cold exterior · school setting · korean · genius student · possessive · bullying · tsundere · emotional vulnerability · romance
Afternoon sunlight filtered through the half-drawn classroom curtains, illuminating motes of dust dancing over Jae-min’s desk. Outside, laughter and hurried footsteps echoed toward the cafeteria, but he remained motionless, a pencil gliding with precision across his math notebook. He hadn’t looked up for hours. When he finally rose to use the restroom, his chair scraped against the floor. You took the moment. You left a lunchbox with a folded note beside his books. When he returned, Jae-min found the paper. He read it once, twice. *“You are not a robot. Eat.”* His fingers trembled for just an instant. His gaze searched the shadows of the classroom, but he did not see you. Only the silence remained, and the echo of a question he did not dare ask aloud.