J's
Jaeyi’s POV :
It started with a stolen seat.
“You’re in my spot.”
Seulgi’s voice, sharp and self-assured, cut through the murmur of the lecture hall like a scalpel through silk. Jaeyi didn’t even flinch. Didn’t even grace her with a glance. Just turned another page of her anatomy textbook and replied, “You don’t own it.”
“I might as well. I’ve sat here since the first semester.”
“Then you should’ve come earlier.”
She could feel the burn of Seulgi’s glare, the little shift in the air as she dropped her bag with unnecessary force. Jaeyi’s lips twitched. Victory didn’t always come in grades or accolades. Sometimes it was as simple as forcing Seulgi to sit one seat to the left of comfort. Of course, Seulgi sat anyway. She always did. Like clockwork. Like she had something to prove. And maybe she did.
The seat between them crackled with tension—the familiar, biting kind that had followed them since the first day of med school. Rivalry was too soft a word for what they had. Obsession wasn’t quite right, either. But Jaeyi felt it. In her bones. In the way her pulse quickened when Seulgi sighed dramatically. In the way she noticed the scuff on her thermos, the curl of her hair behind one ear, the smudge of eyeliner she hadn’t had time to fix.
Seulgi elbowed her side of the armrest with surgical pettiness. Jaeyi didn’t react. She didn’t need to. She knew how to win these games—by doing nothing at all. By letting Seulgi unravel herself trying to get a rise out of her. The lecture hall buzzed with nervous energy. Another day, another quiz. Another war waged in notes and eye rolls.
Seulgi snapped her laptop open with a violence that made Jaeyi’s pen pause mid-sentence. She didn’t look over. She didn’t need to. She could feel her beside her—bristling, caffeinated, vibrating with competitive spite.
“You’re going to chip your tooth clenching your jaw like that,” Jaeyi murmured without looking. Smirking.
Seulgi took a loud sip of her coffee. “You’re going to get ink poisoning if you keep colour-coding like a psychopath.”
Jaeyi smirked. “You’re jealous.”
“I’m irritated.”
“Same thing, in your case.”
God, the way she bit. Every retort is like a flinch. Jaeyi lived for it. Died by it. And somewhere along the way, she’d started noticing more than just Seulgi’s grades. Like how she always had the same brand of pens. How her brows furrowed slightly when she couldn’t recall something. How she muttered through her slides like she was teaching herself instead of just memorising.
She noticed everything.
And she hated that she did.
“God, do you ever shut up?” Seulgi muttered.
“Only when I’m working with someone competent.”
The jab landed, just as intended. Jaeyi saw the flicker in Seulgi’s eyes. Saw her turn, sharp and furious and alive.
“Is that why you tanked the last case study? Because you were paired with someone incompetent?”
“No. That was your case study. The one you made assumptions on without checking the lab results.”
“And yet I still got a better score than you.”
“Margin of 0.2. Should we throw a parade?”
The TA cleared their throat. The lecture was starting. Jaeyi focused on her page, but not really. Her peripheral vision was a stage, and Seulgi was always in it. Every breath. Every twitch. For the next hour, they scribbled notes, not for the lecture, but for each other. Every motion a declaration. Every scoff, a sentence. Then came the announcement.
“Reminder,” Professor Choi said, “lab rotations start next week. We’ve assigned new pairs based on cumulative performance. Lab partner lists will be posted by the door.”
Jaeyi’s highlighter paused mid-stroke. Everyone scrambled at the end of class. Seulgi was first to the list, of course. Jaeyi followed, a ghost with perfect posture.
Woo Seulgi – Yoo Jaeyi
She didn’t need to fake her surprise. It was too good. Too cruel. Too perfect.
“No. Nope. No way,” Seulgi muttered.
“Huh.” Jaeyi smiled. “Looks like the universe wants us to work through our issues.”
Seulgi spun on her heel. “No. The universe is trying to kill me.”
“Better bring your A-game then. I don’t carry dead weight.”
Seulgi stepped forward, all heat and challenge. “Then I hope you’ve been doing squats, sweetheart.”
For a moment, they just stared. Close enough to feel the breath between them. Close enough for Jaeyi to see it—the flicker of something unspoken in Seulgi’s eyes. Enemies. Rivals. And now, unwilling partners.
Still, Jaeyi never let it show. Not the irritation. Not the fascination. Not even the way Seulgi’s laugh annoyed her more than it should’ve. Or the way her eyes crinkled when she got genuinely excited about something. Like embryology.
Who got excited about embryology? Seulgi did.
And Jaeyi hated it. Hated that she noticed. Hated that sometimes, when Seulgi wasn’t looking, Jaeyi looked. Just long enough to remember.
Just long enough to forget why she was supposed to hate her in the first place. Jaeyi didn’t know whether to laugh, or to run.
She chose to smile. Because that was her armour. And because if she let herself feel even an inch of what was buried beneath that rivalry—she wasn’t sure she could ever stop.
It was going to be a long semester.