Chapter 12 - Merging Into One [2]

At this moment, the spectacle-wearing boy inside the cafe shyly held the girl's hand with an unsure expression, timidly looking at her with an expectant pair of eyes.

The girl blushed, hesitantly interlinking their fingers together as the timid boy smiled brightly in elated surprise.

"...Hah, hahah. What a great and happy life you have. Ahh, what a nice life, indeed...!!"

Outside the cafe, Damien ground his teeth in a mad fury, both of his hands clenched into a fist as crackling sounds constantly echoed from his knuckles. His ruby-red eyes seemed to be on the verge of spewing liquid lava.

"...Wow, this guy even got himself a girlfriend in the meantime? Well, I guess he's kind of a hero now, thanks to 'courageously' getting me expelled."

But even amidst his teeth-grinding, a small grin appeared on his face when he looked at the reserved-looking girl shyly blushing as she gazed at the glasses-wearing boy in front of her.

"Hehe, good. I can use her.....use her so thoroughly that you won't even recognize the difference between your lover and a dirty rag in the cleaning room!! Yeah, that will be a nice starting point..."

He pulled his hat further down, hiding his entire face from the nearby people's view as a mad grin spread across his face. 

*Crunch* *Crunch–!*

After observing the couple enjoying their cafe date in silence for a few more minutes, he slowly walked away, his shoes crushing a few dried leaves on the way.

Weeks eventually passed, and nothing really eventful happened in their lives.

*Ting~!*

One day, the boy who reported him to the school authorities received a suspicious video message from an anonymous guy online.

– Hey, I heard you absolutely love videos made by hidden cams. You definitely gotta check this video out, dude!

He was in the middle of walking to a nearby convenience store, but after seeing this bizarre message, he suddenly paused in his steps as his brows furrowed in confusion.

"...Now, what kind of prank is this? Something new trending on the internet?"

Still, curious about what kind of video it was, he pressed the play button.

["Ohhh! Yes.... yes~! Right there~! More! Harder~!"]

A familiar girl's loud moaning sounds soon leaked out of his phone, causing his glasses-covered eyes to immediately go wide open in incredulous shock. 

["Ooh~! Ooh~! Ooh~! Mmmhhh~! Yesss....just like that~!"]

On his phone screen, an unknown, white-haired muscular hunk hovered over his girlfriend's stark naked body, pounding away at her alarmingly leaky tunnel with reckless abandon.

"N-No, t-this can't....no way...there's no way...!"

It didn't take long for the guy to break down in tears, almost crushing the phone in his hand to bits. Tears and snot mixed together on his face, creating a grotesque picture of misery that soon drew in a small crowd of curious people.

"Heh, heheh. Ahahahaha!"

...And it was also a picture that a certain white-haired young man enjoyed immensely, while making sure to remain hidden among the passerby crowd with a white hat covering his grinning face.

Honestly, he could have certainly stopped there. There wasn't much to gain by wasting even more of his time by targeting this already down, heartbroken fellow.

...But, did this scum named Damien want to?

'This is it! This is the feeling I've worked so hard for!'

Just by looking at the miserable face of the boy who ruined his life, he was feeling so much joy that his heart was literally trembling. He couldn't help but imagine, how great would it feel to completely decimate this guy's life till nothing was left behind? 

'It must feel amazing! More than anything I've ever experienced!'

Plus, he had already made a vow to destroy this guy's life, no matter what. The twisted pleasure he derived from trampling on him was just a nice cherry on top.

Months slowly passed, and Damien finally acted on his vow after preparing the stage for a long time. 

Those dangerous men he knew from his mother's connections proved a huge help. Without their help, he wouldn't have been able to bring such a nice disaster to that boy's life so easily.

His mother seemed to have recently contracted some sort of STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) from her frequent night outs, making him the common contact point between those men and her.

Damien didn't seem to mind it, though. All he cared about was getting the resources of those men to turn that hateful snitch's life into a living hell. 

...His mother or whatever could go die in a ditch for all he cared.

Weeks later, he received a call from those men, saying that his job was done. He was even invited to meet their boss to discuss if he wanted to work for them, since his intimidating physique and twisted nature were very well suited for underworld criminal activities.

If he decided to roll with it, they were even willing to personally recommend him for a higher rank!

After weighing the pros and cons of joining them, Damien decided to give it a try at least. Now being a high school dropout, his chances of scoring a nice university weren't very practical anyway. 

Not to mention, he could always go for higher education a few years later if things didn't work out well in the gang. He still had plenty of time in his life.

'...But first, I've got to see that bastard's face one last time.'

Damien was really fired up, leaving for the usual place that snitch went to drown his despair in a special blend of drug-spiked alcohol.

*Thunk-!*

Entering the bar with the same white hat covering his face, he walked up to the gloomily drinking glasses-wearing guy quietly sitting in the corner alone, and took a seat beside him.

"Mr. Bartender, a fruit special for me."

Of course, Damien didn't plan on drinking alcohol. What he ordered was just plain orange juice under the guise of a strangely named cocktail. Since the bartender already knew him because of their common connections, he didn't raise any ruckus with his order.

But how could the drunk high schooler beside him tell the difference? In his alcohol and drug-induced high, all he could think was that a regular customer of this pub had suddenly appeared by his side.

"...Hey, how's your family doing these days?"

After receiving his glass of orange juice, the white-hat-wearing stranger suddenly asked him a random question. The glasses-wearing guy was pretty wasted at the moment, only raising a confused eyebrow as he fought back his dizziness.

"...Uhh, do I know you?"

"Ahh, right. Haha, it was my mistake. Maybe this will help you understand better?"

Saying this, the stranger pulled out an old phone out of his pocket, before playing a familiar video on it at full volume and showing it to him, while occasionally sipping on his glass of orange juice.

["Ohhh! Yes.... yes~! Right there~! More! Harder~!"]

Despite his degraded mental faculties, the glasses-wearing guy vaguely seemed to remember something from those moaning noises, when he suddenly felt his heart go cold.

Seeing his reaction, under the white-colored hat, the stranger revealed a toothy grin.

"...Hehe. Seems like you really couldn't forget her, after all."

The glasses-wearing guy looked on with his bloodshot eyes bulging out of their sockets as Damien slowly took off his hat, revealing a head full of bleached white hair.

"Y...Y-You...y-you're that guy!"

"...Huh? What do you mean by 'that guy'? Don't tell me you completely forgot about me?"

Damien pulled up his old photo on his phone, maximizing it on his screen and putting it next to his face with a wide, malevolent grin. 

"It's me, you bastard. The bully you so courageously stood up against and ruined the life of!"

The screen showed a black-haired boy who looked almost the same as him, albeit a bit less muscular, sporting a warm and welcoming smile on his undeniably handsome face.

"C...C-Collins? I-In the end, y-you...were that...Collins?!"

Fighting back his drunkenness, the glasses-wearing guy stood up from his seat with a wobbly gait, his eyes growing redder than a ripe watermelon – prompting the bartender to raise an eyebrow and direct a sharp, questioning stare at Damien.

Damien simply raised his hand to the side, his open palm facing the bartender, signaling that things were fully under his control.

"...Oh, yes. Finally, you remember me! Yeah, you're absolutely right! It was me who banged your dear girlfriend, it was me who sent you that video, and it was also me who got your father so hooked on drugs that he tried to sell your mom on the streets! Can you believe it? It was all me, me, and me!"

Hearing his unrepentant confession, whatever few customers remained in the pub at this hour all showed a pitying expression towards the glasses-wearing drinker.

"Oof! That's pretty brutal, man." 

"Right..." 

"Damn, really."

The glasses-wearing guy shakily took a step back, his face seemingly paler than a ghost. 

He then pointed his finger at him, probably wanting to say something, asking why he would do something like that or something stupid like that, but his mouth could only open and close repeatedly, unable to voice out anything at all.

– Drip. Drip.

Tears finally started to flow out of his glassy eyes, running past his cheek and slowly dripping down the floor below as he tightly clenched his teeth. His hand messily grabbed around in the air, desperately searching for something. 

After a few fruitless attempts, he finally grabbed an empty bottle of soda from the table, before shattering it on the counter and threateningly pointing it in Damien's direction.

"Y-You...so-someone like y-you...s-should just...DIEEEE!!"

Saying those words in a voice choking with tears, he awkwardly lunged at Damien, wanting nothing but to stab his body a thousand times over with the shattered glass bottle.

Unfortunately, he wasn't a match for the current Damien even when he was fully sober, much less when he was wasted so heavily like this. 

"This worthless piece of trash..."

Damien effortlessly dodged his wide swing, easily catching the drunkard's hand holding onto the shattered glass bottle, before punching him twice in the gut, hard.

*Bam* *Bam-!*

"Kahak–! Urrrgghh!!!"

The drunkard immediately doubled over, vomiting a disgusting stream of stinky mess out of his mouth.

"Tch."

Damien scrunched up his face in annoyance, taking a step back to avoid the colorful splatter from dirtying his clothes.

"...Well, since you're already so pathetic, I'll spare you the rest of the beating for old time's sake. Today, I came here to tell you that your father has already sold off your house to get his favorite drugs. So you're officially homeless now, I guess."

He then lightly kicked the vomiting guy on the ground in the ribs, flipping him over like a dying fish with a smirk on his face.

"...Not that you needed a house anyway. Go and find a nice pigsty to live in or something, pig!"

He then walked up to the pub exit before suddenly pausing in his steps and exclaiming, like he just remembered something important.

"Ah! I kinda forgot to tell you, but I'm moving out of this town tomorrow. I think your girlfriend I've been banging lately will be free enough to tend to your emotional distress after that. No need to thank me. Hahaha..."

*Creak~*

The exitway of the pub closed with a creaking noise, leaving a simultaneously crying and vomiting man crawling on the floor. 

That was the last day for Damien in his hometown.