ACONITE ACADEMY (girlxgirlxgirl)

Chapter K; Know everything

"He needs to learn"
22

🎹

"Guys? What's going on?"

Five pairs of eyes reach the timid boy. Prince approaches them with a plastic bag in his hands, having just arrived from the store. At his young age of fourteen, his job is only to rob stores together with a few other younger members. After two years in the orphanage, Prince is no longer the youngest member, but there are only three others who are younger than him, while dozens are older. Nothing has changed. He's still timid and shy, the older kids still dote on him and see him as the baby of the group.

The night is deep, long shadows loom over the abandoned building where they are. The rest of the kids are sleeping on the second floor of the building, since it's winter and the orphanage is once again too cold. The warm fire and safe atmosphere makes them all sleep deeply and well. Once again the elders are awake, but this time when Prince walked into the first floor of the building, five of his elders were standing there, surrounding a strange man. Being the innocent and timid boy that he is, Prince felt confusion at the weird situation. He dropped the heavy bag of alcohol softly to the floor, tilting his head and asking the older kids about what is going on.

Genevieve is one of the five. While Mari is not there, she's not one for these types of things. It's mostly Genevieve and a few other kids who are in charge of this part of their activity in the neighborhood. The violent kind. The fights and the intimidation and the harsh stuff. Genevieve handles it well, while Mari does not. She's more of the motherly type, doesn't like seeing people getting hurt. Genevieve guesses that Prince is the same type of person, but it doesn't stop her from squinting her eyes in thought when he comes in.

"Go upstairs Prince, you don't need to-"

As one of the older boys start speaking, deciding that Prince shouldn't see what they are doing, Genevieve stops him. She got an idea. Knowing that Prince is very tall already, and could possibly become very strong and skilled with training, the idea of turning him away is unappealing. If he ended up enjoying, not minding or having skill for the fights and violence, why shouldn't they start teaching him young? After all, for his own safety, he can't stay timid and sensitive forever. At least not when it comes to his skills, his personality can stay the same, it's cute.

"No, Prince come here, let your elders show you something"

The other four look at her with hesitant expressions, but Genevieve waves her hand at them. While Prince approaches them with his clumsy steps, she turns to them to quickly explain.

"Stop babying him too much, he needs to learn about this, for his own good"

Most of them are convinced at that, shrugging, and allowing the tall but young boy to walk up to them. The closer Prince gets, the more he can see despite the darkness. He sees blood on his elders fists, a gun in one of their hands and a metal pipe in someone else's hand. A man is laying on the ground, wearing black clothes and slowly squirming in what appears to be pain. Prince isn't dumb, nor is he that naive. He has an idea of what they do regularly, and what is going on, but can't help nervousness building up. His hands start sweating and his eyes shaking. Genevieve is right though, he needs to learn before it's suddenly too late.

Standing next to them, it becomes apparent that the man is bleeding and definitely in pain. He looks a little scary, so Prince doesn't really feel much pity for him. He doesn't really like old and scary people, having some past troubles with his parents and other adults around him. Not to mention the neglectful and outright abusive caretakers at the orphanage have scarred him enough mentally. But of course, the sight of a bleeding man is still uncomfortable. Prince gladly sinks into the comfort of his elders arms as they wrap around him, always clinging on to him, protective or perhaps even possessive, but Prince doesn't complain.