Chapter 15: Rina Blocks The Way... Again.
Class came to an end, and Kaizer was surprisingly not in a rush to leave this time around. He sat by the window and looked out, gazing at the other departments on the campus that were either seeing students come in while others were leaving.
His eyes traced many of them, and their surface thoughts were available to him. Some were thinking about love, many were thinking about their leisure time and how they would relax when at home, while others were thinking about the food they were going to eat.
Unlike what Kaizer saw in many forms of fiction, people did not spend all their time thinking about how to betray and murder one another. Apart from the overwhelming amount of sexual thoughts — no, it really wasn't a joke, people were horribly horny — most of their thoughts were just banal things about life, survival, and enjoyment.
As for being horny, Kaizer did not have the right to chastise anyone. He too had his own little thoughts, especially living in the same house with that aunt of his, who was related to him by blood and was very touchy towards him.
Reading her emotions, he knew her thoughts towards him were pure, filled with the love of a maternal kind because she saw him as her own. However, as a growing boy, being subjected to her enthusiasm was quite torturous and might be slightly why the current him was not a casanova just yet.
As for his various dates, none of them had reached the stage of actually doing the deed. The most was one time when he was forcibly kissed by someone who had a crush on him and confessed, so he decided to try and get to know her.
After a really pleasant date, she got carried away and kissed him, thinking he would respond since she herself was quite beautiful. Instead, it made him feel a bit disappointed, and he stopped interacting with her, eventually rejecting her and cementing his reputation as an arrogant guy through her later revenge-filled rumors.
Kaizer stepped out of his classroom and saw that Franco and Raul were standing alert near the doors, watching everyone who passed by with sharp eyes. The students glanced at them uncertainly, naturally wondering why a bunch of serious guys with armed weaponry had actually appeared in their school, but since they did not do anything and looked somewhat official, they did not pay it much mind.
When Kaizer came out and greeted the two, they formed up around him and escorted him downstairs, which made many people speculate and gossip. After all, he was one of the biggest focal points of their school, due to his wealth and handsomeness for the ladies and due to his father's achievements for the guys.
Seeing that he actually came with armed bodyguards, the students realized something must have happened. They too had long taken for granted the matter of Kaizer's security, forgetting that if any fringe group wanted to harm his father, it would be through him first.
Kaizer walked towards the gates, but his brows twitched when he saw the very scene he wanted to avoid. In front of him, walking over with her usual posse of sycophantic friends, was Rina, who wore a red shirt with the word 'DEATH' written on it and a black skirt that reached her lower thigh, displaying her rather toned legs.
As usual, she made a beeline straight for him, and the various students were not deterred by the bodyguards, coming for their daily dose of family drama. Franco and Raul were hired by Keith and had been briefed in full by their employer about their client, so they knew who Rina was.
As such, apart from spreading out to clear the area, preventing Rina's friends from coming closer and creating a small perimeter for the students to watch from afar, they didn't stop Rina herself. This allowed the two cousins to stand face-to-face with no one in earshot should they whisper.
However, if Rina wanted to be discreet, she wouldn't have approached in such a manner in the first place. With her nose slightly in the air, she glared at her cousin with blazing eyes, as if he had broken her favorite toy and she was never going to forgive him for it.
"Coming out of class this late? Let me guess, you were abusing your looks to chase some girl, right?" Rina asked with dissatisfaction.
Kaizer rubbed his head and spoke with fatigue. "Rina, why must we do this every day? Do you really like the feeling of us being at odds with each other?"
Rina seemed surprised. Kaizer would usually just stand there and watch her silently, with cold and almost unfeeling eyes as she ranted on, before being released by her and going home, where he would further ignore her.
Only occasionally, when he had other things to do, would he respond in a neutral tone, which would end their 'communication.' Today was the first time he spoke to her normally, in a way that didn't make her feel like she was speaking to a heartless machine.
Rina snapped out of her surprise and still humphed, folding her arms. "At odds? I don't think so. I've simply been acting on my duty to make sure you, as the heir of the Lunin Corp, are presentable!"
Kaizer felt amused. Thinking back, his cousin's confrontations in this manner were always seemingly petty things like how he was dressed, how he spoke, or whether he combed his hair properly. In that vein, what she said was actually believable — that she was doing this out of concern for his reputation.
"Alright then, I thank my noble cousin for her kindness. Without you looking out for me every day, where would I be? Let's go home together." Kaizer decided to respond, curious to see how Rina would retort.
However, she simply froze in place, her expression faltering. It seemed like she never expected to hear such words from her cousin at all, and because of that, the system processing center in her brain had shut down. Seeing her like this, everyone was thunderstruck as they completely understood what was going on, their mouths dropping.
Meanwhile, Kaizer himself was puzzled, unable to comprehend what was wrong with her. His usual attempts to read his cousin's mind usually failed, so he was focused solely on her right now, trying to see if he could take a peek into her mind.
In the end, Kaizer was a hypocrite. He always told himself that because he could peer into the minds and emotions of others, he did not much like his ability and shut it off. However, when faced with the one person he could never read, he always unhesitatingly used his power, out of curiosity and a desire to possess something he didn't have.
It was typical human nature to take for granted what one had and desire what one did not. Just as a normal person struggling to understand social cues and the thoughts of others dearly wished for mind-reading powers, Kaizer, who had the ability and could use it as he liked, did not feel it was anything special and even suppressed it.