Academy of Misbehavours

Chapter 9

The List

It was night time and a few hours before bedtime. Hideki was preparing his bed and was already down to his white sleeveless vest and a pair of blue boxers. Kadan walked in behind him as he slept on the bunk bed next to his, on the top bunk. Hideki looked at him and as he guessed, he saw Kadan in a speedo, this one had a green camouflage pattern.

A camouflage speedo? Where does he get this stuff? Hideki though to himself.

"Another day, another muscle, huh?" Kadan said trying to make small talk.

"I don't know what you're saying." Hideki answered indifferently.

"Oh come on," Kadan said flexing his muscles, "you sleep next to this magnificence everyday!"

"Kadan, I've seen better bodies on cuter girls." Hideki teased.

"Denial!" Kadan said before jumping on his top bunk bed. "I've seen it before."

Hideki was getting annoyed by the conversation and just wanted it to end. "No, Kadan. What you've seen is disgust! You should cover up... especially at bedtime because I see you everyday!"

"Are you serious? How can I cover this up?" Kadan said pulling an upper body pose which made an angelic light come from behind him (or at least he imagined it to). "It would be a crime."

Hideki sighed before resigning to have any further conversations with Kadan. He prepared his bed and jumped in, pulling the sheet over his body. He closed his eyes and tried to get comfortable but he could not. He had this nagging feeling that someone was watching him. His eyes shot open and he looked to the side to see Kadan still sitting on the edge of his top bunker bed, watching him.

"What?" Hideki said.

"Don't fight tonight." Kadan said.

Hideki gave him a confused look. "I don't get what you mean. Don't fight what?"

"I can't fully explain because it will ruin the experience bUt if I were you, which obviously I'm not," Kadan said gesturing to Hideki in a frowning face then gesturing to his body in a smiling face, "I would not fight tonight. It will make things move along easier."

"What experience?!" Hideki said as his head shot up. Unfortunately he hit the bottom part of the top bunk bed. This made his head bounce back onto the mattress, causing it to whip from the mattress to the bottom part again. His head was temporarily a tennis ball, played between the bottom of the top bunk bed and his own mattress. "You see what you've done?!" Hideki said rubbing his head furiously once his head stopped.

"What? I didn't even touch you." Kadan said.

"You touched me with your words!" His forehead was already growing a sore. "Every time I try to get along with you, you do something like this. Its either you're hurting me with your cryptic messages or you're so half naked, that its ridiculous or..." Hideki paused to breathe a calming breath. " Look, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that you suck!" Hideki finally said before flopping down on his bed, looking away from Kadan's direction.

Kadan sighed to himself. He had always struggled to make friends and he realised a long time ago that his time at the Academy would prove no different. People just did not like him, for some reason. He rested his head on his bed and closed his eyes, meditating on tonight's coming events.

/

Hideki was dreaming when he was jarred awake by something horrible. His bed sheets were attacking him! They curved over him, seeking to contain and cover him like a spider's cocoon. He pushed with his hands and kicked with his legs in an attempt to get the sheets away from him. He tried shouting for help but all that came through was a fearful, groan. He was able to push the blue and white sheets away and cause them to open like the petals of a flower, with him in the center.

He looked around and saw six people surrounding his bed. They were in black cloaks with black hoods drawn over their heads, like they were some kind of grim reapers. They rushed forward again and Hideki screamed, "Someone help me!" Two of them pinned him down while the others folded his bed sheets over his head, muffling his desperate cries for help. Soon the sheets had fully enveloped him. Using the sheets as a makeshift sack, he was carried off his bed to somewhere unknown...

/

Hideki began to calm down while he was carried in the sack made of his bed sheets. He began to realise that he was being kidnapped. In the sack, curling his body like a baby, he could hear soft murmurs and laughter from the people kidnapping him. He's swinging ride came to a stop when he heard doors open and close before he was unceremoniously dumped face first on a white tiled floor.

Hideki got off the floor onto his hands and knees. The kidnappers had delivered him into a toilet however, he did not recognise this toilet. He looked at the brightly coloured walls, the white stalls and the fact that there were no urinals. They were in a girls' toilet!

Wait was I kidnapped by girls? Hideki smiled to himself as he considered his luck. He looked to his side and saw Kadan, kneeling next to him. Kadan had a bored look on his face. He saw Hideki looking at him and gave him a silent greeting nod which Hideki returned with a confused look. Why did the girls kidnap this jerk too? Hideki thought to himself. He noticed Hun Jin Yeng and Saun Sot on the other side of Kadan looking as confused and bewildered. That is when Hideki realised maybe they were not kidnapped by girls, bringing his fantasy to a sad end.

There were more cloaked people who came with a sheet with someone in it. They emptied the sack and out fell Fa Jinn like a newly born baby. With the addition of Fa Jinn, the five failed escapees had been gathered.

Fa Jinn was struggling to breath as he had panicked and was not fond of small spaces, even sacks. "Fa Jinn!" Hideki said patting his friend on the back while he struggled to breathe. "You jerks!" Hideki shouted before getting up and punching one of the hooded figures. His fist disappeared under the hood of his target and he heard a clank instead of the familiar sound of flesh and bone meeting flesh and bone. The pain took a while to register but it eventually shot up his hand. Hideki withdrew his hand and shook it and blew on it in an attempt to ease the pain. What had he punched?

The hooded figures took off their black hoods to reveal that they were all boys and were all wearing American football helmets over their heads. That is what Hideki had punched. One of the hooded boys gave Fa Jinn his pump which he gratefully used.

"Sit down, Hideki." Kadan said while Fa Jinn regained his breath.

Hideki did not like being talked down to, especially by Kadan but he got on his knees next to him anyways.

"Brothers," one of the hooded men said, stepping in front of them. "Here before us, we have the latest batch of failures to be added to The List." He gestured to a stall frame which had a list of names written down the side. "The List has for years documented those who have tried but ultimately failed. Now, prisoners, write down your names." The speaker offered a black marker to Hun Jin Yeng. "Add your name to The List, brother."

"I'm adding my name to nothing!" Hun Jin Yeng said defiantly.

"That is your choice," The speaker said through his helmet. The other hooded boys opened their cloaks to reveal canes, kendo sticks and cricket bats strapped to their wastes. They all withdrew their weapons and held them menacingly. "...but know this, your name will be written on The List as you have earned your spot on it. However, if we have to write it, it will be shaded in... with your blood."

Hun Jin Yeng gritted his teeth before he snatched the marker from the speaker's hands. He angrily marched to the wall and wrote his name before, almost throwing the marker back at the speaker. The speaker gave Saun Sot who calmly wrote his name and handed it back to the speaker, then the same was done by Kadan and then Hideki.

Hideki walked to the list that was written on the inside of the girls' bathroom stall and saw the names there. The list of names was long. To Hideki's surprise three names written were shaded with blood, like someone wrote them and smeared blood on top of the name. He gulped as he realised that the ring leader of these hooded figures was not joking about his threat. Kadan's name appeared last and it appeared earlier on in the list which surprised Hideki. The name that appeared more than the others was the name, Kiaba Sarabutzi. There was even one account where the name was shaded in blood.

Hideki wrote his name under Kadan's, followed by Fa Jinn who wrote his name last. The boys were carried back to their dorm rooms the same way they had been kidnapped, being carried in their bed sheets. They were collectively dumped at the entrance of their dorm room before their kidnappers disappeared, leaving each of them to go back to their beds with their own sheets.

/

The next day had come and gone rather quickly. Before Hideki knew it, the academic school day had ended. Hideki gathered Fa Jinn and they began looking for Kadan, who they did not attend any of the classes with.

"I don't understand why we're looking for Kadan." Fa Jinn said fearing that the two boys would just fight again.

"I want to ask him something." Hideki said as they walked around part of the Academy looking for Kadan.

They eventually saw him. Kadan sat on a small grassy upward incline. He was looking down a driveway that Hideki had been dropped at a few weeks ago. They sat next to him, as he was sitting like a model, in the setting sunset. Hideki noticed that there were a few more Academy students, boys and girls, gathered around the area.

"Hey, Kadan." Hideki greeted as he sat down next to him on the grassy plain.

"Hello, Hideki... Fa Jinn..." Kadan greeted them.

"Hey!" Fa Jinn happily said.

"I want to ask you a question..." Hideki began.

"You want to know how I got my body so toned, don't you? If I had a dime for every time someone wanted to know that..." Kadan began. "The secret is moderation. You see you work on each individual body part..."

"I don't want to know about your body!" Hideki said, feeling annoyed. "I see enough of your body at night!"

Some of the people gathered looked at the boys after Hideki's outburst. Fa Jinn and Hideki looked very awkward as the eyes of the strangers bored into them, with a mixture of interest and confusion. They eventually looked away from the three boys and towards the driveway, the direction Kadan was also looking at.

With the spectators looking away from them, Hideki began his conversation again. "I wanted to ask you about The List. I saw your name there."

"I suspect you did, I mean you did see me write it before you wrote yours. Although I still cannot believe that everyone thought I would do something as stupid as trying to escape with you guys."

"Our escape was not stupid...!" Hideki said, getting angry again. He took a deep breath to calm himself. "Listen," he began again, "I saw your name twice. Like it wasn't the first time you added your name to the list."

Kadan stayed quiet. His eyes remained fixed on the road as he saw a car from the distance, coming into the Academy's yard. There was an increase of murmurs around them as all the gathered people saw the coming car in the distance.

"You said that you've seen two escape fail (*The Plan*). Were you part of one of those attempts?" Hideki asked.

"Well, according to The List, I'm part of two failed attempts now." Kadan removed his eyes from the road to give Hideki a half hearted smile before returning his gaze to the maroon car that had now reached the parking area.

Fa Jinn looked around at the gathered people. He knew that not this many people gathered here usually. "What is everyone doing here?"

"Oh! You two are too new to know him but his returning today."

"Who's returning?" Hideki and Fa Jinn asked simultaneously.

"You've probably seen his name on The List more than any other name," Kadan began as the car stopped and the door opened. "His earned the title of King of Botched Escapes" The door of the car opened and a teenage boy stepped out with a red bag slung over his shoulder and a blue cap hiding his face. "His been in The Academy longer than anyone and has been returned more than anyone else," Kadan continued as the car sped away from the boy who had just gotten out. In one motion the boy took off his blue cap and threw it into the air, revealing his unkempt spiky brown hair and dull grey eyes, as the car that dropped him off sped away. "You are witnessing the return of Kiaba Sarabutzi!"

Kiaba Sarabutzi slowly made his way into the Academy's reception building.