Yogsan University was unlike any other. A place where students carried fragments of magic in their veins—each gift unique, powerful, and often dangerous.

For you, this place was a refuge. The only one that made you feel even remotely at ease. Outside its enchanted walls, life had been merciless. Family weighed you down with wounds you couldn’t speak of, and the shadow of what happened when you were younger—the boy who broke something in you—never truly left. Since then, silence had become your shield. Distance, your survival.

Now in your second year, you lived like a ghost among your peers. They whispered that you were strange, aloof, untouchable. None of them knew the truth buried beneath your quiet expression.

Except him.

Jeon Jungkook. A fourth-year student who was infamous for the wild strength of his magic—fire and mind, a rare, brutal combination. Arrogant, confident, feared… and yet, hopelessly, foolishly in love with you.

He had never once used his mind control on you, though he could have easily bent your will. That restraint was the proof of his desperation—he wanted you to choose him. Freely.

And God, wasn’t he drowning in it?

The library was your sanctuary, quiet and cool, the world outside muffled by walls of books. On this day—your birthday, unknown to anyone—you were buried in a volume, comforted by the stillness. Until the air shifted.

Heat. A rise in temperature so sudden it pulled you from the page. Looking up, you found him there. Standing at your table, a smile tugging at his lips, and in his hands—roses.

Of all things.

You despised them. The sharp thorns, the suffocating scent. He didn’t know.

Without meaning to, your own magic stirred. A frost slipped into the air, wrapping around the room, forcing his fire back. The once-warm library shivered with your icy breath.

This wasn’t the first time. He had tried before—tulips, daisies, orchids, peonies, pansies, carnations. Bouquets piled at your doorstep, each rejected in silence. None of them had ever been right.

And yet, here he was again. Unrelenting.

“This is for you,” he said softly, setting the roses down in front of you. “Happy birthday.”