Firestorm | ✎

6. business, darling

     Where the hell was Kingsley?

     This was the first time she was late to a session, and Elias almost couldn't believe it. She was wasting his time. He kept checking his phone and getting more and more irritated, but finally, he spotted the bright red hair sticking out like a sore thumb.

    "What the hell, Red?" Elias let out when she slumped on the chair in front of him. "Didn't have your breakfast this morning, is that it?"

     No answer. She was fumbling with her books.

    "Hello? Earth to Kingsley?" He clicked his fingers in front of her face.

     Isla whipped her head up. "What do you want, Elias?"

     He blinked. Well, at least he got her attention. "What I want is a proper response from my own tutor, thank you very much."

     And she did something even more bizarre: she stayed quiet.

     Elias was so taken aback by her reaction—or rather, lack thereof—that he just sat there, blinking at empty space as she started today's course. Okay, he thought, something is definitely wrong. The girl was usually always eager to spit her own brutal comeback. Never letting him have the final word. He couldn't help but be intrigued, all while ignoring the fact that he was curious about her life to begin with.

     That interest peaked up the more they continued.

    "These are connecting words," she explained. "So, connectors. You use them to connect two separate sentences depending on your context. There's tandis que, alors que, tant que... etcetera, but they're more or less interchangeable."

    "So, uh, I can say je regarde la télévision alors que je mange mon dîner (I'm watching TV while I eat my dinner) and replace that with tandis que (while) as well?"

     Silence. Elias looked up.

     Isla was looking at anywhere but him. In fact, she kept looking behind her and sneaking glances around them—as if she was scared someone was watching her or something. He raised his brows, but she didn't seem to notice his scrutiny. She was too distracted.

     He didn't know if he enjoyed this version of her.

     When they finished hours later, she all but threw everything on her tote bag, not sparing him another look. Like she wanted to get away from him as quickly as possible. He just leisurely watched her as she tidied for the sake of her life, but out of all that rush, dropped a pen.

    "Red, you dropped this—"

     She didn't even pause to listen or look back before she raced out of there. Leaving him at the same state she was in the first day they had met: staring at her parting figure, mouth slightly opened in shock, and confusion written on his features. He straightened up quickly, not wanting another scandalous picture go viral.

     How quickly the tables turned.

     Forget about it, he thought. It's not your problem.

     Damn right it wasn't.

—

     The boys' dormitory house was relatively like any other building occupied by lads—noisy and inkling of trouble. Sure, private school kids were expected to be well-mannered than those of public school; but they might be more mad than others thought, just because the rules were too tempting to not be broken. That, and in the end, they were all just bloody teenagers living together for the most of the school year.