Ever since I was a little child, I was being bullied.
In kindergarten, I was the shortest and smallest among the other pupils, so I was constantly being mocked due to my size.
"Midget!"
"Bean sprout!"
Those were the popular insults I received during the time.
"Tell the teacher and your parents, then I'll make everyone ignore you, I'll tell them not to befriend you," threatened the young bullies. So, complaining to the teachers and my mother wasn't even an option because my kid-self didn't want to be left alone.
Even though I never confided to anyone, still, I knew they just pretended to be all affable around me to cover the rotting side of them from the teachers' sight. When we were left by ourselves, the immoral jeers resumed. I was left suffering from inside.
That was what happened initially.
After they were tired of throwing fouls teases to me, they started to physically hurt me and the blackmails had worsened by then. Being a feeble kid, I couldn't really do anything to defend myself against the more sturdy bullies.
Not to mention they were popular kids as well, hence most other pupils listened to them. This advantage of theirs worked well especially when they threatened me to make others ignore me so that they could get anything they desired.
I tried to be nice around them and even attempted to be like those vicious humans, that was so that I could be accepted by the crowd while crossing my fingers that maybe through this endeavour, the insufferable bullying would eventually stop.
It did stop…. But, only at first and when they thought that I might be of use to them, the other time they still treated me the same. Between being physically abused and mentally abused, the latter had significantly proved to be more stinging.
There was one time when I thought I had already carved my place on their good side, it turned out to be wrong.
It was during PE lesson on my fifth grade, the teacher was dividing the boys to two teams. I went to their side, also known as the popular kids' side and they didn't even rebuff or say anything foul to me, but instead they smiled. It managed to strengthen my faith that they had already acknowledged me as one of them.
But then, the teacher said that our side outweighed the other team by two members and that one of us needed to be sent to the latter team to balance the number of members from both sides.
Unhesitatingly, they turned to stare at me as if I was a meagre dirt on their perfectly white shirt.
"Tsuna, you go," with detestation hidden behind their impeccably feigned smile, they ordered me like I was their slave of some sort. It felt like someone had thrusted a rusted knife into my stomach.
I stared wide-eyed, feeling dumbfounded. When I thought they welcomed me with open arms, they expertly altered their façade like a professional actors and took out the said knife to remorselessly maim me with it.
I trusted them and then they slapped me on the cheek.
Feeling like a black swan among a herd of graceful white ones, I was left, ignored only to be approached when I was deemed worthwhile and useful, which was rarely. Every time the snowy 'swan' came to me, I felt like someone had drenched me with a pail of icy water. It was refreshing and I felt my mood skyrocketed.
However, as the time of ignorance dawned, it felt like my body was shoved into a heating oven and my alleviated mood resided in me.
These wicked humans did physically devastate me, but only a few times. They were uncannily smart enough to know that mental taunting was much more intolerable.
Ignored, neglected, pushed aside, disregarded. I was someone others turned a blind eye on, not worth even a split second of their precious time. All this while just because I was considered a weak, dame, good-for-nothing Tsuna on their oh-so-perfectly fantastic eyes.
That was it. I couldn't lean on the wall forever, eventually I needed to stand on my own two fragile feet. I couldn't depend on these bullies to accept me and stop assaulting, ignoring me.
I must do something on my own. Confiding to the teachers and my mother as I thought, would do me no good. This was because I didn't have a proof to show that I was being bullied as phones and cameras weren't allowed in school and even if they trusted me, those horrible bullies would turn on their acting flair and deceived the adults of their feigned innocence.
I was on my last year in primary school when my puny brain thought of the solution, which was by learning self-defence art. Technically, nobody even wished to teach me one due to the bullies' influence on the other pupils. Eventually, I learned the art though television and videos on the internet.
Then I thought hard, bullies usually had low grades and even if they owned excellent ones, they were just deceiving though I must admit some of them were athletic and aced in sports due to their sturdy figure. I figured that the pupils who scored outstandingly in tests were most of the time, very taciturn and used to be very nice to me but at last they neglected me too.
Oh, I know why… The bullies must had intimidated them. So, intelligent people were by nature, pleasant. It was just under some circumstances they were forced to act differently. The more I let my brain escaped into a wonderland of assiduous thinking, the more the realisation began to dawn on me.
It was as if I could already perceive the picture of the puzzle I had struggled to solve, pieces after pieces were being placed on their respective position to form a solution I'd been searching for.
If I studied hard and passed with flying colours on the end-year examination, I could afford to enrol in a smart middle school where bright students went. And if all the students around me were all intelligent, then the bullying wouldn't haunt me in my sleep again.
Now, that didn't mean I thought the students who scored meagre were all bullies, just some of them were and some of the remaining usually ended up being the former's followers. I too used to have unsightly marks being tersely written on my test papers but during that time, I wasn't a bully myself.
However, possessing a not very smart brain made me think that by being one of the bullies, I would be happy and the pain of being bullied would stop. If I was on the contrary, I would rack my brain on how to halt the problem instead of worsening it.
Even if I managed to be a bully (in which the probability was way to low), the suffering of other people would increase and if this went rampant, an unhealthy community consisting of people who kept assaulting the weaker ones would eventually be shaped.
If this happened, peace was something harder to achieve than eating a crab.
Now, that made me felt hungry.
By the way, I also made a theory by myself on why intelligent people weren't bullies and were nice too, well most of them I think. I wasn't certain whether there was any sage (and by sage I mean a wise man and not the herb) who would think of harming a fly unreasonably in any part of this world.
The reason was because astute humans were packed with morality, they thought first before commencing anything and that made most of their acts seemed reasonable.
I did passed with flying colours, allowing a place at an imminent school. Surprisingly, my theory was proving true, there was no former, current and hopefully future case regarding bullying. People around me were nice and I gained true friends.
However, intelligence didn't wholly mean you scored outstandingly in test. Intelligence didn't also entirely mean you had stacks and stacks of certificates to acknowledge your brain astuteness.
For me, an intelligent person was the one who did and summoned for the right thing while prevented the wrongs and also the person who always reminded the others of the virtue.
Thankfully, I had risen from the misery of being bullied and managed to carve my future for the better.
Now, here I was, using my zero point breakthrough to counterattack the enemy's assault on our mansion. Somehow, this enemy, which was from another mafia family had decided to take down Vongola so that they could make Italy as their main spot for illegal weapon's smuggling to other countries.
Well, that surely would not be happening. Ever since I had acknowledged the fact that I was the Vongola Decimo, I had started to learn many things regarding intelligence and being wise.
I smirked as I caught the sight of my guardians, or should I say my truest friends advancing to give a halt on this corrupt act.
Whether it was smuggling illegal weapon or the act of bullying or other treacherous doing, if I knew I was on the right side, there was nothing to hold me back from advancing.
Eventually, justice will prevail.