Laia & The Transferee - Chapter 52

“I ALREADY SAID THAT I NEED TO COOL DOWN.”

Laia was surprised by how the asshat’s voice sounded like a mixture of frustration and sadness.

“Uh,”

Laia looked at her companions. The only help she received was a bunch of thumbs-ups.

She turned away from them. “Hi,”

A grumble. “Who is this?”

Laia rolls her eyes. She has no idea why the asshat would even try faking his lack of knowledge regarding who is the person he currently is on a call with.

I mean, would he seriously want to keep the conversation going if the person on the other line was someone he didn’t know or recognize by voice alone?

Or maybe Laia’s just thinking too highly of herself. There is still a huge possibility after all that the asshat still cannot recognize her voice even if they had been classmates for months.

“It’s Laia,” The girl decides to admit after a moment of silence. Fortunately, she saw Jake pushing everyone towards the garden to give Laia privacy.

Or maybe to avoid the awkward tension in the room and leave Laia to suffer.

“Ah,” Another moment of silence. “Did Jake put you into this?”

Yes, your best friend basically pushed his phone in my hands and left. “No.”

A dry laugh. “Do you honestly think I’ll believe you when you say that you called me on your own using Jake’s phone?”

Okay, maybe calling the asshat on her own accord is a bit of a stretch.

“Fine,” Laia rolled her eyes and with how the asshat laughed again she’s certain that the asshat was thinking that she’s just plain old gullible. “He wanted me to convince you to go back here to avoid your dad–”

Laia immediately cursed and in the process dropped the phone, cringing when she caught the phone merely inches away from the floor. “Forget about what I said, it’s your issue and I don’t want you to think that I’m being nosy–”

“It’s fine,”

It’s definitely not based on how the asshat’s tone seemed to be colder and stoic.

“I didn’t mean to bring your dad up–”

Before Laia could even finish her sentence the asshat had already ended the call, making the girl look at the phone beeping with an open mouth.

“Shit,”

Great, instead of getting the asshat to change his mind Laia only made everything worse.

The girl awkwardly steals a glance at her friends who were still in the garden, actively talking about something.

Or someone.

Laia slowly tiptoes towards the door leading to the garden and stopped behind it, leaning her ear at the door to listen instead of just going out and joining the conversation like a normal human being.

“… what if talking to Laia will only make it worse for Samuel?”

It was Thalia based on the natural smooth tone of her voice laced with worry.

Laia could almost see Jake placing a hand on Thalia’s shoulder to calm her down. “Don’t worry, I don’t think Laia will say anything to aggravate him,”

The short-haired girl bites her lip guiltily. Looks like you were wrong with that assumption, Jake.

“Is Samuel’s situation with his father really that bad?” It was Andrei’s turn to ask. “I just heard some rumors about him being abus–”

“Shh!” Thalia was quick to silence her groupmate. “Don’t say that out loud! You never know who might be listening..”

The girl’s anxious tone made Laia’s eyebrows raise in suspicion. What did Thalia mean? Is the asshat’s father that much of an important figure?

Or more like the important question to address is what sort of an important figure is the asshat’s father?

Hopefully, not the mafia-type, Laia thinks as she nervously started to bite her fingernails.

“I don’t hear them talking anymore, is the conversation over?”

Laia almost trips on her feet as she dashes back to her original position, immediately faking that her phone call with the asshat just ended when she heard footsteps behind her.

She turned towards three faces with obvious anxiety on them. Trying her best to not look guilty and sheepish at the same time, Laia awkwardly smiles. “He ended the call,”

Jake was the first to talk after he accepted his phone back. “What did he say? Is he still in his condo or in a random bar?”

Laia thinks back to the obvious wind breeze she heard from the asshat’s line earlier and remembered how the asshat’s condo had a huge balcony. “I think he’s somewhere open,”

“Open?” Thalia asks, frowning.

“Yeah,” The girl nods. “I heard wind which makes it easy to assume that he’s not inside his condo,”

Her words made Thalia sigh in relief.

Is every girl in their class honestly close with the asshat?

And where is Aiden?

“Aiden went home,” Andrei says after noticing how Laia seemed to be looking for someone. “He doesn’t want to leave his grandma alone when it’s already late in the evening.”

The thought of Aiden taking care of his grandma made Laia smile but her smile was quick to disappear when Thalia started panicking.

“Oh god, what if his dad’s there already?” She nervously started pacing back and forth. “What if he already–”

“Calm down,” Jake says in a commanding tone which made Thalia stop in her pacing and sit down on a nearby chair. “Let’s just go there–”

“And do what?” Andrei asks, obviously opposed to the idea of going to the asshat’s condo unit.

“Help?”

“Help by doing what?”

Laia’s eyes drifted towards Thalia and Andrei who seemed to have started a silent war with their eyes.

After a few minutes of a staring contest between the two, Thalia looked away and it earned a triumphant smile from Andrei.

Jake didn’t seem to be entertained one bit by their actions. “Staying here would result in nothing,”

“Do you seriously want us to go and beat a Senator’s ass?”

Laia’s eyes widened as she slowly cocked her head to look at Andrei who looked livid.

Samuel’s father is a Senator?

The girl blinks twice. Thrice. She forgot to count how much more did she blink when Andrei nods which was enough confirmation to her question.

“He’s also a CEO,” Thalia reveals, looking like she ate something bad. “You know that huge entertainment company that manages Blossom?”

Laia might not know most actors like the asshat’s older brother who apparently was a rising star but she knew Blossom.

Blossom, the girl group that took the world by storm after their popular and unique debut album when Laia was just a freshman. Their popularity skyrocketed upon leaving their former entertainment and signing with L Entertainment, one of the biggest and most successful entertainment companies.

And apparently owned by the asshat’s father.

Great.

“Yes, I know them,” Laia slowly steps back and leans at the nearest wall to process all the information that she had just learned. She nervously looks at Jake who seemed to be interested in her reaction and next words. “Does that mean that the asshat doesn’t have a good relationship with any member of his family?”

Jake looked away, his jaw clenching. “It’s not my place to say,”

Laia turns to both Andrei and Thalia but both remained silent as well, probably weighing whatever options they had at the moment instead of answering the question that Laia just dropped out of nowhere.

A couple more minutes of awkward silence passed. Laia didn’t know what to say or do so she opted to start cleaning the dining table instead, taking all the plates and the utensils first and placing them on the sink, and getting the empty pot of soup next.

To her surprise, Andrei was already in the kitchen when she finished wiping the placemats. “What are you doing here?”

Andrei points at the dirty dishes. “Helping you wash the dishes?”

Suspicious. “Shouldn’t you be with Thalia and Jake–”

The boy took the sponge and poured a few drops of dishwashing liquid on it. He started to use it on the plates. “I’d rather wash the plates than try convincing them that appearing on their friend’s doorstep would aggravate the situation than help,”

“Are they still insisting on going to the asshat’s condominium unit?”

Andrei nods. “Yep,” He almost lost his grip on one of the plates, earning a glare from Laia. He sheepishly grins. “Sorry,”

“You should focus on washing the dishes,” Laia chastises.

The boy continued washing the dishes but his horrible attempts at it made Laia raise an eyebrow at a particular plate that had a lot of remaining stains which Andrei had already deemed finished and even placed on the side of the sink.

She lightly pushes the boy to the side and took the sponge out of his hands. “Just dry the plates,”

“But I was doing a great–”

“No,” The girl showed him the stains, making the boy look away in embarrassment. “Unfortunately, you weren’t doing a great job at all as a dishwasher,”

Andrei was visibly dejected but Laia didn’t say anything else.

Her words may be harsh but what she said was true and it was meant to be constructive criticism.

Contrary to how Laia thought Andrei would react by probably getting angry or refusing to work altogether, he seemed eager to start drying up the plates and even started humming a familiar tune as he placed the plates back on the dish container.

“Good job,” Laia smiles after wiping her hands with a dishcloth and handing it to Andrei as well. “At least you’re good at drying plates.”

Even if kindergarten students could probably dry plates as well.

Andrei beamed.

Great, looks like someone likes being praised. Is this connected to his inferior complex?

The boy was about to say something when a loud honk of a car almost made the two jump in surprise. The two exchanged perplexed stares and ran towards the front door.

Laia’s eyes widened as she heard Thalia’s loud gasp.

It was the asshat with a swollen eye and a bunch of wounds on his face. His disarrayed appearance made Laia think back to how the asshat looked like when his older brother punched him like hell just a week ago.

What is with his family’s addiction to violence?!

“Hey–”

Samuel wasn’t even able to utter another word as he fell to the ground.