The Villain's Story

Chapter 878: The Character of James Smith. (2).

On the twenty-first of October, 2002, the third son of Smith Industries was born. His head was a bit bigger than normal, and his arms and legs were smaller than usual. He was a bit odd from birth as well. The only time he ever cried was when he came out of his mother’s womb, never again.

He was strange, but nobody really cared about it in the big family. He had many siblings. Two older brothers and four older sisters. He was the youngest of the lot. His name was James Smith, and he had inherited most of his father’s features. Strong Jaw, well-rounded shoulders, and blonde hair. His brothers were the same.

The only thing odd about him was his eyes. Nobody in the Smith Family had green eyes; in fact, nobody in the world has his shade of green eyes. Was he labelled a freak because of this? No, hardly anyone cared.

They were surprised at first; some praised them, but everyone forgot about them sooner or later. The Smith Family didn’t really care for the color of one’s eyes. Those in charge of a conglomerate had other things to worry about.

However, his set of emerald-green eyes was something of a legend to James; he regarded them as godlike from birth. He was a kid who was always, always proud of his eyes.

He didn’t think they had a strange glow in the mirror in the darkness; he knew they had it, he could see it every time. He didn’t think they had something special about them; he knew they did. From his very birth, he was obsessed with them.

This obsession wasn’t normal; it was psychotic. From birth, James was a quiet boy who rarely interacted with anyone. His childhood was spent in the darkness of his room, staring at the mirror. Nobody else could see the glow, but he could always see.

Nobody could ever understand the obsession he had with them, and nobody really tried. However, this obsession gave birth to his special complex.

From birth, James was special in the way that he remembered almost everything. He wasn’t quite an eidetic, but he was very, very close. Therefore, he remembered the antics of his siblings from when he was a baby.

At the time of his birth, his oldest brother was ten, his second brother was six, while his sisters were nine, seven, six, and four, respectively. He remembered the stupid antics of children, their disgusting but cute antics, but didn’t pay much attention to them when he was young.

However, every day he gazed at his eyes in the mirror in the dark, all he could think about was them, and how much he loathed them. As he grew up, his siblings bullied him, as was normal among siblings. It wasn’t very severe amounts of bullying, merely some teasing and some hitting, maybe hiding his toys and whatnot, and they soon stopped since James seemed to care too little about it. But it did leave an impact.

From the years James spent gazing at his eyes, he had developed a sense of superiority. This sense of superiority intensified as he grew up, realizing more of his features. He was handsome, very handsome, by the time he was a teenager. He was well-built, and nice too. Despite a childhood spent alone, he was able to conduct himself in social gatherings very well. He had a peculiar habit of observing body language with more intensity than the normal man.

How many times someone blinked in a minute, how fast they blinked, how deeply they breathed. The movement of their fingers, the rise and fall of their shoulders, their posture, the way they smiled, how quickly they smiled, and every damn detail on their face.

Furthermore, he was smart too, but he wasn’t as ambitious as a son of the Smith Family should be. His brothers were struggling to learn the family business, but James had already grasped it by the age of seventeen. He knew about the family in and out, but he had no ambition to be the head. He didn’t necessarily want to become CEO.

Neither did he have any other grand ambitions. He did not wish to be a philanthropist, a painter, or a writer. He didn’t have an interest in science or anything else, although he studied it a lot. He didn’t have any ambition.

So why did he do all that? Even if it was easy for him, why go through all the trouble? It was simple, since birth, James had believed this was a must, simply because of the grandeur of his body. Beauty must always be accompanied by intelligence.

Beauty must always come with competence.

The nights he spent obsessing over himself drove him to do so. James always, always saw himself above his siblings. Every time he saw them, he was reminded of their disgusting acts from when they were kids as well. It didn’t help that his siblings remained the same kind of idiots as they grew up.

One was a drunkard, one was a brute, one was someone obsessed with her looks but always looked like a whore to James, one was someone too obsessed with buying as much as she could to make up for her lack of character, one was an idiot who liked to make fun of him, unfortunately for her, she was terrible with jokes, always ending in an awkward laugh. The last one... eh, she was ok. She wasn’t as terrible, but James still didn’t like her simply because he saw her eating her own booger when she was a child.

He always considered himself to be superior to his siblings.

I was simply born better. I am something entirely different from that lot; I was made to be far, far superior to them. Insects would be better than them.

But he wasn’t deluded enough to think he was automatically better than them from birth. His eyes deserved someone who was actually better; Someone who was leagues better, someone who was so high up they didn’t even have a chance. Therefore, he put in effort, actual effort, to actually be better. It didn’t take much, but that was the catalyst. James soon became obsessed with the idea of being the best version of himself.

Simply because his eyes, his face, deserved someone like that. He obsessed over perfection; he obsessed over the fact that he must be better. His eyes deserved someone like that. He saw putting effort into improving oneself, especially someone like him, to be holy, to be divine.

This sense of superiority wasn’t inflated; it was earned. It was simply his right to be so. James was a narcissist through and through.

However, unlike most people with such narcissistic tendencies, James didn’t feel a need to declare his superiority over others. Because all he needed was himself.

I do not need the approval of trash; I only need myself, and my own approval is all that matters.

He knew already he was superior, so why seek the approval of the inferior so much? All he had to do was look at his godlike visage in the mirror, and that was enough. He was meant to be better.

However, as time passed, his sense of superiority evolved into something much. And as time passed, his obsessions grew.

And as time passed, James discovered one more thing, that everybody had an inferiority complex, and the inferior always, always find the superior, and do everything they can to turn that superiority theirs.

The inferior always hated the superior. And if they couldn’t make it theirs, they tried to destroy it.