Chapter 86 - Bonus : A Coward's Point Of View

Leo always had been a coward.

He had so many friends and always been the top three in class. He was also popular among the school, and no one had ever touched him for years already.

But he was a coward.

He remembered that day like a core memory. He could never forget it even he wanted to. Because that day, his life changed so much and had been perfect since this point of his life.

He wasn't like this before. He was the lowest person in the school. He had no friends and could not even get a good score because Aster would beat him up with his minions if he did.

He was still in elementary school that day. Aster punched him because he hadn't done the blond's homework. He was sick yesterday, so he abandoned what Aster told him to do.

Everything was blurry as he covered his head with his hand and curled up on the floor. All he could feel was pain and pain only. Aster kept kicking him and suffocating the air.

There was laughter around him. Everyone treated him like trash. But he had no guts to fight back. He was a coward, after all.

Then it stopped. The kicking and laughter suddenly stopped.

"Hey! You shouldn't- you shouldn't beat someone up like that!" Someone yelled in front of Leo, shielding him from the bullies.

Leo fought the fear and opened his eyes to see the person who was protecting him. He opened his eyes to see black hair and a pair of ocean eyes. He could see the fear inside the boy that was shielding him and yet, and yet-

The boy fought for him and saved him from Aster and his minions. That person was not a coward, unlike him.

He learned that his name was Axel the next day. That boy had become his saviour, his hero.

The bullying had stopped, and he started to gain friends slowly. Everyone who was always afraid to befriend him before, started to befriend him since Aster was out of his radar.

He finally became an average student. Everything was because of his hero. All thanks to him.

But Leo never managed to say thank you to Axel. He kept his mouth shut and diverted his gaze from the boy.

Because if he approached Axel, Aster might bully him again.

Aster moved all his bullying toward Axel now. His hero was the one who took all the beating and insulting. Axel took his position before and replaced him.

Every time he went past Axel who was getting beaten by Aster and his minions, he would pretend that he didn't see anything. He would pretend that he didn't see the betrayed and hurt look inside Axel's torn ocean eyes.

They could have been best friends if Leo had tried.

But he didn't try. Because he was a coward.

So he ignored Axel for years and let the guilt slowly kill him and eat him away to the point he would become numb.

Now they were in high school, and Leo stayed a coward.

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Leo remembered that day too, the day he had received another unsuspected hero.

His parents both were working in some kind of guild. His parents always wore a uniform with 'DM' mark on it, and Leo never knew what it meant. All he knew was that his parents were under the government.

He was waiting for his parents to finish their work because the key was with them and Leo forgot to take the spare key to his house. He sat alone in the guest room in the big building.

It was night already, but his parents took a long time to finish their job. He scrolled through all the social media on his phone, trying to kill time by doing it. He let out one or two sighs in every minute, hoping that his mother and father would just finish soon.

And then an alarm blasted through the building. It was ear-piercing and caused Leo to cringe at the sound.

He saw how everyone ran away and hurriedly went upstairs. Every person's eyes became terrified, and Leo frowned at the sudden blasting warning.

"Alice, hurry up! The mercenary and the mute murderer could kill us in one go if we're on their way!" A man had screamed while dragging a woman behind him who was trying to go the other way instead of the exit.

"They are trying to take the black arrow! We can't let them have it!" The woman exclaimed. Despite her trembling legs, she still tried to turn the other way.

But then, there was an explosion above the floor Leo was in. It was so big that the ground above them cracked at a fast speed.

The floor above the woman and the man started to fall, slowly, too slow in Leo's eyes. His feet were screaming to shove them away and save them.

So why. Why couldn't he move?

Leo just stood there, watching as the man and the woman get crushed by the floor above, letting the blood spill and flow onto Leo's feet.

He was a coward. He was a goddamn coward.

His knees had given up and let him fall onto the ground. He screamed, so loud that he could not hear anything. He did not know how long he had been screaming. Everything was blurry. He might be crying. He just didn't know.

He didn't even notice the crack above his head as well.

The floor above him started to break, and it was only a matter of a second before it crushed him too. Leo noticed it too late when he finally looked up. His eyes widened, and his breath stopped at that second.

Ironically, he could not move at all at that moment. He was such a coward that he could not even save himself.

He shut his eyes and waited for the impact to happen. But it never did. Instead, someone pushed him away and dragged him away from the falling floor.

Like some kind of deja vu, he opened his eyes slowly to see a pair of familiar ocean eyes, dragging him away from the fallen floor to a safer place. The mute murderer was saving him.

The criminal put him in front of the exit door and dropped him there. Leo was trembling and trying to put a distance between them. Should he say thank you? Should he say anything?

In the end, like the coward that he was, he didn't utter any words. The mute murderer vanished from his sight as his parents came up to him with tears in their eyes.

He found another hero that day.

And he stayed a coward. He never told anyone what happened that day and let another guilt crush his soul.

He kept being a coward and kept his mouth shut about both of his heroes.

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Leo was always a coward.

He really... he really didn't know what to say.

When he watched Axel fighting the mercenary to save Rune inside the cafeteria, he really didn't know what to say.

When everyone started to run away, he just stood there, staring at his supposed to be hero in between all the catastrophe. Too many thoughts went inside his mind as he tried to learn what was happening.

The mute murderer was Axel. Axel was the mute murderer.

Both of his heroes were the same person.

The mute murderer was the boy who always got bullied by Aster. The weak boy was actually strong. His hero had always been saving him all this time.

The criminal was just a boy. Yet he had killed far too many people to count. God, Axel was too young for this, wasn't it?

Leo watched as Rune spat venom at Axel. The only girl that had always been by his side- no, the only person that had always been by his side now pushing him away as if they were never friends before.

Just like Leo did when Axel helped him-

It was unfair for Axel, wasn't it? Leo could push his guilt away just a little when Axel became friends with Rune. But now, everything was too unfair.

Part of his brain screamed that the mute murderer deserved this because he had killed too many people. But from Leo's point of view, Axel's life had never been fair.

The mercenary was betraying him. Rune was pushing him away. Everyone was judging him, pointing their fingers at him.

Axel went back to that time when Leo was saved by him from Aster. Axel went back to that time when Leo almost died. At those moments, Axel saved him from all the unfair things that the world tried to throw at him.

Axel was experiencing the same thing as Leo again.

He wanted to jump in like Axel did, like the mute murderer did. He wanted to jump in and just brought Axel out of there. He wanted to save his hero.

Instead of doing as his brain had been shouting him to do, he stood there, watching as black tears fell from Axel's mismatched eyes.

Leo tried to help, really. He wanted to hug the boy like he always wanted to do since that day Axel took his place. He wanted to thank the boy for everything and repay him. Despite how Axel was the mute murderer, the look in his ocean eyes was too familiar as his pathetic look.

It was the look of despair—the look of someone who had been receiving too much unfairness from the world.

But unlike Leo who had Axel to come and save him, the mute murderer had no one to come and be his hero.

So in the end,

Leo kept being a coward.