A/N: I'm a sucker for tragic stuff. This was supposed to be an oneshot filled with fluffiness and stuff like that. I guess I can only write tragedy :/ Review if you please, because you'll get something.

Self-satisfaction. (Inside joke xD)

It had started out as a dare.

Jack, the new farmer in Town, had dared him, one sunny afternoon, to steal Ann's heart and break it before summer ends. He loved challenges and accepted it at once.

Kai Gordan never backs out of a challenge, ever. His pride didn't allow him to. He had never had a dare he couldn't finish. He had a whole season to do it, and he didn't gain his reputation of the village womanizer by chickening out. He will steal Ann Winter's heart away and break it in a week. It was too easy, in fact.

At least, that was what he thought.

He flirted with her to the best of his abilities, and did everything he could think of to get her individual attention. But of course, she was one of those hard to get types. Kai had met many in his life, and they all ended up loving him, falling in his trap. She countered his flirty remarks with sarcasm, and gave about as much attention as she gave the inn's cat, whatever the hell its name was. He had even worn a tuxedo, a bouquet of Pink Cat flowers in his hands, asking her out on a candle-lit dinner by the sea.

If she was some other girl, she probably would have nodded her head at once, too weak with love to speak.

But Ann wasn't some other girl. She shook her head, and said no with a smile. She had rejected him on the spot, rendering his pride to ground zero.

He did everything to save his crushed pride, but expensive gifts and flattery doesn't work her. Also, he felt a bit…attracted by her. At night when he was lying in bed trying to sleep, his mind would wander to Ann. He would think about those beautiful big eyes of hers, a pure ocean blue, shining with an azure radiance. Sometimes he would think about her long silky hair. The orangey-gold of her hair could only be compared to the colour of the sky when the sun sets.

Her smile, warm and sweet, seemed to melt his heart and brighten up the rest of his day. Of course, that was only for her genuine smile, which she rarely showed him. It usually was a sarcastic sneer, which Kai disliked. He even like the way she cocked her head to the left cutely and pouted when she was confused about something.

But to her, they were only friends.

Just friends.

Kai didn't realize it, but he was slowly falling for her.

When summer ended, he didn't leave Mineral Town. No way was he going to do that. That Cliff was slowly, but surely winning Ann's affection. Who knows what will happen if he leaves. Ann's smiles only belong to him, to him alone, and he wasn't one for sharing. But of course, he couldn't change fate no matter what he did.

Ann was the one who broke the news to him, that rainy morning, outside the inn.

"Cliff and I are getting engaged by spring." She grinned at Kai, showing him one of her rare smiles. Usually he loved to see her smile, but that day, her words pierced into his hurt, stabbing it repeated, over and over.

The rain didn't stop.

"Cliff and I are getting engaged by spring."

Ann. Was. Getting. Engaged. To. Cliff. Freaking. Presford.

She left him standing in the increasing rain, off to tell her friends of the good news.

But if she had turned around that very moment, she would see Kai, tears running down his face, which was contorted which agony. His hurt hurt. Hurt a lot. For a moment there, he looked vulnerable. But he was grinning maniacally away as the cold and merciless rain continued to beat down on him. He sank to the ground, his hands clutching his head. He chuckled softly to himself, as he sat alone on the cold and hard stone pavement.

He hurt himself in the love game that he had started. He only had himself to blame for all this.

He had started out playing with fire, and got burnt in the process.

Burnt very badly.