Ren and Kai looked down at Mark's face. It was bruised from punches and Ren's whip, and there was some dog shit on it.
"Ha—HA—HAHAHA!"
Both of them burst out laughing.
"I—I—I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. He looks so disgusting," Ren said while laughing, almost crying. Kai was also laughing, trying to catch his breath, but he could barely do it.
After a while, they finally calmed down.
Ren didn't actually know how Kai felt, but he felt quite satisfied. After fighting Mark this hard, seeing him humiliated like this was oddly satisfying.
"Come on, we should seriously start going. We already wasted time fighting him. The cops should arrive it any moment. We need to get out of here, quick," Kai said.
In the nightclub, people were still dancing, drinking, and having fun until—
BANG.
The entrance doors of the nightclub were broken open, gas canisters were thrown in, and the cops entered the scene.
It caused panic, but the cops handled it swiftly—taking down students and shutting the whole place down.
Back in the manager's room, a girl looked down at the manager while listening to the screams coming from the nightclub.
"This place is going down while I'm visiting to check up on it… sigh. I'm gonna get in so much trouble because of this."
As she said that, metal objects around the room started shaking a little.
A couple of days later.
Ren and Kai were walking around the street, having fun.
Things had worked out incredibly well because of the bust the cops made at the nightclub. Gunshot had been busy hiding their trails while still keeping operations running, so a lot of low-priority targets were let go because of that—including Ren and Kai, thankfully.
The two of them couldn't imagine trying to do the nightclub thing again. Once was tough and tiring on its own.
"I don't know, dude. Aren't we too old to watch cartoons?"
"I'm telling you, man, anime isn't cartoons. It has a lot of mature themes that should never be in a kids show," Ren said.
Ren and Kai were talking as usual—about random things, the conversation changing naturally without ever sticking to one subject for long.
This time, Ren brought up the topic of anime on purpose.
At first, when Ren talked to Kai for the first time, he didn't really know how to talk to him. And it didn't help that Kai doesn't know a lot about media or entertainment? He was very sheltered because of his childhood.
Because of that unique upbringing, Kai knew a lot of things people their age usually don't talk about like politics.
Because of that, one of the first things Ren did in their first conversation was recommend Kai a couple of sitcoms, And that basically created a lot of conversation topics for them. He introduced him to a lot of shows and movies, but at some point he wanted to teach him about stuff like anime as well.
Ren was planning to expose Kai to full nerd media—novels, games, manhwas, the full thing—but he couldn't just throw everything at him all at once. He had to expose that stuff to him slowly. First anime, then manga, and so forth.
Eventually, they arrived at a coffee shop where they ordered some milkshakes. Obviously, they didn't order coffee. They were too young for that. It could stunt their growth.
After they sat down, Kai casually brought up what happened in the nightclub.
"So… I know I haven't brought it up in the last few days, but you helped those two other students. Even though earlier… you refused pretty heavily."
Ren raised an eyebrow. "Seriously, are you stupid? You brought it up that time as well. You were an idiot for thinking we could've done something."
"Wait, wait—that's not what I meant."
Ren just laughed. "I know, I know. I get what you mean. Look, to put it simply, I know I didn't act like a hero or anything when it came to the strip club thing. I know that, and it probably looked weird when I did the opposite with that bastard. But when I did that… I did it. I don't know what to tell you. It's probably because I could actually do something about it. That's what made me go through with it."
So sorry, I guess?
"Why are you apologising?" Kai asked. "You did the right thing—exactly like a hero should."
Ren scratched his head. "Well, here's the thing. Ever since I was a kid, I never wished to be a hero."
Kai raised his eyebrows. "Seriously? What's wrong with being a hero?"
"Nothing. I just didn't want to be one. Even though I was a fan of heroes, I was never inspired to become one or anything like that. And I never liked getting myself into trouble. But now… I don't think hero stuff is so bad."
Kai smiled and wrapped his arm around Ren's shoulder. " what do you mean, not bad after doing all that stuff in the nightclub
"Don't say that man and keep your voice down where in public."
Ren tried to push Kai off him, annoyed, but in his thoughts he was thinking—
Even though this whole thing was dangerous, he felt satisfied from helping those two students who were in one of the worst situations possible. And even though fighting gunshot was painful and dangerous, it was fun—mainly because Kai was there as well.
So it got him thinking.
Having a life where he beats up villains as a job with his best friend… isn't so bad.
I guess i'll become a hero.
Soon, Kai went to the bathroom, leaving Ren alone at the table, checking his phone.
"Oh, is that you?"
A feminine voice came from the side. When he looked up, he saw a beautiful Black short-haired girl with green eyes, half American, half Chinese.
it was the girl from the nightclub. The one who had dragged him by the arm.
"Oh… it's you."
"Oh my gosh, I didn't expect to see you here," she said. "Do you mind if I sit next to you?"
"No problem."
She took Kai's seat.
"To be honest, I didn't think I would see any strangers from the nightclub again. I hope you didn't get into much trouble when you got caught by the cops."
Ren put on a stiff smile. He didn't get involved with the cops but he appreciated the concern.
"No, it's fine. Nothing really bad happened. How about you? Did you have any trouble?"
"Thankfully, no. Nothing happened to me or any of my friends."
She paused, then smiled a little awkwardly.
"Anyways, it would be kind of weird to keep talking without knowing each other's names, right?"
Ren agreed, so he introduced himself.
"In that case… hello. My name is Ren."
The girl smiled.
"My name is Iris."
"So, Ren, what have you been up to?"
Ren explained what he had been doing for the past few days. None of the serious stuff like the nightclub—just normal things. Hanging out with friends. Introducing Kai to Jackson and Mori. He didn't mention being in the hero course, but only because it didn't came up in the conversation.
"So what are you up to?" Ren asked.
She smiled.
"Well… currently, I think I want to kill you and your friend."