Painted Lies

Painted Lies is a tense, emotion-driven thriller set in the ivy-clad halls of St. Liora High, where nothing is as innocent as it seems. Seori Nam, a painfully shy and perpetually melancholy transfer student, harbors an extraordinary—and isolating—gift: she sees the emotional auras of everyone around her, and when their feelings surge to extremes, she involuntarily reads their darkest thoughts. Every smile conceals a fracture, every cheer a buried regret.

Beside her sits Kaito Mori, the aloof basketball star whose aura is a perfect, unreadable grey—a calm refuge in a sea of lies. Seori is drawn to his honesty, even as she recoils from the chaos of her power. Her only confidante, Yuna Kim, masks her own envy and venom by erasing her aura entirely, making her the last person Seori can truly read.

When a classmate’s panic-stricken secret erupts into open confession, it sets off a chain of murders, blackmail, and betrayal that will force Seori to confront the dangerous undercurrents beneath the school’s polished façade. As alliances shift and every friend becomes a potential suspect, Seori must decide whether her gift is a curse to be hidden—or the key to unmasking a killer before it’s too late.