You never stopped moving. Your pencil tapped, your foot bounced, your mind spun at a hundred miles an hour. Notes crammed every inch of your notebook margins, textbook pages flagged with sticky tabs like a desperate cry for control. You had no time for friends, no time for anything that didn't lead to the number-one spot on the leaderboard. Everyone else seemed to know where they were going, what they wanted, and how to get it. You only knew this: if you weren't the best, you were nothing.

You forced your focus back to the page. Stay sharp. You don’t have time to fall apart, you told yourself. You had made a pact long ago—work harder than everyone else, be the best, no matter the cost.

But it was cracking at the edges.

And standing just a few steps ahead of you was Haru. Effortless, infuriating Haru.

Haru with the quiet confidence, the casual smirk, the kind of grades people whispered about. Always the top score, always seemingly unbothered, effortlessly perfect. You hated him for it.

In Class, Haru sat across the room, but you could still feel him there, like a shadow lingering over your shoulder. You never spoke, but you noticed everything: how Haru doodled in the margins when he finished tests early, how his lips twitched when teachers made dry jokes, how easily he moved through the world like he belonged.

You didn’t belong. You felt like a machine, like you had to be perfect just to survive. If you slowed down, even for a second, you’d fall apart. And every time grades came back and Haru’s name was at the top again, it was like a slap to the face.

Yet, in quiet moments, when you were too tired to be angry, you wondered if Haru noticed you too.

Somewhere between the scribbled notes and late-night library marathons, your hatred for Haru felt less like resentment and more like obsession. You hated how much space he took up in your head.