You wake up the next day feeling quite sprightly. There probably isn't anything that could ruin your mood, and you're bent on keeping it that way. You like how you feel, right now. Like you could do anything, be anybody. Like whatever happens, you could take it in stride. Confident. Secure. That's what you feel.

You're excited to see Kai, hoping that maybe he'd acknowledge you in the halls. No, it's not just hope; it's expectation. That's what you think he'll do: go out of his way to talk to you. 

But when you enter the first class where he is your classmate and you say hi to him as you pass his desk, he doesn't look up. You pause, almost disbelieving, waiting to assure yourself that he's heard you, but he doesn't even bother to give you a belated reply. He simply sits there, leaning his head on his arms that rest on the table, his eyes closed. He's completely ignoring you. No, not just you, but the entire class, or the fact that there's school in the first place.

You sit down in your seat, feeling dejected. Why? Why does he ... it's so darn frustrating. Why does he treat you so warmly and familiarly and nicely one moment, and then turns you down cold the next? You tell yourself he didn't hear you. But that's not true, and you know that. You can't lie to yourself when you already know the truth. 

Class starts, but you're not paying attention. You seem to be doing that a lot these days - getting distracted - and you could blame Kai. Blaming him is the easy way out. And you'd rather fuel your irritation rather than listen to some petty lesson. You stare at the back of his head. He has sat up now and is sitting straight in his seat, but once again he doesn't take out his notebook to write notes. When the teacher requests that the students complete an exercise, he is the only one who doesn't write anything down. You watch him out of the corner of your eye as he sits there with the most tired, nonchalant expression on his face, and all you want to do is knock some awareness into him.

Why does he do that? Over, and over, and over again. He pulls you in, then pushes you away. Did yesterday mean nothing? Had you over thought that? Had that never meant anything other than friendliness, and you had let yourself assume something that wasn't even there?

But it happened. It happened, and you remember the look on his face when he had been with you. You remember that smile, that laugh, when he threw you over his shoulder, easily holding you against him. You remember that.

But, does he? Has he chosen to forget it?

You hope that's not the case.

You wonder if he's being intentionally fickle. Is he even aware that he's so capricious? Does he even care?

Class ends, and people pack up their things. You debate on whether you should call out to him, say hello again, but he's left the room, and the chance is gone. Tired, you walk out of the room and search for him in the halls, but he has disappeared. 

Whatever the reason, he doesn't want to talk to you.

And of course it's hard to progress through the school day with thoughts of Kai distracting you. You keep going back to what you had shared, to all those words he had said. You replay those moments when he had held you, touched you, looked at you with the warmest, sweetest expression on his face, and you compare that to now, the Kai of now, the Kai who looks at you like yesterday was nothing.

Dangit. It ... hurts. It hurts, and you're mad at yourself for feeling this way. It turns out that Kai hadn't been the only one who had allowed someone to get close to him. You had let your own heart open, too. And now? Now, you regret it.

Hope ... hope is stupid.

You consider asking Hyunsoo about it during lunch, but you hold yourself back. Asking her would only show your interest in him. You don't want anyone to know that you like Kai. Not just yet. You want him to consider you as a friend before he considers you as a potential love interest. Wouldn't that be better? To be someone he can trust? 

Hyunsoo drones on and on about how her sales keep going up, and how people love to bet, and all you can think about is Kai's dad. Kai's dad, the top contributor to the school's finances. Kai's dad, the man who holds the reins of a prosperous company. Kai's dad, the father who isn't aware of his son's dreams.

You wonder what it could possibly be like to live a restricted existence. Hoping, wishing for something that you know you can never have. Always being forced to do something else, always being told how to act. And you suppose you can understand, if only a little, why Kai does what he does. Why Kai doesn't bother to study or receive amazing grades. It isn't because he doesn't care. You know he cares about his grades, because if he didn't, he would miss class more than he attends it. But you think that he's doing it to get his father's attention, somehow. To show his dad that he doesn't want to be what his dad is making him out to be. To show his father that he has the ability to be someone else, someone who isn't burdened by business ploys.

And you want to help Kai do that. Show his father, somehow. Tell his dad that he's worth something else. That he isn't just another business partner, or a step to grow the empire. He's somebody who doesn't have to be anybody. He's just ... him. And that's all he has to be.

But you can't do that if Kai won't let you. And right now, Kai ... Kai won't even notice you. Not in that past class, or the one you're in now. He doesn't look at you. He doesn't go out of his way to ignore you, but you almost wish that he did, because it would show that at least he was thinking about ways to evade you. But it's like you're not even there, like you don't exist. And that makes it harder.

And you're annoyed by that. Annoyed, and hurt, and confused. Because it seems like what happened yesterday was a dream, and that he would never, never open up his heart to you again.

"Kai," you speak up at the end of school. People are leaving, going to their dorms or into the city. He lags behind, slowly packing up his things, listening to you but not looking at you. You repeat, "Kai," and wait for him to say something, anything. Finally, he does. Finally, he meets your eyes, and the look in them is all together too bleak, too dark, too black.

"What's up?" He asks you in a tone not too friendly and not too distant. "I have detention to go to, so if you wanna hurry, that'd be cool."

"I ... I just ... " You want to ask him how he is. You want to ask if anything happened sometime after you left yesterday. But you can't find the words, and asking him feels like pointlessly trying to tear down a wall with your bare hands. So, you don't. You don't ask how he is. You simply give him a tight smile and say, "It was good to see you."

He looks surprised when you say this. He hadn't expected it, you realize, that you'd say that. He blinks a few times, and for some reason, seeing him blink so rapidly makes him look younger and more susceptible. He clears his throat and looks away. "Yeah. You too," he says, and walks away, a lag in his step.

You stand there in that empty classroom, half thinking he'll come back, but of course he doesn't. With a sigh, you leave, your bag sadly thumping against your thigh as you walk. You're about to go to the dorms when out of nowhere Hyunsoo appears, almost colliding into you in her hurry.

"Woah," you exclaim, watching as she pants heavily, trying to catch her breath. Her hair is in a mess, and in her hand is her iPhone. "Are you okay?"

"Kai's dad ... Kai's dad ... " She takes a deep breath and continues, "His company ... there was a strike. Their stocks went down. If this goes on, if it keeps going ... " she points to the screen of her phone, showing you the mass reduction of the stock rates of the company, " ... it'll go bankrupt."