Even though Alex received the beating of his life, he decided to go to school anyway.

He kept thinking how did the Hairy Hulk know his name. Of course, Dr. Watson or someone else could have told him, but that still doesn’t explain why he deliberately went for only him.

It was as if he was fueled by anger, hatred, and rage.

Alex was lost in thought and didn’t pay much attention to his surroundings. He bumped into Hikaru.

‘Watch it!’

Hikaru had been acting strangely ever since the concert incident. To put it simply, he became rougher.

Something inside him changed or rather snapped. Hikaru was a well-dressed, well-spoken, polite guy.

But lately, his hair is all messed up, bags are under his eyes as if he was awake all night and gave out an aggressive vibe. He also became tired like he was sleep-deprived.

It was actually Hikaru’s fault for bumping into Alex, but the roughness of his tone made Alex apologize.

‘Can’t you see where you’re going?’

‘I-I’m sorry, Hikaru.’

Hikaru then gave a threatening look and went away.

--Hikaru sure has been acting weird.

Today was the chemistry lab period. Hikaru was more sleep-deprived today than the other days, and it had Alex concerned.

The students were paired up and started experiments in the lab. Since Hikaru was a genius, he was allowed to use any chemical he wanted and do his own experiments.

Hikaru was busy mixing and making strange compounds and ingredients while Alex watched him with the corner of his eyes.

Suddenly Hikaru picked up an extremely dangerous chemical, his partner had no idea what Hikaru was doing, but Alex did. The slightest mistake could be lethal.

‘Um…Hikaru, maybe you shouldn’t mess around with that today, just to be safe.’

Alex said it with a kind voice. And when Alex said that he meant ethanol, which Hikaru was about to pour on potassium permanganate mixed with concentrated sulphuric acid.

Those who love chemistry know that this won’t end well. This mixture is highly flammable when mixed with even a little ethanol.

‘No one asked you.’

Hikaru sharply replied and proceeded, but as expected, his hand put too much pressure, and he poured too much then he had intended. This caused an extremely exothermic reaction and exploded, breaking many beakers.

Hikaru had a breaker of ethanol, and it caught fire, soon other chemicals that could also burn, helped the fire to grow, causing the sprinklers to turn on.

The lab was immediately evacuated.

Hikaru was at fault, but the school excused him since no casualties were caused, and him being a genius also helped. The incident was simply regarded as an accident.

Hikaru was also advised bed rest since he showed signs of physical weakness.

He was appointed to a doctor by the school.

School was over. As Hikaru went outside of the school, he took out the slip where the appointment was written and threw it in the dustbin.

Alex saw that, and now he was worried.

--Maybe that night did more mental damage than physical damage.

He decided to follow Hikaru.

He thought Hikaru was heading home, so he decided to tail him just in case something happens.

Hikaru was on the route to his apartment, but unexpectedly, he changed directions. He went into the city. Alex was now suspicious where Hikaru was going.

Hikaru kept walking and arrived at a clothing shop. He went inside and changed his clothes, buying new ones.

He bought a new pair of jeans and a hoodie and then walked out completely changing his appearance.

‘What is going on in his mind?’

Alex kept on tailing Hikaru. Hikaru kept walking and arrived at a local library. After thoroughly checking if anybody he knew was around inside and out, he went in.

There he sat at an empty table and waited motionlessly. Alex went inside the library. He saw an employee’s uniform and changed into them.

He then blended in and began stacking books on the shelves.

Hikaru patiently sat there for half an hour. Then another person wearing a hood finally came and sat on the table opposite to Hikaru.

They started talking in low voices. Alex wanted to know what they were talking about but couldn’t risk getting closer.

The closest he could get was 15 feet, where there was a bookshelf. He thought about what he could do.

He grabbed a pen and some papers and got behind the nearest bookshelf. He pulled aside the book to peek through. He couldn’t see Hikaru’s full face, but he could see his lips moving. That was enough for Alex.

He had recently learned how to lip-sync, and it was time to put it to use. He copied Hikaru’s lip movement and wrote down what he thought Hikaru said.

That was only half of the conversation.

The conversation was very confusing. Even though it was only half of the dialogue, Hikaru said some words Alex didn’t expect him to.

--Maybe I am interpreting it wrong.

After roughly 15 minutes of talking, the hooded man and got up and left the library.

But the final sentence that Hikaru said was very confusing.

--Did he just say, Watson?

Hikaru then got up and left the library too.

Alex had to wait till night to get the other half.

When night arrived, Alex called Jason, asking him to get the footage of that library toady. Jason got him that in 5 minutes.

Alex looked at the different cameras and finally found the one which covered the section where Hikaru was.

He forwarded it to the time the hooded man came and zoomed in enough to barely see the lips movement.

He then repeated the same procedure and copied the lips movement writing what he understood.

Finally, the conversation made sense.

‘You know you can’t do that Hikaru’

‘I’ll do whatever I want, it’s all so I could destroy him.’

‘Be that as it may, you cannot stay in that form for too long, or else you will start to lose intelligence.’

‘I know that.’

‘Also, the transformation serum and the reverse serum both take 30 minutes to lose their effect. If you inject them after 30 minutes, they won’t work.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘I do, it’s a pain to make the serum again. You must not do that again.’

‘But last night felt so good, I was crushing and smashing him, he was so weak.’

‘Yes, you obtained magnificent results’

‘But… I don’t want to kill anyone. I just want to be with her.’

‘Don’t worry, If he is not here then she will be yours.’

‘But I don’t want to win her over this way. You did say I can pull out anytime I want.’

‘Of course, You can leave whenever you want.’

‘The transformation does have some nasty side effect. The final exams are coming. If I…if I beat him there, then I won’t need to use the serum.’

‘We only want your benefit. You can leave if you beat him in the final exams, but if you don’t…’

‘I know that’s why I am here.’

‘Well I think we have chatted for long enough, goodbye Hikaru’

‘Goodbye, Dr. Watson’

Later that night, Alex called Jason.

‘Hey Jason, I think we might have found out who our Hairy Hulk is.’

‘Meet me tomorrow.’