Orange Hair & Papara Kings

Maya's orange hair wasn't supposed to be orange. It was supposed to be "sunset copper," but the box lied. Now she looked like a traffic cone, and senior year was just starting.

"You look... bold," her best friend Riley said, wincing.

Maya pulled her hoodie up. "Bold means weird."

At lunch, Lucas Fox—or just Fox, because apparently having a cool last name earned you a one-word nickname—sat at his usual table with the track team. Maya had been low-key crushing on him since sophomore year, when he'd defended her from some racist comments about her name. Now, with traffic cone hair, she'd never make a move.

Then she spotted it: Fox's phone case. A papaya.

Not a picture of one. Like, an actual dried papaya slice sealed in resin. Who even did that?

Later at their lockers, Maya couldn't help herself. "Is that... papaya?"

Fox looked at his phone case like he'd forgotten it was there. "Yeah. My mom's Filipino, she used to cut them for me when I was little. It's nostalgic." He shrugged. "Weird, right?"

"No," Maya said, surprising herself. "It's actually... kinda sick."

They started talking. About papayas, about how everyone thought they were gross but they were actually underrated, about how Fox's grandmother made the best papaya smoothies. Maya forgot about her hood. She forgot about being a traffic cone.

"Your hair," Fox said suddenly, and Maya's stomach dropped. "It's not sunset copper, is it?"

"Disaster orange," she muttered.

"Nah." He grinned. "It's fire. Like papaya flesh."

Maya laughed so hard she snorted. "That's the worst pickup line I've ever heard."

"Is it working?"

"Maybe."

The next day, Lucas Fox met her at her locker with two actual papayas. "My grandma sent extras," he said. "Want to figure out how to eat them without looking like idiots?"

Maya smiled, her orange hair catching the sunlight. They probably would look like idiots. But somehow, that didn't matter anymore.