Chapter 1

In my sophomore year, my webcomic blew up online. Fans quickly pieced together that the male lead was based on Kingsley University's campus heartthrob, Jonathan.

The online friend I had chatted with for ten years sent me a message: "The hero is based on me. Is the heroine based on you? Are you a girl?"

Jonathan insisted on meeting me in person.

So I set the date for three weeks later, the day the final chapter of my comic was scheduled to drop.

But the day before we were supposed to meet, my roommate Emma confessed her feelings to Jonathan.

She used the exact same grand gesture from the ending of my comic.

And they got together.

Emma gave me an apologetic smile. "Sorry for borrowing your comic's idea! He and I will buy you dinner sometime."

Quietly, I pulled out my phone and texted Jonathan:

"Emma isn't me."

01

When the message went through, Emma was still staring at me.

"Or is there something you've wanted but couldn't afford? I can have my boyfriend buy it for you."

My other two roommates couldn't take it anymore.

"We all know Sadie has a crush on Jonathan. How could you just steal her idea?"

"Yeah, that's not borrowing. That's plagiarism."

Emma's eyes welled with tears, but nobody comforted her.

I had been serializing my comic Sleepless Hours since high school graduation.

After starting college, I used my drawing tablet in our dorm all the time.

So the three of them knew I was the author, and they promised to keep it a secret.

In return, I frequently bought them gifts using my royalties.

I just never expected the comic to go viral or for readers to figure out that Jonathan was the inspiration behind the male lead.

Back then, Emma had asked me, "Sadie, you don't actually like Jonathan, do you?"

I hadn't answered.

She had laughed. "He's been the golden boy since freshman year, top ten in the math department, endless girls chasing him. But you probably don't understand guys like him. Good-looking, wealthy... even if he claims he's single, he's definitely got a crowd of girls he flirts with on the side."

Without thinking, I had cut her off. "He's not like that."

They realized then that I was harboring a secret crush.

Emma had gasped. "Oh my god, I'm totally shipping you two!"

Then she badgered me until I let her see the ending I had drawn in advance.

I hadn't thought much of it, only reminding them to keep it strictly confidential.

It wasn't until tonight, when a roommate called me and told me to check the main campus group chat, that I realized what had happened.

The group chat was flooded with videos taken from different angles.

A radiant girl standing under the golden twilight on the East Quad, stepping right into the path of the handsome golden boy.

She had orchestrated a grand, romantic, public confession.

Just like the female lead in my comic.

At the end of the video, Emma asked Jonathan with tear-brimmed eyes, "I've never done anything like this for anyone else. All my courage and love belong only to you. Will you be with me?"

Those words were the exact dialogue from the comic's finale.

Jonathan didn't wrap his arms around her like the hero in my drawing.

He simply raised his hand and wiped away her tears.

The crowd around them erupted into wild cheers.

Everyone was chanting, "Say yes! Say yes!"

And in the video, I heard his response crystal clear.

He said, "Okay."

On May 20th, 2026, they became a couple.

02

"My campus goddess has been pining over someone else for two years?! I am heartbroken!"

"Am I the only one who thinks her confession was insanely touching? Being so vulnerable about her past is usually something guys do!"

"Plus one! They're each other's first love, oh my god!"

"Is anyone else reading Sleepless Hours? Holy crap, it's like the comic came to life!"

In a group chat with thousands of students, messages flashed past at breakneck speed.

Inside the dorm, Emma wiped her tears, her voice stubborn and defensive.

"I just wanted to be brave for once in my life. Is that really a crime?"

"Please don't let this ruin our friendship, okay?"

I held back my roomies who were ready to tear into her, looking at her with cold eyes. "You and I are done being friends."

Emma ran out of the room crying, not returning until curfew.

The moment the lights went out, Jonathan replied.

"Huh?"

"Why would you think I mistook her for you?"

I froze.

His messages kept coming.

"When Emma said those things showing how well she knew me, for a second I thought you had come to meet me early."

"But once she talked about her past, I knew it wasn't you."

I stared at Jonathan's words.

The initial wave of anger and humiliation slowly drained away, replaced by an unbearable, burning shame.

Still, I couldn't swallow what I needed to say.

I quickly typed: "Emma saw the ending of my comic. She copied the exact scene for her confession."

Afraid he wouldn't believe me, I switched apps to send him the raw digital files.

Before I could attach them, a notification popped up.

Jonathan: "I know."

"She ran out of her dorm to find me earlier. She confessed that her idea came from her roommate's comic."

03

I canceled the upload and backed out to the chat window.

Below his text, the typing indicator stayed active for a long time.

I was typing too: "Everything she knows about you, the words that touched your heart... they all came from my comic..."

I typed it out, then deleted it letter by letter.

In that moment, I felt like a bitter villain trying to tear the main couple apart.

Jonathan's next block of text finally arrived.

"I don't care about the rest. All I've ever wanted is a devotion that belongs solely to me, pure and without ulterior motives. She told me..."

It was a long paragraph describing exactly how Emma had touched his heart.

It didn't sound like his usual way of talking.

For the past ten years, most of our conversations were about complex math problems, with occasional snippets of our daily lives.

Whether it was a brutal exam question or a personal crisis, he always preferred giving conclusions, brushing over the process.

Yet right now, he kept sending wall after wall of text.

"Two years ago, you thanked me for letting you use me as a model for your comic."

"Now, I want to thank you. Because of you, my real-life heroine has walked into my story."

My fingers hovered over the screen, paralyzed.

I realized then that he didn't need anything I had to say.

When the comic was at its peak, Jonathan had asked me:

"I saw the comic. The hero is me, right? Is the heroine you? So you're actually a girl?"

My account had always used default settings from when I registered, showing no gender.

I had told him that aside from gender, the heroine was the exact opposite of who I really was.

He had replied, "Then I want to get to know you even more."

Now, through the cold glow of the screen, he told me:

"I'm really lucky to have you as a friend. Under normal circumstances, I ought to buy you a proper dinner."

"But I just got a girlfriend. I can't do anything that would make her jealous or insecure. So I think it's better if we don't meet tomorrow after all."

"What do you think?"

04

Jonathan wasn't asking for my opinion.

Nor was he suggesting we reschedule.

He was simply saving me from total humiliation, preserving the last shred of my dignity.

I thought to myself, staring at a phone in the dark really ruins your eyes.

A hot, bitter tear slipped down my cheek and splashed onto the glass screen.

I typed back: "Haha, yeah. Makes sense."

He sent a huge digital cash gift, with a note: I'm sorry.

I tapped refund.

"No need for that."

I quickly added: "It's late. Get some sleep."

He replied: "Yeah."

We tacitly stopped saying goodnight like we used to.

Intimate words like that didn't belong between us anymore.

I stared at the timestamp in the corner of the screen: 2026/05/21 01:17:26 AM.

The thin thread connecting my life to his, built carefully over eleven years, snapped right here.

Easily, absurdly, completely.

I lay in bed, tossing and turning in a haze.

The next morning, I barely scraped together enough energy to make it through my early lecture.

With no afternoon classes, I went straight back to the dorm to sleep off the exhaustion.

Voices leaking through my bed curtain woke me up.

"When I filmed that video for you, I knew it would go viral, but wow!"

"Emma, you are unbelievable! You actually bagged the math department's unattainable prince!"

"By the way, you went looking for him again last night, didn't you? So? Did you guys kiss?"

It was Emma's friends visiting her room.

Emma squeaked in a playful, coy tone, "Oh, stop it, we haven't gone that far yet..."

They giggled for a bit before heading out for dinner.

The door clicked shut, leaving the room quiet once more.

I opened my video app.

Her confession was the very first video on my feed.

Golden hour, a romantic speech, and the caption: Second year of loving him. My secret crush is finally over.

05

With the hype of an elite university and two insanely attractive leads, the video had crossed a million likes within twenty-four hours.

Emma, who used to have barely two thousand followers, gained a hundred thousand overnight.

As the video looped a second time, I hit pause and scrolled to the comments.

Top comment: congratulations and heart emojis.

Second top comment was a lengthy paragraph:

"I rewatched this video a dozen times, and it feels EXACTLY like the confession scene from Sleepless Hours! The author dropped the final chapter at 6 AM today, but this video was posted yesterday. Dare I guess... you're the author, aren't you?! Are you bringing the comic's love story into real life? I'm crying my eyes out T_T"

Replies below it were filled with "Great analysis!" and "Keep her identity secret!"

That comment had been up for eight hours.

Emma hadn't denied it.

The top search tag in the comment section was: Sleepless Hours author successfully confesses.

I logged into my author dashboard. My inbox was overflowing:

"Author! @LittleEmmaIsTaken is you, right? This is so sweet!"

"Begging for a sequel about your daily dating life ORZ"

...

I picked one comment and replied:

"The author has never been in a relationship, so there won't be a sequel."

I put my phone down.

Silence reclaimed the room.

In my comic, the female lead was named Aria.

She was a ray of sunshine, raised in a loving, wealthy home.

She wasn't the smartest student, but everybody adored her.

Optimistic and bright, she grew up blissfully alongside her childhood best friend, the male lead.

I realized my mistake. I should never have confused fiction with reality.

I tried doing math problems to distract myself.

I stared at a complex proof for hours without a single breakthrough.

In the past, I would have snapped a picture and sent it to Jonathan.

Now...

Irritated, I snapped my notebook shut, pulled out my phone, and doom-scrolled to force my brain into a dopamine hit.

The next video was tagged at Kingsley University, recorded from a stealthy angle.

Two figures were walking side by side down a tree-lined campus path.

Even from behind, I recognized Jonathan instantly.

In two years at the same college, I rarely bumped into him.

Luck was never on my side. Even in large general education lectures, our schedules never overlapped.

Except for one semester in Ordinary Differential Equations.

Jonathan's roommate liked to reserve seats in the second-to-last row by the window.

So that was the only class where I sat in the very back row.

For three hours every week, all I had to do was raise my head, and his back would be right there in my sight.

In the video, his back was turned to the camera.

The girl beside him, barely reaching his shoulder, reached out and gently brushed his hand.

He pulled his hand back in surprise, but his ears flushed a brilliant crimson.

06

The camera zoomed in on his blushing ear.

Big bold text flashed on screen: MY SHIP IS SO PURE AND BLUSHING!

Caption: Ran into our campus's newest power couple on their way to dinner!

I tapped the creator's profile.

It belonged to one of Emma's close classmates who frequently hung out in our dorm.

I uninstalled the app.

Over the next few weeks, I forced myself into my old routine. Studying hard, eating, sleeping.

Life went on.

Except occasionally, I would overhear classmates gushing during breaks.

"I saw Jonathan bringing his girlfriend to class this morning. She's even prettier in person than in the video!"

"Total power couple vibes! So sweet!"

"I heard he bought each of her best friends a Bvlgari necklace. Can you please find a boyfriend like that for my sake?"

"Good luck finding another Jonathan!"

I kept my head down, still wrestling with that unsolved problem.

I wasn't in a rush.

I knew every problem had an answer eventually.

Class ended, and I packed my bag quickly to leave.

"Move, move, I'm starving!"

Someone bumped into me from behind.

Not hard, but the loose scratch paper tucked inside my notebook scattered across the floor.

The guy apologized profusely.

His friend waiting at the door stepped over to help pick them up.

"Sorry about that, my roommate's a klutz."

My heart skipped a beat. As I bent down, my hand brushed against his.

I snatched my hand back instantly.

He picked up the paper, his voice filled with surprise. "You're working on this proof too?"

I forced myself to look up into Jonathan's eyes.

In my original daydreams, our first real meeting would be under the golden sunset on the East Quad.

Grand, romantic, and under the open sky.

Not this clumsy, awkward mess.

Yet the moment Jonathan saw my face, his eyes lit up.

"Sadie! It's you."

"Did you solve it yet?"

07

I froze. "You know who I am?"

Jonathan smiled, sunlight filtering through the window and catching in his eyes.

"First lecture of Honors Math freshman year. That brutal problem the TA gave us to scare everyone? You were the only one who solved it on the spot. Trust me, half the department knows who you are."

I had no idea his eyes had ever rested on me.

"We... had the same math class?"

Jonathan gave a helpless chuckle, pointing to the guy next to him.

"He's my roommate. He can never wake up for morning lectures, and my math class was in the afternoon, so... you get the idea."

The roommate rubbed his neck sheepishly. "Until the professor caught us in week three."

"Ah. I see."

"So, Sadie, did you solve this proof? I've been stuck on it for days..."

Before he could finish, a sharp, piercing voice cut him off from behind.

"What are you two doing?!"

I didn't turn around.

Jonathan gave me an apologetic look as he handed back my scratch paper.

"Sorry, my girlfriend's here. Might be a misunderstanding."

I took the paper.

Emma was already sprinting over like a storm.

His roommate quickly chimed in, "Hey, Emma, I swear Jonathan didn't say a word to any other girl! He was just helping me clean up my mess!"

Emma glared between us, suspicious and insecure, before wrapping her arms tightly around Jonathan's arm.

"Let me take you to dinner, come on, let's go!"

Jonathan was dragged forward, turning back to nod apologetically at me.

Then he pulled a chocolate bar from his pocket and handed it to Emma. "Eat this first, or your blood sugar will drop again."

His roommate trailed behind them, tossing a quick explanation my way.

"Don't mind her. He spoils her way too much."

As they walked off, Jonathan's indulgent voice drifted back through the breeze:

"You get jealous so easily. What would you do if you weren't with me..."

I took the stairs on the opposite side of the building.

I remembered chatting with Jonathan back in high school. He had said he hated chocolate, even though it was the gift he received most often.

I had told him I had never even tasted real chocolate before.

Much later, he sent me a photo.

In the picture were various unwrapped chocolates, each with handwritten notes describing the flavor and texture.

He had written: Tasted them all for you for now. You should still try them yourself when you get the chance. Who knows, you might actually like it.

So... was chocolate actually sweet?

By the time I reached the bottom floor, my phone buzzed.

A message from Emma:

"I'm begging you, have some self-respect. Stop throwing yourself at him."

The midday sun beat down relentlessly.

I shut my eyes tightly.

Block. Delete.

Then I stepped out into the light.

Jonathan.

If loving someone means loving everything about them, does hating their choices mean hating them too?