Soon_jin
Ian has one rule for surviving the Lorencia Imperial Academy: don't get noticed. Keep your grades respectably forgettable. Sit where no one looks. Want nothing, reach for nothing, lose nothing.
It was a perfect plan - until Eileen Cartier set a lunchbox down in front of him, smiled, and refused to leave.
She's the heroine. Everyone can see it: the golden hair, the noble name, the way a room turns toward her like flowers to the sun. And for reasons Ian cannot begin to understand, she has decided that the boy in the back row - the one working very hard to be furniture - is the only person she wants to share her lunch with.
So he'll pass. On the attention. On the warmth. On her. He's very good at passing on things; it's how he's kept himself safe all this time.
But spring is long, the rooftop roses are coming into bloom, and it turns out that being noticed by the right person is far more dangerous than any kind of pain.
He just never expected to want it.
I'll Pass on the Heroine is a clean, closed-door cozy academy romance - all the warmth and slow-burn longing, and not a single spicy scene. Expect a sunny, relentless heroine and a deadpan, guarded hero, a magic academy, slow-burn first love, opposites attract, lunchbox sieges and rooftop rose gardens, and a boy who would really rather not be the love interest. Guaranteed HEA, no cliffhangers.
These opening chapters (1-2) are free to read here. The complete 20-chapter novella - with full-color illustrations and an original companion song by the author - is available on Amazon Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and in paperback. Search Soonjin.
Content notes: gentle themes of emotional avoidance and academic pressure, handled softly. No explicit content.