The Reason Why

Chapter 1

John was sick of it. Jim and his gang cornering him and demanding for his lunch money or else he would 'get it'. He had no idea what that meant, but he had a feeling he didn't want to find out.

But he had a feeling he would find out very soon.

His lunch started like every other lunch of his would start. Shoved up against the wall Jim sneered at him with those terrifying green eyes.

"Money. Now," he said, holding out his hand expectantly.

Sighing, John roughly pulled out his allowance for the whole week and handed it to Jim.

"There," John grumbled. "Now lemme go."

Jim's friends jeered as he let go of John's shirt, resulting to him hitting his head against the wall.

As Jim and his gang began to walk away, John called out, "Maybe if you weren't such a stupid jackass you would have more friends and an actual girlfriend."

Jim stopped and turned around. "What did you say, punk?"

"I said, maybe if you weren't such a stupid jackass you would-"

"I heard what you said, Bradley!" Jim grabbed John's shirt and pushed him up against the lockers which made a banging sound.

"Now you're really gonna get it, Brad-"

"Jim? Jim Allen?" Our English teacher, Ms. Johnson, called out. She was new shy, so she didn't really know how stuff went around at their school, Olympus High. Which also meant that most people would be able to get away with just anything, including Jim.

Jim let him go and glared at John with a 'you'll get it soon, I promise' look. Jim went over to Ms. Johnson and she handed over to him the latest test they had taken. While his eyes were on the paper, John took off as fast as he could.

"Hey!" John's friend, Dylan Lee jogged over to him. "Something happen back there?"

"You think?" John panted, sitting down on the nearest thing he could find-which turned out to be a broken piece of wood with splinters sticking out. Too tired to even grunt out a sound, he resided to lowering himself on the grass beside Dylan.

"Dude, what the heck? All of the times you could've decided to stand up to him and you do it now? He was already angry at Charlie for accidentally dropping his sandwich and now you wanna make him more pissed?"

Charlie was John's other best friend. John, Dylan, and Charlie were sort of a trio, really. But since Charlie was involved in a lot of school competitions and stuff, she didn't really have time to spend with them.

"I know, I know," John groaned. "It's not like he can do anything now, he's still talking with Ms. Johnson about his quiz. I hope he failed."

"He probably did, you know, being a stupid idiot and all," Dylan said. "But you are in serious trouble with that guy. After all, he knows where you live."

This was true, because Jim only lived a few blocks down from John. Jim had caught him walking near his house which resulted to Jim threatening John to tell him where he lived or he'd beat the crap out of him.

"But he can't really do anything, can he?" John said.

"That's not true. He could spread some rumor that you were, I don't know, dating Martha."

John busted out laughing. Martha was the 'ugliest' girl in their batch and she was a loner. She was a dumb person and-well, she was probably the most irritating girl in school. She would always go up to a random person and ask them weird questions, which was one of the most annoying things anyone can ever experience in their tenth grade. Because of all this, she was the one Jim mostly picked on, aside from John, of course.

"That's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Do people think I could be that desperate to date Martha?"

"Well, possibly. Remember that rumor Jim spread the other time about you borrowing your mom's underwear because you ran out?"

"Thank you so much for reminding me," John said sarcastically. "People never got over that."

"Well, come to think of it, people did get over it eventually..." Dylan recalled.

"Yeah, but it took what-the whole school year?"

"Anyway, that's besides the point. He could do much worse things to you. Remember what he did to Thomas?"

Thomas was their classmate last year. He had to transfer schools due to Jim punching him which resulted to a black eye and a bleeding mouth. Jim got detention and the principal talked to his parents about it, but he still continued his bullying anyway.

"I'm not going to end up like Thomas," John said confidently.

"I don't know, bro... Watch your back, just in case," Dylan patted John on his shoulder and ran off to who knows where.

As the bell rang, John sighed, suddenly remembering he didn't do his Math homework which was the subject right after lunch. Just great.

Well, nothing I can do now, John thought as he jogged off to his Math class, not looking back.