2.0 | Poison Honey

iii. fear

T H R E E
Harrison Werner

Five days a week, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., we adhere to a strict regimen. Everything in our lives is controlled.

But then something like Adam beating you up, unprovoked, in the break between English and Biology happens and you realize there is no such thing as control.

There is only chaos.

None of it came as a surprise.

Not the mean right hooks or the shit talking or the broken glasses or bleeding nose.

But the new boy stepping sure did come as a big one.

He didn't look like the kind of hero you'd want. No, not at all, with his loose school uniform, loosened tie and scuffed shoes. He'd held a cigarette in his right hand, and had this lazy look in his eye. He is in almost all my classes and he spends them looking outside the window.

I guess that made him all the more heroic.

But heroism gets you nowhere in a school rooted in nepotism.

It takes time to learn the system, but once you do, it all makes sense.

There is a pecking order that has to be followed, an animalistic hierarchy that threatens to be deep-rooted.

And the first rule is: Fear.

It's the most basic, the most human emotion.

As kids, we're afraid of everything. 

The dark. The boogeyman under the bed. And we pray for morning. For those monsters to go away. Though they never do.

Not really.

Just ask Adam Reichen.

Because no one touches Adam Reichen. 

Son of the school board member.

Heir to a business empire.

Untouchable classmate who likes to beat up people that threaten his pitiful sense of manhood.

Today though, Adam has found a new victim. And it's the new boy.

I really tried my best to warn him. There is a reason why no one else helped me while I was being beat up.

And that is how I find myself outside Mr.Reichen's office on the highest level in the school, watching as the new boy packs his bag and leaves the office, followed by the math teacher.

The new math teacher? Mr. Nakamura?

That's when it hits me: The new boy is Mr. Nakamura's son. Eavesdropping is bad, but this situation calls for special circumstances, especially when I might indirectly be the reason a boy gets expelled on his first day of school.

"You could've avoided it. It's your first day of school. And now I'm going to lose my job. Thanks a ton, kid."

"It's simple. He was beating him up. It crossed bullying, that was abuse. He could've died. I helped him out. It was the right thing to do. You taught me that, dad."

"Damn you and your righteousness."

Mr. Nakamura's words are meant to be harsh but I can hear the way he smiles through every enunciation.

"Sorry Dad."

"It's ok. It was shitty pay anyway. You'd think they'd be less racist about the salary. It's fine Kaito, we'll pull through. We've been through worse."

Kaito's lazy features turn into a natural smile.

Mr.Nakamura puts an arm round Kaito's shoulders and leads him down the hall to the steps.

Kaito looks back.

Straight at me.

And then he winks.

🍯 🐝