How to Survive as a BL Villain-Chapter 59: He is not your childhood friend

Lucian just chuckled, leaning back against the bed, utterly unshaken. "Too late, boys. The seed’s planted. The story’s out. And Cassian?" He met Aiden’s eyes, voice dropping to a whisper. "He’ll never look any of them in the eye again." Just like before

Aiden snapped, "Why do you keep saying before what He has been with me since we were children! I NEVER MET YOU!"

Lucian just smirked holding in the laugh.

"Aww," he cooed, voice dripping with false sympathy. "I feel bad for you two."

Leonel’s eyes narrowed. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Lucian tilted his head, eyes glinting with cruel delight. "Should I tell you... oh, say, 40% of the truth?" He tapped his chin, feigning contemplation. "Hmm. I guess I should. I’d love to see Elliot’s face when he finds out you know." He laughed soft, mocking, intimate.

Leonel’s eyebrow furrowed. "Why are you still calling him Elliot?"

Lucian turned his gaze to Leonel, slow and deliberate. "Why? Because that’s his name." He spread his hands, mock-apologetic. "Sure, you think it’s Cassian. But sorry to disappoint you it’s not."

Aiden opened his mouth, voice tight with rising fury: "You don’t know anything about him -"

But Lucian cut him off with a sharp wave. "Don’t even say it. Don’t say, ’I’ve known him since we were kids, his name is Cassian’-" He mimicked Aiden’s tone perfectly, then dropped it, voice turning icy. "Because he is not your childhood friend."

The words landed like a slap.

Aiden froze. Leonel stiffened.

Lucian’s smirk widened. "Just like I’m not Leonel’s stepbrother, tbh. I don’t even know why I got this role." He rolled his eyes, suddenly casual, almost bored. "It’s weird, right?"

Aiden stared at him, stunned. "What... what are you even saying? This all sounds so stupid."

"I know," Lucian said, shrugging, as if discussing the weather. "But what can I do? It’s weird for me too. I didn’t even know it was a K-drama until I saw you two’s faces because you were so popular that year." He said "K-drama" like it was a dirty secret, a punchline only he understood.

Before Leonel could respond before Aiden could demand what the hell he meant their phones erupted in unison.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

They pulled them out. Campus group chats. University alerts. Private messages. All flooding with the same thing:

"Did you see the photo??"

"Cassian’s the one Lucian’s obsessed with??"

"Video of Aiden and Leonel confronting him just leaked!!"

"Is Cassian okay??"

Aiden’s blood ran cold. He looked at Leonel, eyes wide with dread. "Cassian must be getting these too."

Leonel’s jaw clenched. "We should be with him."

They turned to leave but Lucian’s voice stopped them one last time, light, almost playful:

"I mean... you being there won’t help him."

He giggled giggled like it was all a joke.

Aiden shot him a look of pure contempt, yanked the door open, and stormed out. Leonel followed without a word.

They ran.

Down the hallway, down the stairs, through the lobby past students whispering, phones raised, eyes wide. Every glance felt like a judgment. Every buzz of a notification felt like another piece of Cassian’s life shattering.

They burst into the dorm, threw open Cassian’s door

and froze.

Cassian was sitting on his bed, blanket pulled up to his chin, eyes wide with alarm. His phone lay across the room on the charger, screen glowing with dozens of notifications but on silent. Like he couldn’t bear to hear them.

He jerked upright at the sudden noise. "Y-yes? What’s wrong? Are you both okay?" His voice was small, shaky, eyes darted between them like he expected bad news.

"Don’t get up," Leonel said gently, already walking toward him. "Stay."

They sat on the edge of the bed, one on each side. Aiden reached for Cassian’s hand but stopped himself, remembering how he’d flinched last time. Instead, he just hovered, close but not touching.

Cassian swallowed hard. "Did... did something happen?"

Aiden looked at him really looked. Saw the dark circles under his eyes, the way his fingers twisted in the blanket, the tear tracks still faint on his cheeks. And beneath it all, the quiet terror of someone waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Then Lucian’s words echoed in his skull:

"He is not your childhood friend."

Aiden’s chest didn’t just ache it suffocated.

Like ice had wrapped around his ribs and was slowly crushing the air from his lungs.

He didn’t want to ask.

But Lucian’s words coiled in his skull like a venomous snake, and he had to know.

"Lucian said..." His voice cracked. He swallowed, throat dry as ash. "He said your name is Elliot."

The room didn’t just go quiet.

It died.

Cassian froze.

Not a blink. Not a breath.

His face went bone-white, eyes snapping wide shattered, like glass hit with a hammer. His pupils dilated, not with fear of them... but of this moment. Of the truth finally catching up.

He told them.

Leonel stood behind Aiden, but his voice cut through the silence like a blade. "Cassian... is it true?"

Cassian didn’t look up. His hands twisted in the hem of his shirt knuckles bloodless, fingers trembling like leaves in a storm. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Swallowed hard.

And when he spoke, it was so quiet it barely existed.

"I... I didn’t want you to find out like this."

"Find out*what?" Aiden’s voice rose, sharp, desperate. "That you’re not... him?"

The words tasted like rust. Like betrayal. Like losing a childhood ghost he’d spent years mourning without knowing it.

Cassian flinched as if struck. His head jerked up, eyes glistening with unshed tears but beneath the sorrow was something worse resignation.

"I never lied about loving you," he whispered, voice breaking. "Never lied about us. But the Cassian you knew .

He held Aiden’s gaze, raw, exposed. "I woke up in his life one day. No warning. No memory of being him. Just... here. And when I saw how much you loved him..." His breath hitched. "I became him. For you. For everyone."

Aiden’s mind recoiled.

The oak tree.

The summer he was ten.

Cassian, six years old, dangling from a branch, then falling thud onto the grass. Blood on his knee. Tears on his cheeks. And that laugh, bright and watery, as he hugged Aiden’s neck:

"You saved me, Aiden."

He’d carried that moment like a talisman for fifteen years.

But Cassian’s knee was smooth. Unmarked. now it wasnt unmarked 7-8 months ago it had that mark

He’d never once mentioned the tree.

Never winced when Aiden brushed that spot.

do you know the oak tree falling?

wha-what he tried thinking of it if it was in drama but it wasn’t he only shaked his head in a no

Because he never been there.

Leonel’s voice cut through the haze, low, dangerous, trembling with something between grief and fury:

"So... you’re Elliot."

Cassian didn’t hesitate. Didn’t look away.

Just nodded.

One slow, devastating dip of his chin.

"Yes."

Silence crashed back .thicker now, heavier, hungry.

Aiden didn’t reach for him.

Leonel didn’t move.

And in that stillness, Cassian’s face crumpled not from sadness, but from the dawning horror of what he’d just done.

He hadn’t just confessed.

He’d erased himself.

The truth was out.

And with it, the fragile identity he’d built brick by borrowed brick began to crumble into dust.

He stared at them, eyes wide with terror.

Not of Lucian.

Not of the photo.

But of the two boys in front of him

the ones he loved most

finally seeing the imposter beneath the name.

And saying nothing.

Aiden didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

Didn’t blink.

He just stared at Cassian or maybe he should say Elliot and for the first time in his life, he didn’t recognize him.

Not because of the tears.

Not because of the lie.

But because the boy he’d grown up with the one who stole his lunch, who cried during sad movies, who whispered "I’m scared of the dark" on sleepovers, wasn’t here.

He was gone.

Vanished.

Like a ghost that had worn Cassian’s skin for years, pretending to be him... while the real Cassian his Cassian was somewhere else.

Maybe dead.

Maybe trapped.

Maybe never existed at all.

Aiden’s chest burned.

Not with anger at Cassian.

Not even with betrayal.

With hollow.

He remembered the first time he held Cassian’s hand when they were seven, and the school bus broke down in the rain. Cassian had been shaking. Aiden had squeezed his fingers and said, "I got you."

He remembered Cassian’s laugh the one that sounded like wind chimes when he was happy.

He remembered the way he’d fall asleep on the couch during movie nights, head on Aiden’s lap, trusting him like the world had never hurt him.

And now?

Now he was looking at a stranger who had stolen his memories, his childhood, his friend and worn it like a costume.

Aiden’s hands clenched into fists. His throat tightened.

He wanted to scream.

He wanted to throw something.

He wanted to shake Elliot until he screamed back, "Where is he?! Where’s the real Cassian?!" But he couldn’t because this person who was sitting pretending to be Cassian was his love, he loved elliot from deep within his heart.