Shattered Inside (Yandere!Cheater x Reader)

XXXI

"So you understand the equation now?"

"Yes, I do..." James trailed off, his voice dripping with genuine awe, and his eyes staring holes into the paper scribbled full with complicated equations that for once all made sense. A surprised choke escaped his lips while his unbelieving eyes gazed across the paper, not finding a single number that he didn't understand how it had come to be. Eventually, he was able to tear his eyes away from the sheet of paper, and turned his head to the right to look at Lily, who wore a big smile on her face. "How did you do it? How did you manage to get derivatives into my brain that quickly?"

She started laughing, but internally she was squealing from how adorable the boy looked. "No, you did it all on your own, James! I merely helped a little bit." When she received nothing but silence from the unresponsive boy, she waved her hand around in front of his face. James was snapped out of his trance and shot her a questioning look. "How about you solve some more equations to practice?" she suggested, causing him to immediately return his attention to the unsolved equations at hand. For once, he had fun; who knew maths could be this exciting if one understood what they were doing?

"You're amazing at teaching—" he praised passionately, truly grateful for what they had achieved in one single tutoring lesson. "Have you ever thought about becoming a teacher, Lily?"

"That's actually what I wanted to do in the future! Looking out for children and guiding them? That sounds like what I'd love to do for the rest of my life." The serious expression on her face slowly vanished and was replaced by a dreamy smile on her lips. James noted that the way she was so ambitious was incredibly adorable; he generally admired people who knew what to do with their far futures, and how to eventually get there.

"You'd be a great teacher."

"Thank you, James," she replied with reddish cheeks. "Do you know what you wanna do in the future?"

Without hesitation, he blurted out, "I wanna do something in the business industry! I don't know why, but I feel like it's always been in my blood, ya know?" His eyes lit up when he spoke of his dreams.

"In your blood? Don't your parents own a bakery?" Lily questioned, her eyes alight with curiosity to learn more about James. "Maybe your grandparents were businesspeople?"

"I don't know a lot about my grandparents; I've never met them, I think... But anyway, I'm surprised you know that my parents own a bakery," he commented with raised eyebrows. "How come?"

"I've been there a few times." Her blue eyes lit up in ecstasy once the delicious treats that the bakery sold came to her mind. James took note of it, remembering to maybe ask his mother to spare a few cupcakes for him, which he could use to cheer Lily up. "The stuff they sell is amazing— right out of heaven! I go there whenever I need a little pick-me-up." The many praises that spewed from her lips left James amused, and he started chuckling. At that, her cheeks reddened in embarrassment. "Oh... was I rambling again? I'm sorry."

"Oh no, it's alright!" James waved her concerns off with a casual flick of his wrist. "I actually thought it was kind of cute."

Though Lily was trying to laugh his compliment off in a calm and civil manner, she wasn't able to contain all the hysteria that echoed in her laughter. She was making a fool of herself again, wasn't she? But how could she not? The tutoring session had gone so well, and chatting with James was amazing, but everything — no matter how much she didn't want to — had to eventually come to an end.

James' phone that lay on the table gave off a wave of vibration, signalling its owner that he had received a notification, a message probably. He mindlessly picked it up and gazed at the notification in the upper half of the screen; it caused him to furrow his eyebrows. "Oh, it's time for me to go home." He pocketed the phone and gazed up to face Lily with a disappointed sigh. "Dad said dinner's gonna be ready soon."