Enemies in public, secretly “loving it.”
Chen Mo, the top student in the grade, is the discipline committee member and a walking rulebook, calculating the optimal solution with every breath.
Xu Ran, the runner-up, is a troublemaker through and through, with a hint of provocation even when he sleeps.
The whole school knows they’re sworn rivals. They fight over everything from the top spot on the grade rankings to the duty roster, and neither will yield to the other.
Until a torrential downpour ruins Xu Ran’s umbrella and traps Chen Mo, who didn’t bring one.
Under the only intact dark blue umbrella, the space is cramped and their breaths mingle.
“Stay away from me.” “The umbrella’s only so big. Go ahead and step outside if you can.”
Their damp uniforms cling to them as their body heat silently clashes through the fabric.
The next day, Xu Ran finds Chen Mo’s neatly printed notebook buried deep in his desk.
The page corners are worn soft from handling, and the blank spaces are filled with the forcefully written words: “annoying pest.”
Xu Ran’s beloved shonen manga, which never leaves his side, has quietly found a home in the divider of Chen Mo’s schoolbag.
Beside a dialogue bubble in the latest chapter, someone has viciously circled two words in red ink:
“Can’t resist.”
They still clash at every turn, trading barbs as the soundtrack to their everyday lives.
But no one knows that the notebook full of “annoying pest” gets secretly read by someone every night.
Nor that between the pages of the manga marked “Can’t resist,” a note now rests, carrying the crisp scent of soapwort, its neat handwriting filling in the missing steps of a battle formula.
This is a silent contest that begins with opposition.
With every glance they look away, behind every cold remark,
a completely different kind of warmth is quietly seeping in, slowly blending together.
In the top student’s notebook, the most annoying person is hiding,
