𝐇𝐄'𝐒 𝐃𝐄𝐂𝐄𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄

ᴇɴᴛʀʏ #48 | ᴠɪʀᴜꜱ

048 | Virus

"Where's Jian?" (Y/N) asked as she walked through the door to English, finding Nicolai sitting at his desk but no sign of the other boy.

"Who cares where he is?" He grumbled as he propped his head up.

"Nicolai," she gave him a pointed look.

"...The fucker's sick," his nose wrinkled while he leaned back in his chair, hating that he was unable to resist answering her when she looked at him like that. "Texted me this morning that he wasn't going to be in today. Weirdly enough he also said if his sickness cleared up by the afternoon, he'd be here. He's probably on something to be saying shit like that."

"To be fair, he'd have to make up any homework or tests that he missed while sick, especially if he's out for a couple of days instead of just one," she pointed out. "But... it is strange, like you said."

"He's just a fucking weirdo..." he grumbled just as Mrs. Young started the class, pretending to not notice the glare (Y/N) shot his way.

He hated Jian.

He wasn't going to pretend that he didn't.

Even if that meant starting bad blood between him and (Y/N) since she cared for Jian—as much as he hated that fact in itself—he would just find some other way to win her over again. No matter what she said or did would ever change the fact that he loathed Jian, and no matter how much he liked her, he wasn't going to pretend for her.

He couldn't.

"Alright, class," Mrs. Young started, bringing Nicolai's attention back to the present to see that she was currently handing out a piece of paper. "In your groups, I want you to read this passage and annotate it. Try to find all literary devices and themes within, especially the one that we have been focusing on: alienation. I'll give you twenty-five minutes, starting now."

With that, everyone started to work.

"Do you want to read it separately, or one of us to read it out loud?" (Y/N) questioned as she scanned the text.

"Doesn't matter," Nicolai answered.

"I'll read it out loud, then."

As she began to read, her voice soft so as not to disturb other groups but loud enough so that Nicolai could hear it, he couldn't help but feel soothed by the sound. It drowned out all other noise and made him feel like it was just her and him in that room with no one else to bother them.

Just (Y/N) and me...

I can't understand why, but I like the sound of that.

"...do you think?"

"Huh?" He glanced up at (Y/N), her sudden question breaking him from his trance. "What do I think? Right, well... since Mrs. Young wants us to focus on alienation specifically, this part here works really well with that..."

"I think you're right," she nodded her head as she underlined the part and scribbled down a few notes. "Hey... do you think maybe we can ask for another copy to give to Jian? He'll probably have a lot of work to make up but if we do this for him, it would probably help, don't you think?"

Nicolai frowned.

His fantasy of them alone then broke.

"Did you have to bring him up?" He scowled at (Y/N), watching as she reeled back in surprise from his sudden shift in mood.
   
"I was just trying to be helpful," she stated in agitation, her defenses growing. "I did the same for Kana in the classes that I had with her. Yesterday I went to the hospital to give them to her and she said that it was helpful."

"It's always someone else..." he shook his head, his muscles tense and his amber eyes flaring.

"Excuse me?"

"Why the hell is it always someone else!?" Nicolai slammed his hands down onto the table as he abruptly stood up, startling everyone in the room due to the loud noise that he made. "Jian... Amar... Kana... whoever the hell else you're friends with... it's always them over me... fucking hell."

Slamming his chair back into his desk, he stormed out of the room before Mrs. Young could reprehend him, leaving (Y/ ) staring after him blankly with multiple emotions crossing her expression. In an instant, she excused herself with the excuse of going to the bathroom and left in a hurry to go find him, wanting to uncover why exactly he despised Jian so much to the point he would even storm out of class.

He's mad... because of me.

Because I mentioned Jian at all in the first place.

Finally, she was able to catch up with Nicolai. She found him surprisingly in a more private part of the school by the window, his amber gaze crystallized as he stared out toward the lawn.

"Nicolai... why are you so mad?" She finally demanded in disbelief.

"I don't need to answer you," he snapped back, not meeting her gaze.

"Please? Honestly... whenever I'm around you and Jian, and even though you don't consciously act like it, I feel as if you're... trying to blend in to the background," she commented, hesitating quite a bit since she wasn't sure if she should even be speaking about such things, not wanting to probe into someone else's personal business. "I don't know. I've just seen that you hate being around him, so you portray not wanting to be around him unconsciously. And... I can't help but notice that your father has something to do with that too."

Nicolai didn't say anything, knowing that she had been able to peel back every single layer of his soul that he had tried hiding from others.

Every single secret.

Every single desire.

Every single hated thing.

He absolutely loathed that she had been able to see past him so easily, but another part of him—the darker part of him that he tried to suppress—absolutely loved that it was her and not another.

"You know..." he mumbled under his breath, watching as it slowly started to rain, reflecting his mood perfectly. "...I didn't always hate my father. He didn't always used to be this way. Then my mother died. And then with my father trying to go through his grief, he adopted Jian. He gave him everything. And he never expected anything from me."

(Y/N) inhaled sharply.

"So..." he turned to her, his expression cold yet soft, a rather psychotic look in his eyes. "....you wonder why I hate when you talk about him when I want you all to myself."

__________________________________

To be continued...