Perhaps if I were as street smart as I was book smart, I’d have thought of many better ways to deal with my anger. Or at least I would have found a much better way to go about what I did. Seriously, it was like I set up a foundation for a massive domino tower, but before I could start building the second layer, I kicked it to the ground. But alas, second-year middle school syndrome spares no man in its merciless wake.

Ah, black history, indeed the darkest times in one’s life.

I’ve always lived in a First-World country, so I’ve never had to worry about how to get what I needed. I took it for granted. Not only that, but my family was well off. It was just Father and me, but we never had any problems despite his occupation. It had always surprised me how much a cult makes every day. What is even more surprising is the things he talks about when he preaches—he pulls bits and pieces from different religions. Sometimes it seemed as if he was talking about the setting of a video game or fantasy book he had recently read. It was on the level that even toddlers wouldn’t believe, but even then, daily meetings held around five hundred people attending. He never asked for money, but everyone always gave 5-20 dollars every session.

If we weren’t on the level of Setro families, then we must have been very close.

At first, I was always confused how he managed to pull it off, but as time went on, I learned just, to accept it. When asking the members, they would never give me a straight answer, instead opting for staying silent and spoiling me as the cult leader’s son. It wasn’t bad though; I got to know some interesting people.

The members came from all walks of life. A police officer, a janitor, a beauty pageant judge; it was crazy how diverse it was. Many people probably attended just to make connections. The only thing that they had in common was that they were all middle-aged men. Even worse, they were all very regretful middle-aged men; wishing for their youth back, nonstop whining about it. It was probably Father’s target market, and boy did it sure work out well. Too well. There were no women!

The number of friendships or acquaintanceships I had with girls in my entire life up into middle school could be counted on one hand. To be more specific, one finger. If you didn’t count a particular five-year-old girl, then I had none. That’s right; my only girl ‘friend’ was Stella.

And to be frank, that doesn’t mean anything in the real world.

So, to put it bluntly, I had no experience with girls. It wasn’t really a problem, as I didn’t speak with anyone in middle school, but it led to a weird reunion with Stella that first day of school.

Middle school is the time where hormones bud, and clash together, blooming to create a beautiful springtime of youth. It’s the times where we have a first love, and we pursue it, see if we ‘make’ or ‘break.’ Those that ‘make’ it have their first love fulfilled, and those that ‘break’ get their hearts broken and the next week they have a new crush, and they pursue once again. And the cycle continues until the end of high school.

Well, at least that’s what normies do. And upon further thought, this means that middle school normies are sluts beyond salvation.

The ‘me’ in middle school was quite surprised when he received the results of the investigation he asked for…

* * *

A king shouldn’t and never should have to get his hands dirty when dealing with trash. The king’s subjects deal with the waste instead, to pay back his boundless generosity and wise rule.

That was what I believed in, and I abided by that way of thinking in middle school.

…now that I think about it, I had already broken that rule when talking to the bullied kid… and I never did get that kid’s name…

Fuck, I keep getting off topic.

Following that train of thought, I asked one of the cult members to investigate the well-to-do bullies. He was a private investigator that I had gotten to know over a nice slice of cake. He branded himself with titles as the All-seeing Investigator, the Omniscient Mortal, the Villain Detector; They were all sorts of crazy and unbelievable claims. They were mostly under the influence of Father’s cult preaching, but the guy did have the statistics to back it up.

I asked for any dirt that would allow me to blackmail them. I told him everything I knew about them, which apparently helped facilitate the investigation by quite a lot. He didn’t want to take any money, as I had given quite the amount of information, and my background as the cult leader’s son but I had to give money where payment is due. It all came from money I had saved up from past allowances. My kingdom’s first treasury was to be used for removing the rotten eggs from the kingdom. How fitting.

The bullies were a group of three. They were all very handsome and smart, with decent backgrounds as well. The first of which the private investigator was going to investigate was a boy named Andre, the ace of the basketball team. Tall and lanky, in combination with his dark hair and deep eyes, made girls from either side of a game cheer for him. His girlfriend was the basketball manager, and they had an excellent relationship. They did almost everything together, the absolute model of a fun and loving couple.

The next was the student council president that was recently elected. His name was Harold. He had dark hair, glasses, and was a little bit shorter than Andre. That didn’t mean he wasn’t tall though; he was probably half a head taller than me if we compared heights. And my height was above-average. He ranked 2nd in the school, right below me. His position, in conjunction with his glasses and piercing eyes, gave him a sense of authority wherever he went. It’s said that delinquents don’t dare to cause trouble around him. His girlfriend was also part of the student council, obtaining the position of secretary.

I remember distinctly hating this person because he ‘stole’ my rightful position… I don’t think he really liked me either… I stole all the limelight when I had my campaign speech; he only won because of his good looks and popularity instead of his competence. I don’t even remember what he said back then, ha.

Now for their leader, Leo. He was the president of the Literature Club back in middle school. He had won quite the number of literary prizes at a young age and was immediately recruited in the club when he enrolled. He was incredibly handsome, with curly hair and delicate features; he only needed to smile before girls would swoon for him. That’s not all he has going for him, he had a witty tongue, and his pickup lines could melt the heart of any girl – or so went the tales circulating amongst the boys. He didn’t only have one girlfriend, but three of them. And they didn’t mind at all.

Anyway, the private investigator told me that it would take a week for him to get back to me, after doing all his current cases. I didn’t have anything else going on, so I agreed to it. I was a little sad that I had to wait a week for justice to be served, but a wee bit of waiting never hurt anyone. It’s only what happens after the waiting that hurts people.

One week and the anger in my heart would be satiated.

And so, I returned to school after a small period of being absent. Right away I noticed something different when I walked in the halls. Wherever I walked, silence would reign over the students around me. No longer were the whispers full of scorn and disdain. The stares were still there, but even more, students would pretend I was not. Ignoring my presence as if I didn’t exist.

Did they do this out of scorn or malice? It was a question I had been asking myself a lot since the presidential election. Sometimes, I would activate my ‘God’s Eye’ in the middle of the hallway, finding scorn, mockery, contempt, and ridicule. It made me angry, but not furious. In the first place, I didn’t like to use my ability during such a time. After all, I did have a time limit on how long I could use my ability for. Only 30 minutes, if I didn’t focus on feeling the finer emotions. And it was supposed to be reserved for my surveying on top of the roof.

But it was different now. Amidst the silence and cold stares, there was only one thing that the students felt: fear. Fear of me, fear of what I had done. In place of their disrespectful comments and slanderous rumors, a new saying was born: I was a murderer.

In their hearts, I was as good as a murderer. I could go back to school after committing a murder. The entire incident suppressed, covered over like nothing happened. It terrified the hell out of everyone, and no one wanted to speak up about it lest they would be next.

The fact that the kid who pushed me off was so susceptible to bullying worked against me. The whispers told a tall tale of an emo kid (me) who bullied the kid on the top of the roof every day. It continued, about how I had bullied him since the beginning of middle school, and he had taken it for an entire year before finally gaining the courage from his friends to fight back. As the story goes, when he fought back, I pushed him off the roof, and he pulled me off as an act of defiance. Only I was cruel enough to use him as a shield as we fell.

Guess who his ‘friends’ were. The bullies, of course. They most likely spread this entirely false story, to cast all suspicion off them, and onto me. Only, they didn’t know that I knew it was them.

Slander, terrible defamation, and fear. It was what had taken the place of the past scornful stares.

There were many things wrong with this, but I’m mostly angry about the emo part. What part of me seems emo?

Was it my personality?

I was not nor ever felt emo during that period so that couldn’t be it…

Maybe it my hair?

At the time I thought long hair was cool, befitting of a prince. So, I let it grow out, but I guess it gave off an emo impression…

I’ve gotten it cut since then, but it still is long by reasonable standards.

…off topic again.

When I entered my class, the usually lively students all hushed, leaving only sparse whispers. I could feel the mood of the class change even without my power! Of course, it probably was something that wasn’t too good on my part. The class was oddly quiet the entire day with me present, none daring to speak too loud save for the bullies. The teachers were happy about a more or less peaceful day and left it at that. The more curious teachers sent glances towards me, who was not paying attention to class at all, knowing the entire story as told by the Principal.

I didn’t pay attention to this but focused all my attention on the bullies. I was observing their reaction, using my power to gauge how they felt about the situation. They were spread throughout the class. Andre was in the middle of his row, in the front of the class, located closest to the blackboards. Harold was in the middle of his column, on the rightmost side towards the windows. Leo was on the left side of the classroom, surrounded by girls, in the middle of his column as well. Meanwhile, I was in the back, able to observe all of them without drawing attention from others. It was all I did that week while waiting for the notification from the private investigator.

I wanted to find out the motive. Why did they do this?

It was something they didn’t need to do. Just walking the paths they made for themselves would have brought them success in life, so why bully someone? Why make him push me off the roof?

There wasn’t a reason why I wanted to know. It was one of those things that gave you the burning desire to understand something. If I had to provide a motive, all I could say was that I was curious.

It was a meaningless curiosity, because no matter why they did so, all that was left for them was my punishment.