Reader's POV

I sat and stared at the sloth-like human being in front of me and wondered how on earth someone can be the most clueless, and yet most genius human being I’ve ever met at the same time. Honestly, if someone let me randomly look at this guy and point out to me that he’s one of the smartest student in this course, I’d probably laugh and praise them for putting in the effort to make a joke. To my despair however, his grades proves otherwise. And it is to my despair, because he has been assigned to tutor me.

I might not be the brightest student ever, but I’m clearly not dumb either. In fact, my grades are pretty much perfect, so when my parents got me a tutor, I was utterly confused. That was, until they told me that this guy has hands on experience in the business field, which just happens to be the course I’m taking. Still, of all people, they had to choose someone with quite a reputation on campus.

“Am I really that attractive?”

I snapped to my senses to find him staring back at me lazily. Well crap, I guess he woke up while I was lost in thought.

I let out a long sigh. “Why on this planet would that thought ever cross your mind?”

“Why else would you be staring at me so intensely?”

Because I was pondering over the fact that you are a total jerk and wondering why I’m even spending time with you.

“I was lost in thoughts and just happen to be looking in your general direction.” I honestly couldn’t tell him that I was thinking of him. Even if I was thinking of him negatively, that conceited jerk would take this and tease me about it for days.

“Hmm is that so,” he hummed, sitting up straighter in his seat beside me, and resting his head on his palm. “Here I was guessing that you’ve finally fallen for me.”

“Do you really think that?” I deadpanned.

At my expression, the corner of his lips turned up slightly, his dimples showing. “Just wishful thinking.”

I scoffed, rolling my eyes at him. At times like this, I get really, really confused and I really, really hate him for it. Is he flirting with me? Is he just joking? When it comes to Zhang Yixing, i can't ever tell.

In spite of his good look, he has a reputation of being nice yet cold to girls, giving them the chance to make friends with him easily, but then never letting anyone get anywhere further than that. It was like he was keeping them at an arm’s length, always polite and detached. Therefore, although he seems to have a long line of people crushing on him, he's never seen dating anyone. 

I find it stupid.

I find it stupid that he is so attractive that he gets away with all of it. I find it stupid that for all the effort that he puts into keeping all those girls away, he is flirting with me at every chance he gets. And I find it completely, unreasonably stupid that in spite of all the things that I find stupid about him, I still end up stupidly falling for him.

I ended up falling for his lazy smiles, and his constant energy-conserving attitudes. I fell for the way he always looks so clueless while paying so little attention to the world revolving around him at one moment, and wittily showing me the smart way out of everything at the next. It’s beyond crazy for me to go crazy when he flirts with me, and yet, I just stupidly can’t get myself out of it.

Guess my cupid must really like making a joke out of my life.

“Why are you staring at me now?” I questioned, noticing that his eyes never left me.

“Am I not allowed to?”

“You’re not.”

He frowned. “Well that’s kind of unfair isn’t it? Why can you do it and I can’t?”

“For the last time,” I exclaimed exasperatedly, finally raising my eyes to meet his, “I wasn’t staring at you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t find you attractive.”

Shifting out of his seat, he bent down and leaned forward, towering over me at a distance that is closer than I’d like. “Not even in the slightest?”

I tried to ignore my own heartbeat speeding up. This close I can see how defined his features are, how soft his hairs look, and how beautiful his eyes were. I didn’t know how to answer his question, and before my brain could process a more logical way to avoid it, I reached out and touched his hairs. I laughed nervously. "Yixing, what kind of shampoo do you use? How is your hair so soft?"

His eyes widen in shock at my actions, but I didn’t even notice this as I marvelled at how soft his hairs really were in spite of myself.

He stared at me for a full moment, before he grabbed my wrist, roughly pulling my hand away from his head. My heart skipped a beat as I stared into his eyes. He’s never looked that serious with me before. Does he have a thing against people touching his head? But he plays with my hair all the time. That’s hardly fair.

“Can you stop it?” he muttered, his tone cold for the first time since I’ve been with him.

I felt utterly confused. “Stop what?”

“Stop doing this. Stop lying to yourself.” He gave me a hard stare, as if trying to read through me. “And if I’m wrong, if you’re really not interested in me, then stop making me go crazy with all of your little tricks.”

I tilt my head to the side, staring at him with disbelief. “Zhang Yixing, what kind of drug are you on? Tricks? Me?” I got up from my seat too, so that at least he was towering over me less. “You’re the one who should stop messing around.”

He let go of my wrist, sticking his hands in his pockets, and standing straight. He raised an eyebrow at me, his tongue poking at the inside of his cheek, looking like a kid waiting to find out what he did wrong.

The fact that he looked so adorable somehow made me even more furious. “You flirt with me at one moment and then be terribly mean to me at the next, what am I supposed to think?” I thought about how frustrating it is all this time and made an attempt at hitting him.

“Ow, what the hell?” He groaned, clutching his stomach around the area my punch landed.

“Just because you’re smart and good looking you think you can mess around with me?” I didn’t know why, but I could feel tears well up in my eyes. “Why? Is it that fun to see the reactions of a nerdy girl who doesn’t have any experience with guys?”

He stared back at me with his usual clueless eyes, looking dumbfounded at my outburst. It took him a full second, as he blinked once, then twice, his eyes roaming my face. Then he grinned, biting his lips and looking to the side, a cough escaping from him.

Is it just me or did it sound like he was choking back a laugh?

I frowned, burning holes through his head with my glassy eyes, glaring at him through the tears. “What’s so funny about this?”

He glanced back at me once, then pressed a knuckle to his lips, looking like he’s unsure of what to do. “I’m sorry,” he managed to say, a short laugh coming out with his apology. “Did I ever tell you how pretty you look when you’re angry?”

The harsh expression I put on faltered just slightly, a huge blush creeping onto my face. “Are you seriously flirting with me right now?”

“Have been for the past few months, but thanks for noticing.”

I can’t believe he is trying to smooth talk his way out of this. “Is that really the tactic you’re going to resort to using?”

He raised his hand in mock surrender, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “Is it not working?”

“See, you’re messing with me again!”

He took a step closer, and I forced myself to stand rooted to my spot. Staring up at him, I pouted at how he was using his height to his advantages, intimidating me.

“You say you’re not experienced with guys, but you countered all of my comments with your own, can you really say that you’ve never flirted with me?” He spoke softly, his eyes holding my gaze. “You smile ever so slightly when you think people don’t notice, you get so focused on a train of thought that the world around you breaks away, and you always laugh at all my jokes but then call me an idiot for it.”

I stared at him, speechless.

“You bite your lips when you’re confused, pout when you’re upset, and throw insults you don’t mean when you get flustered." He swallowed hard, his voice dropping low. “I didn’t plan to, but I ended up paying attention to every single thing about you…do you still think I’m messing around with you?”

 “I—you—w-what are you saying?” Is this guy really saying all this? Am I going crazy? 

“I’m saying that I like you, dammit.” He ran a hand through his hairs, roughly messing it up in frustration. “I really, really like you, so much that every little thing you do drive me crazy.”

I stared at him, my face exploding into a bunch of different shades of red at the same time. I felt like I was going to die of a heart attack. “W-What an idiot,” I stuttered, not knowing how to respond to his confession, my eyes looking anywhere but him. “Why didn’t you just say this instead of messing around this whole time? It would have saved us so much time! All that trouble I went through…”

“There you go again, insulting me when you’re flustered,” he commented, a smirk plastered across his annoyingly attractive face.

“I’m not flustered, you conceited jerk—”

His arm came around my waist, pulling me closer in one fluid movement, cutting me off half sentence as his lips came down to meet mine. I could feel him smile when I returned the kiss. Ah damn it what a jerk. In the spur of the moment, I decide to bite his bottom lip, watching him pull back in shock. That should wipe the smirk off his face.

“Why are you so damn feisty?” He groaned,  his bottom lip that was bleeding just slightly.

I gave him a blank stare. “It’s my defense against boyfriend-suddenly-shutting-you-up-with-a-kiss mechanism kicking in.” I fend off his piericing stare with an innocent shrug, then grab my bag pack, and proceed to make my way out of the library.

Staring after me, he ran a thumb across his lips. Then he shook his head and followed me, a stupid grin stretching across his face. “So, I’m officially ‘boyfriend’ now?”

I paused mid-step, mentally dying inside. “S-Shut up!”