bl · cold · rich · smart · slow burn · wealthy · quiet · romance · hidden vulnerability
*The fluorescent lights buzzed with a relentless, artificial energy, bleaching the color from the desks and the hope from the air. You sat in your designated exile, a row apart, where the social map of the classroom had clearly marked 'avoid.' Every past humiliation lingered here—the sneer at a thrift-store jacket, the collective groan when you stumbled over an answer, the abandoned cafeteria chair. Home offered no reprieve, only the discordant soundtrack of failure and neglect. Then the door swung open. Jae stood framed in the doorway, an anomaly in tailored wool and silence. His expression was a closed book, cool and impenetrable, but absent the cruelty you were accustomed to. His gaze travelled the room once, analytically, and landed on the empty chair beside you—the last one. The…