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at the age of 6, you wanted nothing more than to make your parents proud of you.

by the time you were 8, you realized you could never truly make your parents proud. to them, it didn't matter how hard you worked, or how much time and effort you spent.

you were almost positive that if you had somehow found the cure to what was believed to be an incurable disease, or if you had somehow managed to end world hunger, or even obtain world peace; your parents could never be proud of you.

not once in the first eight years you had spent on this earth could you ever recall your parents even imply that they were proud of you. if you came home with a test you had gotten an a on, your parents wouldn’t say they were proud of you; rather they would ask, ‘isn’t that what you're supposed to do?’

if anything, you vividly remember your parents pointing out the shim family's son’s achievements more than they did yours, their very own child; their one and only child. not to mention, they didn't even like the shim family, and especially not after some falling out they had just a couple decades ago.

so, at the age of 10, you wanted nothing more than to be better than jake shim in any and every way you possibly could, but no longer with the intent and hopes of making your parents proud, no; this stemmed completely from the strong feelings of resentment you felt towards him. you absolutely despised him, how could you not? it was almost as though everywhere you went you would hear his stupid name and all about his stupid accomplishments. of course people complimented you as well considering you were the top student in your class almost ever year. key word: almost.

you and jake would always be head-to-head, neck-and-neck, whatever you wanted to call it when expressing there was a tie: that's what you and jake were. remember that keyword, almost? in the occasion that you weren't the top student, it was jake who was and in the next few years your competition would only worsen as did your interactions with each other.

somewhere along the line, jake had caught himself feeling nothing but hatred towards you. he felt like he was a target, and to your dismay he was aware of the one-sided competition you had been holding for the past 13 years. so, in order to anger you beyond imagination he suggested to his parents one night that they get him into violin lessons.

he felt so proud of himself when he heard from one of the other girls in your class that you had just recently taken up piano, and so his next step in purposely angering you even more than you previously had been, he took it upon himself to try out for your middle school’s soccer team; landing himself the position of striker.

at this point you felt as though he had been doing this on purpose, and you weren’t wrong. so, to get back at him you too decided to try out for a sport. you didn’t want to play soccer either and risk playing against him and even losing, so you tried out for what you believed to be just about similar to soccer except of course you couldn’t use your feet or let the ball touch the floor of the gym or sand depending on what you played. if it wasn’t obvious enough, you had tried out for volleyball. when you were accepted, you had been offered the position of outside hitter, which quite frankly was the same as a striker in soccer.

after graduating from middle school at fifteen, you had already been accepted to belift, one of the finest scholarly institutions for the elite youth.

many people would dream to have the honor, let alone the privilege, to even be acknowledged as an applicant. as always, your circumstance held you back from being able to feel or even fake any excitement and happiness. just as he had always ruined things for you, you recalled earlier that week when none other than jake shim was also accepted at belift.

as much as you wished to decline, you knew you’d have to be a moron to reject such a praiseworthy acceptance. so naturally, you accepted; even if it meant you had to suffer going to the same school for an extended three years with the boy you hated with the entirety of your very being.

originally, you had attempted to convince yourself that because the college preparatory was so huge: there was such a slim chance that the two of you would ever cross paths. however, there were some faults in your logic. for starters, jake would purposely go out of his way to bump into and bother you as though his life depended on it. second, the two of you would be in the same year, meaning even if you didn’t see him day-to-day, there would be times where you would absolutely have to see him; and lastly you had heard some time ago that the classrooms would be separated and categorized by which students did the best on the entrance exam—meaning you would be sorted by intelligence rather than your family’s wealth.

and even if you had been sorted by family’s wealth, knowing that the shim’s were just about tied with yours in terms of both power and money: the two of you would have been in the same class regardless.

somehow during your first year, you and jake had managed to find yourselves stuck in the same friend group. at the time it only consisted of sophomore lee heeseung, and two other freshman boys you had met in your homeroom class named park sunghoon and jay park. it wasn't hard to grow comfortable to them and in fact, in just the first few months of knowing jay you had already gone over to his house where you then met his younger step brother—who was in middle school—named niki, who often hung out with you all outside of school whenever he could; but now that heeseung had graduated, this left you stuck with jay, sunghoon, and two sophomores you had met during the beginning of your own sophomore year back when they were freshman named: kim sunoo and yang jungwon.

now you were 18 and in your junior year—your last year—of high school. similarly to every other friday night you found yourself at a friend’s house with the three other girls in your friend group: ning yizhuo, baek jiheon, and im yeojin.

jiheon had first introduced herself to you on your very first day at belift. you recall that day as though it were just yesterday—you were busy sitting on a bench in the hallway, watching as several groups of both male and female students passed by.

if you were going to spend the next three years here and share the same homeroom class with jake shim, you were lucky that the school’s uniform was cute; and because of the class you had been placed in you noticed that your uniform and the other who were the top of their grade, were a lot different compared to the other classes who had been placed beneath you.

being one of the top students came with its benefits, you realized, noting how you stood out. you look down at your uniform and back up at those who had passed you by. you wore a black uniform blazer whereas they wore a gray one—the school’s emblem stitched onto the left breast, on top of the pocket regardless. looking at your chest, you notice the gold pin on the very edge of the right side of your blazer’s notch lapel; a small gold pin that the other students didn’t seem to have. this brought you to your next realization, your blazer had gold cufflinks as well—the other students didn’t even have cufflinks, let alone 24k gold ones. you continued to examine your uniform, soon realizing how even the ties were different. people in your class have a striped grey and rather dull dark red in contrast to the pure black ties many students around you had been wearing.

you would hate to have been in the other classes, wearing such a dull uniform with no room for privileges such as being able to sport a white or black turtleneck beneath your white-collared button up, or even wear a non-uniform crewneck one as you watched one of the boys in your class pass by.

approximately three light taps are repeatedly pressed into the blade of your right shoulder, “you’re l/n y/n, right?”

whipping your head you look up, your eyes are greeted by the sight of a girl with brown hair standing before you.

“how do you know me?” you question, eyeing her movements carefully you watch as the corners of her lips expand before the slightly curving upwards. she smiled brightly at you, and you watched as even her eyes curved into smiles. “how could i not know you? aren't you the daughter of the chairman of hybe enterprise? mr. y/l/n?”

right, you thought. having not seen your father in a year because of his back-to-back travels for hybe nearly made you forget that he ever even existed.

you nod. “i’m jiheon.”

after crossing paths with jiheon, she then introduced you to her friend: im yeojin. you recall being in complete disbelief when you had first met yeojin seeing as at the time she had been standing at 4’11. however, yeojin's personality struck you with disbelief; she was nothing like you had imagined she would be but nonetheless you grew to love her.

ning yizhuo, or ningning was your best friend out of your group to say the absolute least. she was a transfer—moving from harbin, china about a year ago—the two of you became close after you had shown her around the school as your teachers had asked. ningning had joined your friend group back in your sophomore year which then resulted in the final addition in your friend group: a freshman at the time named jang wonyoung, also known as the girl whose house you were currently at.

the five of you had been talking amongst yourselves for hours; with yeojin sitting on the floor doing her nails and jiheon’s, you and ningning laid in wonyoung’s bed while wonyoung had been sat in a humongous pink bean bag chair made of faux fur that sat in the corner of her room next to a grand white bookcase.

jiheon and yeojin sat facing each other with their legs crossed; yeojin currently painting the fingernails of jiheon’s left hand. “you know, earlier today i was in the library,” wonyoung starts. “why were you in the library?” yeojin asks as she paints a coat of nail polish on jiheon’s index finger. “i was there because i have a history project-”

“oh, i love history!” jiheon says excitedly, moving slightly before yeojin glares at her. “stop moving, i didn’t bring my brush to clean up..” she mutters as she moves her focus back onto jiheon’s hand, using the nail of her thumb to wipe off the mistake she had made. “sorry..”

ningning and you laugh at the exchange, wonyoung clearing her throat before she continues to speak. “anyways, i was there because of this history project, right? and tell me why, the one time i do decide to go, jake shim is also there?”

you groan at the mention of his name, rolling your eyes; ningning sighing in response while yeojin mumbles “here she goes…”

“god, i absolutely hate him; like i actually cannot stand him—he’s so annoying! i hate his stupid face, his stupid voice, his stupid… ugh! everything, i hate it,” you complain. “you talk about him all the time, y/n but all you do is say you hate him. if i didn’t know any better i would have assumed you secretly liked him,” ningning laughs from beside you. you gag, pretending as if you were about to puke; a fit of giggles coming from across the room. “like him? secretly? yeah right, don’t even say that ningning—i’m gonna be sick.”

“maybe he’s the one who likes you, i mean why else would he put up with you for… what? 18 years now?” jiheon suggests, making yeojin gasp as she quickly moves her head up to face you with wide eyes. “she has a point, i don’t think that anyone would willingly tolerate someone they supposedly didn’t like if they didn’t secretly harbor feelings for them.”

pure disgust paints your face as yeojin’s words register in your mind. you cringe, shaking your body off as you discard the thought. “we don’t have a choice. we’ve gone to the same schools our entire lives because of our families.”

“aren't you guys also neighbors?” wonyoung asks, sitting up from her chair as she moves to sit on the floor next to yeojin and jiheon. “yeah, so that further justifies my reasoning!”

“that would have been perfect if you two were friends, you know, living next to each other and all,” ningning adds as she moves to sit up as well.

you roll over onto your back, staring at the ceiling. “but we aren't friends. we never have been and we never will be; that's just how it's always been,” you answered.

“don't you at least think he's…” jiheon starts, suddenly hesitating to finish. “don’t i think he’s what?”

“cute?” ningning asks, turning her head to face you after seeing jiheon and yeojin nod. “what? no? why would i think that he’s cute?” you ask rhetorically, completely denying that you even found him the slightest bit attractive. “for someone who’s the top student of her class you seriously lack critical thinking skills.. why else would someone ask if you found an attractive person who could get anyone they wanted, cute” wonyoung sighs, nodding her head ‘no’ as though she couldn't believe she had to explain something so simple.

“that’s another thing i hate about him! everyone thinks he’s just so good looking that it fuels his ego even more. he thinks he’s all that and it’s so annoying,” you grumble. “so you don’t think he’s cute?”

“no, of course not.”

just like any other day, you found yourself arguing with jake while your friend group talked amongst themselves, completely drowning out the two of you—as they always had whenever you two began fighting.

it was almost as though it were a routine: you would wake up, go to school, complain about how you didn’t want to be there, go to class, and by the time it was lunch, jake would have already managed to do one or two things that pissed you off; resulting in an argument.

“stop.. fucking.. touching.. me!” you snarled, kicking him in between pauses from beneath the table the two of you sat at. jake’s eyebrows furrowed, glaring over at you. “it was an accident,” he swore through gritted teeth.

“sorry, y/n, but i would never willingly touch you, let alone purposely contaminate the material of my slacks with your germs by brushing it against your leg; which i’m assuming is why you just kicked me three times?”

“ok, that’s enough out of you two,” jungwon interrupted, grabbing you by the shoulders just before he lifts you up from where you were sitting and guides you to the other end of the table where you wouldn’t be as bothered by jake. “i can do it myself,” you protest, wiggling out of his grip as you sit yourself down. “sure, that’s why you were about to slap jake, right?” jay chides, laughing at you as you pout.

“i don’t know why you guys are always arguing,” sunghoon sighs and sunoo nods in agreement. “how long have you been at each other’s throats again?”

crossing your arms and now leaning on the table, “18 years,” you mutter. “can’t you two just, i don’t know… get over it?” sunoo pleads.

that's the problem, you thought. you couldn’t just get over it.

you couldn’t possibly be able to get over it and especially not when you’ve been robbed of normalcy since the very moment you were pushed out of your mother’s womb. it was one of those things that was a lot easier said than done.

oh, how you desperately wished you could tell sunoo and the others about this, but again, as a child you had to put up a lot of boundaries between yourself, your emotions, your parents, your friends, and essentially every one who walked in and out of your life. you could never let anyone know about how you felt. you almost hated the mere thought of vulnerability as much as you hated jake shim. “you two argue like an old married couple,” sunoo says as he rubs his temples. “ew, sunoo!”

jake sighs, leaning further into the table. “we’re not in middle school anymore, y/n. you don’t have to pretend to hate or be disgusted by me to hide your feelings,” he teased. “hate to burst your bubble, shim, but i have never felt anything but resentment towards you.”

sunghoon watches the scene unfold before him while jay, who was sat next to him, drops his head onto the table; a loud thud being made as his forehead makes contact with said table. your friends look over at him, “jay, are you okay?”

“no, you guys give me a headache,” he groans, picking his head back up; lips pressed into a thin line. you reach out to rub his shoulder, “it’s okay jay, jake give me a headache too,” you coo, suddenly feeling an elbow dig into the side of your ribcage; making you cry out in pain briefly. “what the hell was that for, sunoo?!”

“behave, you’re gonna give me a headache and then i’m not gonna let you hear the end of it.”

the end of school had finally come around and you walked into the lobby of the apartment complex. if anything, the building was almost similar to a hotel, seeing as the upper floor only consisted of two penthouses; belonging to your family as well as the shim family. the sound of footsteps could be heard from behind you, a slight click being made each time the heel made contact with the floor.

you sigh, being able to recognize his footsteps from a mile away, the two of you stand in front of the elevator; index fingers both moving to press the button. for just a split second, you could feel the back of his hand graze against yours, swiftly you pull your hand back. for a moment you had been convinced that he didn’t notice the contact.

“you’re not gonna die because my hand accidentally touched yours, don’t be so dramatic,” jake laughs while his finger presses the elevator button for a few moments before pulling away, relaxing at his side. “it’s always an accident whenever it comes to you, isn’t it?” you ask just as you hear the light sound of the elevator dinging moments before it opens.

the two of you walk in, standing side by side momentarily before jake once more presses the button for you, leaning slightly before moving back to stand at your side while the small circle labeled ‘92’ lit up.

you wait for the door to close, feeling the elevator jolt slightly as it began to move upward; you turn to face jake, placing your hands on his chest as you shove him into the wall. “always, accidentally touching me, you just can’t keep your filthy hands off of me, huh?” pressed against the wall, jake smiles sinisterly as he peers down at you.

he pushes you off of him before grabbing the bottom of your jaw, forcing you to look up at him as you yelp at the sudden rough movement.

“so cute, look at you, y/n. aren’t you just begging for someone to put you in your place?”

knitting your eyebrows together, you clench your fist, using your other hand to push his hand off of you. “i can’t stand you,” you grumble, neatly adjusting your uniform while jake does the opposite; he loosens his tie, tugging at it briefly before his fingers move to undo the very top button. “you can’t stand me?” jake laughs, before his face drops. “then sit.”

“i bet you think of that image a lot, shim. wouldn’t you just love to see me on my knees for you?” you ask, scoffing as the elevator finally comes to a stop. the door slides open and you move to step out, turning around to face jake.

“cat got your tongue?” you ask, tilting your head to the side.

“don’t flatter yourself, y/n. you’re not that pretty for me to be imagining that,” he laughs as he presses the button for the floor just above yours; the elevator door closing just moments after. “unbelievable,” you mutter before moving forward slightly, fiddling with your keys to stick into the knob just as it twists; the door opening before you. you jump back, dropping your keys.

“good afternoon ms. y/n, sorry for scaring you like that. i just couldn’t help but overhear you speaking to mr. jake shim just a moment ago; so i came to open the door for you,” your butler—who you often referred to as butler lee—explains to you as you reach down to pick up your keys. “hi, it’s okay. don’t worry about it,” you breathe out while you take off your shoes before walking past him and heading straight to your bedroom.

you twist the knob, walking in to find your maid, cleaning. “good afternoon, ms. y/n. i didn’t know you were home, i was just finishing up here,” she smiles. “it’s ok, you don’t need to rush; i just got home,” you respond as you walk towards your desk to place your bag. “would you like anything to drink? water? tea?”

you nod, “no i’m fine, thank you.” you drop onto your bed, bouncing up slightly before settling. “is my mom here?” you ask as you prop yourself up with your elbows to look at your maid. continuing to dust off your bookshelf she responds, “no, she'll be gone for the rest of the week as well as the one following.”

relaxing your elbows, you lay back down once more. “did she say what for?” she nods her head, “no, i don't recall her mentioning where she was headed nor why she was leaving; she only said when she would be back.”

previously sat at your desk, you get up from your chair to stretch briefly; interlocking your fingers before facing and extending them outward and over your head—yawning. your phone that had been placed on your desk lights up, a series of notifications soon filling up your lockscreen.

taking the phone in your hand you walk over to your bed, plopping down on the mattress and bringing the phone to hover over your face. the notifications were all texts. curiously, you unlock your phone and tap on the conversation before scrolling to the very top.

jungwon: it's gonna be sunoo's birthday next month and bc i know you all haven't gotten him presents jay and i decided that in order to make this easier we should split up into partners

jay: ^^

sunghoon: oh no

jay: ur not the one who's supposed to be saying oh no lol

jake: then who is??

niki: why am i here

heeseung: bc ur friends w us

niki: right

heeseung: i alr got my present for him tho

sunghoon: wow u graduated and now ur so responsible

heeseung: i've always been responsible wtf

jay: you don't even make your bed???

heeseung: and you just toss unfolded clothes into drawers so where do we go from here

sunghoon: 😀

jungwon: ... ok anyways the partners are niki and sunghoon, jay and i and… drum roll pls

niki: u shouldn't have

heeseung: …

jungwon: jake and y/n !!

sunghoon: no u rly shouldn't have LOL

jay: LMFAOOO

jungwon: it’ll be a great bonding experience!!!

jay: 😭😭

jake: what

jake: wait wtf i don't wanna be paired up with her

for a split second, you freeze. watching as more text messages appear before you finally decide to say something.

heeseung: where even is y/n

jungwon: staring at her phone in disbelief i’m assuming

y/n: why would u do this to me jungwon

y/n: i trusted u

jay: don’t be dramatic

jake: can we switch or something

jungwon: no u guys are gonna use this as an opportunity to become friends

y/n: i’d rather jump off of a cliff

sunghoon: it’s not that serious

jake: yes it is

jay: see you guys are already agreeing with each other

jungwon: that’s a start

jake: if i could disagree i would have

y/n: i would take it back if i could

heeseung: u just said the same thing but worded it differently

niki: lol

jungwon: so are u gonna… agree or..???

y/n: ugh

y/n: sure wtv but i'm only gonna tolerate him until we buy the gift