The Genius

Chapter Ten

I jumped away from the edge of the pavement on reflex, pushing Ji-Hun away in the process. A car sped past, splashing the stagnant water that was at the edge of the walkway.

The adrenaline left my body as I watched the car drive away. I turned, finding Ji-Hun bent over and cussing under his breath.

"God, I'm sorry!" I apologized, as I watched Ji-Hun try to comport himself.

"No worries, it's okay," he said, squatting to pick up his headphones that had fallen to the ground. He brought them up to his ear to check if they were still working. Sighing in what I felt was relief, he shoved them into his bag.

"I'm really sorry," I muttered again, not knowing what to do as he got up.

He shrugged. "It's perfectly fine. Let's just continue on our way."

I nodded at his suggestion before we continued walking. We were meeting up in my house like I suggested the day before. I forced myself to concentrate on the gravel pavement as we walked. He was only going to stay for a few hours, and I shouldn't be fidgeting because of that.

I suggested this. I tried to remind myself, letting my eyes wander up ahead. We would pass Ji-Hun's usual stop in a minute or so, and that fact alone was giving me paranoia.

I barely had friends over — heck, Aiyana, and Ben haven't been anywhere other than the living room when they came to visit. They didn't even come too often, and I only allowed them to come over when the least amount of people were home.

I blinked, trying to clear my mind. What had I been thinking about when I asked him to come over? Every single person was going to be at home.

"What are you thinking about?" J-Hun's voice said, bringing me out of my thoughts. I shook my head, looking over at him.

"Nothing," I insisted before letting my eyes trail up ahead of us again. We must have passed his stop without me realizing it. I bit my lip, trying to prevent myself from worrying. I tried to focus on what was going on at the moment. Getting lost was definitely far worse than having him over at my house.

The calm composure I was working on quickly faded away when I spotted my house in the distance. I could see Candice's art supplies and equipment scattered about the medium sized lawn. She was nowhere in sight, but I guessed she'd probably headed inside to get something.

"You have a nice house, I haven't been around this area," Ji-Hun commented as I motioned towards my house when he asked if we were close. I didn't know what to say to that. All the houses on my street looked exactly the same in terms of design. They were all the same peach color with cream edges. The houses on my street ranged from duplexes to flats. My family's house was personally an extended duplex with seven rooms, with two of them being guest rooms.

I walked up to the front door, knocking as Ji-Hun stood behind me. Candice opened the door soon after, her eyes immediately flying to Ji-Hun's figure behind me.

"Did something happen?" she asked, making me roll my eyes at her.

"Ji-Hun let's go in," I muttered, walking past my sister and into the house. My sister looked even more confused as she watched Ji-Hun kick of his vans before walking into the house in his socks.

I told Ji-Hun to wait in the living room before heading to look for one of my parents to inform. I searched the kitchen but didn't find either of them. I only saw Ava by the counter fixing a sandwich.

"Are you looking for mum?" she asked, looking over at my figure that was lurking by the door.

"Yeah..." I trailed, looking towards the fridge and its colorful magnets. "Or dad."

"What do you want?" she asked, turning so she was looking at me fully. I felt a little uneasy under her gaze. I didn't talk to Ava much. She was that older sibling you barely had a relationship with. I didn't even talk to any of my siblings, to be honest, but Ava, in particular, was a stranger to me.

"I have someone over and I didn't tell any of them earlier," I muttered, watching as Ava nodded her head in understanding.

"You're tutoring someone?"

"No, I have a friend over," I said, watching her spread mayo on a slice of bread. She dropped the knife and bread on the plate pick plate on the table before turning to raise a brow at me.

"You have a friend over?" she asked curiously. I rolled my eyes. Why was everyone finding it unbelievable? I muttered a 'yeah', leaving the kitchen before she could ask me any of the questions I knew she was brewing in her mind.

I headed to the art room, and sure enough, I found my mother working on her ongoing painting. The portrait was close to complete now. Small details like the blemishes and small facial wrinkles around the eyes were being added. I could see that she was also working on the background that was presently coated in a variety of dark colors to make the portrait stand out.

"I see that you're back from school," my mum muttered, confirming my thought that she knew I was inside the art room.

"Yeah," I muttered, scratching the back of my head awkwardly. "I wanted to let you know that I had a friend over. We're practicing for an upcoming contest."

"Oh, that's nice," she muttered as I watched her mix colors on her palette before applying it to the painting's background.

"I guess so," I said, not knowing what else to say. I wasn't sure what I'd expected her to say. Everything I ever did was 'interesting' or 'nice.' I doubt either of my parents ever listened to anything I told them regarding grades and contests. I would know. I'd told my parents that I needed a ride to the town center for a debate, and they'd both argued that they didn't know anything about it on the actual day after I'd gotten dressed to leave.

I left the art room soon after, heading for the living room. I found Ji-Hun talking to Candice animatedly. He really did have a knack for talking about anything to anyone. Candice was holding on to a paintbrush as she giggled at something Ji-Hun said. Her dark brown hair was pulled behind her head in a ponytail. Paint stains also decorated the front of the brown thick overall she'd chosen to wear.

"Hey, let's go upstairs," I said, interrupting their discussion. Candice and Ji-Hun turned to look at me before Ji-Hun got up with a nod.

"It was nice talking to you," he said, turning to my sister.

"You too," she said with a smile, watching as Ji-Hun and I left the living room for the hallway leading to the staircase.

"Your sister's nice," he muttered as we climbed up the stairs. I shrugged as we got to the top, not really knowing how to reply to that.

"I don't talk to her so much so I wouldn't know."

I heard Ji-Hun mutter a shocked 'oh', but I didn't pay him any attention as I lead him to my room door. Soft music was escaping into the hallway through Caleb's bedroom door which was opposite mine. I frowned, realizing he was home before opening the door to my room and letting Ji-Hun in.

"Whoa," I heard him say with a small laugh. I turned to him, watching him look around my room with a perplexed gaze. He had his hand in his lose jean pockets as he inspected every corner of my room.

I looked away from him, deciding to plug in my laptop. "You can stay on my bed. I'll use my study table."

"Your room's so... tidy..." Ji-Hun trailed, ignoring my comment. He walked towards my drawers, his eyes widening when he saw the labels. "I'm actually scared. Why do you need to label your drawers?"

"I just want to, okay?" I found myself saying in defense as a small blush crept up my cheeks. It wasn't that weird, was it?

"Okay, okay," Ji-Hun laughed, raising his hands up in mock surrender when he caught on to my defensive tone. I watched him head over to my bed, sitting up on it with his legs folded yoga style. He took his laptop out of his bag soon after before turning it on.

"Can I have the WiFi password?" he asked, making me let out a chuckle of realization. How could I have forgotten that?

I left my seat to head over to him and type the WiFi password before returning to my computer. We worked on making mock profiles for a while before starting to do some practice.

"These questions are actuality sort of easy," I heard Ji-Hun mutter as I watched his player get the question I'd been targeting before me. The game worked my randomly selecting people to compete in fours, but since the contest wasn't going to start properly anytime soon only a few people were on and Ji-Hun and I ended up being up against each other most of the time.

"It's more or less a video game," I heard him say as the bed creaked under his moving weight. "Video games are my thing."

"I figured. I barely know what you and Ben are talking about half the time," I laughed, earning an equal chuckle from him.

"I think we should take a break," I muttered, turning in my seat to look over at him. Ji-Hun had made himself comfortable on my bed, using both my pillows as a back support and my blanket as a barrier between his legs and his laptop.

"There's no difference. The rays are still going to get to your legs either way," I laughed, making mention to the blanket.

"Just let me live in my denial," he chuckled, turning to grin at me.

My room was quiet for a while before Ji-Hun started talking again. "I didn't get to greet your mum," he muttered, making my brows tug inwards in a frown.

"Can we not talk about my family?" I asked, earning a wide-eyed look from Ji-Hun. One of his brows was raised in question, and he'd probably noticed how off my tone was.

"You know, I just want things to be about me for once," I muttered, turning back to my computer. "It would be great if people stopped mentioning them even for a while."

"Wyatt, I just said I didn't get to greet you mum," I heard Ji-Hun say behind me.

"I know," I sighed, flipping through tabs on my laptop, "it's just that I'm so used to getting ignored here and then being tied to them outside the house..." I trialed, I wasn't sure of what I was trying to tell Ji-Hun. He probably didn't care but I was trying to get it out of my system.

"My parents don't care how well I do academics wise. I could probably get into an Ivy League university in the near future and they'd go 'that's nice'... it's irritating," I complained, imitating my mother's usual tone whenever she addressed anything I did with that short sentence.

"Yet they get so excited to talk about Caleb and the rest during family reunions or when we go out of joint dinners with any of their friend's families..."

"Wyatt," Ji-Hun called from behind me in a low tone. I heard a creaking sound and then a couple of footsteps until hands found their way around my shoulders.

"Most of the time they just talk over my head because I apparently won't 'understand' what they're talking about, and they're right. They complain about me not spending enough time with them or the rest of the family but they make it hard. I can't explain the way I feel properly... even my whole extended family is inclined in art in one way or the other, be it literature, acting and so on..." I trialed as I felt the edge of my eyes burn as my vision became blurry.

"I'm the odd one out, it's so frustrating."

"I'm sorry," I apologized immediately after my outburst, realizing that I'd just told Ji-Hun a bunch of things he probably didn't care about, and I didn't want to make him feel awkward.

"I'm sorry..." I trailed again, wiping my burning eyes. I felt one of Ji-Hun's hands untangle itself from the shoulder hug to run a hand through my hair.

"It's okay. I felt like that when my family and I got here two years ago. I always knew how to speak English but people poked fun at my accent so much that I tried so hard to 'fix it'... if that makes any sense..." he trailed as his hand ran through my hair. "It was silly of me really, putting all that time to please people that I didn't even talk to."

I muttered a small hum in agreement as I tried to focus and not get carried away by the hand that was running through my hair. It was comforting, but I wasn't sure if it was worth the flaming cheeks I had now.

"I could leave now if you need time to be alone," Ji-Hun suggested. I shook my head, turning a little so I could see the side of his face.

"Stay, I just need to put myself together..." I muttered, earning a nod from him.

We stayed like that until my eyes stopped burning and I had regained some sort of composure. Ji-Hun didn't mention anything about my episode. We continued practicing like nothing had happened, but when Ji-Hun was about to leave he'd asked me if I felt any better.

It was odd- odd to have someone to open up to. I'd never been so outright and blunt about how I felt. Maybe it was because Ji-Hun had listened to me the first time, or maybe it was because I felt unnaturally comfortable around him, so much more than I did around Ben and Aiyana.

It felt good to have someone to talk to, someone willing to listen to me without me having to feel terrible about how I felt.