Neanderthal? Sayuri blinked rapidly at the obviously angry Xing Han, not fully understanding where the rage was coming from. She knew he was Kyle's BFF, but wasn't this a bit too much?

"What sort of rock have you been living under? Sage Class member or not, genius or not, for one who does not know Kyle and his capabilities is not fit to be called human!"

"Xing Han, calm down," Sam said, trying to placate him, "She's new and not from here. So how is she to know?"

Sayuri nodded, glad that someone was rational.

"New or not, the fact that she's in Sage Class means her IQ is high. Couldn't she use that supposed brain of hers to think properly before mouthing off? Did she honestly think that after all you told her about Sage Class, that Kyle was normal?" Xing Han huffed at Sam, glaring at him.

"Added to that, did she really think Principal Godric would allow Kyle to do so if he wasn't capable? Can't she even put two and two together?!" he hissed through his teeth.

Elite Five or not, he wasn't going to mince his words.

He turned to focus his glare at Sayuri and was slightly taken aback, thinking that she looked kind of familiar.

He shook his head, thinking that it wasn't possible and snorted, "Your prejudice and narrow-mindedness will bring you down one day. Before even looking at Kyle's report, you already determined it to be ridiculous."

"You judged him solely on the basis that he's a 14-year-old - though he's 15 now, but still!! The point is, you were looking down on him and was extremely offensive!!"

"Starting a sentence with a 'no offence' already means that you're already intending to BE offensive and you're not sorry at all about it. HAH!! Can't even figure that out??"

"Based on your two minutes here and the few sentences you've uttered, I can already determine that you're snobbish and blind. HAH! HAH!!"

Xing Han had gone full bullet-train mode, and at the end of it, he breathed heavily as if out of breath and stomped off. Reaching his table, he sat on his chair, snorted again and purposefully swirled his chair so that his back faced Sayuri.

Everyone else in Sage Class was quiet.

Never before had they seen Xing Han fly off the handle like that. True, they knew that he was a true-blue Kyle fan but he had always been positive and energetic and ... well, a bundle of joy.

They looked at the fuming Xing Han, then at the shell-shocked Sayuri and went back to their work, pretending nothing happened.

Sayuri was, undoubtedly, in a state of shock. Never before had anyone talked to her like that. She couldn't even retaliate as every word uttered by Xing Han hit her hard. It was true. There was nothing she could say to refute it.

She had already noticed her prejudice but she thought she had been working on it. Obviously, she hadn't and failed miserably. Before she had even thought about it, those words came out of her mouth and it was only after Xing Han's tirade that she realised how stupid she was.

Angry as she was, he was right.

She wasn't blind to that fact.

Which made her even angrier. At herself, mostly. Despite figuring out her problem, she hadn't improved even one bit. It took a mere stranger to figure her out in two minutes!

Worse, that stranger was someone she had wanted to get closer to, as he was the closest to Kyle. He would have been the best source of information - other than Kay - to get about Kyle. From the files, she thought it would be easier to approach Xing Han as he was much more fun-loving and carefree, unlike Kay, who was more guarded when it came to Kyle.

Now, from her careless words, she had caused a huge situation.

✿ Sayuri Apartment, Night ✿

Sayuri lay down on her bed, staring at the ceiling.

Today had been a complete and utter failure.

She went through the day over and over in her mind and one glaring thing kept coming back at her: in her arrogance, she had looked down on everyone. Finding out something about yourself, that wasn't a nice thing, left a bitter and sour taste in her mouth.

She had always been proud, and had every reason to be. She worked hard to get where she is right now, and her efforts paid off. She had to fight against the tide, as she was a girl and the GrandMasters' grandaughter. She did not want people to think that she didn't deserve to get what she got.

Little did she realise, her pride made her arrogant. She felt she was better than anyone else and rarely listened to other people.

It took this mission and Xing Han to make her see that. She remembered what her Grandfather had said to her, rather cryptically, "Arrogance is knowledge minus wisdom."*

After Xing Han's tirade, she felt she kinda understood what her grandfather had been trying to tell her. What her grandfather meant was that she had been arrogant, thinking she knew everything but in reality, she lacked wisdom.

Sayuri sighed. Knowing is bad enough. Finding out a negative trait of yourself can really get you down. On the one hand, it's the first step in improving yourself.

On the other hand? It was not going to be easy to change.

More so because she can't seem to get rid of the annoyance she felt for Kyle.

They say that first impressions are important and in her case, it seemed to have been set in stone. It was hard enough not to have that feeling of annoyance each time she thought about him and how he mocked her at the airport. She had to interact with him properly??

Sayuri screamed into her pillow.

She'd rather have a mission to kill people than have to deal with Kyle.