Every day, it felt like there was a line of girls trying to win over my deskmate. Cheerleaders, prom queens, the most popular girls in school—they all flocked to him. But my quiet, brooding deskmate? He didn't have an ounce of chivalry in his body. He’d look dead into the eyes of these gorgeous girls and spit out a single word: "Leave." It was always dripping with pure, unadulterated annoyance and apathy. Yet, that same guy would turn around, pin me against the lockers, and look at me with dark, intense eyes. His voice would carry a desperate, almost pleading edge: "Don't like anyone else. Please." 1 I’m just an average, background-character kind of girl. Average family, average grades, average looks—maybe cute on a good day, but definitely nothing special. My life was a predictable loop: school, homework, home. Everything was incredibly, agonizingly ordinary. I went through the motions every single day, completely content with my routine. Until, one day, I realized my life wasn't so ordinary anymore. It all started in my junior year, when the teacher assigned me a new deskmate. His name was Arthur. He was the valedictorian, the school’s resident bad-boy genius, and undeniably gorgeous. He had a quiet, brooding personality and constantly radiated a dark, "don't-mess-with-me" aura. He looked like he hated the world. But that didn't matter, because he was hot, and he was smart. Naturally, he was the target of countless teenage crushes. Except for me. I had zero interest in him. My crush was on the sunny, outgoing quarterback from the class next door. Which is exactly why the teacher made Arthur my deskmate. Why didn't she pair him with a guy? Because Arthur apparently had severe mysophobia—he was a massive germaphobe. If someone even brushed against him, he’d act like a layer of his skin had been peeled off. His face would instantly turn like thunder. Teenage boys are full of testosterone. One wrong look, and a fight would break out. With girls, he’d hold back from throwing punches, but his mouth was lethal. He’d verbally decimate them. So, I became the safest, most logical choice to sit next to Arthur. 2 My designated "persona" in class was quiet and a bit slow. Sitting next to Arthur, we minded our own business. We coexisted in total peace. We didn't talk. We didn't even say hi. We kept our textbooks stacked in the middle of the desk like a demilitarized zone. We had basically zero interaction. Even though his temper was notoriously bad, every morning, there would be new love letters on his desk. And every single time... he shoved them into his backpack. At first, he threw them in the trash, but people would dig them out and read them aloud. After that, he just started taking them all home. I assumed he was taking them home for a mass bonfire. Arthur never lacked girls chasing him, but recently, I’d noticed something very strange. Every few weeks, a different, highly popular girl would suddenly start making her presence known to him, trying aggressively to get his attention. And every time they failed, it was like a switch flipped. They turned into completely different people. Their personalities would change entirely. Driven by a bizarre sense of curiosity, I started observing them like a detached spectator. 3 "Arthur, I really don't understand this calculus problem. Could you help me with it?" The girl speaking was Chloe, the captain of the debate team. She was delicate and pretty, like a daffodil. She stood next to Arthur, placing her textbook on his desk, her voice laced with manufactured shyness. Arthur slowly lifted his eyes, his gaze freezing cold. "I don't know how to do it." That was a blatant, bald-faced lie. He got a perfect score on every single math test. I had never seen his grade fluctuate. The smile on Chloe's face stiffened. "Oh... okay, then." I watched her maintain her smile and tactfully walk away. Based on the look in her eyes, I guessed she wouldn't give up that easily. Sure enough, during P.E. class that afternoon, I saw her approach Arthur, who was resting under the shade of an oak tree, and hand him a bottle of water. "Arthur, you must be thirsty. Have some water." "I'm not thirsty." Arthur rejected her flat out. He then reached down, picked up his own water bottle from the grass, twisted the cap off, and took a drink. I saw Chloe clench her fists tightly behind her back. "That's okay. I'll just leave it here. You can drink it later if you want." Chloe maintained her perfect, polite smile and walked away. The cool breeze under the tree rustled Arthur's dark hair, brushing it away from his forehead. His profile looked like it was carved from marble. At an age where he should be full of youthful energy, his eyes were clouded with a heavy, suffocating darkness. He looked lifeless. Suddenly, he turned his head and caught me staring. I casually looked away, staring blankly at the clouds in the sky, acting like nothing had happened. 4 At the end of P.E. class, as we were lining up to be dismissed. Chloe let out a dramatic gasp and stumbled forward. She was standing directly in front of Arthur. However, she vastly underestimated Arthur's coldness. He smoothly took a step to the side, watching with absolute indifference as Chloe crashed hard onto the track. His hands, hanging loosely by his sides, didn't even twitch with a reflex to catch her. Chloe cried out in genuine pain. Her fake fall had turned into a very real, very painful face-plant. Arthur looked down at her from above. The faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth looked exactly like he was watching a clown perform a stupid trick. Starting the next day, Chloe gave up. She went back to being her normal self and stopped revolving her life around Arthur. While the teacher lectured passionately at the front of the room, the boy next to me was scribbling equations I couldn't even begin to understand on scrap paper. Dense, complicated, and entirely incomprehensible. I noticed that whenever he was writing these formulas, his entire aura shifted. A rare, intense spark of life would ignite in his usually dead eyes. 5 Today was the day the midterm grades were posted. The entire junior class was buzzing. Arthur, who had maintained an iron grip on the number one spot since freshman year, finally had a rival. There were two students tied for first place! Right next to Arthur's name on the ranking board was the name of a girl. Like a dark horse, she shocked everyone. The classroom was full of whispers, everyone gossiping about this new academic powerhouse. Arthur sat at his desk, completely unfazed. I looked down at my own math test—which the teacher had just finished reviewing—staring at the barely-passing grade. I let out a quiet, pathetic sigh. My sigh caught Arthur's attention. His gaze shifted to my score. There was no disdain, no arrogance. Just a very calm, flat look. But I still discreetly flipped my test over. Looking at the perfect 100 on his test, I was genuinely jealous. The disparity between humans is truly staggering. During the break after morning announcements, a girl intercepted Arthur in the hallway. She had a high ponytail, sharp features, and was stunningly beautiful. Like a rose with thorns. "Are you Arthur?" "I tied with you for first place on the midterms! I just wanted to let you know, next time, my name is going to be above yours!" The "Rose" tilted her chin up, arrogantly declaring war on Arthur. Arthur stared at her. For a split second, I actually thought he was captivated by her beauty. But then, a flash of deep annoyance crossed his eyes. Without saying a single word, he completely ignored her and walked right past her up the stairs. The Rose's face flushed bright red under the watchful eyes of the crowd. She yelled at his retreating back: "Arthur, don't you look down on me! I swear I'm going to beat you!" 6 After that, the Rose always seemed to "coincidentally" run into Arthur. Every single time, she looked at him with fierce pride, her words dripping with stubborn, motivational clichés. "I'm going to crush you." She was using reverse psychology. Trying to provoke him. But Arthur never took the bait. When the second round of midterms came, everyone was on the edge of their seats. They couldn't wait to see how the Rose was going to crush Arthur. However, to everyone's absolute shock, Arthur remained in first place. He got perfect scores in every subject! He even got a perfect score on the English essay! The Rose was in second place! After the grades were posted, the Rose confronted Arthur. "You just got lucky. Getting a perfect score on an essay is a fluke. I'm not giving up! Just you wait!" After delivering her speech, Arthur—who had never once responded to her—finally spoke. "You're so annoying. Whatever you're trying to do has absolutely nothing to do with me." "You're loud." Arthur's eyes were dark, his tone freezing cold. The Rose froze, trembling with anger. 8 The Rose went quiet. She stopped showing up. I was honestly a little curious about who the next girl trying to force her way into his life would be. Several more girls showed up over the next few months, each trying a completely different tactic to get close to Arthur. Without exception, none of them caught his attention. All they got in return was the exact same, single word: "Leave." Among all these beautiful girls, one in particular stood out to me. She was elegant and quiet, like a jasmine flower. She was a transfer student. Unlike the others, she didn't throw herself at Arthur the moment she arrived. For the first week, she made absolutely no move. But I knew she was definitely waiting for the perfect opportunity. Because on her very first day, during her introduction to the class, her gaze lingered on Arthur for several seconds. When it was my and Arthur's turn to do classroom cleanup duty after school, one of the guys in our class reached out and grabbed a chocolate bar off Arthur's desk. It was a gift from one of the girls. He hadn't touched it; he just left it sitting there. At the time, the guy had asked, "Arthur, another girl brought you food. Are you going to eat it?" Arthur was wiping the chalkboard. He didn't even turn around. "No," he said flatly. The next second, the guy ripped the packaging open. "I'm starving. If you aren't going to eat it, I will." Arthur turned around. Seeing the chocolate already in the guy's mouth, his eyes instantly darkened. He raised his hand and hurled the heavy, chalk-dust-covered eraser directly at the guy. It hit him square in the chest, sending a cloud of white dust into the air. "What is wrong with you?!" "I said I wasn't going to eat it. I didn't say you could touch my things." Then, the two of them started throwing punches. The next day, they were hauled into the principal's office. The guy swore up and down that Arthur threw the first punch. Arthur didn't say a word about the chocolate. The principal told Arthur to apologize. He refused, remaining stubbornly silent. So, the principal pulled out the ultimate threat. He was going to call Arthur's parents! Arthur's fists instantly clenched so tight his knuckles turned white. I could practically feel the rage radiating off him. I didn't understand why he wouldn't just explain the situation with the chocolate. Teenage boy logic is truly bizarre. I thought about it. We were deskmates, after all. I figured I should probably step in and explain. Just as I raised my hand, the "Jasmine" girl abruptly stood up. "Principal, Arthur didn't do anything wrong!" She recounted the entire story of what happened yesterday, clearing Arthur's name. I looked at her, finding the whole situation incredibly amusing. So this was what she had been waiting for. 9 Half a month later, Jasmine was preparing to transfer to another school. She had failed. I was genuinely surprised. I didn't know what had happened recently, but I had seen her and Arthur eating at the same table in the cafeteria. I thought she was special to him. That day after school, I was walking home and saw her turn into an alleyway. I remembered that it was a dead end. I was standing by a food truck, waiting for my crepe to be ready. The crepe was finished. I ate the whole thing. She still hadn't come out. Hesitating for a moment, I walked toward the alley. Walking straight in, there was a fork to the left. As I rounded the corner, I saw Jasmine with her back to me, talking to an empty brick wall. Her usual quiet, elegant demeanor was completely gone. She was cursing and swearing. "What the actual fuck. I played this role for so long, and it didn't do a damn thing." "Does he have some kind of hidden mind-reading skill?" "He actually came up to me while I was eating and told me he knew I was approaching him with an ulterior motive, just like everyone else. He said he saw right through me from day one." "I was holding back so much! I read so many 'saving the broken bad boy' novels before I got here. I analyzed the failures of all the girls who came before me!" "And it still didn't work." "This male lead's difficulty level is SSSS. System, I am not doing this job anymore." I stood hidden around the corner, stunned by the words I was hearing. Male lead. Strategy. System. My brain suddenly connected the dots, drawing a clear, terrifying line. I felt like I had just touched upon something massive. I slowly backed out of the alley. Under the twilight sky, a familiar silhouette appeared in my line of sight. The boy had his white baseball cap pulled low, walking on the main street ahead of me. On his pale skin, the bright red scrape near the corner of his mouth was glaringly obvious. He suddenly glanced sideways, his eyes meeting mine. His expression was dark and brooding. I looked at Arthur, my face completely blank. We stared at each other like strangers. After a brief second of eye contact, we both looked away and walked in opposite directions. Jasmine's words kept replaying on a loop in my head. As I walked home, a faint smile tugged at the corner of my lips. How incredibly fascinating. An orange tabby cat was sitting in the branches of the oak tree by the sidewalk. It stared intently at my retreating back, and I was completely oblivious. 10 The next day, Jasmine said her goodbyes to the class. As she stepped down from the podium, passing Arthur's desk, her face showed a mix of frustration and resignation. The cut near Arthur's mouth looked a little better, but it was still obviously from a fight. Jasmine wanted to try one last time. She placed a Band-Aid on Arthur's desk. I was confused. Putting a Band-Aid on a wound that had already stopped bleeding? Was that just for aesthetics? I shook my head. Arthur picked up the textbook the Band-Aid was resting on and gave it a slight shake. The Band-Aid fluttered weightlessly to the floor. Jasmine's face twisted. She stormed back to her seat, fuming. During the passing period, I proactively went over to Jasmine and placed a pastry on her desk. "A goodbye gift for you." She froze for a second, hesitating. "Your name is..." "I'm Harper Davis." "Oh! You're Arthur's deskmate. Thank you for the gift." I smiled, completely unbothered by the fact that she didn't know my name. In this class, I had almost zero presence. I always stuck to my "background character" persona. "Let's eat lunch together later." "Oh!" She was clearly taken aback by my sudden friendliness. "I'll wait for you after school. We can walk out together." I finished speaking just as the bell rang. I didn't give Jasmine a chance to refuse. I turned and went back to my seat. During that class, the English teacher was losing her voice and decided to give us a pop quiz instead of lecturing. Halfway through the quiz, the boy next to me started rummaging for something. I heard the dry, scratching sound of a pen tip digging into the paper without any ink. I glanced over and saw my deskmate, his brow furrowed with intense frustration. I pulled a box of ink refills from my backpack. Just as my fingers reached toward my pencil case, I remembered his severe germaphobia. I hesitated. Instead, I slid my hand under the desk, holding the box out to him, lightly brushing his uniform jacket to get his attention. Arthur looked at me. He was silent for a moment before pulling a single ink refill from the box. I heard a stiff, awkward, "Thank you."
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