**Warning: Contains sensitive words that might upset some reader. Please be advised**
Yeonhwa Academy stood like a monument to wealth and legacy, its glass halls gleaming under the sharp winter sun. Students strolled past marble pillars, their laughter echoing off pristine walls, as though untouched by the weight of the world outside. Oh Jihoon was not among them.
He moved like a shadow—thin frame swallowed by a secondhand uniform, eyes low, footsteps soft. While others filled the air with confidence and chatter, Jihoon slipped through it, unremarkable. He sat alone in classrooms, always choosing the corner seat nearest the window, where he could vanish into the cityscape beyond.
He had learned invisibility the hard way. After two years in the harsh corridors of a public school that chewed up the weak and spat them out, Jihoon had perfected the art of silence. At Yeonhwa Academy, it served him even better. The elite didn't bully him directly—they didn't even acknowledge his existence.
That is, until Kang Taeho looked his way.
It happened on a Thursday morning, two weeks into the semester. Jihoon was returning to the library after class, cradling a stack of returned books against his chest. His fingers were red from the cold. No one else passed the west corridor at that hour—it was a quiet, forgotten passage between the old humanities wing and the rooftop stairwell.
Except today, someone was leaning against the windowsill.
Kang Taeho.
The golden boy.
He was everything Jihoon wasn't—tall, athletic, handsome in a way that made teachers fawn and students stumble over themselves to please him. The son to a powerful Chairman of a conglomerate, a star swimmer, and student council president without even trying. He walked like the school belonged to him, because in many ways, it did.
Jihoon's steps faltered when he saw him, heart stuttering. Not because he admired Taeho, but because his presence burned like sunlight—too bright, too blinding. People like that never noticed boys like him.
Except today, Taeho did.
Their eyes met.
It wasn't long. A flicker. A breath. But Jihoon saw the moment Kang Taeho's gaze sharpen, as if he had stumbled upon a puzzle piece that didn't fit the picture. Then the golden boy pushed off the windowsill, smooth and composed, hands tucked in his blazer pockets as he strolled down the corridor and brushed past Jihoon.
No words.
Just a lingering glance as he passed.
Jihoon turned his head, watching the retreating figure, unsure if the cold creeping into his chest was from the breeze outside or something else entirely.
**
"Who was that?" Taeho asked lazily later that day, reclining in the student lounge like a king holding court. His friends lounged with him—Jisoo, Yoobin, and Seo Hyun, the sons of politicians and corporate magnates.
"Who?" Yoobin asked, chewing on a toothpick.
"That kid near the rooftop stairwell. Pale. Kind of sick-looking. He had a stack of books."
Jisoo smirked. "Oh, him. Oh Jihoon, I think? One of the scholarship kids. He transferred this semester from some public school. Dirt poor, apparently."
Seo Hyun scoffed. "He looks like he crawled out of a Dickens novel. You know the type—starving, motherless, probably writes poetry in a notebook and cries at sunsets."
Laughter followed. Taeho didn't join in.
"He didn't look at me like the others do," Taeho said thoughtfully. "Didn't flinch. Didn't smile. Just… stared."
"He's not like the others," Jisoo chuckled. "He's probably too traumatized to function."
There was a beat of silence.
Then Yoobin grinned. "Hey, I've got an idea."
"Oh no," Seo Hyun groaned. "Here we go."
Yoobin leaned in. "What if you—Kang Taeho, golden boy, unchallenged king—what if you got him to fall for you?"
Laughter erupted again, louder this time.
Taeho raised a brow, amused. "You want me to seduce the ghost boy? We never even knew if he swings that way."
"Not seduce, who cares if he's a faggot or not. We never know for sure if you don't try." Yoobin said, wagging a finger. "Just make him believe. Smile at him, talk to him, maybe touch his hand, let him think he matters. Then when he confesses or does whatever sad, poetic thing scholarship kids do, you ghost him. Let him break on his own."
Seo Hyun snorted. "You're evil, You know how Taeho is with his sweetheart Heesa and no one can compared to her, he isn't gay anyway. I'm just saying that don't let Sungjae know what shit you're planning to do or we are all screwed. You know how much of a homophobic he is and overprotective towards his sister."
"Tsk tsk…You know that I'm just bored, and besides it's just a game—Nothing fancy. We already know how much Heesa likes Taeho and vice versa, so what's the big deal?" Yoobin sarcastically replied.
Jisoo grinned. "Come on, Taeho. Bet you couldn't pull it off. What? afraid that our straight boy Sungjae and sweet Heesa will find out about the bet?"
Taeho looked out the window. The sky outside was a wan grey, washed pale by the winter sun. Below, students crossed the courtyard in tidy rows of navy blazers and silk scarves.
"Two weeks," Taeho said at last. "That's all I need."
"Game on," Minjae smirked.
No one noticed Jihoon walking past the open door at the far end of the hall.
No one noticed the way his steps paused for half a second.
No one knew that his heart, for the briefest of moments, had begun to hope.
**
The next day, Jihoon sat quietly at the edge of the cafeteria. He didn't eat much—just the soup, and even that he left half-finished. The noise around him rose in waves: laughter, trays clattering, sneakers scuffing marble. But he had long learned to tune it out.
Until a shadow fell across his table.
He looked up.
Kang Taeho.
The golden boy stood with a tray in his hand and that same unreadable expression on his face. He didn't speak right away, and Jihoon stared at him with cautious disbelief.
"…Mind if I sit here?"
Jihoon blinked.
"…What?"
"I said, can I sit here?" Taeho repeated, already sliding into the seat across from him, not waiting for permission.
Jihoon stared down at his tray. The cafeteria might as well have gone silent.
Why him?
Why now?
He cleared his throat, voice thin. "There are other tables."
"I like the quiet," Taeho replied, casually spooning some rice into his mouth. "And you're quiet."
Jihoon frowned. "…Is this a joke?"
Taeho raised a brow. "Should it be?"
Jihoon didn't answer.
His gut twisted. He didn't know what game this was, but he knew how it usually ended. Still, something in Taeho's gaze unsettled him—not because it was cruel, but because it wasn't. It wasn't pitying or mocking either. It was… curious.
Like Jihoon was a riddle waiting to be solved.
**
Later that night, Jihoon lay in his spacious and cozy bed in the dormitory, staring at the ceiling.
He could still hear Taeho's voice. He could still feel the weight of his gaze.
Was it real?
No.
It couldn't be.
Boys like that didn't look at boys like him.
He turned onto his side and pulled the thin blanket tighter around his shoulders. Even now, warmth didn't come.
He had survived this long by expecting nothing.
He wouldn't let himself forget that.
**
Taeho leaned against the wall of the courtyard two days later, watching Jihoon from across the snow-dusted flagstones. Jihoon sat beneath one of the bare cherry trees, a notebook open in his lap. His head was bowed, hair falling into his eyes.
He hadn't looked up once.
Not when Taeho arrived. Not when he passed. Not when their shoulders brushed in the corridor earlier.
He was ignoring him.
Interesting.
Taeho had seen enough of people pretending to be invisible. Most of them just wanted to be noticed. But Jihoon? He meant it.
And yet…
There was something fragile about the way he held that notebook. Like it was the only thing keeping him together.
"He's not taking the bait," Yoobin commented from behind him, sipping from a can of coffee.
"He will," Taeho replied calmly.
Jisoo chuckled. "You're playing with fire, poor Heesa."
Taeho said nothing.
Because deep down, he wasn't sure anymore who was playing who.
**
That night, Jihoon wrote in his journal for the first time in months.
He looked at me again today.
He asked me if I liked books.
I said yes, even though my voice shook.
Why does he keep looking at me like I'm not invisible?
It hurts.
I think it's because I almost believe him.
And I'm scared of what that means.
He closed the journal, his fingers trembling.
He could feel something changing.
And that terrified him more than being alone ever had.