Chapter Twelve

The Quarrel

Kai definitely kept his word. As Tuesday and Wednesday passed, he didn't let Sungmi come a foot close to the stove or the cutlery drawer. It was a little overboard for him to be so overprotective, but no matter how many times she protested that she would be fine, his resolve wouldn't budge. He took over the meals again, as he had already been doing, and rewrapped her bandages when she needed a change. To say Sungmi was merely appreciative was an understatement. She was beyond elated and grateful, continuously thanking him for his every doing.  Even if she did a thousand favors for him, it still wouldn't be enough. 

Kai even took the initiative to drop her off at school in the mornings after their runs. Even though Sungmi suspected that he had another motive for doing so, she couldn't help but feel like the happiest girl in the world when others looked on with awestruck glances at the handsome man that had driven her to school. For as long as she had been attending her university, nobody had really bothered to talk to her or make friends with her. She was the quiet, lonely outcast that sat in the back of the room and left to go home as soon as class let out. Unlike other teenagers, there was no such thing as invitations to weekend parties or meetups with friends after school.  She was overweight, tomboy-ish, and mute. Who would hang out with her?

But the stranger sitting in the driver's seat definitely proved them wrong. The girls who were loitering around the front of the school building had to take second glances to assure themselves that their eyes weren't deceiving them. 

Park Sungmi got out of a guy's car. And not just any guy. A gorgeous guy. 

It definitely didn't make any sense to the onlookers, but Sungmi wasn't about to explain anything. After all, they had no business in her life from the beginning and they weren't about to have any now. So like a boss, she proceeded to walk to class without paying a flying crap to the girls that were boring holes into her back. 

She met with Luhan after school both Tuesday and Wednesday in the library to complete their project. The equations had seemed a whole lot easier to do when Kai was helping her with them, but she and Luhan struggled immensely to come up with their own formulas. While Luhan was fairly intelligent, he was nowhere as brilliant as Kai and even after hours of scratch sheets of paper and sample equations, the two of them had only come up with five that looked decent enough to turn in for a grade. Not to mention, they also had to carefully detail out their work word by word and make sure that the equations would be hard enough for a college-level math class. 

Luhan, in his own opinion, didn't really mind the time that they spent together. He disliked most of the girls at the school who constantly harped on his back, but Sungmi was different. She didn't try hard in an effort to impress him or act fake to put up a certain image. She was innocent, honest, and refreshing, and he loved it when she laughed at his jokes. For the first time ever since he transferred to Korea, he felt like he had a friend that he sincerely liked. He couldn't care less about her appearance or the other students' opinions because all the rumors that he had heard prior to meeting her were untrue. She wasn't mute, she wasn't boring, and she definitely, definitely wasn't an ugly person. He had trusted her with his secret (that he could speak Korean fluently) and Luhan hoped that she would trust him in the future too. 

He offered Sungmi a ride back to her house both days. Unlike on Monday, she actually remembered to call Kai beforehand just so no arguments would ensue later at home. 

Luhan had merely dropped her off from his car on Tuesday. But it was Wednesday, when he insisted on walking her to the door, that something happened. 

As soon as Sungmi rung the bell (because her house key was attached to her car keys), the door flung open to reveal a shirtless Kai, whose hair was still wet from a recent shower. His eyes immediately fell on Sungmi, who was madly blushing, and he grinned. "Back already?" The lopsided smile that he gave her made her heart palpitate at crazy speeds. For a moment, the pair were too immersed in themselves to notice the person that was still standing behind them, awkwardly observing the entire scene. From his perspective, seeing a grown male shirtless in Sungmi's house didn't exactly scream "friendly" to him. 

Luhan coughed into his hand. The sound immediately dispersed the weird atmosphere.

Kai looked up in surprise to see the figure who he had been completely oblivious to the entire time. His eyes narrowed into slits as he peered at the boy with the red snapback, who---now that Kai got a closer look---was incredibly pretty for a male. "I'm guessing you're Luhan," he stated coldly, his tone bearing an unwelcoming sharp edge to it. He couldn't help the surge of annoyance that coursed through him with the sound of the other's name.