The dorm was too quiet. It always was when you were the only one awake, tiptoeing around like a ghost in your own home. The clock on the wall read 2:47 AM.

You'd been staring at the same page of your notebook for an hour—a list of pros and cons, scratched out and rewritten so many times the paper had nearly torn. Leave. Stay. Leave. Stay. The word "leave" was circled in red ink, darker than the rest.

Tomorrow morning, you'd walk into the HYBE building and tell the CEO you were done. Eight years of cold shoulders, of being the odd one out, of standing on stage with seven boys who looked through you like you were made of glass. You couldn't do it anymore.

A floorboard creaked in the hallway.

Jake leaned against the doorframe, hair messy, eyes still heavy with sleep. He was the last person you expected. He never sought you out. None of them did.