Chapter 17

I didn't know what to do as I ran closer to him. He didn't look in my direction at the moment. But the instant I come close enough to him would be the moment he would try to hold me.

As I didn't know what to do, the distance between us was constantly shrinking. When he turned around and saw me, it was already too late to do anything. My legs were running on their own.

"AH! IT'S…"

Right before he could do anything, I ran straight into him. Since I tried to cover my head so I won't get any injury, I didn't see a thing. When I crashed into him, I didn’t understand what happened. I was rolling on the ground. At the same time, I learned what it meant to see stars after getting hit by something.

I groggily stood up while bearing the head-splitting ringing in my head as well as blinding whiteness in the corners of my eyes.

As I looked around, I saw the guy I was running into lying on the ground, knocked out. He lay completely motionlessly on the concrete pavement.

"Fuck is he alright!?" I was afraid that something happened to him, so I tried to check his heartbeat. I found out that he was alright. Meanwhile, as I was fiddling with him I heard a shout from far away.

"God damn, you fuckheads, what have I done!" As I was cursing to myself, I looked around. Somehow I ran back to where It all began. I was standing near the crossroad where they saw me for the first time.

"What to do?" I heard shouts growing closer and closer, so I needed to act fast. I looked around and saw a small café. I might hide there. But if they would look around the nearest buildings, they would definitely find me.

I looked at the guy I knocked out, and there was a spark of inspiration. I took his hoodie and started quickly taking off my windbreaker and stuffing it into the bag. It was a stroke of double luck. This guy had a t-shirt under his hoodie, so he won't be naked when they see him. I prayed that they didn't remember the clothes their buddies wore.

After changing into his clothes, I ran to the café. Throwing my bag near the trash bin, I entered it.

A lazy-looking waiter came to take an order from me, but when I asked where the restroom was he scowled and pointed in the direction.

As I entered the restroom, I sat down in one of the few toilet cubicles and started nervously waiting. I didn't know if they would look for me or not if it was the right thing to do, but my instincts told me I did the right thing.

I didn't know how long I was waiting. I thought that I was sitting here for eternity. As my breathing grew smaller and smaller, I heard someone entering the restroom.

"Check the cubicles." Someone whispered.

Pulling up the hood, I carefully locked the door and looked down so no one would be able to see my face.

This restroom was by no means big, and it didn't take a long time for them to check everything until the only cubicle left was mine.

The guy who looked through tried to open the door, but of course, he couldn't do this because I locked the door.

"Haven't you seen it's occupied right now!" I tried to roughen up my voice as much as I could.

"Cough, sorry, didn't see it."

Maybe I managed to deceive them as they started whispering. Though, I couldn't make out what they were talking about.

I heard the door of the cubicle that was next to mine open. I stopped breathing. I think I could even hear how drops of my sweat rolled down across my forehead.

I strained my ears while listening to hear what was happening while keeping my head down.

I heard what felt like someone standing up onto the toilet. I think my heart stopped as well as my breathing. I felt a gaze from above looking at me. I heard a drop of my sweat splashing down on the floor of this restroom and the coarse breathing of two guys. As I was praying to every god I knew so these guys would leave, seconds stretched into hours.

"Not him." After hearing these words whispered, I heard how the guy stepped down from the toilet, and those who entered the restroom left.

"HAAAAA." I finally was able to exhale.

I waited a bit longer before leaving the café. I carefully looked around to see if there were any of the thugs around but saw no one. Even the one I knocked out was nowhere to be found. I came closer to the trash bin and found my bag lying there untouched.

"Shit, now I need to wash it." It became more than dirty. I took off the hoodie from myself and threw it into the trash bin. I decided to wait for the bus so I won't need to run away again.

After returning back home, I barely managed to make up a plausible excuse of why I was so dirty. And after I added that I broke a Brave and Bold trial's record, my parents were so happy that they forgot everything else.

As I was soaking in the bath, my whole body hurt like hell. I didn't know if everything that was hurting were the bruises from the things those thugs threw at me if it was a sprain or something worse.

I was lucky that they were not so smart. But why the hell were they going after me? Who wants to harm me?

I couldn't wrap my head around it, and I didn't have any strength left in me to do anything. A few notifications popped up on my phone. However, the moment I laid down on my bed, I instantly fell asleep. My exhaustion left me no chance to check them.

The next day started differently from how I got used to it. My body didn't manage to heal. Or so I thought, as it was still painful to stretch.

"Today will be the day when they told you if you would pass?" Greg asked while smearing the butter on his toast.

"Yeah, I think I will bring good news today," I said with a small smile. After all that was said and done, I enjoyed this trial. It was difficult in the beginning but later down the track, I started feeling engrossed in the process of training. If not for yesterday's incident, I would even say that it was great.

"Nevertheless, you shouldn't be sad even if you don't pass. The most important thing is that you gave it your all. The road is far more valuable than the goal."

Listening to such a talk from Greg, I finished my breakfast. I looked at my phone notifications and noticed that there were few messages from Jessie and Mara.

"Ugh, I would look at the ones Mara wrote after the announcement of my result."

I didn't want to talk to her. I asked her to be my friend so that she would let me go. I didn't feel like being actual friends with someone who gave me such feelings of danger.

Jessie's messages were mostly about what I should do today, as well as a few questions if I was alright.

I replied to her that everything was okay and I didn't manage to answer in time because I was too tired. I thought it was better to tell her what happened yesterday in person.

My bag was still drying, so I went to school with empty hands. It was a strange feeling, going empty-handed to the place where you should always carry study material and other stuff.

Soon I reached the room that at the same time became heaven and hell for me. The branch gym of team Brave and Bold.

I was ready to see a large crowd of people inside. But when I entered, there was only one lone girl.

"Oh. You're earlier than usual." Jessie smiled at me.

I noticed that she smiled a lot. Was she just a cheerful girl, or was it because something good happened to her? I didn't know.

"Wait, why are you in your uniform, and why are you without your bag." she scrunched her eyebrows.

"Well… stuff happened," I scratched my nose, "I didn't message you because I thought it would be better to talk in person."

"Hm?"

"I don't know what it was exactly…"

Before I could finish what I was saying, I heard someone entering the gym. It was a man in his forties. While it was difficult to say if he was in good shape because he wore a tracksuit, the way he moved showed that he was a professional athlete. Short, grizzled black hair that was neatly combed back was combined with small neat sideburns and a large nose. His big dark eyes revealed that this man had a sharp mind.

"Jessie, sorry for being late. The paperwork is a mess over there. I thought I would finish faster." After our eyes met, he stopped in his tracks.

"You are?" I felt his gaze appraising me.

Jessie walked towards this man. "It's our new star, dad."

Did she just say, dad?

"So you are, Erlig?"

I gulped and nervously nodded. Is it just me, or is it getting stuffy here?

"Good, good, hahaha." Suddenly he burst into laughter.

"Are the documents alright?" Jessie took the stack of paper and started checking it out.

"Of course they are, although I got delayed because one person from the staff didn't want to sign the paper and was against the whole idea."

"Who?" Jessie was now engrossed in the documents she received.

"I don't remember her name, she was a sensual lady, and her thingies were big, hahaha," He started showing us big breasts with his hand's movement.

"I'm going to tell everything to my mother."

"Cough, sweetie, I'm joking. I remember that she wasn't your usual professor. She looked all high and mighty. I think she had purplish hair."

"Guidance counselor Violetta Fliess?"

"Yes, that's the name! Good job, Erlig." He gave me a thumbs up.

I scowled.

"What's the matter?"

"I had a little… fight... with her."

"Ooh," he started nodding, "Then it's understandable that she was opposing this.

"You fought with Violet?" Jessie gave me a curious look.

I probably had a troubled face right now because I didn't know what to do. What should I say to the duo of father and daughter? And what should I do with that woman if she didn't listen to my threat?

"Sigh, It's not good news. My seniors told me that she is nasty, and she is notorious for making students drop out. She also got her promotion a little bit too fast, so it raised a lot of questions. But in the end, everyone who asked those questions was silenced."

Jessie's dad made a troubled face. "Hmmm, what should we do then? File a complaint to the chairman?"

"It won't be effective. I heard it won't even reach the vice principal."

"Let me handle this. After all, it is me who has troubles. I don't want to drag your team into it." I thought that the only one who could manage her was me.

"Good boy!" Jessie's dad came close to me, took my hands into his, and started passionately shaking them. I didn't even see how it happened with how fast he acted. "By the way, you can call me Paul. I'm the owner and founder of team Brave and Bold. When I received your results, I was pleasantly surprised. But seeing you in person... You have a hella lot of potential."

"Thank you, I'm Erlig Grimes."

"Yeah, I already know it." Before releasing my hand, he patted me on the shoulder. "So can you please tell me from where you have these bruises? You couldn't get them from the test." He suddenly turned serious.

"Bruises?! Why didn't you tell me anything about bruises?!" Jessie shouted.

"I heard you were lifting yesterday. And we know that you heal fast, so how did this happen?" His gaze was so intense I felt as if he was drilling a hole in me while Jessie had already started fuming.

"I wanted to tell Jessie in person."

"You can tell it to me as well."

"Sigh, okay."

I told them about what happened yesterday, how I met a group of thugs and ran away from them. All while suffering some blows in the process.

"You did well. Even a trained fighter can't do a thing against a crowd." Paul's face returned to being kind and gentle for a second before it turned back to the serious one. "But who did this to you? And what if they aim for our team?" his eyebrows sank.

"What should we do?" Jessie started getting nervous.

"Tell everyone in the team to walk in pairs or to use public transport until we find out who is behind this."

"And what about me?"

"You should watch your back. Don't leave your house without necessity and wait for your body to heal."

Paul extended his hand. "Give me your phone. I would write down my number. And if anything like this happens again, you should call either me or Jessie. You got it?"

I nodded.

"And what about school?"

"He slapped his forehead. How could I forget? Jessie, stop looking through the documents and give them to me. it will belong to him after all." He took a stack of paper and took down one sheet. "You only need to sign it here and you would officially become a part of our team." He smiled.

I didn't bring my bag, so I looked for a pen until Jessie handed me one. I took this sheet of paper that looked like a contract in my hands. It wasn't anything special, but somehow the weight of this contract was heavy. I think it was the heaviness of my fate. After looking through it, I left my not-so-beautiful signature.

"With this, your course is officially changed." Paul took it from me and stuffed it back into a folder.

In the meantime, Jessie shook my hand with a smile. "Congratulations, Erlig!" she then whispered to me, "With this, I will make sure to help you."

Then Paul came to me and once again shook my hand. His grip was tighter than before.

"Congratulations! And welcome to the team!"