Season 2 chapter 31
The Icebreaker
They walked up to the wooden bench. The man didn't flinch. He just kept chewing his popcorn, blood dripping off his chin and staining the paper bag.he was completely wounded .
Kniya stopped right in front of him, put his hands in his pockets, and put on the most awkward, overly friendly smile he could muster.
"Hey, buddy," Kniya said cheerfully. "Quick question for you. What do you call a fake noodle?"
The bleeding man slowly stopped chewing. He looked up at Kniya, his eyes entirely dull and unfazed by the two billionaires standing over him.
"...What?" the man rasped, his voice slightly hoarse.
"An impasta," Kniya delivered, winking.
The man just stared at him. The silence was deafening. A drop of blood fell from the man's nose and hit his shoe. Drip Drip Drip.The blood was flowing like the water .
Malesh let out a slow, heavy sigh. He stepped forward, deciding to participate in this incredibly stupid interrogation tactic.
"Why did the scarecrow win an award?" Malesh asked in a completely flat, robotic, and terrifying monotone.
The bleeding man shifted his gaze to Malesh, looking mildly confused but still completely apathetic to his own massive injuries.
"Because he was outstanding in his field," Malesh answered his own joke without a single trace of emotion. He then casually adjusted his cuffs and dropped the act entirely. "Now that the comedic icebreaker has concluded, I have a serious question. Why the fuck are you sitting here?"
"Yeah, bro," Kniya dropped the smile, his street-instincts taking over as he looked at the sheer amount of blood pooling on the concrete.The concrete was completely turned into the red. "You look like you went through a meat grinder. You are actively bleeding out next to a funhouse. You should be in a hospital right now. What happened to you?"
The man slowly set his bag of popcorn down on the bench and takes deep breath. He didn't look scared, and he didn't look like he was in pain. He just looked deeply, profoundly tired.
"You want to know why I'm not in a hospital?" the man asked quietly.
The Medical Diagnosis
The bleeding man slowly set his blood-stained bag of popcorn down on the wooden bench. He didn't look scared of the two billionaires towering over him. He just looked deeply, profoundly tired of existing.
"You want to know why I'm not in a hospital?" the man asked quietly, wiping a streak of fresh blood out of his eye.
Malesh crossed his arms, staring down at the man with absolute, deadpan seriousness. He analyzed the man's posture, his lack of fight-or-flight response, and his general aura of total defeat.
"I think so, it might be because of your bottom part," Malesh stated completely flatly, showing absolutely zero emotion.
The bleeding man blinked. "...My what?"
"Your lower anatomy," Malesh clarified, leaning in slightly. "Are you having some kind of problems with that? Fast erections? The inability to perform? You look like a man whose biology has completely failed him. If your bedroom efficiency has collapsed, it explains the absolute lack of will to live."
The bleeding man stared at Malesh in pure, unadulterated shock. "What the fuck?!"
"Don't worry about it," Malesh continued smoothly, entirely ignoring the man's outrage. "I own several pharmaceutical subsidiaries. I have a medicine for you. Men like you always face problems like that in your teenage and early twenties. It is a common defect. We can fix your hardware."
Kniya busted out laughing, leaning heavily against the back of the bench.
"Is that it, bro?" Kniya cackled, pointing at the guy's bruised face. "Did your wife leave you because your dick stopped working, and you just let a rollercoaster hit you in the face to numb the pain? Because if so, that is fucking hilarious."
"No!" the man shouted, his voice cracking with indignation as he clutched his bleeding arm. "No, no, no! That is not the actual reason! My dick works perfectly fine! Let me tell you what actually happened!"
Kniya wiped a tear of laughter from his eye, popping his mint gum. "Alright, tough guy. Let's hear the tragic backstory."
The Political Beatdown
The man let out a long, heavy sigh. He slumped back against the bench, wincing as his shredded shirt stuck to his wounds.
"I was here with my girlfriend," the man explained, his voice dripping with misery. "We were supposed to just enjoy this park and have a lot of fun. We were standing by the bumper cars, just minding our own business."
"A fatal mistake in this city," Malesh noted dryly.
"Suddenly," the man continued, "these five college boys came walking up to us. They were carrying hockey sticks. They just surrounded us and randomly asked me a question: 'Do you support democracy or monarchy?'"
Kniya raised an eyebrow, his street-instincts suddenly kicking in. Political gang violence in the capital was common, but usually, it didn't spill over into the amusement parks on a Sunday morning.
"And what did you say?" Kniya asked.
"I didn't even get the chance to speak!" the man groaned, burying his face in his hands. "My girlfriend stepped right in front of me. She looked the leader dead in the eyes, screamed that she supported the monarchy, and then she just hauled off and punched the college boy right in the fucking mouth!"
"She threw the first punch?" Kniya grinned, actually impressed. "Your girlfriend sounds like a menace."
"She was a menace," the man corrected bitterly. "The whole crowd became angry. The gang leader wiped the blood off his lip, and he was absolutely furious. But instead of hitting my girlfriend back... the coward stepped around her and kicked me right in the fucking face!"
Malesh slowly nodded. "A tactical redirection of aggression. He avoided striking a woman by penalizing her closest asset. Cowardly, but effective."
"It was bullshit!" the man yelled. "I was on the ground, bleeding. Then my girlfriend and those five boys just started fighting each other! It was a total brawl! People were screaming, hockey sticks were swinging... and then, right in the middle of the fight, they all stopped and looked down at me."
"Let me guess," Kniya smirked. "They asked for your political affiliation again."
"Yes!" the man cried out. "My girlfriend demanded I back her up for the monarchy, and the boys demanded I support the Republic. And I just looked at them, spitting out my own blood, and I told them the truth: I am neutral. I told them I wasn't supporting democracy or monarchy in this case."
Kniya winced, sucking air through his teeth. "Oh, bro. You never admit to being a centrist in a street fight. That is social suicide."
"I found that out the hard way," the man whimpered. "The moment I said I was neutral, my girlfriend completely lost her mind. She screamed that she was breaking up with me. Then she punched me. Then she kicked me. And because the college boys were radical supporters of democracy, they decided they hated me for not picking their side too!"
The man gestured wildly to his shredded clothes and bruised body.
"They teamed up!" the man yelled, completely traumatized. "My newly-ex-girlfriend and the five radical college boys called a truce just to jump me! They literally beat me with hockey sticks for thirty minutes straight! Thirty fucking minutes! Nobody even tried to stop them! Then they high-fived each other and went to get funnel cake!"
The Democratic Ones
Kniya stared at the man, completely baffled by the sheer absurdity of the story.
"Bro," Kniya said, genuinely surprised. "Based upon your appearance, I didn't think that could have happened over a simple fight about who you are supporting. I thought you owed money to a loan shark. Getting butchered for thirty minutes because you couldn't pick between a king and a ballot box is insane."
"It was a coordinated assault," Malesh added, looking around the park. "Do you know which college group they were a part of? A gang carrying hockey sticks in a theme park usually has a specific territorial designation."
The man gingerly touched his swelling jaw, wincing in pain.
"They were from Seistain High," the man replied, his voice shaking slightly. "They kept screaming about being the biggest gang in the district. They said their name was... The Democratic Ones."
Kniya and Malesh both froze.
The name hung in the air between them. Years ago, before the billions, before the oil pipelines and the steel monopolies, they had been the radical street kids screaming about democracy and fighting in the dirt. Hearing a new generation of violent teenagers running around the capital using a name that sounded eerily similar to their own history was a bizarre, almost nostalgic collision of timelines.
"The Democratic Ones," Kniya repeated slowly, a dark, dangerous smirk creeping onto his face. "Wow. The youth really are the future. And they are aggressively violent. I love it."