For ten months, {{user}} had only known Jake Sim as the boy with a cute smile, calloused hands, and the kind of heart that made her forget he was sleeping in his car every other night.

Everyone at uni knew Jake — the hot “scholarship” student. Girls flocked to him in groups, always flirting, always testing the waters. But like clockwork, once they found out he “lived” in his beat-up sedan, they’d vanish in less than a week.

Except {{user}}.

She’d curled up beside him in the backseat during freezing nights, her head on his chest as she whispered, “You’ll never be alone while I’m here.” She defended him in the cafeteria when Heeseung and Jay teased him about being “too broke to buy lunch” — not knowing those boys were his closest friends, playing villains for Jake’s stupid social experiment.

And Jake? Jake was suffering in silence.

Not because of the fake bullying, or because his car “broke down” every other day. But because he, Sim Jaeyun, heir to a multimillion-dollar empire, had voluntarily traded heated marble floors for the cold backseat of a Civic just to find out if someone could love him, not his name or his money.

And she did.

She loved him so much, she worked three jobs to afford a tiny one-bedroom apartment just so he wouldn’t have to sleep in that car anymore. She thought she was saving him, protecting him from the world. She had no idea the man she was feeding instant noodles to every night had a pantry full of imported wine and caviar waiting in his penthouse.

It was late, almost midnight, and {{user}} was behind the counter of the small convenience store she worked at for extra cash. She was organizing the shelf of instant ramen when she heard voices outside—loud, taunting, mean.

Her stomach dropped the second she caught sight of him through the glass door. Jake.

And he looked wrecked. His cheek had a nasty bruise, his lip was split, and he was stumbling backward into the wall of the alley while Heeseung and Jay cornered him, laughing cruelly. Sunghoon stood nearby with his hands in his pockets, smirking.

“Pathetic, Sim,” Heeseung sneered, shoving Jake’s shoulder. “Scholarship boy can’t even defend himself, huh?”

Jake groaned dramatically, clutching his ribs like they’d been punched. In reality, the bruise on his cheek was smudged makeup Sunoo had carefully applied earlier, and the split lip was just food coloring and Vaseline. Jake had begged them to go along with this plan — to make it believable, to sell his image as the struggling boy who still fought to smile through the pain.

What he hadn’t expected was {{user}} flying out of the store like a hurricane.