“It’s a story about a boy in grade school,” Vincent began his tale. “A quiet, nice boy who never hurt a fly. Unfortunately, being quiet meant he had trouble making any friends. Bullies often leeched off opportunities like that. And so, the boy found himself bullied.”

At first, nobody in class noticed that something was wrong, not even Vincent. The bullies just casually started hanging around the shy boy, acting overly familiar with him.

“Hey, I forgot my lunch money. Can you lend me some?” It all started with indirect requests like this. The bullies must’ve been testing this boy, to see how gullible he was. They probably wanted to see how easy it was to exploit him and get away scot-free.

It was unclear what the boy himself thought of these suspicious approaches. Perhaps, he saw it as an opportunity to make friends. After all, these kids were reaching out to him, asking for his “help”. Perhaps he thought that, by playing along, they could start something going.

So, the boy happily lent his money, probably thinking it was an early investment for developing friendship. Unfortunately, it didn’t lead to the kind of relationship he was hoping for.

On the surface, the gang of bullies acted as if they became the boy’s friends. However, it soon became apparent that their relationship was nothing like true friendship.

The boy merely became the bullies’ plaything. They asked him to lend them money, to run errands for them, and even to pull pranks on other people in their stead and take the blame for it.

Their demands escalated further and further. It’s like they got their hands on a brand new toy and wanted to stretch it to its limits. And so, they continued making the boy commit all sorts of evils. Before long, the boy became known as a “delinquent” in the class even though none of it was his own will.

That’s when Vincent started following the story more closely. His journalism senses tingled, he felt something was wrong.

“I wasn’t particularly close to the boy,” Vincent admitted. “But, as an avid pursuer of the world’s truths, I made it a point to learn as much as possible about my classmates. You may call it Journalist’s Unstoppable Curiosity, a personal skill I inherited from my dear father.”

This guy is a natural-born stalker. Yuel made a face. But, he means no ill so it’s fine.

“Anyway,” Vincent continued. “Even though I didn’t have a close relationship with the boy in question, I knew enough to tell that his behavior didn’t match his personality.”

He knew the boy was the quiet type who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Yet, after the boy started hanging out with his “friends”, things took a turn for the worse. These rascals clearly had a bad influence on such a good kid.

“I-I don’t want to do this...” Every now and then, the boy gathered the courage to resist the bullies’ demands. He clearly didn’t want to do bad things but his resistance was too weak.

“What the heck, man? You not gonna do me this favor? I thought we were friends.” The bullies ganged up on the poor boy whenever he dared to utter a single word of objection. They overwhelmed him through peer pressure, forcing him to submit.

Sometimes, they even got physical with him. They shoved him, threw his things around, verbally assaulted him, and so forth. They did many things to keep their little toy under their thumbs.

“Honestly, it was sickening,” Vincent said. “I couldn’t believe that such injustice could be happening in our modern times, right in my own class.”

Worst of all, everybody pretended like nothing was wrong. Everybody averted their eyes whenever the bullying was taking place. They protected themselves by avoiding eye contact.

Nobody reached out to help the victim. And, Vincent didn’t either. He was a coward like the rest of them.

The bullies had some reputation to them. Especially, the leader of the gang was one of the so-called “popular kids”. He had a lot of influence and he seemed physically tough as well.

Therefore, there was nothing Vincent could possibly do about this. At least, it was impossible through frontal confrontation. He wasn’t some cartoon hero who could simply put on a colorful cape and save the day.

Fortunately, there were other ways to deal with this problem. Not everything had to be resolved face-to-face, that’s what Vincent realized after discussing the matter with his parents.

“It’s best to speak with the teachers,” his dad advised. “You need to convince the victim to report the bullying.”

It sounded easy enough. All Vincent had to do was to convince the boy to report the bullying to their homeroom teacher. The staff will surely handle things from there.

Perhaps there wasn’t any hero around to rely on, but the school system was there for the students. It’ll surely resolve this little issue in no time, right?

Alas, reality proved to be far more complicated than Vincent expected.

“Bullying? What are you talking about? They’re my friends.” the boy insisted in front of Vincent. Even though he looked pale, beaten up, and fragile enough to collapse at any moment, the boy insisted to hold onto such falsehood.

There was fear in his eye, the fear of disobeying a predator. The boy felt caged. If he tried to stir any trouble with his so-called “friends”, they’ll stomp on him like on a useless toy.

The boy must’ve felt he couldn't do anything about his own situation. Even though the solution was right in front of him, he was too afraid to reach out to it. No matter how hard Vincent pleaded with the boy, it was to no avail.

“Just leave me alone! Everything is okay! Everything is okay...” The boy rejected Vincent’s hand until the very end. It was impossible to convince the boy to speak to the teachers. And, of course, nobody in class will do that for him.

“So, I’ll do it.” Vincent reached a conclusion. If the victim wasn’t going to speak up, then it was up to Vincent to say something. Crimes like this couldn’t go unpunished! Reporting was the right thing to do! It was justice!

And so, he spoke of everything he knew. About the victim’s situation, about the bullying, and about the identities of the bullies. Vincent presented all the facts he gathered from observing the situation. He even mentioned that the victim was refusing to seek help and was pretending that everything was “fine”.

“I delivered all the necessary information to the authorities,” Vincent explained. “I felt it was my duty as the boy’s classmate.”

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Thankfully, the homeroom teacher acted on the information at once. She made Vincent retell the story a few more times in front of other teachers, including the principal himself. They must’ve been trying to ascertain the truth of his words, as the matter was quite grave and complicated.

Vincent spoke nonstop. He laid out all the details time and again, without missing a beat.

The staff asked him numerous questions and he answered everything to the best of his ability. He has been following the situation closely, so he was confident in all the knowledge he accumulated. As the son of a journalist, it’d be embarrassing for him to be stumped by simple questions like that, so he aced all these verification tests.

In the end, Vincent’s passionate pleading convinced the staff that something was afoot. And so, they began the investigation by talking to the victim in private.

Unfortunately, that didn’t yield any results. The victim insisted the bullies were his friends and that no bullying was taking place. Such persistent foolishness.

For the better or the worse, the teachers didn’t stop there. Vincent already informed them about how the victim was refusing to seek help, so they dug deeper into the issue. They called over other classmates and questioned them on the topic in roundabout ways.

Vincent had no idea how these conversations went but, apparently, the teachers managed to gather additional evidence. There were probably many other classmates who didn’t approve of this bullying but were too afraid to speak up. So, a few of them might have let something slip during a private conversation.

In the end, the teachers decided to address the issue directly. They organized a meeting with the bullies and the parents. The contents of the meeting remain a mystery, but they must have involved a lot of scolding and the like.

“That was it,” Vincent said. “Justice was served and everybody lived happily ever after. Or, so I thought...”

Unfortunately, the bullies’ punishment was far too light. They were expelled from school for a week, then returned as if nothing happened. For brats like them, being excused from school was probably more like a reward than a punishment. It was a dumb idea.

“Who the heck snitched on us, huh!?” The bullies interrogated the entire class. Their suspicions were primarily targeted at the victim of the story, but they also suspected other classmates just in case.

Somebody reported them, they knew that for sure. It wasn’t hard to imagine what they’d do once they get their hands on that rat.

Thankfully, Vincent remained an anonymous reporter. None of the teachers brought up his name during the investigation, so he could keep quiet and nobody would ever find out it was him.

In fact, Vincent had to stay quiet. If he were to confess, the bullies would definitely turn him into their next target.

So, he couldn’t possibly speak up and there was no reason to. Justice was served. The heroes won. There was no reason to expose himself to further danger anymore.

Therefore, Vincent remained quiet. And, naturally, nobody else spoke up either. Even if there were others who reported the bullying, they didn’t step forth to admit any of it. Everybody was scared of becoming the next victim.

“Alright then, looks like we only got one bastard we can blame.” The bullies focused their attention on the usual target. “It was you, wasn’t it? You filled the teachers’ heads with all that nonsense about ‘bullying’ and whatnot, didn’t ya? And here I thought we were friends, Matt.”

And so, the bullying resumed. Even though the bullies had just returned from their so-called “punishment”, they were back in action right away. However, this time, their bullying was twice as harsh.

Their demands toward their “friend” grew more extreme than ever before, reaching borderline criminal levels. One time, they even made him burn school property.

The physical and verbal assaults turned fiercer as well. In the end, instead of the situation being resolved, the victim found himself suffering twice as much as before. They victimized the poor boy to the point his eyes lost all their color. His head was constantly hung down as he wandered through the hallway. The will to live was no longer present on his withered face.

While all of this was taking place, Vincent was just sitting on the sidelines. He silently observed this cruel situation from afar, outside the danger zone.

“I... I made all of this happen. It’s all my fault.” Vincent blamed himself. It was his meddling that triggered this situation. The bullying was already bad enough before, but now it turned into a literal hell. And, it was all because Vincent reached out to the authorities.

“What can I do? Should I speak to the teachers again?” Vincent was at a loss. He thought he won when the teachers agreed to handle the situation, he thought justice was already served. Yet, his intervention only powered up the villains. They made a comeback from their defeat, returning twice as cruel.

“I was hesitant about turning to the teachers again,” Vincent explained. “I was afraid it might escalate the situation even further.”

A second intervention from the teachers would only anger the bullies further. They’d undoubtedly become crueler and punish their victim even more. And, it’d all be Vincent’s fault.

“I don’t know what I should do...” Vincent was at a loss. The system he naively believed in turned out to be useless.

As the son of a journalist, he believed that exposing the truth would bring justice to the world. Unfortateunly, reality was disappointing. Instead of making things better, the truth only escalated everything for the worse.

Therefore, Vincent continued sitting there on the sidelines. He mulled over this problem from afar, unable to take a single step forward.

“What will happen if I confess?” Vincent wondered. “I can tell them I’m the one who reported them.”

The thought crossed his mind multiple times but he didn’t care. In the end, he was just a coward like everybody else in the class. Like the rest of them, Vincent was afraid of becoming the target of bullying.

“I thought I was brave when I reported the bullying to the authorities,” Vincent said. “But, in the end, I simply lacked the courage to face the bullies myself.”

Vincent was just a little kid pretending to be a hero of justice. He couldn’t do anything to resolve the injustice happening right in front of him.

Nevertheless, he wanted to do something, anything, to make the situation better. But what? What could he possibly do!?

While he was still mulling over his options, the bullying escalated. In the end, before Yuel reached any sort of conclusion, the victim transferred from the school. The poor boy simply couldn’t take it anymore.

That was probably for the best. It was unfortunate that no punishment ever befell the bullies, but at least the situation calmed down. The boy escaped the harmful environment and lived on. He should be able to start his life anew in a new school. At least, that’s what Vincent desperately wanted to believe in order to keep his sense of guilt in check.

That was the end of this unfortunate tale.

“I have no idea what became of the boy after that,” Vincent said. “I can only pray he found happiness elsewhere.”

“Damn, that’s...” Lars was at a loss for words. He gave Vincent a pat on the shoulder and spoke softly. “You did what you could, dude. It’s not your fault.”

“I agree,” Yuel said. “I’m sure I wouldn’t have accomplished more than you did in that situation either. I doubt I would have even taken the first step of involving the teachers.”

“T-Thank you.” Vincent turned away. “How peculiar. Something appears to be stabbing my eye.”

It was the second time in his life that he shared the full story with somebody else. The first time was with Kai, when trying to convince her to not rely on teachers too much for Ben’s issue.

It was an embarrassing story. Vincent failed to salvage that situation. In fact, he only made it worse by meddling.

Even though he discussed the situation with his parents at first when seeking advice, he couldn’t bring himself to report to them the entire result of his efforts. After all, how could he? They’d surely say it was all his fault, that he committed a disappointing mistake even though they fed him with so much advice.

But surprisingly, even as Vincent opened the lid on this sealed story, none of his friends blamed him. Not Kai, not Lars, and not even Yuel, who always had a fair share of criticism to spare. Nobody found any fault with Vincent’s actions. Everybody said he did the “best” he could given the situation.

Perhaps it really wasn’t so bad after all. Vincent thought. I did commit a mistake, but I’ve learned a valuable lesson from that incident. I can do better this time!

Vincent simply had to apply all these lessons to the current situation with Ben. He shall not commit the same mistake again! There had to be a safer, more efficient, method to save Ben from the bullying! And, Vincent promised he shall find it, alongside the friends who were raring to resolve the situation as much as he did!