WARNING: VIOLENCE AND GRAPHICS IN THIS CHAPTER. 

Leila walks out of the aisle and peeps her head out first to double check if the boys are gone. Noticing the silence she sighs and heads to find gloves along with the cleaning equipment. Starting off on the first floor, her shift is starting out pretty easy as far as cleaning goes. Time to time she gets glances from different people walking past her, she assumes their trainers or artists that she does not familiarize herself with.  

It was almost lunchtime and her stomach was already making noises since the time she woke up. She remembered having to go get lunch with the front desk lady, even though she didn't want to, she already said yes and it would be rude to bail-especially on the first day of the job. 

Walking back in front of the elevator, she swipes her new card and enters. From looking up she spots a boy standing on the far left, she didn't recognize him, partly because he was wearing a black cap that covered most of his face. Leila realized she was staring too long, got into the elevator, reached to press 5 but she saw that it was already pressed. 

She turned to her left just slightly and the boy turned as well. Black locks of hair flung at the front of his forehead, and in seconds he gave Leila a smile. Not a welcoming and warm one. Leila felt uncomfortable, she suddenly compressed and shifted herself farther and waited for the bell to ring so that she could get off. The boy did not leave his eyes from her. 

"Okay, I'm sorry but do you need a picture?" Leila blurted out. 

The boy didn't change his expression but continued to stare. Leila waved at his face in frustration to his response and the boy caught a grip of her wrist. 

"What the f-"She raised her voice before he spoke. "You're pretty. But your attitude and manners are not lady-like. I was looking for someone but I think I can use you." The boy smiled and it disgusted Leila. 

The elevator door opened at the fifth floor. The boy still holding on to her wrists pushes her out the door and drags her to the hall. 

"let-" Leila uses her right hand to push off his grip but it doesn't seem to work. "Go of me!" 

"Let's go to a nice and quiet room where nobody's there." He managed to let out a laugh. Leila summed him up to be either a psychotic killer or ert, how can he be enjoying this? she thought. The boy turned to his right and pulled a card out of his hand to open a door to a dark room. Leila remembered the pink haired lady and how cards are only given to members of the company. She wondered how someone as deranged as this boy would be able to be a member, but she also remembered her father's words.

"Leila." her father held Leila's shoulders to bring her back up from the ground in a sitting position. "Why did you let the little girl push you?" He asked softly. Leila wiped off her tear with her small arms even though her eyes continued to water. "Because she is bigger and stronger!" Leila cried. 

"No. Leila you showed her weakness." the father wiped off his child's tears. "When you are facing a threat, never show your weakness, stand your ground so that they do not take advantage of you. You are stronger than you think." He smiles. 

Leila breaks out of her thoughts and focuses on the boy who locks the door behind him, loosens his grip and turns on the lights. "Let's hurry this up, I've got a lunch meeting to go to." Leila sneers. The boy stares at Leila as if in shock, but quickly smiles to hide it. "Nice, I like girls with humor." The boy speaks in an arrogant tone. "You realize there are cameras here right? Anything you do to me gets recorded." Leila lied but hoped that she was telling the truth. The boy smiled and then proceeded to laugh and step closer to Leila, giving her chills. "You don't want to do this, you're going to regret it." Leila managed to stay calm even though millions of thoughts were running in her head. 

Looking down her hands she spots the blade knife he takes out of his pocket, and surprisingly Leila sighs in relief. The boy tilts his head in confusion but continues to get closer to Leila until they are a step apart. "You're going to scare yourself with this more than you'll scare me." Leila folded her arms and pressed her lips together. The boy squinted his eyes, she could tell his blood was boiling from the way he clenched his fists around the knife. "This tough girl act is bull, now you're really asking for it." 

The boy raises his arms to attack and in instinct, Leila brings up her arms crossing them in an x form to cover her face. The tip of the blade touches her wrist and follows through with a slash on her arms. Leila continues to cover her face, wincing, she steps back faster, "please just stop." She brings down her arms and looks down. The blood is still running and fresh as it creates a vertical line down her arm, but slowly the line begins to fade down, getting smaller and smaller until the cut is completely gone. 

'

The boy leaves his arm at his side and stares at Leila's disappearing cut with his eyes and mouth wide open. He blinks more than 5 times to make sure he isn't hallucinating and looks down at his knife panting. He took a few steps closer to test another hit but before the blade reached Leila's face his hand freezes. Leila looks at the hand holding the boys arm and realizes its Kai. 

"What are you doing here again? How did you get out of the shrink?" Kai hisses pulling his arm backward which causes the boy to move back and regain his balance to face Kai. "They let me out." the boy smiles again. Kai grabs his wrist and without force, he takes the knife and places it in his back pocket and continues to lock both of his arms to his back. The boy shuffles and tries to escape from his grasp but Kai manages to keep a hold of him and he turns to speak to Leila.

"Get out." Kai stares at her with warm eyes but he still glares. Leila glares back, and for a moment she stood there contemplating to go or not but she ends up walking past him, brushing his shoulders. 

"Leila!" The pink haired lady waves from the front of the lobby as Leila runs over to meet her. "Sorry, I'm late. I got trouble with one of the vacuum machines and it took a while for me to readjust." Leila lies and lets out an embarrassed laugh. "No worries, let's go. My name is Jen by the way." she smiles and Leila smiles back. 

Lunch consisted of bento boxes and small talk which opened up a little bit of past life of Jen. Jen spoke about her troubles with her sick dad and how long it took for her to get a job since she came from Korea to Toronto to help with her father's condition. Leila empathized and wondered how hard of a life she must have and what other kinds of baggage she must have had that she probably wouldn't tell anyone so easily.

 "We should get back to work, we're five minutes late." Leila looks at her phone and gets out of her seat. 

Walking back to the fifth floor Leila runs her hands through her hair holding it in one hand and tying her ponytail on the other. She takes out her card and swipes to open the locker room, walking in she hears a rustling of the lockers and her heart jumps just a little. Walking in she spots Kai fiddling with his headphones in front of his locker, must be untangling it she thought. 547 she reads and tries not to groan realizing her locker is beside his. she sighs, bringing Kai's attention to her as she opens her lock. 

"Star girl?" He asks looking at her hair falling to the side of her cheeks as she struggles with the lock. "I have a name." Leila blurts out. 

"What's your name?" He smiles, still holding on to his headphones. "Leila." she mumbles as she finally opens her lock and grabs out her gloves and mask.

"Leila." He extended the vowels as he spoke. He turns his head to her raising his eyebrows, "You should be thanking me by the way." Leila tilts her head back a little and looks at Kai as if he's said something shocking and stupid at the same time. "I saved you from that guy earlier." he looks down back at his headphones as if disappointed that she forgot so quickly. "Thank you- but I didn't need your help, even if you weren't there I could have handled it." Leila puts on her gloves as a distraction from staring at the boy. His presence annoyingly made Leila nervous, she admitted to herself.

"No one said you couldn't." He looked up from his headphones and gave a look to Leila with warm eyes. Leila looked away and locked her locker, "I got to work." she lifts up her gloves and smiles sarcastically. "Oh right," he scratched and shook his hair but it came back to its perfect place, Leila noticed and looked down. 

"Could you come with me for a second?" He turns his back and continues to walk expecting Leila to say yes.