The next day, rumors spread across the campus.
Students from Class 10C had done something terrible the previous day.
When Damaz arrived and sat in class, he overheard their story.
Almost everyone from Class 10C had sneaked out to a restricted area during lunch break.
But not everyone had gone.
"It's Area 921," someone said.
That area was forbidden for students to enter.
But yesterday, the security guards had urgent work elsewhere, so the students took the opportunity to sneak in.
Unfortunately, a CCTV camera caught them.
The vice principal assumed the entire class had gone there.Without checking properly, he stormed into the classroom and beat everyone.
Later, the head teacher scolded him because not all the students had actually gone.
The vice principal was known for having a short temper.
Everyone around Damaz kept talking about Area 921, but he didn't even know what that place was.
Suddenly, realization hit him.
That fool…
He must have known this beforehand.
He stared at me on purpose, he thought
When Yuudie walked into the classroom, Damaz stared at him with wide eyes.
Yuudie noticed immediately.
"What?" he said lazily.
"Can't get enough, even with four-eyes?"
He rolled his eyes upward and laughed.
He dropped his bag on the desk and leaned toward the window.
Soon, the same group of boys approached again.
"We should frame this fool too," one of them whispered.
"That he was with us yesterday."
Yuudie suddenly stood up, pretending to be scared, and clung to Damaz again.
"What do you want?" he asked, hiding behind Damaz's back.
"Tell the teachers you went with us yesterday," they pressured him.
"Where?" Yuudie asked while holding Damaz tightly.
"I went upstairs with him," he said, pushing Damaz forward.
"Right, four-eyes?" he asked, nodding toward Damaz.
But Damaz stayed silent.
The boys tried persuading Yuudie.
"Just tell the teacher it was you who led us there," they said.
"You're a fool anyway."
"We'll buy you food… anything you want."
Yuudie tilted his head.
"Lead where?"
"Area 921."
Yuudie suddenly slammed the desk and burst into laughter.
"Wow! A puzzle game area! Didn't you win?"
The boys stared at him in annoyance before eventually giving up and leaving.
"Get off!" Damaz pushed Yuudie away.
"Don't cling to me like I'm your mother," he said irritably.
Yuudie simply returned to his seat.
During the lecture, Damaz noticed something strange.
Yuudie wasn't listening to the teacher at all.
Instead, he sat there with a faint, unsettling smirk, his eyes moving from one bully to another. It looked as if he were plotting something against them.
"Urrgh," Damaz muttered internally. "Why am I sitting next to this psychopath?"
"He's insane or what?"
Damaz couldn't get yesterday's image out of his mind — Yuudie's evil smile while listening to the vice principal beating the class next door.
The memory made him uneasy.
He tried his best to ignore the fool.
But after a while, Yuudie's smirk grew even more disturbing. Damaz couldn't concentrate anymore.
Finally, he picked up an eraser and tossed it lightly toward Yuudie.
Yuudie looked at him.
Damaz quickly made a sign with his fingers — pointing to his head and then toward the front of the class — telling him to focus on the lecture.
He simply couldn't concentrate while Yuudie kept making that strange face.
After a moment, Yuudie scribbled something on a piece of paper and slid it toward Damaz.
Damaz looked at it.
"Wanna escape every beating with me?"
Damaz froze.
He grabbed the paper and wrote back.
"Proved. You're a psychopath."
Yuudie read it and quickly wrote another line.
"I'll escape alone if you don't want to, idiot."
Damaz glanced sideways at him and made another sign — pointing at his mouth and then toward the teacher.
"I'll tell the teacher," he whispered.
But Yuudie only smirked quietly and wrote again.
"I'll make sure you're the first one to get beaten next time."
Damaz immediately stopped responding.
He didn't even want to look toward Yuudie again. What a nuisance, he thought.
A few minutes later, Yuudie suddenly raised his hand.
"Sir, may I go to the toilet?"
Damaz flinched and glanced at him.
Yuudie gave him another smirk before leaving the classroom.
For some reason, Damaz felt uneasy.
After a few minutes, he stood up as well.
"Sir… may I go out?"
The teacher nodded.
Damaz walked toward the washroom.
He was just about to enter when suddenly someone grabbed him and slammed him against the wall.
It was Yuudie.
"I knew this fool was more foolish than me," Yuudie whispered.
"Let me go, you psycho!" Damaz struggled.
They stared at each other for a moment.
Then Yuudie suddenly let him go.
But before leaving, he said with a grin,
"Thanks for trusting me, Damaz!"
"Haha!"
Damaz stood there, lost, shaking.
Inside the bathroom, he stared at himself in the mirror, breathing heavily.
That's a trap…
I almost died for a second when he pinned me.
The whole day, Damaz couldn't stop thinking about it. He wanted to ask Yuudie what had happened yesterday.
But they weren't close.
And that fool seemed completely unstable.
After school ended, Damaz walked home alone, silently watching the other students laughing and running as they headed home.
Suddenly—
THUD!
Someone kicked him from behind He nearly fell forward.
When he turned around, he saw Yuudie standing there, laughing.
I wish I could kick him back, Damaz thought angrily. This lunatic is kicking me out of nowhere!
But he didn't dare to fight back.
Everyone already thought Yuudie was crazy.
Damaz only glared at him from the corner of his eye.
He kept walking, trying to ignore him.
When he reached the road—
THUD!
Yuudie kicked him again.
"Ah! You shit!" Damaz shouted.
But at that exact moment—
A car sped past him at full speed, only an inch away. It flashed across his vision like lightning. If he had taken one more step forward, he would have been hit.
Damaz froze.
His heart began pounding wildly, as if he had almost lost his life.
Completely stunned, he stood there without moving.
Slowly, his eyes moved.
He saw Yuudie walk past him.
Then—
THUD!
The third kick.
Yuudie laughed again and gave him a thumbs-up.
"Pay attention, four-eyes!"
His laughter sounded strangely satisfied.
"Didn't you hear the honking from far away?" Yuudie said before walking off.
Damaz stood there, still frozen.
When Damaz returned to college the next day, the fool was already there, sleeping on his desk again.
Shwaaakkk....
Damaz tore a piece of paper from his notebook and stuck it to a chocolate before placing it on Yuudie's desk.
When Yuudie woke up and stood, he noticed the chocolate with a note attached.
"Thank you for kicking me yesterday."
He looked toward Damaz and laughed.
"Hmmm?"
He lifted the messy piece of paper between his fingers.
"Don't you have a mouth? Or is this paper prepared for going to the toilet?" he asked.
"I didn't have a scale or scissors, you shiii—"
Damaz stopped himself mid-sentence.
After a moment he added,
"I bought that on the way here. If it were at home, I would've wrapped it like a birthday gift."
Yuudie smirked.
"Don't you have a mouth?" he teased again.
"Give it back if you don't like it."
"Oh yeah! I'll give it, I know you're a stubborn fool"
Damaz frowned in dismay.
Yuudie opened the chocolate, took it out, and returned only the plastic wrapper to Damaz.
"Here."
He placed the wrapper in Damaz's hand and forced him to clutch it.
Damaz, frustrated, shoved it into his pocket and refused to speak to Yuudie.
A moment later, Yuudie tossed a small piece of scrap paper at him.
The letters were tiny and barely readable.
The note said:
"Please study Chapter 2 now!"
"Idiot," Damaz muttered.
He crushed the paper and stuffed it into the side pocket of his bag.
Yuudie quietly watched him destroy the note and only gave a faint smile. But even that small smile made Damaz uneasy, as if something strange would happen again.
But this time, he ignored it.
As the teachers came one after another for their lectures, Damaz noticed that Yuudie still wasn't listening to any of them.
Instead, he kept reading the science textbook during every period.
Idiot building his own unstable consequences, Damaz thought.
——
Lunch time arrived.
Everyone was eating, talking, and running around. Yet the fool kept studying as if he had an examination coming up.
It had only been two weeks since the classes began, and the fool had joined late.
Damaz found it strangely amusing.
He quietly chuckled while watching Yuudie study seriously.
After lunch break ended, the science teacher entered for the last period.
After taking attendance, she told everyone to close their books.
"We will begin a surprise mock test in five minutes."
The classroom erupted in confusion.
They had only completed one and a half chapters.
A sudden test?
Damaz suddenly froze.
Realization struck him.
Slowly, he turned toward Yuudie.
The fool was lying back in his chair, smiling and biting the end of his pen.
Damaz felt completely mocked.
The teacher slammed the desk.
Everyone quickly turned toward her.
"The test will be on Chapter 2, even if it's only half completed."
Damaz's eyes widened.
The teacher must be the fool's mother, he thought. I underestimated him.
Yuudie couldn't control himself anymore.
Looking at Damaz's shocked expression amused him too much.
He burst into loud laughter.
The entire class turned toward him.
The teacher became furious.
"OUTSIDE!"
Yuudie was kicked out of the classroom.
He didn't argue.
But before leaving his seat, he leaned closer to Damaz and whispered,
"I told you."
Damaz struggled to stop himself from laughing. He studied the whole day just to get kicked out, he thought.
Before the test began, the teacher warned the class,
"If you get nothing correct, you will each write three assignments."
"But if you get at least one answer right, I will let you go."
Damaz felt extremely stressed.
I wished the fool could at least help me, he runs his hand through his hair.
But Yuudie had already been kicked out.
When the test finally ended and Yuudie returned to the classroom, everyone burst into laughter.
"Directly three assignments, fool!" someone shouted.
As Yuudie walked toward his seat, he answered cheerfully,
"Yes! Why only three? Why not ten? It's too little!"
Everyone laughed again.
"You fool! Do you think getting more means better?"
"Why?" Yuudie asked innocently.
"Three rupees is too little. Ten is better."
"Talking to a fool leads nowhere," someone muttered.
Yuudie finally sat down beside Damaz.
"I couldn't control my laughter because of your shocked expression, idiot," he said.
Damaz laughed back.
"Pain in vain!"
But as he laughed, a strange thought suddenly crossed his mind—
How did this fool know the test would happen again? And if the teacher was his mother…
How could she be so harsh on her own son?