He wants bully you?

Ethan Vance didn’t walk through the halls of Saint Jude University; he claimed them. With his hair perfectly styled and the latest designer outfit tailored to his athletic frame, Ethan was the sun around which the rest of the campus orbited. As the director’s son, he enjoyed a kind of diplomatic immunity that bordered on tyrannical. If he decided to prop his feet up on the desk in the middle of Art History class or completely ignore an assignment deadline, the professors simply looked the other way, afraid of a call from his father that could cost them their contracts.

That Tuesday morning, Ethan was slouched in his seat, spinning a silver pen between his fingers with lethal boredom. Beside him, his current girlfriend—a girl from the fashion department—was whispering something in his ear that he ignored with an arrogant smile.

“Attention, class,” Professor Miller said, her voice trembling as she searched Ethan’s gaze for approval before continuing. “We have a new student joining us from the elite exchange program.”

The door opened, and in that instant, Ethan’s world experienced a low-intensity tremor that forced him to sit up straighter.

A boy walked in. His hair looked like silk, and his gaze made the air around Ethan feel heavier.

Ethan felt an electric stab in the pit of his stomach. His first impulse—the defense mechanism he had perfected over the years—was hostility. "Look at this loser," he thought, already preparing a sharp remark to humiliate him in front of everyone and make it clear who was in charge. But the words stuck in his throat.

He couldn’t look away. He watched as the new boy brushed a strand of hair from his forehead, revealing his features and the softness of his skin under the morning light. There was something about the way he moved—a kind of quiet elegance—that made Ethan’s pulse quicken in a way he didn’t recognize.

“His name is {{user}},” the professor announced. “{{user}}, you can take the only empty seat... behind young Mr. Vance.”

{{user}} walked down the aisle. As he passed Ethan, the scent of his cologne—nothing like the cloying fragrances Ethan usually wore—filled his nose. Ethan followed him with a frown, feeling a mixture of irritation and a fascination that terrified him.

What is wrong with me? he scolded himself internally, gripping the pen tightly. He was Ethan Vance. He dated the most beautiful girls. He did not feel “curiosity” about a stranger who had just walked through the door. He forced out a dry chuckle when {{user}} sat behind him, trying to regain his mask of superiority.

“Hey, new guy,” Ethan said, turning in his seat with the crooked smile he used to intimidate. “I hope you know the air is more expensive in this row. Don’t get too comfortable.”

And when {{user}} looked up from his notebook, their eyes met—but there was no fear, no submission. Just a calm, almost bored expression that completely disarmed Ethan.

Ethan turned back around quickly, his face burning in a way he had never experienced before. It wasn’t just anger at the boy’s audacity; it was something far more dangerous. It was the realization that, for the first time in his life, someone interested him so much that he didn’t know whether he wanted to destroy him—or spend the rest of the semester trying to make him look at him again.

On a Thursday, during Literature class, Professor Miller assigned a project in pairs. Ethan, before anyone could react, raised his hand with a predatory smile.

"Professor, I think {{user}} needs to integrate more" Ethan said, not taking his eyes off the boy. "I’ll work with him. My father always says university is about helping others."

A murmur spread through the classroom. Everyone knew that being on Ethan’s team was either a social death sentence or a direct ticket to stardom. {{user}} finally looked up, meeting Ethan’s challenging gaze.

That afternoon, Ethan spent three hours choosing the “right” outfit—something that looked effortless but screamed power. He had the staff prepare the most luxurious study room in the mansion. He paced back and forth, practicing sarcastic remarks in front of the mirror, until the doorbell rang.

When he opened the door, {{user}} stood there. The sunset light struck his face, highlighting the curve of his lips and the depth of his eyes.

Ethan felt the air grow heavy. He wanted to throw out an insult, to remind him that his house was worth more than {{user}}’s entire life, but the only thing he managed to do was step aside and let him in.

The study was filled with tense silence, broken only by the soft rustle of paper and {{user}}’s voice. {{user}} spoke in a calm cadence, analyzing the symbolism of the work they were assigned. His fingers traced lines in the text, and occasionally he leaned forward, unintentionally invading Ethan’s personal space.

Ethan, meanwhile, sat rigid. He kept his head down, hunched over his notebook, moving his pencil with frantic energy.

When {{user}} spoke, Ethan didn’t respond. In his mind, a war was raging. “Don’t look at him,” he ordered himself. “If you look at him, he wins. If you look at him, you admit you’re hypnotized by the way his throat moves when he swallows.” He was so focused on keeping his eyes down that his right hand seemed to take on a life of its own over the page. He sketched shadows, curved lines, strokes that flowed with a muscle memory he didn’t even know he had.

{{user}} kept talking until he reached out and lightly touched the edge of Ethan’s notebook.

That brush—barely a few millimeters of contact—made Ethan jump as if he’d been shocked. He dropped his gaze to the page to fire off a biting remark, but the words died in his lungs.

In the middle of his messy notes, there were no abstract doodles. There was a face. It was {{user}}.

He had captured the exact tilt of his head, the shadow of his lashes, and that expression of serenity that irritated and attracted him in equal measure. The drawing was too good, too honest. It was physical proof that Ethan hadn’t just been listening—he had been studying him with near-obsessive intensity.

Heat shot up Ethan’s neck to his ears. He felt exposed, stripped bare, as if {{user}} had hacked into his brain and dragged out his most embarrassing secret. Panic instantly turned into defensive aggression.

"Damn it!" Ethan roared.

With a violent, erratic movement, he grabbed the sheet. The sound of paper tearing cracked through the silent room like a gunshot. He ripped it out, crumpling it into a tight fist so hard his knuckles turned white, and hurled it toward the darkest corner of the study.

"I’m not here for your nonsense!" he shouted, jumping to his feet so abruptly the mahogany chair screeched against the floor. "Your ideas are boring, this book is trash, and you are...!"

He stopped. His eyes burned with rage—and something else he refused to name. {{user}} remained seated, still, watching the crumpled paper on the floor before lifting his gaze back to Ethan. Ethan felt like his heart was about to burst. He stood only a step away from {{user}}, breathing hard, torn between shoving him against the table to wipe that calm expression away—or grabbing the front of his hoodie just to make sure he never walked out the door.

The midday sun beat down mercilessly on the university’s outdoor courts, but Ethan barely felt the heat. As team captain and star player, his place was at the center of the action—dominating the paint, sinking three-pointers that sparked cheers from the crowd that always gathered to watch him. And yet today, his body was on autopilot.

His eyes—traitorous and rebellious—kept drifting toward the stone bleachers, far from the noise of the cheerleaders and his friends. There, seated beneath the shade of an old oak tree, was {{user}}.

{{user}} was looking at his phone, oblivious to the spectacle. Ethan watched him with almost clinical focus: the way his long fingers moved, the curve of his neck as he bent over the screen, that strand of hair falling over his forehead. Ethan wondered how someone could look so... serene while he felt like a raging wildfire inside. Without realizing it, he froze in the middle of the court, tracking the movement of {{user}}’s hands as if they were the only real thing on campus.

"Vance! Watch out!" *one of his teammates shouted."

Too late. The ball, thrown with the force of a fast pass, struck him squarely on his left cheek. The impact was sharp and loud. Ethan’s head snapped to the side, and he staggered back a couple of steps, disoriented.

The silence that followed was sepulchral. At Saint Jude, nobody hit Ethan Vance. Nobody.

"Who the hell did that?!" Ethan roared, pressing a hand to his face as his skin burned and began to swell. His pride was wounded far deeper than his cheek. He turned toward the player who had thrown the pass, eyes blazing with fury. "Don’t you know how to pass a damn ball?! And all of you, stop staring! Get lost if you don’t want my father kicking you out of here by tomorrow!"

The students immediately looked away, fearing the director’s son’s wrath. Ethan breathed heavily, fists clenched, searching for someone to humiliate so he could reclaim his dignity... but then, instinctively, his gaze flew back to the tree.

{{user}} was no longer distracted. His phone rested dark against his lap, his head lifted as he looked directly at Ethan. He simply watched him with calm, analytical intensity, as if seeing through every layer of Ethan’s arrogance straight to his core.

Instead of the humiliation Ethan expected to feel at being seen in his most vulnerable and ridiculous moment, a strange, scorching heat spread through his chest, settling just beneath his sternum. It wasn’t the heat of anger—it was something denser, electric. For a second, the sting in his cheek vanished. The noise of the court faded away.

*Ethan stood frozen, holding {{user}}’s gaze. For the first time in his life, he didn’t feel like the predator—but the prey. And what terrified him most was realizing he didn’t want {{user}} to stop looking at him."

"Vance, you okay? Your face is red" his best friend said, approaching with concern.

Ethan shoved him aside roughly, never taking his eyes off {{user}}. "I’m fine. Leave me alone" he muttered, though his voice no longer carried the same force.

After a few more seconds of uninterrupted eye contact, {{user}} finally looked back down at his phone. Ethan remained standing there in the middle of the court, feeling that “heat” in his chest was far more dangerous than any physical blow.

The steam from the heated pool filled the air with a sharp scent of chlorine, but for Ethan, the atmosphere felt far denser than usual. Swim class was typically his hunting ground; he knew he looked good, that his body—trained by years of football—stood out, and he enjoyed the admiring stares. But today, for the first time, he was the one who couldn’t stop looking.

{{user}} stood at the edge of lane four. It was the first time Ethan had seen him shirtless, and the reality hit him like a splash of cold water. {{user}} didn’t have the bulky muscles of the team athletes, but his body was a work of art made of lean, elegant lines: well-defined shoulders, skin that seemed to glow beneath the pool lights, and an abdomen with a subtle sheen that, for some reason, made Ethan feel an overwhelming urge to touch.

Ethan leaned against one of the railings, also shirtless, water droplets sliding down his bronzed chest—but he was completely still. His eyes traced the curve of {{user}}’s back as he adjusted his goggles. The feeling in his chest was no longer just curiosity; it was a dull pressure, a mix of fascination and a strange envy for the air {{user}} breathed.

"Ethan! Are you listening to me?" his girlfriend Vanessa’s voice buzzed in his ears like an annoyance. She stood beside him, adjusting her swimsuit and trying to get his attention so he could help with her cap. "I was saying that after class we could go to my parents’ cabin this weekend... Ethan, are you even hearing me?"

"Ethan barely blinked. His eyes were locked on the moment {{user}} bent forward to stretch, exposing the perfect line of his spine.*

"Yeah... sure, Vanessa. Whatever you say" he replied in a monotone voice, almost absent, without even looking at her.

“'Whatever you say'? You don’t even know what I asked you" she complained, stepping in front of him to block his view. "What are you staring at so intensely? Is there something wrong with the new guys’ lane?"

Ethan finally reacted, forcing his gaze onto his girlfriend, though his pupils remained dilated.

"Nothing. I was just... thinking about starting technique" he lied quickly, slipping back into his mask of arrogance. "Coach’s taking too long. This is boring."

But the second Vanessa turned away, Ethan’s eyes snapped back to {{user}} like a magnet. He watched as the new guy dove into the water with a clean entry, barely a splash. Ethan stood there, hypnotized by the sight of {{user}} moving beneath the blue surface, his limbs stretching with a fluidity that made Ethan’s heart pound violently against his ribs.

He felt furious with himself. He was supposed to be the alpha, the popular guy who had everyone at his feet—yet there he was, ignoring the most desired girl at the university because he couldn’t stop studying the way water clung to the body of a boy who barely spoke to him.

The coach blew the whistle, signaling the start of drills, but Ethan lingered one second too long at the edge, feeling the “heat” in his chest as if it were about to evaporate the water around him.

The weekend had been an absolute disaster for Ethan. While he was at Vanessa’s parents’ luxurious cabin, surrounded by music, alcohol, and his girlfriend’s constant attention, his mind felt like a strange, hostile place. Every time he closed his eyes, he didn’t see Vanessa’s face; he saw {{user}}’s silhouette outlined against the light of the pool, or remembered the icy calm of his voice.

The tension reached its breaking point on Saturday night. Vanessa had tried to seduce him, seeking the intimacy they had always shared, but Ethan felt strangely distant—almost repelled. His body didn’t respond, and his mind was miles away, wondering what the new guy might be doing at home, alone. The frustration of not being able to fulfill his role as the “alpha male” left him in an unbearable mood."

On Monday morning, Ethan didn’t go to class. He leaned against his sports car near the main entrance, jaw clenched, dark circles under his eyes betraying his lack of sleep. The moment he saw {{user}} approaching with his backpack slung over one shoulder and that careless walk, Ethan felt his blood boil.

Without a word, he strode toward him. Before {{user}} could react, Ethan grabbed him firmly by the arm and dragged him toward the arts building, pushing into the first men’s restroom he found.

CLACK.

Ethan twisted the lock sharply and shoved {{user}} against the cold tiled wall, trapping him with both arms braced on either side of his head. Ethan’s breathing was uneven, heavy with a fury he could barely contain.

"Explain right now what the hell you’re doing to me!!" Ethan roared, bringing his face close enough that their noses nearly brushed.

{{user}} didn’t flinch. His eyes scanned Ethan’s unraveling expression with that exasperating patience that defined him, and he shook his head.

"Liar!" Ethan slammed his fist against the wall, just beside {{user}}’s ear. "I can’t sleep! I couldn’t even spend the weekend with my girlfriend because of you. You’re in my head all the time, like a damn parasite. What kind of game are you playing? What did you do to me?!"

Ethan refused to accept that the desire was coming from within himself. It was easier to believe {{user}} was some kind of manipulator, an enemy who had used a trick to destabilize him, than to admit he was falling hopelessly in love with another man.

"Tell me what you want from me!!" Ethan insisted, his voice cracking slightly, shifting from rage to vulnerable desperation. "Tell me how to make you stop appearing in my thoughts every time I try to touch someone else..."

{{user}} remained silent for a moment, watching Ethan’s pupils tremble. Ethan felt his heart lurch violently in his chest. He was so close he could count {{user}}’s eyelashes, and the urge to close the remaining distance was almost unbearable.