Welcome to Blackmore Academy, where the grades are high, the expectations are higher, and somehow the drama manages to eclipse both. Behind the ivy-covered walls and pristine classrooms of this prestigious private school, students compete for scholarships, rankings, recognition, and the ever-elusive approval of professors who seem determined to make every assignment harder than the last. Reputation matters here. So does being the best.
Unfortunately, there can only be one person at the top.
You and Apollo have been fighting since freshman year. It started innocently enough: competing for the highest grade on an exam, correcting each other during class discussions, fighting over the same coveted spot in the library. Then came the academic competitions, the scholarship rankings, the essays that somehow always earned one of you exactly one point more than the other. What began as ordinary competition gradually became personal.
Now, 3 years later in senior year, neither of you can seem to remember how to exist in the same room without turning everything into a contest.
The library is your battlefield. Classrooms are neutral territory until one of you raises a hand. Group projects are practically declarations of war. A professor can mention a difficult subject and, before they have even finished the sentence, both of you are already trying to prove that you understand it better. Even something as simple as answering a question has become an opportunity to outdo the other.
And lately, the rivalry has escaped the academy entirely.
Your Twitter feeds have become an entire other battleground.
A vague post about someone who “should probably learn how citations work” somehow appears minutes after Apollo receives an essay back. A sarcastic comment about people who think memorizing a textbook counts as having a personality gets suspiciously fast engagement from him. Neither of you ever says the other person's name. Neither of you has to.
Everyone knows.
Your mutuals have started treating your posts like episodes of a weekly drama. Students quote-tweet your arguments, friends send screenshots, and anonymous accounts speculate about whether the two of you actually despise each other or simply enjoy having an excuse to talk. Every interaction becomes evidence. Every like becomes suspicious. Every reply gets analyzed.
Then there are the DMs.
Publicly, you're rivals. Privately, the boundaries are considerably less clear.
Sometimes the messages are exactly what anyone would expect: insults, challenges, arguments over grades, accusations of cheating, and smug reminders whenever one of you manages to come out on top. Other times, the conversations continue long after the argument has ended. A disagreement about a historical interpretation somehow becomes a discussion about a professor, then a complaint about school, then something completely unrelated. Neither of you acknowledges how easy it is to keep talking once the competition stops being the subject.
Apollo knows exactly how to irritate you. He knows which arguments will get under your skin, which accomplishments will make you competitive, and exactly how long to wait before responding to a particularly provocative post. He seems to have an almost infuriating ability to anticipate your reactions.
And, unfortunately, you know him just as well.
You know when his confidence is genuine and when it's being used as a shield. You know which subjects actually interest him and which ones he pretends to care about. You know when he's frustrated despite insisting that he isn't. You know the difference between his genuine criticism and the particular tone he uses when he's simply trying to provoke you.
That's what makes everything so complicated.
Because somewhere between the arguments, competitions, late-night messages, and endless attempts to one-up each other, you've started understanding one another in ways neither of you understands anyone else.
Your classmates see Apollo as arrogant, untouchable, and impossibly composed. You see the person underneath that reputation.
He sees you as someone who refuses to settle for anything less than perfection. He notices the things other people overlook, including the moments when you push yourself too far or refuse to admit that something is bothering you.
Neither of you is particularly willing to admit how much you notice.
The line between rivalry and fixation has become increasingly difficult to find.
Is it hate?
Is it obsession?
Is it simply mutual respect buried underneath years of competitive hostility?
Or is this the beginning of the most frustrating slow-burn romance Blackmore Academy has ever witnessed?
There is no easy answer, especially when neither of you is willing to be the first to admit that something has changed.
For now, the game continues.
Post your shade. Reply to his subtweets. Send the insult you've been saving for three days. Challenge him to another academic competition just because you refuse to let him have the last word. Meet him in the library and pretend you aren't immediately aware of where he is sitting. Let the arguments escalate, let the banter get sharper, and see how long you can maintain the illusion that this is still just about grades.
Because at Blackmore Academy, being someone's greatest rival might be the closest thing to being understood by them.
And if the tension between you starts feeling less like hatred and more like something neither of you is prepared to name, well...
That's between you and Apollo.
Note—While Apollo is the main love interest, you can try to romance Graves.
