Chapter 168: A missing brother

Amy and Stacy hadn’t quite been the same ever since they had been to the Kobo Karaoke Club that evening. The two were very thankful that theirs was an all-girls school, and the number of male teachers was only a handful. Otherwise it would have been a lot harder for her to even deal with her day to day life.

Amy was aware of her own condition. Whenever the high school girl would go to the convenience store, she could feel herself become extra nervous even when just paying for items. This also only occured if there was a man or boy behind the counter. The only person she felt somewhat safe around, that was a man, was her brother.

After experiencing such a traumatic event, the two girls’ bodies had gone into a shock response as a strange man had approached them out of nowhere. What’s more, he got uncomfortably close to them, making it seem that he was trying to block their path on purpose. Because of this, Amy’s first instinct was to place her hand in her pocket, ready to inform Gary of what was happening as soon as possible, just like she had promised him.

“Hawk… is your brother?” Stacy asked with a shaky voice.

Amy sighed internally. It might have been for the best if the two of them had pretended not to know who Hawk was. Unfortunately, now that Stacy had repeated his name, it was obvious that her best friend was at least acquainted with the guy.

Seeing the two girls’ reaction, Raven let out a big sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had been hoping for their help, but this might prove to be a lot harder than he had anticipated.

“It looks like that idiot has mistreated you two girls. I don’t know what exactly he has done, but let me apologise on his behalf.” Raven said, bowing his head down. Surprisingly, it looked like he was being quite sincere in his action.

“I don’t want to trouble you any more than I have to. I’m honestly just looking out for him. As I said, he’s been missing for a while and when I looked through his messages, there was a girl that he had been talking to a lot.

“You two even exchanged photos, so that’s how I found you. I’m sorry… I actually knew who you were before approaching you, I just wanted to confirm.”

Raven was very thankful for the police officer that day, not only had he given him a transcript of his messages, but it had everything. Even information that usually would have been omitted such as photos and more.

It was obvious that the guy had been a good-natured rookie working at the station. The reason nobody had told Raven any of that information had been, primarily, so he wouldn’t bother the poor girl… just like he was doing right now but it looked like the police hadn’t bothered to look this far either.

With all that information, it had naturally not taken long for Raven to track Stacy down. The only thing he didn’t expect was for her to be… as startled as she was.

When speaking, Amy noticed that Raven was just looking at Stacy. Apparently, he actually didn’t know what exactly his brother had tried to do that day. However, looking at the person in front of her, her instincts were telling her that this person was bad news.

Throughout the whole conversation, he was clenching his fist by his side and unclenching it as if he was angry at something.

Worried that he might lash out, Amy grabbed her friend by her arm tighter and pulled her away.

“Come on, we don’t even know who this stranger is. What is an adult doing waiting outside a girl’s school anyway!” Amy exclaimed as she pulled her friend.

Luckily, it didn’t seem like her friend was objecting to this. Stacy happily went along, but she soon felt someone grab her by the wrist, stopping her.

“Please. I’m just looking for my brother.” Raven pleaded. “Look, I know he can be an arsehole, but he’s still my brother. Imagine this was your family member who had gone missing. Just tell me what you know, and once I find him, I promise I’ll make him apologise for whatever he did to you!

“The last person he wrote to was you, and he’s been missing ever since! If you want, I can compensate you, or make it, so he never bothers you again, alright?”

Stacy looked like she was trying to move her arm to get the man to shake it off, but on his end Raven had a hard grip on her. So much that it was even starting to hurt her. His soft words and hard approach weren’t adding up.

“HEEELP!” Amy screamed. “HE’S ATTACKING US!”

Since it was an all-girls school, immediately there were those who turned to look at the situation. To anyone it looked like danger, as there was a strange man in dark sunglasses holding onto two girls who looked unwilling to leave with him.

The other girls started to pull out their phones, taking videos and taking photos as well. Seeing this, Raven scoffed, and let go.

“Why is it that every time I try to do things the right way, things don’t turn out?” Raven wondered in frustration as he adjusted his jacket. “Fine, if that’s how you want it, then you two better watch your back! I promise I’ll find out what happened to my brother one way or the other!”

The strange man left the school grounds, and a few moments later they could hear him drive off on his motorbike. Some girls ran over, checking up on the two girls who had been attacked. Stacy fell to her knees.

“Amy…what do we do?” Stacy asked as tears ran down her face. She looked up at her friend, shocked, scared.

“Don’t worry, Stacy.” Amy replied, putting on a brave face. “We really don’t know why his brother is missing. A scumbag like that probably got what was coming to him, so don’t worry about it. We’ll be okay.”

Despite her tone, she too was frightened. The man had discovered Stacy’s identity from pictures so what else might he know? If the younger brother was involved in things like that, then maybe the brother was involved in bigger things.

Thinking about brothers and what the strange man had said, her thoughts revolved around her own. The two girls weren’t actually the last ones who had seen Hawk. After the two of them left, Gary had stayed behind, at least that was that Stacy told her. Amy had trouble recollecting too much about it after a certain point.

‘I never asked him what he did that day? I was just so worried about Mum at the time, but Gary didn’t look hurt when he came back… did he? I can’t remember that well. I hope… no, that’s impossible… how would Gary be responsible for this? There were three of them, he probably just slammed the door and ran away.’ Amy hoped.

‘I’ll just ask him once I get home today.’