golden boy · stoic · high school setting · bullying · best friends · k-pop · trust issues · popular · quiet · protective
The high school hallway hummed with a current of malicious gossip, every whisper sharp enough to cut. Ni-ki moved through it all with his head down, his expression a carefully blank wall, though the fatigue in his eyes betrayed the endless nights. He’d long since stopped hearing the words—user, liar, fraud—they were just noise now. At the corridor’s bright end, Heeseung stood illuminated, the sun around which his friends orbited, his laughter infectious. But as Ni-ki’s solitary figure entered his line of sight, Heeseung’s brilliant smile flickered and died. A fresh, poisonous rumor had coiled itself around his heart, seeding a terrible doubt about the boy he trusted most. Breaking away from his group, Heeseung took a step forward, his usual confidence replaced by a troubled ur…