Clark, I'd Be Embarrassed to Expose You

His parents still had not agreed to let him join the football team tryouts.

Clark left the house with his head hanging, his backpack slung over one shoulder. He glanced around.

The tire tracks on the dirt road in front of the Farms were still clear. At this hour, the school bus was probably almost at school.

"I can't show anything unusual in front of people, but it's fine as long as no one sees."

The corners of Clark's mouth lifted. He hitched up his backpack, flashed out of sight, and charged into the endless cornfields, moving faster than a bullet fired from a gun and kicking up a powerful gust.

From above, the green waves of corn split apart as if pointed at by Moses's staff.

Whoosh!

Other than when the school bus driver stopped midway to ask a stranded driver whether he needed help, which delayed him for a while,

the school bus rolled smoothly into town and stopped on time in front of the high school.

The students got off one after another and headed into campus in twos and threes.

After getting off, David glanced at a Meteorite Sign in the distance, weathered, old, and faded.

Welcome to Smallville—the Global Meteorite Capital

More than a decade ago, a meteor shower had fallen on this town, bringing disaster as well as opportunity.

The people of the town had hoped to seize on the "meteorite capital" angle and turn it into a tourist destination, bringing prosperity to Smallville.

But one look at the road along the town's main street, narrow enough to cross in a few steps, and the low buildings everywhere made the result obvious.

David withdrew his gaze and casually slipped his hands into his pockets as he walked toward the campus, where cherry blossoms bloomed in the spring.

"Meteorite Capital. Clark's going to have it rough in the future."

Those so-called Meteorites were actually the Kryptonite that had arrived on Earth with the Son of Krypton's spaceship.

"As everyone knows, Kryptonite is Superman's fatal weakness. Contact with it causes pain and weakness at best, and death at worst."

A tiny green stone could force a God Among Men, someone strong enough to shift continental plates, helplessly to his knees.

After growing up, he had paid a little attention and found that Smallville had an unusually large amount of Kryptonite. Exaggerating slightly, one might kick up a couple of pieces just while walking down the road. The various villains who would oppose Superman in the future definitely would not have to worry about where to find it.

Chloe and Pete got off after him, caught up with him, and the three walked into campus together.

"Hey, good morning, Chloe, Pete."

Wearing jeans and a classic thick blue plaid shirt, Clark appeared from who knew where, holding several books. Trying to pretend he had arrived early, he greeted the two of them.

"Didn't David say you were behind us?"

Chloe's Weirdness Radar went off, and she looked puzzled.

How had Clark, who had missed the school bus, gotten to school before them?

"I took a shortcut. I left early.

David didn't see me."

Clark remembered how a single sentence from David that morning had ruined his plan.

Even without David's reminder, his parents probably would not have agreed anyway. Still annoyed, he threw an arm around David's shoulders and smilingly scolded his suddenly expressionless younger brother.

"You know, David never really pays much attention to me."

"Really?"

The two of them were no less suspicious as they looked at David.

They remembered David clearly saying that Clark had run into some trouble while trying to get his parents' permission to attend the football team tryouts that morning, but he had refused to give up and was still trying.

"Whatever."

David slapped Clark's hand away and headed into campus first.

He began considering whether he should pick out a small piece from the Kryptonite he had collected before and carry it with him.

Just in case a certain Son of Krypton casually used him to lie again.

Clark, who had just pulled something sneaky, relaxed slightly.

As family members who spent every day together, David knew perfectly well what made him different from ordinary people.

Others might not know how he had done it, but David definitely did.

Fortunately, David had not exposed him as he had expected. Then again, his little brother had always been mature.

Watching his brother's back, Clark smiled.

Even after discovering that his older brother possessed immense strength and could move faster than sound while he himself, the younger brother, was completely ordinary, David had never felt resentful or unbalanced.

Still, there were not many benefits to being abnormal either.

Thinking of that, his brows drooped again.

"Hiss..."

Suddenly, Clark felt as if all his strength had been drained away. A wave of weakness and discomfort overwhelmed him, and he lost his footing, falling to the ground as his books scattered everywhere.

Whitney passed by with an arm around his girlfriend Lana, casting him a disdainful look.

Seeing him fall, Lana stopped to help him pick up his books. She looked at one of them and smiled.

"Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche?"

"Clark, do you think you're an ordinary person or Superman?"

Hearing her voice, David turned and glanced back.

His eyes swept over Lana's fair chest, where a green crystal necklace hung.

"I don't know."

Turning his head away, unable to face that Kryptonite necklace, Clark looked uncomfortable as he stammered.

The Superman Lana mentioned was not Clark's future hero name.

The philosopher Nietzsche had once proposed a philosophy defining powerful humans, calling those who were unconstrained by worldly rules and morality, surpassed themselves and ordinary people, possessed abundant creativity, and had powerful wills, Superman.

"Speak of Kryptonite, and Kryptonite appears."

David sympathetically stroked his chin and temporarily abandoned the idea of carrying Kryptonite on him in the future.

The future Superman already had it hard enough. In front of the girl of his dreams, he could not even speak naturally to her because of a Kryptonite necklace. Whenever the person he secretly loved appeared, it was often when he made a fool of himself.

"Let's go."

Seeing his girlfriend take the initiative to speak with Clark, Whitney felt jealousy boil over inside him. But mindful of Lana's presence, he did nothing. He kissed Lana, put his arm around his shy girlfriend, and led her away, leaving behind an embarrassed figure picking up books from the ground.

"David?"

Hearing footsteps, Clark looked up and saw David walking over.

His eyes lit up. He thought his younger brother had come to help him pick up his books.

"How miserable, Clark."

After dropping those words, David shook his head and walked away.

Clark was so furious at his younger brother's deliberate detour just to mock him that smoke practically came out of his ears.

After picking up his books, the four entered the building. By the Lockers in the hallway, hormonally charged boys and girls chatted eagerly, doing their best to display their charm with every gesture, hoping to conquer the opposite sex before them and get them to accept their invitations.

"Spring is here."

Feeling the atmosphere at school, David sighed.

"You mean the upcoming Spring Dance, David?" Chloe blinked and asked. "Do you have a date yet?"

"David's never been interested in that sort of thing."

Pete shrugged and invited her. "How about you be my date, Chloe? Strictly as friends."

They could keep each other company, so neither of them would feel too awkward at the dance.

"What about you, Clark?"

"..."

The four chatted as they entered the classroom.

After a morning of classes, school let out at noon.

"David, ahem, you're going home alone today."

Clark told David to go home first, sounding as though he had a perfectly legitimate reason.

"I'm going to the field to keep Pete company during tryouts and cheer him on."

"Keep Pete company?"

David looked him up and down and scoffed.

"I'd be embarrassed to expose you, Clark."

After saying that, he ignored Clark, who had turned red and wanted to argue. Hands in his pockets, David turned and sauntered away.

He got on the school bus.

David looked out at the scenery beyond the window.

What did Clark mean, watching Pete attend tryouts? His heart was stirring, and he was using that as an excuse to go to the field and watch Lana and her teammates practice cheerleading.

David could only offer one assessment—he was asking for misery.

There would not just be cheerleaders and the football team on the field. There would be plenty of PDA and jealousy waiting for Clark there.

On the school bus, Chloe sat beside him, leaning over her backpack and quietly writing an article.

The article matched her usual style, sharp in its wording. It was an article about the football team—"Football: Sport or Savagery"—which she planned to publish in the School Newspaper.

On the bridge, with few vehicles passing by, the school bus driver drove quickly but steadily.

He failed to notice a broken steel component lying on the asphalt where a car had broken down that morning.

Hiss!

The school bus, which had been traveling steadily, suddenly had a tire punctured and deflated.

Bang!

The vehicle skidded out of control. It was too late even when the driver yanked the wheel. With terror on the driver's face, the bus smashed through the bridge railing and plunged off the bridge.

The school bus flew through the air.

"Ah!"

Their bodies lifted as weightlessness struck them. Everyone in the vehicle screamed.

David's expression changed.

Before the group of high school students could finish screaming, the school bus plunged headfirst into the water, sending up a huge splash.

Glug, glug, glug.

The heavy school bus, weighing more than ten tons, rapidly sank to the riverbed.

The surging, icy river water rushed through gaps in the vehicle's body, flooding past their knees almost in the blink of an eye.

"Help! Help!"

The people on the school bus ignored their dizziness from the impact, hurriedly got to their feet, screamed in terror, and pounded on the windows.

Chloe's face had gone pale as she shouted too, even more terrified because she could not swim.

"I don't want to die! Can someone save me!"

An atmosphere of despair and terror rapidly spread through the bus, fear sweeping over everyone.

"Damn it."

Water rose past his waist, soaking his clothes. David looked nothing like someone facing a life-or-death crisis as he frowned at his surroundings.