"Hey... Did you see Jake's gang today?"
"I didn't have any today... Weren't they chasing 'Jason' yesterday? Fuckers even pushed me to the ground."
"Oh! I have some information. Matthew from Jake's group was seen going to the hospital last night. I see his jaw had stitches."
"Holy shit!? For real? Did they encounter some big guy while chasing Jason?"
In Haeseong High School, all students were having a chaotic discussion about the mess that happened yesterday. It was more than easy to get to know the whereabouts of Jake and his friends after they went as far as trying to chase Jason down the road.
Naturally, the curiosity of students picked up, and they tried to know the aftermath, even if it might have been obvious. But that's just the natural instinct of high schoolers, and information like this spreads quite quickly in schools through word of mouth.
The news of Jake being beaten up by someone along with the severe injuries to his friends had already lit up the whole school, while at the same time, attention over Jason also increased as he was the reason for the whole mess, starting with a smashing stone over Jake's head right in front of the school.
Meanwhile, Jason, the centre of all the chaos, never said a word to anyone; he was already a loner in high school. The friends stopped talking to him long ago as he just stayed in the corner of his classroom without any socialisation with anyone else; hence, even after the mess yesterday, nobody tried talking to him, nor did he initiate any conversation.
"Oye? That's him, right?"
"Ahh. He's been beaten up too."
"It seems like he also got his ass smacked; shall we ask what happened?"
"Shhh! Do you really want to drag our friend group into this mess for your curiosity!?"
Jason was still being avoided as he walked down the hallway as the bells of school had already rang up. Since nobody wanted to talk to him, he wasn't particularly interested either, but today he was particularly the centre of attention.
Of course, the state of Jake and his sudden courage in throwing stones straight at his head and running away were a bit of controversy, and then there was also the white bandage rolled up throughout his arm from the shoulders to his wrists. He was wearing a temporary bandage 🩹 even over thr back of his palm and forehead. He was punched quite a few times yesterday, y and the swollen state has yet tobe properly healed upproperly.y
"..."
Jason heard the whispers of these classmates at his school as he walked down the hallway. Some seemed shocked, some still harboured disgust for weak, and many even tried to make up their fantasy theories of what happened suddenly to change his behaviour, but at the end none of it mattered anyway.
'This place is a mess... I got bullied for a whole year straight, yet nobody was interfering or trying to talk, and now just because they are curious, they now want to talk? Their curiosity is worth more than sympathy for my pain...'
Jason scoffed at his own thinking about all that. He had long matured enough to not even consider others opinions as part of his life path. Till now, he hadn't stepped into the world of dominance, but he sure was elite in the realm of survival.
Knowing other people's opinions can turn your life into paradise or destroy it in just a matter of minutes was his first step to survival. He sure knew it well about power balance in society and also how the minds of strong, weak, and in between what are labelled as'sheeps' actually work, but at the end for Loner, at the bottom of all this hierarchy, the world was
"Fucked up... Fuck them all."
Jason sighed, but his demeanour today sure had some changes, unlike how in the past he was like yet another pest that wouldn't be sensed even if he screamed out loud today. Even with that same skinny body filled with bandages, Jason's presence was undeniable, and without even realising it, Jason had already arrived outside of high school at the same exit point where he had smashed Jake's head yesterday.
"Hey, who's that?!"
"The bike!? Holy sh*t, is that a BMW R18!? It's best in the nation!?"
"Did someone in our school have a brother like him?"
"I swear I will commit suicide if some girl from high school calls him her boyfriend."
Jason's daze was knocked over by commotion outside by the students walking by, and out of curiosity, he also moved over in the direction, and as he came out of the crowd, there was a familiar face greeting him there.
"...!?"
"Why are you daydreaming like a loner?"
Lucas sniggered while waving his hands towards who was standing right there in front of school, absolutely surprised.
"Hy-Hyung!? You didn't need to trouble yourself!"
Jason was flustered quite a bit as he noticed Lucas there and all his schoolmates looking back and forth between the two faces. Lucas, on the other hand, didn't mind the attention, seemingly slowly getting used to it in just a few short days, and replied while gearing up his helmet.
"What are you talking about? I told you I would pick you up from the school gate; anyway, get on the back."
"Ah! Right!"
Jason immediately nodded and jumped on his bike as Lucas placed another short helmet on his head too, and without any delay, he immediately left the place along with him.
"Holy crap, Jason even knows such a handsome Oppa?!"
"To think he came to pick up Jason!? Wasn't he from divorced parents? Are they stepbrothers?"
"Who knows! But Jason seems to respect him!"
"Damn this, Jason. I'm kind of envious now."
The moods and considerations of people change really fast towards people who go from high to low and low to high in their lives. This was the same: those who had been inconsiderate of Jason all this while suddenly started to view his positivity just because he had connections with someone high in the social hierarchy.
Money, looks, strength, and connections are the four bases of a pyramid in social hierarchy. It doesn't matter if a person is good or bad; as long as he has even one of them, he shall be at the top of these sheep who have nothing.
Jason didn't lack money from the beginning; his parents might be divorced, but that didn't mean Jason became poor; instead, his pockets got heavier as his parents considered that money could replace the lack of parental love in his life.
Which was of course a big failure on their part as Jason became more and more fragile with a hole in his self-consciousness only to be slapped to the ground by people like Jake who wouldn't have normally picked on someone with money like Jason, but either way, call it a blessing or compensation for a curse. Jason managed to meet his biggest saviour, Lucas, because of this and reversed his whole life problems, and now the one who was in front of Haeseong High School was seen riding the bike, which finally stopped beside the lake by the sunset.
"Why did you call me, though, Hyung?"
As Jason stopped, this was his first question while taking off the helmet. Lucas took his time taking off the helmet while placing his bike by the roadside, as he replied.
"Just to get to know about a few things going on in this Haeseong High School, how long have you been in the high school?"
"It's my last year here; why?"
As Lucas heard him, a satisfied smile crossed his face as he stepped forward and, with a serious expression, questioned
"I will be asking a few hard questions now. Can you tell me all about how your bullying started, like, was there any specific element involved?"
Lucas said that Jason's face visibly darkened with a frown, but he didn't try to avoid the question, and instead, keeping calm, he released a deep breath before opening his mouth while looking at the horizon.
"It all started in my first year. A bunch of them targeted me because I was new—an easy mark, I guess. They picked on anything they could find—the way I talked, the way I dressed. It was like every flaw I had became a bullseye for their amusement."
His gaze shifted to the ground, a mix of frustration and pain evident in his eyes.
"Then there was this incident at the cafeteria. Jake's friend you broke the jaw of; he placed his leg in the middle of me walking, and I accidentally bumped into one of them and spilled his drink. That's when it escalated. They started calling me names and pushing me around. It was like a spark, and suddenly, I became the target for every petty grudge they had."
Jason's voice wavered, but he continued,
"It wasn't just physical. They'd mock me in front of others and make up stories to tarnish my reputation. It felt like I was constantly walking on eggshells, waiting for the next attack. I don't even know why they chose me; it felt so arbitrary."
As he shared his story, a mix of frustration, vulnerability, and a glimmer of resilience surfaced in Jason's demeanor. The weight of unspoken struggles echoed in his words, and Lucas listened, silently acknowledging the pain etched into each chapter of Jason's life.
'It's the usual story of bully victims; the story is nothing too new, but it doesn't matter; murder is the same; murder is just taking lives; same usual story, but it doesn't mean it's forgivable, right? Bullying is even worse, but...'
"This doesn't feel like an ordinary case of bullying."
As Lucas muttered that, Jason seemed a bit taken aback in confusion as the next second Lucas commanded
"Take off the clothes from the upper body."
"In the middle of a road!? What the-! It's winter, you know!"
"Take off"
As Lucas commanded again, a bit hesitant, Jason proceeded with the command as he took off the shirt. Lucas's gaze was stuck over the inner scars of cigarettes, burn marks, razor cuts, and beatings from wooden baseball bats all over the body.
"As I thought..."
Lucas commented with a frown as he signalled Jason to equip his shirt back, and as Jason himself was seen getting filled with frown quite a bit, Lucas suddenly grabbed his head under his shoulders as he confidently stated
"I don't know about here, but from the place I came from, scars are called medals of man! Scars are the body's way of telling stories, and yours speak of battles fought. They're not a sign of weakness but a mark of endurance.
The past is etched into your skin, but it doesn't dictate your future. Wear these scars with a sense of pride—they're proof that you've faced adversity and come out on the other side."
As Lucas said that Jason was left standing with a whole new view towards those scars as a thin smile touched his face, Lucas smirked and, out of nowhere, suddenly slapped Jason's back, making him take a few steps forward as he commanded.
"Anyways, gear up; we will start your training right away!"
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