What It Means To Be King

Chapter 17: Cheap Candy Wrappings On Tables And In Folders

Charles was holding six candies in his right pocket when he was staring into his screen in the meeting room that day. He was supposed to get seven, but it seemed to be either Shao Long forgot or that his answer was unsatisfactory. The three remaining candies he failed to get at the end wasn't as tempting as Shao Long made it out to be, Charles wasn't a fan of candies.

So what exactly was he supposed to do with six candies?

Hardly thinking, Charles fished one out, undoing the neon blue wrapping with bubble graphics and mint leaves before slipping the candy between his lips.

Mint and chocolate flavor. He could buy thirty of these with just a few dollars, honestly. And personally, Charles didn't think the Chinese with the almost perfect rows of white teeth would eat cheap candies like these, like some child. To begin with, he explicitly remembered the first few days Shao Long had been at the Academy, the guy had said that Western breakfast is too sweet to his liking. While it does sound like a lie to him now, Charles didn't know what was so sweet about eggs and sausages and toast. And now the same guy was eating cheap candies like- Charles turned, only to see a pile of candy wrappings now accumulated at the side of Shao Long's desk - like he was an addict.

A sweet tooth.

Charles resisted the urge to just....roll his eyes. If Shao Long thought people should be intimidated by him or something, then perhaps looking ridiculously childish would be the last thing on the list that he would've wanted to do.

And to make matter's worse, Charles was starting to suspect that he himself was getting awkwardly insane. Seeing Shao Long made him uncomfortable, and listening to him speak was like stepping through a thorn bush. Prickly. Annoying. He couldn't point out the reason, but the lack of murderous glares being thrown his way by the Chinese gave him the feeling that something was terribly out of place. Now, Shao Long was just looking at him as if he was a scrap of society and could care less about threatening him every now and then. Now, Shao Long wasn't giving him the usual sort of treatment he had been so used to, and it irked him.

Only Shao Long, Charles swore, only Shao Long could appear not interested while still sounding like he wanted to pick a fight. And the candy stuff? Charles felt like he was being ridiculed but then again, it wasn't bad enough for him to start blackmailing any time soon, so he'd just....endure it?

Another candy was unwrapped, his fingers unconsciously slipping the sweet into his mouth. He was.....currently creating the agenda of tomorrow's meeting. It took him a while to realize that he was actually taking Shao Long's 'advice' by doing this, making meetings and all that. The Chinese had specifically requested 6 minutes and a half, and Charles wondered if a person could ever be as accurate with timing their presentation, one that included graphs and charts, neither of which had any labelled components or axis. His friends took up more than half of the Student Council and he doubted many of them could understand those graphs and honestly speaking, he doubted neither Alex nor Leon could either, for a lot of reasons. One was simply that neither or the two, like him, was ever interested in finance as deeply as Shao Long was.

Another candy.

Oh for God's sake, Shao Long was driving him insane, and Charles would've understood it if it was sudden, but this kind of driving-Charles-insane operation was slow and subtle, like making fun of him using candies, having him do all the damned purchase orders for two moths straight (which was also his own fault but he wasn't going to admit it), appearing as if he was no longer interested in harassing them but still seemed like he could spare a trouble or two, and so on.