Babysitting the Campus Jerk

BCJ 11 • john kavine

***

The day of the charity party finally came. Until then, Kao had been avoiding Pete. He would even come to their room late to make sure that Pete was already sleeping when he got there.

He was sort of expecting Pete to ask him what was wrong. But it seemed like he was too preoccupied with practicing and spending time with Celeste that he didn't even bother to ask about him.

"As if he'd care about you," he grumbled as he ticked off the items that they had already prepared for the event.

"Hi! Are you ready with your performance?"

"Hi, Sandy. Hmm. I guess?"

He actually didn't have anything prepared as he planned on leaving the party during the performances.

"Okay! I'll see you later then."

He just smiled at her as she then sauntered towards the stage.

He then continued in helping in the preparations. He could see Pete arranging the chairs for later. Surprisingly, he was not with Celeste.

"Tss. Why do I even care?"

***

Kao worked his fingers through his hair and adjusted the collar of his shirt as the guests started flocking into the venue. He was assigned to welcome them so he was just as nervous as he didn't know these people.

To cover up his nescience about the people entering, he plastered a wide smile on his face and greeted them.

It was until then that he spotted a familiar face.

"Kao?"

"Uhm.. Hi!..." his voice trailed off as he saw Kavine approaching him. He slightly transferred his gaze to where Pete was but he was already gone from his previous spot. "Why are you here?"

Donned in a dark blue suit, Kavine looked handsome. He hadn't seen Pete in a suit before but he was sure that he would look more devilishly handsome than Kavine.

He paused.

He immediately snapped back to reality.

"You look great. Why are you here again?"

"Oh, my dad is one of the sponsors but he's on vacation so I'm here as a proxy," he grinned. "What about you? Why are you here?"

"Well, I'm doing community service. You know, things just happened. I'm here to- Ouch!"

Kao immediately held his arm as someone bumped into him.

"Oh sorry. Didn't see you there."

It was Pete who was already standing in front of Kavine.

"You are not assigned to chitchat with guests, Kao," Pete said firmly, his eyes never leaving Kavine's.

"I'm entertaining our guest, Pete. Move over. You go to your assigned task."

"Oh, really? Because as I've observed, you're entertaining him in a totally different way," Pete finally looked at him, a tinge of bitterness in his voice.

He was about to retaliate but the host had already called their attention to take their seats. Kavine just smiled at him before going to his assigned seat but Pete's eyes were still boring holes on Kavine's back.