One thing Sae was sure of was how he could take on anyone – kick anyone’s ass if needed. He wasn’t exactly the rebellious, fighter type, but he could fight. His feet were fast and his head clear. He did not let unnecessary emotions cloud his judgement.
Also, he had a solid foundation in taekwondo.
Sae did beat up bad kids who deliberately goaded him in the past, earning the name of ‘fighter brainiac’ among his friends. That didn’t mean that he was actively seeking to take anyone on though, or that he wanted Emi to witness such a scene. Hence, in the following weeks after Shum Deil’s warning, Sae put a little distance between himself and the little girl. It just so happened to coincide with his head teacher's revenge.
Following the revelation that Sae did sit in on the competition but didn't present his final work – instead, he took off in the middle of the event – the imposed penalty consisted of guided lessons especially preparing for the upcoming examinations. In name, these lessons were akin to professional guidance, very useful for a soon-to-enter high school student. In truth, however, they were nothing more than dumping him with a bunch of fancy entrance exam sheets to solve alone, while that geezer of a head teacher took off with a disapproving quirk of his mouth.
This way, even if Sae wanted to, he could not walk with Emi for two weeks.
The head teacher asked to hand in the question sheets every day at noon in exchange for new ones. So, Sae had two choices: either staying behind, or coming in extra early to solve that day's assignments. Emi said she'd flip the table at such excessive torture, but Sae did not have any opinion about it. He felt like merely humouring his head teacher.
During this time, on a morning so early it was still half dark outside, Sae set off to school. It was a rainy morning with freezing northern winds splashing the cold sleet into one's face.
Sae still had to buy breakfast, which meant getting off the bus two stops away from the school building and taking that distance on foot. He huddled into his new coat with its collar pulled up high. His mum had been right, of course, this coat was much warmer than the other one hanging in his wardrobe back home.
No matter how warm the coat was though, it got wet rather quickly, along with his winter sneakers.
Shouldn’t these keep dry against the elements? What water-resistant shell?
Good thing that he wore thick socks.
Sae’s phone signalled with a notification. His mum sent him a message bearing two fire emojis:
––Why did you leave at the crack of dawn without eating first? Where's the fire?
Sae sent back a voice message, "Mum, I already ate. Don’t worry I'm almost at school. It’s raining heavily so be careful. "
Up ahead at the crossroad leading to the school gates, the light changed from green to red. Sae stopped and changed the song he was listening to.
For some inexplicable reason he felt eyes following his every movement, but it was hard to see clearly in the rain with glasses that fared no better than drenched windscreens. Water constantly trickled down in rivulets, while his breaths fogged up the glass’ surface, obstructing his vision.
He tried to shelter his face under a hand and turn back for a look, but saw no one behind him. The pedestrian walkway was practically desolate; not many people braved the tough weather so early in the day.
Not far away, Deil was just about to take the corner that led to the street on which their school sat. He couldn’t sleep a wink since dawn because of this stupid weather. The sky kept on thundering like there was no tomorrow, exceedingly irritating. He could not sleep, nor did he want to stay at home.
And so, Deil had been out and about a lot sooner than the norm, trudging his way around the neighbourhood before finding a place where he could eat. Few shops opened so early, and the shop he took a liking to was a bit lacking, nearly not as good as he expected it to be.
With a considerable amount of time to spare, he cycled towards school. It wasn't that bad to arrive early; this way, he still had some time to dry off, plastered to a heater before classes began. He would hate to sit in class with the disgusting feeling of wet clothes stuck to his thighs.
Fortunately, the rain let off a bit, turning into a light drizzle. Cars splashed by on the road, scattering the accumulated water in their wake. Deil stared ahead and put one of his feet down on the pavement, sweeping along with a grating noise as he slowed his pace.
Several dozen metres before Deil, but still not that far away on the sidewalk, a familiar figure huddled under the hood of a dark coat. At first, Deil wasn't sure whether he guessed it right, but when that person stopped at the pedestrian crossing, turning back for a moment, he knew his eyes did not cheat him.
At the crossing, Hoh Saering moved with a bit of restlessness. Usually, the boy held himself with the casual ease of tranquil ambiance. Now he was acting somewhat jerky.
The lights overhead were about to change to give way to pedestrians, so the traffic slowly came to a standstill.
Deil glided his gaze over the street. His eyes narrowed at a scooter that was currently idling on the parking lane closest to the roadside. Two kids wearing those open-face helmets sat on the scooter. Deil reckoned they probably wore them against the rain if anything.
At a closer glance, he recognised the boys as two of Lennox's lackeys. Ones he had budding relationships with, based on mutual encounters between their fists and faces.
The road was slick. The rain had finally stopped but the noise of idling cars drowned out the soft sounds of still dripping raindrops. Lights swam in puddles, crystallised rays rippling and gleaming. Those boys jostled each other – the one at the back pushing the driver’s shoulder while gesturing in the general direction of the pedestrian crossing. A sense of danger suffused the humid air.
It all happened in a moment.
Sae was just about to step off the sidewalk as the green light indicated. His foot did not even touch the road when out of nowhere, a dark shape whizzed by him, much like an arrow stretched to its limit and then let go without abandon. Accompanied by a sharp whistle of air like a roving gale, emitting a whoosh sound, the shape almost hit him head-on.
Sae reflexively twisted back when a hand grabbed at the front of his coat and pushed.
Sae exclaimed in surprise. His feet slipped and his hood drew back. The phone flew from his hands, out of reach. At that same second, there was the sound of a crack; he fell back onto his arm. That was the last thing he heard clearly.
Sae’s ears started ringing. At first, he couldn't even register the pain. Adrenaline slithered like a wild snake through his nerves; his vision blackening for a second.
Everything came back with a few blinks in blurred shapes and fuzzy images. Unshed tears welled at the rims of his eyes, stuck to the roots of his lashes, tinting them darker than ink. His glasses lay broken under his pant leg that soaked up rainwater from the sidewalk. When the pain registered, it came in a wave and immediately numbed half his brain. The back of his head tingled, and a thin sheen of cold sweat broke out all over his skin.
As Sae sprawled there, the rumble of a scooter with two raging boys sped along the road ahead of him.
"Motherfucker," one of them cussed angrily.
Sae was in a daze. He dropped back, his arm completely giving out, and met the wet ground with a muffled thump. A face appeared in his line of vision, then another. Three people gathered around him, concern respectively etching their various features.
"Can you move?" A middle-aged woman with soft eyes asked, crouching beside him.
"What happened?" Someone cut in further away, followed by a murmured reply that did not register with Sae.
"Can you get up? We should get you out of the rain." The woman from before wanted to lift him by the shoulder, but Sae stopped her.
His voice wavered as he said, "The other side."
"What?" The woman looked him over. "What do you feel? Did you hit your head? Are you dizzy?"
Sae shook his head.
"Is your leg okay?"
"My arm," Sae panted, "I think it's broken."
The woman reached for his neck, saying, Let me just––, and she extracted a tangled mess of wires.
Ah, the stupid headphones, Sae thought.
"Try to sit up. Slowly."
Sae got helped up to a sitting position. He wasn't dizzy but felt slightly nauseous. Once sitting up, he could see that there were four people around him.
A sturdy man, a female student peering on her tip-toes, presumably from H Junior High, and a teacher – that Sae had seen before but never had a lesson with – peered down at him. The middle-aged woman supported Sae’s back while the man held an umbrella over the two of them, even though it wasn't raining anymore.
"Anything else? How did you fall?" The man asked. He had a clear, naturally bellowing voice.
"He got run over, didn't he?" the girl inquired. She looked at Sae with trepidation.
"No, he was pushed," a male voice interjected. It was that teacher. "Should we call an ambulance? If the arm is broken he needs to go to the hospital."
"What's your name?" The woman leaned closer and asked in a calming tone. "Is your phone on you? We should call your parents."
"It’s Saering. My phone..." Sae looked around but could not locate his phone. In the confusion, it had vanished without a trace.
The teacher came closer. "You go to this school, right? Which class? Your head teach––"
"Senior year, Class C, humanities..."
"Okay okay, I know. I'll call your head teacher." The man pointed at the other side of the pedestrian crossing. "Help him into the school building. I'll call his teacher and he'll inform the boy's parents. There's an infirmary on the first floor."
"I know where it is, my daughter went to this school," replied the woman. They moved to pull Sae off the ground. "Careful with the arm. Left side, right?"
Sae nodded and tried to get up. The female student stepped out of the way. She already had her phone out. She probably only came to check out what the commotion was about, but soon realised she could not actually help much.
"We will discuss calling an ambulance after getting inside." The unknown teacher squeezed a cell phone to his ear. Lines formed on his forehead. "Did you see who pushed you?"
"Excuse me, can you question him later? His face is almost grey." The woman dismissed the teacher with a sentence. She signalled to the muscular man to grab Sae under his right armpit. "Does anyone have a car we can use? It would be quicker than walking all the way to the driveway at the main entrance."
"I can–– I can walk that much," Sae spoke with difficulty. The woman was in the middle of picking his bag from the ground and turned her head to look at him with uncertain eyes. "I can do it," repeated Sae.
They slowly made their way up to the main building. Every step sent a stab of pain up Sae's leg, but that at least diverted some attention from the ache numbing most of his entire upper limb.
Inside the school building, they made their way to the infirmary. That teacher shooed the female student away after a few questions, then picked up the rear. Raising his voice, he said, "Your head teacher is on the way. He said he'll call your mum as soon as possible."
Sae nodded, not in the mood to speak.
By some miracle, the school doctor was already in. After a glance, she cleared the way to the beds at the back. Two beds separated by curtains flanked a small medical station under the windows. The doctor hurried to ask, "What happened?"
While the adults discussed what happened, Sae got seated at one of the beds. His leg trembled considerably from the exertion, and his nose was still filled with the smell of wet pavement. The doctor looked him over; other than the arm and leg, there were no external injuries so to speak of.
"What hurts?" asked the doctor.
"My left arm and my ankle," answered Sae.
They were about to peel the coat off of him when his head teacher burst through the door. "What happened?" He closed in on the bed.
The sturdy man and middle-aged woman, who sat at the side in plastic chairs, stood up to engage in another round of discussions. It was like the whole thing did not even affect Sae.
He wanted to yell, There's a living person here! Can nobody see?
It felt like, even though the accident happened to him, everyone else's input about the events mattered more than his.
"He definitely got pushed, I saw it." The unknown teacher said in lowered tones. "It happened right in front of the school. Do you reckon it'll stir trouble if it gets out? Why was he even in so early?"
"It was an accident, wasn't it?" There was impatience in Sae’s head teacher's voice.
Sae looked down at his coat, muddied and cast aside. There was a tear in the material. His glasses also shattered, and his phone went missing. The doctor said his arm was broken, and he also sprained his ankle. Sae did not want to hear another word.
"Sae, how are you?" His head teacher asked, cutting off his thoughts. "There's no need to worry. I've already called your mum to come to the hospital."
The doctor asked, "Are we calling an ambulance?"
"No," Sae’s head teacher shook his head. "It'll be faster with a car."
After a while, the woman and man who had helped Sae departed, saying goodbye. The clamour of the morning subsided some, and the infirmary became quiet.
Eventually, a bit of colour came back to Sae's face. For the last twenty minutes, he had been staring at a large amount of swelling and bruising which had devoured his arm. However calm he looked on the outside, his mind could not slow down…
Just why would Shum Deil do this?
The question remained, blurring the edges of his thoughts.
With the help of the school doctor and his head teacher, two adults escorted Sae to the car waiting in front of the entrance. Sae was put in the front passenger's seat. Some time through all this, it started raining again.
In the car, Sae’s teacher backed out of the parking space and asked in a pressed tone, "Saering, was it really an accident?" The man glanced at him anxiously. "Did you see who pushed you?"
Sae fixed his eyes outside the window without a reply, watching the accumulated drops of rain run together like veins on the glass' surface. When the car stopped at the main gate, his teacher flipped on the turn signal. "If it was someone you know––" the man pressed on.
Right outside the gates, Sae caught a glimpse of a familiar figure standing in the rain, looking straight at him. Shum Deil was drenched from head to toe, fixedly staring at the car.
Sae could not tear his gaze away, not until they turned onto the main road which led to the hospital. Only then did he say, "I don't know. I didn't see clearly."
