Alatus University — the pride and joy of a city like New York. It was a prestigious university to which students from all over the world flocked to with the hopes of graduating with a degree and having easy access to the job market, but that just made the university that much more exclusive. Getting admitted to the university required not only a lot of influence from either the student or their family, but high grades and determination to get through the rigorous workload of the classes along with the extracurricular requirements.

Cara Ryan was lucky enough in that sense that she was able to get by simply by the fact that, despite the fact that she and her twin brother were orphans, they had enough of a presence in the news due to their achievements in academics and athletics that they had been invited to apply to the school through a scholarship program. She and Cian had quickly settled into a life at the university, creating a life for themselves beyond being orphans.

For the most part, Cara thought that her three years at Alatus University went by smoothly and was hoping that her last year would go smoothly, as well; she was fairly smart and worked quite hard to complete her degree in cyber security, but there was one person that made her life much, much, harder than it needed to be.

Jongin ‘Kai’ Kim.

“You mean to tell me,” Cara grit out, “that you told your dad that I was your girlfriend?” Her hands were clenched at her side as she resisted the urge to deck him in his perfect nose. It was Monday, and her week was already off to such a great start.

Kai, as he preferred to go by, flinched away from her slightly. He was well acquainted with her affinity to constantly shove him or smack his shoulder, and he was probably expecting her to drop kick him any second.

To be fair, he deserved every single hit, and he would especially deserve it right now. She was eating lunch in the student center with her best friend, Misty, when he had decided to pay her a visit to ‘talk in private about something important.’ Now, they were standing in a private conference room within the student center as Kai explained how he had messed up in front of his dad.

She should’ve known it was going to be something stupid considering it was him.

The two had a rivalry that had begun out to be academic but slowly extended into their extracurricular lives when they had realized that they were both black belts in taekwondo. After that, their in-class verbal spars had extended into spars in taekwondo, and things just kept escalating.

She was just perpetually frustrated with how he considered everything so easy. She and Cian had worked their asses off to get to the point where they had been invited to Alatus University, and even then they kept up with their academics and athletics to ensure that no one would have anything to say against them and their position.

Kai, on the other hand, was handed everything on a silver spoon considering his father was on the executive board of Lupus Corporation, a technology company that had a huge hand in donating funds to the university. Kai grew up knowing that he was going to have a position in the company and knew his place in the world.

Cara didn’t have that security, and she was so frustrated at how he consistently felt the need to shove it in her face. There wasn’t a day that went by without Kai telling her how he had gotten this grade or gotten that achievement.

She started shoving hers in his face just as retaliation, and soon enough, everyone knew about their rivalry.

It really wasn’t fair that he was so handsome — if it were anyone else, she probably would’ve been flirting with him at any given chance, except Kai was an idiot who was hell bent on making her suffer with him.

“It was by accident! I just blurted it out!”

Cara gaped at him. “How do you blurt out to one of the executive members of Lupus Corp that I am your girlfriend? You do realize that we’re not dating, right?”

He threw his hands up in exasperation as he responded, “He kept pestering me about bringing Katherine to the Astrum Charity Event at the end of September, but we had that argument yesterday about pineapples—”

“I still stand by the fact that they should not exist,” she cut him off, and he just glared at her for a moment before speaking.

“As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted,” he continued as Cara waved him off, “I just blurted it out to avoid Katherine. You were the first girl who came to mind, so...yeah.” Kai’s entire body language was screaming that he was embarrassed as he ran a hair through his, already messy, hair, making it more of a mess than it previously was.

“So you’re saying that I’m on your mind?” she teased, unable to let that little tidbit of information go.

“You’re a menace to society,” he growled.

Cara laughed, but she was starting to feel slightly bad for him with the way he genuinely sounded stressed, so she decided to just get to the point instead of prolonging this interaction.

“Okay, so now that you’ve gone and done that, what now? There’s clearly a reason why you’re standing in front of me and making my eyes suffer,” she retorted, mostly teasing but also, not entirely. She would rather be anywhere else than standing here having this conversation with him.

“Uh, rude.” He looked like he was seconds from continuing to make excuses but one glare from Cara had him visually shutting down with a sigh. “He expects me to bring you as my date instead to the Astrum Charity Event.”

The Astrum Charity Event was a yearly event held by Lupus Corp, all for the cause of raising money for improving the infrastructure and education system for those who weren’t fortunate, with many influential and powerful people in attendance,

People not like Cara.

She blinked at him, once, twice, before her brain kick-started into motion. “I’m sorry, what?!”

“The Lupus are ruthless, alright! I’m finally twenty-one, so my dad needs me to have a strong image going into my last year at university before I graduate and join the company! He thinks leaving me alone as a date will ‘make me vulnerable’ and make it seem like I’m an easy target to the competition.”

“To what? Seduce you?”

A hand went up to rub the back of his neck as his entire stance made it seem like he was ready to bolt the second she even flinched. “Uh, yeah? I don’t know what my dad’s thinking, but he’s hell bent on it! If it’s not you, then it’s Katherine, and honestly, I’d rather deal with you being annoying for a few hours.”

“And you now expect me to be your fake girlfriend for free?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest, pretending like she didn’t notice how Kai’s gaze had moved down to her chest for a split second before darting back up to her face.

It wasn’t hard to guess that he found her attractive just as she found him attractive.

“Of course not,” he sighed. “It’s not like you’d do anything to help me out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Exactly,” she agreed with a sickly sweet smile.

“How about I pay for your lunch for a month? I’m already paying for Zach,” he muttered, annoyed. Zach was his best friend, who seemed to never have his wallet on him.

Cara lifted her hands to re-tye her ponytail as she pretended to think about it, when she immediately knew that she was going to agree as soon as he had offered to pay for food. As she finished tying her hair and let her arms drop, a strand of blonde hair entered her vision, and she sighed irritatedly. Her hair just refused to stay up sometimes, and it was getting to a point where she was tempted to just chop it all off.

She moved to push the hair out of the way when Kai moved first, reaching out to push the curl behind her ear as his eyes roamed over her head. “How is it possible that you look like you never brush your hair?” he asked, brushing a light hand over the top of her head. “There’s so many loose strands.”

Cara scoffed, trying to hide the weird flutter in her chest at the feeling of his touch on her hair. “Like you have any right to say that considering you look like you just got out of bed. Anyways,” she continued, wanting to move past the sudden weird atmosphere between them as Kai looked down at her with a strange look in his eyes, “I’ll do it, but it’s going to be a full month,” she warned. “31 days.”

Kai rolled his eyes at her, and it felt like things had settled back into normal. “Yeah, yeah. It’s just going to be for you, though. I’m not paying for Misty or Cian.” 

“Fine,” she agreed, knowing fully well that Cian wouldn't care and Misty, her best friend, would just be stealing food off her plate.

“I’ll see you on Friday,” he said as he started towards the door. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

“Wait!” she called, suddenly remembering something important.

He turned around with a raised eyebrow, silently asking what she needed.

“What about the dress code?”

“It’s a black-tie event,” he said with a smirk. “Try not to drool when you open the door on Friday.”

Cara paused for a brief moment as she boldly raked her eyes over his tall, lithe frame. “I don’t think it’s me who’ll have that problem.”

“We’ll see,” he responded, the challenge clear in his tone. “Be ready by six, sharp,” he called out as he left the room, the door silently closing shut behind him.

~~~

Cara was grateful that Cian was out for the night, off to a bar with his friends, Krish, Derek, and Felix. Derek owned the bar where Felix tended to consistently drink away his sorrows (something about his Korean genes helping with the hangovers) while Krish just picked up girls, and Cian went to watch it all happen with Derek.

She didn’t know how she was going to explain to her brother that she was going on a fancy ‘date’ with her archnemesis looking the way that she was. The entire week, she’d avoided bringing the conversation with Kai to her brother, knowing he’d only blow it out of proportion, and besides, it was going to be a one-time thing. No need to mention it when it would soon be a thing of the past.

When Kai had left her with the unspoken challenge of dressing up, she made sure to pick the most borderline scandalous dress she could without being disrespectful to the cause behind the event. She ended up going last minute dress shopping and spending more than she wanted to, but she supposed that it was worth it if she could see Kai’s jaw drop looking at her.

Cara looked at herself in the full length mirror, twirling around to make sure the gown was flat against her body without any wrinkles. All she needed to do was put in her earrings and heels, but she was already proud of how she looked.

The gown was a floor length shimmering navy blue color with a deep v-neck, dropping down to just under her ribs, showing enough of her cleavage that she was very tempted to slightly cover her cleavage in bronzer just for a hint of shine and glimmer, but she figured that doing that might be pushing it for the event. There was a slit running up the left side of her dress, showing her leg up till her thigh, and with her hair down in curls, she had to admit she looked damn good. Adding her heels would just make her legs look longer, working nicely with the slit in the side of the dress.

Just as she had picked up her earrings — fairly simple blue earrings in a teardrop shape — there was a knock on the door. Glancing at her phone on the vanity table, she realized it was 5:58 PM; Kai was two minutes early.

“It’s open!” she called out from her bedroom, and she heard the door open and softly shut.

“You’re lucky I’m a few minutes early considering I said you better be ready by six,” she heard Kai call out. “Are you in your room?”

“Yeah,” she responded, rolling her eyes. For someone who was apparently late to his own birth and every single class, he was weirdly punctual when it came to everything else.

She heard Kai’s footsteps as he approached, — he knew the layout of her apartment thanks to projects that were against her will and drinking games that were Cian’s fault — and she felt weirdly anxious. Part of the reason she chose the dress was to see Kai’s reaction, and she was trying not to feel self-conscious. Cara looked gorgeous, and she was well aware of it, and she definitely would not let Kai make her change her mind.

It was still weird.

“You better be ready, Cara,” he spoke as he turned the corner to enter the open doorway to her room. She sighed through her nose as she finished putting in the backing to the earrings. “There’s no way I’m going to be—” his voice stuttered for a second before he just went completely silent.

Raising an eyebrow, wondering why he went s