After school ended, Lynn went to the cafe located near the cafeteria where students liked to hang out and do homework or discuss assignments. She saw someone waved towards her direction, and Lynn smiled upon seeing her best friend. Hye-soo greeted her with a bright grin. 

"Hey, why're you late?" Hye-soo asked when Lynn slipped through the chair and sat down, huffing loudly. 

"Got punished by Mrs. Lee because I entered class late. She made me write down all the algebra formulas we were supposed to memorize. When I only remembered a few, she yelled at me. Ah, jinjja, it was a nightmare!" Lynn buried her face in her hands, her voice was muffled. "I thought she would at least forgive me since this was my first time, but I should've known better." 

"Babe, that's awful." Hye-soo comforted her. "What happened before? Did you get lost while trying to search for the AVT room?" 

With the mention of AVT, Lynn felt her body tensed. She looked up, an unforgivable expression in her eyes. "It's all his fault." she muttered. 

"Who?"

"Kim Kai." When she uttered his name, immediately felt sour. 

"Wait, what does he got to do with this?" Hye-soo seemed confused by the mention of the boy's name. 

"You know him?!" Lynn couldn't quite hide the shock she was feeling. 

"Of course I do, everyone does. Well maybe in this case, exclude you. He's the popular guy, but doesn't enjoy the attention." Hye-soo told her like it was the most obvious thing in the world. But why didn't she hear about him and see him before? That explained why he didn't know who she was. Because they've never met. And she had never heard of a Kim Kai. 

"I guess that explains his jerk-ness attitude." Lynn mumbled, still annoyed by the fact that he didn't want to approve her request when she was the highest rank in the student society.

Lynn told Hye-soo about what happened. Then she kept on blabbering about him absent-mindedly. "I mean, like, what's his problem anyway?" 

Hye-soo seemed to be deep in thought, her eyebrows furrowed. "I guess you just met him on the wrong day, wrong time. Or maybe you met his bad side too soon." 

"Tell me about it," Lynn groaned. She couldn't keep his image away from her thoughts. That condescending smirk that purposely mocked her, and the look in his eyes that almost made her feel like a useless doll that he despised. 

When Hye-soo didn't respond, Lynn fleeted her eyes back at her and saw that her expression had changed. Hye-soo was staring at something behind her. "Speak of the devil," she whispered. 

Lynn hoped it wasn't who she thought it was. 

When she half-turned in her seat, there he was. Kai was coming into the cafe with his friends, wearing lacrosse jerseys. He was smiling as he listened to one of his mates talking, completely oblivious to the whole girls in the cafe staring at him. 

"Omo," Hye-soo shrieked. "He's so handsome!" 

Lynn turned to her wide-eyed. "Hye-soo!!" she hissed. "Dont stare at him!" 

Hye-soo was suddenly pulled away from her imaginations. But she was still grinning so widely like a child. "Okay, okay. But you can't deny the fact that he's one craft of a beauty." 

Lynn rolled her eyes at her, but then she felt him coming closer to the counter where she and Hye-soo were sitting nearby. She faced away from him, and hid her face by leaning against her palm, pretending to read her book. 

 

 

Kai was waiting for his latte when he finished ordering at the counter when Baekhyun suddenly spoke.

"Hey, Kai, isn't that Kimberlynn?" Baekhyun asked, signalling his head over the two girls table. 

"What?" 

"Kimberlynn, the girl from earlier." 

Kai quickly recalled the first meeting, and turned around to look at the aforementioned table Baekhyun had pointed. His eyes caught the braided hair, and her pink dress that was impossible to miss. She was sitting with someone, her back turned against them. Her friend was whispering something to her when she noticed Kai staring at them. 

"So?" he asked, his tone indifferent. He didn't seem to bother by her presence. 

"Shouldn't you, I don't know, apologize or something?" 

"There's no need. She'll get over it soon." Kai waved the suggestion away with his hand. "And besides, she should thank me." 

"For what?" 

"For making her realize that if you want something, you have to work for it." 

Baekhyun shook his head, an amusing grin played on the corner of his lips. "Remind me again why all the girls like you." 

Kai grabbed his latte when the barista slided it to him. "Because I'm hard to get." 

 

 

"Ya, Lynn, he was looking at us, I swear!" 

"Did he say anything? Did you hear anything?" Lynn was still curious about Kai, even though she was doing her best to obscure herself. 

"Not really, but he was talking to his friend while glancing at us a few times." Hye-soo informed her, still having her eyes glued to them. 

Probably mocking her, Lynn thought. 

"Lynn---"

And suddenly, she could hear footsteps coming towards their table and they were becoming more and more closer. Lynn felt an overwhelming panic rising in . It was too late to run now. Should she dived under the table? That would look too embarassing. Maybe she should pretend she needed to go to the toilet. But going to the toilet meant passing them and she couldn't afford facing Kai. 

Without a choice, she closed her eyes in dismay just as a deep voice greeted them. 

"Hello there, ladies." 

It was Kai's voice. What was he doing? 

Lynn opened her eyes and saw Kai and Baekhyun standing near their table; Baekhyun with a wide grin while Kai had the opposite set of smile. He was onto something.

Hye-soo was as speechless as she was. Her friend opened , but she appeared to be too surprised to speak. Lynn tried to breathe normally, but inside she wished she could crawl into a wormhole and never come back. 

"Hi," It was Hye-soo who finally spoke. Lynn sighed in relief. 

"I'm Kai, and this is Baekhyun. Do you want us to treat you girls some drinks? It would be wrong not to be a gentlemen, when you guys aren't even drinking anything." Kai's eyes fleeted towards Lynn, a genuine-looking smile forming on his lips. But she knew this was all an act. 

"Ah, Kimberlynn, right? We met earlier at the AVT room!" Baekhyun started, trying to be nice. At least she knew that Baekhyun wasn't faking it by the look in his eyes that was so different from Kai's. 

Lynn tried to pick up the confidence to speak again and gladly she found it. "Yes, it's nice to see you guys here again." 

"Pleasure is all mine." Kai smirked, and Lynn immediately wanted to smack the smirk away from his face. This boy had something planned in his sleeves. A while back, he was a jerk to her and now he was acting nice. Was this some kind of a practical joke? It must be. Or perhaps he was just being nice to her because Hye-soo was here as well. Maybe he wanted to put up a kind pretense in front of Hye-soo. 

Ah, so that was it. I'm ahead of the game now, Kim Kai, Lynn thought mischievously. She wanted to take advantage of his so-called kindness, and played his game. 

"About the drinks..." Lynn started, locking her eyes with Kai and giving him a sly smile. Hye-soo stared at her dumbfoundedly, her eyes widen in surprise. 

Kai smiled back, but it looked forced. "Yes?" 

"Do you really want to treat us, I mean, we don't want any trouble...," she let her words lingered. 

Kai immediately realized what she was doing, but he had already offered and he couldn't back down now. "Of course, anything for the ladies." he said through gritted teeth but her friend and Baekhyun didn't seem to notice except Lynn who was now enjoying this. 

"Good! Hye-soo, let's go order!" she said cheerfully. 

They ended up ordering the most expensive drink on the menu, with two slices of the most pricey cakes. Hye-soo protested when Lynn wanted to order them, but Lynn assured her that she knew what she was doing. Kai's eyes almost fell out of his sockets when he saw the bill, but forced himself to smile anyway and paid the orders. His wallet was now empty, and the cashier didn't even give him any balance, not even a penny. 

"Thank you for the treat, Kai," Lynn smiled smugly, her eyes glinted in satisfaction for beating him. 

"I hope you choke on the cake," Kai gave a tight smile. 

"Oh, don't worry, we won't." Lynn giggled, and walked towards Hye-soo who was already at their table. 

Kai watched her, and in his mind there was only one thing: Payback. 

 

 

Author's note:

Hello, thank you for reading!  And a huge thank you to the ones who had subscribed! Tbh, I didn't even think anyone would be bothered to subscribe in the first place and I didn't really mind because I want to write this story for a contest and for myself. But I still appreciate your support! Stay tune for the next chapter! (A new character will appear!) Btw I really enjoyed writing this chapter because of the rivalry thing going on between Kai and Lynn that wasn't planned but it just popped in my head when I was writing haha. I hope you enjoyed reading it too!