2.0 | Poison Honey

i. strawberry milk

O N E 
Kaito Nakamura

I watch the strawberry milk drip down the boy's hair.

Down his standard white shirt.

Down the school's blazer.

I watch it pool around his scuffed inked canvas shoes.

His glasses are cracked up beside him, the metal stems are bent at odd angles. They gleam in the pretentiously bright lights.

His nose is bleeding, and I watch as the blood drips down, collecting at his chin.

Drip, drip, drip.

Even though it's my first day in this school, I've seen this boy before. He's in almost all of my lessons. He sits by himself, near the windows, not talking to anyone, just reading books. Maybe it's why I took the trouble of noticing him anyway, in the first place.

Harrison, I think his name is.

I watch as Harrison's eyes cloud with untasted anger as he looks up at the boy pouring it down at him. Almost everyone I met told me to steer away from him. Stay away from Adam, he's the school board executives' son.

By the end of the warnings, I'd realized one thing: most of them admired the fear he instilled in others. Like some sort of twisted fascination.

But never once does Harrison fight. Something is holding him back. Much to his credit, Harrison stares right through the strawberry milk waterfall that drips down his brown hair, looking Adam dead in the eye. A small act of defiance. But a loud and clear message sent right at his bully.

It is in that moment that I choose to respect his silent defiance.

Adam does not.

"Who're you staring at, punk?"

What a prick.

Another swing of his fist, and I won't be able to control it anymore.

And then I hear Harrison's nose crack. He crumples to the floor and grits his teeth in pain.

I walk up to Adam.

And punch him.

I hear his nose crack.

Like the sick fool that he is, Adam starts to whimper on the floor like a pathetic dog. He was knocked down to the floor in one blow.

All bark, no bite, I guess.

The left side of his face is pushed in a pool of his own blood.

More blood than Harrison's.

A success.

The two lackey's surrounding him run down the corridor, probably to get a teacher.

Two things happen within the next moment. One is the absolute disgust that surges through me as I see Adam sprawled up on the floor, oddly slumped against the locker.

The second?

I'm being dragged to the Headmaster's office.

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