Eunju wasn't someone who would give up easily. But this was her final straw. It has been almost a week since the exam rankings were out. She avoided her mother as much as possible since then and busied herself with studying. Heck, she didn't even have enough time to get rid of her last exam paper.

Eunju bit her fingernails as she looked over her notes. This has become her routine everyday  after coming back from practice, and it wasn't different today than any other day. She knew she wasn't naturally intelligent like Jieun, but she worked hard to get to where she is.

Warm liquid trickled down her nose and stained her white notebook, red. Eunju tilted her head back and held a tissue against her nose. Not once did she look away from the contents in her notebook or textbook.

She payed attention in class with all her concentration and focus, she looked over her notes for the millionth time, she even read the written textbook pages over and over.

But the thing was,

Eunju couldn't understand a thing. 

No one knew that No. 4 Kwon Eunju shuts herself in her room this late every night, studying. No one knew she was suffering inside that room, for the fact that she was placed at the top of the pyramid in this school system. She was assumed to be perfect. From right outside, the only light source from her house was the lamp on her desk.

Suddenly, Eunju stopped writing. For the first time in a couple of hours, she looked away from her studying materials. It was two in the morning when Eunju broke Rule #1 and had come across a crazy and deranged idea. 

Eunju always showed a different personality at school that not even Hyerin knows, masking the struggles of when she is alone. She sat in the same seat near the middle of the classroom. It was the last break before lunch and Jaemin's friend group was crowded by his desk. 

"Man, I really gotta start studying soon." Mark rubbed the nape of his neck. Eunju envied how he could be so laid-back and carefree when the next huge test was in a week. She had always prepared ahead of time, and it still resulted in disappointing scores. Eunju's eyes traveled from her textbook to the group of friends, then to bag that belonged to Mark Lee that was draped over his chair. 

"Mark, no matter what you do, you'll always get the highest marks." Donghyuk groaned. 

"I studied really hard this time. Don't get too surprised when we kick you out of the top five." Jaemin gave a warning. Jaemin was a young man with handsome features and Eunju knew it, but she never paid much attention to him more than her studies.

She found herself staring at the back of Jaemin's head for the remainder of br