Everyone Deals With A Thing Or Two

"Uhh?"

Levi stared bug eyed, his mouth was squirming as he stammered to speak.

"M–my hero… y-y-your face?"

Vincent smiled, rubbing the back of his hair with his eyes shut.

"There are still few places bruised as you can see the plasters but I'm fine."

"No! This is beyond anything I expected! Does your superpower include super fast healing too?!"

Levi exuded fumes of excitement through his nose as he eagerly asked Vincent.

Not that he was going to get an answer though. Vincent at this point was just going to let him play all dumb by his own.

It was probably for the best that Levi should be this way. No matter how much he would've loved to overlook it. The fatty was part of the eight after all.

He sighed as he hung his cross bag on the backrest of his chair. Then sitting down, he turned to the fatty who was also taking his seat—the metallic chair looked like it was barely hanging on.

Feeling a little pity for the chair, Vincent drew his eyes back to the fatty who was diligently brining out his text books, ready for the first class.

"Hey Levi…" He whispered, not wanting to catch any attention from the murmuring class.

Levi looked like hid ears twitched, immediately he heard his name from the side, his head turned.

"Yes, my hero, what do you need?"

Seeing him respond like that, Vincent couldn't help but hesitate.

'What's it with that response?'

He sighed and spoke anyways:

"So, I wanted to know. Do you happen to know the names of other seven guys that were there yesterday?"

Fatty fumed through his nose again, eyes sparkling with flames of found purpose.

"Of course, I know them very well."

Vincent allowed a thin smile.

'Of course you do…'

He opened his eyes and asked:

"Can you tell them to me and maybe a little about them. I want to know one or two things."

Levi's eyes glimmered.

"Oh my God, are you trying to put together a squad?"

Vincent's brows drew a taut line of puzzled frown across his face.

'Seriously, what is this guy?'

Was Levi just a fat guy who's in his head or was he getting at sosomething?

Vincent's puzzled frown persisted for a while before he erased it a way and smiled sheepishly yet again.

"What do you mean squad, I'm just trying to know everyone and see how I can help whatever way…" He paused, his face growing serious, "...like it or not, I've sort of put them in a kind of trouble now."

Seeing the sternness on Vincent's face made the fatty change his expression for a while, he stared a couple of seconds point blanked before putting a finger beneath his jaw and rolling his eyes to catch something from his brain.

"Ah! That's right, I did hear something of some sort happened."

Vincent looked at him carefully and asked after two seconds of lingering:

"Some sort? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Okay, so there's this guy of the seven guys. His name is Kasem Punchit, apparently his mother runs a Muay Thai dojo but he had never showed interest, yesterday after what happened he attended the dojo for the first time."

Vincent's brows scaled up.

"Wow…" He frowned a second later, "but how does his mother run a muay thai dojo and he never showed interest until yesterday?"

Levi intensely rubbed his chin, eyes tightly shut then he opened them before responding:

"How do I put this… Kasem has always been this nonchalant guy ever since we were kids. I think he is the kind of guy that has no motivation to do anything. Which is why I was really surprised when I heard."

Vincent looked at him for a while and looked away, glancing at the entrance to the classroom, first class would start very soon, he had to make sure their homeroom teacher —his crush was not coming yet before continuing:

"And how exactly do you know all of this?"

Fatty gave a smug grin.

"Well, I've been friends with Kasem and Gunner for since we were kids. We practically live in the same neighborhood, Northern Mereung district."

Vincent mouth fell.

"Northern Mereung district, dude I've heard of that place. People say it's full of gangsters."

Actually, the only time he got to hear of it was when he was looking for a place to stay–he wanted to settle for Northern Mereung district since there was a straight bus that took them to school.

School was pretty close and he needed no paparazzi getting down there. But the agent advised him against it, saying that the place is flooded with hooligans.

Of course, he didn't think twice and went for another place even though it was farther.

Still it's a mystery how he always manages to get to school faster than fatty.

Letting another smug grin, Levi snorted before responding this time:

"Oh well, the gangsters have a rule besides, thanks to Kaesim's mother, they there not touch the residents. Plus they can be quite friendly too sometimes."

Vincent looked at him with doubtful eyes, he didn't know whether to be worried or to be relieved. The fatty considered gangsters to be friendly sometimes….

At least that part about Kaesim's mother keeping them at bay sounds about right. The fact that she runs a dojo must mean she's a master at muay thai.

Honestly he wished he could learn from her.

But it was probably not possible, at least not yet… not with Daniel and Blu breathing down his neck.

Vincent picked up his pen and scribbled the first name on the back of his notes, he added a few information particularly about the mother and shifted his eyes to Levi.

"Oh, the next. I guess we have Gunner, I mentioned Gunner before right. Gunner Wasan. He's the slim spiky brown hair guy with vertical eye balls and shark teeth."

"Shark teeth?" Vincent paused to think backwards, he returned with a concordance nod.

"Indeed, I think I remember someone like that, it did make me wander for a moment, is a guy like that being bullied, cause he actually looked like a bully."

Levi nodded, his face stern to a degree.

"You are right. Gunner is a bully actually, of us three he was the tallest and the one with the most gut, he was very playful, arrogant and loved to put us in a lot of trouble. But he moved away to stay with his mom abroad for a few years, he recently came back around our third year of middle school and was totally changed."

Vincent thought deeply.

"Then something must have happened?"

"That's our guess but he never talks about anything…"

"I see…"

He wrote down that too and looked to the next—they were able to run down five names before the homeroom teacher entered the class.

Vincent had a lot to think about during the entire classes before break.

Those guys, they sure have had their own share of hardship.