When he pressed the play button, the tape began turning smoothly.
What came out this time wasn’t the urgent, frantic beat from before, but a low, gentle piano intro, followed by the lead singer’s penetrating, stirring voice.
It was that classic, “We Are the Champions.”
John listened quietly.
He still couldn’t understand the complicated English words inside it, but he could keenly feel the kind of pride in the melody, the head held high even after going through setbacks.
Leon leaned back against the cushion, watching the boy’s focused profile, and felt a little lighter himself.
He picked up the Rubik’s cube next to him, the one John had already solved one face of, and clumsily started trying to put a second face together himself.
“Leon.”
When the song ended, John took off the headphones, his eyes a little lost.
“What’s he singing about?
It sounds like he won something, but he’s also kind of sad.”
“He’s singing about champions.”
Leon set down the cube, which was getting more scrambled the more he turned it, and explained patiently.
“It means the people who keep fighting to the end, either to protect others or to stand by what they believe is right.
They might get hurt along the way, they might suffer, but in the end they stand at the highest place.”
John looked thoughtfully at the Walkman in his hands.
“If I break the legs of all the bad guys who break the rules, will I be a champion?”
“That’s part of it.”
Leon smiled.
“But a real champion doesn’t just have to beat bad guys.
He also has to protect the weak and make everyone willing to believe in him.
If you hit people just for the sake of hitting them, then you’re just a violent maniac, and even if you win, people will only fear you.
They won’t see you as a champion.”
John nodded with a half-understanding look, then carefully set the headphones down on the cushion, his movements gentle as if he were handling some precious treasure.
At the same time, in the medical room at the end of Block B, the mood was nowhere near as warm.
A heavy smell of disinfectant hung in the air.
Doctor Sarah, in a medical mask, was holding a pair of medical scissors and carefully cutting open the badly damaged black tactical suit on Black Noir’s arm.
Beneath the tactical suit was a horrific wound, deep enough to show bone.
The flesh around the edges of the wound had taken on a strange charred black color, as if it had been seared in an instant by some kind of high heat, but not fully carbonized, and it was even still oozing a yellow fluid with a faint smell of sulfur.
“How many times have I said it?
When you go out on a mission, could you wear gear with a bit of protective coating?”
Sarah frowned, took out a bottle of specially made wound-cleaning solution, and poured it onto the wound without a hint of mercy.
A wisp of white smoke rose up, and Black Noir’s tall frame only shuddered slightly, without even letting out a muffled grunt.
He sat quietly on the treatment bed like a silent, rusted iron tower.
On the bed next door, the fat guy Bob, his finger still in a splint, was watching the show.
Bob hollered dramatically.
“Black Noir, buddy, you’re the company’s ace.
If even you got beaten up this bad, are those freaks out there about to come fight their way into company headquarters?”
Black Noir ignored him, didn’t even turn his head.
Sarah shot Bob a cold glance.
“If you’ve got too much time on your hands, I can take off your splint and send you back to take a stroll outside the sterile room, see whether that kid feels like snapping your neck today.”
Bob shut his mouth at once and shrank back under the covers.
The way that kid had looked at him that day was something he never wanted to relive as long as he lived.
Once Sarah finished treating Black Noir’s wound, she expertly wound thick sterile gauze around it, then peeled off her gloves and tossed them into the medical waste bin.
“There’s a residual fire-element energy reaction in the wound.
Looks like you ran into something tough over in Texas.”
Sarah jotted notes quickly in the chart.
“You have to stay at headquarters these next few days.
Until the wound’s fully healed, don’t go taking those life-or-death jobs.
The company needs you all to hold up appearances, but you’ve got to stay alive to do it.”
Black Noir nodded silently, stood up from the bed, straightened the tattered tactical suit on his body, and walked out of the medical room without a word.
Watching Black Noir’s retreating back, Sarah sighed, picked up the cold coffee on her desk and took a sip, her whole mouth turning bitter.
In this vast, cold-blooded Vought, these superheroes who looked so glorious to outsiders were really nothing more than high-grade consumables.
By comparison, that little monster in the sterile room, still eating burgers and listening to rock and roll, was being treated more like he was on vacation.
In the sterile room, Leon was clearing away the leftover burger wrappers for John.
He’d found that John’s learning ability was nothing short of terrifying.
In just these ten-odd minutes of contact, he’d not only figured out the Walkman’s buttons completely, he could even hum along to the melody from before, two bars perfectly in tune.
If a little head like this were put in an ordinary school out there, he’d be the kind of genius teachers both loved and hated.
“Leon.”
John watched Leon tie the trash bag shut, then suddenly asked, “People out there all have their own names, right?”
“Of course.
Everyone gets a name when they’re born.”
Leon set the trash bag by the door, walked back, and sat down.
“Like, I’m called Leon, and that fat guy is called Bob.”
“Then why am I called John?” The boy’s blue eyes were full of seriousness.
“Is it a good name?”
Leon paused.
Only Leon insisted on calling him John.
Facing those clear eyes, Leon knew he had to give an answer that would satisfy him.
“It’s a really great name.”
Leon looked at him with a smile.
“Out in the world of ordinary people, John is a very common but also very powerful name.
A lot of brave people, a lot of people willing to step up and protect others, are called this name.
So it counts as a hero’s name too.”
John’s eyes lit up in an instant.
He nodded hard, seeming quite satisfied with this explanation.
“I’ll be the greatest John.”
He clenched his soft little fist.
“If some other person named John ever does a bad thing, I’ll go teach them a lesson and not let them drag the name through the mud.”
Leon couldn’t help rubbing his forehead.
This kid’s mind really did work in odd ways.
He could circle back to the theme of punishing bad guys anytime, anywhere.
Still, as long as he wasn’t trying to destroy the world, he could knock himself out however he liked.
“Sure.
As long as you go by the rules and you’re reasonable, you can defend your name however you want.”
Leon yawned and looked at the cheap digital watch on his wrist.
Afternoons always went by especially slow.
The breeze blowing from the sterile room’s climate-control system made you a little drowsy.
Leon went with it and lay down on the cushion, hands pillowed behind his head.
“The afternoon is rest time.
If you’re bored, you can try to get the second face of that cube, or keep listening to the music.”
Leon closed his eyes, his voice turning lazy.
“I’m going to sleep for a bit.
I got up too early today.
To get you that burger, I spent ages haggling with Jimmy in logistics.”
John let out an obedient little “oh.”
He didn’t go fiddle with the cube.
Instead he picked up the Walkman again and put on the headphones.
This time, though, he didn’t press the play button.
He just sat quietly cross-legged beside Leon, watching Leon’s chest rise and fall slightly with his breathing, like he was watching some interesting phenomenon.
In John’s world, Leon was completely relaxed only when he slept.
No wariness, no guard, just lying there without holding anything back, beside a dangerous source that could tear him to pieces at any moment.