LOVE:ZERO

Following the collaborative musical performance by Alton School and Astor School, several students began to form romantic relationships.

Hunter was also aware of Rex’s considerable popularity with the girls, attributed to his appealing qualities. However, he remained uncertain about the reasons behind it.

Hunter was annoyed by girls. They were noisy and annoying when they were around him. If they were a man, he would kick them to tell them to get lost, but he couldn’t do that to a woman, so he quickly avoided them when they seemed to be coming at him.

Rex, like me, couldn’t remember who he was talking to when he turned around. But since he would at least talk to them, the students thought Rex had a good personality.

‘So that’s why Ju Parker became one of Rex’s groupies.’

Now that I think about it, Rex didn’t play any mean pranks on Jiyu. If anything, he was more kind to her. He was like that when they were kids, and even now, he’s much friendlier to her than when he’s with other girls.

‘What? Are you two really dating?’

Yikes—

The unpleasant question crawled up the back of his throat, tickling, and just before it burst out like sneezing, someone tapped him on the shoulder.

Hunter looked back with a grim expression. It was Rex. For a moment, he forgot that he was hanging behind him.

“ Hey, Triple. Didn’t you hear the music change?”

“Go away.”

He shook Rex’s hand off his shoulder and turned his head coldly.

“It’s my turn, you idiot.”

“Get out’

Hunter spat out without looking back.

Rex snickered and poked his head next to Hunter’s shoulder, grinning.

“Liv, am I right? If you don’t believe me, ask him.”

I frowned, wondering what on earth he was talking about, but for some reason Jiyu stared at me with wavering eyes.

Rex fluttered his hands as if he found it amusing and ran behind the boy next to him. Then he quickly grabbed his partner.

Just before the last song began, Walter ordered another partner change. However, Hunter silently gestured to the boy who approached him, telling him to go somewhere else. He couldn’t let Jiyu go yet because he had something to ask.

But this guy who looked like a twisted anchovy wouldn’t understand what I was saying and just mumbled and wandered around.

Hunter stuck out his lower lip and let out a short breath. The hair on his forehead rose briefly and then fell back. He frowned and looked down at Anchovy. Only then did he flinch and atrp back.

Just then, the last song started, Hunter relaxed his shoulder, pulled Jiyu closer and started walking again.

At that moment, she, who had been silently being dragged around by him,  called out to him in a small voice.

“Hey, Hunter?”

“Why?”

“By any chance…. No, it’s nothing.”

She shook her head and lowered it as if hiding her face.

‘Is Ju Parker hot too?’

The ball looked a little red.

“What is it? Why did you stop talking?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“If it’s nothing, just tell me. Don’t worry about it.”

Hunter snapped back. Jiyu bit her lips and seemed to think for a moment. Then, with a look of confusion and curiosity on her face, she slowly opened her mouth.

“Hey, this is… I’m just asking just in case…”

“What is it? Tell me quickly!”

She swallowed dry saliva with a complicated expression.

“You… don’t like me?”

Hunter stumbled. His steps became tangled and he stepped hard on Jiyu’s foot.

“Ah! It hurts, Hunter!”

He took a step back in embarrassment.

“Me? You? Are you crazy?”

He screamed, his face burning, his heart pounding wildly, his breathing suffocated as if he had been strangled by those thin fingers.

I felt the same way two years ago when I lost the first set 6-0 after foolishly rushing into an opponent whose UTR score was four points higher than mine.

My mood hit rock bottom when I realized that I was so flustered by something as simple as Ju Parker saying.

“That, that is Rex.”

Jiyu stammered an excuse with a bright red face.

Hunter cut her off, mercilessly pushing each word he spat out through his teeth down the cliff.

“I hate this damn class, and Ju Parker, I hate you even more.”

And then, before the waltz was even over, he stormed out Jiyu, who was left alone on the dance floor, her face turned ashen.

Rex, who had been dancing the waltz next to her and had found Jiyu left alone, approached her and looked around.

“Where did the troublemaker go?”

Jiyu, who had been standing there blankly, glanced at Rex with tearful eyes and quietly shook her head.

“Not only does he like me, he says he hates me more than the Cotillion class. So don’t even bring up such nonsense from now on.”

He clicked his tongue.

“Oh, that’s not it… That stupid brat. He only plays tennis, so instead of a brain, his head is filled with muscles. Even if you make a mat for him, he won’t be able to eat.”

At that moment, gangster hip-hop with loud beats poured out from the speakers.

While Walter and Megan were startled and panicked, the students burst into laughter and cheered. The students who had been waltzing with bored faces started shaking their butts in a vulgar way to the hip-hop music.

Among them, Odokani Seon Jiyu withered like a dried flower that had lost all its moisture. I didn’t realize it when I was dancing with Hunter, but the heel of my foot that was stuck in the back of my shoe was so painful that I couldn’t stand it. That’s why I kept crying.

She hung her head, blinking her bloodshot eyes silently as she was surrounded by Upper East Side prep school kids belting out lyrics about rough, poor ghetto life.

ꕥ

Jiyu received math tutoring with Hunter once a week in the playroom after school.

Because Lauren chose Jiyu as her son’s math pacemaker. In fact, Rex was a better opponent to grow with while competing with Hunter than Jiyu.

However, Lauren judged  that her son had not yet entered the realm of puberty. He was not a very emotional child to begin with, and with 90 percent of his waking hours spent playing tennis, puberty seemed to be coming a little later.

On the other hand, Rex seemed to be entering full-blown puberty. Rumor had it that he was rebelling against his father and causing trouble here and there.

Lauren was worried that Hunter would get into trouble if she put him with Rex at an age when he was easily influenced by his friends.

Compared to Hunter, Jiyu was quiet, well-behaved, and good at studying. She didn’t focus on taking care of her appearance like other girls her age, and she didn’t pretend to be an adult. Even if Jiyu was better at math than Hunter, it didn’t threaten her grades because they went to different schools.

In fact, it wasn’t a bad thing that Jiyu was better at studying than Hunter. It was because Lauren could stimulate her son’s temperament of not wanting to lose and make him work hard on his own.

Based on that calculation, the two teenagers received two hours of tutoring every Wednesday from Dr. Shreya Patel, a tutor with an Ivy League math Ph. D. She was one of the hottest tutors on the Upper East Side, and her rate was $400 for two hours for one person or $500 for two. Jiyu received tutoring for only $100, thanks to Lauren’s consideration.

And as Lauren had expected, Jiyu was ahead of Hunter at first. However, the gap between the two was narrowing as time went on.

The playroom has also undergone quite a dynamic change over the past few years.

The monkey bars and zip lines have been torn down, replaced by large exercise machines. Instead of toys, the floor is littered with mats and foam rollers, and in one corner is a weight tower with dumbbells organized by weight.

The library was still full of books, but Jiyu’s designated bean bag chair was gone, and a large conference table took its place.

“Tell me something.”

As soon as class ended and the tutor left the room, Hunter suddenly spoke up.

“…”

Without answering, Jiyu gathered up the notebooks and math workbooks scattered on the large table and stacked them neatly. Then she hugged them to her chest as a shield and got up from her seat.

The two had been in a cold war for a couple of months after their first class together. Not only did they not talk, they didn’t even look at each other as if they were strangers in the same room.

Strictly speaking, it was funny to call this a cold war since they were never close.

Jiyu seemed to know what Hunter was going to say. She thought it was time, but he was strangely quiet. However, she didn’t want to talk to him, much less grant his request.

Jiyu had decided to hate him just as much as Hunter hated her. So there was no reason for her to grant his request.

She lowered her head as if she hadn’t heard, pushed the chair back, and turned around. Her long, straight hair swept wildly, falling gently on her slender back.

“Ju Parker, I have something to say.”

Hunter grabbed her, his voice slightly urgent, but still commanding.