David landing to the ground from the effect of Richard's punch wasn't the end of it. In a few movies, protective brothers like Richard didn't go too far to clarify their points to losers like David. Being able to separate their loved ones from intruders and creepy people was already enough.

But Richard wasn't having it at all.

Despite how intensely The Elixir College frowned against fighting, Richard was willing to risk it all for his dear Clara. His overpowering gait, muscle-padded shoulders, and even spiky hair all made the message clear.

Richard moved closer to David, who was on the ground and nearly curled up in the form of a defeated ball and stooped low to pick him up from the floor. Richard gripped David by the collar of his shirt. Blood was dripping out of David's nostrils.

He felt flattened, literally and figuratively, beneath Richard's malicious glare and threatening hold on him. His defeat and tragic reality smashed him: he was a loser—a shameless one. The hollow, crumbling feeling that came from the clenching of his abdomen made David wish he could die at that moment.

How could all of his efforts go to waste again? He'd found the replica of his sister — a true blessing from God and had made up his mind to take care of this girl, and now her real brother was here. Worse off, he'd freaked her out, meaning that he'd done an awful job in being a brother.

From behind Richard, he could see Clara rubbing gently on the spot of her arm that he'd harshly gripped a few minutes earlier — meaning that he'd hurt her, meaning that she wasn't happy with the way he was treating her. It all explained why she'd hid in the toilet during lunch hours, after all. It broke David's heart to see that Clara wasn't saying or doing anything to try and stop Richard from attacking him.

She wanted him to go away and wouldn't stop Richard from doing what she didn't dare to do.

Tears gathered around his eyes and slipped disgracefully. He'd messed up. On the other side of his agony, however, David felt a warped, slimy sense of joy. The sliminess in the joy he felt could be likened to villainy. It was a happiness that only losers felt. He deserved to be treated like an animal, and he was glad to be getting that same treatment for being such a failure.

Richard had been glaring at him for moments, but when he spotted that smile on David's face, his fury burned deep like a fiery furnace. David's smile had been an absent-minded one, but in Richard's eyes, it was a pregnant smile filled with sinister intentions.

"I will teach you a lesson today!" Richard gripped the collar of David's shirt more firmly.

Then he raised his meaty fist and threw it across David's cheek, involuntarily turning his face to the other side. A sharp snap sound could be heard. One of David's teeth broke in the process. Immediately, he began to cough out thick clots of blood.

That wasn't the end of Richard's "lesson," though. He used his index finger and thumb to tip David's chin, turning his face towards him. "Never. Come. Close. To. My. Sister. Ever. Again!" every break in between each word was accompanied by fatal punches across David's face.

Within minutes, David's face becomes the similitude of a gargoyle tainted with grotesque colors. His lips and teeth were bathed in red, and the area around his eyes was a deep purple with his veins graphic underneath. Richard was about to throw the last and ultimate blow across David's gut when a foreign hand caught his fist in mid-air.

Richard was used to Clara trying to meddle in his physical fistfights with people — even when he was in the middle of protecting and defending her. So casually, he tried to yank the hand away while still keeping his gaze on his almost finished prey.

But the foreign hand wouldn't let go.

"Come on, leave me be to deal with this bastard. Why are—"

Then Richard turned to meet the fiery, beastly gaze of the principal of The Elixir College. He swallowed what was left of the saliva in his mouth. This man, whose bald head was covered with brownish age marks with the enormous beak of a nose protruding from his face, never stepped out of his office except on one frightening condition: to unleash his deadly wrath.

Now, as the principal's deep-set eyes flashed threateningly at him, Richard knew without the aid of a soothsayer that the end of his stay at The Elixir College had arrived. He could not only see it beneath the principal's bushy eyebrows that were so large that they seemed to be home to a permanent frown.

Richard could also see it in the alarmed gazes and exclamations of every student of The Elixir College who'd gathered around to witness the bloody fight — and that said a whole lot because the students of the elixir college always minded their businesses even if a building from two blocks away was on fire. They never stepped out of their classrooms unless it was lunchtime.

Still, as Richard let the principal drag him away from the corridor, he made a deep resolve within him that he wasn't going to go down alone. He wasn't going to spiral down the bottomless pit without dragging his enemy along.

***

Three days had passed since the show of a lifetime went down at The Elixir College. The principal made an auxiliary staff of the college assist David in getting to the school's sickbay. He'd sustained about five thick scars on his face and slight cuts across his arms. His scar-designed body was slowly becoming proof of the caricature that was his life.

A very miserable parody.

He'd been unconscious for the three days he'd spent in the school's clinic, and now as he slowly opened his eyelids which felt like a log of wood, a cluster headache pounded through the region of his right eye, making it even difficult for him to keep his eyes open.

Still, he tried.

Then he saw the same old man from three days ago sitting calmly on the chair beside his sickbed. When the principal turned and noticed David's movements, he became slightly frantic, eager to fire David with all sorts of questions.

"You are awake!" The principal remarked in an agile tone.

David propped himself up with the support of his elbow. He leaned with all efforts against the wooden work of the sickbed, using his hand to cover his right eye for fear that it would roll out of its sockets due to the excruciating pain that the cluster headache exerted in that area.

"Who are you, s-sir?" his voice was hoarse.

His words hurt, and his face burned like hot pepper. Moving every tiny musculature in his face cost him grave pounds of uneasiness and suffering. Then he remembered he'd lost a tooth from the effect of Richard's blow skin, and the skin of his cheekbone had been torn apart.

"I am the principal of this college," he cleared his throat as he answered with authoritative emphasis. "I saw that despicable, uncouth, thuggish behavior go down three days ago. It was an aberration and totally unacceptable! Oh, the great Elixir College has now become a soiled dove. Its white garment representing its impeccable reputation has been brutally tarnished by a feral dog!"

As David watched the principal ramble on and on in his incomprehensible poetic malarkey, he had one burning question that he had to ask the old man. However, the quenching fire to his curiosity was on the other side of his patience. So, he waited. When the principal was done lamenting, he went on to ask.

"P-please, sir, I hope you didn't punish the guy that was punching me. You didn't, right? Because I was the one at fault. I assaulted his sister and was intruding on her privacy. I was threatening her peace of mind, and it was only right for him to defend her. I couldn't do the job of a brother. Instead, I freaked the girl out."

The principal stared at David for a long, brooding moment. He was analyzing everything. Then when he figured it out mentally, he replied.

"Of course, I've given Richard the punishment that he deserves. He has been expelled from this great college — never to return!" The principal squared his shoulders. Before David could open his mouth to express his surprise, the principal continued. "But that doesn't mean you are going scot-free either. Trying to exercise control over people and threatening their peace of mind is not acceptable in this prestigious school!"

David nodded with all satisfaction and meekness. "I will accept the worst of the worse punishment you inflict upon me, sir."

The principal raised a bushy eyebrow. He was amused but not impressed by that statement. It reeked of that foolish boldness that came with naivety. "I'll accept the worst of the worse punishment." How vague. Did he have a real, factual idea of the punishment he was capable of meting out to him?

"I was able to get your father's phone number from your register, and I gave him a call," The principal said in a sincere causal tone.

But that was all he needed to say to have David's knees buckle in fear. His hands trembled—his father. David's Dad didn't know about the secret arrangement that his mother had made with her best friend. His siblings had no idea of their mother's clandestine meetings and check-ups with David. His siblings and father didn't know he was attending a new school. They thought he was still missing.

Now that the principal had given his father a call, it meant that not only he but his mother was also in deep, serious trouble.

David rubbed the tip of his fingers against his temples in frustration and emotional weariness. What the heck? Why hadn't the principal reported him to his mother instead if that was the punishment he'd planned to impose on him?

The principal saw how greatly David was disturbed by his causal but effective sentence. Then he said, as though he'd read David's mind.

"Mothers can be overly emotional and too affectionate towards their sons. I didn't want a situation where I would report you to your mom, and she would come over, stoop to her knees and begin to plead on your behalf for a second chance. Fathers, on the other hand, are more decisive and strict. And what you need is therapy, not a continuous schooling session, because it's clear that you have some mental problems.

According to the story I heard from the victim, Richard's sister, I concluded that it's simply not normal for you to think your dead sister can come back to life through the existence of another person who happens to look like her. You don't need a parent who will beg me to let you continue studying at school. You need a parent who can drag you to the mental hospital where you belong to get the treatment you need.

To be candid, I didn't get your father's phone number from your register because she didn't put down his phone number. I had to ask Richard's sister. Fortunately, she provided his contact details through his registered email details, which she said you accessed at the cyber café once when you were helping her with her assignment. That was how I was able to reach out to him."

The principal stood from his seat. David was still dumbfounded and broken by that devastating shocker.

When the principal got to the door, he looked back at David before turning the doorknob and said:

"You are suspended from this college, David. Until you heal from your pain."