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10 𝓣𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝓘 𝓗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝓐𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝓨𝒐𝒖

For four long, excruciating years, you and Lee Heeseung have been at war, every class, every grade, every scholarship. NYU’s golden boy with a silver tongue and an ego to match has been your shadow and your competition since freshman year. You hate his perfect grades, his smug grin, his cologne that lingers in lecture halls long after he’s gone. You hate that your professors love him. You hate that your boyfriend can’t stand him. Most of all, you hate that you can’t stop thinking about him. A stupid list taped above your desk, 10 Things I Hate About You, becomes the only thing keeping your sanity intact. But somewhere between study dates, heartbreak, and the blur of your final semester, the list starts to change. Hate turns to ache. Ache turns to something you don’t have a name for yet. And by the time you finally rewrite it, it’s too late to pretend you never loved him.

𝓖enre: rivals to lovers, academic AU, fluff, smut, coming of age, contemporary romance, and hella angsty

𝓟airing: enemy!academic rival!Heeseung x academic rival!reader.

𝓦arnings: Academic rivalry, intellectual tension, emotional cheating, blurred boundaries, breakup aftermath, guilt, angst, mixed signals, jealousy, insecurity, alcohol usage, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, arguments, verbal fights, personal insults, emotional vulnerability, crying, self-realization, breakup (reader × Jaehyun), academic pressure, burnout, unhealthy habits (skipping breakfast), self-worth struggles, perfectionism, catharsis, bittersweet tone, reader confusion, ghosting, blocking, yearning, tension that hurts and heals.

𝓦arnings (SMUT!): MDNI. 18+. Explicit Sexual Content. Car sex. Slight nipple play. P in V. Unprotected sex (DONT!) Marking. Degradation. Praise. Use of petnames. Consented Sex even if drunk.. Handjob. Fingering. Usage of the reader's ex to taunt. Heeseung is big. Mentions of sex with Jaehyun. Orgasm. Creampie.

𝓒ameos: Jaehyun from BoyNextDoor (your ex-boyfriend), Megan from Katseye (Your best friend), Jake from Enhypen (Heeseung's best friend), Taesan from BoyNextDoor (Jaehyun's best friend)

𝓘nspired 𝓑y: 10 Things I Hate About You

𝓦ord 𝓒ount: 21K

Sam: Catch me S.O.B.B.I.N.G.

[Better Than The Movies] [Masterlist]

LEE HEESEUNG.

There was nothing you hated more in this world than Lee Heeseung.

Gosh, even the mere existence of this man made you shrivel in disgust, like the sour taste of a lemon that overstayed its welcome, or the annoying screech of nails scraping down a board.

Even the sound of his name made your stomach twist. Lee Heeseung. It had that polished, arrogant ring to it, like it came pre-packaged with good genes, private tutors, and a trust fund.

He was everywhere. Every class you took, every debate you signed up for, every scholarship you applied to, there he was. Always one seat ahead, one second faster, one mark higher.

Four years. Four years of war. NYU’s golden boy. The department’s favorite. And your personal nightmare. It didn’t matter how clever you were, or how incredibly, relentlessly responsible, because the conversation would somehow always circle back to Heeseung somewhere or other. It was always

“Oh Y/N, this is great, but now take a look at Heeseung’s here—”

Heeseung this and Heeseung that. You were quite literally fed up with it. So, so tired of it.

“Miss Y/L/N, I assume you’ve completed the reading?” Professor Adler’s voice cut through your thoughts. You blinked, realizing too late that every head in the room had turned toward you.

“Yes,” you managed, flipping through your annotated copy of The Social Construction of Genius. “In fact, I was just thinking about how selective recognition often undermines actual intellectual merit.”

The professor raised an approving brow. “An excellent observation.”

Behind you, Heeseung’s smooth voice followed: “Are we implying, then, that recognition itself invalidates genius? Because if that’s the case, half of the Western canon ceases to exist.”

Your jaw tightened. He didn’t even look up from his notes; he just said it, confident and deliberate, like he knew you’d take the bait.

You did.

“I’m implying that social bias tends to elevate the loudest voice, not the smartest one,” you snapped. And there it was, the faint smirk you hated more than anything, that slow, condescending curl of his lips.

“Ah,” he murmured, leaning back in his chair, “then it’s fortunate I’m both.”

A ripple of laughter ran through the lecture hall. You didn’t laugh. You were too busy imagining how satisfying it would feel to throw your pen at his perfectly symmetrical face.

Oh how you would love to twist his perfect hair out of his scalp until—

“Miss Y/L/N, your counterpoint?”

You blinked, snapping back to the present. Professor Adler stood at the head of the seminar room, looking mildly entertained, which was far too much for your liking. The rest of your classmates had already turned toward you with that familiar, anticipatory grin.

Because everyone knew what was coming.

You and Heeseung were the unspoken spectacle of the Political Theory department, equal parts admired and pitied. Every lecture was a battlefield. Every debate, a duel.

“Yes, Professor,” you said, forcing a calm tone as you adjusted your notes. “While Mr. Lee makes an excellent argument about social contracts as tools of cooperation, he conveniently ignores their function as instruments of control. Hobbes wasn’t writing about harmony; he was writing about fear.”

A low hum of approval rippled through the room. You caught Heeseung’s subtle exhale, short, amused.

He looked infuriatingly relaxed in his seat, legs crossed, a fountain pen twirling between his fingers. The navy sweater he wore fit too well; his hair fell in just the right kind of mess that looked unplanned, but you knew wasn’t.

He smiled. “Fear, yes, but fear is what maintains order. You can’t expect morality without consequence. We aren’t altruistic by nature, are we?”

You gave him a tight smile. “Speak for yourself.”

The class laughed. Adler sighed.

“Children,” she said, though there was no real reprimand in her tone, “one of you will have to concede eventually.”

You glanced at Heeseung. “He can start.”

He grinned, pen tapping against his notebook. “After you.”

The debate dragged on for another fifteen minutes before the professor finally dismissed the class, muttering something about “academic tension and actual tension” under her breath.

You gathered your notes quickly, determined to escape before—

“Y/N.”

That voice again. Smooth, self-satisfied, silk dipped in amusement.

You didn’t turn right away. “What do you want, Heeseung?”

He leaned against the desk beside yours, close enough that the sharp scent of his cologne, expensive, woody, maddeningly clean, reeking of someone who’d never taken the subway during rush hour, slipped through the air between you. He never seemed to sweat, never seemed ruffled. Always perfect.

“Just checking if your boyfriend’s coming to the study group later,” he said, tone casual but eyes glinting. “I wouldn’t want to intimidate him again.”

Your jaw flexed. “He’s busy.”

He clicked his tongue thoughtfully. “Shame. He’s fun to watch. Gets that twitch in his jaw every time you and I start arguing.” The corner of his mouth curved. “Almost like he’s… threatened.”

“He’s not.”

“Oh, come on,” Heeseung murmured, taking a small step closer. “Business major, right? You think he’s not comparing himself to your GPA?”

You glared at him. “Don’t talk about him.”

“Relax, I’m just saying—”

“Don’t.”

For a heartbeat, the room went still. He held your gaze, the practiced smirk fading into something quieter, almost curious. Then he straightened, sliding his pen behind his ear with that infuriating grace of his.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, rival.”

And just like that, he was gone, leaving the echo of his cologne, his voice, and the uncomfortable thud of your pulse behind.

That night, your apartment felt too small. The hum of the refrigerator, the muted rush of city traffic, even the neon glow leaking through the blinds pressed against you like static. You should’ve been reading, outlining, doing anything productive, but every time you tried, his voice slithered back into your head. You dropped your pen, rubbed your temples.

Why does he always have to—

Your phone buzzed.

Jae: heeseung giving you hell again? You: always. Jae: don’t let him get to you. he’s just jealous.

You stared at the message for a long moment. A faint smile tugged at your lips, affection, habit, guilt. The idea of Heeseung being jealous of anything you had felt absurd, but the thought lingered anyway.

You typed back, He’s not worth the headache, then set the phone face-down. Silence again. The apartment lights were low, your laptop screen a pale reflection in the window. Outside, the city glowed, sirens, laughter, the hiss of rain on asphalt. It should have been comforting. It wasn’t.

Because your heartbeat still hadn’t slowed since class. Because you could still see the shape of his grin when he’d said “rival.”

You reached for a sheet of paper, any excuse to focus on something else. A blank page stared back at you, judgmental.

At the top, in sharp, impatient letters, you wrote:

10 Things I Hate About You

You paused, then started listing.

You’re fucking selfish.

You make my boyfriend look like a roach.

You’re an annoying, cocky, rich bastard who doesn’t know what it’s like to work a day in your life.

You’re so bitchy, no wonder you don’t have a girlfriend.

You’re… handsome… I guess.

You’re fucking smart.

You’re unreasonably irrational.

Ink pressed deep into the paper, almost tearing it.

And right above it, a printed, zoomed-in photo of Lee Heeseung you snatched from the university website, his stupid NYU ID grin and all. You take a thick black marker and scratch a line straight through his eyes, once, twice, again, until the paper wrinkles under your fury. Then, for good measure, you add doodles, devil horns, a pitchfork, a speech bubble that reads “I’m a pretentious jerk.”

When you step back, arms crossed, breathing hard, the sight calms you. A little. Until you remember you’ll have to see him again tomorrow. And then the marker squeaks again, right over his smile this time.

You leaned back, chewing at your lip. The first three spots were still empty, waiting for something vicious, something that would make the list feel complete. But your mind stayed blank. Or worse, it kept circling back to the way his voice had softened when he said your name.

You exhaled, frustrated, and pinned the list to the wall above your desk with a pushpin. A list for your own sanity. A declaration of hatred, discipline, survival. You told yourself it was proof, proof that you despised him, that you were in control of the narrative.

But as you stared at the crooked paper fluttering gently in the breeze from the half-open window, another truth whispered through the noise of the city. If you didn’t write it down, if you didn’t force yourself to remember all the reasons you loathed him…

You were afraid you might start thinking about him again.

The NYU campus always looked prettier when you were in a bad mood. Maybe because you refused to admit that anything about this place could actually be pleasant.

The morning air bit at your cheeks as you crossed Washington Square, cup of coffee in one hand, laptop bag in the other. The quad was alive with that academic chaos you secretly loved, students shouting about forgotten projects, professors clutching their papers like shields, the occasional skateboarder weaving through the crowd like a death wish in motion. You thrived in this misery. It was your natural habitat.

You had a seminar in thirty minutes and a caffeine dependency to feed, so you ducked into the tiny café off Mercer Street. It smelled like burnt espresso and ambition, just the way you liked it.

Nothing like a cup of overpriced coffee and the crippling weight of student debt to start the morning.

The line moved slow. You scrolled through your emails, tuning out the chatter behind you, until you heard a voice that made every nerve in your body stiffen.

“Large Americano. Two shots of espresso. And, uh, put it on my tab. Lee Heeseung.”

You froze. Of course. Of course, he’d be here. You could almost feel the universe laughing at your suffering.

When you turned, there he was. NYU’s golden boy himself, standing at the counter with that effortlessly perfect posture, a navy sweater rolled up just enough to show his veins, hair tousled in the kind of way that screamed I don’t try, I just wake up like this.

Heeseung glanced over his shoulder and met your stare, like he’d felt your glare burning into his back. His lips tilted into that infuriating smirk, the one you’d come to recognize as his favorite pastime.

“Y/N,” he said, voice smooth as espresso. “Didn’t think you were a morning person.”

“Didn’t think you were a person at all,” you muttered.

He laughed. God, even that sounded smug. “Still as charming as ever.”

“And you’re still everywhere I don’t want to be.”

“You wound me.”

The barista slid both your coffees across the counter at once. You grabbed yours like a weapon. Heeseung lingered just a second longer, enough to make it annoying, enough to make your stomach twist with irritation (and something you refused to name). You could feel his smirk following you out the door.

By the time you reached your seminar room, you’d already decided to forget about him. You had bigger things to worry about, like your final thesis proposal, which was due next week. You’d spent months researching potential mentors, finally settling on Professor Kim, the woman who basically ran the entire department.

When she walked in, everyone straightened up. She had the kind of presence that could silence a hurricane.

“I’ve reviewed all of your thesis requests,” she announced, setting a neat stack of papers on the podium. “And I’ve made my decisions.”

You sat up a little straighter.

“For the joint thesis mentorship, our top applicants—” She paused, scanning the class. “I’ll be pairing Y/N and Lee Heeseung.”

It took a full three seconds for your brain to process the words. Then you blinked.

“Wait, what?”

Heeseung turned his head, slow and deliberate, eyes locking with yours. His expression? Pure, delighted evil. Lucifer would be jealous. Gosh, how much you wanted to punch that expression off his handsome—no, wait, not handsome—face.

“Two best minds in my department,” Professor Kim continued, clearly proud of herself. “You’ll challenge each other. Competition breeds brilliance.”

“Or murder,” you muttered under your breath.

“I’m sorry?” the professor asked, glancing up.

“Nothing,” you said quickly, forcing a tight-lipped smile.

Heeseung leaned back in his chair, arms crossing, a lazy grin on his lips.

“Guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, huh?”

You gripped your pen so tightly you were surprised it didn’t snap.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’ll be too busy actually working.”

“Good,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to carry you.”

You hated that your pulse skipped when he said “we.”

Misery loves company.

You hated him. You hated his smirk, his laugh, his unearned confidence. But most of all, you hated that your heart was beating faster than it should’ve been.

You told yourself it was just a presentation. One joint project, one shared grade, one final chance to prove that Lee Heeseung wasn’t as perfect as everyone thought he was.

You were wrong.

The first study session was at Bobst Library, third floor, right under that giant window that made everyone look academically miserable in the morning light. The kind of light that exposed every pore and regret. You arrived early, because of course you did, claiming the table near the outlet and spreading your notes like battle plans.

Your coffee had gone lukewarm by the time he appeared.

Heeseung strolled in like the world owed him a GPA. Coffee in one hand, laptop in the other, backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder. He looked like the kind of person who didn’t study so much as absorb knowledge through sheer arrogance. That damn easy grin was already in place.

“You started without me?” he asked, sliding into the chair opposite you.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t show up,” you said, not looking up.

“That’s rude.”

“That’s honesty.”

He laughed softly. It wasn’t even a bad laugh, worse, it was the kind of laugh that made the corners of your mouth twitch before you caught yourself. You hated that.

“So,” he said, opening his laptop, “our topic—‘The Intersection of Economic Inequality and Modern Ethics.’ Sounds fun.”

“Fun?” You raised a brow. “You think the collapse of late-stage capitalism is fun?”

“Everything’s fun when you win.”

You stared at him for a long, dangerous second.

“You’re insufferable.”

“And yet here we are, studying together.”

You briefly considered shoving your stapler into his coffee.

Heeseung worked in irritating bursts, typing fast, leaning back, sipping coffee like it was an accessory to his brilliance. You, on the other hand, poured over citations, checking every comma like it was sacred. Every so often he’d lean over, his cologne brushing the air, and murmur something like:

“You know, for someone who hates me, you sure like sitting close.”

“I’m sitting close to the outlet.”

“Sure you are.”

You considered throwing your pen at him. Instead, you highlighted your notes with unnecessary aggression. Pretty sure you tore a page at some point of time.

By 8 p.m., the library had mellowed into that quiet hum of collective suffering. Someone’s classical playlist leaked faintly from across the aisle. The smell of stale espresso and ambition hung in the air.

“You type too loud,” you said suddenly.

Heeseung didn’t look up. “You breathe too judgmentally.”

“You click your pen like you’re trying to summon demons.”

“You highlight like you’re trying to exorcise them.”

You scowled. Heeseung smirked. Somewhere in your chest, something traitorous fluttered. You blamed it on low blood sugar and the stress he was giving you.

Around nine, you both decided to take a break. You went to refill your water bottle; he followed, of course.

“Following me now?”

“Supervising. I don’t trust you not to poison my coffee.”

“I don’t need to. The campus café did that for me.”

He snorted, leaning against the vending machine. “You know, I actually thought you’d be worse.”

“Excuse me?”

He shrugged, the motion lazy, infuriatingly confident. “You give off overachiever with a superiority complex vibes, but you’re… tolerable.”

“Wow. High praise from the man who thinks capitalism is a competitive sport.”

He smirked. “You noticed.”

You hated the way your pulse jumped when he said it.

Back at the table, the silence was louder. The kind where every key press felt intimate. You caught yourself glancing at his hands, long fingers tapping the trackpad, knuckles flexing. You quickly looked back at your notes like they’d personally offended you.

He leaned back suddenly. “Your thesis paragraph’s weak.”

You blinked. “Excuse me?”

“It’s circular. You’re using the conclusion to prove the premise.”

“It’s nuanced.”

“It’s a rhetorical ouroboros.”

“You’re a rhetorical nightmare.”

Heeseung laughed quietly, eyes glinting. “You like it when I challenge you.”

“Wrong.”

“Sure. Keep telling yourself that.”

You wanted to strangle him with your laptop charger. But he’d laugh, and probably say something along the lines of, “That’s kinky.” You vanquished that image from your mind as quickly as it had propped up, because you did not need that kind of energy. By midnight, the library had thinned out, leaving only the desperate and the delusional. The city glowed faintly through the glass. You’d both slouched into an unholy blend of exhaustion and focus.

When you caught him staring, you didn’t mention it. When his knee brushed yours under the table, you pretended it didn’t happen.

“You’re frowning again,” he said.

“I’m thinking.”

“You always frown when you think.”

“You always talk when no one asks.”

“See? That’s why we work well together.”

You gave him a flat look. “We don’t.”

“Sure we do. You bring the neurosis, I bring the charm.”

“You bring the delusion.”

“That too.”

He smiled, slow, knowing, dangerous.

At 1 a.m., you finally saved your draft and shut your laptop with a sigh. “Truce,” he said, standing and stretching, his shirt riding up just slightly.

You looked away too fast. “This isn’t a war.”

“Sure feels like one.”

“You’re impossible.”

“And yet you’d rather die than admit you like the competition.”

He wasn’t wrong, and that was the worst part.

You both headed out together, the fluorescent hallway buzzing faintly. Heeseung walked beside you, too close, your shoulders brushing every few steps.

“Next session, my place,” he said casually.

You scoffed. “So you can distract me with your ego? No thanks.”

“Please. My ego’s the least distracting thing about me.”

You gave him a look so sharp it could’ve drawn blood. “I’m sure you think that’s true.”

He smiled, leaning just a little closer. “I don’t think. I know.”

You reached the elevator, hit the button a little too hard. “Goodnight, Heeseung.”

“Night, partner.”

The doors closed on his grin.

Back home, your room looked like the inside of your brain, notes, coffee mugs, half-dead highlighters. On your wall was your “10 Things I Hate About You” list. Above it, taped crookedly, was a candid photo from class, Heeseung mid-smirk, mid-sentence, mid-irritation.

You grabbed a marker and, in furious black ink, wrote:

11. You make me forget I’m supposed to hate you.

Then you stared at it for too long before scratching it out, the ink smearing. You dropped the marker, muttering, “Not worth it.” Because you didn’t need that energy in your life.

But when your phone buzzed, the screen lit up with a new text:

Heeseung: next time, bring better arguments. and maybe better coffee.

Asshole, you muttered, smile betraying you.

You sighed, half-laughing, half-ready to throw your phone across the room. Then, against your better judgment, you saved his contact under HEESEUNG (DNI!) and went to bed smiling, furious about it the whole time.

You had never believed in curses until that day, the day of the presentation from Hell.

Because apparently, the gods of Academia had decided that watching you and Lee Heeseung crash and burn in front of an entire seminar room was peak entertainment.

Now, three days later, your list titled “10 Things I Hate About Lee Heeseung” had evolved into something far less poetic and far more deranged, forty-three bullet points of rage, complete with footnotes, timestamps, and the occasional profanity-laced rant in all caps.

You’d even taped a printout of his face on the cover of your notebook (mainly because you ran out of space to right more on the original one still taped above the list) a very unflattering picture from the campus newspaper, and scratched over it with black ink until it looked like some avant-garde art project about suffering.

Nothing like a cup of overpriced coffee and casual defamation, you muttered under your breath, nursing your latte as you sat in your usual corner of Bobst Library.

The paper cup was already sweating against your palm, caffeine burning through your veins as if it could erase the memory of his smug face saying, ‘You sure you want to go with that argument? It’s weak even for you.’

You’d wanted to throw your entire laptop at him. Instead, you’d smiled sweetly and said, “I’d rather be weak than wrong, but clearly, you wouldn’t know the difference.”

The class had gasped. The professor had sighed. And Heeseung had grinned. Now, every time you blinked, you saw that grin, the kind of grin that said I got under your skin, and you can’t stand it.

You took another sip of your drink, scrolling through your notes. The thesis outline was a disaster: chaotic annotations, mismatched citations, and a Google Sheet that looked like it had been color-coded by Satan himself.

Somewhere between the footnotes and the coffee stains, you realized the most humiliating part of all: he’d been right about a few of his critiques.

Just a few, though. Enough to make you furious about agreeing with him.

So you added another item to the list:

#44 — He’s annoyingly correct sometimes, and I hate that about him.

It wasn’t just that presentation. It was every presentation after that.

Because somehow, despite your mutual loathing, the professor thought your “chemistry” made your debates productive. She called it “healthy academic friction.” You called it hell in a PowerPoint.

Week after week, you found yourselves side by side again, debating utilitarian ethics, arguing over Kant versus Marx, and turning every discussion into an intellectual knife fight.

Heeseung would lean back in his chair, that lazy smirk tugging at his mouth, and say things like: “Your definition of moral relativism is convenient. You should trademark it.”

And you’d shoot back, “Maybe I will, since you love profiting off other people’s ideas.”

The class loved it. Your professor called it “dynamic engagement.” You called it slow emotional decay. Because the worst part wasn’t that he got under your skin, it was that sometimes, he made sense. And that, God help you, was almost attractive.

By the time Jaehyun, your sweet boyfriend, showed up at your table that afternoon, you’d already spiraled into the familiar academic delusion, where your laptop screen looked blurry from exhaustion and your thoughts felt like static.

“Hey, baby.”

You looked up to find him holding a smoothie in one hand and his backpack in the other, hair tousled like he’d just come from a jog. Business major, marketing minor, too kind for his own good.

He smiled at you, that soft, easy smile that always made your heart unclench.

“You’ve been here since morning, haven’t you?” he said, sliding into the seat across from you. “Did you even eat?”

You hummed, reaching for his smoothie straw. “Coffee counts.”

He gave you that look, the one that said he’d argue if he wasn’t too used to losing. “You’re gonna burn out, Y/N.”

You offered a dry smile. “I’ll burn out faster if I fail.”

He chuckled, brushing his thumb over your knuckles. “You won’t fail. You never do.”

You wanted to believe him. You really did. But the words “never do” suddenly reminded you of Heeseung, because that’s what people said about him.

And that reminder sat like a stone in your stomach.

“Was it that bad?” Jaehyun asked later, after you’d packed up your notes.

You hesitated. “You mean the presentation?”

“Yeah. I heard from someone in the class next door. They said it got… heated?”

You snorted, looking away. “That’s one word for it.”

Jaehyun smiled lightly, trying to coax the tension out of your shoulders. “You didn’t punch him, right?”

“Tempting, but no. I used my words like a civilized scholar.”

“That’s my girl,” he teased. “Always articulate, even in warfare.”

You grinned, because he was trying, and that softness of his had always been your weakness. But your mind, cruelly, flickered to the memory again, Heeseung standing beside you at the front of the room, his voice low and steady, the two of you volleying arguments back and forth like it was a blood sport.

He’d cornered you rhetorically, just enough to make your pulse quicken. You’d countered with a point sharp enough to draw metaphorical blood.

And when the professor finally stopped you both, he’d leaned down and whispered, “You make losing almost worth it.”

Almost.

You’d stared straight ahead, every nerve in your body awake.

Now, sitting across from Jaehyun, you forced a laugh that didn’t quite reach your eyes. “Yeah. Heated’s the word.”

He followed you home that evening, carrying your bag like he always did, talking about his internship, the new campaign he was planning, how excited he was for summer. His voice was calm, steady, dependable. Everything Heeseung’s wasn’t.

At your apartment, he set your bag down, opened the takeout boxes, and said, “I figured you’d forget dinner. Again.”

You smiled faintly, sitting cross-legged on the couch. “You know me too well.”

“Of course I do.” He sat beside you, passing you chopsticks. “So, how’s the thesis coming?”

You hesitated. “Exhausting. Heeseung’s… Heeseung.”

Jaehyun grinned. “The guy who argued with the professor about ethical relativism for twenty minutes?”

“That’s the one.”

“Sounds like you met your match.”

“God, don’t say that.” But you were smiling again, small and traitorous.

He nudged you. “Hey, maybe he pushes you because he sees potential.”

You blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged. “People only argue that hard when they care. You both clearly… care.”

You nearly choked on your noodles. “We don’t, no, he’s, ugh. He’s impossible.”

Jaehyun laughed, oblivious. “You always say that when you like someone a little bit.”

You went very still.

He reached over and tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear, his eyes soft. “Relax. I’m kidding.”

You forced a laugh, even though something cold unfurled in your stomach.

He didn’t know. Of course he didn’t. Because nothing had happened. But still, there was something about the way Heeseung looked at you across the seminar table, the way his voice dipped when he said your name, that made you feel like something had.

And that guiltm the quiet, heavy kind, was starting to eat at you.

After dinner, you both sat watching some mindless reality show. Jaehyun’s arm was draped around your shoulders, his fingers tracing lazy circles on your arm. You leaned into him because you wanted to feel steady again.

“This is nice,” he murmured. “You, me, no spreadsheets, no caffeine addiction.”

You smiled into his shoulder. “You make it sound like I’m a corporate intern, not a philosophy major.”

“Same thing.”

You laughed. He pressed a kiss to your temple, soft, familiar.

And yet, in that soft moment, your brain betrayed you again: Heeseung’s voice, low and mocking, saying, ‘You argue like you’re afraid of being wrong.’

You blinked it away, forcing yourself back into the present, into Jaehyun’s warmth.

“Sorry,” you murmured, pulling back slightly. “Just… brain’s still in study mode.”

He nodded, smiling even as a hint of worry crossed his face. “It’s okay. You’ve got a lot on your plate.”

You wanted to reach out, to tell him that it wasn’t him. That it was the damn project, and the rivalry that had turned into something you couldn’t quite name. That you didn’t mean to carry the ghost of another man into your living room.

But instead, you just squeezed his hand. Because Jaehyun was safe. And Heeseung was chaos.But your heart enjoyed the adrenaline of the thrill he gave you.

That night, when you got home, you opened your notebook again.

Page after page of messy handwriting, coffee smudges, and angry doodles, Heeseung’s name scribbled over, circled, underlined.

You traced the list with your finger. #12 had been “He breathes too loud.” #17: “Thinks sarcasm is a substitute for personality.” #38: “Smiles like he knows something I don’t.”

You added one more line, slow and deliberate: #45 — He ruins everything good. Even the people who don’t deserve it.

Then you stared at it for a long time, jaw tight, before closing the notebook and turning off the light. But as you lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, your phone buzzed once.

HEESEUNG(DNI):

Next week’s topic, moral responsibility under power imbalance. Try not to make me look too bad, yeah?

You didn’t need to ask who it was. You stared at the message until the screen dimmed, your pulse thrumming in your throat. Then, against your better judgment, you added a new note at the bottom of the list:

#46 — I hate that I want to reply.

The final presentation day came like a storm.

You’d dressed in your sharpest blazer, printed the slides three times, practiced until your throat ached. You weren’t nervous, not really, but the moment Heeseung walked in, something in your chest went tight. He looked infuriatingly calm, like the room belonged to him, like you belonged to the argument that was about to unfold.

He dropped into the seat beside you, tie perfectly straight, voice low enough for only you to hear. “Ready?”

“Born ready.”

He smiled, the corner of his mouth curving in that way that made your pulse flicker. “Let’s hope your argument was, too.”

You wanted to roll your eyes. You wanted to hate the way he smelled faintly like cedar and coffee. Instead, you stared ahead and told yourself that the heat in your neck was irritation, not anything else.

At first, it went fine. The two of you were balanced, almost graceful: he spoke, you followed; you countered, he adapted. The class was caught between awe and anticipation. It should’ve been perfect, it always almost was.

Until it wasn’t.

He cut in halfway through slide nine, voice steady, confident. “Oh, come on, Y/N,” he said, a hint of laughter beneath the words. “You can’t seriously think your theory holds without variance bias. That’s, what? freshman-level oversight?”

Your heart stuttered. Not because of the jab, but because he was smiling when he said it. Like this was foreplay. Like you were the only one who mattered in the room.

You forced a breath, the edges of your voice sharper than you meant. “Maybe if you actually read the data instead of coasting on charm, you’d see the difference.”

Something flickered behind his eyes, surprise, maybe. Hurt, maybe. He hid it with a lazy lean on the podium. “Some of us don’t need to read everything twice to understand it.”

The room fell quiet. You could hear your heartbeat in the silence.

You finished your part, each sentence mechanical, distant. But your hands trembled on the remote, and your throat burned with words you couldn’t say, You make me crazy. I hate that I care what you think. I hate that I see you.

When the polite applause came, you didn’t wait. You gathered your notes, spine stiff, and walked out before anyone could stop you.

You heard him behind you, his voice, softer this time, calling your name. You didn’t look back. Not until the sound of quick footsteps closed in, and a hand caught your wrist.

“You don’t always have to prove you’re smarter than me,” he said. It wasn’t mocking. Not this time. His voice was low, raw, like he’d been swallowing those words for weeks.

You turned slowly, your breath uneven. “Maybe if you weren’t handed everything, I wouldn’t have to.”

The line hit him harder than you expected. For once, Heeseung looked unsure, eyes flickering over your face like he was trying to read something that didn’t belong in the syllabus.

“I didn’t mean to humiliate you,” he said finally. His voice cracked just slightly, enough to sound human. “I just, I get caught up when it’s you.”

That last word hung there. You. It wasn’t the word itself, but how he said it, careful, quiet, like it meant too much.

You swallowed hard, trying to hold the glare, but your pulse betrayed you. “Don’t,” you whispered. “Don’t say things you don’t mean just because you feel bad.”

He shook his head. “You really think I don’t mean it?” He took a small step closer. You could see the tension in his jaw, the apology in his eyes that words could never cleanly hold. The hallway light hit his face just right, and suddenly he didn’t look like your rival anymore. Just a boy who’d spent four years hiding behind precision and ego, too proud to admit what was obvious to everyone else.

For a moment, you forgot to be angry. For a moment, you almost let him touch your face.

Then the thought of slide nine, of the laughter in his voice, the sting of the class watching, came crashing back. The ache hardened.

You pulled your hand free. “You don’t get to say that now.”

“Y/N—”

“No,” you said quietly, backing away. “You don’t get to look at me like that after what you said.”

The silence that followed was heavy, the kind that pressed between ribs. He opened his mouth, closed it again. And when you turned, the air between you trembled, a wound half-open, half-healed.

You walked away before he could see the first tear fall. But he didn’t move either, not until the echo of your footsteps faded completely, leaving him alone in the fluorescent quiet with the taste of everything he never said.

There were worse ways to ruin a week than crying in a university hallway because of Lee Heeseung. You told yourself that on repeat for the next two days, while pretending not to hear his name in class, while skipping the seat you always took beside him in the library, while ignoring the small white envelope someone had slipped onto your desk during seminar.

His handwriting was unmistakable, neat, angled, infuriatingly confident.

You left it there the whole lecture, staring straight ahead while your pulse thrummed in your ears. When class ended, you shoved it into your bag without opening it. You didn’t want to know what he had to say. You didn’t want to see his words and feel something again.

You lasted until Friday.

Inside wasn’t a letter, just a single sticky note, black ink on white paper, written in that maddeningly calm handwriting you’d memorized from every red-marked comment on your Google Docs.

We don’t have to hate each other. Let’s be civil. Coffee? Sunday, 4 p.m., Blue Bottle, Lafayette Street.

You stared at it for a long time before tossing it into the trash.

You picked it out again five minutes later.

You spent Saturday overanalyzing every word.

“Civil” — what did that mean?

“Coffee” — neutral, safe, casual, but written with a period, not a question mark. Was it really an invitation or a command?

And Sunday? He knew you hated studying on weekends. Was that deliberate? Was he deliberate?

By Sunday afternoon, you’d convinced yourself it wasn’t a date. It wasn’t even forgiveness. It was diplomacy. A truce. Two overachievers agreeing not to combust in public again.

Still, you changed your outfit three times.

You ended up in a cream sweater, dark jeans, and boots that clicked too sharply against the pavement as you walked. You didn’t bring your notes, but you did bring your pride, stuffed somewhere between your phone and your emergency concealer.

“Nothing like a cup of overpriced coffee and unresolved resentment,” you muttered under your breath as you pushed open the door.

The café smelled like roasted beans and quiet pretension. He was already there, of course he was, sitting by the window, sunlight painting his skin gold. His navy sweater looked soft, annoyingly so, and his hair fell just the right way over his eyes as he scrolled through his laptop.

You froze for half a second. He looked… human. Not the academic rival who made your blood boil, just a boy who’d stayed up too late grading his own perfection.

Then he looked up and smiled, and the spell broke.

“You came,” he said, standing just slightly, like you deserved a proper greeting. “Didn’t think you would.”

You crossed your arms. “You left me a note. Who does that? Are we twelve?”

He chuckled, gesturing to the empty chair across from him. “Apparently, it worked.”

You sat, dropping your bag onto the floor like a punctuation mark. “Let’s make this quick.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You always start conversations like that?”

“Only with people who make me cry in hallways.”

He flinched, small, barely visible, but it was there. You caught it, and for a split second, you hated yourself for noticing.

“Right,” he said quietly. “About that. I was, I went too far.”

You folded your arms tighter. “You think?”

“I just… sometimes I forget that not everything’s a competition.”

“That’s literally all you make it.”

“I know.” He met your gaze, and this time there was no smirk to hide behind. Just a raw honesty that made your chest feel uncomfortably tight. “That’s why I asked you here.”

You didn’t know how to respond. You’d built your entire script around hating him, not around him apologizing. So you looked away, muttering, “This doesn’t make us friends.”

He smiled faintly, almost shyly. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” The first twenty minutes were awkward. You stirred your coffee until the foam collapsed. He made polite small talk about class. You gave short answers that were supposed to end conversations but somehow didn’t.

Then, slowly, the tension shifted. He made a joke about your color-coded notes, “I swear you’re one sticker away from a full psychotic break.”

You snorted, despite yourself. “You alphabetize your citations. You have no right to talk.”

“Touché.” He grinned. “But mine at least look normal.”

“Normal?” you scoffed. “You literally color-code your pens.”

“That’s organization.”

“That’s a cry for help.”

The banter slipped back like muscle memory, sharp, familiar, addictive.

You teased him about his pretentious taste in coffee (“You pay eight dollars for bean water”), and he shot back, “I’d offer to buy you one, but you’d accuse me of privilege again.” You laughed, an actual laugh this time. The sound startled both of you.

After that, it got easier. You talked about professors who graded too harshly, about the smell of the psychology lab that no one could explain, about how the vending machine on the second floor only ever dispensed diet soda.

He told you about the time he accidentally called your mentor “Mom” in a meeting, and you laughed so hard you nearly spilled your drink. He laughed too, and it wasn’t that calculated, public kind of laugh you’d seen in class. It was real, unguarded, boyish.

Somewhere between all that laughter and teasing, you realized something horrifying: you were having fun.

You shouldn’t have been. But you were.

When you looked up mid-sentence, you caught him watching you, not with amusement or challenge, but with something warmer. Softer. Like he was memorizing you.

“What?” you asked, heat crawling up your neck. He blinked, looking away too quickly. “Nothing.”

“You were staring.”

“You were talking.”

“Same thing.”

He smiled, small and knowing. “You think I stare at everyone I talk to?”

You scoffed, flustered. “You’re impossible.”

“And yet you’re still here,” he murmured.

The air shifted, heavier, quieter, charged. You busied yourself with your drink, but your heart was drumming too loudly for you to taste anything.

When you finally glanced at your watch, it was almost six. You stood abruptly. “This doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

“Right,” he said, smiling like he already knew you were lying to yourself. “Just two people who hate each other a little less.”

You rolled your eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You’ve said worse.”

As you turned to leave, he called out, “Hey.” You looked back, hand on the door.

“Next time, I’ll buy the coffee.”

“There won’t be a next time,” you said automatically.

He only smiled. “We’ll see.”

That night, your phone buzzed.

A new message.

Heeseung: Still think I’m a rich asshole?

You stared at it for a full minute before typing back.

You: Yes.

A pause. Then —

Heeseung: Goodnight, rival.

You rolled your eyes, thumbs flying.

You: Don’t call me that.

No response.

You stared at the screen for longer than you’d admit, waiting for the typing bubbles that never appeared.

When you finally set the phone down, you realized your chest felt strangely hollow. Not angry. Not smug. Just, expectant.

Outside, the city hummed softly through your window, lights blinking like faraway stars. You told yourself it was just caffeine. Just the high of debate and intellectual adrenaline.

But deep down, you knew better. Because every time you closed your eyes, you still saw him, leaning across the café table, smile crooked, eyes warm, saying your name like it meant something new.

You could feel the distance before it had a name.

At first, it was just space, small, harmless things. The missed calls, the rescheduled dates, the way Jaehyun’s texts came slower, shorter, like ellipses that never quite closed.

Then it was the silences. The kind that didn’t come from anger, but from exhaustion. The kind where he’d sit beside you on the couch, scrolling through his phone, and you’d sit there too, close enough to touch, but miles apart in every other way.

And under it all was that quiet, gnawing guilt.

Because you knew why.

You thought about someone else too much.

You said you hated him, but your heart didn’t believe it.

It never did.

Jaehyun noticed before you did.

He noticed the way your tone changed when you said Heeseung’s name.

He noticed how your eyes flicked down when he asked how the project was going.

He noticed that you smiled, smiled, when you got a text late at night and swore it was “just your class group chat.”

He didn’t ask at first. He trusted you. You’d been together for two years, through finals and burnout, broken coffee machines and nights spent studying until dawn. He knew you better than anyone. At least, he used to.

Lately, you’d stopped talking at all.

It started small. A Thursday night, his apartment. You showed up late, still buzzing with caffeine and irritation, muttering about Heeseung’s impossible standards and his ridiculous new “efficiency chart.”

Jaehyun listened, like always, half-smiling, half-tired, until your rant trailed into silence. Then he said, quietly, “You talk about him a lot.”

You froze mid-sip. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly, but there was an edge there. “Just… you talk about him more than you used to.”

You blinked. “Because he’s annoying, Jaehyun. You know that. I’m venting.”

“I know,” he said. “It just… doesn’t sound like venting anymore.”

That stung. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He hesitated, then sighed. “It means I can tell when something, someone, is getting under your skin. And I think he has.”

You laughed, sharp and defensive. “You think I like him? Are you kidding me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Jaehyun looked at you then, really looked, and there was something in his eyes you’d never seen before. Something brittle. “I think you think about him,” he said slowly. “And I think you don’t realize how much.”

You scoffed. “So now I can’t even talk about my partner for class without being accused of cheating?”

He shook his head, jaw tight. “That’s not what I said.”

“Feels like it.”

“I said you think about him,” he repeated, voice rising a fraction. “That’s not the same thing, but maybe it’s worse.”

You set your cup down hard. “What is that even supposed to mean?”

“It means I watch you,” he said, exasperated. “I watch you light up when you talk about him, even when you’re mad. I watch you defend him when your friends complain about him. I watch you come here every night exhausted and still manage to bring up something he said.”

“That’s not fair—”

“It’s true!”

The word cracked through the room.

You stared at him. “You’re overreacting.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “Am I? You don’t tape pictures of people you hate.”

You went still.

He nodded once, grim. “Yeah. I saw it.”

“Jaehyun—”

“The list,” he said quietly. “The one on your wall. Ten Things I Hate About You. Real subtle. And the extended one in your notebook?”

You opened your mouth, but nothing came out.

“It’s not what you think,” you managed finally, voice small.

He laughed once, sharp and hollow. “Then what is it? A scrapbook?”

“It’s a joke,” you said quickly. “It’s stupid. It’s—”

“Yeah,” he interrupted. “It is. Stupid. And childish. And maybe even cruel.”

You flinched. “You’re making this sound worse than it is.”

“I don’t have to make it sound like anything,” he said, pacing now, running a hand through his hair. “You already did that yourself.”

“Jaehyun, please, stop. You’re twisting it.”

“No,” he said, turning sharply. “You are. You’re twisting everything. You’re twisting how you look at him like you don’t even realize it. You talk about how much you hate him, but your eyes say something else. You think I haven’t noticed?”

Your chest felt tight, your throat burning. “You’re imagining things.”

He barked out a humorless laugh. “Right. I’m imagining the texts you hide, the late nights, the way you flinch when his name comes up. I’m imagining the smile you try to bite back when you read your stupid project messages.”

“Stop,” you said, voice trembling.

“Why? Does it sound too close to the truth?”

You stared at him, tears stinging. “You think I’d ever do that to you? After everything?”

He shook his head slowly, something breaking in his expression. “No,” he said softly. “I think you already did, just not in the way you think.”

You swallowed, the room spinning. “You’re being unfair.”

“I’m being honest.”

Silence. It was unbearable. He finally spoke again, voice quiet, wrecked. “I don’t think you cheated, Y/N. I think you fell in love with the idea of someone who challenges you. Someone who fights you. Someone who sees you the way you’ve always wanted to be seen.” He exhaled, long and shaky. “And I think you stopped seeing me a long time ago.”

Your lip trembled. “Jaehyun—”

He shook his head. “Don’t. You don’t have to say it. I already know.”

“Please,” you whispered. “Don’t do this.”

“I’m not,” he said, eyes glassy now. “You are.”

You took a step forward, desperate. “I only have eyes for you.”

He gave a soft, bitter laugh that sounded like the end of something. “Yeah,” he said. “Right.”

The words hung there, trembling between you.

Something inside you splintered.

He exhaled again, quieter this time. “You don’t have to explain it. I get it. I really do. You can’t control what you feel.”

“Jaehyun, please, don’t go.”

He smiled sadly. “You already did.”

The silence that followed felt endless.

You didn’t cry until he closed the door, quietly, carefully, like he still didn’t want to wake you from the wreckage.

And when you finally did, it wasn’t loud. It was the kind of crying that came from your ribs, quiet, trembling, raw. Because for the first time, you realized you’d lost something good. And worse, you weren’t even sure you wanted it back.

You block him before you can change your mind.

Not Jaehyun, Heeseung. It happens in the half-light of evening, your reflection ghosted on your phone screen, thumb trembling over his name. You stare at it like it might blink first.

There’s no unread message. No missed call. Nothing waiting. He hasn’t texted since the presentation feedback last week, nice revisions, good job, rival. But that doesn’t stop you from checking. Over and over.

Every time your screen lights up, a part of you hopes it’s him. Every time it isn’t, something small inside you sours.

So you do it. Block.

The gray icon disappears, and with it, every trace of his number. The chat thread turns to dust, all those sarcastic quips, snarky comments, inside jokes born from too many nights editing Google Slides together. Gone in a second.

Silence.

Your chest burns like you swallowed static. You don’t breathe until your phone screen goes black again, until there’s no chance of him replying, until the quiet presses so hard it becomes a sound of its own.

You shove the phone into your tote bag before you can regret it, before you can start imagining what he’d say if he found out.

(You blocked me? Wow. Guess I win after all.)

(Or maybe he wouldn’t say anything.)

That thought hurts worse.

You switch on Do Not Disturb like it might mute your thoughts too, then head for the subway. You don’t even know where you’re going until you’re already there.

Bobst.

It’s muscle memory, your body moving through the gates, your ID card beep echoing faintly, the scent of old books and burnt espresso wrapping around you like something half-familiar. The third floor. Near the outlets. Your spot.

You’ve always liked it there, tucked behind the concrete pillar, half-hidden from view, where you could disappear for hours under fluorescent light. No one ever takes it because it smells faintly like dust and caffeine and loneliness.

You drop your bag. The thunk echoes. Open your laptop. The screen flares to life, sterile and white. Blinking cursor. Blink. Blink. Blink. It almost sounds like a heartbeat. You’re supposed to be finishing your paper. You’re supposed to be fine.

But Jaehyun’s voice won’t leave your head. “You don’t tape pictures of people you hate.”

And your own voice, brittle, defensive, “It’s not like that.”

And then the silence that followed. The kind that settled like ash after something burns out. Your fingers hover over the keyboard. You try to type. You really do. But every word feels hollow, meaningless, tinny against the white noise of your thoughts. You told him it was bullshit. You told him you loved him. You told him Heeseung was nothing.

And maybe, maybe you even believed it when you said it. Maybe you wanted to. But sitting here now, under the too-bright lights of the library, your reflection warped in your laptop screen, you realize how quiet it’s been since you blocked him.

Too quiet. Too still. Heeseung used to fill the silence. Not kindly, not gently, but completely.

With sarcasm, with competition, with that sharp glint in his eye when he’d say, You missed a citation, or You’re getting sloppy, rival. With laughter that slipped out between arguments, too quick to catch. With tension that lived in the air like a current, humming beneath every word.

Now there’s nothing. Just the hum of the outlets beneath your table. The faint buzz of someone’s pencil scratching behind you. The hollow ache of space he used to take up without even meaning to. You glance at your phone again, knowing what you’ll find: Nothing. No missed calls, no messages, no notifications, just the faint ghost of his contact name still flickering behind your eyes.

You tell yourself you did the right thing. That cutting him off is cleaner. That silence is easier than confusion. That love isn’t supposed to feel like an argument you can’t stop having.

But the cursor keeps blinking, steady and cruel, and all you can think about is how much you miss the noise. How much you miss him.

And how blocking someone doesn’t make them leave. It just means they live somewhere quieter, in your head, in the pauses between sentences, in the silence you tried so hard to escape.

The library’s nearly empty when you realize you’re crying.

Not the cinematic kind, no trembling lip, no single tear gliding down your cheek like a poetic tragedy. It’s the ugly, silent kind. The kind that sneaks up on you mid-sentence, salt water catching in your throat until you can’t swallow around it anymore. The kind that leaves your sleeve damp and your heart hollowed out.

You don’t even remember what triggered it. Maybe a stray sentence in your draft. Maybe the memory of Jaehyun’s voice, tired and heavy. Or maybe just the sound of your own breathing echoing too loud in the emptiness. You try to hold it in, to blink fast, breathe steady, pretend your body isn’t betraying you, but it’s useless. You press the heel of your palm to your eyes, like you could physically push the emotion back inside, but it spills through anyway, quiet and relentless.

That’s when you hear it. Footsteps. Soft. Hesitant. Familiar. And somehow, you know. Of course you do. You don’t need to look up. Your body recognizes the rhythm before your brain does. Of course it’s him.

“Heeseung,” you whisper, his name catching like a splinter in your throat.

For a second, there’s nothing, just the sound of the outlets humming, the air conditioner sighing. Then comes the scrape of a chair pulled out beside you. He doesn’t say anything, no smirk, no comment, none of the sharp edges you’ve learned to brace for. Just the quiet rustle of fabric as he sits.

You keep your eyes on the table, because looking at him feels dangerous. He doesn’t touch you. Doesn’t try to. He just sits there, elbows resting on the desk, gaze flicking between your laptop and your trembling hands like he’s trying to measure the damage without making it worse.

For a moment, you both just breathe. The world narrows to that, breathing, blinking, existing. The hum of the outlets fills the space. The city beyond the glass blurs into streaks of orange and white, like watercolor bleeding at the edges. Somewhere below, a siren wails and fades. Someone laughs too loud on the first floor. Life goes on, indifferent, distant.

Then, finally, his voice, soft enough you almost miss it.

“You know,” he says, “you’re the only person I can’t predict.”

You let out a shaky laugh, wiping at your eyes with your sleeve. “That’s because you think too highly of yourself.”

He smiles, small, real, a flicker of warmth cutting through the chill in the air. It’s the kind of smile that starts in his eyes and doesn’t need words to finish. For the first time in weeks, the silence isn’t cruel. It’s gentle. Like a truce neither of you expected but both needed.

You stare at the table, tracing a crack in the wood with your fingertip, before your voice breaks the quiet again, soft, cracked open. “I feel guilty, Heeseung. So fucking guilty.”

Your throat burns, your eyes sting. “I fucked up, didn’t I?”

He doesn’t answer. He just shifts, the movement so subtle you barely notice until his chair scrapes closer. Then his arm is there, hovering, hesitant, like he’s asking without words. You don’t stop him. You don’t want to.

When his arms finally wrap around you, it’s cautious at first. Then tighter, steadier, an anchor you didn’t know you were reaching for. You let yourself fall into it. Into him.

The scent of his hoodie, clean detergent and coffee and something that’s just him, floods your senses. Your forehead presses to his shoulder, tears soaking through the fabric. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away. He just holds you.

He doesn’t say it’s okay. He doesn’t say I told you so. He just lets you cry, steady and real, until the ache in your chest starts to ebb.

It’s the first time you’ve ever let him. The first time you’ve let anyone. When you finally pull back, your eyes are swollen, your nose red, your breath uneven. The laptop screen glows quietly between you, the cursor still blinking like a metronome for everything unsaid.

Your voice comes out a whisper, small and breaking. “He and I... we didn’t officially break up yet.”

Heeseung’s eyes soften instantly, the kind of look that hurts to meet. “Y/n…”

You shake your head too fast, panic bubbling up. “No, Heeseung, you don’t get it.” The words tumble out, frantic, tangled. “I love him. I, I love Jaehyun.”

The name tastes bitter now, but you force it out anyway, like it might make everything cleaner if you just say it aloud.

“I’ve got to go,” you breathe, already reaching for your things.

You shove your laptop into your bag, ignoring how your hands shake, ignoring the way his gaze follows every movement, quiet, unblinking, almost pleading.

When you stand, your throat aches from holding back everything you don’t say. Thank you. I’m sorry. I wish it wasn’t you. You walk away before the tears can start again, before your heart can decide to stay. Maybe you mean it when you say you love Jaehyun. Maybe you want to.

But your chest feels hollow, and your pulse skips in the wrong direction. Because somewhere deep down, your heart already knows, the ache isn’t for him anymore.

It’s for the boy sitting behind you in the half-lit library, his hoodie damp with your tears, watching you leave with his heart in your hands and your name still trembling on his lips.

You text Jaehyun first. Then again. And again.

I’m sorry. I was stressed. It didn’t mean anything. Can we please talk?

Each message feels smaller than the one before, like you’re shrinking every time you hit send. You stare at the typing indicator for what feels like forever, three bouncing dots that promise salvation, or maybe just an ending. They disappear.

No reply.

You leave the phone on the table, pretend you’re not waiting. Pretend you’re reading, studying, breathing. But every few minutes, your hand drifts back to the screen like muscle memory. Still nothing.

Two hours later, your restraint cracks.

Jaehyun, please. I just need you to understand.

You don’t know what exactly you want him to understand, that it wasn’t cheating, not really? That Heeseung’s name had just been on your tongue too long and Jaehyun had finally noticed? That you never meant for things to blur the way they did?

He doesn’t answer that night. Or the next morning. Or the one after that. He just leaves you on read, and you’re not sure what hurts more.

When his reply finally comes, it’s short and almost kind, which somehow hurts worse than anger.

I think we need space.

Space. The word feels sterile. Scientific. Like distance could be measured, quantified, scheduled into existence. You reread it again and again, hoping the meaning might shift if you blink fast enough. It doesn’t. You call once. He doesn’t pick up. Twice, straight to voicemail. By the third time, your own voice sounds unfamiliar when you hang up, small and strained. You stop calling.

Because there’s only so long you can talk to static. In the silence that follows, the truth begins to settle like dust, gentle, but suffocating. Maybe it isn’t love anymore. Maybe it’s just the memory of it. The comfort of being wanted, of knowing who you are when someone’s looking back. You keep telling yourself you miss him, but really, you just miss not being confused.

So, you bury yourself in work. You fill every minute with motion until you forget what stillness feels like. You go to class early. Sit in the back. Pack up before the bell. You eat lunch in corridors, study in cafés you never liked before. You avoid the library completely. When you hear his voice, Jaehyun’s, echo down the hall, you turn in the opposite direction, pretending to check your phone, pretending your pulse doesn’t jump every time.

And still, somehow, Heeseung finds you. He always does. By Thursday, he corners you outside your lecture hall, not dramatically, not like a scene from a movie, but quietly. Almost gently.

He stands close enough that you can smell coffee and clean laundry on him, one hand braced against the cool marble wall just beside your shoulder. His voice is low, threaded with something like concern.

“Why are you avoiding me?”

You don’t look up. “I’m not.”

He raises an eyebrow, expression unreadable. “You switched lab sections.”

“Coincidence.”

“You haven’t been in the group chat for a week.”

“Bad Wi-Fi.”

“Y/n.”

Your name in his voice is dangerous, too soft, too human. It pulls something loose in your chest. You sigh, eyes fixed on the floor. “I just need time.”

He studies you, long, silent seconds that feel like being seen and dissected all at once. Then, finally, he nods. Steps back. The sudden space between you feels colder than it should. “Fine,” he says after a beat. “But midterms are next week. We can at least study. Neutral ground.”

It’s not really a question. He’s always been good at pretending things are choices when they aren’t. You hesitate, teeth worrying your bottom lip. “Heeseung—”

“Library. Friday. Six.”

His tone softens, a small half-smile ghosting across his face. “I’ll even buy you coffee.”

You should say no. You almost do. But guilt tastes a lot like loneliness, and you’re tired of feeling both. So you nod. “Fine.”

Friday comes too fast. You tell yourself it’s just studying. Just academics, caffeine, and pen caps chewed raw. But your hands shake when you pack your bag anyway.

You arrive first, take the same seat by the window you’ve always taken. The campus glows gold outside, the sun dipping behind buildings. The air smells like burnt espresso and the start of regret. Heeseung slides into the seat across from you, laptop already open, smile easy. “You look less homicidal today.”

You roll your eyes, opening your notes. “Don’t ruin it.”

It almost feels normal, almost. Until you feel it. That prickling sense of being watched. You glance up. And your stomach drops. Jaehyun. He’s standing across the atrium, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable. He looks… tired. Not angry. Not cold. Just hurt in a way that makes your chest ache.

You freeze. The world narrows until it’s just the space between you and him. The hum of the espresso machine fades. The chatter dulls. You push back your chair so fast it scrapes the floor. “Jaehyun—”

His gaze flickers. For half a second, something like hesitation crosses his face. Then he looks away, turns his head, says something to Taesan beside him, and walks out.

No glance back. No second chance. Just gone. You stand there, motionless, pulse thudding in your ears like a countdown you missed the start of. When you finally turn back, Heeseung’s already watching you. He doesn’t speak, not immediately. His expression is calm, but his jaw tightens once, sharp and silent. You don’t need him to say anything; the air between you says enough.

The rest of the study session happens in near silence, the kind that hums with everything unsaid, louder than any fight could be. Pages turn. Pens scratch. Outside, the sky shifts from gold to gray. You don’t finish the equation. You don’t finish anything.

The library had emptied hours ago, reduced to the faint hum of vending machines and the scratch of highlighters. You and Heeseung had claimed your usual table by the window, the one near the dying ficus and the outlet that only half-worked.

Stacks of notes had given way to coffee cups, and coffee cups to the kind of comfortable silence that only comes from exhaustion. For once, you weren’t arguing. Not about citations, not about phrasing, not about who deserved more credit. You were just… there. Two overworked students sharing the same patch of dim yellow light, trying not to fall apart.

Heeseung was slouched over his laptop, a pen twirling loosely between his fingers. His hoodie was pulled up halfway, hair messier than usual, and you hated that it looked good on him. You hated even more how easily he focused, eyes darting between pages like he was inhaling information.

“Another coffee,” he mumbled at one point, voice low and wrecked with fatigue.

You didn’t look up. “Finish the problem set first.”

He grinned, that sharp, knowing grin that always made you want to roll your eyes and lean in at the same time. “Bossy.”

“Efficient,” you corrected.

Hours passed like that, trading notes, muttering equations, occasionally bumping elbows. You told yourself it was fine. It was neutral ground. Just two people trying not to fail midterms.

But around 2 a.m., the air shifted. The room was too quiet, the lamps too warm. You could hear your own breathing, and his, slow, steady, dangerously close.

His shoulder brushed yours again, lingering a beat too long. Your pulse stuttered, but you didn’t pull away. A few minutes later, his pen rolled out of his hand. You turned your head just in time to see him blink once, twice, and then his eyes fluttered closed. His head tipped sideways and landed squarely against your shoulder.

You froze. Completely. Lee Heeseung. NYU’s golden boy. The boy who corrected your grammar mid-presentation, who once wrote “citation?” in the margins of your love poem draft just to get a rise out of you. And now he was asleep against you, breathing evenly, hair tickling your jaw.

You could move. You should move. You didn’t. The silence felt almost holy, the kind that hums instead of hurts. Outside, the city blinked in muted light. Inside, everything slowed: the rhythm of his breathing, the weight of his head, the strange, impossible calm in your chest.

For the first time in weeks, the world wasn’t demanding anything from you. No debates, no comparisons, no Jaehyun, no guilt. Just warmth. Just him. You told yourself it didn’t mean anything, that it was just exhaustion, proximity, gravity. But something in your chest whispered otherwise.

He stirred around 3:15, blinking awake, voice gravelly from sleep. “Did I—” He yawned softly. “Did I fall asleep on you?”

You kept your eyes on your notes. “Obviously.”

He rubbed his eyes, a small smile tugging at his lips. “You didn’t push me off.”

“Because I was annotating.”

“Sure.” His tone was lazy, teasing, but his gaze lingered, studying you like you were the only equation he couldn’t quite solve.

Silence again. Then, quieter, almost uncertain: “You don’t really hate me, do you?”

The words hit like static. You looked up, at the tired crease between his brows, the tentative glint in his eyes. The same boy who used to make your blood boil now looked almost human.

You swallowed. “Go to sleep, Heeseung.”

He smiled faintly. “That’s not a no.”

You rolled your eyes, but your heart was a mess, a mix of exhaustion, fondness, and something you didn’t dare name. You packed your bag, muttered something about seeing him tomorrow, and left before he could say anything else.

At home, your apartment felt too quiet. The city noise through the window only made it worse.

You opened your notebook, the one with the taped, crumpled picture of him and the messy handwriting that said 10 things I hate about you.

Your pen hovered over the page for a long moment. Then, almost against your will, you wrote:

8. You’re handsome.

You hesitated, then added, smaller, like a secret you weren’t ready to say out loud, a tiny heart beside it. Just one. Small enough that you could pretend it wasn’t there. You closed the book quickly after that, as if shutting it fast enough could erase the confession bleeding through the paper. But it didn’t. The ink smudged a little, and you knew, you were already too far gone.

You woke up to pounding on your door. The kind that wasn’t casual, wasn’t friendly. The kind that made your stomach drop before you even opened your eyes.

“Y/N,” Jaehyun’s voice came through, sharp but trembling at the edges. “Open the door.”

You dragged yourself out of bed, hair still messy from the library, eyes gritty with half-slept guilt. The clock on your nightstand blinked 9:47. Saturday. Too early for this kind of dread.

When you opened the door, Jaehyun was already halfway in, hoodie thrown on backwards, jaw tight, eyes red. You could tell he hadn’t slept either.

“Jaehyun, what—”

“Did you stay up all night with him?” he cut in.

The question hung there. Not shouted, but it didn’t need to be. It was enough to pull the air out of the room.

“I— we were studying,” you said, instantly hating how small your voice sounded. “We have midterms next week, and—”

“Don’t.” His laugh was hollow. “Don’t insult me with that.”

You froze. He was looking at you like he didn’t recognize you anymore.

“Do you know what it’s like,” he said, voice low, “to sit in class and watch the person I love light up when she’s arguing with another guy? To listen to her talk about him every other sentence? How smart he is, how infuriating, how unfair, like he’s the center of your damn universe.”

You flinched. “That’s not—”

“You don’t realize, Y/N.” His eyes met yours, sharp but breaking. “You talk about him like he’s yours.”

It felt like someone had split you open from the inside. Because he was wrong, he had to be wrong. You hated Heeseung. You hated him so much you made a list about it. You swore you’d never let yourself care. But even as Jaehyun stood there, waiting for you to deny it, your throat stayed closed.

You couldn’t say no. You couldn’t say anything. The silence between you stretched, suffocating. Finally, Jaehyun exhaled, like he’d been holding his breath for months. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Jaehyun—”

“I need space.” He stepped back, rubbing his face like it hurt to look at you. “I love you, Y/N. But I can’t keep loving someone who’s already halfway gone.”

Your breath hitched, he sighed, tears brimming in his eyes, mirroring the ones swimming in yours, “I think…” a pause, “I think, we’re done.”

And before you could reach for him, before you could find the right words, the door clicked shut behind him.

The apartment felt colder than usual. You stood in the middle of your room for what felt like hours, staring at the mess of papers, textbooks, and empty coffee cups. The silence pressed against your chest. Your eyes drifted to the wall, to the stupid, taped-up list that had started as a joke and turned into a confession.

The picture of Heeseung stared back at you, half-scribbled over with ink, the edges curling from where you’d stabbed it with thumbtacks too many times. Something in you snapped.

You ripped it down in one brutal motion. The tape tore, the paper crumpled, and for a second it felt good, destructive, satisfying. You stood there, breathing hard, staring at the wrinkled mess in your hands.

You could throw it away. You should throw it away. That would make sense.

But your fingers wouldn’t move. Because underneath all the anger and the ache, you knew it wasn’t just a hate list anymore. It was a timeline. A record of everything you’d felt and everything you hadn’t wanted to admit. You folded the paper carefully, almost tenderly, and tucked it into your drawer.

Then you sat on your bed, phone face-down, and let yourself cry until your throat hurt. You hated him. You hated yourself more for knowing that wasn’t true. You sat there for a long time after. Not moving. Not crying. Just… listening. To the sound of Jaehyun’s footsteps fading down the hall, the elevator doors sliding closed, the hum of the city pressing in from the window like a reminder that life was still happening somewhere else.

You thought maybe if you stayed still enough, the world would rewind, that he’d knock again, softer this time, and you’d open the door and say all the things you should’ve said ten minutes ago. But the only thing that came back was your own breathing.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic. It was just grief, the quiet kind, the kind that settles in the bones. You sat on the edge of your bed until your hands started to shake. Not from cold. From the realization that you’d been waiting for this, for him to see what you refused to admit.

You didn’t mean to fall out of love. You just… tripped somewhere along the way, and when you looked up, Heeseung was there. Smirking. Challenging. Alive in a way that made everything else feel dull.

You wanted to hate him for that. You wanted to hate yourself more. Your phone buzzed once, a notification, a cruel reminder that the world didn’t care about your personal disasters. You flipped it over without looking. You couldn’t take more words tonight.

Your eyes drifted back to the list again. The torn corner, the ghost of the tape still clinging to the wall. You could almost see it there, the half-smiling photo of him from your first presentation, his handwriting scrawled in red ink next to yours. “Respectfully, you’re wrong.” You’d written “Respectfully, I don’t care.”

Maybe that was where it started. Maybe that was the first time someone had looked at you like your mind was something worth arguing with. You picked up the list again. The wrinkles smoothed a little under your thumbs. The ink was bleeding slightly, from your tears, probably. You traced over the last line you wrote, the one that shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did.

8. You’re handsome. The little heart beside it looked ridiculous now. Childish. Honest.

You folded the paper once. Twice. Tucked it in your drawer like a secret you couldn’t destroy. Then, almost without meaning to, you reached for your phone. There was a text from Heeseung. Just one. Sent an hour ago, before the pounding at your door. You’d unblocked him that morning, debating until your heart practically ached for you to do it.

heeseung: made it home?

You stared at it for a long time. Three words, simple and harmless, and yet they undid you more than Jaehyun’s entire speech. Because Heeseung shouldn’t have cared. He wasn’t supposed to. But he did. And you wanted, terribly, for that to mean nothing. You typed a reply, erased it, typed again.

yeah. thanks.

You hit send before you could stop yourself. The message bubble sat there, too small for everything you wanted to say. When his reply came, a quiet between the storm brewing inside you.

good. get some sleep.

You blocked him again.

You turned off your phone and pressed it face down on the nightstand like it was evidence. You lay back in bed, staring at the ceiling. The world felt heavy, blurred at the edges. Somewhere between the ache and the exhaustion, you realized you weren’t crying for Jaehyun anymore. You were crying because Heeseung’s voice had sounded like concern. Because his “good” felt like something dangerously close to home.

And because you finally understood: you hadn’t lost Jaehyun. You’d already been falling for someone else.

You didn’t go to class for six days. The first two days, you tell yourself it’s just space. Space for him. Space for you. Space to make sense of the mess that’s become your life.

By day three, you start avoiding the mirror. You look at your phone screen instead, at the text bubble that’s been hovering for hours: Seen. No reply. The words you sent, I was irrational, I’m sorry, can we please talk? sit there like something dead and unburied.

You try again the next morning. And again that night. Different variations of the same plea, all met with silence. The more you type, the more your sentences crumble into nonsense. I didn’t mean it, I didn’t choose him, I don’t even know what this is anymore. Delete. Rewrite. Send anyway.

By Thursday, you’ve gone through half a box of tissues and all your self-respect.

You stop going to class. Stop responding to Megan’s messages. The curtains stay closed, air stale and heavy with the smell of old coffee and something sweeter, his hoodie still draped over the back of your chair. You’ve been meaning to give it back for weeks, but now it just sits there like an accusation.

The first night you dream about him, he’s not even doing anything. Just standing at the edge of the subway platform, staring straight ahead. You call his name, but he doesn’t turn. You wake up sweating, pulse racing, throat tight like you’d been screaming.

You tell yourself you deserve this.

You chose this. You let someone else walk into your head, rearrange the furniture, and now you can’t find the exit.

Your inbox overflowed, your phone buzzed endlessly, Heeseung, Megan, even your professors, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. Every time you rolled over, your brain echoed with Jaehyun’s words: You talk about him like he’s yours.

You weren’t sure which part hurt more, that it was over, or that he might’ve been right.

By the seventh morning, your curtains were still closed, your hair was still unwashed, and your heart still hadn’t shut up.

The week had passes in a blur of half-eaten takeout and unwashed hair. You scroll aimlessly through old photos, Central Park in spring, museum dates, that terrible couple selfie outside Bobst, and realize that the thing you’re mourning might not even be him. It’s the idea of what it felt like to be loved so easily.

You’re crying before you notice it. The kind of quiet crying that sneaks up, slow and soundless, until you’re gasping for air. That’s when the door bangs open.

“Okay, no.” Megan’s standing there in ripped jeans, eyeliner sharp enough to cut glass. She takes one look at you, puffy eyes, old hoodie, comforter cocoon, and exhales through her nose. “You’re not rotting in here over a boy.”

You blink, sniff. “I’m not—”

“Please. You look like a Victorian ghost who died waiting for a text back.”

You groan, shoving your face into your pillow. “Megs, please. Just… not today.”

“Not any more days,” she says, yanking the comforter off. “You’ve had your sad montage. Now it’s makeover time.”

You glare at her, but she’s already rifling through your closet like she owns the place. “You’re not serious.”

“Oh, I’m dead serious.”

“Megan–”

“Okay,” she said, hands on hips, scanning your tragic state. “This is sad. Even for you.”

You groaned into your pillow. “Go away.”

“Nope.” She yanked your blanket off like a villain. “You’ve been moping for a week. You need sunlight. Or tequila.”

“I don’t want sunlight or tequila.”

Megan tilted her head. “Come on. Nothing a few drinks can’t make you forget. Well—” she grinned, “—at least for a few hours. Then the hangover makes you forget the rest.”

You stared at her blankly.

“Y/N,” she said softly. “You can’t just let him live rent-free in your head. Let’s get you out.”

You sighed. “One drink.”

“Perfect,” she said, already raiding your closet. “And you’re wearing this.”

It wasn’t a dress, it was a weapon, black, tiny, scandalous, hugging every inch of you like it wanted revenge. Megan curled your hair, fixed your lipstick, spritzed perfume on your collarbone like she was anointing you for war.

The bass hits before you even reach the door. That low, thrumming pulse that rattles in your ribs, vibrating through the thin November air. Someone’s already spilled beer on the steps, and the smell of cheap vodka hangs heavy as you climb up after Megan, one hand gripping the railing, the other clutching your phone like a lifeline.

You tell yourself you’ll only stay an hour. Two drinks, maybe three if they’re weak. Enough to pretend you’re fine, not enough to feel anything real.

The door swings open and you’re swallowed whole, heat, sound, bodies pressed too close. Someone shouts Megan’s name, and suddenly she’s gone, swallowed by the crowd, her laughter trailing behind her like glitter.

You stand there for a moment, coat still on, eyes scanning faces you half-know. It’s too bright, too loud, too much. But maybe that’s the point.

“Loosen up,” Megan’s voice echoes in your head. You try. You really do.

There’s something oddly poetic about heartbreak under disco lights. You lean against the kitchen counter, watching amber liquid pour into red cups, someone shouting about shots. A girl with winged eyeliner and a broken heel stumbles past, laughing. The song changes, something pop, something everyone knows the words to, and the room roars in unison.

You smile, even laugh once. It feels weird, like wearing someone else’s mouth. When a guy from your sociology class offers to make you a drink, you nod. The cup he hands you is sweeter than expected, the burn delayed until it hits your throat. It makes you dizzy in the nicest way.

By your third drink, the edges blur. You stop checking your phone. You stop caring that your mascara’s probably smudged. For a moment, you forget the list taped to your wall. The boy with soft brown eyes who stopped texting. The other boy whose name you can’t stop hearing in your own head.

Nothing like a cup of overpriced coffee and a few reckless choices to remind you you’re still alive, right? You laugh at your own joke. It’s not even funny.

Someone spills beer near your shoes and apologizes profusely. You wave it off, muttering something that could be “it’s fine” or “I’m fine.” It doesn’t matter. The room spins anyway.

That’s when you step outside. The backyard’s colder than you expected, the late fall wind slicing through your dress. You lean against the porch railing, half-empty cup dangling from your hand, the other arm wrapped tight around yourself. The sky above New York is the usual kind of disappointing, greyish-black, no stars, just the faint buzz of city light.

You close your eyes. Just for a second. The music fades into a dull hum behind you, and all that’s left is the ache in your chest, the one that never really went away. You think about Jaehyun. His voice when he said space. You think about Heeseung. His voice when he said you don’t really hate me, do you?

You hated that you thought about Heeseung. You press your fingers to your temples, trying to exorcise the thought of him. It doesn’t work. You didn’t notice him until his shadow fell over yours.

“Didn’t think I’d find you here,” he said.

You freeze. That voice, low, familiar, entirely unwelcome, is the one thing you’d prayed not to hear tonight.

He’s standing a few feet away, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, curls damp from the mist. Heeseung looks out of place here, too clean-cut for the chaos of a frat party, too composed for a night built on ruin. You blink once, twice, wondering if you’re imagining him. But then he moves closer, and the air shifts. Your chest clenched.

Of course he was here. He was always here, at every turning point, like the universe refused to give you a break.

Heeseung leaned against the railing, dressed too casually to be that unfairly good-looking. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, his hair pushed back, a drink in his hand. He looked at you like he’d been searching for you all night. You looked away, trying to sound unaffected. “Don’t you have someone else to charm?”

“I was looking for you.”

You scoffed. “Why?”

“Because you’ve been ghosting me,” he said simply. “And I don’t like being ghosted.”

You laughed, but it came out wrong. “Poor golden boy. Someone finally said no to you?”

His smile faltered. “What’s wrong with you?”

That broke something open.

You stood, a little unsteady from the alcohol, eyes burning. “You want to know what’s wrong with me? You made me break up with him.”

Heeseung froze. “What?”

You laughed, half-drunk, half-angry. “He thought I was cheating on him. And I couldn’t even argue, Heeseung, because I didn’t know if he was wrong.”

The words hit the air like shrapnel. You hated how quiet he went. You stared at him, eyes glassy, voice trembling. “You made me ruin something good. You made me—” You choked, pressing a hand to your chest. “I don’t even know what you did to me.”

He set his drink down carefully, stepping closer. “Y/N.”

“Don’t.” You stumbled back a little. “You don’t get to pity me.”

“I’m not pitying you.” His tone softened, his eyes dark in the glow of the string lights. “You don’t deserve that.”

His hand lifted, hesitant, and then his fingers brushed your cheek, barely there, a touch that made you stop breathing.

You hated the way your body leaned into it before your mind could stop you.

The bass from inside thumped faintly through the walls. You could smell the smoke on his clothes, the faint sweetness of his cologne. He looked at you like you were something fragile, and it made your chest ache.

“Heeseung,” you whispered, meaning it as a warning.

It didn’t sound like one.

“Tell me to stop,” he said quietly.

You didn’t.

The night felt stretched too thin, music pulsing through the walls, laughter spilling from the kitchen, the scent of beer and sweat clinging to the air. Somewhere inside, someone was shouting the lyrics to a song you used to love. You could barely hear it over the sound of your own heartbeat.

Heeseung’s hand was still hovering near your face, not quite touching now, like he was afraid you’d vanish if he did. His expression wasn’t smug, wasn’t teasing, just open in a way you’d never seen before. It terrified you.

“I said don’t,” you whispered again, but softer this time, like you didn’t mean it.

He swallowed, voice almost lost beneath the bass. “Then tell me what you do want.”

You hated that you didn’t have an answer.

For a moment neither of you moved. The string lights flickered above, the soft hum of a generator filling the silence. You could see the faint cut on his knuckle, a paper slice from the night you’d fought over formatting. You remembered teasing him about being dramatic. He’d smiled, said, only with you.

Now that same boy stood inches away, breathing like every inhale hurt.

“You shouldn’t have come,” you said.

He gave a small, humorless laugh. “I told myself that too. Every night since you disappeared.”

Your throat tightened. “You didn’t have to look for me.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

Something in his tone made your knees weaken, not pleading, not desperate, just true. The kind of truth that left no room to hide. You took a step back, but the railing met your spine. Heeseung didn’t move closer, yet somehow the space between you still shrank. The air felt heavier, warmer, the buzz of the party fading until it was just the two of you and the sound of your breath.

“Don’t do this,” you whispered.

“Do what?”

“Make me feel like this is okay.”

His eyes flicked over your face, the smear of lipstick, the crack in your voice, the tremble you couldn’t disguise. “I’m not trying to make anything okay,” he said. “I just—” His jaw tightened. “I can’t stand pretending it isn’t there.”

“What isn’t?”

He looked at you like the answer should’ve been obvious. “Whatever this is.”

Your pulse stuttered. “There’s nothing, Heeseung.”

He smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Then why are you shaking?”

You wanted to tell him it was the alcohol, the cold, the exhaustion, anything but him. But your mouth wouldn’t cooperate.

He reached out again, slower this time, his fingertips grazing the edge of your jaw, tracing the line where your pulse jumped. “You hate me, remember?” he murmured. “You wrote it down.”

You let out a shaky breath. “Maybe I lied.”

His hand paused. “Y/N.”

“Don’t say my name like that,” you said, voice breaking. “Please.”

He didn’t move closer, didn’t pull away. “How should I say it then?”

You met his eyes, and suddenly it was too much, the noise, the lights, the guilt, the way he looked at you like you were something he’d spent his whole life trying to solve. The space between you buzzed with everything unspoken.

You could’ve stepped around him. You could’ve walked back inside, found Megan, drowned yourself in noise again. Instead, you stood there, breath hitching, heart reckless, and whispered, “You shouldn’t want me.”

“I already do.”

The words landed like a confession and a promise all at once. Your chest ached. The lights hummed. Somewhere inside, someone popped open another beer, and the night went on as if your world wasn’t breaking apart.

You laugh once, the sound brittle enough to splinter in the cold air. “All those looks,” you start, voice shaking with something between fury and heartbreak. “The arguments. The fucking—” The word catches, burns. You cut yourself off, breath hitching. “You made me feel guilty every single time I was with him.”

Heeseung takes a step forward. Then another. Slow, deliberate, like a man walking toward the edge of a cliff he knows he’s going to jump from anyway. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Didn’t mean to what?” you snap, the bitterness spilling out before you can stop it. “Didn’t mean to ruin everything? Didn’t mean to crawl under my skin until I couldn’t think straight? Until I started wondering if being with him was just a lie I told myself to forget you?”

He stops inches away, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating off his body, smell the faint trace of his cologne, clean, expensive, familiar. The kind of scent that used to cling to your clothes for days after. The party lights leak out from the house behind you, painting his face in streaks of red and gold. For a second, he looks almost unreal. Like a memory you’re not supposed to touch.

Then his voice drops, low, raw, trembling at the edges. “Were you?”

Your brows furrow. “Were you what?”

He swallows hard, eyes flickering between your lips and your gaze. “Cheating on him?”

The question lands between you like a live wire.

You exhale, sharp and trembling, the word no forming slowly, painfully, in your throat. “No,” you whisper. “But I couldn’t argue if he thought I was.”

Something in him shatters, silently, invisibly, but you feel it in the way the air changes. His hand lifts, uncertain, fingertips brushing your jaw like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he touches you too hard. You don’t move. You can’t.

The first touch of his thumb against your skin sends heat straight to your chest. Heeseung leans in, hesitant for only a heartbeat before gravity wins. His lips find yours like a confession, soft, almost apologetic, the kind of kiss that says I shouldn’t but I can’t stop.

And then, like every time before, it breaks open.

The kiss deepens, roughens, desperate. His hand slides to the back of your neck, the other gripping your waist hard enough to make you gasp. You clutch his shirt like you’re drowning, tasting the faint salt of tears you didn’t realize were yours. There’s too much between you, too much history, too much wanting, too much regret, and none of it fits neatly inside a kiss, but you both try anyway.

He kisses you like he’s trying to rewrite time, to undo the nights you spent avoiding him, to erase the memory of the ring on someone else’s finger. The world around you blurs into noise—music, laughter, a burst of drunken voices from the house, but right here, there’s only this: the heat of his mouth, the tremor in his breath, the sick, sweet ache of wanting what you can’t have.

When you finally break apart, you’re both gasping like you’ve been underwater. His forehead presses against yours, skin hot, breaths uneven.

“You shouldn’t have come tonight,” he says, voice so quiet it almost disappears under the music.

You close your eyes, whisper back, “You shouldn’t have found me.”

For a long, suspended moment, neither of you move. The world keeps spinning, cars passing, laughter echoing from the porch, but you stay there, suspended in the wreckage of a kiss that shouldn’t have happened. The kind that tastes like goodbye, but feels too much like coming home.

Then he leans in again. The second kiss is what destroys you.

There’s no hesitation this time, no restraint, no room left for logic. Just the sound of fabric, the heat of his hands, the small, desperate noise you make when he tilts his head and deepens it. It’s not perfect, it’s not romantic, it’s messy, raw, real. Every insult, every sleepless night, every time you swore you hated him burns down to this.

You pull away first, lips swollen, chest heaving. Heeseung’s eyes search your face like he’s memorizing the damage. Like he’s afraid you’ll regret it before he can.

“You blocked me,” he says quietly.

“You deserved it.”

He nods once, laughs, the voice low and brittle. “I deserved worse.”

Something in your chest twists. You want to tell him you know. You want to tell him you already forgave him without realizing it. But the words get lost somewhere between your ribs.

Instead, you whisper, “You did.”

The sound of it does something to you. Makes your chest ache in that familiar, infuriating way. You want to yell at him. You want to kiss him again. You want to forget he exists. He takes a step back then, just one, and you feel the space immediately, cold air rushing back in like punishment. His jaw tightens, his hands curl and uncurl at his sides.

He pulls back first, just enough to look at you. His breath ghosts across your cheek, the kind of almost-touch that still burns.

Heeseung’s jaw clenches. The silence stretches, the kind that feels like falling. Then he takes a small step closer, his fingers twitching like he almost wants to reach for you again, but doesn’t.

“Then why didn’t you?” he asks.

“Didn’t what?”

“Hate me enough to stay away.”

You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. Because he’s right, you didn’t. Not really. And that realization feels worse than the kiss.

Heeseung's mouth claims yours again in a fiery kiss, his tongue delving deep to tangle with yours in a sensual dance. Your lips part eagerly, welcoming him inside, relishing the taste of him, sweet and intoxicating. The heat between you escalates, fueled by your shared desire and the forbidden nature of this tryst.

Heeseung's lips continue their sensual journey, trailing down the delicate slope of your jaw, his breath warm against your skin. Each feather-light brush ignites a spark within you, your body responding instinctively to his touch. A soft moan escapes your lips, almost a whisper in the quiet night air.

At the sound, Heeseung pauses, his head lifting to look at you with concern etched across his features. "Do you consent, rival? You're...drunk, and I don't want to do anything you'd regret in the morning."

Your drunken haze clears momentarily as his words penetrate the fog of desire clouding your mind. With a surge of clarity, you realize just how far things have progressed. But the thought of stopping now, of denying yourself this pleasure, is unbearable.

"Yes," you breathe, your voice husky with need. "Yes, please. I want this, Heeseung. I've wanted it for so long."

His eyes darken with lust at your response, a low groan rumbling in his chest. Without hesitation, he descends once more, his lips capturing yours in a searing kiss.

His hands roam your curves, exploring the contours of your body with a hunger that mirrors your own. He cups your breasts, thumbs teasing the hardened peaks through the fabric of your dress. You arch into his touch, a needy whimper escaping you as sparks of pleasure shoot straight to your core.

Breaking the kiss, Heeseung trails open-mouthed kisses down the column of your throat, nipping and sucking at the delicate skin. You tilt your head back, granting him better access, lost in the haze of arousal that clouds your mind.

"God, you taste incredible," he murmurs against your neck, his breath hot and urgent. "I've dreamed of doing this for so long...feeling your skin, tasting your sweetness."

His words fan the flames of your desire, and you can feel yourself growing wetter by the second.

Your voice, husky with need, barely audible above a whisper: "Need...you...to...fuck me, Heeseung."

Heeseung's eyes flash with a primal intensity, his pupils dilating as he gazes at you with an unspoken promise. His grip on your waist tightens, and he lifts you off the ground, his stride long and powerful as he strides towards his car. The cool night air rushes past your face, a stark contrast to the raging inferno that has taken over your body.

As he reaches the car, he opens the door and slides you onto the leather seat, his hand lingering on your thigh as he positions himself between your legs. You feel the weight of his gaze, the unspoken challenge to resist him.

But resistance is futile. Your body craves his touch, hungers for the release only he can provide. You're lost in the depths of his dark eyes, drowning in the stormy sea of desire that has consumed us both.

Heeeseung's hand glides up your leg, pausing at the hem of your dress before dipping beneath the fabric. He hooked a finger under your lace panties, groaning against your mouth at the wet patch already forming on top of them.

"You're so wet, gonna fuck you so good baby,” You barely had time to reply before he yanked your panties to the side, undoing his belt with a low growl. His cock sprang free, thick and heavy, and your body clenched at the sight. He pumped it a few times, the angry red tip leaking with precum.

He groaned when you brought up a free hand to spread it along his slit. “Feel so good, baby, you’re hand’s so warm.” He threw his head back, groaning as his free hand roamed around your body. Tracing and memorising every bit.

You gasped when he shoved the lace aside, guiding his cock to your entrance. His blunt head teased your soaked folds, the stretch already making you claw at his back.

With one smooth thrust, he bottomed out, both of you moaning when he does.

His hips flex, withdrawing to the hilt before plunging back in, his strokes building in intensity with each passing second. The friction is overwhelming, sending shockwaves of pleasure through your entire body. Your fingers dig deeper into his back, urging him on as he pounds into you, the rhythm of his movements a symphony of desire.

You can't help but beg, your voice a husky whisper: "Harder, Heeeseung...please, harder."

Heeeseung's response is immediate, his pace quickening as he drives deeper, the head of his cock rubbing against that sensitive spot inside you. Your body begins to quake, the sensation almost too much to bear.

As he continues to pound into you, his hand snakes around to your front, his fingers finding your swollen clit. A sudden jolt of electricity shoots through you, and you can't hold back the scream. "Oh, yes...yes, Heeeseung!"

The world around you dissolves, leaving only the two of you, lost in this primal dance of lust and need. His groans harmonize with yours, their ragged breathing the only sound as you shatter beneath him, the release you've been craving finally within reach.

“Does he make you cum like this? Hmm? Jaehyun” Your body jolted at the memory of him, but his words made your pussy clench around him, slick spilling down his length. He groaned, tipping his head back against the seat.

“Ngh—mhmmmm! Heeseung–” you whine, feeling the knot building up in your stomach, waves of pleasure washing over you everytime his cock kisses your cervix, making your eyes roll back.

His eyes darken, something feral flashing through them, and then he’s growling through his teeth: “Do you think of me when he’s inside you? Think of me fucking you dumb while another man’s cock’s inside you?”

You shake your head rapidly, trying to deny his words, but that only makes him fasten his pace, “Damn right, you’re mine, get it? Only mine.”

The filthy promise rips another moan from your throat, your body arching as his pace grows brutal, punishing. He’s rutting into you like he wants to breed you right there in the car, his hips slamming against yours, his cock hitting every spot inside you with devastating precision.

You break first, your orgasm tearing through you in a violent wave, your entire body shaking as you scream his name. But Heeseung doesn’t stop. Your nails rake down his back, tears streaking your cheeks, but the overstimulation only makes it more unbearable, more addictive.

“Fuck, gonna fill you up,” Heeseung snarls, pulling you flush against him as he thrusts deep one last time, holding you down on his cock while hot spurts of cum flood you. His chest heaves against yours, his lips brushing your ear. “Take it. Take all of it. My pretty little rival.”

Your head dropped to his shoulder, breath coming in shallow spurts as you tried to wrap your head around what just happened. You’d just fucked Lee Heeseung, NYU’s Golden Boy, the one you swore you wouldn’t let ruin you.

Heeseung just smirked lazily, his eyes holding adoration, draping an arm over the headrest, he tilted his neck backwards, squeezing his eyes shut, adams apple bobbing up and down as he panted for breath.

The car is still running. The faint hum of the engine is the only thing keeping the silence alive.

You’re on his lap, skin against skin, the air inside thick and hot and dizzying. His arm rests lazily over the headrest, fingers tracing idle shapes into the fogged glass. He’s looking at you, though, not like he just had you falling apart against him, but like he’s afraid if he blinks, you’ll vanish.

You don’t meet his eyes. You’re too busy memorizing the way the world looks through the windshield, all blurred streetlights and December rain, the kind of night that feels like it’s holding its breath. Your hands are still trembling where they rest against his chest. His heart hasn’t slowed yet. Neither has yours.

It hits you in waves, all at once: the taste of him still on your tongue, the echo of Jaehyun’s voice in your head, the ache somewhere deep and impossible to name.

Heeseung is the first to move. His thumb grazes the underside of your jaw, slow, careful, as if he’s afraid of breaking whatever fragile thing just bloomed between you. You don’t flinch. You just breathe, sharp, uneven.

He whispers, “You shouldn’t have come tonight.”

You laugh once, breathless. “You shouldn’t have found me.”

That earns the faintest smile from him, tired, bittersweet. His hand slips to the back of your neck, palm warm against your skin. For a second, it feels like he’s about to say something, but the words never come. They die somewhere between you, swallowed by the sound of your shaky breath.

You shift off his lap, fixing your dress with shaking fingers. The cold air bites at your bare thighs. Heeseung doesn’t move, just watches you in silence, eyes tracking every small motion like he’s trying to anchor himself to it.

You reach for the door handle. “I should go.”

He nods. “Yeah.”

But you don’t move yet. Neither of you do.

The silence stretches, a slow bleed of everything you can’t say. The street outside is wet and empty, and in the reflection on the fogged window, you see both of you, two silhouettes that never should’ve touched.

When he finally exhales, it sounds like surrender. “Do you regret it?”

You don’t answer at first. Your throat is tight, the words caught somewhere painful. You turn to face him, and he looks ruined, hair a mess, shirt rumpled, lips still red from the way you’d kissed him like it was the only language you knew.

“I don’t know,” you whisper. “Ask me when I can breathe again.”

Heeseung lets out a quiet laugh, but it’s not really laughter. More like disbelief, at you, at himself, at how far you’ve both fallen from the careful lines you used to draw.

You finally open the door. Cold air floods in, smelling like winter and regret. Heeseung’s voice follows you, soft but certain.

“I’ll drive you.”

You want to protest. You really, really do. But your body’s too tired, your chest too raw. So you just nod.

The drive back is wordless. You lean your head against the window, watching the city blur past in streaks of yellow light. Every song that plays on the radio feels wrong, too happy, too sad, too much like a memory that hasn’t happened yet.

Heeseung doesn’t look at you, but his hand rests near the gearshift, fingers twitching like he wants to reach for yours and knows better. You think about Jaehyun. About his voice when he said he wanted space, how he never raised it, not once. How his eyes softened even when his words didn’t. And now, all you can think is that you’ve just done the one thing that can’t be undone.

The car slows near your dorm. Heeseung doesn’t park immediately, he just idles by the curb, staring at the glowing entrance like it’s some kind of verdict.

You break the silence first. “This doesn’t mean anything.”

He nods. “Okay.”

But he’s still looking at you like it means everything.

You swallow hard, gripping the strap of your purse. “We were drunk. That’s all.”

“You weren’t that drunk,” he says quietly.

That stings. You look away, blinking fast. “Neither were you.”

Another silence, heavier this time. Then he leans back in his seat, eyes closing, head tilted against the leather. He looks exhausted, older somehow. “Y/N…”

“Don’t,” you whisper. “Please.”

He opens his eyes, looks at you again. “You’re going to hate me tomorrow, aren’t you?”

You let out a shaky breath. “I already do.”

He smiles, faint, broken. “Goodnight, rival.”

You hate that it makes your chest hurt. You hate that you want to say it back.

Instead, you open the door, step into the cold. The night swallows the heat of the car whole. You don’t look back, not even once, because you know if you do, he’ll still be there, watching, waiting, the same way he always has.

When you finally reach your dorm, your knees give out against the door. You slide down to the floor, breath ragged, heart racing. You press a hand to your chest, half hoping you can slow it down, half hoping you never can.

You don’t cry. You don’t sleep either.

Outside, the city hums quietly, alive, indifferent. Somewhere, Heeseung drives away, and you know that no matter how much you try to pretend, something between you just changed forever.

Silence comes first. Not the kind that’s peaceful, but the kind that clings, that hums in the back of your skull, presses against your ribs until it hurts to breathe.

You don’t speak to Heeseung. Not in class, not in the hallways, not when you pass each other near the coffee kiosk in the lobby of the humanities building. You keep your head down, fingers wrapped too tightly around your paper cup, eyes glued to the floor tiles. And he, he pretends nothing happened.

He laughs with your classmates. He debates like he always does, confident and unshakable, answering every professor’s question with that same quiet arrogance. It should make your blood boil. It used to. Now it just makes your throat burn.

Everywhere you go, he’s there, just enough for the world to feel smaller. And still, you can’t look at him. Not after the car. Not after the way his mouth tasted like regret and relief and everything you’d never meant to want.

You start sitting three rows behind where you usually did in lecture. Heeseung still sits in the same seat, one arm over the back of the chair, posture lazy, eyes flicking down at his notes every now and then. You can feel the heat of his gaze, even when you refuse to meet it.

You take too many notes. You underline everything twice. Every time your professor says group work, your stomach drops, like you’re waiting for your name to be spoken next to his again.

You tell yourself it was a mistake, the kiss, the car, the way your hands had memorized the shape of him. You say it over and over in your head until the words lose their edges, until mistake starts sounding like memory.

You don’t believe it, but it’s easier to lie when it’s only to yourself.

Megan notices first. “Did you and golden boy kill each other yet, or is that next week?” she teases, trying to coax a laugh out of you.

You just shrug. “I don’t talk to him anymore.”

Her eyes widen. “Wait. Anymore? Since when were you talking to him?”

You don’t answer. She doesn’t push, but you can feel her curiosity simmering between you both like static.

Later, when you’re back in your dorm, the silence feels heavier. The bed is cold. The window is open just enough to let the city noise bleed in, sirens, chatter, the occasional honk. You used to love that sound; it made you feel alive. Now it just makes you feel small.

You find the old list buried under a stack of printed essays in your desk drawer. The edges are wrinkled, ink smudged in a few places, probably from the night you ripped it down.

The heading still reads, Ten Things I Hate About Lee Heeseung.

You smooth it out on your lap and stare at it for a long time.

4. You’re fucking selfish.

5. You make my boyfriend look like a roach.

6. You’re an annoying, cocky, rich bastard who doesn’t know what it’s like to work a day in your life.

7. You’re so bitchy, no wonder you don’t have a girlfriend.

8. You’re… handsome… I guess.

9. You’re fucking smart.

10. You’re unreasonably irrational.

For the longest time, you stare at the three empty spots on the top of the list. You had left them empty for something absolutely atrocious and vile to put there, and now? You had the perfect muse. You pick up your pen. The ink bleeds black into the paper, heavy and deliberate.

3. I hate that you make me feel wanted.

2. I hate that you made me fall in love.

You stare at that last line for a long time. The word love looks foreign in your handwriting. Too soft. Too final. You almost cross it out. Almost. Instead, you add one more. The top spot, the one that shatters your heart in half to fill in.

1. I hate that maybe I don’t hate you at all.

In class the next day, Heeseung raises his hand to answer a question, and your chest does that stupid fluttering thing again. You hate it. You hate yourself for it. He catches you looking. Just once, a flicker of eye contact, barely a second. But it’s enough to pull you apart inside. He looks away first, jaw tightening like he’s chewing back a dozen words.

You avoid him everywhere else. The campus library, the study lounges, the coffee shops. It’s like you’ve built your own orbit around him, one where you can see him but never touch, always close enough to burn. The memory of the party burned into a skin like a bad omen you can’t shake off.

He tries once, after class, to talk to you. “Y/N,” he calls, quiet but certain. You freeze in the hallway. The students passing by blur into noise.

He’s standing a few feet away, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable. “You don’t have to avoid me.”

You force a smile that doesn’t reach your eyes. “I’m not.”

He shrugs, a faint curve at his mouth, too gentle to be smug, too familiar to ignore. Your heart, the traitor, trips over itself. “Can I borrow your copy of Mrs. Garcia’s assigned book?”

You narrow your eyes. “Why? Where’s yours?”

He chuckles, low and warm. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just an excuse to talk to you.”

That stops you, just for a heartbeat. The hallway hums around you; someone laughs in the distance, doors slam. You stay still.

Then you turn away before the sound of his voice can undo you again. The next day, you see him again. Not in class this time. Outside the student center, leaning against the railing with a cup of coffee in one hand and his phone in the other. The afternoon sun hits him just right, gold against his skin, softening all the edges you used to sharpen in your head.

You almost walk away. You should. But you stop. He looks up. Meets your eyes.

And for the first time since that night, neither of you looks away. He smiles, barely, like he’s scared to break the moment. “Hi,” he says, simple, quiet, devastating.

You don’t know what comes next. You just know that something inside you shifts again, that small, traitorous part that refuses to go back to hating him. Instead, you fish a hand inside your backpack, pulling out Mrs. Garcia’s assigned book, and handing it to him wordlessly. Heart thudding when your fingers brush over each other.

That night, when you sit back at your desk, the list is still open beside you. You run your thumb along the edge, tracing over every line like it might fade if you don’t. You whisper, half to yourself, “I don’t hate you, Heeseung. Not anymore.”

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the most terrifying thing of all. The confession your heart had failed to admit when it was most necessary.

He shouldn’t have come. He knows it the moment you open the door, hair tied back, eyes wide, lips parted like you’ve just forgotten how to breathe. You look different, quieter, steadier. He looks the same, but he isn’t.

He tells himself it’s just to return your book. Just to give you back the battered paperback Mrs. Garcia assigned two weeks ago, with his notes still in the margins and your doodles bleeding through the corners of every page. But when you step aside and let him in, he knows it’s a lie.

Your apartment smells like coffee and paper. There’s a candle burning on the desk, vanilla and something faintly citrus. He follows you inside and tries not to look like he’s searching for pieces of himself that he left behind.

The book is already in his hand when he notices it. The list. It’s pinned on the wall beside your desk, a little crumpled, written in the same messy penmanship he used to tease you about. But this one’s different. Newer. Some of the lines are crossed out, others rewritten.

He reads without meaning to.

"I hate that you make me feel wanted. I hate that you made me fall in love. I hate that maybe I don’t hate you as much."

The words sink like stones in his stomach. He doesn’t realize he’s spoken until you turn around, startled.

“You really hate me that much?”

Your shoulders stiffen. Then, after a pause, softer, “Not anymore.”

It’s not a forgiveness. Not yet. But it’s something. He laughs quietly, the sound rough and low, like it hasn’t been used in a while. He runs a hand through his hair, exhales slowly.

“Good,” he says. His voice shakes. “Because I think I’ve been in love with you since sophomore year.”

The silence that follows is unbearable. You blink once, twice, the kind of stunned quiet that feels like gravity shifting. He looks at you, really looks. The light catches on your cheekbones, on the curve of your mouth, on every reason he ever ruined himself trying to stay away. The faint curve of your rosy lips he so desperately wishes to kiss until they are bruised.

His eyes flick to yours, there’s a final sort of look between them.

“You were, you were supposed to be my rival, my competitor,” you whisper.

He nods. “I know.”

“You made me lose everything.”

“I know.” He steps closer, slow, careful. “And I’m sorry.”

You cross your arms, like you’re holding yourself together. “You can’t just say that and expect it to fix things.”

“I don’t expect it to,” he says. “I just needed to say it.”

He pauses, breath uneven. “You didn’t deserve the way I made you feel. But I can’t keep pretending that I didn’t want you, that I didn’t—” He cuts himself off. The air feels too heavy. “Every time I saw you, I wanted to tell you. But it was easier to ruin things than to risk you knowing.”

You look at him for a long moment. The candle flickers between you.

Then you whisper, “You broke me, Heeseung.”

He flinches, because he knows it’s true. But when you add, “And I still don’t know how to hate you,” something inside him finally cracks.

He takes a shaky breath and moves closer, not close enough to touch, just enough that you can feel the warmth radiating off him.

“Then maybe we start from there,” he says softly. “From not hating each other.”

Your eyes lift to his. For the first time in months, you don’t look away.

It’s not a kiss this time. It’s a heartbeat. A shared, quiet understanding, that everything’s broken, but maybe not beyond repair.

He places the book on your desk, fingers brushing against the corner of the list.

“Keep it,” he murmurs. “If you ever rewrite it again… maybe add one more line.”

“What line?”

He smiles, just barely. “I don’t hate you anymore, either.”

When he leaves, the candle’s still burning. And you don’t take the list down.

Graduation Day. The event feels mundane, almost underwhelming. For what was supposed to be perhaps the happiest moment of your life. You feel, oddly grown up, as if the days of silly errors are left behind you. As if you are experiencing how to be reborn again, breathing in the fresh morning of winter.

The morning light spills through your blinds, gold and unhurried. It’s the kind of day that feels like a comma instead of a period, something ending, but not quite finished.

Megan’s sitting cross-legged on your bed, curling her hair with one hand and scrolling through her phone with the other. She looks up when you emerge from the bathroom, cap and gown draped over your arm, and lets out a low whistle.

“You look hot for someone who’s about to sob in public.”

You roll your eyes, but you smile anyway. “Thanks, I think.”

She pats the bed beside her. “Come here.”

You sit, smoothing out the edge of your dress. It’s quiet for a moment, just the hum of the hairdryer and the faint sound of birds outside. Then Megan says, softly, “Can I ask you something?”

You glance over. “What?”

“Be honest with me. About him.”

You don’t have to ask who she means. You just stare down at your hands, at the faint smudge of nail polish, the crease where the gown’s folded.

And then you tell her everything. About the list. The fight. The car. The silence that followed. About how he made you furious, and how you couldn’t stay mad. How love, real love, isn’t always a fire; sometimes it’s the ache after it burns out. And desire is the only thing both fueling and extinguishing the feeble spark of life. Love isn’t shallow, it’s deeper than anything one can witness in life. Perhaps even get lost in it if you forget what you truly are meant to be.

Megan listens, quiet, eyes soft but unreadable. When you finally stop talking, she reaches over and squeezes your hand.

“You know,” she says, “I think you loved him right. Maybe he just didn’t know how to be loved back then.”

You blink back the sting in your eyes. “Maybe.”

The ceremony is held in the courtyard, all white chairs and fluttering programs. The air smells like spring and beginnings. Your parents are somewhere in the crowd; you wave when you spot them.

And then, as if the universe wants one last cruel joke, you see him.

Heeseung’s across the lawn, fixing his cap, laughing at something his friend, Jake says. He looks lighter somehow. Older. The sunlight catches on his hair, and for a second, you remember everything, the library, the list, the way his voice cracked when he said he loved you.

When his eyes find yours, the world narrows. He smiles, small, hesitant, and lifts a hand. You return it. Nothing more. But it’s enough.

What matters now isn’t the rivalry, or the heartbreak, or even the list taped to your wall. It’s that NYU shaped you into something real. Not a machine chasing perfection, but a person, flawed, bruised, alive. A person who has known love. A person who has lived.

After the ceremony, you’re sitting on the steps, waiting for Megan, diplomas clutched tight, caps discarded. The city hums around you, alive and endless. He finds you there. He doesn’t say anything at first. Just stands, shifting awkwardly, holding two iced coffees.

“One’s black,” he says. “Figured you’d still hate anything sweet.”

You take it, trying not to smile. “You figured right.”

He sits beside you. The silence is comfortable this time, not something to fill, just something to share.

He tells you he got accepted into the same grad program. You laugh. “Of course you did.”

“Still rivals?” he asks, eyes glinting.

“Always.”

It feels different now, not like a battle, but a dance you both know the rhythm to.

The conversation drifts, plans, memories, small jokes that almost sound like old times. And then he looks at you, really looks, the way he used to when he thought you wouldn’t notice.

“You know,” he murmurs, “I think I’m done pretending I don’t want to kiss you.”

You exhale a laugh that trembles halfway through. “You shouldn’t.”

He smiles, soft and certain. “I know.”

He kisses you anyway. His lips are soft against yours, tasting of everything you missed.

It’s not like before, not angry, not hungry. It’s slow, quiet, the kind that feels like a goodbye and a beginning at once. You taste coffee and sunlight and surrender.

When he pulls back, he whispers, “See you in grad school?”

You nod, a smile tugging at your lips. “See you there.”

He leaves a minute later. You don’t stop him. You don’t have to. The ache in your chest isn’t pain anymore, it’s something gentler. Something like acceptance.

That night, you tape the list back on your wall. This time, it’s rewritten in neat, steady ink:

I hated you.

I loved you.

Maybe that was the same thing all along.

Funny, isn’t it? How a stupid 10 Things I Hate About You list could bring together two people who were never supposed to fit, poles apart, but somehow meant for each other.

To Lee Heeseung, you think, a quiet smile tugging at your lips. Here are ten things I hated about you.

You close your eyes, and for the first time in a long while, it feels like peace.

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⟡ @rosepetals09, ⟡ @cherry-blossomfrag, ⟡ @mari-marimar, ⟡ @paradieseoul, ⟡ @microwavedstrawberries3, ⟡ @thatonerandomblondechick, ⟡ @heebambilee, ⟡ @simjaeyunsdoll, ⟡ @sinceresilverstrawberry, ⟡ @heeseungslefttoee, ⟡ @shayinthesims, ⟡ @larichard, ⟡ @noinspirationkisstoday, ⟡ @frenziedseerdesolation, ⟡ @wtfisgoingright, ⟡ @heekijakey, ⟡ @luvwonsito, ⟡ @cheetosthabratt, ⟡ @en-ner-jay, ⟡ @shouldergangsterrj, ⟡ @brennanmeijalover00,⟡ @wondash, ⟡ @kimuranishi, ⟡ @thep3rfectgirl25, ⟡ @doraemon02, ⟡ @rotttenhalo, ⟡ @oldeubois-blog, ⟡ @putrescentpoet, ⟡ @jinnibug, ⟡ @vayuzzz, ⟡ @kimmyaaaa, ⟡ @ppcarolina9, ⟡ @giagotthezoomies, ⟡ @slut4heespam, ⟡ @lovestruck-sky ⟡ @roze-latte-zz, ⟡ @sociallyawkward18 ⟡ @lyserie @enstarzzi

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Better Than The Movies Taglist:

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