“It all started a few years ago…” Roy trailed off, with a hint of a smile. “Do you want to sit down?”

Sensing a long story, Nathan took a seat.

“Four years ago,” Roy said, settling in, “I was a nobody. Not that I’m really anyone right now, but back then it was even worse. I was a ten-year-old kid. I had no friends because I was a weirdo.” His face morphed into a scowl.

Nathan was curious, but he decided not to ask.

“I talked a lot,” Roy continued. “Like, a lot. Everybody pushed me away because they were annoyed. Eventually I became the class clown. Not because I was funny, but because they made fun of me. It took some time for me to realise that.”

Nathan could barely remember any of this. Even though he had been in the same class as Roy for over five years, he had never paid attention to his classmates. Especially not after discovering his father was an assassin.

“Mockery turned into bullying.” Roy closed his eyes and bit his lip. His hands trembled ever so slightly. “They were pushing me around, taking my lunch, and because I was just a midget, I couldn’t do anything. Even if they didn’t group up on me, I was still too weak to defend myself against even one person.”

Nathan wanted to say he was touched, but frankly, he wasn’t. He decided to keep silent and see where the story would lead.

“Then, three years ago, something changed.” Roy’s eyes sparkled as he glanced at Nathan. “You appeared. I’d never noticed you before in class. I mean, I did, but you just weren’t very… talkative. You get what I mean?”

Nathan nodded.

“You always sat alone and never talked to anybody. But nobody bullied you. You had this aura around you that said, ‘Mess with me and you’re dead’. Now that I know that you’re an assassin, it explains a lot.”

Nathan’s eyebrows jumped up. He had never intentionally done any of that. He just hadn’t been interested in talking to his primitive classmates.

“I remember you started working out. You looked more muscular than anybody else in class, but you never rubbed it in anyone’s face. That was when I started noticing you. I wanted to be like you. You were this mysterious, cool dude who didn’t care about anyone.”

Nathan didn’t know what to say. Luckily, Roy wasn’t expecting a response.

“One day, I was walking home from school. It was actually the first time I’d walked home alone. My father had just started the anti-assassin movement, he couldn’t pick me up that day. Dayla didn’t work for us back then. I—I walked for a while, and then it happened.”

Roy shuddered and closed his eyes.

“Five of them,” he whispered, almost inaudibly. “There were five of them.”

“Five of who?” Nathan prompted.

“Five bastards. Even though I was used to being bullied, it was always something minor. But this time, they were vicious. The bastards had found out about what my father was doing, so they decided to teach me a lesson. They thought assassins were cool. They wanted to be like them.” Roy gritted his teeth.

A look of realisation suddenly spread over Nathan’s face. He remembered this incident!

“They jumped out from behind a corner and dragged me into a back alley. Two of them grabbed me like I was a—a chair. They took turns kicking, punching, and spitting. I curled up and cried.”

It all clicked for Nathan, but he let Roy go on.

“They shouted nasty things about my father, my mother. . . even my brother. I wanted to say something back. Shout back. Do something. But I couldn’t.” Roy looked at his trembling hands. “I—I really thought I was gonna die back there.”

Suddenly, Roy’s head shot up. He looked Nathan right in the eyes.

“But that’s when you came. I—it was all a blur. I heard a voice shouting. I didn’t recognise it. Of course I didn’t. It was yours! You rarely spoke, and I had no idea how you even sounded, to be honest.” Roy leaned on his chair, his head less than fifteen centimetres from Nathan’s. “But I saw your golden hair and I knew it was you. You came to save me. And what I saw was. . . amazing!”

Nathan remembered the fight. It was his first real fight with people. He was alone against five enemies, and he’d had a hard time not getting knocked out. One managed to escape, but he’d taken out the other four. It had been a close call until the end of the fight.

“You danced around like. . . like, I don’t really know like what, but it was amazing!” Roy was practically jumping around at this point. “You took them out as if they were nothing. One by one, they fell to the ground—”

Nathan resisted the urge to poison Roy’s fantasies with cruel reality. There was no immediate reason to correct the boy’s misperceptions.

“Bam! Bam!” Roy boxed the smelly air of his room. Nathan wanted to point out he wasn’t doing it correctly, but he decided against it.

“You were a blur,” Roy gushed. “You went from one bastard to another. They didn’t get a chance to do anything.” A series of poorly executed kicks and punches followed, accompanied by Hollywood quality sound effects.

“Thank you for the cinematic experience, but I think I get it,” Nathan smiled sarcastically.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. I got carried away.” Roy dropped into his chair, abashed and slightly out of breath. “After that, you didn’t even pay me any mind. You looked at me with this cool face and just walked away. Like a superhero!”

It took all of Nathan’s self-control to stifle a laugh. He hadn’t once thought about helping Roy then. He had done it because he’d wanted to fight, not to save somebody.

“Ever since that day, I looked up to you. I wanted to be like you.”

“Is that why you tried to ‘bully’ me?”

Roy looked down, his mouth drooping.

“I—I didn’t know what else to do. There was no way you would talk to someone like me. I mean, you even ignored all the girls that looked your way. Why would you talk to someone like me?”

“Girls looked my way?” Nathan thought. “Never noticed”.

“So you decided it was a good idea to try bullying me as a means of getting closer to me?” he said aloud.

“It’s stupid, I know. . . but of course, if I just bullied you, it would look weird. So I started bullying everyone as a cover-up. But. . .”

“But eventually you actually liked it. You enjoyed doing what others had done to you.”

Roy stared at the ground.

“I did enjoy it. It felt good. And then after you beat the crap out of those douche bags, they spread the word that you were protecting me. Nobody dared do anything to me, so I could just provoke people and nothing would ever happen.”

Nathan had noticed Roy’s bullying—it was obvious. But he’d never realised that he’d become Roy’s guardian. Why had no one ever told him anything about it? His classmates’ lack of communication skills aside, he was sincerely surprised.

“So that’s why you acted so weird,” Nathan muttered.

“What was that?”

“When I called you, you acted happy at first. But then you started shouting at me. I thought it was strange at the time. Honestly, I thought you were just a little nutty up there.”

“Hey! I think I know what that means, and I’m not sure I like it.”

“If it makes you happy, I don’t think that anymore.” He meant it, too. Nathan’s opinion of Roy really had changed. Perhaps he wasn’t a bad person. Perhaps he was only misunderstood. Still, Nathan considered him to be no more than a convenient tool.

“It feels good to let all of that out.”

“I can imagine,” Nathan smiled. “It’s getting kinda late, but I can still stay for a while. Anything you would like to do?”

“Do you play pool?”

“I’ve never played pool, but I’m happy to give it a try.”

“Great! Follow me!”

***

Time flew by. Before Nathan knew it, it was dark outside.

“I think I should go, Roy,” he said, glancing at the time on his phone. “It’s getting pretty late.”

“Ooooh, that’s too bad. But you’ll come over next time, right?”

“Of course.”

They walked back through the maze of hallways to the main entrance. As Nathan bent down to take his shoes, his pocket vibrated. He took out his phone and smirked.

Roy’s mother rounded the corner and smiled at them, surprisingly enough. “I take it you’re leaving already, Nathan. Wouldn’t you rather sleep here? It’s pretty dangerous out there after dark.”

Nathan wondered if she was hinting at something.

“Thank you for the concern, Mrs. Moore, but I’ll be fine.” Nathan turned around as if to head out, then stopped suddenly.

“There’s one more thing I wanted to ask. Mrs. Moore, can Roy go with me and a couple of our classmates for a hike? We’re thinking of going into the mountains to camp overnight.”

Roy’s eyes almost fell out of their sockets, but he quickly recuperated. Mrs. Moore looked from Roy to Nathan.

Nathan sneaked a wink at Roy while his mother wasn’t looking.

“I guess so. . .” she said hesitantly. “When would this hike take place?”

“Let me double-check. . . four days from now. Next Saturday.”

“I think Roy should be free that day. But we don’t have any hiking equipment. Will that be okay?”

“Of course. He can sleep in my tent—it’s very spacious. But he should probably buy some proper footwear.”

“Then we’ll go look for something.”

Roy was apparently not sure whether to be happy or offended, but the corners of his mouth slowly started to turn upward.

“All right. If you could bring Roy to the train station at around 9:00 a.m., that would be great.”

“That’s what we’ll do then.”

“Great. Bye, Roy. Bye, Mrs. Moore. Have a nice rest of your evening.”

Nathan closed the door behind him and headed for the train station. This was going to be a lot of fun.