One of our childhood bullies was KC Thomas. KC was a year ahead in school, the brother of Shari, and lived one street over. He bullied both me and my older brother Robin, the specifics of which I have actually forgotten, though my brother's scars are a little deeper. We shared a school bus and bus stop, and that is where most of the encounters happened.
At some point, KC transferred to a new school or something and disappeared from my life. Then a year or two later, he appeared on the afternoon bus. But this was a new KC.
There were lots of empty seats, but he walked up to the one next to me. No surprise there, but what came next was truly uncharacteristic: He asked if he could sit there. It threw me, but I still knew who KC was, and I replied, "I'd rather you didn't".
KC was too dumb to realize that his proposal amounted to extortion. I did, but the shakedown was reasonably priced, so I took his bet.
And we did sit in silence for the entire ride and KC kept his hands to himself. When we got to the end, I pulled out my wallet, but KC had figured out by then that he couldn't really take money just for not assaulting me, and he said, "You don't have to pay me. I just want you to admit that I'm not like that anymore."