Judge by the Cover_High School, Drama & Deadly Vices

by Melissa Abigail

  Flustered, she snatched the bottle from out of his hand, scarcely registering the bewildered look on his face as she hastened away, knowing for certain her own face was beet red. But none of that mattered. She must have made him misunderstand. They weren't friends. They were not friends.

  School had ended that day and unlike most schools where students were in a hurry to leave, a solid few still remained. The Academy encouraged students to join clubs, committees, and assist in event planning. This was an opportunity Haruna jumped at, as a freshman eager to overcome her awkwardness so she could shine like the brightest star. For now, though, Haruna knew she was just a tiny nebula. So it was week two at the Academy, and Haruna was already planning for a bake sale along with other students.

  It was around four-thirty when the group disbanded. Grinning from ear-to-ear, fingers curled around the straps of her pink book bag, Haruna pranced through the hallway with a bounce in her step. The hall was mostly deserted at this point, and so Haruna hummed quietly to herself, looking about, glimpsing at every interesting detail: the framed panoramic photos of students and sports teams, the portraits of headmasters-past on the walls… As she approached the atrium, the school's main entrance, she heard a man's voice. She stopped mid-step, noticing first the thin man with thick glasses. He was a teacher. Standing before him were the two boys, Seth and Ryu.

  "You two should go home. Aren't your parents picking you up?" the teacher asked them, his arms crossed.

  "Oh, Mr. Lee—his parents are late today. I was just waiting with him," Seth answered swiftly. Ryu only stared at his feet, his hands dug into the depths of his pants pockets.

  The teacher shook his head. "Not school policy, Seth. If you're not here for an extracurricular activity, you've got to get going. Ryu's old enough to wait by himself."

  Seth lowered his eyes. Looking deflated and a bit hesitant, he glanced at Ryu once, a small tug at the corner of his mouth. He nodded to Ryu and the teacher and left.

  As Ryu remained, Mr. Lee turned to him with a kind smile that didn't seem to fit his otherwise tight face that looked only accustomed to frowning.

  "I know it's hard. Cheer up, kiddo."

  He gave a pat on Ryu's shoulder. And then it was Ryu alone, standing in the atrium, his gaze still downcast and somehow… sad. Lonely.

  Something seemed off. What had the teacher meant by "I know it's hard”? Could it be that Ryu's parents had actually just forgotten him there? Haruna knew there were kids like that around West Campbelton—kids whose parents were managers, directors or executives, so overworked they would send their nannies on their behalf to get them. The nannies did what parents didn't have the time for. Was Ryu one of those kids? She bit her lip as her thoughts whirred back to earlier, when she bumped into him while leaving the water fountain. Guilt tugged at her conscience.

  Haruna watched as Ryu gazed beyond the glass of the front doors, his hands balled into fists. He looked like someone beneath a shed awaiting the end of a monsoon, like someone who wanted to go but wasn't sure if they were ready for the storm.

  Haruna wanted to say something. She had to.

  "Um, Ryu…"

  He swivelled sharply. Haruna wondered if the surprise she saw was from him not expecting someone to call out to him or whether it was because she had said his name correctly. She noticed how Mr. Lee said it, differently from their homeroom teacher: Ree-you.

  She lowered her eyes, casually playing with one of her pigtails. She tried to sound upbeat as she carefully considered her words. "Um, about earlier… I'm sorry I yelled at you like that. I know you probably wanted to be friends but—"

  “Friends? With you? When did I ever say that?”

  Haruna felt an inexplicable sinking in her chest as she lifted her head to meet his stare. Now he was openly glaring at her.

  “I just thought…” She didn't continue, allowing the words to void away into nothingness.

  She had been the one to approach him first, both times.

  She was the one trying to befriend everyone, even him.

  That was until she realised he was an outcast and decided she didn't want to be one too.

  She mentally scolded herself.

  Why did she feel guilty in the first place? He had been the one to be mean when she had tried to introduce herself that morning. So what if he picked up the bottle for her afterwards? He had bumped into her just as much as she had bumped into him. Ryu wasn't lonely—he was a snob. She narrowed her eyes.

  "I said your name right this time, didn't I? Couldn't you at least admit it? Or do you think you're just so much better than everyone else that you can't even do that?"

  Haruna planted her hands on her hips as she returned his glare. She wasn't sure why she had said any of it.

  Ryu's stare didn't falter.

  "You missed something, though. You said if that bothers me I should say something. Did you notice how I still never told you how to say my name? That should show you how little I care." Then he faced away, his voice a bitter gust behind him, “I don’t need friends. Especially ugly ones like you.”

  Ugly?

  No sooner than Ryu had spoken, he was gone and out the door leaving her to stare after him. So that was it. That weird kid that spoke to no one, didn't try, didn't care, was lonely, or rather—alone, but because he wanted to be; that Ryu Debiru wasn't afraid of braving the storm. He was the storm, and for the first time he had gone and left the aftermath behind him.

  What is the most perfect seems incomplete;

  But its utility is unimpaired.

  What is most full seems to be empty;

  But its usefulness is inexhaustible.

  – tao-te ching, 45

  CHAPTER five

  midnight run

  Ryu's heart pounded against his ribcage. His back pressed against a brick wall, eyes thinned as he braced himself, focused, gleaning the power of invisibility amongst the night's shadows—his senses alive, his mind alert, heart racing and body ready. His brother, Clyde, would be on the other side as they had planned. Tailing Ryu was another brother, Albert, his body also against the wall.

  They watched and waited for the cue.

  Five of them came on scene at once—five boys who on any other day would be five boys with a death wish. Their leader was a hulking kind of guy, bearing a smirk on his face, a face that was coiffed with the cleanest, most expertly lined beard Ryu had ever laid eyes on, like it'd been painted on. He was David “Wild Dog” Singh. The guy on Singh's right wore a dark hoodie, custom airbrushed, saying something forgettable in green graffiti letters. The hood was drawn, covering his head, but not his face. It was clear from the sideburns that he and Singh had the same barber. The guy on Singh's left wore a black and green du-rag to match a pretty nice-looking black leather jacket. What the other two wore or looked like was irrelevant.

  They'd soon be disposed of anyway.

  At least temporarily.

  "Hey, bro. Wassup?" Singh droned, the dull smacking sound of his tongue making it clear that he was chewing something. A cocky display of machismo, no doubt, but he wasn't fooling anyone.

  "Lose the gum… bro."

  The one who had responded in the no-nonsense manner came into view: Ryu's older brother, and in his arm—a briefcase. He approached the five guys in slow strides, then halted once they were a few metres apart.

  Singh let out a deep snicker.

  "What you worryin' about my gum for? Bad day, Tiger? That time of the month already?"

  "Tiger"—whose birth name was Takehiko, though he preferred to be called Tyler—didn't look at all amused, a crease between his brows as he repeated, "I said lose the gum."

  Singh's sneering face stiffened, his gum rested languidly on his tongue. "Yo, why so serious?"

  "You said you weren't bringing company. Who're these clowns?" Tyler asked.

  Singh replied, "Oh, don't worry about them. They're just here for show."

  He then added a chuckle
as if it were so, though one could easily see through the façade. Singh came prepared. Sensing that Tyler wasn't about to become any less serious any time soon, Singh mirrored his stern expression. He turned his head and finally spat out his gum, shooting it out like a dart. Glimpsing left and right at his entourage, his hands shoved into his pockets, he then leered back at Tyler. His voice lowered to a more aggressive pitch.

  "You want to talk? Let's talk."

  Tyler smirked. Despite having what most considered to be a face fit for a girl; and despite his bleached-out hair styled in a particularly awful partial Mohawk, shaved only on one side, Tyler knew how to show he meant business. That's because when he smiled, he looked seriously off-base, fierce and maniacal like he belonged in Gotham City instead of Campbelton. Ryu shook his head. This kid wasn't called White Tiger for nothing.

  "Your crew owes—big time—Wild Dog," Tyler seethed.

  Singh tilted his head, his look a probing one. He wasn't one to be shaken.

  "What are you talking about? I thought you were selling? Are you selling or not?"

  Tyler's smirk widened. He tapped lightly on the briefcase.

  "Oh, this right here? I got everything you want. But lately you've been coming up short. Word has it you've been expanding into Main Street. So I'm going to ask nicely, just once. Where's the rest, Dog?"

  Singh chuckled. He brought a hand over his nose and made a weird sniffing-snorting sound.

  "I think you, uh, oughta check your sources ‘cause I know we don't owe shit. We rep South West—nobody gives a rat's ass about Main Street. So are we going to do this deal or not?"

  "It isn't negotiable. One way or another, you'll pay us back. Today."

  "Oh? Is that so?" Singh responded in a slow, mocking tone and turned to the others. "You see this guy? This guy's got jokes."

  Singh's cronies looked on edge. Singh turned back to face Tyler with his brows shot way up, forehead host to several rows of skin folds. He had the face of someone who thought they were being punked, though he wouldn't be wrong. His eyes flitted about as though he expected a camera crew to jump out and yell "SURPRISE" at any moment. But when he let out an uneven chuckle and pulled his hands from out of his pockets, the laughter stopped, and its ghost, an irate sneer, remained.

  "How about you hand me what you promised first and then we'll deal with the issue of 'payment,' aright?"

  Knowing where things were headed, Ryu raised his arm, the G-19’s metal snout just by his head and pointed to the sky like a track starter. He exhaled deeply and watched his breath form a white cloud in the cool darkness.

  Any minute now.

  Tyler stepped closer and carefully handed Singh the briefcase. Everything thereafter happened at lightning speed. Singh snatched the case. He flung it with a passion into the waiting hands of his buddy with the sideburns. Next thing they knew, Tyler was wedged under Singh's armpit. Compared to this giant, Tyler looked scrawny and pathetic, more plush toy than beast, his long silver mane falling in wisps over his eyes. His words were a muddle of incoherence while restrained under the headlock. Sideburns' face was cold, his gaze steady and intense as he retained a firm hold on the briefcase while another member of their posse, the one with the nice leather jacket, opened it.

  Leather Jacket directed a look at his boss, brows to the sky. "Yo! There's nothing in here!"

  Singh was livid, his sneering face now deadly as he looked down at Tyler. "What the hell? Empty? Is this some joke?"

  Tyler craned his neck as best as he could while in a headlock. He had that look again—a psychopath's grin—and now that one could get a full view of the shaved side of his head and the twelve-millimetre plugs in both his earlobes, in spite of that crazy bleached-out rooster do of his, Tyler looked seconds away from unleashing a hell-storm.

  "That's funny. Empty. I said the same thing about your skull." And then Tyler laughed. Laughed as though his neck wasn't at the mercy of two hundred pounds of muscle.

  Ryu gritted his teeth. Tyler had done it again. He'd gone too far.

  "You little bitch," Singh growled as he hurled Tyler to the ground.

  Cat-like agility on his side, Tyler broke his fall and side-rolled so that he was upright and crouched on his knees. The four other guys instantly encroached on Tyler, circling like hyenas on a rotted carcass. They pounded their fists and cracked their knuckles. More machismo. Sideburns dropped the suitcase and hawked a wad of spit off to the side. Leather Jacket pulled out a utility knife.

  Albert snorted and mumbled under his breath, "You kiddin' me, bruh? Box-cutters?"

  "Frickin' amateurs," Ryu grunted back.

  It didn't even take Tyler's eye contact, the signal they'd been waiting for, to let them know it was their time to act. Ryu could feel that stirring in his chest again. That sensation of being fully, totally alive. He turned his head, grinning at Albert.

  "How 'bout we show these kids how it's done?"

  Albert smiled back, his sheet of dark hair forming an ominous frame around his face. "Don't miss, Dev."

  Ryu turned away from Albert, looking back to the others. He scoffed.

  "Never missed. Not a day in my life."

  It progressed like a stage play:

  Act 1, Scene 1, Tiger gives the empty briefcase to Wild Dog. Wild Dog opens the case and nothing's in it.

  The fool realises he's been hoodwinked.

  He reacts, predictably, with rage. The Pit Vipers—Wild Dog's crew—retaliate. But, of course, the crew don't know what's about to hit 'em.

  Off stage, the three are ready and watching. Silencer on, the Devil Half aims the gun, fires, and now Leather Jacket has no knife.

  No knife and a bleeding fist.

  He hollers.

  Someone shouts angrily.

  The Vipers realise they've been set up.

  They realise it too late.

  The crew turns to where they think the gunshot came from. But they see no one. See no one because entering Stage Right is Clyde who literally swoops down from the top of the emergency staircase—where he'd been the whole time, stooping stealthily behind old cardboard boxes, and no one had thought about why there would be old cardboard boxes randomly stacked there—to the hard, rough pavement of the alleyway. Leather Jacket is still freaking out about his hand with a hole in it while his boys turn on Clyde. Wild Dog shouts something as Clyde punches one of the guys in the head and drives a side kick into the other's back, possibly wrecking his kidneys… definitely destroying his spinal column. From the sound of the crack, permanently.

  No one understands what Wild Dog says because at that moment, he's nailed in the jaw.

  No one noticed when Tiger jumped to his feet. Since he was no longer on the ground, he was able to humbly deliver that blow to Wild Dog's jaw. Sideburns isn't able to help his buddy out cause he's been struck dumb by Albert.

  Intriguingly enough, with the empty briefcase.

  Albert entered in Stage Left sometime between spines being broken and the moment Leather Jacket, bleeding hand notwithstanding, was flipped, pinned to the ground, and pistol-whipped unconscious by…

  "You devil bastard!" Wild Dog hollers, in spite of bleeding gums. Not even the chewable, latex kind.

  The Devil Half laughs and replies, "Guess I'm famous. Even nobodies like you know what to call me, eh?"

  And then words never come from Wild Dog's mouth again; instead, in their place is thick, crimson fluid that gurgles like a fountain as he splutters, and the sound is pitiful and sad. Tiger had swept Wild Dog's du-ragged buddy's knife clean across the jugular. Though not before giving him a swift, literal stab in the back first. Wild Dog collapses on the spot while Tiger growls, practically foaming at the mouth: "Who's the bitch now?"

  It's still for a second. Nothing can be heard but a passing vehicle in the distance, some few blocks away.

  The Devil Half pockets his G-19, thrilled he barely had to use it. The boys stand around, observing what had become of their sta
ge; what was once a grimy alleyway had also become a bloodied crime scene.

  The Devil Half glances at Albert with a look that says, "Maybe we should clean this up?"

  Albert shrugs and shakes his head, indicating that he didn't think they'd need to. Sure, there would be five bodies remaining as evidence of what had occurred—but what was a show without an audience? Besides, all of these Vipers would live. Well, all except David "Wild Dog" Singh. They glance at Tiger, teeth bared and still grinning, but no one knows why. It didn't seem to bother him that he'd have to pay for this later. The others rush to pocket whatever cash and valuables they can find from their rivals, or rather, victims.

  “Time to bounce!” Clyde says.

  And there ends Act 1 of their one-act play.

  Yeah.

  That was one way to spend Saturday night.

  Like actors, the brothers exited and parted ways as though they had never known each other. They were restless from the adrenaline but knew to remain relaxed and calm. Now their show would go to an intermission and the curtains would close, though only for a short time. The show would go on. It always did.

  Even if some of them went off script.

  The iron gate swung open, its heaviness and lack of care made transparent by the haunting creak. Ryu heard the crunch of leaves and stones and knew that someone was coming from behind. He turned. Clyde. They exchanged looks, looks that suggested they were ready to pass out for the night, though they were well aware that that wasn't going to happen quite yet. Together, they tramped along the footpath amid grass and scattered weeds and unlocked the front door to the large house. Not surprisingly, instead of sleeping, their three other housemates, just a few of their brothers, were sprawled on the hardwood floor of the main quarters. With controllers attached to their palms like appendages, their eyes were glued to the flat screen. The one less transfixed on the TV set turned his head on hearing Ryu and Clyde enter.