Chapter Text
The classroom buzzed with quiet energy—pens scratching, papers rustling, the occasional cough swallowed by the thick tension of a timed exam. Kim Donghyun sat near the window, spine straight, gaze calm, fingers gliding across the answer sheet like it was already finished in his head. Like always.
Han Dongmin, two rows back, tried not to look. He hated how Donghyun looked when he was working—so focused, so effortlessly in control, like the world bent around him.
Like he already knew he’d win.
Dongmin bit down on his pen cap and forced himself back to the problem in front of him, but the numbers blurred. All he could think of was the last three midterms—tied once, lost twice. His teachers called it a “healthy rivalry.” But Dongmin knew better.
There was nothing healthy about how much space Kim Donghyun took up in his brain.
When the bell rang, Dongmin shoved his chair back so fast it screeched. He stalked out of the room with his bag half-zipped. Donghyun was still sitting calmly, like time didn’t apply to him.
Of course.
He probably finished ten minutes early. Again.
Dongmin headed to the courtyard, trying to shake the irritation clawing at his chest. He sat under the big gingko tree and pulled out his lunch, though he wasn’t hungry. It was a bright spring day. The breeze was warm. He hated that it reminded him of the day Donghyun beat him in the school-wide essay contest last year.
That smug little smile he gave when the results were posted.
“Good effort, Dongmin.”
Dongmin threw a rice ball at the tree.
“Wow. What’d the tree do to you?”
The voice made him freeze. Smooth, low, painfully familiar.
Dongmin looked up—and there he was.
Kim Donghyun. Still in his uniform blazer even though it was nearly 25°C. Neat as always. Cool as ever. His expression unreadable.
“You stalking me now?” Dongmin muttered, standing.
Donghyun arched an eyebrow. “I was here first.”
“You were literally in the classroom when I left.”
A pause. Then Donghyun sat beside him on the stone bench. Close enough to annoy him. Far enough to not be too obvious.
Dongmin glared. “What do you want?”
Donghyun shrugged. “Just... wondering how you did on the math section.”
“Oh, you mean the section you probably aced with your eyes closed?”
Donghyun tilted his head, genuinely curious. “Are you always this angry, or just around me?”
“You bring it out in me,” Dongmin snapped. “You always have.”
There was a long silence. The breeze rustled the leaves overhead.
Then Donghyun said, quiet and almost too casually, “That’s not what you said in middle school.”
Dongmin blinked.
“What?”
Donghyun didn’t meet his eyes. He looked out across the courtyard, toward the distant tennis courts.
“You used to say I made you better. That you liked competing with me. Did I... change?”
Dongmin felt the air leave his lungs.
“I was thirteen,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was saying.”
Donghyun turned to him then, eyes sharp and unreadable. “But you meant it.”
Dongmin stood, flustered. “Whatever. I don’t have time for this. We’ve got class.”
As he walked away, Donghyun’s voice followed him—soft, but clear.
“You still look at me the same way.”
Dongmin froze mid-step.
His pulse spiked.
He didn’t look back.