The Bully's Heart

Chapter 6

Leonardo

I woke up abruptly by a groan from my right. I instantly glanced over and saw Miguel. He had a hard time to pull himself further up the bed. The bruises on his face and arms were a lot more visible now, under the light of the sunrise.

'What's wrong' I asked him, my voice hoarse. Fuck, I slept like a log.

He glared at me sleepily 'this bed sucks. My body hurts. And I wanna sleep more.'

I nodded 'I uh... I am sorry for that.'

He sent me a hateful glare but it soon dissipated 'I blame us both for that' he said with another small groan as he touched his face gently 'how's your side?'

I smirked 'I think that you will be pleased to hear that it is very numb, same goes for my stomach. The meds worked.'

He smirked back smugly 'that's what you get for messing with a fuckboy.'

I looked at him curiously 'that isn't a good way to label yourself.'

He shrugged 'I pretty much always have been like that. Wait' he said, feigning surprise as his frosty blue eyes locked on my green ones 'why are we having a serious talk? We are supposed to try and strangle each other with the tubes.'

I laughed loudly at that, making my side ache a bit 'told you. We blew off the steam.'

He rolled his eyes as he lied comfortably back on his bed.

'Do you live far from here?'

He glared at me sideways 'you plan to make our fight an everyday thing?'

I shook my head with a smile 'no. But, once we get discharched, we could go grab a bite. An actual bite. I know a cool place for any time of the day to eat.'

He looked at me sideways, suspiciously 'why?'

I rolled my eyes 'I dunno. We had a brawl. We need good food. And, as far as I can understand, you don't hate me nearly enough to not talk to me at all.'

His eyes frowned 'you don't... hate me though?'

I shrugged 'I had worse fights, with terrible people. You aren't a terrible person I think.'

'You don't know me' he said almost defensively.

'I know you well enough, in some aspects better maybe than many close to you. We exchanged punches. We know each other under a different light. So we do know of each other now, quite well.'

He shook his head, a smile of sarcasm on his bluised lips 'whatever your say, doctor Brawl McFucker.'

I laughed at that nickname and he joined me soon. He laughed for real. Huh.

'Under different circumstances, we could be friends' I said simply, so that he would take the bait and say something snide.

Sure, he turned to look at me but his eyes fell on the bruise on my left side. The sarcasm melted off of his face. He sighed.

Huh. Weird. Isn't he supposed to be an arrogant prick? Did I beat the fuckery out of him? 

I remembered though. When I brought him down after he kicked me and I was ready to start kicking him back, he twitched, his hands raised defensively momentarily, before he took action to kick around. It was as if this happened to him again and he reacted by instict. And that was when I realized what I was doing. How stupid I was for taking the bait and fighting him.

In that moment, when I saw his frosty eyes filled with sheer terror, I saw a part of me. Of how I was pushed around. Of when I was treated badly by my douchebag classmates. Every fucking time they messed with me and I was all alone. When I started wrestling, they were ganging up on me, I had beaten up a couple of them when they tried to bully me one on one so they were playing dirty. I had to fucking change schools to find myself. I was bullied from the second until the eigth grade. On leventh grade, during which I was way more experienced in martial arts, three of them found me out and tried to beat me up. I sent them all to the hospital. Some of their friends in the following days tried to do the same. They had the same fate. It took a month for my bruises to heal but it was worth it. They never bothered me again.