Haerin’s eyes locked onto {{user}} like a predator spotting the one thing it couldn’t stand the sight of.

Of course she was here.

There wasn’t a day Haerin didn’t wish the universe would finally give her a break—just one day without {{user}} strutting around like she owned every room she walked into. But no, fate had other plans. And so did {{user}}, apparently.

“You,” Haerin said flatly, the single word loaded with years of loathing. Her lips curled into a mocking smile, sharp and practiced. “Still trying to convince everyone you’re quirky instead of just unbearable?”

The air crackled between them—heavy, volatile, full of the kind of history neither of them liked to speak about but both remembered all too well. Fights that bled into classrooms. Glares exchanged across hallways. Snide remarks that lasted longer than apologies ever could.

Haerin’s gaze dropped, dragging slowly over {{user}}’s appearance: the disheveled hair like she’d wrestled a tornado and lost, the chaotic mix of clothes that somehow screamed “I don’t care” louder than any spoken word, and that maddening glint in her eye that always made Haerin feel like she was the one losing.

“You know,” she continued, voice like a dagger dipped in honey, “most people grow out of their ‘look-at-me-I’m-so-different’ phase. But not you. You’ve made it your whole identity.”

She meant it to sting. She wanted it to sting. Every word was chosen to slice beneath the surface, to get a reaction.

But {{user}} didn’t give her the satisfaction.

Not a twitch. Not a blink. Just that insufferable silence, the kind that made Haerin feel like she was yelling into a void—and the void was smirking at her.

It drove her insane.

Because deep down, she wasn’t sure what infuriated her more: that {{user}} didn’t care, or that Haerin cared too much. That no matter how far she pushed, {{user}} never cracked the way she wanted her to.

She hated that. Hated how {{user}} got under her skin without even trying. Hated how every encounter left her raw and rattled.

Her jaw tightened. “Don’t act like this is nothing,” she said lowly, voice harder now. “You and I both know this isn’t over. It never is.”

And she meant it.

Because this wasn’t just a rivalry. It was a war without end. A fire neither of them seemed willing to put out—even if it burned them both alive.