million years guessed that the follower who’d watched me for months was Ethan.

Which meant he’d seen all those videos.

I was equal parts shocked, thrilled, and mortified and didn’t know what to say.

The more we talked the clearer it became that Ethan was also a closed book, just like me.

And Hazel had been right—he seemed to like me too.

He’d shown me his main account; it didn’t have many posts, but the avatar and ID looked familiar.

I fumbled for my phone and pulled up the video that had made Ethan blow up. I opened the comments. The top reply was still there, the one everyone had loved: “Trust me, from his eyes he definitely likes you.”

Black avatar, ID “C”—that was Ethan.

Slow as I could be sometimes, this should have been obvious. Heart pounding, fingertips trembling, I pushed my phone toward him and pointed at the comment. “Is this you?”

He glanced, then smiled and nodded. “Yep. No doubt.”

I took a deep breath to steady my racing heart and stared at him.

“Should I believe that comment?”

Ethan kept smiling, but the nervous flicker in him and the way his hands fiddled gave him away.

He rubbed his nose with his fingertip and said slowly, “You should.”

I never imagined I'd find myself in an overused romance trope in real life.

Dusk settled. Under the warm yellow lights Ethan looked at me, gentle and soft.

“Trust me—he really likes you,” he said.

I stared, dazed. It all felt unreal, like something out of a drama or a sweet little novella.

Ethan kept looking at me, utterly composed—except I noticed his ears were a little pink.

When our eyes met he chuckled softly. “Now it’s my turn to ask.”

My stomach flipped. I nodded.

He put his hands together, serious and steady, eyes fixed on me. “The videos you posted—saying you like me—are they true?”

Oh my God.

I hadn’t expected him to be so direct. I actually felt shy admitting it.

After a long pause I steeled myself and nodded. “Yes.”

Ethan laughed like someone relieved. Across the table he took my hand; it was warm. He sighed and said in a low voice, “I’ve been waiting for this day.”

I couldn’t help but mutter, “That line should’ve been mine to say.”

Ethan had seen those videos—he knew I’d liked him for a long time.

But he shook his head. “I fell for you first.”

“No way!”

“It’s true.”

He looked at me, earnest and certain. “The day freshman orientation started, I had designs on you.”

“Designs,” I echoed, surprised he’d use such a phrase.

Then Ethan told me a version of the story I’d never known.

On move-in day he’d finished registration and set up his dorm, then wandered around campus alone. In a corner of the grounds he’d seen a girl—tall, slim, very pretty—muttering to herself at a wall, saying strange little phrases like, “Miss Claire, try to talk to your roommates more,” “Offer to share your snacks,” “Keep the noise down in the mornings and evenings so you don’t disturb anyone.”

It sounded like she was reciting dorm rules. He’d thought she was odd but adorable. He was smoking behind a tree and didn’t want to startle her, so he watched until she left.

After that, she left a deep impression on him.

He started noticing her in crowds, following her with his eyes, and eventually he fell for her.

That tall, awkwardly cute girl was me.

He’d even remembered the exact lines I’d muttered back then, which made me mortified. But they were undeniably mine.

I’ve always been a bit different—people sum me up with one word: cold. Or, to be more precise: aloof.

In high school classmates called me an ice princess. It wasn’t trauma, just my personality. I was shy about expressing myself, habitually played it cool, and that made me terse to the point of rudeness.

People then pulled away, which made me withdraw more. By the time college started, my nervousness had me talking to myself in a corner before going into the dorm—pep talks, reminders, all that. I never imagined somebody was watching that moment and keeping it in their memory.

And of all people, it was the one who would be my secret crush for the next two years.

So melodramatic.

After he finished the origin story, Ethan and I stared at each other, then I remembered a question I’d been dying to ask. “So—why didn’t you confess?”

Ethan answered honestly. “You were too cold. I didn’t dare.”

I stared, incredulous. The boy in front of me—the one who now looked like a guilty little husband—was also the campus heartthrob, constantly in the spotlight.

“You knew I liked you.”

I blurted it out before I could stop myself.

He froze for two seconds, then suddenly smiled and said softly, "But I only found out a few months ago that you liked me too."

“About three months ago,” Ethan explained. “One time I noticed you seemed to be filming me. It was a quiet day—only you were holding up a phone recording.

“Later, when I got back to the dorm, I happened to scroll past a video of myself playing basketball.”

“I made a little private account to follow you quietly,” he admitted. “Because I wasn’t sure, I wanted to observe, to make sure the person who said they liked me was actually you.”

I listened quietly, then asked the last question: "How did you know my WeChat?"

Ethan laughed. “Didn’t you know you’re pretty well-known too?”

I licked my lips and didn't answer.

I mostly knew.

Ethan smiled and rubbed the tip of his nose. “Actually, I got your WeChat ages ago. I just never dared add you.”

He hadn’t dared add me.

I couldn't help but laugh—turns out even our campus heartthrob could be such a coward when it came to feelings.

With all the misunderstandings cleared up, Mrs. Harper happened to come by carrying a tray of skewers.

For some reason, seeing our hands intertwined, she got particularly delighted and piled more food on our table.

Seafood, grilled meats, specialty dishes—whether we'd ordered them or not, she brought them all over.

I was stunned, until—Ethan called out to her, "Mom."

Mrs. Harper answered, beaming, looked me over, and then sat beside me, holding my hand and examining me head to toe.

"This girl is great, she looks just like I did when I was young. I like her."

Ethan promptly burst her bubble. “Mom, I’ve seen your old photos. You’d put on some weight back then—around 190 pounds, maybe 200.”

"Shut up!"

Mrs. Harper scolded him, laughed, held my hand a bit longer, told me to eat more, and went back to tending the business.

But before I could relax, someone sat down across from us.

I looked up and my head actually hurt.

It was my cousin.

I seriously wondered if she had put a tracker on me.

She settled in, winked at me, then offered Ethan her hand. “Hi, I’m Claire’s cousin.”

Ethan shook her hand but only touched fingertips in a polite, gentlemanly way and pulled back quickly.

My cousin goes to the same school, a year ahead of us. She's a social butterfly; it wasn't long before she was chatting with Ethan.

Ethan didn't stand a chance.

In just a few exchanges, my cousin had uncovered his relationship history, family background—everything.

She winked at me, clearly pleased.

I couldn't take it any longer and went to the bathroom.

When I came back, the atmosphere had shifted; my cousin was quietly staring at her phone like nothing was wrong.

But from years of knowing her, that kind of calm always meant trouble.

Ethan looked off too, like something was up.

Before I could ask, my cousin stood up. “I’ve got to run. You two enjoy your food.”

Then, not bothering with niceties, she asked the server for two plastic bags and packed up ten skewers of grilled tendons.

Carrying her skewers, she hurried off.

What a roller-coaster night.

I glanced at Ethan and asked cautiously, "What did she say to you?"

He just smiled and didn't answer.

Only on the walk back to Maple Hall, after I pressed him, did he finally tell me what had happened—while I was in the bathroom, my dear cousin had used our wildly indecent chat logs as leverage to get Ethan to give her the WeChat of his handsome roommate.

I knew who Ethan's roommate was; my cousin had been drooling over him for ages—long legs, abs, looks a little like Lee Min-ho.

At my insistence, Ethan handed his phone over and scrolled to the messages my cousin had just sent him.

"…"

They were exactly as indecent as she'd been threatening.

Pages of conversation, basically us talking about Ethan and his roommate.

For example: my cousin asked if I thought I could win him over, and I answered without hesitation: “I’ll sleep with him sooner or later!”

So Ethan was fully aware that I had been openly salivating over his body and looks.

I forced myself to read through the messages my cousin had sent, my brow pounding, and then—trying to play it cool—I handed the phone back and said, "I was joking."

Ethan smiled.

Under the streetlights, he took my hand gently, eyes full of amusement. "Got it."

I said, "Mm."

Then I remembered something else.

I pulled up Ethan's Moments and pointed at a photo where only a small slice of Hazel's face showed. "At first I thought you liked Hazel."

Ethan flinched, surprised. “I swear, I meant this person.”

He tapped the screen, and the image he highlighted was only a silhouette, backlit and vague.

But I recognized it instantly—it's me.

My heart softened. Turns out even his social feed was dotted with traces of his liking me.

We walked hand in hand toward Maple Hall.

Under one streetlight, Ethan suddenly stopped and looked at me.

The light haloed his hair and brow in a warm yellow glow.

He was a little taller than me; when he looked down, his eyes dropped slightly.

I thought he was going to say something ordinary, but what he asked nearly stopped me.

"Can I kiss you?"

He asked like it was permission. Before I could reply, he kissed me.

He hadn’t chosen a dark, secluded corner. He leaned down and kissed me right there on the busy walkway, beneath a streetlight, with students passing by.

Somehow before the kiss he'd popped a strawberry candy into his mouth; our first kiss tasted like strawberries.

Sweet. Almost too sweet.

The day after Ethan and I got together, we went viral.

Ethan recorded his own side of the story in a video where he carefully laid out all the bits and pieces of our past—our mutual crushes, and everything that happened last night.

At the end of the video was the photo someone had taken of us kissing under the streetlight—shot at the perfect angle. We had our eyes closed; the kiss was sincere and reverent, the warm light lending it softness.

Unsurprisingly, the video blew up.

The comments were full of dramatic groans and praise. Single viewers joked that they were dying of jealousy; others swooned, “What a fairy-tale love!”

There were some negative voices claiming it was staged, a publicity stunt.

We didn't care.

After we read the comments together, Ethan cupped my face and said quietly, "I don't care if it goes viral or not. I just want everyone to know this isn't a one-sided crush. While you liked me, I was secretly liking you too."

He squeezed my hand; he spoke calmly, but his ears were pink.

He leaned in, kissed my lips, winked, and his eyes glittered: "I want everyone to know—"

“This love goes both ways.”