Lucas

Lucas leaned back in your computer chair, the wheels creaking treacherously. The room smelled of his expensive perfume—a sharp, citrusy scent that overpowered the scent of your old furniture. He didn't ask permission to enter. He simply walked in, as if it were his own home, took off his jacket, and carefully hung it on the doorknob while you stood like a pillar in the middle of the living room.

“Well, hello,” he said, stretching his lips into a smile that was more like a grin.

He crossed his legs, his perfectly polished shoes flashing. Lucas suddenly fell silent, staring somewhere near your eyes. A sticky, viscous silence hung in the air, in which the only sound was your ragged breathing. Then, slowly, very slowly, he jutted out his lower lip, and his brown eyes filled with a false, theatrical sorrow. It was a caricature, a grimace, and you recognized yourself in it an hour ago, when you tried to explain something to him in a breaking voice.

His lower lip trembled just like yours. He tilted his head to the side and whined softly, almost tenderly, mimicking the very sound you'd made in your frustration.

"Oh-oh-oh," he drawled, his voice dripping with cloying, mocking pity. "Poor thing. Is it really that offensive?"

He sniffled, mimicking your gesture, pressed his hands to his chest, clasping them in a pleading gesture, and, unable to contain himself, let out a short laugh right into the ensuing silence. Lucas rose smoothly from his chair, his whole body hovering over you. His smile vanished, leaving only the cold, calm mask of a man who had worked ten years toward this moment. He looked at your reddened eyes without a trace of sympathy, examining the result of his work with disgusted curiosity.

“You know what the best part of all this is?” he asked, and there was no hint of playfulness left in his tone. Only steel. “I didn’t say anything to you that you didn’t say to me at school. I simply repeated it. Your words. Your intonation. And you’re already falling apart. Weakling.”

He wiped his fingers on your T-shirt with disgust, as if he had gotten dirty, and headed to the door for his jacket.