My back hurts. My head hurts. My whole body fucking hurts. Every time another day starts, it just keeps getting worse. Fuck. I feel like every organ and muscle and tissue inside me is dead. I stretched my back to ease the pain and felt the satisfying clicks my knuckles received. I'm too fucking old now. Fuck.
"You hit Hunter pretty hard last week." Han starts and my head immediately stings from the sudden bring up of the fucking guy. "He had about three stitches."
"He deserves ten times more than what he got."
Han heaves a sigh. "This beef between you and Hunter…"
I turned my head towards her in disbelief. If I could smash a bottle in her head too right now, I won't hesitate. Her, bringing this up in the middle of a heavy migraine I'm feeling right, is making me more violent than I ever was.
"It's getting out of hand and you know I don't normally mind you fighting with anyone, fuck, you can even kill someone and I'd back you up still but this thing going on—"
"What, now that you're screwing him you suddenly get involved with my business with that fucking bastard?" I glared at Han in fury. If I don't stop my anger, I might end up slapping her but I try to control myself.
"It's not that, Four! Jesus Christ!" She runs her fingers over her hair looking away in frustration. "I'm just worried okay? Everyone knows that Hunter isn't someone you should be messing around with. If you fuck him up, who knows what he's going to do with you?!"
"I don't fucking care what he does to me. I only care about what I can do to him." I roll my eyes in irritation and turned to walk away but she catches up to me and walks along my side. If she keeps talking—
"Hunter knows something we don't know does he?"
I froze. I knew the moment I stopped walking, she already had the answer she wanted. "Get the fuck out of my face." I say and she finally stops following me. I don't have time for Han, I don't have time to deal with fucking Hunter.
The rest of the day felt like I was in fucking heaven – lifeless and dead and soft as fuck. This is why people shouldn't laugh at and be scared at hell because it is way more fun there. I want to fucking leave this stupid teacher who keeps babbling about things that aren't even related to what we're supposed to discuss. I even read the handouts he gave us already and here he was, still talking about fucking Japan when we're supposed to be listening about the history of our country – which isn't Japan. Fucking dumb and annoying teacher.
My ass is itching to get up but it's only been ten minutes since the class started. It already felt like a fucking decade sitting here and listening to this stupid teacher's unpopular opinion of being fucking religious and Godly. From Japan to Religion – for I know, it's Politics he's going to tackle next! Where are we even going with this type of discussion? Fuck this.
I raised my hand to excuse myself and he doesn't even give me his attention so I stood and just left the fucking classroom. What a fucking waste of my precious time. I headed out of the building and marched my way to the staircase that leads to the field. I stopped by the railing and pulled out a cigar box from my bag. I took one stick out and lit one up to smoke. Never realized how fucking relieved I get when I do this.
I looked over the field and there were no good football players kicking the ball like they were missing it on purpose. Even I can kick a fucking ball in heels and these chosen players can't even kick them right for fuck's sake. They've even had their training and this is how garbage they perform – disgrace.
I shook my head and exhaled a shit ton of smoke. I'm stressing out on the smallest things – that can't be healthy.
"I have fries." My jaws tightened as I process that voice. I didn't want to talk to anyone right now and I pray that he leaves me alone if I ignore him. "You can get rid of that thing now."
I rolled my eyes still trying my best to ignore the stupid kid before I land my fists on his face.
"You really don't learn, do you?"
I looked up to find where the voice came from and saw Mark leaning against the upper railing he was standing at. As much as I wanted to enjoy this cigarette alone, I can't have someone die because of second hand smoking. I dropped the cigar on the ground and stepped on it begrudgingly.
I sigh expecting Mark to come down from up there and he did. He came down pretty fast so when he reached me, he hands over a brown paper bag. "Here. It's more delicious than that, I can assure you."
"I don't want your fucking fries." I slapped the bag he was holding out of frustration and it falls down the ground. I did not intend to push it away hard so it can crash down with my burnt out cigarette. I feel a pang of guilt as I watched him bend down to pick up the bag and the few pieces that flew out.
I creased my brows in disbelief. He's not actually going to eat that after it just fell right? No man in their right minds would do such thing.
"Three second rule!" He suddenly exclaims as he stood back up with a wide grin. The moment he started blowing on the piece he had on his hand, I slapped them off his fingers and glared at him. He stares back confused but not mad.
"I'll buy you a new set of fries so don't even think of eating this, you fucking weirdo!" I yelled grabbing the bag from his hands and throwing them over the railing unbothered if they land on someone's head – although that would be pretty fucking hilarious.
"It was still okay though." He tilts his head innocently.
"You're fucking disgusting." I rolled my eyes at him shifting my weight to a different direction.
"You don't do that rule?" What fucking rule, damn it? "It's a pretty convenient rule, I must say. It's a waste of money and food if you just—"
"Are you willing to take the risk of eating something that fell on the ground, and not get any sick virus from it for certain?"
I see him gulp.
��I'm sure you'll get better after staying in the hospital for days just because you ate fucking French fries that just fell on the goddamn nasty floor. And guess what, you wasted more money than you would have if you just bought them again in the first place." I squint my eyes at him before I leaned closer to his face. "You suck up rich people can do whatever you like because you have all the money in the world."
He blinks. He doesn't look dumb so I'm sure he got my point the second I asked my first question. He looks like he was thinking about something but he froze and remained still, as if he met Medusa's eyes.
"That…" He pauses. "—was a lot."
I shake my head. I can't believe I'm wasting more time with this kid than I imagined. I already indulged him with a conversation before and he's still not contented by it.
"Sounds like you know awfully a lot about the riches and the poverty." He laughs but I know for sure he wasn't amused by the likes of that.
I ignored him. Of course, I know.
"When I asked you what made you happy, you said hope." He starts. "I've been wondering what you meant. You seem to have lost your faith because of something. People don't lose hope for nothing. I'm just—"
"Shut up."
He flashes a smile but nods which for the first time, I was grateful for. "Sorry." He mutters but I was too irritated to care. "So have you ever been happy?"
Happy? I stopped feeling that the moment I was left with my biological father and I'm not planning to feel that ever again. Nothing in this world is worth being happy for.
He turns to me and I realized I just said that out loud. Fuck. Now he's going to start talking to me so casually for saying that. "There are a lot of reasons to be happy for though." He replies. "You're just not open to the idea of happiness that's why you think that way."
"Say what you want."
"Why do you think like that, Four?"
I ignored him and forced myself to watch the fucking ugly football practice that's happening before my eyes. I just didn't want to answer more of his questions in my head and end up blurting them out.
"Are you," he pauses, leaning his face closer to my head. "Dealing with things that are too much to handle for someone our age?"
"It's not your fucking business to mind." I am getting more pissed than I was two minutes ago.
"People only stop feeling happiness when they lost the reason to be happy and you stay that way because you're not willing to find another reason." I froze. As much as I wanted to ignore what he's fucking saying, I couldn't. Everything he's telling me felt right – like he knows every detail. "It's okay to feel hurt sometimes, Forest." He walks closer to where I stood. "What's not okay is when you keep everything to yourself and stay hidden in a box you made out of the fear of thinking you might lose more reasons for certain aspects in your life."
My lips parted and I felt my heart beating so fucking fast. I feel like I'm experiencing hyperventilation and his words hit too hard. I felt burning again. I'm so speechless I can't even reply anything even if it's just something to shut him up.
"You're not alone, Forest. You never are."