"Wha..."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Lucas questioned as he looked at that kid with a serious frown and dark look on his face while he had fallen over the ground because of Lucas's sudden invention, looking at him with a face filled with sweat and a dark cloud covering his head.
Lucas said that there was no reply, just a dark frown on his face as he stared blankly at that disgusting substance lying on the ground with dead pan eyes.
"Were you seriously about to drink that? Now standing in front of the women's bathroom? Would you run naked here now, assaulting women? What the hell is wrong with kids?"
As Lucas was muttering, the crowd slowly started to build up. It was the bathroom entrance, hence it didn't take long for the crowd to start gathering, but as Lucas was saying all that, his eyes caught a cigarette burn mark right under that kid's shirt's collars. There wasn't just one burn mark; from the corner along, Lucas could see more than 3 of them, and they weren't too old either. Maybe done within a span of 3 to 4 days.
"Huh?"
Lucas suddenly leaned down at that dazed kid and grabbed his collar, and as soon as he lifted the shirt a bit, his eyes completely widened, and the glow of a beast in his pupils suddenly started to glow again.
"Follow up fast."
Lucas tightly grabbed his arm as he observed the crowd had slowly started to take out cameras by now and immediately rushed out of all the crowd gathering there while dragging this kid along.
"Huff! Huff! Hu-! Stop! You are going too fast! Let me catch my breath! He-hey!"
The kid was seen being dragged through the emergency stairways, which weren't used by people normally, and it was also an isolated area away from crowds.
"Hey! St-stop!"
"..."
After his continuous begging, Lucas finally stopped as he tossed him in front of him with a cold look in his eyes and, while pointing towards the burn marks of cigarettes, coldly questioned
"What the hell with burn marks on cigarettes?"
"Ci-cigerette..."
The boy turned towards his own shirt collar, and as he looked down, he noticed the marks were visible from the corner through; they can be easily missed if not looked at carefully. It was still quite bad for him to get caught with that.
"Y-you misunderstood! They aren't cigerette marks! I lost my balance while frying my food yesterday and accidentally got some hot oil over my neck area. It's a oil burn mark, not the cigre."
"Don't teach me, kiddo."
Lucas's reply was cold; he wasn't being kind or anything; his motto was simple: to get information, just overpower the fear of others with your own.
"I-i that was; I just wanted to act like-? I just wanted to see how it would taste, and um, there is a challenge going on on the internet to act like that, soo, um so I"
The whole vocabulary of that kid was an absolute mess; he couldn't talk properly, he didn't have any clear responses, and he was just acting absolutely terrified with everything in the mess.
Lucas, frowning and with a stern expression, glared harder over that kid's face as he commanded with a sigh while looking at his watch.
"Alright, kid. I don't have time for games. What's going on? Why were those guys dragging you around?"
The boy was visibly scared; he struggled as he tried to respond, but the fear instilled inside him kept overpowering his thought process.
"I didn't want to do it, but they said..."
Lucas interrupted, cutting straight to the point he commanded again but in a much softer tone of voice after considering they weren't going anywhere if he maintained that hard personality in front of this scared deer.
"Don't be scared of me... I'm not reporting you anywhere; just tell me what happened; it's annoying when shit happens on days like this."
The boy, feeling the pressure, reluctantly revealed the details of the tasks assigned by the bullies, emphasising the threats and intimidation.
"I... I didn't want to do it, but they forced me. They said they'd make things worse if I didn't follow their orders. They've been bullying me for months, and I didn't know what to do.
They beat me up for no good reason every day! I have turned into their anytime money-spilling punch bag; the ones that were my friends all ignore me; even my girl friend broke up with me because I was being targeted at such a time! I don't know what to do! My parents don't even consider it an issue when I complain! Teachers also ignore it all, and I get bullied even more for reporting!"
Lucas, though maintaining a tough demeanor, internally felt the gravity of the situation, he wasn't the type to care but this right here was all result of his instinctual response, from beginning he had no idea why he reacted that way for a random kid getting bullied on his own but the moment he saw that boy he felt as if he has seen a reaper standing right behind him, the scythe of that reaper was right on that kid's throat and it couldn't get more obvious in eyes of Lucas they if he had ignored this kid's situation today the next day will be the news of his suicide on telivision while he is the one having peaceful dinner at end of the day and the taste of that food wouldn't be tasting good anytime soon
"You're in deep trouble; the teachers in your school won't consider your situation even if you commit suicide from the roof. Even little schools have a lot of connections with authorities and will do anything to maintain their reputations.
School bullying is a serious issue, but authorities and society won't be taking it seriously anytime soon; they think it's just school fights between kids; it seems like they never saw your injuries."
Lucas commented as he lifted up the shirt from the back only to see more severe wounds over his back, and as his frown turned even darker, he commented
"And the fuck is wrong with your parents? Are they retarded or what?"
"D-divorced... I live in separate houses for six months each. The father is working out most of the time, and the mother runs a parlour, so they don't have much time to discuss things with me."
Lucas stopped as he straightened up his shirt collar and commented.
"More like they just want to ignore your issues so they don't need to face their divorced partners again. Ego is bigger than the child's future."
The boy was silent; he knew that answer all along but never wanted to admit it; he didn't want to accept that the last hope, his own family, would also be ignoring his grief like that; he grew up too much or too fast for his age because of the world fucking him every second and every day of his life.
""I thought someone would care, you know? Teachers, parents, friends... But no one gives a damn. It's like I'm invisible. No one cares. I'm just... alone.
I don't know what to do now... Now, even if they won't be helping me at the end, then! Then isn't it better to just commit suicide than to live off in this reality of hell?"
The boy suddenly started to break down, grabbing his head with both arms and trying to tear off all the hair in his head in frustration while slowly collapsing on the ground right in front of Lucas. Lucas saw all that was left with a bitter taste in his mouth as he finally decided to seriously step in.
"Guess you're lucky I happened by. It's simply because I don't like some small fry being tossed around by these bunch of potatoes; it hurts my conscience as a man if I ignore it.
I'll help you out, but don't expect any warm and fuzzy speeches. Don't expect any handholding. We will play it my way."
As Lucas said it, he took out his phone and questioned the boy.
"You got a phone?"
"..huh? Uh! Y-yes! My parents gave me one since they aren't home many times or come late and there is delivery to receive many times."
"Write down my number, then save it as 'Lucas Hyung', what's your name?"
Lucas was nonchalantly questioned as he scanned the QR code from that boy's phone to exchange numbers. The boy was still confused and stunned as Lucas questioned him, but the next second, his eyes lit up like twinkling stars as he responded.
"Jason Lee"
"Not a bad name very well. Now then here is the first task: by this evening before 6 o'clock, you are going to drag those bullies of yours with you to that empty park in front of your school."
Lucas's command seemed quite serious; the boy surprised suddenly rose his head in confusion, as if confirming his question.
"Hanseong Highschool?"
"That's what it states on your shirt, doesn't it?"
Lucas pointed at the mark of his high school symbol on his shirt, and with that, he started to leave, only to hear that high schooler's plea.
"They will kill me! How am I even supposed to be doing it!? They will beat me up even more!"
"So what have you been enduring all this time, right? Get beaten up more today then, better than flashing yourself in a female bathroom and eating that shit worse than the gutter either way."
Lucas coldly scoffed away his begging voice, and as he was about to say more, Lucas suddenly turned back from the stairs, giving him a cold glare. He commented again.
"And yeah... Believe me, if you don't finish the task today, my fists will hurt far worse than all the pain you have endured till now."
With that, Lucas left those stairs, leaving the boy in even more distress than he was before, but at the same time, the light of hope in his eyes has brightened up enormously as this was the first
The first time someone actually believed him, even if it might have been just him thinking it all up, even a fake light of hope was better than the eternal darkness he had been enduring till now.
∆∆∆
[https://discord.com/invite/UQP4ufaRWz]
Join the damn Discord, you ungrateful followers! Follow the commands of the almighty (눈‸눈).
∆∆∆