The group closed in on him, forming a tight circle around Yohan. He sat there, boxed in by five figures looming over him in the shadows.One of the guys propped a foot up on the bench right next to Yohan and sneered, "What's up? Think you're some kind of hero, huh?"
Hearing him, Yohan took one last drag from his cigarette and flicked the butt onto the ground. He stood up and, while brushing past the guy, said nonchalantly, "I'm done here. I'm leaving."
Fueled by rage, the guy reached out, yanked Yohan back by his hair, and slammed a heavy kick into his back. Yohan crashed to the ground, face-first. As the others roared with laughter, the guy remarked, "Man, hitting him gave me a whole new kind of satisfaction."
The guy's laughter died instantly as he saw Yohan rise. He charged at Yohan's back again, but in a split second, Yohan spun around and buried a heavy punch into his gut. The guy's body doubled over forward, folding even more than a bent bow.In the very next second, the guy's body was sent flying, crashing through the wooden backrest of the bench. He landed on the other side, his limp body sprawled out, completely unconscious.
The boys looked back at Yohan in pure shock. His green irises were gleaming with a strange intensity, mirroring the fierce glow of a nocturnal hunter stalking its prey in the shadows.
He slid his right foot back and muttered, "I've been kicked plenty of times before."
Bringing his right hand up to his chin and positioning his left arm across his torso like a solid wall, he growled, "But no one... and I mean no one... messes with my hair."
Fully locking into a Philly Shell boxing stance, he roared, "Come at me! I'll make you regret the day you were born!"
Staring at him, one of them hissed under his breath, "Man, look at him. It's like he's a completely different person now."
Ignoring his warning, another guy spat, "He touched one of ours. We can't let him walk away from this alive."
All four of them charged at Yohan together. Yohan took two steps forward to meet them, and as the first guy reached him, he ducked low under the guy's oncoming punch. Using the momentum, Yohan launched a brutal overhand right that sailed over the guy's arm and crashed straight into his face.
As the shockwave of the blow rattled the first guy's brain, his body began to lurch backward. Just as the guy behind him reached out to catch him, Yohan unleashed a vicious left uppercut that shattered his jaw, sending teeth flying everywhere.
With a sickening crack, the uppercut connected, and both guys went down in a tangled heap on the ground. Yohan began to walk slowly toward the remaining two. In just one minute, he had instilled a primal terror deep within them.
Gathering their remaining nerve, they let out a sharp cry and swung their fists simultaneously at Yohan's face. However, it was as if Yohan had evaporated into thin air; he was gone from their sight before their punches could even land.
They stopped dead in their tracks, paralyzed by confusion. At that exact moment, Yohan's hands landed on their shoulders. From the shadows behind them, his voice drifted in, cold and mocking: "GOTCHA!"
Terror turned their bodies cold as a violent shudder ran through them. The guy who had just launched a 130-pound man into the air and shattered a wooden bench with a single punch—the one who had neutralized two of them in the blink of an eye—now had his hands on them. Their throats went dry with fear. It felt as if this was the final moment of their lives.
Both of them saw Yohan's green eyes glowing intensely before him. Closing his eyes, Yohan muttered, "Too slow. You couldn't hit me in time. It's not that I'm incredibly fast; it's just that by the time you launched your attack, I wasn't even there anymore."
With that, Yohan casually shoved the two aside and started walking toward the park gate. Paralyzed by fear, the guys didn't dare to retaliate. But as he moved from the park's shadows toward the city lights, a thought crossed his mind about those thugs: "At least they can hang out and have fun with friends. They aren't alone here like me. I actually feel envious of them."
He turned around to look back at them. The two guys were busy trying to wake the others up, but the moment they spotted Yohan, they hit the ground and pretended to be dead.
Yohan looked ahead again, shoved his hands into his pockets, and muttered, "Whatever... at least I'm not a coward like them."
He continued walking and headed back home.
Just as he reached his doorstep, a thought crossed Yohan's mind: "New York kids are no different from the ones back in Detroit—weak. Fighting them is nothing but a bore."
The next morning, Yohan headed off to school.
His school was quite large—a five-story building overlooking a massive square field. The field was lined with lush trees, their shade sheltering numerous benches and small, beautiful flower beds. Students were scattered all over the grounds; some were playing basketball in the northwest corner, while others were just arriving, parking their bikes in the designated spot near the southeast gate.
After observing the scene from the gate, Yohan made his entrance. As he walked across the field, bag in tow, his toned frame and distinct stride radiated such intense confidence that it felt as if a spotlight was following him through the morning sun.
Under the weight of a hundred stares, Yohan stepped into the main hall. The attention followed him through the hallway, but after a quick glance around, he noted that the crowd consisted only of juniors. Without a word, he took the stairs to the floors above.
He had only been walking down the center of the corridor in search of his class for a few moments when someone suddenly grabbed his shirt from behind. Then, a girl's voice drifted toward him: "I have something to say to you."