Deil was annoyed. He had been frustrated all day because of his argument with his dad. Now, on top of all that, there was Saering. Deil did not know why, but conversing with him was akin to pulling teeth. They could only argue in a very roundabout way.
Today, as Saering pulled things out of his bag, Deil noticed a sketchbook under the pile of notebooks. He did not think much before asking about it. At that moment, the initial surprise on Saering’s face gave way to annoyance. They exchanged maybe five sentences like normal people before Saering became overly sensitive.
Deil wanted to cuss out loud but held himself back.
After club let out, everyone dispersed. With an already rotten mood, Deil also left. He made his way to the back of the school for his bike. At this time, not many kids loitered around the yard. Everyone wanted to go home.
Deil took quick steps, crossing the inner courtyard next to the gymnasium’s building. There was a nook between the two buildings, and he could see a couple of students huddled there.
“We’re not asking for much,” one of them was saying, “Fuck, we’re not even asking for anything.”
“Look here, kid. I only stopped you, and you’re already shaking. What is this? Your phone, your wallet. Who asked for them? Tch. Don’t squeeze so much; we’re not gonna take it.”
The male students started laughing. One of them shifted, and Deil could recognise his classmate, Yohan, standing there in a pinch. With his head down and his posture rigid, the boy's behaviour seemed a hundred per cent passive. He squeezed something in his hand, the knuckles turning white with the force of holding on. A nerve twitched behind Deil’s eyelid.
He did not care about this dispute. He wasn’t one to meddle in business that wasn’t his. But he was pissed off. Four guys versus one, how grand. Those boys were obviously older yet still teased first years just because they could do so.
Out of that bunch, three seemed somewhat familiar to Deil. He remembered now. They were the guys trying to engage him that morning before school. There was the yellow-haired kid, the plump one, and the guy that aged quite prematurely. He did not know the fourth one.
“Do we look like we need others’ money? Do I look like a beggar to you?” asked the premature kid. The poor guy couldn’t help it; he had the face of a man in his late twenties.
Deil raised his voice and called out, “Yohan!”
All five boys looked over. Yohan’s face remained blank, but his body eased off some of its wound up energy.
“What are you doing?” Deil walked over. He tucked his sleeves back so his wrists became visible. He put one of his hands on his bag strap. “Aren’t we going….”
“Who are you?” asked the unfamiliar boy. His three buddies stayed silent, sharing a glance.
“Who are you?” Deil asked back, cocky and obnoxious. He could already feel his adrenaline pumping through his veins. The pulse at the side of his neck throbbed. “Come on, Yohan! I’m not waiting anymore.” He inclined his head at his classmate, telling him to hurry and make his way over.
“Isn’t he that kid?” asked Yellow Hair, voice low.
The premature guy nodded his head. He became animated, pulling a lollipop out of his pocket and unwrapping it with a grin. As if all his long-trapped frustration diffused, and he could wind down. As if, finally, a chance showed itself.
With a backward glance, the unfamiliar boy asked, “You know him?”
“Aye, we talked to him once,” the cubby one replied, “Big Bro, don’t be surprised. This one has a bit of a nasty temper.”
“He’s not so bad,” said the premature guy, crunching on his hard candy. “I kind of like his style. The cheeky kind, in need of a little coaxing. Cute~”
The boys stepped before Yohan, obstructing him from leaving.
All at once, the situation became crystal clear.
Soft white tufts without clear edges swam in and out of the hazy, pale blue sky.
Deil rotated his left arm, loosening his shoulder. “You’re in the way,” he said in a quiet but clear voice. It was a warning.
At a near distance, Yohan looked on with that same blank expression. Maybe he wanted to make his way over; maybe he did not. Either way, it wasn’t easy. Those three in the back didn’t intervene, huddling together and letting their big bro manage the situation. In their minds, he could take care of it. They did not make a move on Yohan, but they still stood in his way.
Their big bro spat on the ground. “What to do? I don’t want to move. Why don’t you come here and take your little friend?”
Deil had one utterly obnoxious trait, and that trait was – he never knew when to back off. There were also times he did not want to back down on purpose. He looked at the ‘big bro’ before him but did not see anything threatening. Deil scratched the tip of his nose with his middle finger, then scrunched it up with sudden movements. All the while, he didn’t say anything. Rather, he doggedly stared at the other, sizing him up.
Seeing this series of actions burned Big Bro’s last thread of control for good. He charged forward – swift and bold, using the surprise of brute force rather than actual consideration. Deil, however, was long prepared for a move like this. He took a step aside, leaning back from the oncoming fist. Not a hair was grazed on his person.
Deil used the sharp jut of his elbow to ram into the other’s shoulder from the back, tipping him off balance.
This momentary setback did not deter Big Bro’s fighting spirit the least bit. Taking advantage of their positions, he fell back with his whole weight, driving Deil into the building’s brick wall and trapping him in between. Deil got an elbow swung back into his gut as payback.
“Kid,” Big Bro said, slightly out of breath. “Aren’t you just a little first year? Where’d you get the adicity?”
Yohan, who up until this point watched from the sidelines without a peep, spoke up, “Audacity.”
“What?” The plump boy turned his head towards him. “What did you say?”
“Audacity,” Yohan repeated, “He means audacity.”
Yellow Hair cursed at Yohan. Next to him, that withered pumpkin looking guy put in a word, making them all flinch. “Big Bro, it’s supposedly audacity!”
Deil couldn’t help it; he laughed out loud.
Usually, when a situation like this happened, the following ensured: one party had the other in a stronghold, so the disadvantaged person pushed his assaulter back, hopefully into a wall. Headbutting the opponent was also a great way to shake the other off.
What actually happened, though, was Deil cackling before striking Big Bro from the back with his own head. This impractical and insane move shocked everyone, even Big Bro himself. The back of his head got hit with something extremely hard. At the same time, two palms pressed on his back, making him fall over. Before falling, he heard a sigh.
Deil let out a sigh. Big Bro looked back from the ground, only to see Deil with blood dripping down half his face. The shock in Big Bro’s eyes said you have to be more than crazy.
At the next instant, Deil pounced on Big Bro and ruthlessly plundered him. Caught off guard, Big Bro only tried to defend himself without thinking of fighting back.
“Stop hitting, fuck! Don’t you know the basic respect of a fair fight?” Big Bro felt the damage of Deil’s offence; he was in pain for real. His lackeys weren’t quite sure what to do. If they intervened now, that was the equivalent of looking down on their big bro, assuming he couldn’t handle a little first year by himself. There had to be something up his sleeve, some hidden move to reverse the situation. Otherwise, this was clearly a one-sided onslaught of hooligan behaviour, no?
“Goddammit, stop hitting!” Big Bro tasted blood in his mouth, but who knew if it was his or Deil’s?
Deil crouched over Big Bro, their faces almost aligned. His nose dripped blood everywhere and he pummelled Big Bro into the dirt. His mind went offline; rational thinking thrown out of the window.
Deil grabbed the older boy by his clothes, dragging him upright.
Big Bro’s lackeys collectively sucked in a breath of relief.
Yohan asked, “Can I... go now?”
None of them paid attention to him, so he walked off amidst the chaos.
Deil wasn’t only crazy; he was as vicious as a wolf of the underworld. Even now, after beating the other into no more than a pulp, he wanted to keep going. But now, it became more of a scuffle, pushing and shoving rather than inflicting actual injuries.
One of the surrounding buildings had half of an outer staircase made of polished stone and steel beams. It led out of the inner courtyard. As the two boys jostled about, they crossed the path of that staircase. Deil got pushed, but he wasn’t about to fall off alone. He tightened his fists in the other’s clothes and threw both of them off the staircase, colliding with an oncoming student.
This experience was a bit jarring. While making his way out of school, Sae passed the half-staircase in the inner courtyard. It was a shortcut through the surrounding buildings that a lot of people used. By taking it, they did not have to go into any of the buildings, cross to another, and then come outside again.
Sae did not usually take this route, but today it seemed closer to leave through the back gate as he wasn’t going home. Emi finally had time to grace him with her presence. They planned to meet at a pancake place close to H Junior High.
But as Sae passed the landing of the stone stairs, a jumble of extremities ploughed him down. He got swept over in a second, letting out a surprised Ah?
A body covered his vision, and soon dull ache started from his back as he forcefully fell to the nearest wall. That person also knocked into him.
There was this moment when, out of his element, Sae didn’t understand what just happened. “Who... Are you okay?” he inquired of the guy he collided with.
The funny thing was that even after the guy had fallen, by some freak accident he was very much riled up. He either thought he was fighting, or did not care at this point. Either way, the guy grabbed Sae at once, trying to land a punch.
As a person who had glasses since pre-school, Sae learned not to ever get hit in the face while wearing them. Today happened to be a day he wasn’t too lazy to put in contact lenses, opting out of sleeping two minutes more in the morning. Even without wearing glasses, what he had was none other but a fist coming at him. His conditioned reflex kicked in that instant.
“Don’t, don’t,” said Sae and evaded the blow. That don’t wasn’t for himself; more like out of consideration for that guy. Sae knew his reflexes weren’t only good, but part of his brain was unable to stop at that –– be it self-defence or plain avoidance. Once he evaded an attack, his head almost immediately fired up to retaliate.
Just as his fingers curled up to close into a fist, he heard a growl off to the side. Sae involuntarily glanced there.
That was the moment he realised that guy’s real opponent wasn’t him but Shum Deil.
His brain did not digest this new information in time, and even if it did, it was too late. In return for the missed punch, Sae still hit the guy before him at a close distance.
At that exact moment Sae’s fist flew at its target, Deil sprang up from the pavement. He hooked the guy’s elbow and twisted him back. Sae’s fist only grazed the guy’s ear, but it was enough to disorient him. By the sound alone, it had been a hard blow. If it found its definite target as the ear and not just grazed it, that would cause ringing for half a day at the least.
Deil had not realised that the student they ran over had been Sae. His reasoning was far away. He only acted on impulse. All the hot air went to his head, clouding his judgement. Maybe if he knew, he would have acted differently.
From the upper floors overlooking the courtyard, two uniformed students could be seen going at it worse than a chicken fight. To the side, a third figure watched in a daze as one continued to bash the other around.
Deil rammed his knee up, smacking into Big Bro at once. His velocity was quite considerable. “Take that as basic respect of a fair fight!”
The two engaged in combat didn’t stop at all.
Big Bro caught Deil around the waist, trying to pull him down. Trying for the third time, Deil actually got flung off of him.
To Deil’s surprise, his leg tripped and he fell forward. He pounced on the kid who stood there. Deil’s eyes were full of a wild intent, dark and hard. His mind filled with adrenalin. His body acted before his brain processed sensory information or made connections. Deil’s elbow flew towards the kid’s cheekbone. He was faster than the wind.
At the last second, however, he stopped, eyes clearing up some. He realised the one before himself was Saering.
What was he doing here?
The two stared at each other without a word. They were so close that Deil could see himself in the reflection of Saering’s pupils.
Deil’s nose ached, and it was uncomfortable to breathe.
Suddenly, his jacket got jerked back and he crashed to the ground.
From around the corner of the stairs, three upperclassmen approached, followed by Sae’s maths teacher.
“What is this? Don’t you dare run! I’ll give you some running. You three, line up!” The short man distributed scoldings like bullets from a gun. His volume was a force in itself. “Loitering after classes, what were you about to do?”
When the man saw the whole scene laid out before him, he momentarily stopped, catching his breath.
The upperclassmen shared a look and fell in line before the maths teacher. At some unknown point in time, Shum Deil somehow got under the guy he had been fighting with. Sprawled over the ground, he looked quite pitiful. His face was a horrid mess of blood and spit. The guy over him had a hand poised in a fist, ready to strike.
The maths teacher’s face dropped a few shades darker per second. His mouth opened while even his neckline got scarlet. “Everyone, get up!”
Sae straightened his spine.
The guy jumped back, off of Deil, pulling his hands back to wave around. “Teach, this isn’t what you’re thinking.”
The maths teacher asked, “What am I thinking?”
“I got beaten up!”
“That’s true. Teach, Big Bro got bullied.” The other three nodded vigorously. “This kid is fucking savage. Is he really a first year?”
“Shut up!” The maths teacher shot back, “Big Bro... Tch, who is your brother?!”
The fourth boy quickly joined his friends in line. One of the kids had his hair bleached like crayons. His uniform was rumpled and looked small at the ankles. He spoke up first, sharing their grievances, “Teacher, sir, it was a one sided harassment! This kid started fighting out of nowhere; Big Bro didn’t stand a chan– Ow!” Crayons yelped and did not finish. He got kicked by his big bro from the side.
“Ah, of course. First years are now beating the school’s wannabe tyrant?” The maths teacher was so angered he laughed. “Why is it always you four?”
Sae watched as Shum Deil hobbled over, dragging one of his legs on purpose and limping some. Shum Deil stood apart from everyone but was still closer to him than to others. The collar of his white shirt was dyed dark maroon.
“You lot,” the maths teacher turned to the students not incriminated by visual evidence. He knew them well enough. They would never admit anything without him witnessing their participation in the fight with his own eyes. Their mouths were lathered with excuses and bullshitery.
“Get down and run a few laps around the quad if you like running so much! Fifteen will do. I’ll be watching you from the building, so don’t even try to half-ass it! If you vanish and don’t run, you’ll be doing thirty laps by tomorrow!”
The teacher turned to the other three and was surprised to see Hoh Saering in the middle. A nerve at the side of his face twitched. “Get to the teachers’ office, now!”
In the teachers’ office, one student repeated for the dozenth time, “I didn’t hit him. He hit me! Teach, don’t be like this! It was aggregated assault!”
“That’s aggravated assault, you half-wit,” the teacher said and bonked the wannabe tyrant’s head. “And what? Am I your friend? Watch how you talk.”
Previously, Sae stated that he hit Tyrant Boy once. He was a mere passerby when the fight occurred. Caught up in the entanglement out of his free will, he lost his reasoning for a moment while using self-defence. Since the blow only grazed the wannabe tyrant’s ear, it was only slightly pink. No real injury was shown.
By the way, Shum Deil and Tyrant Boy never mentioned him participating in the fight whatsoever, so that was that.
On the other hand, their own involvement in the fight was easy to determine with a glance. Regarding that matter, the sight that welcomed the maths teacher outside was more than telling. If that had not been conclusive enough, Shum Deil currently had a bloody face while the other person didn’t have a single scratch on him.
“He hit my torso,” Tyrant Boy still persevered, “Maybe there are internal injuries. I can show you; there must be bruising on my side!”
“What if you got beaten yesterday?” It was the first time Shum Deil said anything substantial. He leaned back in his chair and put his hands on the table. “Why would I purposefully avoid places that show if I just wanna beat you up? You said I attacked you without reason. Now you state I beat you up, but there isn’t a crack or bruise in sight. How could that be possible?”
Tyrant Boy was so angered he almost choked.
Shum Deil licked a bit of dried blood from his upper lip. “Look at my hands. Do they look like I’ve punched anybody?”
“He’s lying!” Tyrant Boy’s tone was full of accusations. “You kicked me in the gut!”
“Okay––”
“Both of you, shut it!” the maths teacher hollered. He had a long day and was supposed to clock out already. Supporting his forehead with a hand, the man turned to Tyrant Boy, “How many times do you visit this office in a month? You’re already in your third year. Still playing even now?”
The teacher stepped aside for a moment to inquire about the director. He had already called all three students’ head teachers on the phone.
Deil raised a hand to his nose and checked whether it was still bleeding. He had been pretty sure it did not break, but his passage felt stuffy with some swelling and residual blood. No one said anything until the teacher was out of earshot.
“Pst, little classmate,” Big Bro said to Saering, “You saw him, right? When we collided, you saw him attacking me, right? He did beat me!”
He almost beat you, too, Deil thought. He had heard that Saering could kick so accurately he once sent a delinquent to the hospital with a ruptured eardrum. But he always thought those were just rumours. The boy didn’t look like someone capable of that kind of thing. He wasn’t even tall, just skinny. After today’s incident, however, Deil re-evaluated his previous assessment.
Saering told Big Bro, “Please don’t act like we’re close.”
Half an hour ago, that person tried to punch Saering, and now he wanted to act chummy. Deil clicked his tongue.
Big Bro tried again. “Tell them I didn’t hit him, hmm? I couldn’t even land one punch.”
Saering looked to the side at Deil. Since the accident last year, he had been using contact lenses and glasses interchangeably. On days he felt like it or had the patience for it, he put in lenses. On lazy days he wore glasses. When he wore glasses, he looked cool, but without them, his eyes looked even more dazzling. Like today. Deil looked away.
Deil didn’t get particularly ruffled when he heard Big Bro trying to collude with Saering against him. He himself knew that Big Bro was right.
His attitude was decidedly a bit evil. Deil was brazen and scheming enough to teach the other a lesson but never outright claimed it. He was not only shameless; he doggedly stood by the resolve of not saying anything to help you. If I don’t admit to it, you’re on your own.
It looked like this was the single most embarrassing moment of Big Bro’s life. If he shared what actually happened, he would be damned for harassing not one but two first year students. By keeping his mouth shut, he had to suffer the humiliation and indignation of getting scuffed up, but no one believed him as there weren’t any obvious signs. He had no way to defend himself.
“Why did you fight him?” Saering asked, “How did your nose become like this?”
Well… since Saering got pulled into this mess, of course he wanted some information. That was understandable. But sitting here, seeing him did not help Deil at all.
For starters, he wasn’t in the best of moods. Part of it was because of Saering’s previous behaviour. Deil knew that there was a steel wall around the other, instructing him to stop 'outsiders shan’t enter’.
A mere hour ago, they had quarrelled over nothing. As part of that quarrel, Deil felt like he was looked down on. Decidedly, that was the smallest part to piss him off, but still.
They just had to run into each other again in a situation like this. The ‘stop, outsiders shan’t enter’ wall was still hoisted tall in Saering’s eyes. Yet, he started asking questions while simultaneously acting like the most mysterious person on Earth. If so, why should Deil share any of his motivations?
In the end, Deil said, “The situation called for it.”
“The situation called for it?” Tyrant Boy questioned.
Sae did not pay any attention to him. From what he saw, it was obvious that the fight wasn’t one-sided. Okay, Shum Deil hit the little tyrant. That boy was talking some truth, but what about Deil’s face then? Sae repeated, “And your nose?”
Shum Deil scrunched up his nose, the movement familiar and seamless like a habit. “I bumped into something.”
“You bumped into something really solid,” said Sae.
“Hard like your head, yeah.” Deil averted his eyes.
Sigh, so they were at it again.
“But,” Sae continued, “you still won’t say you hit him?”
Shum Deil laughed. “No one asked me! They assume he hit me. I never said I didn’t hit him. I only objected to the fact that he claims I attacked him for nothing.”
Sae thought about it from top to bottom. It was true that Shum Deil never said he did not hit the other. At best, he said he didn’t punch him. But wasn’t that kind of... same difference? He only played with his words like the arrogant academic test god he was.
On the one hand, counting from the moment Sae got tangled with them, he had not actually seen Shum Deil punch the other. They mostly shoved and pushed each other around, cursing and tearing at each other like a pair of angry crows. In truth, Sae’s memory was a bit fuzzy. It all happened so fast and out of the blue. But Tyrant Boy could still jump around, so it had to be an exaggeration that he sustained internal injuries. Even if he did have injuries, they could not be severe.
On the other hand, Sae would be an idiot to think Shum Deil was innocent. As long as he didn’t know the motivation behind it, Sae did not like this particular strategy for dealing with things. Unlike that teacher, he knew how to take things from an impartial perspective but couldn’t guess the reason why this brawl happened in the first place. Maybe they were just overly impulsive. Or there could have been a solid reason behind it. Well, not like it was any of his business.
He gazed at Shum Deil for a long time without words, so long that the maths teacher returned.
“I’m too tired to deal with you all right now. The director won’t be back today, and your head teachers got notified already. They know what to do when the time comes.” The man threw a thin stack of papers on the desk before continuing. “Tomorrow morning, half an hour before classes begin, the three of you will wait in front of the teachers’ office, understand?”
The three students mumbled without much enthusiasm.
The maths teacher walked to the window and stuck his head out. “Hey!”
Down below, three boys were running laps. Hearing the noise, they stopped and glanced up. The afternoon sun shone at an angle that they had to shield their faces to look up.
“Go home! Go on now!” the maths teacher instructed. His voice billowed out like ripples in the water.
The three down there shared a look, unsure of what to do. The maths teacher waved an impatient hand at them, urging the students to move. He turned back to the table. “What are you waiting for? You’re dismissed. Go straight home; if I see any of you still inside the gates five minutes from now, you won’t thank me for what you’ll get.
“Don’t even think about pretending to be ‘the man’. If you do as much as look at one another the wrong way,” the maths teacher leaned on the table, supporting himself by his arms, “I’ll know about it! Go, go! I don’t want to see your faces anymore.”
Sae and Shum Deil stood up at the same time. Since they were closer to the door, they made their way out first, formally saying goodbye to the maths teacher in the process. Little tyrant boy followed behind.
Once they were out in the hallway, the three went in three different ways. Without a look at Shum Deil, Sae turned his back to leave.
