Chapter 1: Prologue
Chapter Text
Prologue
Elegance lingers in every corner of DaeHwa Elite-High Institute . From the crystal chandeliers hanging in the hallways to the polished marble floors reflecting the steady steps of tomorrow’s heirs. Here, ambition is not a desire—it’s an expectation. Every student knows their destiny is not merely to exist, but to conquer .
There is no room for mediocrity.
The name DaeHwa resonates across Seoul, a symbol of power and prestige. Only a select few have the privilege of walking these halls, and even fewer manage to stand out among the elite. Being rich or intelligent is not enough; here, what truly matters is knowing how to play the game .
Some seek greatness. Others, loyalty. And a few, the downfall of their rivals.
Every year, the institute’s gates open to a new generation of future leaders. Princes of technology, heirs to corporate empires, descendants of political dynasties with more influence than the government itself… all gathered in one place, bound by the same unspoken rules.
Competition is inevitable.
Failure is not an option.
Winning is the only way out.
But behind the flawless suits and carefully crafted smiles, secrets lurk. Alliances are formed in the shadows, betrayals are wrapped in courtesy, and one undeniable truth remains: at Daehwa, no one is untouchable.
And this year, more than ever, the foundations of the institute are about to crumble. Because when the elite fights for power, there are only two choices: become the hunter or the prey .
Chapter Text
The black car glided through the wrought-iron gates of DaeHwa Elite-High Institute, effortlessly cutting through the stillness of the early morning like a blade through silk. Inside, Jang Wonyoung sat poised, her spine straight, gaze unreadable. She’d returned—once again—to a world dressed in gold and venom.
The campus unfolded before her like a scene from a painting: immaculate gardens, classical architecture bathed in sunrise, the golden crest above the entrance gleaming as if it were alive. DaeHwa didn’t just educate—it curated perfection.
As her driver slowed to a stop, she adjusted the cuff of her navy-blue blazer, her face set in quiet resolve.
“Do you want me to bring your bags, Miss?”
Wonyoung shook her head softly. “That won’t be necessary.”
She stepped out. Her heels clicked against the stone steps as dozens of eyes turned to her. People didn’t just look at Wonyoung—they watched her. Studied her. The daughter of a powerful political dynasty, her name was whispered with admiration, envy, and sometimes—fear.
“Wonyoung-ah!”
She turned, offering a perfectly practiced smile as Jiwon rushed toward her. Jiwon—heiress to a real estate empire, with enough filler in her lips to fund a small country—threw her arms around her.
“You look divine! Paris treated you like royalty, didn’t it?”
“Better than most people do,” Wonyoung replied smoothly, eyes flicking past her friend.
Behind the smiles and designer sunglasses, the school courtyard was a stage of shallow reunions and rehearsed warmth. Students paraded like models on invisible runways, laughter ringing out—sharp, hollow.
Wonyoung’s eyes lingered on the engraved words above the main building’s arch:
“우아함은 권력이다.”
Elegance is power.
A phrase she’d once repeated like a prayer. Now, it tasted bitter.
The school hadn’t been the same since the end of last term.
There was a hush beneath the polished surface, a crack in the glossy façade. The kind no one spoke about directly, but everyone felt.
A student had died.
The news had broken during summer, and though the details were buried beneath official statements and polished eulogies, the shadows it left lingered like perfume in the halls.
They didn’t speak her name. Not today. Not yet. But she haunted the return like a ghost at a masquerade.
Wonyoung could still remember the look in some teachers’ eyes—tired, tight, careful. She could remember how the garden where the memorial was held had been swept twice, and the white roses had been replaced with peonies by the second hour. A small, insignificant detail—except DaeHwa didn’t make mistakes.
And then, the rumors.
Some said she’d fallen.
Others, that she jumped.
A few whispered something worse.
But no one ever said it out loud.
Wonyoung didn’t ask. She didn’t need to. There were some truths you felt rather than heard.
Later, after the orchestrated greetings and shallow pleasantries were done, she returned to her dorm—the same top-floor suite her family had maintained since her father’s youth.
She dropped her bag onto the velvet armchair and walked to the desk. There, tucked under a crystal paperweight, sat a small, folded piece of parchment.
Another letter.
The fifth.
They’d begun a few weeks ago—unsigned, unsettling. Each one slid under her door at night. No cameras caught anything. No one admitted to seeing a thing.
Wonyoung opened it.
You wear the mask well, but the cracks are showing. Be careful. The stage isn’t as empty as you think.
She read it again. Then a third time. Her fingers didn’t tremble, but her chest did tighten slightly.
The letters weren’t just cryptic. They were personal. They knew her.
One of them had mentioned something no one else should remember. Something that happened when she was nine—something her family paid handsomely to bury.
A woman, a mask, and a blade pressed to her throat.
It was dismissed as a “security breach.” She was told not to ask questions. And she didn’t. Until now.
She folded the letter, locked it away with the others, and forced the tension out of her shoulders.
She wasn’t a child anymore. Let them watch.
By evening, the entire student body gathered in the ballroom for the reorientation gala. Glittering chandeliers lit the room like a thousand suns, and soft classical music floated through the air. Waiters in white gloves passed trays of caviar and imported sparkling tea.
Wonyoung moved like she belonged there—because she did. Every glance, every subtle nod, was choreographed instinct.
But tonight, something felt different. She could feel eyes on her—not just the usual admiration, but interest, curiosity, maybe even suspicion.
She crossed the ballroom slowly, her eyes scanning the crowd until she saw him.
Tall. Impossibly composed. Dressed in a charcoal suit, collar slightly loose, hands tucked into his pockets like the room bored him.
He hadn’t been at last term’s closing gala. Switzerland, they said. Ice skating scholarship. Rumors of Olympic grooming. But he was back now.
Wonyoung had always found him intriguing—distant, cool, unnervingly observant. A perfect product of broken wealth. Divorced parents. One a tech mogul. The other a fading supermodel.
Their eyes met. He didn’t look away.
Instead, he walked straight toward her.
“Jang Wonyoung,” he greeted, voice smooth but low, almost unreadable.
“Park Sunghoon,” she replied, lips curving slightly. “Did Switzerland make you colder, or were you always this charming?”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Neither. But it did make me better at spotting liars.”
She tilted her head. “How poetic.”
A beat of silence passed.
Then—his eyes sharpened. “You’ve been receiving letters.”
Wonyoung didn’t answer.
“You’re not the only one,” he added, slipping a folded note from his jacket. He held it out to her.
Cautiously, she took it.
The perfect girl cracked first. Who’s next?
Wonyoung folded it slowly. “Do you know who’s sending them?”
Sunghoon looked at her with an expression that wasn’t quite pity. “No. But I think someone wants us to believe we do.”
And just like that, he turned and walked away.
Leaving Wonyoung surrounded by gold and luxury, but more alone—and more watched—than ever.
Notes:
First chapter up! Enjoy!
Chapter Text
The hum of the crowd faded into the background as Sunghoon leaned against the doorframe, watching them all. The usual suspects were gathered around, each of them wrapped in their gilded masks, each playing their role in the intricate dance of wealth and prestige.
He had grown up in this world. Knew its choreography by heart. But even after all these years, he still watched it like an outsider. Observing. Measuring. Holding back.
Except one thing was different this time, the air was thick with something unspoken. Perhaps it had been there before. But this year, it felt heavier.
Maybe because there was an empty seat at the top of the social hierarchy.
Maybe because some of them knew it wasn’t empty by accident.
Her absence felt like a hole in the room, yet no one dared acknowledge it. Instead, they faked their way through another perfect day—smiles exchanged, polite greetings, the fluttering of designer fabric and soft whispers behind closed doors.
His gaze flickered toward Jang Wonyoung across the courtyard. He had seen her a million times before, of course. At galas, charity dinners, in the glossy pages of society magazines. She was the daughter of a legacy, perfectly tailored for diplomacy and greatness. Yet there was something about her that felt… strained.
Maybe it was the way her eyes didn’t quite match her smile. Or the way she scanned the courtyard—not for attention, but for danger .
Sunghoon knew that look. He’d worn it himself once, after his parents’ divorce went public and the headlines tore through his life like vultures. That calculated, almost imperceptible tension—of someone constantly anticipating an attack.
And Sunghoon knew why.
“He saw her the moment she walked in.
Graceful, deliberate, commanding.
Jang Wonyoung didn’t just enter a ballroom—she owned it. Her steps echoed lightly against the marble, head held high, gaze scanning the room like she was looking for something she already knew was there.
Sunghoon stood near the balcony doors, half-shadowed by the drapes, fingers loose in the pockets of his tailored suit. He hadn’t been here in months, not since… before everything. Switzerland had been cold and distant, but nothing like Daehan. Nothing like this school, this ballroom, these people.
And yet, there she was. The girl who represented everything they tried to be. Poised perfection. Quietly dangerous.
Their eyes met across the room. Of course she noticed him. She always noticed.
He approached her like he had all the time in the world—unhurried, unbothered, there was something behind her eyes that caught his attention. Something tighter than her usual composure.
“ Jang Wonyoung ,” he said first, his voice as smooth and steady as the glass of champagne he hadn’t touched.
“ Park Sunghoon, ” she replied with that slow, practiced smile. “Did Switzerland make you colder, or were you always this charming?”
He nearly smirked. Clever. But he wasn’t here to flirt. Not tonight.
“Neither,” he said, gaze steady. “But it did make me better at spotting liars.”
For a second, he saw it—the flicker in her expression. Not fear. Just recognition. They were speaking in code, and she knew it.
“How poetic,” she murmured.
Then silence. Heavy, but not uncomfortable.
He reached into his jacket and pulled out the note. The words still burned in his mind even after reading them a dozen times.
“ You’ve been receiving letters, ” he said flatly.
Her reaction was subtle—a shift of her shoulders, the smallest pause in her breath. Not a confirmation. But not denial either.
“You’re not the only one,” he added, offering her the note.
She hesitated, but took it. Read it.
“The perfect girl cracked first. Who’s next?”
The corners of her mouth twitched downward, just barely.
“Do you know who’s sending them?” she asked.
Sunghoon looked at her—not cold, not soft, something in between.
“No,” he said. “But I think someone wants us to believe we do.”
Then, without waiting for her reaction, he turned and walked away.”
He hadn’t looked back.
Because if he had, he might have started to believe that Wonyoung had been the only other person there who understood that the game had already begun.
The Music Hall
Kim Jiwon , striking in her new blonde hair and tailored uniform, a stark contrast to how she used to look, leaned slightly over the grand piano, flipping through a sheet of music with a distracted expression. Her fingers hovered above the keys but didn’t press down. She barely resembled the girl who had spent last year walking in someone else’s shadow.
Sim Jaehyun; Jake was beside her, as casual as always—one hand tucked into his pocket, the other twirling a keychain around his finger. He had always been the type to walk into a room like he owned it, his sharp jawline and easy grin making him one of the most popular—and most notorious—guys in school.
Jake had always had an air of reckless charm about him, but Sunghoon knew there was more behind that façade. There was an intelligence, a calculating mind beneath all the playful flirtations and casual attitude. The boy was sharp, and it made Sunghoon uncomfortable at times.
It was almost laughable how easily he slipped into roles. Football star, violinist, Casanova. Sunghoon knew Jake’s charm was a weapon. And Jiwon, despite her seemingly confident new persona, looked just a little off-balance around him.
Jake leaned in, whispering something with that crooked grin of his. Jiwon scoffed and rolled her eyes, but the flush that rose to her cheeks didn’t go unnoticed.
Sunghoon watched it all quietly, tuning out the ambient noise around them.
“Did you hear?” Jake said, his voice low, as he turned his attention to Jiwon, eyes glinting with something unreadable. “Another letter. This one… much more ominous.”
Jiwon didn’t react immediately. Instead, she stared at the envelope in her hands as if trying to make sense of it. The vibrant blonde hair framed her face, giving her an almost ethereal look. Sunghoon couldn’t deny that she’d changed since last year.
Her transformation wasn’t just external—although her decision to dye her hair from dark brown to platinum blonde was dramatic enough. She was trying to shed the past, the person she had been. The quiet, shy girl who had once been a target. The girl who had believed the cruel words that had been whispered behind her back for so long.
And then, after the summer, she was suddenly… different. Bolder. Cooler. More distant, but still with that edge of vulnerability hiding beneath the surface.
Wonyoung had been one of the first to notice. Sunghoon had seen them together a few times—whispering, laughing, sharing secrets that no one else could hear. He could see the bond between them, a bond that, at times, made him feel a little more like an outsider than he was willing to admit.
But what intrigued him the most about Jiwon was how Jake seemed drawn to her. He wasn’t usually the type to stick around a girl for long. His charms were meant for short-term pleasure, not for the complexities that came with someone like Jiwon.
Sunghoon knew Jake better than anyone. Jake wasn’t interested in relationships. He played his role—the handsome, flirty guy who could have anyone. But there was something different about his interest in Jiwon. Sunghoon couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he could sense it.
And then there was Kim Minjeong . Draped in a cream cardigan that probably cost more than his laptop, lips glossed in cherry pink. Her beauty was undeniable, a sharp contrast to her approachable smile. But Sunghoon knew the truth behind her innocent act. She wasn’t evil, but she wasn’t innocent, either. Standing near the doorway, her arms crossed. She wasn’t part of the conversation, but she wasn’t ignoring it either. She simply watched like a portrait from a luxury campaign. Unbothered. Observing. Calculated.
Her eyes flicked over to Jiwon every now and then. Not with disdain. Not even guilt. Just detachment. Sunghoon had always thought Minjeong was one of the most terrifying people on campus—not because she was cruel, but because she didn’t care enough to be.
She had seen Jiwon’s slow unraveling last year and hadn’t blinked.
Sunghoon sighed and looked back down at the folded letter in his pocket. He’d gotten one too. No name. No signature. Just a single sentence:
You knew more than you let on.
He had crumpled it and thrown it away—then pulled it back out two hours later and smoothed out the creases.
Because the truth was… he did know. They all did. Not everything, but enough. Enough to question what had really happened to that someone at the end of last year.
Someone they all used to know, who used to glide through these halls like a goddess, who could make you feel like the center of the world—or the dirt beneath her shoes.
Someone who wasn’t supposed to be dead.
Notes:
Thanks for the kudos! As always have fun reading this chapter.
Chapter Text
Everyone said that life at DaeHwa was like walking through a dream—but Jake Sim knew better. It was a stage. And like any good stage, it needed masks.
His just happened to be flawless.
Charisma, athleticism, easy smiles. The golden boy persona fit him like a tailored suit. Girls loved him. Teachers overlooked him. His parents—owners of a luxury hotel empire—barely looked at all. That’s why he had to be perfect. Or at least look like it.
He leaned back on the stone bench behind the old music hall, legs stretched, fingers tapping absently on his phone. Notifications blinked, but none from the people he actually wanted to hear from. Correction: person.
Kim Jiwon.
She wasn’t the same girl he remembered from spring semester. The one with nervous eyes and arms always folded over her stomach. No—this Jiwon walked like she had something to prove. And maybe she did.
He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when she started slipping into his thoughts more often than she should. Maybe it was last year—before the summer, before everything got… complicated. Maybe it was that moment in the music room, when her hands trembled over the keys of the Steinway and he almost didn’t stop her from falling forward, from breaking entirely. The accident had been nearly catastrophic—faulty scaffolding above the piano stage. A second later, and either of them could’ve ended up in a hospital… or worse.
But that wasn’t what haunted him.
It was the way her eyes looked afterward—glassy but proud, like she refused to let herself be vulnerable even when she was shaking. As if she’d spent years pretending she was fine and didn’t remember how to stop.
Jake didn’t like girls like that. Or at least, he told himself he didn’t. He liked easy. Simple. No-strings. Like Minjeong.
Kim Minjeong was stunning. Charming. Fun. And she never asked questions. Their arrangement was just that—an arrangement. Mutual, physical, convenient. He was the distraction she needed from a life prewritten by her father’s expectations. She was the escape he used to forget how cold everything else felt.
She was a dream girl with claws. Beautiful. Poisoned by her own survival instincts. The kind of person who watched someone drown, not because she wanted them to die, but because no one had taught her how to swim, either.
She didn’t love him. And he didn’t expect her to. He didn’t even blame her for knowing about Jiwon’s pain — and staying silent.
In Daehwa, silence was currency. And Minjeong was filthy rich.
But Jiwon…
She was different now. He saw it the moment they ran into each other again after summer break. Gone was the mousy brown hair and nervous posture. She walked with a sharper edge now, golden hair cascading like defiance, with a gaze that dared anyone to underestimate her again. But Jake noticed the cracks beneath that mask. He always did.
He stood and stretched, pocketing his phone as a sleek black car pulled up by the main path. From it stepped Park Jongseong; Jay —Daehwa’s own storm cloud in a tailored jacket. His dark eyes scanned the campus with practiced disinterest, hands stuffed into his coat like he could punch someone and light a cigarette in the same motion.
Jake smirked. “Back from exile already?”
Jay rolled his eyes. “If exile looks like partying in Bangkok and escaping another lecture from my father, then yeah, I guess I’m back.”
Their rivalry was legendary. Not because they hated each other, but because they refused to fit into the roles Daehwa expected. Jake—the golden boy with the perfect smile, perfect grades, perfect image. Jay—the chaos hidden behind a family fortune, dangerous and sharp-edged like a broken crown.
“I saw Jiwon,” Jay said, tone quieter now. “She looks… different.”
Jake’s jaw tensed.
Jay noticed.
“You still pretending it’s nothing?” he asked, watching him with a knowing look. “Even after the letters?”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “You got one too?”
Jay didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he pulled out a wrinkled envelope from his coat. The handwriting was identical to the one Jake had received weeks earlier—elegant, slanted, almost… playful.
“Not everyone who’s quiet is innocent. Some learn silence to survive.”
Jake had memorized his own letter line by line. It still kept him up some nights.
“Do you think it’s her?” he asked, voice low.
Jay looked at him, something unreadable flashing in his eyes. “I think someone wants us to believe it’s about her. But I also think we’ve barely scratched the surface.”
They didn’t say the name. They never did. Not out loud. Not yet.
Because to name the dead girl was to accept that she had been more than just perfect grades and a picture on the memorial wall. It was to admit that no one really knew what happened at the end of last term. That someone might have wanted her gone.
Jake’s phone buzzed.
Minjeong.
Rehearsal at 5. You coming?
He sighed. He didn’t reply. He wasn’t in the mood to see her perfectly painted smile, the one she wore when pretending none of this mattered. That Soo— she —hadn’t been someone she knew, someone they’d all known. And in Minjeong’s case… maybe someone she had helped destroy in silence.
He made his way across campus, boots clicking against polished stone, past the music wing where he could still hear faint chords from a piano. Jiwon.
He hesitated—then turned away.
Not yet.
There was someone else he had to check on.
In the VIP wing of the dormitories, a private elevator led to the top floor suite. Jake entered the code and stepped in without knocking.
Inside, the room smelled like bergamot and anxiety. Choi Yeonjun was sprawled across the couch, face down, a guitar by his side, and a glass of untouched water on the table. Rumors swirled. Rehab. Medication. A stalker. Jake didn’t care much for gossip, but Yeonjun always looked haunted when no one else was looking.
“You’re wasting away again,” Jake said lightly.
Yeonjun groaned. “Tell my mother. Maybe she’ll stop booking me for interviews I didn’t agree to.”
He looked up slowly—eyes rimmed red, shadows under them too dark for someone who lived in a mansion. He was dressed in a designer hoodie and sweatpants, the kind that cost more than Jake’s monthly allowance, but the glamour did nothing to mask the exhaustion in his bones.
Star of the charts. Social media darling. Model face. Flawless voice. He walked the halls of Daehwa like he was born for the spotlight. But Jake had seen him at a party last year—eyes glassy, hands trembling, whispering a girl’s name that didn’t match the one on his arm.
“You’re still seeing Yunjin?” Jake asked, more gently this time.
Yeonjun tensed.
Jake got his answer.
“Is she worth hiding?” he pressed, not unkindly.
Yeonjun looked at him with something like fear. “If the media finds out, they’ll tear her apart. She doesn’t deserve that.”
“You don’t either.”
Yeonjun laughed bitterly. “I was born to be devoured.”
For a second, something flickered in Yeonjun’s eyes. A scream behind a smile. Then it was gone. Jake didn’t reply. They all carried their own ghosts, some heavier than others. But Yeonjun’s… his wore a mask of glitter and applause.
As he left the suite, Jake paused at the door. “You ever get one of those letters?”
Yeonjun’s silence stretched too long.
Jake nodded to himself. “Thought so.”
Outside, dusk had begun to stretch over Daehwa, casting long shadows between its marble halls and gold-tinted glass. The school looked more like a palace than an institution. But beneath all its grandeur, something rotten was growing.
And Jake felt it in his chest.
The girl who died wasn’t the only one with secrets. And whoever was sending those letters… they knew more than they should.
As he turned the corner, he caught sight of Jiwon leaving the music room, golden hair catching the dying light like fire.
He stopped walking.
Because maybe—just maybe—she wasn’t the only one pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
And maybe he didn’t want her to be.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 5: Fantômes de Papier
Chapter Text
The cameras always knew where to find him.
Even at Daehwa, where every student had a last name worth more than a small country, Choi Yeonjun stood apart. Not because he tried to—but because he didn’t.
He was born into spotlight, into applause that never really sounded like his own. The child prodigy. The heir to an empire of sound and scandal. The boy who sang before he spoke.
But lately, the music had begun to feel more like noise.
He walked the halls with sunglasses pushed halfway down the bridge of his nose, wired earphones plugged in even when they weren’t playing anything. He hummed under his breath, as if to drown out the whispers. His voice carried effortlessly, like everything about him—elegant without effort, damaged without permission.
He had a concert in Paris last summer. The critics said he was transcendent. He couldn’t remember any of it. Not the flights, not the rehearsals. Only the after. Only the silence that came after everyone stopped clapping.
The truth was: Yeonjun hadn’t slept through the night in months. Not without help.
Not without her.
Yunjin.
She was the only place that ever felt quiet. The only girl who didn’t treat him like something to be framed in glass. She was sharp, stunning, and unapologetically real in the places where he was drowning in pretense. They met behind closed doors, in rooms no one dared to enter. Her lipstick always left traces on his throat, and her perfume lived in his sheets for days.
He didn’t post her.
Didn’t mention her name.
Didn’t write songs about her.
Because if the world saw her, they’d ruin her too.
That morning, Yeonjun found a letter in his locker.
No name. No address. Only slanted handwriting in black ink.
Your spotlight isn’t a blessing. It’s a countdown.
He stared at it for longer than he should have.
His fingers twitched, heartbeat barely audible beneath the jazz bleeding through his headphones. He folded the letter into a paper plane and sent it sailing off the second-floor balcony, like the threat was just another fan note.
He didn’t tell anyone.
He never did.
Not about the pills in his locker.
Not about the night his hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Not about the time he almost disappeared.
Yeonjun noticed Jake before he noticed Jiwon.
Jake had that kind of presence—loud in a quiet way. He walked like the hallway belonged to him, like every step had a rhythm no one else could hear. Jacket loose, laugh easy, eyes always searching for something. Or someone.
Then came Jiwon.
She didn’t make an entrance. She never did. But somehow, the air shifted anyway. People moved around her like she’d been there all along. Blonde now, but it wasn’t the hair that made her different.
It was the way she didn’t look at Jake.
And the way Jake couldn’t stop looking at her.
Yeonjun saw it—how Jake slowed down when she passed, how his voice changed when he asked her something about the arrangement, how he always found a reason to sit near her, even when the seat next to her was already taken.
Jiwon was soft with him in a way she wasn’t with anyone else. She’d glance at him like he wasn’t supposed to be real. She smiled differently, not bigger, just… lighter. Like he made something heavy inside her stop hurting.
Yeonjun watched them from the back of the music room, headphones in, volume off.
God, they were ridiculous.
Beautiful. Messy.
Delusional.
He almost laughed.
Almost.
Because under the banter and accidental hand grazes, there was something else—
something neither of them had figured out how to name yet.
And Yeonjun wasn’t sure whether he wanted to warn them or let them crash quietly into whatever this was becoming.
The door creaked open with a kind of arrogance only a few people could pull off. Jay Park didn’t enter rooms — he disrupted them.
No warning, no hesitation.
Leather jacket slung carelessly over his shoulder, silver chain glinting just below his collarbone, and that ever-present look in his eyes like he was already bored of the world before he even stepped inside.
Yeonjun didn’t turn to look. He didn’t need to. He could feel the shift in the room. That faint hush. That flicker of awareness. Jay had that effect — part threat, part myth, all sharp edges and bruised knuckles.
He was the son of an Asian-American tycoon whose hands built empires and whose money could burn countries to the ground. Jay didn’t talk about it, but everyone knew. Everyone felt it.
Yeonjun didn’t know him personally. But he’d heard the whispers.
That he didn’t care about rules. That he’d been kicked out of two elite academies before Daehwa. That he fought—not metaphorically, but literally.
He had a temper he barely restrained and a smile that looked like trouble. He walked like he was late to something dangerous. Slept in class, never took notes, and always— always —showed up with scars that didn’t belong to privilege.
He didn’t hide it. He didn’t care.
“Late,” someone muttered.
Jay didn’t answer. He never did.
He walked past the piano without glancing at it, tossed his bag beside a chair that wasn’t his, and leaned back like he owned the silence that followed. A small bruise bloomed near his jawline, half-faded, not quite healed. He didn’t bother covering it.
Yeonjun finally glanced over, one brow raised. “Rough night?”
Jay met his gaze. Smirked. “Is there any other kind?”
It wasn’t a joke. Not really.
Yeonjun studied him for a beat longer. Jay was too composed for someone who lived so recklessly. He never flinched. Never asked questions. Never gave more than he had to.
But Jiwon looked up when he spoke.
Not with fear — not exactly.
Just with the kind of wariness that came from knowing someone too well for too long.
Their eyes locked. And for a second, Yeonjun saw something flicker between them — familiarity, memory, maybe regret. Jay looked at her like he was still protecting a version of her the world didn’t remember.
And Jiwon… she looked like she didn’t want to be protected anymore.
“You good?” Jay asked her — low, quiet, for her ears only.
She nodded once. The bare minimum. “Fine.”
Yeonjun didn’t press. But he noticed the way Jay’s jaw clenched when she said it.
Whatever history they had, it still haunted the edges of their sentences.
And for a moment, the room felt heavier.
And that’s when Yeonjun saw her.
Kim Gaeul was the kind of girl people underestimated.
Not because she wasn’t beautiful—she was—but because she didn’t flaunt it. She walked like she was trained, spoke like she was calculating, and looked at people like she’d already decided what they were worth.
The only child of the CEO of K1 Security International , she’d grown up in a house of silence, grief, and surveillance cameras. Her mother died when she was eight. Her father never spoke of it ever again.
Gaeul was the kind of girl everyone had a story about — whispered, inconsistent, impossible to verify. Some said she’d broken a senior’s ribs in middle school. Others swore she didn’t speak for an entire year after her mother died. A few claimed her father had hired bodyguards just to make sure she never got too close to anyone.
But the truth was simpler.
No one had ever seen her cry.
No one had ever seen her lose.
And no one — not even the teachers — dared ask her about her family.
Yeonjun watched her quietly from his corner seat, pretending to scroll through his phone. She never made eye contact. Not directly.
But for a second, he could have sworn—
—her gaze flicked to Jay.
Not a look. Not a smile. Just a flicker.
It lasted a second.
Then she turned away.
And just like that, the room remembered how to breathe again.
He lingered in the empty stairwell long after the bell rang.
There was something about the silence between classes—the kind of silence only a school this big and this broken could carry. The halls of Daehwa didn’t echo; they held their breath.
Yeonjun wasn’t sure why he’d taken that particular route down from the rehearsal room. Maybe it was the ache in his temples. Or maybe it was the feeling again—that crawling sense that someone was watching. Someone who knew.
He almost didn’t hear her footsteps.
But Wonyoung moved differently than most girls. Not light like a bird, not graceful like a dancer. She walked like someone who had learned to take up just enough space to be noticed, but never too much to be blamed.
She didn’t look surprised to see him there.
“Following the quiet too?” she asked, leaning casually against the rail.
He looked at her, expression unreadable. “Or maybe I’m just running from the noise.”
A beat passed. Her eyes were tired today. Not from lack of sleep—but from knowing too much.
Yeonjun exhaled, low. “This place feels like it’s waiting for something.”
“Or someone,” she murmured.
He looked at her then. Really looked.
There was something in her gaze — that strange, still calm that people often mistook for apathy. But he’d seen it before. In the mirror. In Yunjin’s eyes when she thought he wasn’t looking.
It wasn’t apathy. It was armor.
“You miss her,” he said.
Wonyoung didn’t flinch.
“I miss what she could’ve told me,” she replied.
He didn’t ask who she meant. They both knew. Even if no one had spoken her name in weeks. She lived between every sentence they never finished.
That girl.
That perfect girl.
The one who had gotten too close to too many people.
Too clever. Too loved.
Too dangerous.
And now—just gone .
“I think she knew something,” Wonyoung continued. “Something important. Something dangerous.”
Yeonjun leaned back against the railing. “And now she’s gone.”
Wonyoung’s voice dropped. “And no one talks about it like it matters.”
Another silence followed. This one colder. Her breathing stayed steady, but her eyes — they glinted with something buried. Something like guilt, or maybe… fear.
“You think it wasn’t an accident,” he said quietly.
Wonyoung didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
Yeonjun looked back at the horizon. The sun was a smear of fire behind glass. Too bright to hold onto. Too far to save.
“Do you ever think we’re all just… waiting for our turn?” he said suddenly. “Like something’s watching us. Testing us. Seeing who cracks first.”
Wonyoung looked at him now.
Her eyes were dark, but clear. Like still water that ran too deep.
“I think she cracked,” she whispered. “And no one noticed until it was too late.”
Yeonjun nodded once, slowly.
And for the first time in weeks, he felt something he hadn’t allowed himself to feel since winter:
Dread.
Not for himself.
But for the things they didn’t yet understand. For the parts of Daehwa that weren’t just toxic — but cursed. There were rumors, of course. But Yeonjun didn’t believe in coincidence. Not here. Not after the letters. Not after that scream he still heard sometimes in his sleep.
“You think she was dangerous?” he asked finally.
Wonyoung nodded slowly. “Not at first.”
Silence.
Then, a whisper:
“But something changed in her. And once it did… there was no turning back.”
When Wonyoung turned to leave, she looked at him—truly looked—and for a second, he thought maybe she understood. The pressure. The fear. The lies.
“Be careful, Yeonjun,” she said.
He raised a brow. “Of what?”
Her voice was barely audible.
“Of being next.”
He didn’t move until she was gone. Didn’t breathe until the stairwell was empty again. And then, he saw it.
Folded. Precise. White against the dull gray of the step behind him.
Another letter.
His fingers shook as he picked it up.
She wasn’t innocent.
You knew it. You all did.
But you played along—until she broke.
Now it’s your turn to shatter.
There was no name. There never was.
But this time, the ink smelled faintly of her perfume. Not Wonyoung’s.
Hers.
The ghost in the silence.
And this time, Yeonjun didn’t tear it up. He folded it carefully, slipped it into his coat pocket, and walked away.
Like a boy who knew the end had already started.
Chapter 6: Le Poids de Ce Qui ne se Dit Pas
Notes:
TW!Eating Disorder! Mentios of B***mia at the end of the chapter.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The espresso she held between her fingers had long gone cold. She hadn’t noticed when it lost its heat—just that it no longer burned. It sat heavy in her palm, a weight too small to excuse the tension in her shoulders.
Across the café table, Wonyoung was still talking.
Her voice was soft, velvety almost, the kind of cadence reserved for truths wrapped in silk. Not lies, exactly—Wonyoung didn’t lie. She edited. She curated the truth the way one might arrange flowers before a funeral. With precision. With beauty. With restraint.
Jiwon could hear the words, but they slid past her consciousness like light glinting off glass. She registered the shape of Wonyoung’s mouth, the delicate lift of her brow, the way her fingers tugged absentmindedly at the gold ring on her thumb. Everything about her looked like a painting trying not to move.
“He asked if I was okay,” Wonyoung said now. “Yeonjun. I mean, he didn’t say it like that, but... he looked at me like he knew.”
That made Jiwon look up—really look.
The morning light spilled through the café’s wide windows, filtering through the dust like a soft filter. Outside, the city hummed on, indifferent and golden. But here, inside this curated little still life of a moment, Wonyoung looked otherworldly.
Not beautiful, though she was. Not graceful, though that too. She looked… removed. Like something had shifted behind her eyes and hadn’t quite shifted back.
“And Sunghoon?” Jiwon asked, almost afraid to.
Wonyoung didn’t speak immediately. Her manicured fingers traced the rim of her glass once, then again. When she did answer, her voice was quieter, stripped of its ornament.
“He looked at me like he'd seen a ghost.”
The words landed in Jiwon’s chest with a peculiar weight.
She knew that look.
She’d worn it once, months ago, in a mirror she no longer used. She’d seen it in her reflection when her world fell out from under her and nobody noticed except someone who wasn’t supposed to. Someone she couldn’t forget.
Ghosts didn’t need to die to haunt people. They just needed to leave behind something unfinished.
Later, in the marble-lined halls of Daehwa, she watched Jake laugh at something Minjeong said.
Minjeong leaned into him, brushing imaginary lint off his shoulder. Jake didn’t flinch. If anything, he smiled wider, like her touch anchored him. Like it reminded him he was still wanted. Still here.
To anyone else, they looked like a couple on the verge of making it official—careless and glossy, like the pages of a magazine. But Jiwon knew better. She’d seen what they were behind closed doors: a performance stitched together by need and boredom. A push and pull of unfinished sentences and conveniently timed silences.
Jake and Minjeong weren’t lovers. They weren’t even friends.
But they were always there for each other in the moments that didn’t count. When it was too late to feel lonely and too early to admit it. When being held wasn’t about closeness—it was about not falling apart.
Jiwon had once seen Jake look at Minjeong like she was the calm before a storm he knew he wouldn’t survive. He had told her, once, late and unguarded, that Minjeong made him feel like a lighter version of himself.
“It’s easy with her,” he’d said. “No past. No weight.”
Jiwon had nodded at the time. Pretended to understand.
But now, watching him grin at Minjeong like nothing had ever hurt him, something inside her recoiled.
She didn’t want lightness if it meant forgetting the parts that bruised. Didn’t want to be someone's sanctuary just because she wasn’t a battlefield.
Jake had a way of loving that felt like being caught in a rip current. He pulled you in with that golden grin and reckless affection—like you were the only thing he couldn’t unfeel—and then left you gasping when the tide turned cold.
Jiwon had seen what that did to people. She didn’t want to become someone Jake ran to when his ghosts got loud—only to leave again when they quieted.
She didn’t want to be held like a secret, or kissed like a memory.
She didn’t want to be easy.
She didn’t want to be Minjeong.
Jake looked up then, as if he felt her gaze, and for the briefest second, their eyes met.
His smile faltered.
So did hers.
She turned a corner—and collided with someone.
Or rather, with Yujin.
The girl was practically glowing, as if the light in the hallway had bent to flatter her. A pale yellow sweater wrapped delicately around her shoulders, the knit fine enough to be expensive without needing a label. Her chestnut hair was pulled into a high ponytail, secured with a satin ribbon the color of champagne, and her white sneakers looked like they'd never seen a speck of dust.
Yujin didn’t walk—she glided. Like the floor parted for her.
She smiled when she saw Jiwon. It wasn’t the vacant, performative kind the socialites wore at functions. Yujin’s smile was intentional. Precise. The kind that knew its power.
“Jiwon,” she said warmly, like they were old friends and not two satellites caught in each other’s orbit. “I didn’t see you at the foundation meeting last week.”
Her voice was honeyed, but behind it there was always a ledger—tracking attendance, tone, posture. Yujin never said anything without weighing what it might cost or gain.
“Wasn’t feeling well,” Jiwon replied, keeping her tone neutral.
Yujin tilted her head slightly, lips still parted in that immaculate smile. Her gaze swept over Jiwon like a scan: subtle, but thorough. Kind—but assessing. As always.
Yujin measured everything.
Performance. Reputation. Balance.
The way people spoke, the way they stood, the way they broke.
Being near her felt like standing beside the sun—warm, luminous… and just a little blinding if you looked too long.
“I’m glad you’re better,” Yujin said. Her voice dropped a note in pitch, almost conspiratorial. “Things have been… intense lately, haven’t they?”
Jiwon didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
She didn’t trust whatever game Yujin was playing—and she wasn’t in the mood to be another pawn.
Before the silence could thicken, a low whistle sliced through the corridor like a flicked coin.
Minhee.
He appeared as if summoned, stepping out from the shadows like the hallway had been waiting for him. One hand was tucked into the pocket of his equestrian blazer, the other held a paper cup with the casual authority of a man drinking whiskey at a gala instead of water between fencing practice and calculus.
“Ladies,” he drawled, the syllables slow, velvet-edged.
He was all contradiction. Sharp cheekbones and tousled hair. Messy on purpose. His school uniform looked like it had been tailored for a magazine shoot and then slept in. Jiwon had seen him once at a riding demonstration, high on a black stallion, and the memory still lingered like smoke. He rode like he had secrets—tight reins, loose hands, eyes too calm.
He was the kind of boy who made trouble look like an art form.
Minhee’s eyes found Yujin.
And froze.
He didn’t smile, not really. His mouth curved, but the rest of him stilled—like a wire pulled taut. His gaze held her in a way that made Jiwon uneasy, like he was watching something he wasn’t supposed to want.
Yujin didn’t return the look. Not even for a second. Her posture remained flawless, chin slightly raised, like she didn’t see him at all—or saw him too much and had learned not to look. But her hand, Jiwon noticed, clenched slightly at her side. Barely.
There was something between them.
Not chemistry—no.
This wasn’t flirtation.
It was history.
Jiwon watched the stillness spread like ice between them, invisible but palpable. A language only the two of them understood, full of things not said, moments not forgotten.
Something about the way Minhee looked at Yujin made Jiwon’s skin crawl.
It was fondness, yes.
But warped.
Too fond.
Too still.
Like obsession dressed in silk.
And Yujin, the girl who had perfected every angle of her smile, suddenly looked like she was performing just a little too hard.
That night, Jiwon sat on the cold bathroom tile, her hands trembling as she wiped the last remnants of dinner from her lips. The bitter taste of bile clung stubbornly to her tongue, sharper than any truth she wanted to face.
She didn’t cry. She couldn’t.
Not anymore.
Her body was a battlefield—her mind, a quiet warzone. Each bite, each moment, a fragile victory or a crushing defeat. The ritual left her hollow, yet somehow heavier.
She glanced at the cracked bathroom mirror. Her reflection was a stranger. Pale. Haunted. A ghost trapped behind glass, clutching at fragments of a self she barely recognized.
Back in her room, the rain whispered against the windowpane, the air thick and damp, like the memories she tried so hard to drown.
Wonyoung’s words echoed softly in her mind.
“He looked at me like he knew.”
Yeonjun’s gaze—the one that saw through her carefully constructed walls.
And Sunghoon.
Sunghoon—the boy who looked at Wonyoung “like he’d seen a ghost.”
Jiwon’s heart clenched.
Ghosts were real. She had been one, drifting through halls, unseen, unheard. And maybe—just maybe—Sunghoon saw a reflection of that in Wonyoung.
Was Wonyoung haunted, too? Or was she just better at hiding it?
Jiwon wanted to ask. To reach out. But her voice caught in her throat, tangled in years of silence.
She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the sharp edges of loneliness pressing in. The kind that no one else could see, but everyone somehow sensed.
On her nightstand lay the letter.
She hadn’t noticed it before—how could she?
No name. No signature.
Like a shadow slipped through the cracks.
Her fingers trembled as she unfolded the paper, expecting the usual riddles or riddles disguised as poetry.
But these words cut sharper than any metaphor:
"You never asked why she chose you. You should have."
"What you buried is rotting. Everyone can smell it but you."
She read it again.
And again.
The words seeped into her skin, cold and unyielding.
What was buried?
What had she tried so desperately to hide?
Jiwon didn’t have an answer. Or maybe she did—too many answers all bleeding into one another.
Her hands stayed cold, clutching the letter like a lifeline she didn’t want but couldn’t let go of.
Outside, thunder rolled.
A low, distant growl that rumbled in her chest.
And then—just for a moment—in the dark corner of her room, she thought she saw someone watching.
From inside her mirror.
Notes:
Double update for the long wait, thanks for reading!
Chapter 7: Miel et Ravages
Chapter Text
Something about Tuesdays at Daehwa made Jay Park want to disappear. Maybe it was the way the morning sun hit the glass atrium too brightly, as if mocking the people underneath. Or maybe it was just the way everyone walked—like they were auditioning for a movie no one else had been cast in.
There were a few things he had learned to stomach in his life: the sterile silence of business dinners, the sting of a backhanded compliment from his father, and the hollow cheers of people who only clapped when you won.
Jay wasn’t the kind of heir they paraded at galas. Too blunt. Too violent. Too unwilling to play the game.
Still, they kept him here. Because no one told the Park family’s golden son “no,” not even when he made headlines for breaking another heir’s nose at a ski resort in Aspen. Or when he disappeared for weekends and came back with bruises shaped like promises.
Daehwa tolerated him the same way the elite tolerated danger—as long as it stayed dressed in designer.
He slouched deeper into his seat at the back of the Political Theory lecture, one leg stretched out, thumb twirling a black pen against his thigh. Professor Kang was already pacing like a caged philosopher, gesturing wildly about power dynamics and systems of control.
Jay smirked.
He knew all about control.
The classroom was cold, clinical, and too quiet for his taste. He preferred noise. Movement. The bloodrush of a roundhouse kick landing just right. The rhythmic crack of gloves against ribs. His body ached from last night’s session underground. The bruises were deepening beneath his shirt like blooming violets, but he welcomed the pain. It made him feel real.
He leaned back in his chair just as the door clicked open.
Huh Yunjin strolled in like she owned the world—or at least like she hadn’t spent the last few minutes making sure her eyeliner wing was perfectly sharp. She was wrapped in a soft beige knit, with a scarf tossed loosely around her neck and sunglasses still perched in her honey-blonde hair. Her lips were tinted strawberry. Her attitude was champagne.
Money new, Jay thought. The kind that didn’t come with etiquette classes or legacy admissions, just ambition and a damn good PR team.
She slid into the seat two rows ahead of him, and he caught the flicker of her eyes glancing over her shoulder.
He met her gaze briefly, lifted a brow.
She rolled her eyes and smiled.
Yunjin didn’t belong here—not really. The rest of Daehwa’s elite carried themselves like they’d been born at the top of a staircase they never had to climb. Yunjin had clawed her way up in heels. Everyone knew her father had struck gold on a crypto investment that turned into an empire overnight. That kind of rise wasn’t admired in circles like this. It was resented.
Still, Jay couldn’t deny she fit the part—effortlessly pretty, unapologetically loud, and always just one whisper away from scandal.
She reminded him of someone else.
Someone whose name wasn’t spoken anymore.
Jay’s gaze drifted.
Two seats away, Sunghoon sat with that same unreadable expression, dark brows furrowed, tapping a pencil without rhythm. Jay watched him for a moment, jaw tightening.
He’d never liked how close she had been to Sunghoon.
Not because he didn’t trust Sunghoon.
But because he did .
That girl had a way of wrapping people around her fingers like silk thread. Making them believe they were chosen, special. Jay had seen it happen in real time. Sunghoon had fallen hard, and maybe he still didn’t realize just how much of himself he’d lost in the process.
Jay had been the only one to suspect the rot beneath her sugar-glazed smile.
He remembered one summer party in particular. A pool, a missing bracelet, a lie so pretty it sounded like the truth. Sunghoon had taken the blame.
Jay had wanted to say something that night. Warn him.
But she’d smiled at Jay with those eyes, and he had swallowed the words like poison.
He blinked, forcing the memory away.
Yunjin was tapping her pen now. Doodling something at the corner of her notes. Her script—elegant, loose, and strangely melodic—was something Jay had noticed before. It wasn’t ordinary. Neither was she.
She was a genius with languages. Everyone said so. Korean, English, French, Japanese—she slipped between them like water. What they didn’t say was that she could compose music with the same ease. That her lyrics, though never publicly credited, had charted more than once.
Jay only knew because he’d caught her humming one of her songs behind the practice rooms once. It was a haunting little melody, about burning down the parts of yourself no one loved.
She had stopped when she saw him, then smirked.
“Don’t tell,” she’d said.
He hadn’t.
Yunjin wasn’t just Yeonjun’s secret girlfriend. She was his secret too. Or maybe he just liked knowing something about her that no one else did.
Jay’s eyes flicked to the clock.
Thirty minutes left in the lecture. He was already bored. His fingers itched. He tapped his knuckles against the underside of his desk in a pattern only he understood.
One-two-pause. One-two-pause.
The rhythm of fists in a fight.
Of silence between screams.
Of knowing you could take someone down and choosing not to.
Yunjin turned slightly. Just enough for him to see the shadow of a bruise along her collarbone.
He didn’t ask.
He never did.
But the thought lingered, sharp and uncomfortable.
Some girls wore their battles under mascara.Some boys fought theirs in basements.
And some people—like her —never lost. Because they never played fair.
Jay stared ahead, tuning out Professor Kang’s voice. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t get involved again. But lately, the air at Daehwa tasted like something was coming.
Like secrets were slipping through cracks.
Like someone, somewhere, was about to bleed.
And Jay?
Jay had always known how to finish a fight.
Chapter Text
He found it in his locker, wedged between an unopened physics textbook and the lingering scent of menthol gum.
Another note.
The edges were crisp. Folded once. Thick paper. Black ink, blocky and deliberate.
He knew the handwriting now. Not the person—but the way they pressed the pen hard enough to scar the paper. Like anger couldn’t stay quiet.
This one didn’t waste time.
“She never loved you. But she knew exactly how to make you stay.”
Sunghoon read it twice. Then again.
He didn’t crumple it. Didn’t throw it away.
He slipped it back into the envelope and tucked it into the inner pocket of his blazer, right next to his phone and a crumpled photo that only he still carried. The photo no one had seen but him. Not even her.
Because she never needed proof.
She had him .
He hadn’t cried at the funeral. He hadn’t spoken, hadn’t looked at anyone in the eyes. He’d flown in, stood there in a suit far too expensive for grief, and left before the rain started.
He hadn’t meant to get close to her. She’d been his shadow since childhood, all pretty lies and satin smiles. They’d grown up tangled together—family vacations, shared nannies, whispers in the dark. She’d always known how to make herself unforgettable.
But somewhere along the way, her edges sharpened. The sweetness became strategy. The softness—a mask.
And still, he let her in.
He hadn’t loved her. Not really. But he’d been hers. In the way boys are when they don’t know what love should feel like. In the way that meant giving in without asking why.
He’d tried to pull away.
Tried to unsee the damage she did to others.
But it’s hard to leave someone who knows where you hide your shame.
She’d whisper things to him late at night, truths dressed as jokes. Once, she told him that the only way to stay alive in a place like Daehwa was to become the most beautiful lie anyone ever believed.
And then she died.
And he still didn’t know if it was an accident.
The rink was freezing that morning.
It always was—sterile, pristine, echoing with the scrape of blades and the sharp bite of winter air. Sunghoon liked it that way. Clean. Controlled.
He laced his skates in silence. No warm-ups, no chatter. His partner was already waiting at center ice. A nod. That was enough.
They began.
His muscles remembered the sequence—the sweep of arms, the silent counting of beats, the gliding precision that came from years of training.
One turn. A lift. A clean landing. Flawless.
But his mind wasn’t on the routine.
It was somewhere else entirely.
It was on that night.
The last time he saw her.
The way her eyes held secrets even in the flicker of candlelight. The way her lip gloss had faded like the patience in her voice. The way she looked at him—like she was already gone.
Like she wanted him to understand something far too late.
Maybe he already did.
The final spin pulled him out of his thoughts. The routine ended. Applause echoed from the other end of the rink, polite and distant.
He didn’t hear it.
He skated toward the edge, breathless, sweat cooling against his spine.
He unlaced his skates slowly, deliberately.
He needed to start digging.
Quietly.
Too many people were mourning her with crocodile tears and champagne toasts.
And one of them had sent the letter.
The third stall in the second-floor girls’ bathroom was her favorite.
It didn’t creak. It locked properly. And more importantly, no one questioned why the school’s golden girl disappeared for twenty-minute stretches between fourth and fifth period.
An Yujin leaned against the cold tile wall, breathing through her nose, trying to slow the shaking in her hands.
The letter was crumpled in her blazer pocket.
She hadn’t planned to open it. Not after the last one.
But curiosity was a cruel thing. And so was doubt.
This one had a photo.
Blurry. Low-res. But unmistakable.
Her boyfriend. Jihoon.
Laughing with a woman she didn’t recognize. Not just laughing—touching. Familiar. Like lovers, not friends.
The note was short.
“He says you’re the only one. So why does he keep acting like you’re the last?”
She pressed the heel of her palm to her mouth. Her stomach turned. Not from the betrayal—but from the shame of believing him for so long.
Yujin had never been the jealous type. That wasn’t how girls like her were raised. Polished. Poised. Trained to smile even when choking.
But this—this was something else.
She had built her identity around being the one who had it all together.
The perfect grades. The perfect boyfriend. The perfect smile that didn’t crack.
But today, it cracked.
She sank to the toilet lid and let her head fall back against the stall wall.
Jihoon had lied. And she’d seen the signs. She just hadn’t wanted to read them.
The other girls whispered about her—how lucky she was, how golden her life seemed.
But no one knew what it felt like to be built from expectations and then abandoned by the only person you let see the cracks.
She’d tell no one.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
Outside the stall, a girl washed her hands and left.
The silence after felt deafening.
Yujin reached into her pocket, took out the photo again, and burned every detail into her memory.
And then, carefully, she tore it into pieces and flushed them down the toilet.
Some lies were better drowned.
But she didn’t throw away the note.
She folded it again, smaller this time, and tucked it into the hidden lining of her wallet.
Just in case she ever forgot that even people who kissed you like you were holy could still be the ones to break you into prayer.
Back in the hallway, Yujin walked like nothing had happened.
Her stride was light. Her smile returned on cue.
And when Minhee passed her—his blazer open, his voice too smooth—she smiled wider than usual.
Even liars deserved to wonder if you were lying too.
Notes:
Thank you for the kudos! Hope you all enjoy this chapter.
wiawka on Chapter 2 Fri 04 Apr 2025 02:53PM UTC
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