Young Writers Society

Chapter 03

Flashback End. What do you guys think?

Anyhow (I almost did a entire paragraph about the use of “anyway” and ”anyhow”, but I filtered it out, feel blessed), on the next day of school, Isac did an amazing job in pretending yesterday never happened, actually he ignored me in such a fabulous fashion that I could give him a oscar.

Or my existence in this classroom was so insignificant that it was this easy to ignore.

Pick one.

The not so shocking answer? Both probably are correct! Bingo!

Now let me cry in the corner for a bit.

Ok, now that the self-loathing part is over, let us continue.

After classes ended, the first thing I did was send a text to Lucius, saying that Gaen had asked me for a favor, so I wouldn’t be able to meet with him today.

That was a lie, but I really didn’t want to get him involved in any more bizarre situations with neightboors than he had already gotten, so by mentioning Gaen’s name, I would eliminate that possibility (I hoped at leats).

Who’s Gaen, you ask? Well, i’ll ask you to have a bit more patience.

After sending Lucius that text (at this point I was already outside the classroom), I waited for Isac’s appearence from the stairway nearby the classroom, using the uncertain time until his apearance to muster the courage to approach him.

Please don’t be mistaken, I really wanted to lend a hand to Isac, as someone who also fell victim to a neightboor, I know better than anyone how hard and painfull it can be, but even I can’t speak about the loniless he must have felt for only-god-knows how long he had to bear this burden all by himself, considering I had the luck to have Gaen, Lucius and Lia by my side when I had to deal with mine. So if there was anything I could do to at leat ease the burden on him for a while, I would, even if it would mean put my life on the line, after all,

This is all i can do.

Helping people is about the one thing I can do right. So I would do it.

But even then.

Aproaching people is really fucking hard (if there are any children reading this, please don’t use this language at home.).

Alright, I don’t have the time to be anxious now, he will come out at any moment, so I just have to present myself in a friendly and aproacheable way, it shouldn’t be difficult at all...

Right?

At the moment I began questioning my abilities to interact with other human beings (wich, being honest, could be a lot better.); like a alarm clock, or better yet, a splash of cold water bringing me back to reality, with his head down and closed posture, Isac walked out of the classroom.

“H-hey, Isac, can we talk?”

I may or may not have edited out a bit of my hesitation and a slip of tong off this line. May or may not.

In the end, I went up to him.

Isac stoped, looked at me with his fierce eyes that could very well pierce through my skull, and with a voice driping with poison in a way I couldn’t lead myself to believe was natural, he straight up said:

“Do I have to waste my valuable time with a little piece of shit like you?”

He said exactly that, it’s not an exageration nor an hyperbole, I could never forget the first words we exchanged with each other.

Really, after I had spent those valuable ten minutes psyching myself up you had to open your mouth and demolis all my hard work like that.

What a cold-hearted person.

Really, my heart hurts.

“Sorry to bother, but it’s about what happened yesterday after class.”

When I mentioned ‘yesterday after class’ his eyes went from machine-like harshness to suspicion and an imeasurable amount of a weird emotion that I couldn’t quite figure out in a second, probably due to shock, I imagine, and after that, they became full of an insidious hate that made my insides want to run.

“Is that so? Follow me.”

He said harshlly, walking towards the corridor with quick steps, borderline impatient.

“Are you coming?”

He asked in a tone that just barelly didn’t earn an exclamation point, and the fact that it didn’t somehow made it more stressing.

And with him leading the way, completelly diferent then what I had planned, we went down the hall.

Chapter 04.

We walked without exchanging any words.

Please take notice of the term ‘exchanging’, a exchange only happens when both sides give something. So in a dialogue, if only one part talks, it wouldn’t count as a “exchange of words”.

Basically I tried asking a couple of times where we were heading, or just get some small talk started to pass time, but it seemed like he had completelly cut off himself from the world, and the only thing in his mind was getting to some destination.

Some destination.

As I said in the beggining, I had no idea where we were going, but at the halfway point I already had a good idea: The practice building. It was usually empty arround this point in time. I wonder if this had anything to do with what he intended talk about.

Actually, of course it had, I mean, having thorns coming out of your body isn’t something you just talk about in a hallway full of people.

Oh man, how I wish it was as simple as that.

In the end, he didn’t call me to the practice building because he wanted to talk, actually, it was quite the opposite of that.

After we entered the building, Isac properlly greeted the person guarding the entrance, wich in fact surprised me quite a lot, and walked all the way to the second floor in a surprisingly quick pace.

What, was he on a track team or something? What’s next, is he going to stab me wit-

At the middle of my tought process, without even having the time to finish my half-assed reference, I felt something cold on my throat.

It was something metalic.

A pocket knife.

So he actually carried one of those, huh?

“Oh man, oh man, I really didn’t want things to come to this you know? Tell me, just why did you have to bring that unfurtonate event up, huh? Why couldn’t you just forget it and leave alone?”

“W-well...”

The moment I opened my mouth, he kicked me in a unfurtonate place, threw me to the ground, held my hands behind my back and, again, placed his knife on my throat.

Frankly, if I am to be honest, it was not that outlandish to me that he managed to bring a pocket knife to the school grounds. It was surprising, but not impossible. But straight up kicking me and imobilizing me on the ground wasn’t on my list of possibilities.

But, even tough this tought might be careless and risky, even tough it could just be how he is after all, I can’t bring myself to believe that he is doing this to me just because.

I said earlier that I saw a emotion that I couldn’t quite describe in his eyes, but looking back now, I think that emotion was fear.

I think he was scared.

Scared of something I could do.

And that brought me to a tought

Was I the first one to find out?

“Please don’t say anything Hon’i, I would ask you to not even breath, but that would kill you and bring undesired attention to me, and that would be inconvenient.”

Is that your reason to not ask for such absurdities?! Like I would just obey and stop breathing like an obediente little dog? Not even dogs would do that.

“Well, seens like there’s no way to keep at least the bare minimum hidden from you anymore is there? After you saw that, so I guess i’ll reveal you at least that much, the bare minimum.”

You know, you didn’t need to get me immobilized on the floor for that, but I guess he has his reasons to not trust me, so i’ll let that slide.

Really, how idiot am I?

Please don’t answer.

“So, as you saw, porcurpine-like spikes come out of my skin, and what you probably don’t know, is that it happens every time someone gets trough my guard, or better phrased: affects me emotionally, try to get close. Everytime such a thing happens, thorns start to pierce through my skin the same way you saw. That began 4 years ago. That’s all you need to know.”

He finished bluntly. Like he had completelly distancied himself from it, I couldn’t see his face so, of course, i couldn’t figure out the expression he was making, but despite his voice, i’m sure it was not a happy one, a melancholic maybe.

It puzzled me how one could talk about something so bizarre and painfull just like that, and it pained me to think of the possibility that it happened regularly enough for him to not be shocked anymore...

Like it happened so much he wasn’t shocked anymore, like he tried so much to get close to people, or people tried so much to get close to him, that the thorns became a trivial matter that could be spoken in such a tone.

Or maybe the tone itself was an act and even now he was affected.

Or maybe he was just so cold it didn’t affect him at all.

I couldn’t tell.

He was a mistery.

“Oh, please, don’t feel sorry for me, if you have the time to pitty me, I would much rather you spend that time erasing that event from your memory. I will state this cleary: I don’t need anything from you, there is nothing you can do for me. So, if you could do me a favor, Hon’i, follow my example and pretend nothing happened, that is all.”

As he said that, Isac carefully moved his knee from my back, released my arms and removed the knife from my throat, but along the way

I don’t know if his hand slipped or if it was intentional, but the sharp part almost cut the side of my throat, in a safe are without many arteries.

Note, that I said ‘almost’, you probably assumed that was because it didn’t cut me, but the truth is that the part of the blade that should have cutted me simply desapeared

Like it wasn’t even there in the first place, at the moment the blade touched my skin, that part of the knife ‘met it’s end’.