"HWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKHHHHH!!!!!!!!"
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGGGGGGHHHHH!!!"
Amidst the darkness and despair that enveloped them at that moment, both Lucien and Zuko felt as if their skins were being peeled off inch by inch. The excruciating pain transformed into unbridled madness. They suffered to the point where it seemed like nothing could defeat them.
Should they open their eyes?
BRUUUUGH DUUUAAAKH. Zuko's body landed first on the soft surface, like a thick grass field. BRUUUUAKH. Lucien's body landed afterward, crashing onto the young man in a minimarket employee uniform. Zuko felt as if several of his bones were broken simultaneously when Lucien's body, which appeared innocent, struck him.
"What happened?" Lucien asked, lifting his face to assess the situation.
"Ca, Can you ask that after moving away from my body?" Zuko replied, almost passing out. His frail body was hit by Lucien's well-nourished and proportionate physique, making it extremely painful.
"We will die unless we rise from this situation, Zuko."
DRAP DRAP DRAP! HEAHHH! CRANG CTRANG CKANG! BRUAAKH! DUUKH! BLEZZ! JLEB JLEB JLEB!
"Wha… What the f*ck is this?"
*
A seventeen years old teenager sitting in the passenger seat of a black Mazda MX 5 RF convertible (open top) sighed deeply, "Haaaahh," as he observed the moving scenery outside the reasonably priced vehicle, which was around eight hundred million Indonesian Rupiah.
"Why the long sigh, Mas Raidyn?" asked his driver, Pak Dillon, while still keeping a serious gaze on the relatively empty road after the New Year celebration last night.
(Nb: "Mas" and "Pak" is an honorific in the Indonesian language used for older or more respected men.)
"It's nothing," Raidyn replied with a gentle smile. He didn't want the nearly thirty years old man to know about the issues he was currently facing. Feelings of weariness, boredom, and an overwhelming sense of disgust towards many aspects of his life were causing him to desire to shatter the universe like confetti scattered on the roadside.
"Don't be like that, Mas Raidyn. Being human means we must be willing to depend on others. Don't keep your problems to yourself. Otherwise, your head might go bald prematurely," advised the man.
Well, regardless of the man's intentions in saying that, Raidyn, who had grown accustomed to living alone since childhood, had no intention of sharing his burdens with anyone. He worried that doing so might only add new burdens.
He was determined to stay consistent with his stance, even if he still had to go to tutoring on his birthday. He silently resolved not to allow what he was thinking or feeling to leak easily from his expression and be known by others.
At least, that was the principle taught to him by Mr. Raden Prambuditteo.
"All humans must become skilled gamblers to continuously overcome the world," thought the teenager again.
As the car with a 1998 cm engine capable of producing up to 155 Hp slowed down on a road in a shopping complex, Raidyn asked the vehicle to be further slowed down by patting the man's arm on the steering wheel.
"What's up, Mas Raidyn? Do you want to buy something?" asked Pak Dillon. As far as he knew, Raidyn had another tutoring schedule after this, so it wasn't likely that he wanted to visit a place for an extended period.
"Stop here!" commanded the teenage boy in front of a small convenience store managed by an individual entrepreneur. The term grocery store might be more appropriate than mainstream mini-markets in the country like Indoapril or Betamart.
Not long after the car stopped and the door was opened, he quickly got out and darted into the Komunitas Berkah Masyarakat, or Community Blessing Society store. There was only one employee working there, straightening the stock on the shelves to ensure that, even though it was a Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME or UMKM in Indonesia), customers continued to come and go due to excellent service facilitating comfortable shopping.
"Hey, bro," greeted the wealthy teenager from the glass door, waving with one hand and lifting the tip of his nose making it look like a pig's nose.
"Lucien?" replied the employee, who was about the same age as Raidyn, or Lucien perhaps. He stood up, carrying an empty box that contained goods to the cashier counter to welcome the teenager who had just entered.
"Heyyyy, brother!" he greeted.
"Hello, how are you? It's been quite a while since we met in a situation like this," the guy behind the cashier's desk asked. He smiled enthusiastically as it had been a long time since he met someone his age due to continuous work.
Lucien bowed his body and rested his face on the cashier counter where the employee was wiping some items to ensure everything looked perfectly clean, just like his heart. Cough, cough. "It's not been a while since we met, but genuinely long," he replied while blowing the feather stuck on the end of a large pen containing small colorful candies.
Shifting his gaze from his friend's face, the employee stood up straight again and smiled broadly as the glass door opened. He said, "Welcome to the Community Blessing Society Store. Please feel free to shop, Pak."
However, instead of shopping, the newcomer approached Lucien, who still had a sad look on his face at the cashier counter. "Mas Raidyn, are you done? I thought you were just going to shop for a while, but when I saw from outside, you seemed to be enjoying it in here."
Who is Raidyn? His friend could only wonder. "Hey, you'd better leave now, right?" he asked again.
"Zuko, your friend is feeling desperate, sad, and losing hope in life right now. Your response doesn't show any concern but rather asks me to go back to hell with this man?" Lucien responded in disbelief while raising both hands. "You're really insensitive. No wonder you never had a girlfriend."
Oh, you should look in the mirror, buddy. "Why don't you talk to that man instead of me?" Zuko asked, maintaining a professional facial expression and tone.
Lucien immediately turned to Pak or Mr. Dillon, pushing his body out of the store and saying, "I'm going to skip the tutoring for the next two hours. Now you can go home and come back here for the evening tutoring schedule. Understand?" he asked the man.
"Well, in that case, what should I tell the people at home?" Mr. Dillon asked with a worried expression. It wasn't often that his employer's youngest son behaved so difficultly.
"Just tell them you dropped me off at Tutor Andre's house, but I asked you not to wait. If that way, you can free yourself from responsibility, right?" Lucien replied with an indifferent expression, entering the store again.
"Hey, how about your driver? Isn't it okay to leave him looking so hopeless?" Zuko asked, almost laughing but feeling uncomfortable for the driver.
"Hey, how do you lock this door?" Lucien asked while examining the glass door in front of him.
Zuko immediately approached the spoiled rich kid and said, "It's better if you go with him, right? I might get scolded if the store loses money today," he scolded.
"What's the turnover for your store in a day?" Lucien asked calmly with a challenging gaze.
"What the hell do you, a cursed rich kid like you, want to do? I feel uneasy," Zuko asked with a skeptical look.