It was Thursday, 3 days after I had came back to Kammzet City.
The cooking ingredients I bought at Sunday were already running out, even though I am the only one consuming the foods.
Why? The reason is simply because the ingredients I bought, most cannot last for long, so I quickly cooked them up before they started to spoil. This is one thing I dislike when I'm cooking only for myself. If I bought too much ingredient, the foods and ingredients will be spoiled before I get to use them; If I bought too little, I run out of them very fast, and have to travel a lot to the supermarket.
It is a troublesome task, if I were to say, but I have to learn to live by myself. Not just learn to take care of my daily meal, but also learn to clean the house, manage the budget for daily needs, manage my schedule so I have time to work part time while still able to cook my own food. I had done these kind of tasks when I was still staying with my elder brother and my mother, but they are still surprisingly difficult when I have to do all of the tasks all by myself.
Maybe I was just merely underestimated the burden of living alone.
'Oh well, never mind', I thought, while walking to the supermarket.
After I had done my shopping, left the supermarket, and walked passed a few shops on the street, I noticed there was a human's shadow in a back alley between a convenient shop and a cafe. Feeling that it's suspicious, I entered the back alley to check the owner of this shadow.
After I went inside the alley, I see no human at all, nor I sense any living presence. Perhaps, not even rats were in this alley. 'I must be thinking too much', I thought, and decided to get out of the alley and continued walk back home.
As I turn around, I saw a familiar scene. It is a view towards the street from the alley, that brings back memories of an incident that later became the reason of me leaving the City of Kammzet.
4 and a half years ago, both me and Yu Zhe were bad kids. Not your typical naughty kid, but very very bad.
What makes me say so?
Because both of us had wield weapons and hurt someone seriously enough to send him to hospital.
The victim, was a high schooler not from KIS. If I recall correctly, he was in high school year 2 that time, which means he is someone 5 years older than us.
Actually, there was 3 people we fought with. All of them were injured, but one was serious enough to require a surgery.
For two 12 years old kids, to be able to beat 3 high schoolers until seriously wounded, might seem absurd, but with weapons, it is possible.
To begin with, both me and Yu Zhe had been fighting a lot of other bad kids in the neighborhood. So in a way, we were well trained.
Further more, though it was imitation, we did attempted to train with 100 pushups while having a heavy rock resting on top of our body, running 10km with weights on our body, and other typical training that can be seen in a kung fu movie.
Whether or not we did the training correctly, I did not know. But there should be some effect on us, that could made us strong enough to fight against a few high schoolers.
And for god's sake, from some movie, I managed to get an idea of DIY myself a knuckle with iron pieces attached on it. While Yu Zhe would carry a mixed-metal bat which is both light and durable, that he was lucky enough to found such bat within a pile of trash.
With our ability and the weapon we 'crafted', beating 3 high schoolers wasn't that hard.
Now, as of why would we do that....
We were bad kids, but we were only bad because we fight a lot, with other bad kids of course (before meeting the high schoolers)
Our reason of fighting, it was quite a common reason, one that many small boys often think of: Justice.
To be a hero of justice.
We fight, because there were really bad kids who bully others merely for self-satisfaction, so we fight them and chase them off.
But after our few 'rescue', more and more bad kids get to know us, making us famous and often targeted.
So we ended up always caught in fight. A Fight to help the weak, and also a fight to protect ourselves when other bad kids targeted us.
But we hardly lost the fight.
Except the first time we were surrounded by 10 kids, the other times we just won the fight.
After quite some time passed, there were lesser bad kids targeting us, and we were starting to be the hero among the kids who were often bullied by others.
Then, we got proud of it.
Very proud of it.
Until we started to help people who were older than us, which are middle schoolers.
We lost the fight again when we were attacked by 7-8 middle schoolers, but after that, we kept on winning.
Then we finally start to challenge delinquents who were in between the age of 16 to 18.
Our first few 'debut' in the high school delinquents went well.
And that got us really overconfident.
Soon after our 'debut', one day, both of us happened to see 3 male high school students disturbing a female high school student. We were 12, so we didn't know much about sexual harassment, but whatever it is, it is definitely 'evil' to us 'justice'.
So we tried to stop those 3 male high schoolers, and got into fight.
We had the upper hand, because they were just your typical high schoolers, who happened to have bad attitudes but have nothing in fighting experience like other delinquents we had fought.
You might expect us to win the battle and save the girl.
But unfortunately, whilst the midst of fighting, one of the high schoolers swore on Yu Zhe.
The words used, was related to Yu Zhe's mother.
What kind of foul words were used, it is up to your imagination. But I can at least tell you, it is something very hurting towards a child who loves his mother a lot, which is the worst when his mother just had to pass away not long ago.
When Yu Zhe's mother passed away, he blamed himself a lot, and after that he felt guilty for the rest of his life.
So with the hurting words towards his mother, and his emotion started to break down, Yu Zhe lost himself.
'berserk', would be the correct word to describe Yu Zhe's act back then.
The first one he attacked is the one who swears, but after that, Yu Zhe still continued attacking like a blind monster.
The other 2 high schoolers knew something was wrong when they saw Yu Zhe's soul-less glare, so they tried to flee, but they failed.
One was quickly caught by Yu Zhe as he tried to escape, and the other one was hit by the bat Yu Zhe thrown at.
The one who was hit by the bat, simply fainted, but the one who was caught from running away, is the one who received all of Yu Zhe's frenzy attack.
Yu Zhe attacks for a few minutes with his punches. Even though he trained himself more with a weapon, his fist is still quite powerful. Not before, blood can be seen flowing out from the victim.
When I saw this, I trembled a little, as I sense real bad aura coming from Yu Zhe. The aura was the worst I had ever felt when I fought delinquents in the past, it wouldn't be exaggerating to say the aura was a few times worse than others.
I took a while to calm myself down, and right after I calmed down, I quickly come out of an idea to stop Yu Zhe.
Not fighting him, because our strength should be equal, if not him being a little bit stronger than me.
So I chose to strike him the hardest I could at his stomach and head, to make sure that will put not just his consciousness, but also his physical body to complete rest.
And the attempt should not failed, otherwise I will have to face an all-out fight with Yu Zhe.
After I had prepared myself, I dashed forward to Yu Zhe and execute a few swift punch on his stomach then on his head. Yu Zhe passed out. While holding Yu Zhe on my arms, I became relax for a moment, then my senses and feelings were starting to catch up of what's going on, and many emotions started to run through my brain.
I became scared and despair, which was completely out of the character I thought I was.
For the first time, I experienced what is 'bloodthirsty' fight.
After the incident, both of us were questioned by the police. Of course, Yu Zhe hadn't wake up yet, so I was the first to be questioned. After my testimonial was done, my brother came to the hospital to see us (we were being questioned in the hospital). He then talk to the police officers, and apparently made some sort of deal with the policeman.
When I went back to the school the next day, everyone was talking about it.
I wasn't surprised about that, but what made me surprised was a sentence from my discipline teacher.
"Yesterday was unfortunate wasn't it? You had done well protecting that high school girl. Though the other 3 were injured badly, but there was nothing you could do, you were just protecting yourself."
I was expecting the news to be like we were being very violent or sort, but I was wrong.
"I know you were being the companion of justice, but with what you did lately, along with this incident, I can not allow you to stay in this school any further. Please don't think bad of me, but you're making a bad example here for other students. A companion of justice should not be resolve to violence. Even though you were protecting, but what you did wasn't right."
and I was given the notice that I will be transferring.
Apparently, with my brother meddling with the case, the truth of the incident was altered.
It goes by, "Wang Xia Yan was panic when Zhang Yu Zhe had fainted from the fight with the 3 high school students. He lost control and went on frenzy in hitting. Because he is actually well trained, so he could cause such serious injury to the 3 high school students."
In other words, I became the culprit for sending the high schoolers to hospital.
When I got home, the first thing I did was shout at my brother.
He was calm, because he was already expecting this.
"Think carefully. If the news was spread with Yu Zhe being the main culprit of the 3 students' injury, what will happened to his family?"
My brother's statement frozen me.
After his mother passed away, Yu Zhe's father was having a tough moment working alone while taking care of 3 children in the home (Yu Zhe, his younger brother and sister).
If the news was spread that way, then it is very likely Yu Zhe's father's job will be affected.
In worst case, he could lose his job.
If his father lose his job, plus hearing how violent his son was, then it is expected that a lot of stress will be built on him.
A temporary mental break down is no surprise.
In worst case, he might even suicide, while leaving the 3 young children behind.
So what my brother did, was right.
By pushing all the blame on me, Yu Zhe's family was less affected by the incident.
"B-but..... it wasn't that good to us either!!" I shouted.
My dad left our family 10 years ago, leaving only my mom to take care of me and my brother.
As my brother graduated high school (which is KIS), he went straight to work to support my mom even though he was already guarantee scholarship in some good university.
So in some way, my family situation is better than Yu Zhe's.
But it is still in a bad shape!
"Don't worry. I had already come up with a plan."
"Huh?"
"My company just gave me an offer to work as a higher officer in other city. So the whole family will be moving with me to Silver Peck city, which is at the nearby foreign country. After we move, you can start all over again in a place where nobody knows you. While I get a raised in rank and increased in salary, our family's financial situation also got better. So it is not that bad for us."
If I think that way, yes, it is not that bad for my family.
But if I left this place, then I'm leaving Yu Zhe and Ying as well!
I don't want to leave them!!
"I don't want to leave Yu Zhe and Ying!!!!"
"...."
"Yu Zhe will have to take all this incident by himself. Ying will be lonely without me, and will be very sad with me and Yu Zhe because of the incident. The 3 of us have to take this together, endure it together!!"
"Unfortunately, to you, that is not going to happen. Don't be selfish. Because you're just causing more trouble that way."
And that was how it was decided for me to move away from Kammzet.
On the next morning, we started preparing to move and by evening, all preparations were pretty much completed.
I had sulk for a while, wondering how can I face Ying and Yu Zhe, while saying goodbyes.
In the end, I didn't manage to say my farewell. Simply because I didn't had the courage to face Ying, and simply I can't stand the sadness I'm gonna build when they are seeing me leaving Kammzet.
So, that is the whole story, of me leaving Kammzet without saying goodbye to my best friends.
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