Kris doubled over his bed, flailing his arms around like a dying ant as I sat by his desk, unmoving. My face was showing that I wasn’t amused in the slightest despite the howling laughter that was going on two metres away. If he weren’t my stupid tutor, I would’ve already attacked him but if this was my only chance of getting out of a stupid talent show then I would have to be patient. But revenge would be mine soon enough.

“This is seriously what you call a geometry proof?” he said in between guffaws. “Your handwriting looks like a spider dipped itself in ink and wriggled all over your page!”

“Shut up,” I grumbled, crossing my arms tightly and gritting my teeth in an attempt to stop my nostrils flaring because it wasn’t a very attractive look. Some people, like our horrific looking PE teacher looked like an angry bull about to charge while flaring his nostrils and I just looked like… well like I had inflated nostrils. 

“And your English is horrible,” he chortled. “Where did all that grammatical structure go?”

“Shut up,” I grumbled again, this time nudging his shin with my toe.

“And I also took a look at your science homework…” He paused for a second, looked skyward for patience and then returned his amused gaze to my face. “Did the teachers ever tell you how to write a hypothesis for an experiment?”

“Okay, okay I get it,” I snapped. “I’ve fallen asleep in class one too many times.”

“No I think you’re just dumb,” he teased, flicking my forehead harshly. Flinching back, I knocked my head against the corner of his bookshelf.

“OW!” I yelped, rubbing the back of my head in annoyance.

“You have no hand eye coordination either,” he continued, oblivious to the laser glares I was drilling into his back.

“Shut up,” I hissed starting to get legitimately ticked off. “Put it rest will you?”

This was exactly why I had sat in my last period of class with a pool of dread collecting at the pit of my stomach. Kris, despite all his juvenile behaviour and idiocy, was actually a really good student and even in Canada he adjusted well despite never learning English beforehand. He was equipped with three languages and a Chinese dialect, was excellent at maths and science especially physics and managed to do well in his literature classes too. The only class I ever did well in was PE and that was because the teacher was absent half the time anyway. If I was fit, then all of the contestants on the “Biggest Loser” could run Olympic marathons. Despite warning myself not to get annoyed, I was still dreading the shame I would feel when presenting him with my lacklustre work. Only the thought of having to do a dance routine in front of the school kept me from lunging over the bed and strangling him right then and there.

“And look at your fitness records, you call this speed? Oh my god, we should have done this earlier-“

The bastard was indulging in my stupidity.

“Fine,” I hissed trying to keep the hot tears that were pressing against my eyelids from rolling down my cheeks. “I don’t need your ing help. I just don’t try in class. Tomorrow is our half yearly maths exam right? I swear I’ll do better than you.”

“Wait. Wha-“

I grabbed my books and bag, shot him the darkest look I could muster and stormed out of his room, almost knocking Mrs Wu down the stairs. She was holding a platter of fruit, probably intended for our little study session. It was only when I made it to my front doorstep that I really started crying. The whole Kai incident had really brought me to my senses and I’d been trying a lot harder in school. Unfortunately for me, my lack of concentration and perseverance made it hard for me to like any of the subjects in school and neither was I good at any.

Visual Arts?  My drawings were as bad as Kris’s.

Mathematics? Only in maths would Farmer Brown buy fifty freaking watermelons and not know how many chickens he owned, represented by an x.

English Language? Fantastic, elastic, fantastic, elastic. No one who care about me…

History? Funny story, I never payed attention in that class.

And the list went on and on. No need to say I regretted every single minute I spent procrastinating.

But I was still going to show that stupid neighbour of mine that I wasn’t any less intelligent than he was. And so I began studying late into the night, running only on caffeine and chocolate chip cookies with an occasional blast of music from my iPod to keep me awake. I could see the light shining from Kris’s window and I was determined to keep studying longer than he did. When he finally went to bed at 3 AM in the morning I had barely gotten through the first topic and fully understood it. Sighing, I reached for my fifteenth can of ice coffee, drinks I had commanded poor Eunji (who had suddenly decided to take up a job as a counter chick in our local mart) to bring me after she was done with her shift.

“He’s such a squirt!” she hissed when I told her my story. “But maybe your rankings will finally go up!”

“Like you can talk,” I pointed out snarkily.

“Yeah but when I grow up I’m going to teach younger children how to kick a e so hard in the balls that they won’t be able to walk straight for three days,” she replied with a smug looking smile spread across her face. I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms.

“You mean you’re going to become a Taekwondo teacher.”

“You make it sound less cool, but yeah,” she finally conceded with a nod. “But good luck and make sure you bury him in the test!”

And bury him I was planning on doing. 

A/N:

I know, I know it’s a short chapter but please don’t kill me I’ve got the next part coming up tomorrow and I need to take a break from this kind of story because I’m kind of losing inspiration. I’m going to work on my Hunhan fic for a bit and then come back so don’t worry. It’ll probably be a week’s break?