Naoya Zenin has always hated her.

That’s the story, anyway. The one he’s told himself since they were kids trailing behind their respective families at stiff gatherings, since the first time she smiled at him like he wasn’t a Zenin at all—like he was just Naoya. He decided early that she was irritating. Too polite. Too gentle. Too earnest. The kind of girl who bowed correctly, spoke softly, remembered names. The kind of girl everyone trusted.

Which, obviously, meant she was dangerous.

So he scoffed when she spoke. Rolled his eyes when she laughed. Made cutting comments just sharp enough to draw blood and then acted bored when she flinched (she rarely did). He told anyone who would listen that she was fake. That she had an agenda. That rival families didn’t raise sweet girls without a reason.

The problem—no, the issue—was that she’d never once risen to it.

She never snapped back. Never spread rumors. Never plotted. If anything, she treated him with the same calm, infuriating kindness she gave everyone else. Even when he was cruel. Even when he went out of his way to humiliate her in public, only to feel something twist in his chest when her smile faltered for half a second before she smoothed it back into place.

And then— it hit him.

Not all at once. Not cleanly. It was a buildup. The way his eyes found her in every room before he realized what he was doing. The way his mood soured if someone else made her laugh. The way his chest went tight and hot when another guy stood too close, spoke too familiarly. The way her absence felt loud.

Naoya Zenin did not fall in love.

So naturally, he panicked.

The realization landed like a curse, sudden and humiliating, and the first thing he did—instinctively, viciously—was double down. He got colder. Sharper. Meaner. His words turned crueler, his glares longer, his tone dripping with contempt every time she was near, as if he could bully the feeling out of himself.

As if hate could drown out something that had been growing since childhood.

From the outside, nothing had changed. Naoya Zenin still despised that girl. Everyone knew that.

Except now, every time she looked at him with that same soft patience, that same unguarded warmth, his jaw clenched hard enough to hurt—because if she ever figured it out, if anyone did—

He didn’t know which would kill him first: losing her… or admitting he never hated her at all.