Page 14 of Delilah In Discretion

Kimi’s mom walked into the room, and I looked over to her.

“Hi, Mom,” I said in Korean, as it was her native language and culture. Even though she was from South Korea, she spoke both Japanese and Korean to Kimi. And because her father was Japanese and had family from China as well, Kimiko ended up learning four languages: Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and English by age seven. My father was only slightly jealous of her ability to learn so many languages so young.

“Hello, my little Delilah. How are you?”

“Good. How does Kim-Kim look?”

She looked over to Kimi and smiled. I tuned them out as she happily grabbed Kimiko’s face in her hands and started saying how proud she was.

Kimi gave up on trying to push her away and blushed with embarrassment. Noticing Kimi’s facial expression, her mother pulled away and went for the door.

“I’ll tell yourappaall about your big day today. He will be very pleased when he gets home from Shanghai this afternoon. Breakfast is also ready downstairs.”

“Thank you, Mom,”Kimi said, switching to Japanese, and I looked back over to her, growing serious.

“So, how excited do you want me to be for you? Are we going to have a full cheerleader moment here or basic clapping from a parent who wants to make a good impression?” I asked sincerely, and she glanced over at me.

“I want a parent who will make a good impression, and I give you access to yell my name twice.”

“Four times,” I negotiated, and she shook her head.

“Three. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it to go. We need to get downstairs to eat.”

Kimi nodded and grabbed her bag as I grabbed mine as well. Entering the dining room, I saw Kimi’s butler serving breakfast, however Jin had already packed up his things to leave.

“Jin, why are you leaving? You haven’t even finished your breakfast,” his mother asked, and he sighed.

“Eomma, I-I just wanted to see if I could catch a ride with Zachary.”

“He means Ivory,” I clarified, and he looked over at us in shock that we were in the room, listening.

“N-No. What are you talking about?” he stuttered as his cheeks started to redden.

Kimi’s mom looked at us in question, and I rolled my eyes playfully.

“Little Jinny here has a crush on Ivory,” I explained, and Kimi nodded in agreement.

“It’s true. When he’s near her, he can’t take his eyes off of her.”

“Is that so?” Kimiko’s mom asked, and Jin sighed.

“Come on, guys. She’s like a sister to me—”

“Hey, no need to find an excuse. We’re just waiting until you two get married so Kimi and I can actually be sisters,” I joked, and he mumbled something under his breath before he walked out of the door.

Kimi’s mom chuckled. “Give the boy a break; he’s learning about love, and it’s his first time.”

“We’ll give him a break when we’re sisters,” Kimi retorted, and I giggled as we sat to eat breakfast.

A few hours had gone by, and I was sitting in the grand auditorium with all the freshmen, juniors, and sophomores. The seniors only attended these kinds of events if they wanted to as they mostly didn’t take part in these activities and were barely at the school as it was. They were always occupied with other important things and mainly focused on finishing their classwork early.

As the dean spoke on behalf of the students, I watched Kimi as she sat behind the table with the other candidates. Her choice of vice president, a good-looking student with a high reputation and grades, whispered in her ear as he stood beside her. She listened and pushed her hair out of her face as she whispered back to him.

It was obvious what they were whispering about as the school’s current president sat on stage alongside them, looking nervous. The entire school knew that he listened to Luca, meaning most of the decisions made by the students were really made by him.

It made me sick to my stomach how power-hungry he was. Another reason Kimi wanted so badly to be president was so we could have at least one person making decisions, not under the influence of Luca.

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