PROLOGUE

I had always sucked at friendships as I was the quiet one—the girl who was too nice for her own good. In middle school, people only kept me around when they needed something. Even the ones I thought were real friends eventually drifted away, like I was easy to forget.

When I started high school, I told myself things would be different. This time, I'd find people who stayed. People who saw me.

And for a while, I really thought I had.

In that new circle, I felt something I'd never felt before—*seen, heard, wanted*. Min-ah quickly became my closest friend. She was everything I admired—beautiful, clever, magnetic. She made me feel like I belonged. Like I wasn't invisible anymore.

And then there was Joon-seo.

The boy with warm hazel eyes and the softest laugh.

It started slow, subtle—mutual glances, gentle teasing, late-night texts that made my heart skip. It felt like something out of a dream. I let myself believe in it. In *him*.

But dreams don't last forever.

It started with small things—whispers I wasn't meant to hear, looks I wasn't meant to catch. A quiet unease that sank in like a chill.

Min-ah would smile at me, act like she cared. She let me talk about him, asked how I felt, promised she supported me. But behind that kindness, she was quietly undoing everything.

Little by little, she twisted the truth—made me look uncertain, insecure, dramatic. She planted doubts in Joon-seo's mind, always in ways I couldn't see until it was too late.

And when he turned away from me…

He turned straight into her arms.

But Min-ah didn't walk away after that. No. She stayed close. Sat beside me in class. Laughed with me during lunch.

And with every sweet smile, she fed me new pieces of the story—

"Joon-seo and I studied together again,"

"He's been opening up to me lately,"

Every word, a blade. And she knew it.

I stopped going to the places we used to hang out. I stopped trying. Days blurred. I started moving like a ghost—quiet, unnoticed, drifting.

That's when I found *them*.

Or maybe… they found me.

They weren't like anyone I'd ever known. The ones everyone whispered about but never dared to speak to. The so-called troublemakers of campus.

People said they skipped class like it was an art form. That they smoked behind the gym, got into fights that left others limping.

They didn't care what people thought. And they didn't pretend to be nice.

There was Nari—bold, brash, always speaking her mind without flinching.

Tae-woo—unreadable, cold, and honestly unbearable, with eyes that felt like they could see straight through your soul.

Yuna—quiet and composed. She didn't speak unless she had to, always buried in a book, like the rest of the world didn't exist.

And Min-hyuk—he looked the scariest of them all. Honestly, he's probably the reason no one dared to say anything about the Strays.

They were known as **The Strays**.

A name spoken in hushed voices, like a curse or a warning.

If you crossed them, you were on your own.

They didn't come to save me.

But when no one else did, they stayed.

And sometimes, that's enough.

This isn't just a story of betrayal.

It's a story of survival. Of standing back up when you've been pushed down too many times to count.

Of finding people who don't ask you to shrink just to fit in.

Of healing in ways I never thought possible.

And maybe, just maybe…

This is a story of revenge.

Not the kind that burns everything down.

But the quiet kind—the kind where you rise.

Where you find your voice again.

Where you take the stage.

And they finally have to watch.