The next morning, On a running trail near the group home, a teenage boy lay sprawled out with his face down in the middle of the road. Everyone who jogged past him looked for a few seconds, and only when they saw that he was breathing heavily that they left him alone.
"Kid! Go to the side if you want to rest!" a woman yelled at the poor teenage boy as she ran past him.
Unfortunately, the teenager could no longer feel his own legs.
"That"s only… 2 miles…" Lucifer said in a dry tone as he looked at Juin below him. "And I didn"t even make you run. It"s just a light jog."
"This… is… torture," Juin said in between breath as he tried to get more air into his lungs. He had already vomited the banana that he ate earlier, before the run. So there was nothing for him to vomit out now… Although he felt that he might vomit out his lungs before the end of the run.
He rolled himself over so that he was looking up at the beautiful morning sky and groaned. "Ah… Take me��" he mumbled as he reached up with his hands, hoping that some beautiful angels would take him away from the demon king that was bugging him.
"Get up and continue running, or we won"t have time for you to finish everything before bedtime!" Lucifer snapped.
When Juin still looked dazed, Lucifer put his left fist up, fingers facing upward.
SNAP!
A blue flame appeared above Lucifer"s hand.
"Three…"
"Come on… I have got zero energy left!" Juin groaned as he stared at the blue flame. This was the flame that could actually hurt his physical body!
"Two…"
"You won"t do that to someone as badly weakened as me, right, Your Majesty Prince Hotbod?" he whined as he looked at Lucifer with puppy eyes.
"One!"
"Arghh!" Juin yelled as he crawled a short distance before getting up and running again.
…
2 hours later,
The moment Juin entered the house, he fell down on the floor and had to drag himself to the stairs.
He could hear footsteps sound, and in a few seconds, two legs in a pair of yellowed Star Wars socks appeared in front of him.
"What the…" Wesley mumbled as he looked at Juin, whose s.h.i.+rt and pants were completely covered in sweat. "You seriously went for a run?"
He thought that Juin was joking last night. When he woke up and didn"t see him, Wesley thought that maybe Juin went out for a walk. He would have never expected the guy to actually run for real.
Juin raised a hand after much difficulty. "5… 5 miles…"
Thud!
He dropped his hand on the floor, and after a while, he mumbled, "Wesley… If I die… Please visit me once a year…"
Wesley laughed and said, "You aren"t going to die… I"ll get you some water…"
He then jogged to the kitchen, and a short while later, he returned with a bottle of water. Once he handed it to Juin, he folded his arms and looked at the teenager with a smirk. "I"m impressed. You actually ran. I thought you would just run for 1 minute and give up."
While opening the bottle, Juin frowned and said, "You thought so little of me?"
He pulled himself to the wall and leaned against the wall before he started to drink.
"Yeah. Everyone did," Wesley said nonchalantly before walking back to sit in front of the TV.
Juin groaned as he pulled himself up the stairs, one at a time. He could take it if Lucifer were the only one in this house that would insult him, but for Wesley to look down on his ability too?
"See, this is why you need me," Lucifer said with a smirk. "Not even a little kid believes that you can run 5 miles. You didn"t believe yourself, but in the end, you still did it!"
Juin stopped climbing for a second to glare at Lucifer and say, "Bite me!"
He then continued to climb, and when he got to the top, he crawled to his room. The other three teenagers who also lived in the house just walked across him without saying anything.
Juin did not even have the energy to drag himself up onto his bed, so he just lay on the floor. In a few seconds, he was out.
An hour later, Juin felt his right foot burning and woke up from sleep. He immediately sat up and looked at his right foot, which was completely fine.
"Time for your strength training."
"Strength training?" Juin looked at him in disbelief. He then raised his limp left leg with his hands and said, "I don"t even have the energy to move."
"It"s fine. We are going to exercise your arms and abs. That should give your legs another hour of rest before the fight lesson."
Juin"s eyes rolled back, and he fell down on his back with a loud thud.
Looking at him, Lucifer sighed and put his left hand out again, on which a blue flame was on.
…
A few hours later, Juin"s entire body, from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, hurt so much that he could barely move. Mrs. Martin and one of the older kids had to carry him up from the garden and bring him back to his room.
"Why are you working out so much?" Mrs. Martin asked as she helped Juin change out of his sweat-soaked s.h.i.+rt. She then told the kid who helped her carry Juin up to bring him some ice. "It"s not good for you to suddenly work out this much when you barely exercised before."
Juin smiled wryly. He had no response for that, nor did he have any energy to think about it. He merely lay down on the bed quietly, still in his sweat-soaked pants.
The fight training was more brutal than he thought. It was mostly basics. Repet.i.tive punches and kicks. Simple things.
However, when one had to do them for an hour, especially after the grueling morning exercises, one would not have the energy to actually do it properly.
Now, Juin just wanted to rest.
"We will change the sheets tomorrow. Just rest today," Mrs. Martin said. She then went to open up the windows so that she could air the room, or Wesley would complain of the smell tonight. "I don"t think you would be able to walk down the stairs later, so I"ll send you some dinner."
"Thanks, Mrs. Martin," Juin mumbled.
Wesley came up at that time with a few packs of ice, which he took from the older teen who went to take them earlier, and a bowl of peeled hardboiled eggs.
"Here"s the ice," Wesley said as he handed Juin a pack of ice. He then placed the bowl of eggs next to Juin"s pillow. "Eat it as snacks. You need the protein to replenish."
"Why are you so nice to Juin today, Wesley?" Mrs. Martin asked in a slightly amused tone. Most of the time, Wesley would be part of those who picked on Juin. So, she was surprised that the kid was being so nice to him today.
"I"m always nice…" Wesley said with a smirk as he placed a bag of ice on each of Juin"s feet. "Besides, if he actually managed to get stronger, I would be able to use him to scare off the older kids. Although..."
He glanced at Juin for a while, and his lips twitched a little before he said, "It might take a while before he can actually do anything with those limbs of his."