|Chapter Three|

The first tutoring session with Jong-in was already horrendous for Mone. Not only did she despise his rude behaviour, but everything that seemed to come out of his mouth irked her. It was only the first day of tutoring him, and Mone was already beginning to regret being her smart self.

"Kim Jong-in shii-"
"My name is Kai."

Jong-in glared at Mone, expectantly glaring at her; he inwardly gritted his teeth out of agitation. The feeling was mutual in between them -- she despised spending time with him, and vice versa.

"Not from what I was told," Mone negated through a scowl.
"Well to you, it'll be Kai... as how it is for everyone else-"
"Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Diva, but my job is to tutor you, not get your stage names right-"

Jong-in's loud snort brought her objections to a quick halt. He earned himself a hard glare from his female companion. The pair lounged tensely in the empty classroom, free of any supervision or chaperones. And Mone swore if she wasn't so well reputed for her high academic standards and good behavior, she would've already stabbed Jong-in in the face eighteen times with her pencil.

"You're insufferable," she huffed. She nudged the English textbook towards him. "You need to pay attention if you wanna pass your English class," she nagged. "If you don't pass, you're not gonna be able to attend Seoul Elite."
"Why are you helping me? Nerds like you should despise students like me-"
"I do detest you," Mone growled lowly. "But I was entrusted to help you, and if you fail, my academic reputation drops. It's a win-win situation if you just listen to me," she barked.

She blew her hair out of her face in exasperation, watching him roll his eyes and lean in towards the textbook to look at her lesson plan.
Jong-in stole a glance at his tutor, scoffing under his breath. "Look at you; flat-chested girl and all.. if maybe you were better looking, it wouldn't be so hard to get my attention. Aish.."
Mone shot daggers at the teenage boy through her coal-coloured optics, hearing everything he uttered. Apparently, it was meant for her to hear, and he wasn't taking it back. Stealing a glimpse at the clock, Mone figured she could endure another tormenting fifteen minutes.. it was for a good cause, she told herself.

It's a win-win situation.

The next day was just as bad:

"English is so stupid."
"Not if you plan on becoming an international super star," Mone demurred. "Not only do you need to pass this class, but it would help you if you plan on making it big, Kai-shii."
Jong-in turned his head to look at Mone seriously in the eye. Though he doesn't say anything, Mone still receives herself a disagreeing grunt in reply.

Mone her lips, biting down on her tongue to refrain herself from snapping at him. "Listen," she said. "Let's just hurry up and improve your grades so we can both be rid of each other finally, hear?" she suggested.
She held a desperate look in her eye, and Jong-in failed to miss it. "It's not like I want to be here either, okay?" she continued. "I have things to do, you have things to do, I have my own crowd, and you have yours. So let's just be over this, improve your English percentage, and be rid of each other."

Jong-in rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

This time, however, it was Mone to scoff under her breath. "Aish, just talking to you drops my IQ."

And this time, it was Mone who earned herself a harsh glare.

Days gradually followed, but the hostility remained. Not only did she have to tutor someone from the wretched  performing arts department, she had to deal with his peers. They yelled at her, saying she probably volunteered to tutor him just to get him alone to harass him. She was confronted by many of his lackeys and by many of his fan girls, but the amount of times his girlfriend approached him outnumbered everyone else.

SoHee, Jong-in's current girlfriend, would repeatedly face Mone, whether it was during passing period, lunch, after school, or during breaks. And following her confrontation, SoHee would make snarky remarks in attempt to put down Mone; she would sneer at Mone; she would scowl at Mone; she would demur Mone. And Jong-in, whenever he happened to be around, would just smirk and laugh to himself, not even bothering to defend the innocent tutor.

However, today was quite different.

"A colon is different from a semicolon, you see. You usually use a colon when you -- yah, are you listening?"

Jong-in merely shook his head and doodled more mindless drawings on his notebook.
Craning her neck to see over his burly arm, Mone noticed he was drawing a mock doodle of her, dressed up ridiculously as a clown with a speech bubble by her head saying, "I'm Retarded."

She gritted her teeth and glared, giving his arm a light hit. "Yah! Pay attention!" she screeched with pure frustration. She held a bewildered look in her optics, and couldn't muster a more harsh glare than she was already giving him.
Jong-in, however, shrugged off the pain that radiated throughout his arm from the hard impact, and let his signature smirk line his thick lips. "I don't understand your nerd speak, so there's nothing to pay attention to," he replied cockily.

Mone clicked her tongue, disagreeing. "You obviously have serious issues with your head," she muttered. "I thought we agreed to --"

"Kai-oppa? You in here?"

Mone squeezed her eyes shut tight, and whispered prayers for herself, asking God to sincerely spare her any more torment from this female brat. Jong-in's famous girlfriend made her way into the classroom, occupying the large gap in between the two, placing herself next to Jong-in. "Kai-oppa, you poor thing," she murmured, his black hair. "Is this nerd giving you a hard time?"
Mone twitched slightly, but averted her gaze elsewhere to restrain herself from committing any murders.

Though her eyes were on the whiteboard ahead of them, her ears perked up, hearing Jong-in sigh loudly in annoyance. "SoHee, I'm trying to study here."
"But-"
"You could've approached me at any time today, but you choose the time I'm trying to study to raise my English grade?"

Mone could practically feel SoHee's burning gaze bore into the back of her head. She continued to act oblivious, turning back to face SoHee's sneer. "It's true," she remarked, pursing her lips into a thin line. "We actually have twenty minutes left, so if you could wai-"
"Don't talk to me, nerd-"
"Don't talk to her like that," Jong-in objected. "She's my tutor. If you want me to fail English, and get kicked out of Seoul Elite, fine." He began to pack up his stuff. "And to be frank, SoHee-ah," he continued, "you're really annoying, you know that? I didn't know a Wonder Girl could be so clingy."

Mone raised her eyebrow. "Yah-"

"You should just get lost and not talk to me again. I feel like you rot my brain with everything you say... SoHee-ah, maybe you're the reason why I'm so poor with English."

Jong-in smirked, watching his now ex-girlfriend storm out of the classroom.

"That girl," he breathed.
"Yeah, that girl," Mone snapped. "Yah, do you think girls are toys to play with?"
"Don't act as if you feel bad for her, you know she was annoying, too." Jong-in scoffed, looking at Mone. "She'll forget about it. She'll probably even find someone else by tomorrow-"
"Why'd you even defend me?" Mone interrupted, catechizing Jong-in about the thought that lingered in her mind.

Jong-in raised a brow, before breaking out into laughter of mockery. "Defend you? In what way did I defend you?"
"You told her not to speak to me like that.. the way she was talking to me-"
"Mone, we've been meeting up for only three weeks. Don't think that just because you're my tutor and you get to spend alone time with me that I have to start reciprocating your feelings-"
"That's not what I was implying!"
"Sure didn't seem like it," Jong-in smiled arrogantly. He let out a brief laugh through his nose, biting down on his lip humorously. "Seems more like you're in love with me."

Mone pouted, objecting entirely to his unruly statement. "Sorry, I don't fall in love with s."

Thinking she would shoot down his ego, and wipe off that smirk, Mone glared at him when she received the exact opposite: instead, Jong-in's smirked broadened, and it seems that she built up his haughty ego more than anything else.

But what irked her the most was what he said in reply to her:

"We'll see about that."