L.I.A :Two Worlds Apart

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Chapter One — L.I.A

Dayo POV

The gates of Lakeside International Academy didn’t feel like school gates. They felt like a warning, like something you were supposed to hesitate before walking through, not because anyone told you to stop, but because the place itself seemed to decide whether you belonged or not.

And honestly, I wasn’t sure I did.

I was just the scholarship student.

Still, I stepped in.

And immediately, I felt it..not loud or obvious, but in the way conversations shifted slightly as I passed, in the way eyes landed on me for a second too long before moving away again, quick and assessing, like I was something that didn’t quite fit into their picture of the place.

A couple of students walked past laughing, not bothering to lower their voices.

“Scholarship intake,” someone said, like it was just another category rather than a person.

I kept walking anyway, telling myself not to react, not to give them anything, because that was the only rule I had formed the moment I got here *survive without being noticed for the wrong reasons.*

The main building rose ahead of me, too polished, too clean, like it wasn’t built for teenagers at all but for something more controlled, more expensive, more deliberate.

Inside the hall, I saw it.

A huge screen filled with names, numbers, ranks.

Students were already gathered around it like it wasn’t just decoration but law, like whatever was written there decided how the rest of their lives inside this school would go.

I slowed without meaning to.

At the very top of the board was one name that stood out without trying.

Kang Seo-yun — Rank 1.

People around didn’t argue it or question it. They just accepted it the way you accept gravity.

“She never drops,” someone muttered behind me.

“She doesn’t need to compete anymore.”

I looked at the name longer than I should have, not because I knew her, but because everyone else acted like I was supposed to already understand what it meant.

Then the atmosphere changed.

It wasn’t loud or dramatic, just a shift in energy, like the space itself adjusted before I even saw her.

People straightened slightly. Conversations softened. Even movement felt more controlled.

I turned before I saw her properly.

Seo-yun Kang walked like she didn’t need the school to acknowledge her, like it already did without question. No rush in her steps, no hesitation, no need to look around for validation. People simply moved out of her way as if it was instinct.

She stopped near the board but didn’t look at it, like she already knew exactly what it would say.

Then her eyes shifted slightly and landed on me.

Not surprised. Not curious.

Just aware.

“You’re in the way,” she said.

Like it was nothing. Like it was just information.

I blinked, then looked around, and realized she was right.

I stepped aside. “Better?”

Her eyes moved over me briefly.

“Barely.”

Then she walked past, and everyone around her followed that movement without hesitation, like the school itself adjusted to her direction.

And I stood there for a moment after she left, watching the space she passed through settle back into place, before I finally looked at the board again.

Rank 1.

Kang Seo-yun.