“How dare you waltz your way into this fine establishment and immediately take Raina’s attention away, huh?! You! A no-good pleb who doesn’t deserve to breathe the same oxygen as her amazement! How dare you?” he shouts at me.

Let me paint a picture here, I currently have my hands tied behind my back in a standoffish kind of situation with this person, Grant, who just called me a homewrecker, a no-good pleb, and basically blames me for something that I didn’t know I did. I’d like to think that I don’t know why he’s this pissed off at me, mainly because I don’t want this whole thing to be all about him having a thing for Raina. Because if that’s what this is all about, then it’s so freaking stupid.

But his face is seriously angry.

“Uh… sorry? I mean, I didn’t really mean to take her attention away from anyone,” I said, which in turn, made him a lot angrier for some reason.

Is this really because of love?

It’s either that or probably that Raina is just worshiped like a goddess here by everyone. If the second one’s the case, then that means that there’ll be more situations like this for me in the future. That’s a tiring future.

“You think you’re clever, huh?” he exclaims.

“What do you mean?”

“The one time she actually paid attention to me was because of you! And it wasn’t for the reasons that I’ve always hoped she’d have for acknowledging my existence, but because she was angry that I was messing with you. She even threatened me with my own death… not that I wouldn’t mind being killed by her… but regardless! It’s all because of you!” he was screaming a lot of that, pointing and glaring at me with dark intentions at the same time.

“Anyone would be angry with a bully,” I scoff.

“She doesn’t pay attention to me when I bully other people!” he screams out.

“So, you’re just admitting that you’re a bully then?!”

Okay, maybe this guy is not as stupid and dense as the other doofuses that he calls friends. He may not be stupid, but he’s definitely lost all sense and thought because he’s being blinded by love.

“I don’t know why you’re complaining. She gave you attention and you seemed to enjoy it when it was happening,” I pointed out.

“That’s besides the point!” he interjects.

His face is starting to redden, he’s probably reminiscing about the short moment he shared with her earlier. He then says, “Of course I enjoyed it. I was finally held by my beloved… but who the hell do you think you are?!”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Just calm down, Grant. There’s no need for any of us to do anything that we’d probably regret later, okay?” I tried to plead.

“Is that a threat?”

And my pleas were pretty much ignored.

“No, it’s just a request! How in the hell could I even threaten you? My wrists are bound behind my back and you think that I can do stuff against you? Are you crazy or something?” I immediately said.

“Crazy, huh? Oh, you have no idea how crazy I am!” he says, as he pics up a cluster of rocks from the ground. He grins at me and says, “I am going to enjoy this far more than I should. There can only be one apple in Raina’s eyes and that apple will be me! I will be the fruit that will be placed in her side-table!”

“You’re making no sense!”

“I don’t need to! I just need to hurt you!”

Yeah, this guy’s too far gone. Love makes people crazy, and this guy only proves that to be true. Those rocks that he’s carrying, they’re all significantly sized ones and being hit by them would definitely cause huge damage. I don’t want any trouble and somehow, I don’t want Raina to rain down his judgment day if he seriously hurt me in any way. You know what, I’ll let him know something that he probably should’ve known already.

“You’re misunderstanding something here, man! I’m Raina’s adopted brother!”

“What?!” he mumbles.

It was too late, unfortunately. Before I even finished talking, he already threw the rocks in my direction. Three of those particular rocks were large enough to seriously injure someone if they are hit. He realized that he made a mistake as well, but he’s done it now. With my hands tied behind my back, the space around us being too narrow for me to maneuver around and dodge, and worse of all, having no other way to defend myself logically, I’m at a definite disadvantage here and I would definitely land back in that hospital.

Anything but that, I don’t want them to be reminded of what I did.

But it’s too late, there’s nothing else I can do.

Those rocks are just inches away from hitting me and my brain has exhausted any thought it has on how to get out of this. The only thing that I could do now is to close my eyes and brace for sudden impact. This is going to hurt.

However…

“Huh? That’s odd…” I mutter.

Much to my surprise, nothing ever came close to hitting me. I waited for a few seconds, but nothing connected at all. I don’t know what’s going on with my eyes turned shut at the moment, but this surely doesn’t mean that it all magically dodged me as a target, right?

Or could it be that I was already hit and I’m now dead?

Do you lose all sense when you die?

Do you not feel pain at all?

Or maybe, it’s something a lot worse than that? I’m both wary and afraid of what I might discover when I open my eyes, but nothing will move forward if I don’t do so. So, despite all my fears and trepidation, I finally opened my eyes to see what happened.

“It’s just like last time…” I gasped in fear.

For my worst nightmare has come to pass, I trembled in fear for myself. As the rocks that were thrown were not dodged at all nor did they even connect at all. As far as my eye could see, they were floating in the air in front of me.

“Raina… I’m sorry. It seems like… I’ve slowed time once again…” I mumbled.