The Love Score || Zhuo Zhi

49: I Don't Hate You

"See you next week!" I grinned at Yi Kai, turning to leave in the opposite direction as Yi Kai waved to me. The students from the dance club were already half gone, having rushed to the gates in an eagerness to go home after our dismissal. I switched my phone on and noticed a message from Si Yang in the notification bar.

Si Yang:
Yue En, I need you to help me make a trip to the bookstore to get two exercise books and a couple of pens for me. I didn't bring enough money with me today, sorry.

I scoffed at his text message. His apology seemed the least sincere, but I knew that tennis practices ended much later than our dance sessions. I decided to be a good sister and make a detour to the bookstore.

I spun around in my tracks to walk to Yu Qing's other exit, the smaller gate at the other end of the school. Crossing the courtyard, I moved against the flow of the other students who were all heading towards the main entrance of Yu Qing. Most students left by the main entrance, with only a few exceptions that use the smaller gate to exit by. I had been to the other gate perhaps once or twice during the week before our termly exams to collect some revision materials from the bookstore, so I was vaguely familiar with the route there.

I trudged through the gate and walked under the high-rise residential buildings that were behind the school. I texted a reply back to Si Yang, telling him that I was on the way to the book--

"Oomph!" I groaned as I raised my head from my screen, looking up to see what I had clumsily bumped into-- or who I had bumped into while I was turning around the corner of the residential building.

Li Jing glared at me with her piercing eyes. She didn't say a word and remained silent, yet her deathly stare conveyed her message to me well enough. "Uh... sorry. I wasn't looking," I muttered.

Li Jing brushed a lock of hair over her shoulder and slipped her hands into her jeans pocket. "Why are you following me?" Li Jing asked in an accusing tone.

I gaped, shocked at her hostile attitude. "My apologies, is it not allowed for me to make a quick trip to the bookstore using this route?"

Li Jing scoffed and turned back around, speed-walking away from me.

I was sick and tired of Li Jing's icy attitude towards me. The only times she opened her mouth to speak was when she wanted to correct my mistakes. Talking to her was frustrating-- she was stubborn when she wanted to do things her way. Since the first day I've met her, all she had done was ignore me and put up a frosty front. She had never done me any physical harm before, but it was the atmosphere that she held around her-- always filled with thick tension. I wanted to know what was the deal with her always acting that way around me.

I ran up to Li Jing and stood in front of her, making her halt in her tracks. She scowled at me, "Excuse me, Senior Yue En."

"Why do you hate me so much?" I questioned bluntly. The question I was looking for an answer for so long. The reason why she loved to set up a cold demeanour in my presence, why she would pretend that my feelings were non-existent, why she would treat me as if I were a piece of dirt she found stuck on the bottom of her shoe.

Li Jing's scowl morphed into a frown as she comprehended my question. The momentary silence was like a serpent's body clenching my heart, stopping it from beating or breathing as I waited for my answer.

Li Jing sighed, shaking her head. "I don't hate you."

I looked at her dead in the eye, solemn. "No. I want to know why you act if as you hate me so much. You always refuse at the chance when I try to hold a civilised conversation with you. When I make mistakes when I'm dancing, you point them out so harshly, it's like you're not considering how I feel at all. Why, Li Jing, why?"

I watched as Li Jing's eyes softened and her frown dissolved into a neutral, unreadable expression. "I don't know, Senior,"

I felt my fists clench in frustration and the blood in my arteries boiling. "Why have you always been this way since day one..."

My tone faltered and my words got caught in my throat as I noticed Li Jing's eyes widen in horror, her skin turning ghostly white in a matter of milliseconds. I was about to question what had happened when her cold palms grabbed my shoulders roughly, using her body weight to push me away as she stumbled onto the spot I was in just moments earlier.

Time seemed to pass in slow-motion. A terrified shout escaped my lips as a brown ceramic flower pot hovered above Li Jing. Li Jing tried to jump away from the spot but was a second too late. The ceramic pot crashed onto her right shoulder, the impact causing her to fall on her knees on the floor. The pot broke into uneven halves, one of the shards slicing the porcelain skin on her cheek as both pieces fell to the floor and shattered into many more thousands. A short but sharp scream from Li Jing echoed together with the loud crash that seemed deafening to my ears.

I stared with eyes as wide as saucers, fright washing over me as I stood over a vulnerable, collapsed Li Jing, too stunned to react at all. 

A single drop of blood slid off the cut on Li Jing's cheek, dripping delicately on her crimson collared jacket to form a deeper shade of red.

☆ ☆ ☆

Damn, that was intense. It was a pretty short chapter this time, though.

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~ Snowy ♡