A few hours later, when Sho finished school, he went to say goodbye to his friends and directly hurried to his bus so as not to miss it. It was Wednesday; on Wednesday, school ended at 1:30 PM, and Sho's bus was at 1:40 PM.
Sho was tired. This was certainly not due to today's school subjects or even the length of his timetable; it was short. No, the reason for his fatigue ran much deeper. His stream of consciousness caved into his subconscious mind. He suddenly felt like his life had stopped; in an instant, it felt like his whole body blinked.
However, was he truly exhausted to the point of experiencing such sensations? It was an intriguing phenomenon. As his fatigue deepened, his train of thought came to a standstill, and his spirit seemed ensnared in a subliminal state. It wasn't akin to death, but rather an overwhelming sense of emptiness that washed over him for a moment—a feeling akin to the void itself.
'How fascinating,' Sho mused, 'time slowed down for a second there, although my spirit left this world momentarily; but that's inconsequential. What I just glimpsed into was the power of time. I always had that theory in mind—that time could slow down for you if you were smart enough and thought enoughly...sufficiently,' Sho corrected himself. 'As your brain processes more and more information, faster and faster, you do things unconsciously quicker. But it never really had any sort of impact on the physical body. Aside from you stopping on your track as you start looking like a dumbass, retarded person because you dozed off for a few seconds in the middle of the street, at least to the eyes of pedestrians.'
As Sho's newly found insight into the aspect of cognitive functions started contaminating his previous normal thoughts, he had to increase his walking pace to his bus because standing in place wouldn't bring him to his home, nor would the wind start launching him at full speed ahead, granting him flying invisible wings out of nowhere.
He scurried promptly around the roundabout, doubtless. As he walked on the newly neatly paved dark road, with white lines aligned like thin needles, he realized how worried the workers who replaced the old road looked. There were many remnants of tar rubbles further ahead; they had failed their job quite meticulously. 'What kind of bullshit, lazy-ass work is that? Don't they know how to learn from their mistakes at all,' Sho thought in exasperation. 'It goes on like that for the rest of the darned road; it's a full 100 meters.'
Now that his thought process had gone back to normal, he laughed upon seeing how ugly the rest of the road in front of him had become; it was such a weird sight. He thought that these workers were very stupid. After failing to properly build the road for what, at least a few meters, they should have realized that something was wrong. And perhaps a dozen or so more meters, and they could have understood what was wrong or what to do or change. But they didn't—how disappointing.
The way the road looked definitely was not from the pitch substance being a flawed product that they had gotten. It's simply the worker's bad way of using the big machine in laying the liquid. It is ostensible that these workers are meant to know such elementary things. It's their job after all; paving a road in Tar should be fundamental knowledge for them.
As Sho got nearer to his bus stop, he realized how great the weather was today, and he heard someone asking if the date of today was March first, as he was checking the time when his bus would pick him up. Of course, different buses going to different places did not all have fixed schedules of passage at some bus stops. For example, the bus this guy was waiting for was the B-1407. On the first day of each month, it would pick up passengers every hour at this stop. All the other days, it would come only every 2 hours. A very odd thing.
The man had surely been disappointed by the answer; of course, he'd be he had to wait for another 1h27 minutes. As Sho saw the scene before his eyes took an end, taking a deep breath of the interruptable wind, he started wondering what the date of today was too.
It was the second of March. The soft, almost palpable wind breeze was exhilarating. The lazy, magnificent sun ordered his many sun rays to pierce through the tactile, visible wind like a king commanding his soldiers to fend off a strong opponent. As the air blew faster and Sho's eyes started filling with golden waves of happiness, he drifted off in thoughts again but was swiftly awoken by the obnoxiously buzzing sound of the bus.
He let the wind blow guide him to his destination. The bus seat. Not seatbelted though. Almost all seats were full; luckily his favorite seat at the very front of the bus was not taken; there his mind was tranquil. But a chill ran down Sho's spine as soon as he heard the irritable, loud laughter of two women. The two of them had been making fun of a man for his physical handicap. It made him sick.
'Filthy Bitch, immature, naive, stupid, poorly educated, foolish humans.' Sho calmly reflected. 'How do those girls dare to make fun of the guy's deformed face, daringly saying he looked awfully stupid, when in fact the truly stupid individuals here are themselves!' Sho declared authoritatively in his head.
This, as Sho sat in his favorite seat, made him realize how manipulative other kids were. They all act cool and friendly, kind and gently fiddy, but their minds are tarnished by the poor education they received, making them unable to be truly kind and pure-hearted humans. But their minds were also polluted by the environment and their relationships with other dangerous people, turning them into other dangerous people as well. Society corrupts—all humans are enslaved by its nature.
The two girls decided to sit in the first seats at the front of the bus, directly next to Sho's seat range. It made him uncomfortable, having those two ''Cows'' 2 meters next to him, and their continuous laughter became the corruption that drove Sho to regain his most hated form, his tense and devoid-of-emotion state. In this state, he always felt like everyone was watching him, making him feel all the more uneasy.
Sho focused on not crossing eyes with the 2 animals, as it probably would be cringe and create an interaction he didn't want to have. And he would probably want to kill them; that was bad; he already thought about it, so he needed to restrain his thoughts, or at least impede them in some way or another. So he concentrated on other people's conversations; not many talking people were around him, but a few still talked. He put his focus and attention to that, like a poet would in his poems. He decided he would; for the 20 minutes of his bus drive, put his mind solely on analyzing what other people were saying and try to grow smarter and wiser in the process.
But he wanted to try something different; after all, on a bus, it would be quite hard to do what he intended to do; he wanted to change something. He needed a way to think for a whole minute when only a few seconds would pass in the real world. Or at least something close to that in its functioning.
In the end, it truly was all about growth...
Sho unexpectedly and automatically thought back to how he felt when walking in the street when time seemed to have come to a halt. He thought, 'I have already been in that situation hundreds of times, for only a short time, and I can never enter this state on my own will, even if I try. It's only random, it seems.' Sho paused for a moment before wandering further in his thoughts. 'But no, it can't be random; there has to be a way to manually do it. If I can do it without the will to do so, then it's surely even easier to do it on purpose.'
Sho had a way to prove it. He suddenly remembered a technique he had invented when he was much younger and bullied. According to his theory, the technique required utmost concentration and an emotional outburst to work. It was designed to improve his physical abilities, which were lacking. However, it always resulted in failure and only seemed to change his perception of the world around him, ever so slightly...
'Right, I remember that thing. I was just a kid then; I had barely learned how to crawl, but now I'm on my way to becoming a pro swimmer. Things are bound to be different if I try again.' So with that in mind and the fact that Sho was also going to make some adjustments and improvements in his technique, he was ready to try to reach a new type of growth.
Sho's mind traversed through the realms of space and time itself as his pupils contracted and shook erratically. His irises were submerged by the cursing, misty darkness of Sho's eyes. Naturally brown-dark, his irises were now entirely consumed by pitch-black depths as they struggled to handle the pressure of Sho's mental train of thoughts. This peculiar occurrence was the sign that Sho's brain had made a breakthrough in the art of thinking, understanding, reasoning, logic, and cognitive prowess. Sensing the accomplishment of his task, Sho felt as though his mind had ascended to a new plane of capability.
It kind of seemed like a superpower, but it was not; it's totally, disgustingly human. Sho had finally gained this superpower-like ability after 5 years of arduous training, under the harshest conditions and the most crazed environment for a kind soul like him to be in. He could now temporarily surpass his human-set limits upon entering this higher plane, which he would now call ''Void-State.'' He didn't know yet how to fully do this deliberately all the time, though. Here he was lucky it worked, so he was not going to miss the opportunity to train even more and master it. He would at least try to master its activating and deactivating functions first. Now it was time for him to go do his work.
So he attentively began listening to conversations, multiple at once. 7 people were talking, and he could overhear each of their exchanges.
----- The Exchanges -----
"--You know how Lisa got thrown away by her boyfriend, right? It was so funny.''
''-- Indeed, very funny. I saw how she cried like a whale, so fucking hilarious.
''--This whore didn't deserve any better, haha; she always acts so smart in class and talks all happy-dundy outside, like she's some damn angel; I hate it.''
"--What are you saying?! How could you say that about her? I've heard you from back there; do you have any ideas of the gravity of your words?''
''--Huh ?? Mister Justice-Man wants to educate me. How cringe. Shut your fucking trap, you smartass; this literally is none of your fucking business!''
----- In Sho's mind -----
'Extensive outburst of rage from that single polite sentence said by the boy defending the girl, who presumably seems innocent; that's weird.'
'At first, her mocking and insults were delivered with laughter and a chill tone. How did she escalate to such anger towards this boy, to the extent of yelling?'
'Maybe there is more to this story than meets the eye.'
----- The Exchanges -----
''--This girl is a kind soul; a person who hasn't done anything wrong; do you think your so cool insulting her like that?''
The guy sat next to the boy defending the girl talked to him.
''--Bro, stop; you haven't known her for that long; maybe she truly has done something bad, like the rumors say.'' The man sat next to Justice-Man said in a low voice. -"I don't care what bullshit rumors are said about her, i won't allow those bitches to humiliate her like that!'' He yelled in response - ''.. Bro chill, they will hear you if you shout like that...''
The girls heard.
"--What did you just say, you fat piece of trash?! You lump of disguting meat, pumped from toe to head, how dare you call me a bitch? Come say it to me again in my face!'' - "YOU FUCKING BET I'LL SAY IT AGAIN YOU BI---" His friend grabs his shirt and pulls him down. - ''Calm bro! Please, you know those girls are going to give you trouble.'' His worried friend said. - "Humpff...!"
''Yeah, that's better; you roasted pig, shush and stay quiet."
Before the angered protective boy could answer, his friend told him to stand down and let it slide.
''Alright, I won't say any more.''
----- Back to Sho's mind -----
The girls continued on with their gossip, but the atmosphere in the bus was tense; the two kids had a heated argument in front of everyone, so it had gone quite quiet.
The other people talking, behind the two girls, had been mumbling about an English test subject's answers being leaked on the internet. The boy, who was sitting on the left seat, asked his friend where he could find the leaked answers. The other answered he needed to go to a special website and give them a secret password. Only a few people apparently knew of it, and he just so happened to be one of them. He told his friend the code in a weird way; he told him exactly 23 numbers. He paused for a few seconds every time he said one figure or two. Sho realized that the code was not ''19 21 2 10 5 3 20 1 14 19 23 5 18 19" like the man had disclosed to him.
Sho put the code in his mind without anything else to help him remember it. He continued to listen to the conversation between the two students, and when they were done, he immediately caught on to the subterfuge. He began converting the figures into letters according to the alphabetical order.
Here's the result.
S- 19
U- 21
B- 2
J- 10
E- 5
C- 3
T- 20
*
A- 1
N- 14
S- 19
W-23
E- 5
R-18
S- 19
Subject Answers ----- A simple and direct code.
This was the true code that enabled you to gain access to this so-called ''website'', which apparently had an English test answer. Sho still didn't know what test they were specifically talking about or if the whole thing was even real. Though it seemed quite real since Sho did find the website after the man said its name. Still, he didn't bother to type the password for now; he reminisced over what just happened.
You actually had to convert the figures into letters to get the right code. Sho deduced that from the tone of the boy who mentioned ''It's all about numbers'' immediately after reciting the number sequence. He stated this fact with an amused tone, which conveyed a suspicious aura. Sho also discerned the badly hidden sneer as the boy uttered ''fourteen'' randomly in a sentence. Morever, a few minutes after that, the guy pronounced the word ''letters'' in another sentence, but the way he said it was so forced and unatural that it clearly had an important purpose. Sho understood that this guy must be playing with his friend, giving him clues about what the true code is. His friend never caught onto the ruse.
Obviously, nobody would expect someone to grasp the situation in such a moment. His friend certainly hadn't had the time to memorize the figures or understand what to make of them. So imagine how much harder it must have been for Sho, who was six meters away from the man. Moreover, the bus had started to become noisy again. Sho was even facing the opposite direction, so he shouldn't have been able to catch all the words even if he was hyper-focused. Furthermore, translating all the figures into letters would require someone with exceptional intelligence, perceptiveness, attentiveness, deductive skills, and a remarkable memory."
But in the ''Void-State'' Sho's intellectual, perceptual, analytical, and psychological prowess all soared to an incredible level. His cerebral and cognitive capabilities extended by so much that, even for a few minutes, he could almost reach the level of an innate and proficient mentalist. Were talking about a born genius mentalist who trained to further improve his already insane skills. And Sho was able to get close to that level for a few minutes. The greatest mentalists were incomparable to normal human beings; they were able to see things that the naked eye just couldn't. They would understand things that even the smartest human beings couldn't. They could unravel all of this world's secrets and wander.
And yet, Sho aspired for something even beyond that. Something more perfect. He still had room to grow, but time was running low; he only had a few years left before he'd have to work. He needed to achieve extra acumen in the understanding of time control. He knew of the theory about the human using only a small amount of the brain's total capabilities, 10% or so. The thing is, this is only a preconception. But Sho firmly believed that it must be true; after all, he himself could go from a stupid person to an average man's intelligence, to a smart guy, to a genius, and even something surpassing common sense.
But for now, it had been 4 minutes and 24 seconds since Sho entered the 'Void-State.' He was tremendously tired, sweating heavily; his eyes were dead. His mind oscillated between dreams and reality, drifting between unconsciousness and consciousness. Sho's brain began to calm down, cooling off slightly. If pushing his brain to such extreme limits had placed it on par with a computer, then one could say that his brain had experienced thermal overload.
Sho left his superior state and regained his inferior self. He was still superior to others even in this form, though. 14 minutes later, more conversations were engraved in Sho's mind; it was time to leave the bus and go home. Sho still learned more through the other conversation he overheard, but only from those two girls behind him this time. And about the 2 cows next to him, he didn't bother paying any attention to these things.
As the two girls kept on mumbling over the angel-devil girl who had seemingly done something very wrong, gliding over typical girls' gossip to soiling her entire existence, Sho understood that she sailed more towards the devil's side than the angel's. Of course, Sho didn't just blindly believe the words of two immature girls who could very well be liars and manipulators themselves. But in the current situation, they had no way and no reason to lie. And Sho understood the kind of woman Lisa was after hearing what she had supposedly been through during her relationship with ''Nathan'' her boyfriend, which made him dump her.
For 14 minutes, the girls had spent over 7 minutes talking to each other about Lisa's rumors, when she had bumped into her history teacher by ''mistake'' and spilled coffee on his shirt. She had excused herself most theatrically and politely as possible and proposed to go to the teacher's office with Professor Jeaes to ''Give him a proper excuse'' which the two cows found repulsive and hypocritical because most of Lisa's friends knew that she ''Hated'' him. Even if she was always presenting a perfectly nice image of herself, she still admitted to her friends that she hated jeae's.
After the bumping and coffee spill, rumors were saying she had sex with him in order to improve her grades. Indeed, Lisa's history assessment results, which were all in single digits, were now in double digits, often exceeding 16 out of 20. This is obviously illegal because he modified her former marks and increased their grades. That's what Sho understood. Sperm residue was also found on Professor Jeae's desk and the floor. Although they didn't find sperm DNA from Lisa, they still determined from Jeae's unusual nervousness during the usual room inspection that he had done something very bad.
The inspectors didn't want more problems to arise and took no risk, so they arrested him. After being interrogated, he admitted after 14 minutes that he had raped her. Lisa declared in tears in the police station that she only wanted to apologize and nothing more, and then Professor Jeaes told her that if she wanted to be excused, then she had to show him her naked body. He even promised better marks, so she reluctantly agreed. But the man insisted on taking pictures, which she strongly refused. In the end, Jeae couldn't help himself and locked the door before Lisa could even put on her clothes back and leave. At this point, he filmed the whole process to not be accused by her after the deed was done. This is what Lisa proclaimed.
Those pieces of information, very detailed information, were leaked by the son of one of the police officers who interrogated Lisa. From this point onward, Lisa's life took a sudden turn, and everybody either took pity on her, supported her, gave her gifts, or felt disgusted by her. Some felt disgusted because she accepted to show her body. Most of the others said that she was only manipulated and influenced. She hadn't done anything wrong.
Of course, it is reasonable for the story to end here with the professor being a rapist and the girl innocent. But Sho once again saw further; his train of thought completely outstripped the foolish minds of the masses. This story was far too flawed.
While leaving the bus, Sho remembered meeting this girl once in the corridors that same day; she had presumedly been raped. She didn't look shaken at all in his eyes. She had faked it all. Sho could see through all this charade; she had good acting skills and decent manipulating ability, but Sho understood for sure one thing, and that was for the least a very dreadful thing.
That day he also saw the professor walking in the school corridors. The man had a red, dark blue, big wound on the back of his head, a little to the side, close to his ears. If someone were to be hit with a very heavy object in such an area, it would be possible to knock them out, and only a few minutes were needed for an hematoma to appear.
Sho at this time didn't know of the story between the teacher and Lisa. When he saw the mark on the back of his head, he also noticed the trace that the object that had hit him left behind. It was a circular mark; only heavy objects made of heavy material could have done that. Probably iron or gold; those were the most suspicious. Coincidentally, a big trophy made of iron and gold, which happened to have a very circular, solid, and rough base, was in Professor Jeae's office.
He knew this because he had already gone inside the lecturer's office and analyzed his room entirely. Although the object was undeniably a fake FIFA World Cup trophy, the weight of the object probably still roamed between 3 and 4 kilos. It would be very easy, even for a physically weaker person, to knock out a buffer guy with such a thing. Ironically that day, professor Jeae was transporting a box filled with multiple things from his office, including what seemed to be the top of a fake FIFA World Cup trophy.
And in his office, it had been on a very high shelf; someone would need to take a chair to pick it up. Meaning it would have been impossible for Lisa to go grab a chair, climb up on it, and then try to grab the trophy and use it. The only chair that was in the room was Jeae's desk chair, which was facing opposite to the range of shelves. So for him to have such a wound and to be taking away the most suspicious object that could have done this bruise, indicated something. Maybe Lisa attacked him. He knew Professor Jeae a little; he was a very timid and kind man. And quite a loner—a clumsy loner.
Sho started elaborating a theory in his mind—one that didn't look quite good but instead horrorful.
What if Lisa had been the one who attacked Professor Jeaes instead?
Lisa is known as a smart angel, but she struggled badly in history. It was very possible that she could have simply been hiding behind a mask and that she was a manipulator. So she could have been a bad person. Hence she could have wanted to take revenge on him as well as improve her grades. Framing Professor Jeae's would be easy, and done in multiple steps, following this process.
----- Sho's theory and analysis -----
--- Step 1---
Create a scene where you could go to his office and be in front of your classmate. Forming the beginning of a fake story. Once you are in his office, make sure the door is well closed and start manipulating the man and gain time so you can start phase two.
--- Step 2 ---
Take the chair of the guy, climb it, pick the trophy when he is not looking, or just do it fast enough so he can't react. Then attack the surprised individual. He is knocked out for a moment; make sure the door is locked; tie the mouth of the guy. In Jeae's box there was sticky tape, and his mouth was also very dry and red. Putting tape on his mouth would prevent him from making noise; after all, his bureau was not far from the main classes corridor.
--- Step 3 ---
You can ask him to masturbate himself or do it yourself with your hands, spreading false evidence of rape without having to have sex with the man. Even if Jeae's cleaned it up, a UV lamp could still detect it. And pretty sure she could have just knocked him out again after, taking bits of his sperm residues and hiding them somewhere in his office, so when the inspector's comes in to check his office, they would discover his sperm without Jeae's having any possibility of destroying the ''Fake Evidence''.
--- Step 4 ---
Take pictures of the man naked, threatening him to publish them if he doesn't obey your orders and instructions. Hence preventing him from calling the police or telling anyone else's of what truly happened to him. Rendering him the predator, and the girl, the victim.
--- Step 5 ---
Get rid swiftly of any evidence that would make the inspector suspicious of a setup trap. Ask the man to get rid of the objects that she used to attack him with. After all, from the conversations between the two girls earlier, he had heard that the ''Rape'' took place on Monday, the 28th of February, between 11 p.m. and 11:10 p.m. This is what the police department discovered from Lisa's testimony. And since Sho saw Jeae at exactly 11:22 p.m., walking in the corridor hastily, carrying a box with a lot of objects coming from his office in it, he understood the girl had probably asked him to take all pieces of evidence of what truly happened away. It would make sense for Lisa to give Jeae time to get rid of evidence with possibility of innocenting him before she accused him.
---Step 6 ---
Finish the scene. You cry and tell the police that you were raped. The inspector comes to verify the state of the office belonging to the ''accused professor'' They find the sperm residue, DNA, in the end. Now it's proven, the man is indeed a rapist, the girl confesses what she experienced, and now everything is solved: a better grade achieved, financial compensation, and revenge taken on the professor; after all, he knew she hated him.
----- End of Sho's theory and analysis -----
Yeah, that's a very troubling, concerning, crazy theory and analysis. But it would only take one DNA research on the trophy to prove it right.
Sho had analyzed, reasoned, and found out all of that in 5 seconds. He had entered ''Void-State'' a second time just before leaving the bus, making this possible. He already understood how to enter and leave it at will now. But now he truly had to stop. Hence, he decided that he would put this matter away for now.
It was time for Sho's favorite moment of the day to arrive, one he had been longing for since this morning, even more with such a beautiful weather and transparent sky.
Marching through the graveyard on his way back home.