Chapter 20.

Jongin had always looked down upon a vast majority of the people he found himself surrounded by on a day to day basis.

Oh Sehun just happened to be another name that had been added to Jongin’s seemingly never ending and forever growing list of ‘People I View in Distaste’.

It wasn’t that Sehun wasn’t a good person. In fact, it was because he was someone who was good to a fault that Jongin disliked him. Nice people got on his nerves and Sehun was both nice and simple hearted – Jongin had never even spoken to him personally but he was already well aware of Oh Sehun’s plight: the rainbow haired teenager's father was a demanding man who only accepted the very best so of course said teenager kept working himself harder in his effort to be acknowledged while simultaneously retaining the youthful sweetness that was who he was. Sehun reminded Jongin so much of his past self that it caused his insides to boil in distaste.

If Sehun’s overall personality wasn’t already bad enough, the one friend he had in the entire grade just so happened to be Huang Zitao, the most emotionally fragile student in the entire school. Like Sehun, Jongin had never actively attempted to get to know or understand Zitao, however, he had heard of Zitao’s family situation: a mother who didn’t seem to care coupled with a son with mental health issues, who, despite his hardships, wanted nothing more than to better himself.

To Jongin, their combined personalities were what he considered the worst possible crime against humanity. Sehun and Zitao. Kindness and Hopefulness. Like looking into a mirror that revealed past aspects of himself, Jongin found his two classmates almost too much to bear.

Deep down it was envy that made Jongin feel the way he did towards Sehun and Zitao. In his eyes, they were both utterly pathetic and equally as useless, however, despite being the way they were, they had managed to retain a wholeness that he had been unable to. It wasn’t something Jongin was able to understand. He disliked them because they were still trying where he had given up. He disliked them because in many ways, they were like his younger self. But unlike him, they weren’t so utterly alone.  Of course, such thoughts processes and the resulting emotions Jongin felt were ones that he was unable to recognise and comprehend. His negatively conditioned emotional state simply caused his jealousy to manifest itself in a way that hid his true feelings under his usual layer of open mocking and cruelty. Jongin had become so good at being bitter that he couldn't even decipher the true emotions that underpinned his bitterness. For Jongin, that was the only way to cope.

It had been several days since Jongin had gotten his hands on Oh Sehun’s soccer ball. In that brief period of time, its absence had festered away in his Sehun’s heart, just as Jongin had planned for it to do. Jongin didn’t often do things unless he could gain personally and all of his actions thus far had been nothing more than the steps he was taking in order to reach a goal. Jongin was good at getting what he wanted and he viewed people like Sehun and Zitao as one of the easiest kind of people to manipulate, simply because they were good.

“Oh Sehun?”

Jongin's vioce was soft and gentle, totally unlike that he would use normally. It was almost like that of a person trying to calm a stray dog and even to him it felt as if his own voice were coming from far away. His classmate and his dark haired friend looked up, their expressions immediately all too easy to read. Shock, confusion, apprehension. Jongin held back a snort. Their emotions were so clear on their faces that it would have made no difference if they had neon lights spelling them out across their foreheads.

“Y-Yes?” Sehun finally responded, his lisp all the more prominent in his muddled state. It was obvious he had no idea why Jongin was speaking to him. From beside him, Jongin watched as Zitao threw a concerned glance in his friend’s direction.

Jongin tilted his head to the side, the corners of