After another pause Kai scoffs. “There you go again. Every time I start mouthing off to you, you act like you’re frozen in place. You don’t do anything- not even defend yourself.”

I just look at him.

“Can’t you react to anything?” he says loudly. He's starting to get agitated. When I remain silent, Kai storms up to me and pins me to the wall. His grip on my shoulders is uncomfortable, causing me to almost squirm. But I quickly suppress that urge. I will not give him the pleasure of seeing me in fear.

“Say something!” Kai stares straight into my eyes. His face is so close I can feel his warm breath on my lips. When I still do not reply, he clenches his jaw.

“Say something right now,” he whispers, closing the gap between the two of us.

“Say it,” he whispers.

I feel a thump on my shoulder. Kai is resting his head on me, his soft breaths causing my neck to tingle. It is the first time I’ve seen him at a complete and utter loss of words. It’s strange. Almost unnerving. But I don’t do anything- if I do, he’ll only get the satisfaction of finally causing me to do something.

We stay like that for what feels like an eternity. Kai traces his hands down to my fingers and laces his between mine. Why is he doing this? There are a million other girls who would readily fling themselves on him in an instant. They would play along with his little mind games, look at him with innocent-but-beautiful doe eyes, lips trembling, when he bullies them. There are girls prettier, richer, more interesting than me. But why did he have to pick me to toy around with like this?

Slowly, Kai detaches himself from me and studies my face. Although the rest of my expression is placid, my eyes are burning with a certain intensity.

“I have a question,” I say quietly, the first sentence I’ve said in 10 minutes. “I apologized to you. I begged you to stop tormenting me. But why haven’t you stopped?”

“You weren’t sincere in your apology.” Kai tells me blandly. “I could tell you didn’t mean it.”

“But what do I even have to apologize for?”

“You disrespected me.”

“When?” Despite my will, traces of anger are beginning to crack through my voice. “Is it when I suggested that you didn’t put effort in schoolwork because you were rich? Am I wrong?”

“Of course,” Kai growls, clenching his fists. “That’s a-,”

“Really? I don’t think so. Then why didn’t you show up to school? Why do you never pay attention, and always goof off?” My lips slide into a triumphant smile when Kai doesn’t reply. “So you really are a liar, Kai.”

“I didn’t come to school because I couldn’t cope with it,” Kai says in a low voice.

I narrow my eyes.

“I was so bored in school; I never learned anything new. It was just a repeat of the same material I had learned years ago! My father forced me to stay in school because he believed it would help me learn how to socialize and form connections with others.”

Ha. Form connections. Nothing more efficient than forming a connection than bullying a girl and causing the entire school to quiver in fear of you.

“He got me a tutor,” Kai continues. “The tutor taught me everything he knew in 3 months. He got me another tutor. That tutor taught me everything from years of advanced math to a comprehensive history of Newfoundland, and I mastered all the material. Then my father placed me at the head of the strategy department of Kim Biotech. I caused quarterly profits to rise over 35%. So then he promoted me, and I worked my way higher and higher up the corporate ladder. By the time I was 15, I was the working Vice President of Kim Biotech.”

Whoa. I never expected this. I thought Kai was just some trashbag with natural intelligence that was trying for the first time in his life. I didn’t know he had been exceeding that much for practically his entire life.

“My father was so proud of me. He bought me whatever I wanted. The employees of his company respected me- well, I’m pretty sure they did.” Kai chuckles, scratching the back of his head. “Harvard, MIT, and Oxford were all trying to recruit me. My friends adored me. I had everything.”

“Until I made my mother commit suicide.”

My mouth drops into an “o”.

Kai wrly laughs at my expression. “Yup, that’s right. The great Kim Kai’s mommy killed herself. Why? Well, according to her final letter, she had been planning this for years. She was terrified of her own son, whose IQ rivaled Einstein’s. Her husband was neglecting her and focusing all his attention on me, so she took another lover. Yet my father and I still didn’t notice. Her mental health deteriorated until finally, she decided to just give up. My mother hung herself in my bedroom side-by-side with her other lover.”

Kai’s voice is jaded. Like he has accepted this event and attempted to dismiss it from his mind.

“So I stopped. I quit the job and all my other responsibilities. I ditched my friends. Oh, my favorite one of them all,” He laughs cynically.

“I told Harvard to go itself.”

“Jesus Christ,” I whisper, raising a hand to my mouth.

“My life is a party. I had nothing to worry about. Why bother coming to school? How could I return to that mundane life after spending day after day studying PhD level material? And what if my intellect hurt someone?”

“Your intellect did hurt someone,” I mutter. “Me.”

Kai pauses and looks at me. “I don't care about you.”

The wisps of sympathy which had been rising up in my chest for him immediately dissolve. He just went from recounting his tragic past to being his usual douchebag self. I straighten my dress and walk away from him.

“Where are you going?” Kai calls after me, his tone mocking. “Do you even know where you’re headed?”

I ignore him. No, I don’t know where I’m going. I’m still lost.

It’s still a lot better than being with him, though. I’m absolutely fed up. He deserves to rot in a sewer somewhere.

But as I’m walking back towards the banquet hall I find myself contemplating Kim Kai.

A/N: GUYS OH MY GOD I SAW 10 UPVOTES ON THIS STORY AND I GASPED REALLY LOUDLY IN THE MIDDLE OF MY SPANISH CLASS AND EVERYONE LOOKED AT ME BUT I DON'T CARE BECAUSE THANK YOU SO MUCH!! OH MY GOSH I'M SQUEALING RIGHT NOW I LOVE ALL OF YOU SO MUCH :'))