~Chapter 14~
Everything and everyone has their end. Nothing is permanent in this world. So was the existence of the kind old woman. Even if she passed away, she left her last kindness to her only beloved 14 year old grandson—her own house. Her funeral took place on a rainy day. The funeral participants consisting the grandson, her exclusive lawyer and some neighbors and friends were soaked to bones. Even though the others retreated, the grandson stood in front of the grave for a long time. The following night passed on peacefully but what followed the next day made the previous day only calm before the storm.
"Teacher, it's almost time for our tutoring session." A sweet voice made the flocking girls straighten up their backbone and look behind them. It was none other than Emilia Johannes. Even though she is Daniel's ex-girlfriend, she still holds a commanding authority over the female population of the senior year. The addressed person has already finished his lunch at lightning speed, packed his things and was ready to leave. The two of them left the cafeteria together leaving a couple of girls sighing at them in defeat.
This fish too was taken away by the great fisherwoman Emilia Johannes.
After walking half a way path to the library, Emilia stopped in her tracks almost making Rio bump into her. She looked at him sheepishly; "I forgot my bag in the cafeteria, do you mind waiting a bit?" Rio nodded in confirmation that he can wait. He backed to a wall and stood quietly waiting for the blonde girl to comeback. They didn't have the session until after school but he was grateful to her for rescuing him from those flocks of curious females that clearly made him uncomfortable. He didn't have to wait for a long time though because a shadow invaded his peripheral vision.
Emilia was a tad bit late because Seon Hul kept on wiggling her eyebrows at her teasingly and the former had to stay back a bit to respond to all the teasing meted out by her bestie. As soon as she neared the space where she had left Rio waiting, she found a cluster of students standing there as if to witness something. Shouts and yells were coming from the exact place where Rio was made to wait. Emilia prayed that it wasn't what she is suspecting and hoped Rio to be okay, still she started to jog towards the epicenter of action.
That punch came out of nowhere to Rio when a shadow appeared in his peripheral vision. For a moment he saw black in his vision. Before he could recover another kick was landed at him from back. A voice that he recognized to be none other than Emilia's ex-boyfriend Daniel's yelled at his ear; "You thought you could hide away from me forever ya fucker?"
Daniel tried to land another punch but Rio avoided it just in time but he couldn't avoid another kick from behind on the back of his knee. He however blocked another attack from Daniel and that's when the verbal disagreement started.
"Fuckers like you don't deserve her! She is mine and mine only! The one who'll stand beside her is me! If I can't have her then no one can!" Rio swinged his fist blindly at the one who kept on kicking him but he was surrounded by even more boys who bulkier and taller than him, four against one was a tough one. The students surrounding the entire fiasco whispered among themselves if they should stop this or not or whether they should inform a teacher. Rio was already at his limit, blood covered his vision, he was unable to breathe due to the slithery liquid that was trickling down his nose, he tasted metal on his tongue, still he never backed down. Before Danny could deliver his final blow, he was taken down on the floor with a round hose kick.
Everything got paused.
The beating. The murmuring of coward students.
Everything.
The two second silence was similar to the one that can be seen in a battlefield when the leader of one side is slain by the other side.
The round hose kick wasn't the end, Daniel wasn't given enough time to react against his attacker when he was delivered with a series of punches repeatedly. Never had the entire student body have seen such a spectacle where a girl is beating the shit out of a guy who is a foot or so taller than her. The blonde repeatedly hit Daniel holding onto his collar, depriving him of the strength he requires to push her back.
Daniel's cronies hesitated but nevertheless tried to approach the ex-girlfriend of Daniel who was still in the process of destroying the face of the star basketball player. Emilia held up her bloodied fist, most of the blood weren't hers, and looked at the cronies with a deadly glare, as if 'you come here and you suffer the same fate as your leader', moreover, being a girl worked in her favor as the cronies couldn't help but pass some comments at her requesting her to leave Daniel, they possibly couldn't hit a girl, much less drag her away with so many people witnessing everything.
It wasn't until the victim himself held back Emilia. "Puh-please please Emilia stop. He'll die at this rate!" Emilia still struggled to get her fist out of Rio's grip. Daniel had his head hanging to one side, probably unconscious from consistent beating.
"Emilia! Please leave him now. Enough! Please, I beg you." Rio begged; "If you keep this on you'll sued for murder!"
"YA EMILIA!" A voice boomed from behind the throng of people who were surrounding the boys and girl. Upon hearing such loud voice, all the eyes of people immediately looked at the person who screamed so loudly. Instinctively they made way for her to reach the spot where Emilia is holding up a profusely bleeding Daniel up by his collar and a hurt Rio struggling to prevent Emilia from landing another punch at the unconscious basketball player.
"Tsk!" Seon Hul examined the bloody face of Danny. "If you want to hit him then you should've done it where there are no eyes! Aish! Now we have so many witnesses!" The clustering people immediately started to scatter away, shuffling their feet towards their respective classes. They didn't expect that the bestie of Emilia would suggest her something even more dangerous than beating up Daniel rather than stopping her from doing it. They didn't feel safe around these two crazy people so they started to mind their own businesses.
An unconscious Daniel was carried away by his fellow teammates who nodded at the Korean girl, silently thanking her for stopping Emilia and knocking some sense in to her. Seon Hul looked at the introvert boy and the extrovert girl in front of her and spoke.
"Now, care to tell me what exactly happened here?"