Bullying

He was afraid I would get dragged into it, and even more afraid I would see him like this, in a state even he despised. But there was nothing he could do. He could only be held down against the toilet, letting the filthy water soak him, letting the jeers batter his ears, letting the humiliation and helplessness deep inside drown him like a tide.

"What? Gone mute? Weren't you acting tough hanging around with him?" Todd raised his hand to shove his head again as the lackeys beside him laughed and egged him on. I remembered him. I had seen him and those lackeys before. Last time, they had been bullying Freddy too.

They were still jeering without restraint. "Exactly! A psycho's spawn and a bastard. A perfect match! Hahaha!"

I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists, practically forcing the words out through my teeth.

"Let's see who dares touch him."

The crowd instantly fell silent. The boy in my class turned around and saw me. He froze for a moment, then sneered and waved the others aside. Several boys fanned out around me, some fourth- and fifth-graders, others in my grade, all cracking their knuckles, clearly prepared.

"Klein? I thought you were smart enough to know your place and would've run off already. Today, we're settling our old scores and the new ones together," my classmate Hansen said.

When Freddy saw me, his eyes suddenly lit up. He struggled to break free of Todd's hand, only to be pinned down hard. I tipped my chin at him, signaling him to stay still, and took a step forward. As a sixth-grader, I was already a good deal taller than the younger boys. Narrowing my eyes slightly, I swept my gaze over the twelve in front of me without a trace of fear. "Come at me together, you losers."

Their faces flushed at my words. Someone yelled, "Get him!" The two fourth-grade boys at the front charged first, trying to grab my legs. I sidestepped and drove my elbow hard into one boy's stomach. He cried out and fell to the floor. I caught the other boy's wrist with a backhanded grip and applied a little pressure. He howled in pain, and I shoved him away, sending him crashing hard into the sink.

Seeing things go wrong, the boys behind them swarmed me. Some pulled at my clothes, others kicked my legs. I took a punch in the chaos, kicked away the boy at my feet, then reached back and grabbed a tall boy clutching my collar. I twisted his arm behind his back, and he cried out for mercy.

I shoved him forward, knocking over two lackeys charging at me. Hansen caught me off guard with a punch from the side. His fist skimmed past my ear. I caught his wrist and wrenched it hard to the side. He grimaced in pain, and I kicked his knee, sending him to the floor with a thud.

The remaining boys panicked when they saw their leader go down, but they still forced themselves to charge. I picked up the plastic soap bottle on the sink and hurled it at the legs of the boy in front. He stumbled. I rushed in, driving my elbow into two boys' chests in succession, then ducked a flying kick and hooked fat Todd's leg with a backhanded motion, sending him face-first into the floor.

In barely half a minute, five or six boys were already sprawled on the floor. The rest exchanged looks, their eyes full of fear. No one dared charge again.

Standing in the doorway, I spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and addressed the boys leading them.

"Who's next? Come on. Or all of you can come at once..."

They looked at each other, but none dared take a single step forward.

I narrowed my eyes at them and said loudly,

"If you ever bother Freddy again, or I hear any more nasty rumors, I'll come for every last one of you."

My voice was quiet, but carried an unmistakable viciousness. "Not just you. Any one of you touches him again, and I'll settle the score with them. Understood?"

But clearly, someone still didn't know his place. Todd hid behind a group of short boys, but his fat body stood out all too clearly.

He said viciously, "You can't be around all the time. If I remember right, you're going to another school next term. You'd better apologize to every one of us, or... we'll shave his head and make him actually drink some toilet water..."

Standing before him, I stared at him. My black eyes made his skin crawl. A child after all? He started shrinking back before he had even finished a couple of sentences. He was right. I would be going to another school next term. I couldn't keep watching over Freddy forever.

I broke through the crowd, suddenly leaped up, and kicked him to the floor. His fat body landed, the flesh on him quivering. I planted a foot on his chest.

"Fine. Go right ahead." I leaned closer to him.

"I really can't watch over him all the time. You can beat him, insult him, throw his schoolbag into the fountain, or do what you said-shave his head and shove it into a toilet."

No one there dared speak. They only swallowed.

"But you'd better not let me find out. Otherwise, I'll come right to your house, and whatever you did to him, I'll pay it back a hundred, a thousand times over..."

"Aaah!"

He screamed, then burst into loud sobs, like a real child rather than a demon who bullied others without restraint.

I stared at everyone there. "Did you hear what I said?"

No one dared answer. They were still children, after all. A beating to teach them a lesson was enough.

Freddy stood frozen in place, his body already unconsciously ramrod straight. His grip on his shirt hem had loosened, but his fingers remained curled. Scrapes from his earlier struggle still marked his palms. His chin raised, he stared at me without blinking, his gaze almost worshipful.

The worship in his eyes was not a child's fleeting excitement. It was the dazed wonder of looking up from the mud and seeing daylight, the tremor of having his trampled self-respect suddenly caught and held steady. In his seven years of life, he had grown used to his adoptive father's brutality, his adoptive mother's indifference, Mrs. Hart's spite, and the bullying of children his age. He could only endure, could only hide, forced to accept that he was a "born freak."

He had thought he could only spend his life clenching his fists and holding out in the darkness, that he could only survive by hiding his feelings and swallowing his grievances.

But the sight of me standing in front of him now, knocking those bullies down with punches and kicks, the ferocity in those words-"Who dares touch him?"-was like a red-hot blade, cleaving through the cold shell of his understanding.

Indescribable feelings surged inside him. There was relief at having survived the ordeal, but more than that, there was a clarity he had never known: strength could accomplish all this. The people who bullied him were not invincible. If he was ruthless enough, daring enough, strong enough, he could make them bow their heads.

Something else quietly mingled with that worship-an overwhelming hunger for "strength," an overwhelming attachment to "being protected," and, more than either, a secret awakening. He no longer wanted to be the one who endured, the one who was bullied. He wanted to become someone like me, even stronger than me. Strong enough to protect himself, strong enough that no one would ever dare bully him at will again, strong enough that one day he could stand in front of someone else and repay the malice once inflicted on him a hundred, a thousand times over.

This realization was like a seed that fell unexpectedly into the soil of his heart. Mingling with the scars of his past and the searing heat of this moment, it quietly sprouted. He no longer felt that all that endurance had been necessary. Instead, he felt that his former self had been far too cowardly.

He watched me dust off my hands, silently committing that ruthlessness to memory, along with that unwavering resolve to stand up for one of my own. In the days to come, that obsession with strength, that instinct to protect his own, and that ferocity nurtured in the mud would all grow with him, carving themselves into his very bones and blood.

I walked into the stall and took Freddy's hand. "Come on. Let's go to the little bathroom and take care of our wounds first. Then I'll ask your teacher to let you leave, okay?"

Perhaps the two of us looked sufficiently... miserable. After a few simple questions, they let us go home.

I held his hand. I had taken two punches to the face, both in the same spot. The outside hurt, but when I lowered my head, the spot that had knocked against my teeth hurt even more. I couldn't let it show, so I could only try to keep my face expressionless.

Freddy kept looking at me, as if stars were spilling from his eyes and landing on my face, as if he were saying, You're amazing!

"Do you know kung fu? Like in superhero comics?" he asked excitedly.

"I learned a little," I said modestly.

Freddy grew even more excited and tugged at my sleeve. "Then can you teach me? I want to learn too, to be like you..."

I patted his head. "Let's talk about it when you're a little taller."

"How tall? As tall as you?"

"Something like that?"

"Then once I've learned, I'll protect you the way you protect me."

"Should I say thank you in advance, then?"

"You're welcome."

"Huh?"

Later, we really did make an enormous sandwich: toast fried in butter, thick slices of smoked roast beef, savory Yorkshire ham, crispy bacon, along with cheese, butter, lettuce, tomatoes, mayonnaise, ketchup, and a fried egg to finish.

The good news was that it smelled wonderful, all those aromas mingling together. The bad news was that it fell apart when we moved it from the cutting board to the plate, so we ended up eating a mixed salad in huge pieces.

I gave him one of the only two keys to the front door and told him, "You can come here when I'm not around. This is your home."

He keenly sensed something was wrong. "Why wouldn't you be here? Where are you going?"

Of course I couldn't tell him any of that stuff. "Where else would I go? I'm starting middle school. The timetable won't be the same as primary school. You can come here early instead of going back."

He seemed a little down, but the joy of having a key washed that away. I found him a cord so he could wear it around his neck. Solemnly, he tucked the key against his chest.

The next day, no one dared come looking for me. I attended classes as usual, though a few perceptive classmates noticed the shifty gaze of a certain classmate I had beaten up yesterday and seemed to understand.

As for the claims that... I knew mysterious Eastern martial arts, could take on twelve opponents at once, could scale walls and leap across rooftops, could punch through tiles... weren't those last ones a bit much? It wasn't as if I'd been bitten by a radioactive spider.

Anyway, at least no one would bully Freddy anymore...