Ongoing Cycle

16

     Hesitantly, [Y/N] had lowered her body onto the chair in front of the boy sitting across from her. His blue eyes scanned her serious-looking face and they flickered in amusement. The look that he always had on when he stared at her made her want to wrangle him. What was so damn amusing to him? Staring back at him in annoyance, she figured out how to break the awkward silence. She took out her notebook and pencil and set it down neatly on the desk while she ignored the burning looks from the students around her. Great. It was obvious that the girls rejected from becoming Kuro's partner before were really jealous of her right now.

     Opening to a blank page on her notebook, she raised her eyes to meet the player's. "Well?" she asked sharply, waiting for him to grab his own notebook as well.

     Kuro blinked back blankly and raised his eyebrows in confusion. "What?"

     She scowled in agitation. "Where's your notebook? We're going to brainstorm."

     Instead of doing what she asked him to do, he only shrugged and lazily leaned back against his chair. "Let's do it later," he said with a crooked smile on his face. "We have a lot more days to work on it in class anyway." She gritted her teeth. Was he serious? Dammit. She knew it was too good to be true that he would act better now just because he had helped her calm down last week.

     She could feel her hold on the pencil tightening as anger got the best of her. Her fist shaking slightly, it didn't take much longer that the pencil was at its limit. With a sickening crack, the pencil broke in half inside her palm. The rough feel scratching her skin, she placed it back down on the desk. Sighing softly to herself, she ignored Kuro's look of wonder aimed towards her and let her anger simmer. This guy had the talent to always make her angry it seemed.

     "Take the damn notebook out," she demanded in an authoritative tone.

     He shook his head with a playful grin, his hair flopping like a soft mop. "Not just yet. I want you to answer a question first," he explained.

     She knew what he was going to ask. She also knew she did not want to answer it. "I think not—"

    "You had a fantastic performance of a speech last week," he interrupted her nonchalantly. She inhaled sharply and could not seem to release her breath. He ignored the disdain on her face and continued. "Very well done, I gotta say. But...it wasn't hard for me to notice the tension between you...and Miku. It was on the day you were crying too, so let me just ask you this. Did something happen with you and your friend?"

    She froze and narrowed her eyes. She knew exactly what he was going to ask, but it didn't lessen the struggle of keeping her cool. "I do not ever recall having this as any of your business," she pointed out coldly. "Instead, how about you tell me why you purposely chose to have no partner in order to become partners with me?"

     Kuro smirked and leaned forward, laying his arm on his desk. Him being too close to her for comfort, she inched away from him and gulped. "If I answer your question, will you answer mine?" he proposed confidently.

     She couldn't help but be curious as to why he decided to be partners with her. "I...." she trailed off. She rolled her eyes and sagged her shoulders in defeat. "Fine."

     "Okay then," he said, his eyes twinkling mischievously. "Glad to hear you're so interested in me."

     "I am not!" she exclaimed, blood rushing to her cheeks in shame and anger.

     He chuckled at her reaction. "Anyway, the reason why I did that was because I wanted only you to be my partner."

     "W-w-what?" she sputtered out as her cheeks grew even more red. That explanation only added more questions to swirl in her mind. The vagueness of his answer made her want to rip her hair out. Was he trying to make it more confusing for her? "Why?"

     He stretched his arm out and wiggled his pointer finger back and forth in the air in front of her. "Nuh uh. No more questions answered until you answer mine," he said.

      Shooting daggers from her eyes at him, she slapped his hand out of the air. "Answer it. That was barely an explanation anyone would be satisfied with," she snarled.

     "I guess I can't argue with the perfect [Y/N], can I?" he dramatically sighed. Her heart jerked when she heard him call her perfect. It was just weird, because all of her life she thought of Miku as perfect, and her parents as perfect. Meanwhile, she had been anything but perfect. Did Kuro actually thought of her as perfect? Or was he making fun of her? "If you truly have to know, I wanted to be partners with you because I needed someone who'd actually do their work. I've been with too many assholes that left me to do all the work. So to avoid that, who else is better to have as a partner than the perfectionist Miss [L/N]?"

     Her stomach dropped in....disappointment? Was she expecting something more out of his answer? Had she really thought that he wanted to be partners with her for a different reason?

     She shook her head at her foolish thoughts. Why the hell was she getting her hopes up for? She hated the dickhead and that opinion of him was never going to change.

     "That's about it," Kuro said easily. "Now it's your turn."

     Shit. This deal was totally not worth it.