Chapter Text
Rancho didn't like the current education system. That was no surprise for anyone. He was always making some witty comment about how the system was brainwashing students and putting too much pressure on marks and less on actual knowledge. It was common knowledge that he had some kind of enmity with the vice principle, Virus. But what they didn't know about him was his past. The trauma that he had been hiding ever since he came to college. His family, his rank and the things he'd experienced which he'd kept bottled up by taking up his alias.
How would his friends react if they found out about his home life? Of the scars that he'd received from beatings from his father's boss? Or the nights when he'd been forced to go to sleep on an empty stomach, in the tiny cupboard under the stairs? Most of his childhood had been spent in that cupboard, or taking up the chores his father did before he passed away. A tear slid down his face now as he thought of those moments. When he'd been denied an education and forced to work as a slave for the Chanchad household.
Flashback
"Oi Chote! Do my homework for me!" The real Rancho demanded of him. Not wanting to get another beating for saying no to his royal highness, Chote agreed with a face full of displeasure. He liked doing homework but not being bossed around. "And stop scowling!" He told the younger boy.
The boy paused and changed his expression from a scowl to one of a huge fake smile. This seemed to satisfy Rancho for he left to play with the neighborhood children. But not before spilling the huge bucket of water from which Chote was mopping the floor with a cloth.
SPLASH!
The poor boy was drenched in water as he hurriedly picked up the bucket and rushed to fill it up. If Rancho's father found out the water had been spilled, he'd be deprived of food that night. Not even that small piece of bread would be given and he'd be chucked into the closet. Hastily, he filled the bucket halfway and made his way back to where he was mopping. He did not stop after that.
End of flashback
"Rancho? Are you okay?" Rancho was broken out of his trance as he faced his friend Farhan, who was looking at him with a mixture of concern and... was that pity? He shrugged and put on the smile that had fooled the real Rancho and his family.
"I'm fine," he replied, but his thoughts said otherwise.