Several days later…
“Remember everything we’ve discussed today. It will be included in your upcoming major exams.”
The bell that signaled the start of lunch break rang. The students breathed a sigh of relief. The teacher bid his goodbye and advised students to observe proper behavior during lunch.
Seth glanced at Gilbert’s direction, but as expected, he was the first one to storm out of the room. Seth heaved a sigh. He had been meaning to talk to Gilbert. To tell him that Seth was thankful for his help the other day. However, Gilbert Hugo was as elusive as a mythical creature. Every time Seth would attempt to approach Gilbert, the latter was quick to disappear. He couldn’t keep up.
Seth watched as his classmates left the room one by one. Being inside a small classroom with several students still made him feel anxious. But it was not as uncomfortable as it was before. Seth would manage to adjust eventually.
When Seth was the only one left in the classroom, he brought out the lunch prepared by his mother and put the container on his desk. He had been eating lunch inside the classroom while his classmates were having theirs in the cafeteria. Well, Seth preferred it that way. It was never a bad thing to enjoy a few minutes of peace and quiet by himself.
Before eating his lunch, Seth decided to do a quick trip to the bathroom to take a leak. There were several students inside. Seth did his business as quick as possible. When he was washing his hands on the sink, one of the students inside the bathroom spoke.
“That Gilbert Hugo is a fucking menace. I heard his beef with the senior students from another school. Gilbert took care of them singlehandedly. What a creep!”
“So, that Gilbert Hugo is untouchable, huh?”
The student who spoke first had a smirk on his face. “Not really. If we gather all the members, then, Gilbert Hugo won’t be able to handle us by himself. Oh, I want to see his pleading face after we beat him to a pulp.”
Seth washed his hands as quickly as possible. He left the bathroom without looking back. He didn’t like what he was hearing. Gilbert Hugo was in danger!
Seth heard many things about Gilbert Hugo for the last few days. The reason why he didn’t remember anything about Gilbert from his previous life was because the latter was a returning student. Gilbert Hugo started his freshman year when Seth was still in his last year of middle school. Gilbert stopped a year and returned to school and became Seth’s classmate. But because Seth was about to drop out of school after attending his second year for just a few months and Seth was busy dealing with his own problems at that time, Gilbert Hugo was not included into Seth’s core memory of his brief high school life.
Now that Seth had a chance to redo his life, he became aware of many things—including his classmate Gilbert Hugo. Because Seth was helped by him, he got curious about Gilbert. So, for the past days, Seth had been hearing many things about his classmate.
Seth heard that Gilbert stopped coming to school for a year because he joined a gang. Seth also heard that Gilbert would beat up students without any reason at all. The teachers were afraid of him because of his explosive temper. The students were wary of him. Thus, Gilbert’s bad reputation earned him the title of the most fearsome student in the whole school. Well, Gilbert was also the most hated person by the students and teachers alike.
Seth heard many things about Gilbert Hugo, though he didn’t know how many of them were the truth and how many were just mere lies. Seth, for one, refused to believe that Gilbert was someone who would beat up anyone without any reason at all. Gilbert helped Seth without any questions asked. When Seth first saw him on the street with blood on Gilbert’s face, the latter was so kind to warn Seth to leave the place before it got more dangerous.
Seth thought Gilbert was not as bad as the rumors suggested. Probably, there were some misunderstanding and prejudice mixed in the whole scenario.
Seth heaved a deep sigh. He quickened his steps and went back to the classroom.
Upon reaching the classroom, Seth immediately felt that something was not right. He walked toward his desk and noticed that the food container with his lunch in it was missing. Seth was confused at first. Where was it? Did he just forget where he put it? Was it inside his bag?
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Then, it dawned on Seth. Someone was playing tricks on him. He had experienced something like this in the past and obviously Seth knew who the one behind the incident was.
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Seth knew that Chuck was just waiting for him to look miserable while begging his bully to return his lunch. Seth would not give Chuck that luxury. He would let Chuck wait for nothing.
Instead of going to the cafeteria to buy something to eat, Seth got his math textbook under his desk and decided to look for his teacher. Seth had so many questions regarding their lesson.
So, Seth went to the teachers’ office. Even though it was lunch time, the teachers were obliged to accommodate students’ questions about lessons even in the midst of their break time.
Seth was about to knock on the door of the teachers’ office when he heard someone’s angry voice. Seth stepped back and listened.
“You thought I wouldn’t notice, huh? You deliberately wrote the wrong answers to the questions! I noticed that you wrote all the correct answers, and then you erased them one by one, and finally wrote different and obviously wrong answers! Why are you like this? You used to be a model student, Gilbert!”
Seth was surprised to hear his classmate’s name. So, Gilbert was not a lazy bum like everyone had thought. It seemed like Gilbert was pretending he didn’t know anything. Well, Seth had a hunch that his classmate had been hiding his true capabilities. In Seth’s previous life, Gilbert became a doctor—well, not just an ordinary doctor but a super famous one.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. I was never a model student. Just accept the fact that I scored zero in the activity.” It was Gilbert Hugo’s voice. It sounded so calm, but it sent shivers down his spine.
“I don’t know what to do with you, Gilbert. Your father will be disappointed—“
“Don’t talk about that shithead. That man is not my father.” Gilbert’s voice was still calm, though it had a hint of anger in it.
“O-okay. This will be the last time I’ll talk to you about this. I will fail you without warning next time. Maybe you need to repeat another year. How does that sound?“
“I don’t care if you fail me. I don’t know why I’m still attending this shit of a school. You’re doing me a huge favor if you happen to fail me, sir. I’ll send you a flower basket to celebrate my freedom from this place.”
“Gilbert—“
The door to the office opened without any warning. Gilbert Hugo’s huge frame appeared in front of Seth. Well, Seth couldn’t help but blush out of embarrassment. It was so obvious he was listening to the conversation between his teacher and classmate.
Seth was waiting for Gilbert to mock him, but instead the latter just left without saying anything.
Seth clenched his fists. If he wanted to talk to Gilbert, it was the right time. So, he abandoned the idea to talk to his teacher and Seth tried to catch up to Gilbert by running.
“Hey!” Seth shouted. “Gilbert Hugo, wait!”
Gilbert stopped on his tracks. He looked back on Seth’s direction with an unreadable expression on his face.
“What do you want?” Gilbert asked in a monotone voice.
Instead of speaking immediately, Seth closed the gap between them and looked at Gilbert’s face as closely as possible.
“What are you doing?”
Seth could feel Gilbert’s warm breath on his face. Though, he was still oblivious how close their faces were.
“You have blood dripping on your face the other day. Is your wound okay? But upon closer look, I can’t see any wound or scar on your face. But there was a lot of blood—”
“It was not mine…” Gilbert answered.
“Huh?” Seth was confused.
“The blood you saw that day…it was not my blood.”
Seth was surprised to learn the truth. “Then…?”
“I know you already know the answer.”
Seth understood. The blood on Seth’s face that day was his enemy’s. After learning the truth, Seth continued to observe Gilbert’s face. He had thick eyebrows, his eyes were a pair of beautiful hazel, he had a pointed nose, and natural red lips. Those beautiful features made Gilbert irresistibly handsome. Yes, he might be the school menace, but Seth also heard most of the girl students going crazy over Gilbert Hugo’s looks. Even Seth could see how handsome Gilbert was. As a matter of fact, Seth could look at Gilbert’s face without getting tired of it…
“What are you looking at?” Gilbert’s tone was not angry, in fact it carried a hint of subtle confusion in it.
Seth realized that he was looking so intently at Gilbert Hugo and how close his face with his. Seth immediately took a step back. His heart was racing and he could feel his rapid heartbeat. What the hell was he doing?
“What do you want from me?” This time, Gilbert’s voice was firm.
Seth couldn’t look straight at his classmate. He just needed to state his business and get the hell out of there.
“I…” Seth started to speak. However it was interrupted by a loud noise that came from his stomach. Shit. Seth was too ashamed!
“You did not eat yet?” Gilbert asked.
Seth shook his head.
Gilbert sighed. “Okay, follow me…”
Seth was confused, though he still did was he was told. Gilbert walked fast, Seth had a hard time following him. They exited the school building. Seth was confused more than ever. The school prohibited the students to leave the premises during school hours.
“Where are we going?” Seth asked.
Gilbert didn’t answer. They walked all the way to the back of the school building. Then, stopped in front of a huge wall that was full of vines.
“Are we going to climb the wall?“
Gilbert looked at Seth. “You have to work smarter, not harder.” Then, in Seth’s amazement, Gilbert moved the vines on the lower left part of the wall and a hole just enough for a person to crawl in appeared.
“How in the world…?”
“Don’t ask questions.” Without further ado, Gilbert crawled inside the hole. Even though he had many questions, Seth followed his classmates.
When Seth crawled out of the hole, he immediately observed how the hole looked outside, but Gilbert already covered it with vines. It looked nothing out of ordinary.
“How did you know about that?” Seth couldn’t help but ask.
“The school janitor told me about it during my freshman year. Since then, I hadn’t eaten the overpriced food in our school cafeteria.”
Seth laughed. “How many people knew about the hole on that wall?”
“Not many. Aside from the janitor, there’s me and…”
“And?”
“Let’s eat.” Gilbert changed the topic. “There’s this place who sells delicious but cheap meals.”
Seth was still curious about the person Gilbert was sharing the secret of the wall with. But, obviously, Gilbert was not in the mood to talk about it.
Seth followed his classmate. It was the first time for him to go against school rules.
Seth looked at Gilbert’s back. He felt nervous and excited at the same time.
*****
❤️❤️❤️
Time for some bonding~
Thanks for the chapter 💙
💙💙💙
Thank you for the chapter. Is Gilbert the ML?
Aaaahhhh! He found a friend. Sweet. Thanks for the chapter.
Was “Seth sighed. ‘Okay, follow me…'” supposed to be Gilbert? Just letting you know!
Thank you for pointing this out <3
No problem 🙂 HTH!