Chapter 13
"Not yet, honey. I was in a meeting, sorry. I'm going to the car now," said her father.
"Don't worry about it. I have a project that I need to do research for, so I'd be staying at school. I'll call for a cab later," Max said as she slowly walked in the same direction as Juin.
"Alright," Max's father replied. "Stay safe, honey."
"Love you. Bye," Max said before hanging up. She then jogged after Juin. "Hey," she said upon reaching him.
"Max, aren't you waiting for your dad?" Juin asked, somewhat surprised to see her. From what he knew, her parents did not allow her to walk home from school even though they were only living 5 km away.
"Well, I told him I'd be taking the cab…" Max shrugged. "Anyway, why are you being so weirdly depressed today?"
"I'm not…" Juin replied and shrugged. He was just annoyed by the constant insult that Lucifer kept hurling at him, which he could not do anything about. People already thought him weird enough. If he talked to the air, they would think that he was crazy… So, he could only endure it.
Well, it was not as if he could do anything about it. He was too afraid to insult Lucifer back. Then again, what could he insult Lucifer with?
"Hey, she's kind of cute… How did someone like you score a hot friend like her?" Lucifer said as he floated above them in a sleeping position with both hands behind his head. "It's a waste that she's spending time with you. She should be with the strongest man in your school."
"Shut up," Juin hissed.
"What?" Max frowned, thinking he was talking to her.
Juin froze and immediately shook his head. "Nothing! I'm sorry… I was telling my brain to shut up. I've been thinking about a lot of stuff lately."
"Anything I can help?" Max asked in a gentle voice. "Is it because of the incident at the museum? You didn't take the stuff, so don't worry about it. I can vouch for you if someone asked about it."
"Thanks…" Juin thought about it, and after a while, he asked slowly, "Max, if you can get more strength, but you have to trade your freedom for it, would you do it?"
"Why would I need more strength?" she asked with a smile.
"Erm… Let me rephrase. If you can get more beautiful and be smarter, would you trade your freedom for it? And allow other people to take control over your life?"
"Am I not beautiful now?" Max teased as she looked down at him.
"You are!" Juin blurted out, and his face immediately turned red thereafter, and he had to look away so as to not embarra.s.s himself.
However, Max merely smiled at him and said, "I don't think I would like having others taking control of my life."
She thought for a while before adding in a serious tone, "A lot of people didn't realize this, but the freedom to choose and having control over one's own body is extremely important."
Juin stared at her for a few seconds before looking away. "You're right…"
"Look, don't listen to her. Freedom is overrated. Your life is more important," Lucifer whispered in Juin's ear. "What's
Juin ignored him. Anyway, he could not answer him with Max here.
Lucifer suddenly frowned and looked up. He sensed something, but he could not tell what it was that he sensed. His view, at the moment, was kind of limited. He could only see what Juin was looking at, as well as Juin himself. But his ability to sense danger was still there, and right now, he sensed someone with an extremely strong killing intent near them.
Lucifer lowered his tone and warned Juin, "Yo, idiot… There's someone following you. And whoever that is, this person did not come with good intentions."
When Juin heard that, he wanted to turn back, but Lucifer immediately hissed, "Don't look back, you idiot!"
Juin quickly thought things through. He looked at Max and asked, "Hey, Max… I'm a little tired. Can we use your dad's money and just call for a cab?"
"But we are so close…" Max frowned. They were 20 minutes away from home.
"Please," Juin said with a nervous expression.
Max stared at him for a few seconds, wondering what was wrong with him. However, Juin was not the kind of person who would use others to his benefit, so she doubted that he was using her. Thinking that maybe Juin was probably sick, especially given his behavior at school today, she then nodded. "Alright."
They then tried to flag down a cab, and two minutes later, they were in a cab. As they drove away, Juin looked back through the side mirror and saw a teenager with brown hair jump onto the top of a house with one light jump. He noticed the uniform that the teenager was wearing and realized that the teenager came from a private school.
"Huh…" Juin thought as he narrowed his eyes at the side mirror.
That teenage boy seemed to be holding something invisible in his right hand, and Juin only knew about it because he saw the distorted air around the teenager's hand, almost like in the shape of a snake. In addition, the distorted air seemed to have a purple glow.
If this were in the past, he would think that there was something wrong with his eyes. But the situation was different now.
When he could no longer see the teenager, Juin relaxed slightly. He then shook his head slowly, wondering why all these weird things were happening to him one after the other. He turned his palm over and looked at where he was supposedly cut by the sword.
"Did I change my fate by cutting the lines on my palm?" Juin thought as he looked at the hand. As the cab drove into their neighborhood, he kept looking around to make sure that the teenage boy was gone.
"Lucifer…" he covered his mouth with his hand and whispered.
"He's not following us…" Lucifer replied.
Even though Max wanted to drop him off at his place, Juin told the cab to stop outside Max's house. After sending her in, he walked back toward his house slowly with his phone held next to his ear.
"Who's he?!" Juin asked in a low voice.
"I can't tell…" Lucifer replied nonchalantly. "All I know is that he's definitely not here to play games with you."
"But I don't know him…"
Lucifer thought for a while as he floated next to Juin. "The two guys from the toilet… They must have spilled your name. Maybe they sent him."
Juin frowned. It was not impossible. Given how Patrick and John thought that it was him who humiliated them, and the fact that they were rich enough to actually hire someone to hurt him back, Lucifer's speculation might not be that far from the truth.
"And that guy! He's holding… some sort of a weapon! Is he here to kill me? What for? I have never seen him before!" Juin said worriedly.
"Wait…" Lucifer frowned and floated in front of Juin, upside down. "You saw the whip?"
"It's a whip?" Juin asked. "I only saw that the air around his hand looked a little weird. Like… somewhat congealed, and there's like a purple glow around the air."
"You're right…" Lucifer thought back to what he saw. Not only did he see the whip that the boy was holding, he saw the black aura that was emitted from the boy's body. Unlike Patrick and John, Lucifer could tell that this boy was a lot stronger. Not just because he was holding a demon whip, but also because he was able to hide his presence.
There were people around Juin and Max when they went onto the cab, but none of them was surprised when the teenage boy jumped onto the roof in one swift movement… which meant that he had been hiding his presence from them.
And the way he jumped onto the roof easily, almost as if he just took a step forward. Lucifer felt that the boy must be an Elementalist. Probably someone who could control the element of air.
Someone who could hide their presence from humans should be better at hiding their killing intent.
"Huh…" Lucifer scoffed. "He sent the killing aura to test this dummy…"
"What?" Juin frowned, having missed what Lucifer said.
"It's a good thing you're too stupid to realize it," Lucifer mumbled as he shook his head.
Juin wanted to retort, but remembering that the guy insulting him was a demon king, he stopped himself from saying anything.
"Sign the contract, Juin," Lucifer said in a serious tone, "Or I won't talk to you anymore."
"No more?" Juin perked up. He wanted that more than anything. "Erm, I still need more time to think about it."
He waited for a while, but no reply came in. He then put the phone down and back into his pocket.
"No more insults?" Juin asked, and when there was no reply, he jumped up in joy before running back to his house.
….