I am 15 chapters ahead on my patreón, check it out if you are interested.
https://www.patréon.com/emperordragon
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Chapter 91: Flashbacks
Jon's Perspective
Jon stuck to his decision—one constructed not through logic or emotional maturity, but rather forged in the molten crucible of pure, unyielding denial and that special kind of pride that seems genetically embedded in the male brain.
Pretend none of it ever happened.
Deny. Disregard. Delete.
He referred to the incident—the moment, the event, the emotional ambush now etched into his psyche—as just that: The Incident. A neat, clinical label for something anything but. It had officially been filed away in the furthest, darkest corner of his mental archives, locked behind metaphorical steel doors, and buried under a disorganized mountain of sarcasm, sub-par cafeteria food memories, and annoying math problems.
Unfortunately for Jon, fate had never been particularly respectful of his emotional boundaries. In fact, fate seemed to take a twisted delight in stomping all over them while juggling flaming torches of social discomfort.
It all began during fourth period.
The teacher was mid-lecture, passionately explaining the properties and behavior of sound waves. Jon was doing his best to appear attentive—eyes forward, pen in hand, brain floating somewhere between bored and vaguely curious—when suddenly, a very different kind of wave slammed into his mental shores.
A tsunami of vivid recollection.
A flashback, sharp and merciless.
Terry.
Suki.
Their mouths engaged in an Olympic-level make-out session in the middle of an empty classroom, like a scene out of a teen drama he never signed up to witness.
Jon jerked in his seat like someone had slipped a live wire down his shirt. His hand flew to his notebook, knocking it off his desk.
Fifth period didn't offer a reprieve. Biology. A frog dissection lab. Fun. Or, at least, a useful distraction—until he made the first incision. The scalpel slid into amphibian skin, and with it came an intrusive visual: Terry's hands, fingers spread, firmly placed on Suki's waist.
Jon flinched so hard his chair squeaked.
His lab partner glanced over, alarmed. "Did you cut yourself?"
Jon shook his head. He hadn't cut his finger—he had sliced open a mental scar.
And it stung.
Then came sixth period: English class. A poem was being read aloud by a girl who sounded way too enthusiastic about metaphor. She reached a line that mentioned "lips"—just that single, innocent word—and Jon reacted like someone had fired a starter pistol in his ear.
His pen dropped with a dramatic clatter.
Heads turned.
Someone murmured, "Is he okay?"
Jon leaned forward and whispered, barely audible but painfully sincere: "No."
By the time the final bell rang, signaling the end of the school day, Jon was emotionally drained. His brain felt like a burned-out circuit board. His soul? That was limp, frayed, and bruised. And his eyeballs—oh, his poor, betrayed eyeballs—were haunted by unsolicited, high-definition screenshots of The Incident.
He'd tried. He'd given suppression a real effort. But it was no longer working.
Suppression was a beautiful lie.
A comforting, fragile, crumbling lie.
And it had just collapsed under the weight of accumulated trauma.
Jon knew what he had to do. He had to face it. Face them. He had to address the thing he had witnessed, the memory that wouldn't stop replaying on a mental loop.
So, with the weary courage of someone who had emotionally aged twenty years in a single school day, Jon went looking for the source of the psychic damage.
He found Terry near the lockers. Of course, because life is rarely kind and often enjoys a punchline, Suki was standing right there beside him—radiant, nervous, and aggressively avoiding Jon's gaze.
Jon froze. Considered turning around. Considered sprinting in the opposite direction. Considered faking a sudden seizure or claiming he had to switch schools due to… emotional reasons.
But instead, he walked up to them, each step fueled by a combination of resignation and reckless momentum.
"Hey… guys," he said, forcing the word "guys" out of his mouth like it weighed five pounds and was made of barbed wire.
Terry blinked. Suki blanched.
Jon took a breath. "I just wanted to say… I'm sorry," he began, each syllable laced with cringe. "For, um… y'know… walking in on your romantic fusion episode."
Suki shrank in place, as though trying to fold herself into a textbook.
Terry looked like he wanted to teleport into his locker and slam the door behind him forever.
Trying to salvage the moment, Jon gestured vaguely, as though motion could somehow make it better. "What I mean is… we all have closets, right? Some are full of shoes. Some are full of skeletons. Others… well, others contain moments we'd all prefer had never been witnessed by another living soul."
Terry's face was unreadable.
Jon, still somehow talking, nodded solemnly. "And I saw yours. The metaphorical… kiss closet."
Suki made a sound that could only be described as part-gasp, part-sob, part-appliance-dying.
But Jon wasn't finished. "It's like I walked into the emotional locker room of your lives and saw—"
Mercifully, Terry slapped a hand over Jon's mouth like he was defusing a verbal bomb.
"Mmh-hmmrhhff—" Jon continued behind the hand, muffled but determined.
Terry turned to Suki, eyes wide with urgency. "We're gonna be late for practice."
Suki nodded rapidly, clearly grateful for the exit strategy and possibly hoping the floor would open and swallow her whole.
With practiced skill, Terry grabbed Jon by the hoodie and began dragging him away from the scene like a bouncer removing a drunk man from a karaoke stage mid-ballad.
They turned the corner.
Jon finally shook free and muttered, "Thanks."
Terry sighed. "Next time something scars you for life… just use grunts. Or, like, finger puppets. Anything but that."
Jon nodded, grateful and still dazed. "Agreed."
And with that, the two of them walked off toward football practice—two emotionally wounded, mildly ridiculous teenage boys, bound together by one unfortunate memory… and a firm, if unspoken, promise to never speak of it again.
Probably.