Luke thought, maybe it was Amy who had told Rei the reason why he was absent from school today when the girl said;
“It was precisely I who wanted to ask you, Luke. Are you okay? Do your teeth hurt?”
Luke replied, “No. I mean, yeah, I'm fine. And no, my teeth don't hurt.”
"Oh, thank goodness," Rei said looking relieved.
And, yeah, to be honest it's actually kinda boring to spend five minutes just making small talk about health or discussing things that in the end only Luke replies 'fine'. Even so, Rei, no matter how many times Luke asked, with any kind of question, the answer was always the same
"I'm fine. Patricia and the gang don't mess with me anymore."
So Luke gave up on talking about it, he also failed to accompany Rei home. Originally, Luke had intended to walk as well as accompany him to the house. Luke has an alibi to greet Frau Hoffmann, but that doesn't work.
Even so, the next day the annoying thing happened again. Luke doesn't know if this only happens at school or if it's something that happens to students across America—or maybe around the world—but the second bullying Luke experiences after the incident in the cafeteria is something in his locker. Luke knows that it was Patricia and her gang. They shoved lots of smut-filled papers into the lockers through the gaps in the locker doors. Meanwhile, on the front of the locker door, there is also another inscription that is no less sadistic.
Some of the writings read like this;
'My rooster can't crow'
Or…
'The Hero Award goes to Luke Bright.'
Also…
'This loser's locker accepts any trash! Please put your trash in here.'
Annoying. But, I don't want to overreact, it put Patricia Bowleans' gang up in the air. Just then, two rugby boys were passing by when Luke opened the locker and dusted off all the swearing papers, both of them deliberately banged the locker door on the back of his head and in a mocking tone, said;
"Oops… sorry, we didn't do it on purpose. I mean, we did , though. Ha ha ha."
They were definitely the orders of Patricia and her gang.
Then, when in the cafeteria too. This time, Patricia made Rei stumble forward by kicking Rei's leg while she was walking towards the table where Luke, Amy and Andrew were. All the food spilled on the floor and scattered. What made Luke angry was not because Patricia kicked Rei in the leg, but because everyone in the cafeteria looked nonchalant and some even laughed while recording the incident. It's really a headache.
So Luke pounded the table standing up and that managed to silence some of the laughter. The rest just whispered cynically and giggled back.
"Oo, the hero's coming again, huh," said Patricia Bowleans when she saw Luke walking towards her. He too was already standing, folding his arms very haughtily, and smiling sinisterly.
Actually, the urge inside him to grab a bench, pick it up, and slam it against Patricia's face was very high. But Luke tried to hold back because Patricia was a girl. What's more, Amy also held her back earlier and whispered, "Luke, don't worry about Patricia. She's upset because because of your report, she's being punished."
Luke just nodded and chose to help Rei up.
"Leave the food, Rei. Now just clean yourself up."
Then Luke and Rei came out of the canteen to the bathroom. Luke didn't feel embarrassed at all when everyone was looking at them like this, but Luke was very annoyed that neither of them took the initiative to help Rei. At least, if they were afraid of Patricia, don't laugh at her evil attitude!
Another day, after class Luke was having gym class, he couldn't find my clothes anywhere. In the end, I had to stay in the school clinic until school time was over. Unfortunately, I found my clothes in the locker and they were in a disorderly state.
"Damn bowleans!" Luke cursed angrily, throwing down his own clothes. "When did they put it here?!"
Andrew, Amy and Rei, who were the last people to go home because they were worried about Luke, shook their heads in unison.
Now, if the things above don't seem to trigger Luke's emotions, then there's something even more annoying. This is a matter other than Patricia and the gang. Here's another matter. Luke himself was actually wondering, why are there so many strange things and strange people popping up around me lately?
One of them is the girl in the dark jacket. However, it had been a week since the incident on the train and he had not appeared. If Gerald said, well, that girl might be working on a new strategy to get close to Luke. But, fuck it. Luke doesn't want to be near him anymore either.
Then now there's more. Let's remember again about the girl who passed Luke and Gerald on the phone on the pedestrian? Who looked like they were wearing clothes from the 50's or 60's. Well, there she is. At first, Luke didn't think anything was out of the ordinary when, at eight in the evening, Ulfa informed him that someone was looking for Luke on the terrace. He thought it was Rei or Amy or Gerald. But it wasn't. Luke looked around again, he didn't look familiar, but he felt he had seen her somewhere. She was still quite young for her fashion style, black curly hair billowing over her shoulders, lipstick as red as a pomegranate, green eyes as round as tennis balls and long legs when she crossed them. With a cigar also tucked into the two fingers with red nails. It wasn't until a minute or two later that Luke realized that she was a woman passing by the pedestrian that afternoon.
"Good evening," Luke greeted politely, "who are you?"
The woman turned around and was seen smoking a cigar, then exhaling to the side. Awkward smile.
"Oh, you must be Luke Bright."
"Yes, it is. And who are you?"
He seemed to blink her eyes round. Such astonishment. But then hastily reached out clumsily.
"Oh, sorry. We definitely haven't introduced ourselves," she said.
We? Luke didn't know who she meant by us in that sentence.
She continued, "Well, my name is Olivia and I am also the keeper. "
***