Speechless

4: Confrontation

After walking a bit longer, Persephone finally managed to calm down. She remained mostly quiet for the rest of the day, embarrassed to have gotten so upset in front of Kai, despite the fact that it didn't seem to faze him. She shivered as they continued wandering the streets of Hong Kong, pulling down the sleeves of her sweater and crossing her arms, a small attempt at retaining what warmth her body still had left. Kai noticed her shivering out of the corner of his eye and checking his phone realized they had been out for quite some time.

"We should head back," he said simply, turning to walk down a different street.

Persephone just nodded and followed along, trusting that Kai knew where he was going as she had no sense of direction herself. After a while of more silent strolling, Persephone decided to make an attempt at conversation, choosing to ignore her previous conception that Kai was intimidating and mean.

"What do you think the rest of the team has been doing?" she asked, her voice shaking slightly from nerves.

Kai let out a soft scoff, "Nothing productive that's for sure."

"Oh," she replied, furrowing her brows a bit at the somewhat cold response.

Well that wasn't nice.

They walked in silence for a few more minutes before Persephone mustered up the courage to speak again.

"Well they must've done something today," she said, looking down at the ground as she tried to somewhat defend their teammates.

Kai paused and looked at her before answering, "Slack off maybe."

This made Persephone frown. He shouldn't be bad mouthing the team. He's the captain.

"Well it must be hard for them to practice or train properly with their captain and manager gone all day," she muttered under her breath.

Kai stopped, looking down at her with an icy glare. Persephone kept her eyes down but she could feel the weight of his his stare bearing down on her.

Crap! I shouldn't have said anything!

"I didn't ask you to come along you know," he fired back cooly before continuing to make his way down the street. The knot in Persephone's stomach suddenly returned, only this time much worse. She froze, not expecting such a harsh response. She wanted to cry, but she didn't want to appear even more weak than she already had today. She didn't say anything more; Persephone never faired well with confrontation.

Not knowing where to go, she followed him, making sure to stay walking behind him this time. As she walked, she played his cruel words over and over in her head. No matter how hard she tried to push it to the back of her mind, Kai's voice continued to ring in her skull. The more she thought about it, the more she realized he was right. He hadn't asked her to come along. He had stormed off, obviously wanting to be alone, but she took off after him anyways. Part as fulfilling her role as team manager and well, managing the team, but in part just for genuine concern for Kai's well being. Persephone never put herself out there much, and making new friends had always been difficult for her do to her shy and timid nature. Now, the one time things even inched toward working out in her favor, she destroyed it with one simply comment.

Kai could feel her sulking behind him, not particularly angry at her for making the comment, but more for her being right about it. Kai didn't like being told he was wrong. A small part of him felt bad for being cold to her after her episode earlier in the day, but he tried to put it in the back of his mind. He had other things to focus on. He was here to focus, to win, not worry about hurting some girl's feelings. He barely knew her anyways. And while in his mind he didn't consider them friends, he still didn't mind her company today, a rare occurrence with Kai's usual disdain for other people; not that he would ever admit it to anyone else, or himself for that matter. Even so, a small pang of guilt hit him. She seemed like a nice girl, and it's not like he wanted to upset her.