THE VILLAIN'S STORY

The hands of a human reflect their life, their choices, their struggles, their everyday life. The hands of a young person can be more ragged than the hands of someone old, someone who has lived their lives.

But that wasn’t the case for Arken, His hands were worse for wear, calluses that he had to clip every other day, scars from old battles and harsh training. His hands were perhaps the only part of his body not possessing any wrinkles in his old age. Precisely because he had used so many potions to restore them to their original form.

They had been so bruised many times they were the newest part of his body, as strange as it sounded. But even then, even the ridiculous amounts of potions and healing magic performed on them, they were weary, his fingers would not often move as he wanted them too, his grip strength a shadow of his past. His joints ached, and he wanted to sleep more than anything nowadays.

Still, he would often look at his hands and wonder how they would have looked if he had taken a different path.

‘Probably bones.’

Ha, he reckoned he would be six feet under and a skeleton if e was any different, still, it was good to imagine life differently. He picked his cup of coffee up, and took a glance at Lucas, who was cleaning cups with a cloth. Arken wondered why he was doing such a thing, those cups were spotless.

They were inside the café owned by Alan’s grandparents, Alan’s grandfather was the one making all the coffee and his grandmother had gone back to the house, taking care of Samantha. They had hired a young girl to take the orders, a teenager looking for some part-time work in the Capitol, probably for some extra cash.

There were hardly any slums in the Capitol, the poorest people here were well off in the other lesser grade cities. Lucas had also…been given a job.

Arken pushed for it, actually, his student’s eyes were listless for a while now, ever since Alan and Alexander had gone. Perhaps he missed the training sessions. Arken simply convinced Alan’s grandfather to give him some work.

Arken hated listless eyes, everyone can have slumps, but he didn’t understand it. He was still new to the modern world, and he couldn’t understand it at all, he had a hard time getting used to everything. He was of a different era, and the struggles of the new era were foreign to him, absurd even.

There were many examples as to why, the first being the shop he was in, what did you mean there were multiple types of coffee? Back in his day, finding a pack of instant coffee underneath destroyed cities was a blessing. Back in his day the only viable method was to throw it in some water, hot or cold, and mix it vigorously.

He didn’t understand social media, the conveniences the modern era gave to the modern people. However, he didn’t hate it. He would be a fool to hate progress.

But he was bored, he was really bored. The modern era was boring. Unfortunately, he didn’t have anyone to talk too. If Samantha was still here, maybe he would have played with her, but she was probably asleep back home.

Arken took a heavy sigh, and just as he was about to light a cigar, Lucas stopped him, pointing to a sign by the door.

‘No smoking’. Arken sighed once more and drooped down, putting the cigar back in his pocket. He looked at Lucas and was annoyed.

“Just how many times are you going to wipe that damn cup?”

Lucas had been cleaning the same cup for a while, Arken was sure not a single bacterium was left on that thing at this point.

Lucas simply shrugged his shoulders, Arken rolled his eyes in annoyance and focused on his student’s hands. Lucas’s hands weren’t pretty, unlike the rest of him. While there were fewer scars on his hands, the calluses were undoubtedly bigger than the ones Arken had, and that was something impressive, and depressing.

Lucas was a great boy, however he had one major flaw, and that was is constant need of comparing himself to others, he never took pride in his achievements, but rather graded them according to the achievements of others.

There were not many who could go against him, both in his age and above, not even in Shield, the most prestigious institution in the world. But he always degraded himself.

He worked harder than most… previously, but nowadays, he had lost that drive. It was an expected conclusion when someone compared themselves to Alan Peccator, after all.

He could work as he wanted, but Alan worked harder, for longer, he didn’t need sleep, he didn’t need to eat food for days and he could always regenerate an injury. Lucas could not compete with that. It annoyed Arken, immensely.

But he could not say anything against it, because he knew how Lucas felt. While it was an old sensation for him, he had compared himself to someone as well, long ago.

Arken had stopped after he died, but it was safe to say he was not fully unaware of Lucas’s feelings.

“Why did you go all the way to Askolt?”

Finally, he had stopped cleaning the damn cup and had initiated a conversation, Arken was surprised, shocked even.

‘How did he even know?’

“Sir Oliver put a tracker on your clothes, and a tracking spell on your body.”

Lucas explained as he held up his phone, Arken stared at the blinking red dot in the middle of the screen with an awkward expression.

“Damned Oliver, treating me like I’m a kid.”

“So, why did you go there?”

“It was to take care of some business.”

Lucas raised his brows, eyeing Arken with an inquisitive gaze as he asked.

“What business?”

But Arken didn’t respond, he had a troubled expression on his face as he gestured for more coffee, Lucas realized Arken was not going to answer at all and sighed.

‘Darn old man.’

And then, he went back to cleaning the same damn cup.

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