0.Daddy

Karina Shaw slumped over her desk, her fingers crumpling the midterm score report into a pathetic paper ball.

AP Physics: 5 AP Lit: 4 APUSH: 4

Calculus…

Garbage.

At least, that's what her mother had called it.

"If I were you, I'd be ashamed to show my face after these scores," Mom had hissed last night, slamming her Stanford coffee mug on the counter. "Louis Vance got early admission to MIT, for God's sake. Why can't you be half as competent?"

Louis Vance. Louis Vance. Goddamn Louis Vance.

The calculus exam had been a disaster. By cruel fate, Karina's assigned seat placed her directly behind Louis during the test. While she'd frozen at Question 3, his pencil had danced across the page—steady, relentless, a metronome counting down her humiliation. Every flip of his paper sounded like a guillotine drop.

Now, the classroom clock ticked louder than the rattling AC unit. 63 days until SATs. 63 days until her future collapsed into a single number.

"Who topped the class this time?" someone shouted over the lunchtime chaos.

"Definitely not me," the class president groaned. "Louis took the test, didn't he?"

"Seriously? The dude's already been accepted to MIT! Let the rest of us breathe!"

Karina pressed her forehead harder against the cool desk. Preach it, she thought bitterly.

A wave of laughter crashed from the doorway.

"All I'm saying," drawled a familiar voice, "if you can't handle competition, maybe community college's more your speed."

Karina's head snapped up.

Louis Vance leaned against the doorframe, basketball jersey clinging to his lean frame. Even slouching, he towered over the crowd—pale winter sunlight catching the sharp angles of his face, turning his ash-brown eyes translucent. A Nike sweatband dug into his wrist, red and angry like a warning flare.

"Since when do MIT-bound geniuses take high school exams?" someone challenged.

"Coach wanted our AP stats inflated." Louis shrugged, scrolling through his phone. "You know how college scouts are about well-rounded applicants."

His best friend Jesse Carter—Springfield's star quarterback—threw an arm around him. "Admit it, you just missed my pretty face."

"Keep dreaming, Carter." Louis ducked away, but not before Karina caught the flicker of his gaze toward her desk.

Her breath hitched. For one heartbeat, two, those unreadable eyes held hers—amused? Mocking? Pitying?—before sliding away like rainwater off granite.

"Seriously though," Jesse pressed, "you sticking around 'til graduation?"

Louis pocketed his phone. "Haven't decided."

The bell's first chime sent students scrambling. Karina's desk vibrated—her hidden phone lighting up with a notification.

[Daddy]: Results, kitten?

Karina hunched over her phone beneath the desk, AP Calculus notes forgotten. Her screen glowed with a single chat thread—jet-black avatar, saved as ​**[Daddy]**.

Kitten: (╥﹏╥) Daddy

Kitten: Failed another calc quiz. Again.

Kitten: [Cat rolling in despair GIF]

The reply came before she could blink.

Daddy: Darling, when have you ever aced math?

She bit her lip hard enough to sting.

Kitten: Daddyyy…

DADDY: [It's just a small test, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how many times you fail all the tests before the college entrance exam.

DADDY: [But master hopes and believes that Karina can win the last time.]

KARINA: [Uh huh huh? So no need to punish the puppy.]

Karina starts hinting wildly.

DADDY: [But having set the rules, the punishment is still a punishment.]]

Daddy: [So the puppy knows what to do?

Karina's cheeks began to burn; this was like a slap and then a candy, but the slap was still her own to come forward to ask for.

What to do ... The puppy who failed the exam needs to obediently accept the punishment of his master. This time, the monthly examination was thirty places backward; the punishment is probably to bring the

This time the monthly exam was thirty places behind, the punishment is probably to kneel with a nipple clamp for thirty minutes, or a ruler to pump the root of the thigh thirty times, and so on and so forth.

The bell shattered the moment.

5:30 PM | Crimson Lounge KTV

"Shaw! You're coming, right?" Amanda Rhodes blocked Karina's escape route, manicured nails drumming the locker. "We're celebrating Louis' MIT acceptance. His treat."

Karina froze. Celebrating Louis. Again.

Amanda leaned closer, Chanel No. 5 clashing with Karina's strawberry ChapStick. "Don't tell me you're still bitter about the Calc Bowl loss?"

"Bitter?" Karina forced a laugh. "Please. I'd rather gargle sulfuric acid."

Yet here she was—trapped in a VIP booth, watching Louis hold court. He sprawled across the leather couch, varsity jacket hanging open to reveal the faint sweat sheen on his collarbones. Every laugh sent ripples through the defined lines of his abdomen.

"Another fruit platter," Louis ordered, eyes flickering toward Karina's corner.

Jesse whooped. "Since when do you care about pineapple chunks, Vance?"

"Since someone," Louis drawled, picking at his Rolex, "looks like they haven't eaten since the Bush administration."

Karina choked on her Sprite. Was he…? No. Impossible. She wiped sticky juice from her chin, painfully aware of how her sweater clung to her chest when she leaned forward.

The room erupted as Jesse butchered Watermelon Sugar. Karina scrolled her dead-quiet phone.

Kitten: Miss you, Daddy.

No reply.

Then—Daddy: Patience, little one. I' will ruin you properly tonight.

————————————

end of this chapter