Chapter 58
Hic, huu, hic.
He had cried so much that his sobs wouldn’t stop easily. Though the tears had finally subsided, his breath kept hitching, so Koi gripped the handlebars of his bike and trudged forward, panting.
Haaa...
A shaky sigh escaped him, and just like that, the tears he thought had stopped came streaming down again. He came to a halt and rubbed his eyes with his arm. He sniffled, trying to inhale through his nose, but it was so blocked that he couldn’t breathe properly. He had no choice but to pull in air through his parched mouth again.
“What on earth happened to you?”
The high-pitched voice made Koi flinch. It took him a few seconds to turn his head and see who it was. When he finally looked, the other person gasped and asked, voice rising even higher.
“Seriously, what happened? You quit school and decided to become homeless or something?”
Koi stared blankly at the approaching figure—Ariel. Buffalo High’s queen was perfect even outside of school. As always during cheer practice, she had her hair up in a high ponytail, wore a tight pink tracksuit, and white sneakers. She must have been jogging—she pulled one earbud out as she neared Koi, her face twisting visibly when she saw how swollen, filthy, and disheveled he looked.
“Wait, don’t tell me—did those ice hockey gorillas beat you up?”
“Ah, no!”
Koi quickly shook his head, startled.
“No way, they didn’t—coff, cough—”