One week later, Kashi sat alone by her desk, staring out of the classroom window.
The afternoon light spilled across her face, but her expression remained blank, untouched by warmth or interest. Around her, the other students chatted, laughed, whispered, and moved about in their usual noisy clusters.
Kashi ignored them all. She was bored again. Painfully so.
A teacher walked into the classroom and cleared his throat.
The effect was immediate. The students quieted, conversations dying one after another as everyone turned toward the front of the room.
Everyone except Kashi. Her gaze remained fixed outside.
The teacher adjusted the papers in his hand, looking somewhat nervous.
"We have, uh…" He cleared his throat again. "We have a new student joining us this year. Please welcome him."
The door opened and a boy stepped in.
And for a moment, the entire classroom seemed to hold its breath.
He was beautiful.
Not in the soft, ordinary way that made girls giggle and boys jealous. There was something unsettling about him, something too still, too composed, too cold for someone his age.
His uniform was perfectly arranged. His dark hair fell neatly, framing a face that looked almost carved, pale blue eyes sweeping over the room without curiosity. Black leather gloves covered both his hands.
He stood before the class and bowed politely. "Hello," he said. "I'm Adrian Riegrow."
For half a second, there was silence. Then the classroom erupted.
"Oh my God."
"Isn't he cute?"
"Did he just transfer here?"
"Riegrow? Which family is that?"
"He's so handsome."
"I can't believe he's in our class."
The noise grew quickly, excitement spreading through the students like fire. Girls leaned into one another, whispering behind their palms. Boys stared with either curiosity or irritation.
A few students were already trying to remember where they had heard the Riegrow name before.
The teacher raised his voice, but no one listened. Finally, he placed two fingers in his mouth and gave a loud whistle.
The sharp sound cut through the room. Everyone went quiet.
"Please be nice to him," the teacher said, though even he did not sound entirely sure who needed protection from whom.
Then, as if eager to escape the strange tension that had entered with the new student, he left.
Adrian Riegrow walked down the aisle.
Students watched him openly. He ignored them.
Their stares meant nothing. Their whispers meant less. They looked at him as though he were something fascinating, something delicate, something new to admire.
They had no idea what they were looking at.
He found an empty seat behind Kashi and sat down.
Even then, Kashi did not turn.
She did not glance back. Did not ask who had entered, neither did she care enough to look.
Chaos stared at the back of the girl sitting in front of him.
Her hair fell neatly down her back, her posture relaxed, her attention still fixed outside the window as though the entire classroom, including him, was beneath notice.
For a moment, his gaze lingered. Then he looked away.
These people were not his concern. This classroom was not his world.
This school was only another assignment, another temporary cage Caesar had placed him in.
And if anyone here became too irritating, too bold, or too foolish… Chaos lowered his gaze to his gloved hands.
He could always kill them all.
In the weeks that followed, Chaos did exactly what Caesar wanted.
By day, he attended school like a normal student.
By night, he stood in the shadows of the Riegrow empire, learning, commanding, and ruling through blood, silence, and fear.
The contrast was almost laughable.
In the morning, he wore a school uniform, sat behind a desk, and listened to teachers speak about subjects that seemed painfully insignificant.
At night, men twice his age lowered their heads before him and waited for his orders as if his word could decide whether they lived until sunrise.
Alex had returned to his country after the final test in the Underworld. He had his own empire to prepare for, his own family name to carry, his own monsters waiting to see what kind of beast the Underworld had returned to them.
Before leaving, Alex had promised to visit whenever he was less busy.
Chaos had only nodded.
Promises had never meant much to him.
Not anymore.
As for Selene, he never saw her again. He avoided her completely.
At first, the decision had felt like cutting into his own flesh. But eventually, pain became routine. He stopped walking past her hallway. Stopped asking after her. Stopped listening for her voice.
His mother had buried him once.
Chaos would not keep returning to his grave.
School, however, was a different kind of punishment. Exhausting.
He was surrounded by spoiled heirs and heiresses from powerful families, children raised on polished names, private drivers, expensive watches, and futures already arranged for them.
Their worries were painfully small. Reputation. Popularity. Exposure. Family image. Who would inherit which company. Who would marry into which name. Who would sit at the top of which polished table in a few years.
Chaos found it absurd.
They spoke of power as though it were a title waiting politely for them.
As though power did not have to be taken, like it did not come soaked in fear.
He saw no reason for Caesar to put him among them, but he did not openly refuse. Whatever his father hoped to achieve by throwing him into this gathering of elite children, Chaos hoped he achieved it quickly.
Because every day he sat in class, he felt himself move one step closer to brutally ending someone's life.
And the reason was simple.
The young master of the Riegrow family had no idea how to associate with people his own age.
He had never had friends in the ordinary sense.
He had brothers in the Underworld.
Boys who had bled beside him. Fought beside him. Killed beside him. Survived beside him.
That was the only bond he understood.
This school, with its laughter, flirting, gossip, complaints, and careless touching, was foreign to him.
So he avoided everyone.
He barely spoke two words.
Unfortunately, his silence only made him more interesting.
The girls adored him.
Some watched him from across the classroom. Some whispered his name in the hallway. Some left notes inside his desk. Others became bolder, approaching him directly with bright smiles and nervous laughter.
A few even confessed publicly.
Each time, Chaos wore the same polite smile.
Harmless enough to fool them.
"I'm sorry," he would say gently. "I would like to focus on my studies for now."
Or, "I have no plans for dating."
Or, "You are kind, but I cannot accept."
The girls would blush, sigh, cry, or run away to their friends.
Chaos would return to whatever he had been doing, his expression empty the moment they turned their backs.
Then one day, a girl made the mistake of touching him.
She had followed him after class, cheeks red, eyes shining with desperate courage. Chaos had already sensed her behind him, but he allowed her to speak because it was easier to reject people quickly than have them hover.
"I like you," she said, her voice trembling. "I know you always say no, but I really like you, Adrian."
Chaos looked at her calmly.
The name still sat strangely in his ears when spoken by people who had no right to it.
"I'm sorry," he said with that same gentle smile. "I'm not interested."
But the girl, perhaps too nervous to think clearly, stepped forward and took his hand in hers.
Firmly.
Chaos went still. Completely still.
The world narrowed. Her fingers were around his gloved hand, but it did not matter. The pressure was there. The warmth was there. The audacity of contact was there.
Something cold and violent opened inside him.
In his mind, he had already broken her in a hundred different ways. He saw it all with frightening clarity. How quickly it could happen.
How easy it would be and how quiet the hallway would become after.
But his face did not change.
That was the Underworld's gift. No matter what lived inside him, the surface remained calm.
"Let go," he said softly.
The girl blinked, still smiling nervously. "Please, just listen to me first… "
"Let go." His voice was lower this time.
She should have listened. Instead, she tightened her hold, desperate to keep him there for one more second.
Chaos's patience ended.
Fortunately for her, there was no one else around.
He moved with effortless precision, striking the back of her head just hard enough to drop her unconscious. Her hand slipped from his at once, and her body collapsed onto the floor.
Chaos looked down at her.
No anger showed on his face now. Only irritation. He stepped over her and walked away.
A few minutes later, he stood before a sink, washing his hands.
Again.
And again.
And again.
He was still wearing his gloves. It did not matter. The feeling remained.
The ghost of her touch crawled over his skin beneath the leather, filthy and unbearable. His jaw tightened as water ran over his covered hands, soaking the black gloves while he scrubbed like he could erase the memory of contact.
People were not allowed to touch him.
They never had been. He was a sorry flower. That was what Selene had told him.
A thing that brought ruin. A thing that destroyed whatever it touched.
And if that was true, then the world should have known better than to reach for him.