[Lose Yourself]

The time of the school festival was rapidly approaching and Jack Ho would be a massive liar if he said he wasn't quite nervous about performing on stage in front of multiple people. Of course, he had his girlfriend Mary Kim supporting him every step of the way, being there for when he choreographed his dance moves and had mini heart attacks whenever his other friend Vin Jin mentioned that there would be literally everyone from school and even quite a few students from other schools watching him. Speaking of the other sunglasses-wearing guy, he and Jack pretty much made up like... the next day after the events of the previous chapter. Guy stuff, we know how to be friends.

Now, the trio of friends... well, kind of, Mary and Jack are dating BUT YOU GET THE POINT! Vin, Jack and Mary were in the school cafeteria just sitting back and enjoying lunch. The school was FINALLY giving students some properly cooked chicken to get them into a good mood for the festival, and oh boy were they lovin' it. It almost managed to make Jack forget that he has to fucking spin around like a goddamn helicopter in front of hundreds of teenage girls and boys in a weeks time... almost.

"Relax just do what you did when you kicked my ass back in middle school," casually noted Vin, his voice slightly muffled by all the chicken stuffed in his mouth.

Meanwhile, Jack could only sweatdrop at the simple-minded nature of his fellow glasses-wearing buddy, "Vin... Taekwondo and breakdancing are two completely different things."

"Didn't seem that different to me. Just... I don't fucking know, mash them together or something," again, both Mary and Jack sweatdropped at Vin's dismissive tone, the confidence coming from this dude was almost staggering.

Jack noted that Vasco and his group of tough guys were sitting just a table away from them, although they appeared to be completely lost in what appeared to be SUPER SERIOUS ULTRA AWESOME TOTALLY NOT IDIOTIC PLAN for their mandatory festival performance. They needed to make money and appeared to be scheming with that monster delinquent Myul Mang as well. He quickly switched his attention to somewhere else, getting into a fight with that demon was not on his list today. Instead, he saw Duke hanging out with that super attractive Daniel guy from the fashion department along with some background character that totally won't become the Korean version of the Joker later on. Jack lightly snorted when he saw that the once utterly defeat Duke actually appeared to be enjoying the conversation, whatever the topic of which was.

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The school finally came to an end, thank god. The sun has already cast a bright orange hue across the town and every student was either on their way home or already there. Sadly for Jack, the dumbass forgot his phone in his classroom and had to go back to get it. Mary and Vin agreed to wait for him by the school gate. Still, walking through these empty halls while hardly anyone was still in the building felt oddly eerie to the glasses-wearing martial artist.

"...How do I even forget something I always have in my pocket?" silently muttered Jack under his breath, the small heart attack he had when he reached into his pocket for his phone only for it to not be there was still fresh on his mind.

Though before he could make it to class his trek was quickly put to a sudden halt when he saw Duke by his lonesome walking towards the fashion department classroom. Raising an eyebrow, Jack curiously followed Duke. The vocal and dance department was in the same direction as the fashion department anyway, he might as well see how Duke is doing considering he too has to perform at the festival. Only when they got close to the fashion department classroom did Jack begin hearing the soft melody of someone's voice, somebody was singing to themselves. And... they certainly weren't bad at it. When Jack saw duke enter the classroom he quickened his pace to see who had such a nice voice, and when he peeked inside he was quite surprised to see who he found.

"Let's... perform together at the festival."

Daniel Park himself was the man behind the slaughter- I MEAN the singing. And Duke, in a surprising feat of confidence, just asked that very guy to perform with him at the school festival!

'Huh, well would you look a that,' Jack didn't want to look like a creep, eavesdropping on these two so all of his curious remarks were in his mind.

"Y-You must feel bad because of my proposal. I'm not trying to capitalize on your popularity. I'm confident in my rapping, I'm sure we'll blow them away! So, if you want to hit me, go ahead. Just... think about it," Jack couldn't help but feel bad for Duke, the guy sounded so desperate that he would resort to being a literal punching bag just to get Daniel to sing with him.

Daniel just looked at Duke with a shocked expression, swallowing hard he spoke in a shaky voice with a hidden lace of excitement, "C-Can I really do that?"

By that time Jack was already walking away with a small smile on his face, 'It looks like this festival won't be so bad after all...'

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...And so, the day of the festival has come...

They called it the Tenth J High Fest, a very... unique name to say the least. The number of people seemed to be at an all-time high with all kinds of high schoolers walking around the festival. The main objective the students of J High had was to raise money, be that by taking pictures of students that wanted a memoir or some other kind of way. Zack had a unique way of doing that, he practically made himself the attraction. You had to pay $5 and if you managed to hit him in a minute you'd get double that. So far... he was actually making some profit.

Vasco's group of Burn Knuckles, which included Myul Mang, aka the architecture department, made... weird attractions, at first it was pretty normal with men trying to win against Vasco in a contest of strength, then it changed into a... target practice with water balloons. Vasco's a different breed I tell ya.

The fashion department made a complete meme of themselves because they showed off in the stupidest costumes humanly possible. One guy had the head of a shark on his head, the other guy was dressed up as some weird power ranger stripper pirate. Poor dudes.

Our main character Jack Ho had managed to sneakily dodge all of the attention by staying on the sidelines and patiently waiting for his turn on stage. Vin and Mary were with him, they were both laughing their asses off at the outfits the newbies of the fashion department made. Jack just snagged a few photos, for meme purposes of course. Did I mention Mary had Jack dress up differently for the occasion? Yeah, he now actually looked not bad, not bad at all if some passing-by girls had anything to say about it. He still wore his signature circular red-tinted glasses, but his outfit was completely different. A dark grey shirt with a zero on it and the text DANCE replaced his usual white shirt, Jack also now wore a black and red blazer instead of his signature jacket, a pair of black and red checkered pants and a pair of red sneakers to boot. Courtesy of a few good people at the fashion department giving him and Mary a hand, although it was mostly Mary who had put in a request for the outfit.

Jack didn't really see much use in changing his clothes, he was perfectly capable of dancing in his old outfit. Although he had to admit, these new clothes were not half bad. And Mary sort of guilt-tripped him into wearing them, there was also a promise of some good time after this whole schtick was over so... fuck yeah sign him up!

"Now everyone! Time for the girls' favourite, THE SLAVE AUCTION! Here are the rules! You can bid any number of dollars on a boy of your choosing and then have him do anything, please take this into consideration with discretion, for eight hours! All money collected goes to charity."

Here was something that Jack thanked god for not being in, he had a girlfriend already and didn't need to be bought by some lanky girl for his looks alone, no thanks. The dudes walked out looking like they were ready to be shot dead, poor guys. Some random dude from the vocal and dance department got sold for fifty fucking cents, PFFFFT, that's gotta hurt! Vasco scared every girl so nobody bought him, poor lad. And Daniel... there was a goddamn civil war going on for Daniel!

"$100!" screamed a random girl from that crowd.

"$200!" yelled out yet another random girl, Daniel's face was slowly growing pale as the numbers ranked up.

"$300!" and, unsurprisingly, Zoe came in clutch with the highest bid so far.

Daniel almost looked thankful, since he knew Zoe he could at least rest easy he would have to listen to anything someone he knows would say, unfortunately, life loves to give people the middle finger, and Daniel was no different.

"$1000."

The whole stage was sent into silence as a rather, forgive the term, a fugly girl raised her hand and offered a ridiculous amount of money just to spend eight hours with Daniel.

"...So this is what female simping looks like," Mary and Vin could only nod dumbly to Jack's comment, neither one of them had ever heard of anyone offering so much money at a slave auction before.

"$2000."

And here comes another surprise! Double the original value, fucking hell kids these days are rich as fuck! The girl who bid such a ridiculous amount was... well, an utterly stunning beauty with the body of a supermodel. She even appeared to have her own personal bodyguard!

"Hmph! $2500!" the other, infinitely less attractive girl offered a higher bid yet again, but this other hot chick just couldn't be fought with wealth alone.

"$5000," and BAM goes the hammer, five fucking thousand dollars from a girl you'd normally expect to have standards higher than the fucking stratosphere, but no, here she is, buying Daniel for eight hours for what one could only call a small fortune.

"...I should've participated," a slip of tongue from both Jack and Vin simultaneously, but only Jack was now in danger as Vin didn't have a girlfriend to make jealous.

"...What?" Mary's tone was stone cold as she glared daggers into Jack's back.

"I mean... thank god I'm not participating!" Jack's last-minute save was, well, quite pathetic and Mary still looked quite mad.

"Nice save, dumbass," Jack now had more to worry about than Vin's teasing comments, like his now quite angry blonde girlfriend.

"...We're having a talk later," and there goes any hope of him getting laid tonight, it's a hard-knock life, for us, it's hard-knock life, for us...

As a last-ditch effort, the ugly chick tried to bet her bag, but unfortunately, the bidding could only be done with money as it is for charity. So in the end Daniel was purchased by the stunning beauty. That was the final bidding of that night, meaning the slave auction was over. The next came the show of the night where the vocal and dance department would perform with the opening act being Jack's. Luckily there was still some time left before that happens as Jack needed to go take a leak.

Luckily the restroom was pretty much completely vacant, leaving Jack to do his business in peace. Washing his hands after he was done, Jack had slowly walked back towards the main stage to get ready for his audition. However, something caught his attention. It was Daniel with that hot chick from before as well as her weird bodyguard. But... they appeared to be... arguing? It was hard to tell since the girl was doing most of the talking, but by the looks of her posture and face, she was insulting Daniel with every word. Then when she turned to walk away, her bodyguard got in the way and harshly grabbed Daniel by his wrist.

"Sigh..." Jack sighed as he watched Daniel harshly tug himself free from the man's grip, apparently surprising him, "...Why is it that guys with the name 'Daniel' get dragged into shit like this?"

With that being said, Jack made his way to the parking lot where the confrontation was happening. By the time he made it there, Daniel had a few bruises on his body, and the bodyguard himself was in a fighting stance Jack recognised quite well.

"Your eyes are good... or have I slowed down?" the bodyguard appeared to be muttering under his breath, either unaware or uncaring of Jack's approaching presence.

"Yo, why is there a grown-ass man beating the shit out of a student here?" not the best choice of words for his entrance, but he needed to psyche himself up somehow and this was, for Jack at least, the easiest way to do it.

The new arrival didn't seem to impress the yellow-clad bodyguard, "Huh? Are you his friend?"

"Does it matter?" the bodyguard huffed in response as a small smirk found its way onto his face.

"No, I guess not..." the man's voice trailed off as he completely switched his attention from Daniel to Jack, all the while the girl he was protecting watched from the sidelines with a panicked expression.

"Wait, Gun! You don't have to beat up everyone who-"

"No, I do," the girl was quickly interrupted by the stone-cold yet determined voice of her bodyguard whose name appeared to be Gun, "Your father told me to not let anyone touch you, and if they do... it's my duty to crush them."

"You know if someone goes to court with evidence of physical assault your boss can get into deep shit, right?" Jack had to resort to logic to try and not get into a fight with a stranger who only appeared to be doing his job, even if a little bit excessively.

"Nah," was all Gun said as if ignoring the fact that even if the court agrees to the favour of his boss his reputation couldn't be easily salvaged, "Who the fuck do you think you are, making threats? Looks like I have to spank you too..."

"You're welcome to try... although if you assault me I have every right to defend myself, no?" a toothy grin split Jack's face as he regarded the approaching man with a critical eye.

Gun was confident in his skill no doubt, but that same confidence appeared to be making him a little too proud to really take into consideration his opponent's prowess. Either he's extremely strong, or he's just strong with a full head. Only one way to tell, and with Gun now within striking distance, Jack would have his answer.

Almost immediately, Gun moved in for the kill. A roundhouse kick, a fast and strong strike aimed directly at the side of Jack's head. One's immediate response is to block, but Jack did not move his hands to block the attack. The human brain can process information at 60 bits per second, being able to process entire images that the eye sees in as little as 13 milliseconds, a fraction of a second. While this may seem like a catastrophically small amount of time, and it largely is, the world is a crazy place with even crazier monsters. Monsters in human clothing...

'So much for that-'

-WHACK-

In that time, in little less than a second did Gun go from attacking Jack to being sent flying back with his whole body positioned in an almost perfect horizontal line. A dirty imprint of Jack's shoe clearly visible on his face, and yet it still took his mind to properly register that he was no longer on his feet. A high kick straight to the face is what sent him flying more than five meters back. What was supposed to be a guaranteed hit turned into an embarrassing display as Gun had to first land on his side to be able to reposition himself midair and land on his feet and hands.

It took a moment to process everything that has happened, especially with his shaken brain. Jack slowly lowered his leg back down, a neutral expression on his face as he watched Gun's glasses break apart on his very face. Gun quickly straightened himself, and without his glasses to cover his eyes, Jack couldn't help but silently gasp as to what he saw next. Instead of having regular white sclera, Gun's were pitch black with two small white dots for pupils. Truly, the eyes of a devil.

Even with the shoe print on his face, Gun's menacing look didn't fail to send a shiver down Jack's and Daniel's spine. This guy... was strong, very strong. And now that Jack showed that he can more than match him at his lowest, Gun won't hold back or underestimate him anymore.

"...Hey... that hurt," a thick vein appeared on Gun's temple, courtesy of his anger rapidly rising at both his inability to block that last attack and at Jack's lack of effort to see him as a threat.

But that simply wasn't true, Jack viewed Gun as a threat, a really strong one to the point that his hand started to shake slightly. His instincts told him not to prolong the fight, yet his inner battle maniac wanted to savour the battle as much as possible. To see blood, to hear bones crack and push his body to its absolute limit until it breaks like it has all those times before when he was still training. Instinctively, Jack wanted to reach for his glasses. But, as if some inner voice soothed his warmongering alter ego, he refrained from doing so.

"Okay, it's time now to begin the highlight of today! The vocal and dance department Jack Ho will start us off!"

"Shit, that's me. Uh, bye!" and just like that Jack dipped from the fight altogether, which, of course, not only shocked everyone present but also completely pissed off Gun even more!

"WHERE ARE YOU GOING, GET BACK GERE!" but before he could pursue the escaping teenager, the girl he was with completely latched herself onto his torso, preventing him from moving as to not hurt the daughter of his employer.

"DON'T! YOU'VE ALREADY CAUSED ENOUGH PROBLEMS FOR TODAY!" Gun could only look at the retreating figure of Jack before it disappeared in the crowd before sighing.

"...Shit..." the man cursed under his breath as he stopped trying to break away from the girl and continue his pursuit of Jack.

Daniel couldn't help but just sit there, dumbly staring in the direction Jack ran away. He knew that Jack... well, he knew that he was strong but not THIS strong. To deliver a high kick before somebody else can so much as finish performing a roundhouse kick... that wasn't a human feat in Daniel's mind. Unaware the three were that two people have also seen the confrontation take place, Myul and Vasco leisurely sat back to see what would become of the fight. Well, Myul did, he had to hold Vasco back from going in there and getting his ass beat.

'...Looks like that guy actually has some firepower...'

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Jack huffed lightly as he leaned back in his seat, his performance now over. The dance went without a hitch and judging by the still present cheering of some people in the audience, he was pretty good! Now, it was Vin's and some other guy's turn to sing which meant that Duke and Daniel would be the last performance of today, and what a day it was indeed. Of course, Mary was by his side, still annoyed at him, but at least she was still nice enough to hand him a bottle of water.

Vin's performance didn't seem to last a terribly long time, around the same as Jack's if a little bit longer, "I fucking killed it!"

"You sure did," simultaneously replied Mary and Jack with small smiles as Vin came to sit with them, a bottle of water in his hand.

"Hahaha! Now let's see what that pig and idiot are gonna do!" Jack didn't try to defend either Duke or Daniel, it was up to Duke to prove everyone wrong now.

Even if he did defend them, it wouldn't stop people from messing with Duke. He was, as they as, a weakling. A passive guy who most don't even want to look at, pathetic existence in their eyes. A talentless individual... But, this was the chance to prove them wrong. The one chance Duke would have to show everyone that he belongs here, in this school, with them. And Jack could only hope that he would take it.

"Now please give a round of applause for a rather strange duo! From the fashion department, Daniel Park! And from the vocal and dance department, Duke Pyeon!"

'Now's your chance, Duke. Show them, show me that you are better,' Jack much like the audience impatiently waited for the duo to start their performance, their comments were not lost to them though.

It was disheartening to hear so many people regard Duke with such low respect, the polar opposite to what they said the moment Daniel walked onto the stage. It would seem that most people really don't give a rat's ass about something like "the inner beauty". Then, finally, Duke was the first one to begin their performance.

'...Hehehehe... HAHAHAHA! THAT'S IT! THAT'S THE FUCKING SPIRIT!' it took a lot of willpower on Jack's side to not scream that out loud because the lyrics Duke was singing were... well, to put it simply, really fucking good for an amateur.

As if in a world of his own, Daniel too joined the duet and the two surprised everyone, even Vin's agent who was watching the whole thing from the sidelines with their voice and lyrics. Jack couldn't properly contain his face-splitting grin, the whole performance just had so much energy it was impossible to contain. It ended almost too quickly and was immediately followed by the loudest cheering yet. With Duke's and Daniel's duet, the day of the J High festival had come to an amazing end. Unfortunately, the public is too coldhearted even for hidden stars like Duke...

...

...

...

"...That's it Duke, that is how you take the fucking stage!"