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The digital display on the main bulletin board of the Hanseong Academy senior wing did not lie, but it frequently caused minor heart attacks.
Every semester, the ranking list was updated with the precision of a Swiss watch. And every semester, the top two names remained unchanged, locked in a perpetual, agonizing tie that drove the faculty mad and the student body into a frenzy of gossip.
1. Wang Yixiang — Science & Advanced Math
2. Byun Euijoo — Humanities & Global Politics
To the rest of the school, they were parallel lines that would never meet. Nicholas was the dark horse. Sharp-jawed, quiet, effortlessly brilliant in a way that made people think he solved calculus equations in his sleep. He wore his uniform jacket open, kept his hands shoved deep in his pockets, and spoke only when spoken to.
Euijoo, on the other hand, was the golden boy. As the Student Council President, he was the epitome of neatness. His hair was always perfectly styled, his tie perfectly knotted, and his smile polite enough to disarm the strictest teachers. He was the school’s pride; Nicholas was its enigma.
"They must absolutely despise each other," Yuma, a fellow student council member, whispered as he stared at the board. "Did you see how Nicholas looked at Euijoo during the mock debate yesterday? If looks could kill, the humanities department would be looking for a new president."
Euijoo, who was standing just a few feet away reviewing a stack of budget proposals, offered a soft, practiced laugh. "Nicholas is just focused, Yuma. We don't hate each other. We’re just... occupied."
"Right, 'occupied' with trying to destroy each other's perfect records," Yuma snorted. "Just watch your back, Prez. Guys like him don't take tying for first place lightly."
Euijoo smiled, adjusting his glasses. "I’ll keep that in mind."
What Yuma didn't know, what no one in the entire five-story, multi-million dollar school knew, was that exactly thirteen hours prior, those same two "rivals" had been tangled together on a leather couch in the abandoned photography darkroom of the old arts building, breathing into each other's necks to keep from screaming.
The arrangement had started six months ago, right after the grueling final exams of their junior year. The pressure at Hanseong was a living, breathing entity, a heavy fog that settled over the students until they were running on nothing but caffeine and cortisol.
Nicholas had been hiding out in the old west wing, seeking a place where the fluorescent lights didn't burn his retinas. Euijoo had ended up there after a panic attack brought on by his father’s weekly lecture about Ivy League admissions.
There had been no romantic confession. No slow burn. Just two drowning people recognizing the same desperation in each other's eyes. Nicholas had pulled Euijoo into the shadow of the disused darkroom, and Euijoo had reached out first, grabbing Nicholas by his collar and pulling him down into a bruising, desperate kiss.
They had established three ground rules before the week was out:
- No strings attached. The moment someone catches feelings, it ends.
- Absolute secrecy. If anyone finds out, the rumors will ruin both of their college applications.
- The school comes first. Academic ranks cannot be compromised by distractions.
It was a perfect, clinical transaction. A mutual release of pressure. Stress relief for the academic elite.
The bell signaling the end of the final period rang, and the hallways dissolved into a chaotic sea of uniforms. Euijoo walked briskly toward the faculty office, a stack of mid-term evaluation sheets cradled in his arms.
As he turned the corner by the science labs, he ran straight into a solid chest. The papers slipped from his grip, scattering across the polished linoleum floor like giant snowflakes.
"Ah, sorry—" Euijoo began, his automatic customer-service voice slipping into place. He looked up, and the words died in his throat.
Nicholas stood there, his leather school bag slung over one shoulder. His dark hair fell slightly over his eyes, giving him that brooding, unbothered look that drove half the junior class insane. He didn't look angry; he looked entirely indifferent.
"Watch where you're going, Mr. President," Nicholas said, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that vibrated right through Euijoo’s chest.
"You're the one standing in the middle of a major hallway, Wang," Euijoo shot back, his voice dropping an octave, adopting the crisp, slightly frosty tone he reserved exclusively for their public interactions. He knelt down to gather the papers.
Nicholas crouched down as well, picking up a stray sheet. Their fingers brushed against each other over a printed syllabus. To anyone watching, it was a tense, friction filled moment between two hyper competitive rivals.
But beneath the paper, out of sight of the security camera at the end of the hall, Nicholas’s thumb grazed the inside of Euijoo’s wrist, right over his racing pulse. It was a brief, burning pressure, gone as quickly as it came.
Nicholas stood up, dropping the single sheet onto Euijoo’s stack. "Make sure you don't lose anything important. It would be a shame if your perfect streak ended because of carelessness."
"Don't worry about my streak," Euijoo said, standing up and straightening his blazer, his face a mask of polite disdain. "Worry about your own."
Nicholas let out a short, breathy laugh, turned on his heel, and walked away. Euijoo waited until the taller boy rounded the corner before he let out the breath he had been holding. His wrist still felt hot where Nicholas had touched him.
The sun had dipped below the horizon, casting long, bruised shadows across the school grounds. Most students had gone home or to their respective cram schools, leaving the campus eerie and quiet.
Euijoo slipped into the old arts building. The facility had been largely relocated to a brand-new glass pavilion across the courtyard, leaving this wing forgotten, scheduled for demolition next summer. The air inside smelled of dust, old paper, and faint chemical residues.
He walked down the dim corridor to the room marked Darkroom 3. He didn't knock. He turned the handle, slipped inside, and locked the door behind him with a soft click.
The room was pitch black except for a faint, crimson glow from a small safety light Nicholas had plugged into the corner outlet. The red light cast dramatic shadows across the space, painting everything in shades of blood and rust.
Nicholas was already there, sitting on the edge of a heavy wooden work table, his legs dangling. His school tie was completely gone, his top three shirt buttons undone, exposing the sharp lines of his collarbones. He was scrolling through his phone, but he looked up the moment the door locked.
"You're five minutes late," Nicholas said.
"Yuma trapped me in the council room talking about the upcoming sports festival," Euijoo sighed, setting his bag down on a dusty chair. He took off his glasses, placing them carefully beside his bag, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "My head is splitting."
Nicholas didn't say anything. He just reached out, caught Euijoo by the waist, and pulled him forward until Euijoo was standing between his knees.
The contrast was immediate. In the light of day, they were all sharp edges and calculated distances. Here, the distance dropped to zero in an instant. Nicholas’s hands were warm as they slid under Euijoo’s blazer, gripping his hips through the thin fabric of his dress shirt.
"Too much thinking," Nicholas murmured, his voice completely devoid of the mocking tone he had used in the hallway. It was softer now, heavy with a quiet intensity. "Stop thinking."
"Easier said than done," Euijoo whispered, but his hands found their way to Nicholas’s shoulders anyway.
Nicholas pulled him down into a kiss. It wasn't gentle, it never really was at the start. It was an eviction notice for all the thoughts crowding Euijoo’s brain. It was the taste of mint and the faint, smoky scent of the coffee Nicholas drank too much of.
Euijoo let out a quiet sigh against Nicholas’s lips, his body finally relaxing for the first time all day. He leaned into the contact, his fingers curling into the fabric of Nicholas's shirt, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them.
Nicholas shifted, lifting Euijoo easily onto the wooden table, his hands moving up to unbutton Euijoo’s vest. Every movement was practiced, familiar, and intensely focused.
"The mock exam scores came out," Euijoo breathed out, his head tilting back as Nicholas pressed his lips to the sensitive skin just beneath his jawline.
Nicholas paused for a fraction of a second, his teeth grazing Euijoo's skin before he nipped it lightly. "I told you. No school talk here."
"I know... but we tied again," Euijoo murmured, his hands moving into Nicholas’s dark hair, gripping the strands loosely. "Everyone thinks we want to kill each other."
Nicholas looked up, his dark eyes glittering under the crimson light. A slow, rare smirk spread across his face, the kind of smile nobody at Hanseong Academy ever got to see.
"Let them think whatever they want," Nicholas whispered, his thumb wiping a trace of moisture from Euijoo's lower lip. "As long as they don't find out about this."
He leaned back in, silencing Euijoo completely, erasing the ranks, the GPAs, and the expectations until the only thing that existed was the heat of the red light and the frantic rhythm of their hearts.
A month later, the system began to experience its first unscripted glitches.
The problem with a friends with benefits arrangement between two highly intelligent individuals is that intelligence breeds observation. And observation, over time, breeds intimacy.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, and the library was practically empty. Euijoo was sitting at a corner table, surrounded by a fortress of books on international relations. He had been staring at the same paragraph for twenty minutes, his eyes burning with exhaustion. He hadn't slept more than three hours a night all week.
A shadow fell over his table. He looked up, expecting a librarian or a lowerclassman with a question.
Instead, it was Nicholas. He didn't look at Euijoo. He simply walked past the table, dropping a small, cold object next to Euijoo's laptop before continuing down the aisle toward the science section.
Euijoo looked down. It was a can of his favorite iced sweet tea, the specific brand that was always sold out in the cafeteria vending machines, and a small packet of vitamins. Taped to the can was a tiny, torn piece of scrap paper with two words written in Nicholas’s messy, sharp handwriting:
Drink. Breathe.
Euijoo stared at the note for a long time. His heart did a strange, uncomfortable flip in his chest. He quickly crumpled the paper and hid it in his pocket, looking around nervously to see if anyone had noticed. No one had. But the cold tin in his hand felt weightier than any textbook he had ever carried.
Later that week, it happened again, but in reverse.
During a joint English-Science seminar, Nicholas was giving a presentation on bioluminescence. He was fluent, but Euijoo, sitting in the front row, noticed the slight tremor in Nicholas’s left hand, the one he kept hidden behind the podium. He also noticed the faint, dark purple smudges under Nicholas’s eyes that even his usual aloof expression couldn't hide. Nicholas was pushing himself too hard for the upcoming national olympiad.
When the presentation ended and the class moved to the lab stations, Euijoo passed Nicholas in the narrow aisle between the desks.
With a swift, practiced motion that would have made a pickpocket proud, Euijoo slipped a small packet of throat lozenges and a single, individually wrapped chocolate square into the open side pocket of Nicholas’s backpack.
He didn't look back to see Nicholas’s reaction, but when they met in the darkroom that evening, Nicholas didn't pull him into a rough kiss right away.
Instead, Nicholas just sat on the table, pulled Euijoo into his chest, and wrapped his arms tightly around him, burying his face in Euijoo’s shoulder. They just stayed like that, completely still in the red light, listening to the sound of each other’s breathing for a full ten minutes before either of them made a move.
The boundaries were blurring, and they both knew it. But neither of them was brave enough to admit it.
The danger of their secret reached a breaking point during the preparations for the Hanseong Autumn Festival. As student council president, Euijoo was everywhere at once, coordinating with various clubs. Nicholas had been dragged into helping the audio-visual club set up the courtyard sound systems.
It was late, around 8:00 PM, and the campus was technically closed to everyone except those with special night passes.
Euijoo needed to retrieve a master extension cord from the old arts building storage room which happened to be directly adjacent to their darkroom. He had assumed Nicholas had already gone home.
When he unlocked the main door of the wing, he found the lights off. He walked down the hallway using his phone flashlight. As he passed Darkroom 3, the door opened slightly, and a hand reached out, grabbing his wrist and pulling him inside.
Euijoo stifled a gasp as the door clicked shut behind him. He was pressed against the wall, his flashlight dropping to the floor, illuminating their shoes in a harsh beam of white light.
"Nicholas!" Euijoo whispered, his heart hammering. "What are you doing? I’m working right now—"
"I know," Nicholas muttered. He looked tired, his hair messy, his uniform shirt wrinkled. "I saw you from the courtyard. You’ve been running around all day without eating. Stop for a second."
"I can't just stop," Euijoo said, though his body was already betraying him, leaning into Nicholas’s space. "Someone might come looking for me. Yuma is still in the courtyard."
"Five minutes," Nicholas murmured, his lips brushing against Euijoo’s temple. "Just five minutes, Euijoo."
The use of his actual name. It was not "Mr. President," nor "Byun". Even worse was how the sound sent a shiver down Euijoo’s spine. He closed his eyes, his hands reaching up to grip Nicholas’s shoulders. The kiss that followed was slow, almost aching, filled with a quiet desperation that had nothing to do with stress relief and everything to do with something they were both terrified to name.
Suddenly, heavy footsteps echoed down the concrete hallway outside.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Both of them froze instantly. Euijoo’s eyes flew open, wide with panic. Nicholas’s hand moved automatically to cover Euijoo’s mouth, his body pressing Euijoo flat against the wall to minimize any sound.
"Hello? Is anyone here?"
It was Yuma’s voice, echoing loudly in the empty corridor. The beam of another flashlight flickered through the small frosted glass window at the top of the darkroom door.
Euijoo stopped breathing entirely. If Yuma opened the door and found them, the school’s two top students, the ultimate rivals, hidden in a dark room, half-unbuttoned and flushed, the fallout would be catastrophic. Their reputations, their futures, everything they had worked for would be shattered in a single second.
Nicholas’s eyes were locked onto Euijoo’s. In the dim light, there was no arrogance left in them, only an intense, protective focus. He shifted his weight slightly, completely shielding Euijoo with his own body, ready to take the brunt of whatever happened if the door opened.
The flashlight beam lingered on the doorknob for three agonizing seconds.
"Guess I imagined it," Yuma’s voice muttered outside. The footsteps began to recede, fading away until the heavy double doors at the end of the hall slammed shut.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The silence in the darkroom was deafening, broken only by the sound of their ragged breathing.
Nicholas slowly lowered his hand from Euijoo’s mouth, but he didn't step back. His forehead came down to rest against Euijoo’s shoulder.
"That was too close," Euijoo whispered, his voice trembling slightly. His hands were shaking against Nicholas’s chest. "Nicholas... that was too close."
"I know," Nicholas said, his voice muffled against Euijoo’s uniform jacket. His grip on Euijoo’s waist tightened, almost painfully. "I know."
"We need to stop," Euijoo said, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. He didn't want to say them, but the fear of ruin was a cold reality. "Rule number two. If we get caught, it’s over. We’re pushing our luck."
Nicholas was quiet for a long time. When he finally lifted his head, his expression was unreadable. The usual guarded mask was back in place, but behind it, something looked fractured.
"Is that what you want?" Nicholas asked quietly.
Euijoo looked away, unable to meet those dark eyes. "It’s what makes sense. For both of us."
Nicholas let go of his waist. The sudden lack of warmth made Euijoo want to shiver.
"Fine," Nicholas said, his voice dropping into that familiar, distant tone. "If that’s what the President wants."
He picked up Euijoo’s fallen flashlight from the floor, handed it to him without another word, and walked out into the empty hallway, leaving Euijoo alone in the dark.
For the next two weeks, the system reverted to its original programming, but the execution felt hollow.
In the hallways, they passed each other like ghosts. When they tied for the top score on the mock CSAT exams, the classmates cheered and whispered about the "eternal battle of Hanseong," but neither Nicholas nor Euijoo looked at the bulletin board.
The darkroom remained locked and dark. Euijoo spent his evenings in the library until closing time, staring at lines of text that blurred together. Nicholas spent his time on the roof or in the labs, his face blanker than ever.
The separation was exactly what their rules had dictated, but instead of relieving pressure, it felt like the weight had doubled. Without the sanctuary of the red light, the stress of the impending graduation and university admissions began to crush them.
The breaking point arrived on a rainy Friday during the school’s annual Academic Symposium. As the top students, both were required to present their independent research papers in the main auditorium before the entire senior class, faculty, and several visiting university scouts.
Euijoo went first. He stood at the podium, looking immaculate in his pressed uniform, his speech on global economic policy flawless. But halfway through, his throat went entirely dry. The words on his note cards swam. The pressure of a hundred pairs of eyes, including his father’s prominent face in the front row, felt like a physical hand squeezing his lungs.
He paused. The silence in the auditorium stretched for three seconds. Four. Five. A murmur started in the back rows. Euijoo gripped the edges of the podium, his knuckles turning white. He couldn't breathe.
Then, from the middle row of the student section, someone coughed. It was a distinct, deliberate sound. Euijoo looked up instinctively.
Nicholas was sitting there, his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn't looking at his phone. He was looking directly at Euijoo. And as their eyes met, Nicholas made a subtle, almost imperceptible movement. He leaned back slightly, unbuttoned the top button of his uniform collar, and took a slow, deep, visible breath.
Drink. Breathe.
The memory of the note flashed through Euijoo’s mind. The memory of the quiet darkroom, where the expectations of the world didn't matter.
Euijoo closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. The fog in his brain cleared. He smiled smoothly at the audience. "Apologies for the brief pause. As I was saying..."
The rest of the presentation went flawlessly. The applause was deafening.
An hour later, it was Nicholas’s turn. His presentation on quantum computing algorithms was brilliant, but during the question and answer session, a notorious professor from a top tier university threw a highly complex, borderline unfair question at him regarding a variable he hadn't covered.
The auditorium went quiet. Nicholas stared at the professor, his jaw tightening. He knew the answer, but the phrasing of the question was a trap designed to make a high schooler stumble.
From the front row, where the student council officers sat, Euijoo shifted in his seat. He didn't say a word, but he raised his hand slightly, pretending to adjust his glasses. As he did, he subtly flipped over his notepad, displaying the back cover where he had quickly scribbled a single formula in large, bold marker, a foundational humanities concept regarding structural limitations that perfectly countered the professor's premise.
Nicholas’s sharp eyes caught it instantly.
The corner of his mouth ticked upward in a ghost of a smirk. He turned back to the microphone and delivered a sharp, flawless refutation that left the professor speechless and the rest of the faculty nodding in admiration.
The symposium ended at 6:00 PM. The rain was still pouring, drumming a steady, heavy rhythm against the glass windows of the campus.
Euijoo didn't go to the student council room. He didn't go to the library. He walked straight to the old arts building, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He didn't care about Yuma, he didn't care about the cameras, and he didn't care about the rules.
He pushed open the door to Darkroom 3.
The room was dark. The red light wasn't plugged in. But as the door swung closed behind him, a hand caught his arm in the darkness, pulling him inward with an intensity that took his breath away.
The door locked with a sharp click, and then he was pressed against the familiar wooden table. Nicholas didn't wait. He found Euijoo’s lips in the dark, a fierce, desperate kiss that tasted like rain, relief, and an admission of everything they had tried so hard to deny.
This time, Euijoo didn't push him away. He wrapped his arms around Nicholas’s neck, pulling him as close as humanly possible, returning the kiss with a fervor that left them both breathless.
When they finally broke apart, their foreheads resting against each other in the pitch blackness, Nicholas was panting, his hands trembling where they gripped Euijoo's waist.
"I tried," Nicholas whispered, his voice raw. "I tried to keep the rules, Euijoo. It doesn't work."
"I know," Euijoo breathed out, his fingers tangling in the damp strands of Nicholas’s hair. "I know. It was a stupid rule."
"I don't want us to be just benefits," Nicholas said, the confession hanging heavy in the dark room, stripping away the last of his guarded armor. "I don't care about the risk anymore. I hate seeing you look tired and not being able to do anything about it. I hate pretending I don't know you."
Euijoo’s heart felt like it was overflowing. The clinical, perfect transaction they had designed had collapsed completely, destroyed by the very thing they had tried to avoid. And he couldn't find it in himself to care.
"Then let's change the rules," Euijoo whispered, reaching down to find Nicholas’s hand, lacing their fingers together in the dark.
"To what?" Nicholas asked, his thumb tracing the back of Euijoo's hand.
"Rule number one," Euijoo said, a small, genuine smile forming on his lips. "We keep doing this. But we don't pretend it's nothing anymore."
Nicholas let out a soft laugh, the tension finally leaving his shoulders. He leaned down, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to Euijoo’s lips, a gesture that felt entirely different from their usual frantic encounters. It felt like a promise.
"And rule number two?" Nicholas murmured against his mouth.
"We still won't let Yuma find out," Euijoo laughed softly. "Because I really don't want to hear him talk about it during council meetings."
"Deal," Nicholas whispered.
On Monday morning, the bulletin board remained unchanged. The midterm final rankings were officially finalized, and the two names at the top were still locked in their eternal tie.
1. Wang Yixiang — Science & Advanced Math
2. Byun Euijoo — Humanities & Global Politics
A crowd of juniors was gathered around, murmuring about the legendary rivalry.
"Look at them," a freshman whispered as Nicholas and Euijoo happened to cross paths right in front of the board. "The atmosphere is so tense. You can practically see the sparks flying."
Nicholas stopped, his hands shoved in his pockets, his uniform jacket open as usual. He looked at the board, then turned his gaze to Euijoo, who was walking beside Yuma with a stack of files in his arms.
Euijoo stopped too. He adjusted his glasses, looking at Nicholas with his trademark polite, chilly expression.
"Congratulations on the tie, Wang," Euijoo said smoothly, his voice clear enough for the surrounding students to hear. "It seems we'll be sharing the podium at graduation."
"Don't get too comfortable, Byun," Nicholas replied, his tone perfectly matching the aloof, competitive edge the school expected from him. "The final term hasn't started yet."
To the rest of the school, it was just another day in the fierce battle between Hanseong’s top two minds.
But as Euijoo turned to walk away, his hand swung slightly to his side. For a split second, out of view of the crowd, his pinky finger hooked around Nicholas’s pinky finger, a quick, hidden squeeze, a secret rhythm shared between them in the bright light of day.
Nicholas didn't break character, but a faint, nearly invisible smile touched the corner of his lips as he watched the Student Council President walk down the hall.
The school thought they were fighting for the top spot. They had no idea that the top spot had already been shared, conquered, and rewritten entirely behind closed doors.