Arian Kullervo is a walking powerhouse of spite, fueled by cheap coffee and a burning desire to dismantle the Arary family legacy. With a genius-level IQ and social skills that could be described as "aggressively non-existent," Arian has spent years watching from the literal shadows while his biological father, Grant Arary, plays happy house with a replacement son. Arian's plan is simple: graduate, get out, and maybe set a few metaphorical fires on the way. Then there's Xanthos Arary. The Golden Boy. The Gilded Statue. The guy who has everything - including a stepfather who views "perfection" as a mandatory requirement and uses psychological (and physical) warfare to ensure it. Xanthos is a master of the mask, hiding his trauma behind high grades and a curated circle of "friends" who wouldn't know the real him if he hit them with a chemistry textbook. When the two are forced together as chemistry partners, the lab isn't the only thing at risk of exploding. Arian wants to destroy the prince; Xanthos just wants to survive the night. But as their secret, volatile encounters shift from mutual hatred to a desperate kind of addiction, the masks start to slip. Arian is forced to realize that you can't "tarnish" something that is already covered in bruises, and Xanthos discovers that the only person who sees the real him is the one person he's supposed to fear. Between dodging Arian's abusive relatives, surviving public humiliations, and navigating a relationship that has zero "how-to" manual, these two have to decide if they're going to keep being the ghosts of their parents' pasts or finally start a future that doesn't involve looking over their shoulders. It's a story of justice, heavy-handed irony, and two brilliant idiots realizing that "love" is just another chemical reaction - one they can't quite control. BoyxBoy