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The man rubbed his chin and smiled at his counterpart. "That's what you call a punch? Come here." Unimpressed, he grabbed the boy by the collar and lunged out. When his fist came down on the teenager, albeit with half its strength, he flinched brutally. The man let go of him then, watching him stagger back and forth in a crooked posture. "Yes, that's how it's done." The man smiled again. Then, he leaned forward and tilted his head to the side to examine the boy's face. His eyes were squinted. He wanted to hold back the pain and tears as it seemed. His mouth was bandaged with a gag made of cloth, which, strangely enough, helped him with that. "Now take this and hit harder." The man handed him a stick as thick as an arm that he had picked up among the fallen leaves.
The boy looked at him with widened eyes thereupon and shook his head. When the man pulled out his pistol, shrugged his shoulders and let one of his eyebrows slide up, the boy relented. - The sound of the dull blow was swallowed up by the surrounding broad-leaved forest. The man puffed and got down on his knees. Immediately afterwards, the smell of blood rose to his nose. The warm, reddish liquid poured over the lower half of his face without hindrance. His counterpart's arms trembled, as did the pupils in his naive eyes. Slowly, he raised his wooden weapon one more time.
"Shh-shh, that's more than enough." The man pointed his pistol directly at him now. Then, he wiped the blood from his lips and examined the young man's work. "Haha, damn it. You really got me, man." His head throbbed to the rhythm of his heartbeat. Nevertheless, he rose from the ground actively, whose pleasant mossy smell had been displaced by that of his blood. Immediately afterwards, he approached the boy and took the gag out of his mouth carefully. "Shh-shh, that's good."
"G- Good?" the boy asked, staring at him with wide eyes again, cold sweat on his forehead. He lowered his arms weakly.
The man sighed and rubbed his neck up and down several times. Then, he suddenly froze in this position and gave the boy an incredulous look. "You really got no idea, right?"
The boy shrugged his shoulders, took a step away, and then got rid of the arm-thick branch in his wet hands. "I just did what the guy with the gun told me to." Thereafter, he looked at the man with pleading eyes. "I- I don't want to die like this."
"You're a smart kid, Randy," he replied only.
"So you're not gonna kill me?"
With a smile on his face, he shook his head and put the pistol back into his cargo pants in a playful way. "Come on, man. If I was, you'd be dead. It's all part of my plan."
"O- Okay."
The man let out a deep sigh at the meagre words of his counterpart. Then, he walked up to Randy slowly and put a hand on his shoulder. Randy lowered his head, so the man leaned down to be able to make eye contact with him. "You listen good now. Do you hear me?" He didn't continue speaking until Randy nodded. "I'll let you off the hook, okay? But first, I need your help, man."
