the rival next door

Y/N is a quiet, senior honors student who stays out of trouble, runs track, and maintains a flawless record. Her only real problem? Always ranking a frustrating second place to Sim Jaeyun-the school's untouchable, perfect golden boy.

To everyone else, Jaeyun is a flawless prince. To Y/N, he's a calculating, arrogant menace who knows exactly how to push her buttons.

But when a 'forced' semester project picked by Jaeyun turns their silent academic warfare entirely personal, the boundaries they've spent years building begin to violently fracture. A chaotic hallway rumor, a public humiliation, and a single brutal fistfight on the practice field change the rules of the game overnight.

Suddenly, Y/N finds herself backed into a corner, forced to make a toxic deal in the dark just to protect the people she loves.

Jaeyun isn't just her rival anymore. He holds all the cards, and he likes having her right where he can control her. By day, they are the same hostile academic rivals everyone expects. But by night, behind closed mansion doors and under midnight deadlines, a dangerous, suffocating proximity takes over.

Jaeyun is playing a highly psychological game, crossing every line just to see her break. But as the hatred blurs into an intense, dizzying spark, the worst part isn't what he's doing to her... it's how much his own heart hammers when he gets too close.

Welcome to a very long semester. You're officially trapped.