Mirana felt great stress when she saw the dare devil playing poker. Not once. Not twice. But three times he made miracles. He created a domineering atmosphere that stiffens the air. When it came time to switch partners, she asked Meracle to take her place so she could close her eyes and rest. Meracle agreed because Mirana was her friend. So Mirana slowly closed her eyes and drifts into the land of dreams and memories.

What she dreamed was a boy. The boy she saw in her high school years was small in the very first year of his high school. Every time she saw him, it would make her heart burn in anger. He would always avoid bullying, protect those he could with his body like a shield, and never fight back despite the horrendous treatment he received. He would always come out with his clothes in tatters saying that he tripped. He also looked innocent when he talked to people and no matter what they said, he would act like a kid. But whenever she stares at his back, his entire back would transform from a frail little child to a towering man’s back in her eyes. His shoulders seemed broader, his entire back and spine would seemed more defined, and she could feel that he would burst with energy at any moment despite not showing any muscles. The strong image of an honorable warrior came to mind. This made her heart flared up and her body would be briefly be consumed by a strange fiery desire.

In her sophomore years, she would try to erase the image of a strong warrior inside her mind. No matter how much she looked at him, there was no visible change. She also decided to get herself a boyfriend this year. But every night she would dream of him standing right in front of her. His body was standing in front of her, protecting her and no matter what came, he was unfazed. His body was well defined and his face more masculine. Whenever she wakes of up from these types of dreams, she would often find herself hot and sweaty.

In her junior years, she went through many relations but no farther than kissing. Not one person satisfied her requirements to be her lover. Each and every person she dated, she deemed them unworthy because they were cheaters or were spineless. For this reason, she hated spineless and cheating people.

But during these years, she still watched over Jin. He was no longer small but grew into a full and tall man. Whenever she wanted to talk with him, someone else would bother him and drag him into a dark path to beat him up. Thus she could never have a proper talk with him. But seeing that he was so spineless, she gave up all hopes on him and moved on.

But some things were not so easy to forget. One time when she was heading home, she was curious about the boy Jin. It was the first time in a long time that she saw him. He carried a large bag the entire day and staggered to go home. So after school, she trailed him for a period of time. After thirty long minutes, she was about to give up. The only path he took was through the school to deliver some things for the teachers and staffs. He also got some rewards as well afterwards.

The boy took his things and walked right out of the back door of the school and into the school field. This was the path he usually take to avoid bullies. Just then, she saw a ten tall people coming out with a lot of weapons to come and cut Jin up. She recognized those then tall figures. They were from the same school Jin and Mirana were from.

At first, she saw the bloody scene of where his bodies was stabbed and slashed. What she didn’t know that they all missed his vitals and he dodged so perfectly to only leave flesh wounds. There was not a cut on his face. A sudden stab went through his abdomen and Jin then pretended to be knocked out from excessive blood loss.

She reaches for her phone and was about to call the police until one of the bullies saw her. Seeing the witness, they wanted to silence her first. But because they recognized her face, they caught her by the hands and had every intention of rape. Half of them were true delinquents with no real shame and the other half were wealthy people’s kids and their families doted on them a lot. So they did not care about the law. The depression made bribery possible again. So the rich had no problem; and those who are with the rich can also avoid the law for a while. Three tall men stood over the bloody looking conked out kid while the other seven were gang rushing over to Mirana.

The moment they pulled on her shirt, she screamed. They had a strong hold over her and choked her so the sound won’t get out. Losing so much oxygen, her vision became hazy. She lost a lot of strength just by trying to scream. Her shirt was already pulled far up revealing her mounds and her pants were being pulled down forcibly revealing only her rear that was only covered by her undergarments. She did her best to hold on to her clothes but they were far stronger. They were frustrated about the shirt so they ripped it apart and used bladed weapons to cut her pants off since they were already half way done. They accidentally cuts the area around her thighs a bit leaving a visible line of redness that seeps out blood. There were two cuts. One was a long line of blood across both her front thighs that was minor but the rear side of her thighs was slightly more severe. On the rear side, there was a deep cut from the left side of her left thigh and it curved around and diagonally down and stopped just before the ligament of the right thigh. Blood trailed down all the way to the soles of her feet from the cuts.

Just when she was about to be knocked out, a shadow blurred right in front of her. The speed was beyond human capabilities and all ten bullies instantly collapsed to their knees. They did not even have the slightest clue on who did it until they saw the daunting figure. Though what she saw was hazy, she knew who it was. The daunting figure before her was the boy who just collapsed out of blood loss. In front of them, a changed face was unveiled.

His eyes were icy cold and his face was no longer innocent. His face was consumed by a strange madness and twisted into an icy glare. He was different from how he usually was. There were still no signs of muscles but some of the bullies had some of their ribs caved in and faces with broken noses or teeth. The three who stood over him had their entire legs broken and twisted. Those three fainted from the shock of losing both their legs. The seven others were just on the floor in pain.

Some of the bullies managed to get back up on their feet and tried to retaliate against the one whom they bullied not too long ago. But his figure only flickers in the light like a phantom and only in a fraction of a second was he visible but another person already fell by that time. Maybe it was because her vision was blurry that she thought he moved very fast. But she saw Jin’s monstrous fighting style. In no more than five minutes was he able to take the rest down. By then, each person already had a broken arm or leg or both and was knocked out. The demon would not let them off easily. He made sure it was burned into their bones and bodies. He forcibly smashed their heads against each other and to the ground in order to make them have memory loss. Mirana was scared out of her mind and feigned a state of unconsciousness.

When it was all said and done, the shadow moves towards her. Along the way, he collected the bodies like trinkets and piled them high on his shoulders. His steps did not falter in the slightest when he walks in her direction even with all the extra baggage. He then walks past her and threw them all in the dumpster behind her and then came back to check up on her.

He went in close to her face to check her breathing. He unintentionally breathe in her ear because he was tired. He could see that her clothes were cut up and ripped so he was only worried about scratches on her skin. He did not know that she was still awake.

Now that he was only a few inches away from her face, she got a clear view of the figure’s face. The haziness slowly turns clearer and without a doubt it was Jin. The kid that was recently bullied was now something close to the heroic silhouette in her dreams. But she could not tell if he was a hero who’d saved her or a dark avenger who just wanted to exact revenge because of his ruthlessness. It was because his face was still icy cold that made him look like a murderer.

Suddenly, she felt his hands run across her body. ‘No way! Is he going to violate me? Even though he just saved me!?’ She thought. She couldn’t move because she thought that he might kill her. Her breathing gotten heavy and her mind was in a mush when he touched the girl. His hands also reached under the shirt and inspected almost every part of the torso except the private top part. ‘His hands… I can’t think straight’ her mind was slowly falling apart. He then moves his hand down to her waist. He confirmed that the top part of the body was fine and nothing was amiss or badly hurt.

‘I-is it over?’ her face felt flushed and she panted hard. ‘!!!!’ She felt that his went down to her hips and slowly made its ways down to the soles of her feet and back up. But the hands stopped midway before reaching all the way up her thigh. The hands changed directions and went behind. She did not even notice that his hand was in her pant pockets. She thought that he was feeling her up.

But in truth, Jin was just checking up on her to see if there was any wounds, cuts or scratches. Her breathing just got worse when he touched her so he was frantic. He was already tired from being bullied the entire day. Fighting only made his fatigue worse and he did his best to keep his eyes open. But his eyes were cloudy and couldn’t see well so he could only rely on his hands to navigate through her body. The only thing was wrong was the cuts on her thighs. Then he went to find her phone in pocket for her phone to call the ambulance but it was locked and the girl looked like her condition was getting worse. He took off his shirt and dressed it on her and pulled out two big cloths he had and tied it around her waist to make it look like a dress with one of them. The other was to just to wipe the blood.

Luckily, on that day, the school nurse stayed late. When he arrived in the nurse office, the nurse was not there. He placed the girl down on an empty bed and went to the medicine cabinet and came back shortly. There, Mirana watched the boy who saved her through peaked eyes. She watched him treated her cuts properly with first aid and applied bandages. His face was dark serious and apologetic when he was treating her.

When he was done with her, he took off his shirt. She took noticed of his bloody body. He tended to her wounds before his even though he was bleeding a lot more than she was. There were old scars on his body as well. Accumulated old scars throughout his growth and some did not even look like humanely possible scars.

The nurse still did not come after he was done tending to both their wounds. So he pulled out a chair and sat in front of her with closed eyes and crossed arms. Every now and then, he would come over to her to check if her conditions. When he was satisfied, he would sit back down in the same position. ‘How is it that the boy, who was weak, weak bodily physique, and gentle turned so strong and ruthless? Why does he look so strong now?’ Mirana thought. She was completely wooed by the closed eyed boy in the chair. She drifts into a short blank rest.

When the nurse did come, she asked what happened and Jin told a lie that he tripped and had an accident that involved her. The nurse was about to question the validity of his alibi but didn’t because his face seemed different today. It seemed more manly and serious. When Jin stood up, his back was strangely strong in her eyes and seemed scarier. Even the nurse did not recognize the dark figure in front of her.

When the nurse took a good look at the boy’s body, it was all bandaged up. Jin could not hide the bandages because he had no shirt to wear.

By this time, Mirana already was awake but she continued to pretend to be knocked out. She was awake the entire time. From beginning when the nurse entered, she was awake. When he held her, she wanted to be held on like that for a little longer. ’Please keep this a secret’ Mirana could hear the boy whisper to the nurse. He walked right out after he got his things. When she saw the figure of a strength leaving, the reappearance of a hero flashed in her mind from her dreams.

From that day forth, she could never forget about him. Every day, she would see that he would be bullied but chose not to help because she knew his true nature. He would act weak to avoid many other problems in the future but strong only when needed. He left a big impression on Mirana that day. She never got another boyfriend because of him. There were many more days like these when she saw his strong side. But he would always end up acting weak and innocent in the eyes of others on most days and whenever possible.

Every night, she would dream of him. The image of a hero that saved her that day burned in her memories. The grown boy who had the strength of ten men. The insane flashes of the phantom. But the part she remembers the most was when his hands were on her. She was like a cat in heat when she remembered it. She would mutter strange words every night in her dreams. By the time she woke up, she was even hotter than all of her previous dreams of him. Her sheets would become stained and drenched in something more than sweats. She would find out that her hormones would act up causing her to leak milk. But it felt like bliss to her.

By the end of her high school years, she would look at his back once more to see that he had grown into a man but still looked weak. Yes this person whom she saw was Jin. On the day of their graduation, she wanted to have one last chance to meet him. But even then fate was cruel. She saw how he died. Jin died standing. In her eyes, she thought that he died because he was over stressed with school and the bullies. She also knew how hard he worked his entire life and continuously worked to his bones. She thought he died because he used the last of his strength to get his diploma and vanish like a ghost like he would usually do every graduation ceremony in high school. From then on, she felt like she would never meet another man like him ever again.

When she opened her eyes, the mirage of the boy from her high school over lapped with the masked man. “Jin?” Mirana blurted because she saw the over lapped images. Jin turned towards the girl who just woke up. “Awake? An hour had passed”, he said. He picks up a glass of water, took off the bottom part of his mask, and drinks it casually. The image of the boy and the masked man still over lapped but shortly faded away. Coming back to her senses, she finally responses, “Ah… Yeah… I just woke up.” Though both possessed beautiful doll like faces, what were the chances that he came back? She gave up the idea that the masked man and Jin was one. But she did feel that this Jin was special.