The Original Bad Boy

Chapter 3| Wet Thy Principal

He blinks back at me, clearly astonished by my reprisal.

"I'm sure you can answer that yourself," he says, his hands clenching. I shake my head, but he completely neglects my concern. "Just keep what I told you in mind." Pivoting on his heels, he walks towards the door we entered from. I stand back up quickly.

"What if I don't?" I yell behind him.

He hardly glances over his shoulder, though the sound of his unamused chuckle isn't hard to miss.

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Who's Skylar Johnson?" I ask in haste. The dead man left a job for me which I want to fulfill. Not everyone in this world is cruel and heartless. Arsen moves around, so that he faces me.

"Why?"

"Reasons," I shrug.

"Let me guess, poor dear Lionell told you a message to give to her," he mocks. Biting my lip, I say nothing. Apparently, the dead man's name is Lionell. "Clichéd story to learn from," Arsen resumes. He adjusts his hands in his jacket pockets and leans against the door. "Lionell fell in love with a normal human and decided to leave our gang. Mind you, we don't even have that many members and he thought he could run away." He shakes his head in pity.

"Gang?" I gulp.

"The people who jumped him that day," he clarifies. "Yeah, if he'd understood sooner that one does not just convert to these average people, he might've lived. The stupid chic disappeared just after his death, too."

Well, that helps so much.

That man was murdered because he fell in love and wanted to live a normal life.

"O--okay," I choke out.

He smirks and leaves me without another word. He knows how terrified I'm of anything dangerous, yet he scared me. Understanding the gravity of Arsen's business, I finalize never travelling in crowd-less places alone. The city's known for being dangerous. Composing myself, I leave the courtyard and enter the building again. The cafeteria is located in the basement, so the flight downstairs from the first floor isn't too long.

Unluckily, I cross a couple passionately making out in one corner.

When I see Arsen, my disgust morphs into disappointment.

What happened to the sweet boy who once told me, "I don't think there's another girl I wanna kiss except you"? I suppose that boy died along with his parents when their house burned down.

My mood drops down incredibly, so I take a seat next to Isa and Danie without lunch. They ask about what happened and I slowly inform them about Math League, Science Olympiad, etc. My friends didn't need to be pushed into danger.

Ben and I are enough.

"Dude, you know how we have our free period in the lunch block?" Isa speaks. Danie and I nod. "Well, our business teacher wants us to take care of his Wet Thy Principal tomorrow. They're gonna make students pay to throw three water balloons at Princi and maybe his ex-girlfriend."

We laugh.

The Principal's girlfriend is none other than the head lunch lady. Their affair has been going on since our Freshman year. He was even going to propose her, if only that fire hadn't happened and he hadn't blamed the lunch staff for it. Consequently, his wedding bells weren't ringing anytime soon.

"Watch all the troublemakers take revenge tomorrow." I chuckle.

Undoubtedly, Arsen will be one of those students.

"Man, Ben is gonna miss everything," Danie says downcast.

Isa and I share a knowing look. "Missing him?" I ask. Danie nods. "Isa and I can set you on a date--"

"How does Olive Garden sound--" Isa barges in.

"No! My parents own a restaurant too, you know?" I butt in, offended. "We don't mind more customers. In fact, we'll give you a discount for being a friend." Isa gives me a high-five.

Danie rolls her eyes and give us a stiff glare.

"Ben and I are friends. He's not my type," she says firmly.

"We don't approve of your type," Isa responds. "Your type is people like Arsen Frasier. That guy's gonna get held back like five times and we don't want you to accompany him during those years." Although a small part of me pities the true words of Isa, I still laugh. Danie's not thrilled by that prediction.

"I might date a jock, but not Frasier," she defends herself. "He's a manwhore. Ain't nobody got time for him."

Isa and Danie continue criticizing Arsen with facts I can't deny. After the courtyard talk, I have first-handed experience with his personality. He doesn't care about anyone but himself. In fact, he condemns of Lionell falling for a simple person like me. What if he falls for a normal person? In all those hookups, he ought to fall in love. Obviously, I fell out of eligibility for that a long while ago.

How much I wish things can go back to how they were before!

Nevertheless, I study the students around me.

Everyone's in their own cliques--nerds, jocks, etc. Arsen has his own clique called the ruthless rebels. As if he senses me watching him, his cold eyes meet mine across the two tables separating us. A blond girl with blue highlights mutters something in his ears, diverting his attention to her. The sad part of it all is that this girl is different from the one he made out with in the stairway earlier.

I look away, not interested in his life.

The only thing I have to look forward to is Wet Thy Principal, tomorrow.

And find information regarding Skylar Johnson.

For that, I have to meet Arsen once again.