H A T E [Remake]

CH00: Determino

It was a beautiful day outside, birds were singing, flowers were blooming. It was a brilliant Spring day in the city of Determino, and in one of the many schools in the city, sat alone a child, wearing a turtlenecked, black and white striped sweater and some black and white trainers. He was around the age of 12, and he sat in his classroom, bored out of his mind while he listened to his teacher drone on about fractions and decimals.

"Duncan, since you're not paying attention, you must know a lot about this. Please, could you solve this problem?" The teacher said while holding out a marker, and snapping the young boy out of his daydreaming. "Come on, mind displaying your knowledge?" He asked, with a slightly annoyed look on his face.

Duncan looked nervous as he stood up from his desk, and slowly walked to the front of the classroom, as he passed each row of tables, he felt all the eyes of the room focused on him. As he reached the front of the room, he gingerly grabbed the marker, and stood at the whiteboard and stared blankly at the question on the board. Duncan stared at it for a few seconds before shrugging and handing the marker back to the teacher. "I don't know, sir." He said to the teacher quietly, trying to be as kind as he could.

The teacher sighed and looked at the rest of the class, and started talking about something, but Duncan was too busy looking outside of the window, because a bird caught his eye. He was snapped back to the world of the classroom when a student threw a pencil at the side of Duncan's head. He hadn't realised that he was still standing at the front of the classroom, and needed to take his seat. He hastily made his way to his seat and sat down and kept his mouth shut, looking at his teacher with some mild apprehension. "Duncan, you need to focus more, otherwise you won't get the job you want when you're older. Please, focus more, for your own sake." The teacher said with a slight sigh. "That goes for everyone, please, focus as much as you can." He said, turning to the rest of the class, slowly moving the marker, slowly panning it across the room.

"Yes, mister Byrne." The class said in unison, with the hollowness of a dead tree, followed up by the ringing of the bell, signifying the end of class.

The class hurried out of the door, with Duncan tarrying along behind them, unenthusiastic of the break time, and what awaited outside of the door. "Duncan, could you come here for a moment?" Mr. Byrne requested, much to Duncan's mild relief. Duncan walked to the teacher's desk and stood their with the same awkwardness he had when he was called to the front of the class a few minutes prior, however this time, thankfully, without nearly as many eyes focused on him. "Is everything okay? You've been really unfocused in all of your classes, and I'm not sure if it's because something bad has happened, whether it's at school or at home, you can tell a teacher, and we'll help to the best of our ability. So, is something wrong?" He asked, not even looking at his student, and instead focused on the textbooks on his desk.

"No, mister Byrne. Nothing." Duncan answered after a slight pause, the hesitance to say anything was present enough for mister Byrne take a small glance at Duncan. "Nothing's wrong." He said, trying to sound more sure of himself, but his throat didn't allow the confidence and almost became dry at the words.

Byrne placed the textbooks down and leaned back in his chair, and folded his arms as he looked at his student. "Are you sure? Some of the teachers say that you look disappointed when the bell rings for home time, or even break time. Are there a few bullies that the school is unaware of, that you can help us punish?" Mister Byrne asked, trying to coax an answer out of the student, who wanted to speak, but was still hesitant. "Duncan, you aren't in trouble, just please, tell me. I'll keep it a secret if you don't want anyone to know." He said softly.

"...It's the whole class. Some are worse than others... but sometimes there are times I don't even want to come into school." Duncan said with a slight pause. "I try and stay away from them, but I can't really avoid them during breaktime... they just follow me, like they get a kick out of it..."