Hikari stretched and sighed as Midori waved at her and stepped off the train, leaving her as the last member of her class in that car. Mido-chan was a friend and she loved her to death, but she had no desire to be dragged into another 'villain always wins' horror movie fest. Stopping that kind of thing was why people were people in the first place, rather than robots or animals or something. Fortunately, Mido-chan was well aware that not everyone enjoyed that sort of film, and wasn't offended it someone begged off - it was the Twins (who actually weren't even siblings, but that was how nicknames went) who got upset if someone tried to 'shut themselves out', and they'd gotten off three stations ago.
"Um... Kanzaki-san?"
Hikari looked up. She wasn't anyone she really knew, though they were in the same grade at the same school - a shortish, slightly chubby girl with absolutely nothing to make her stand out from a crowd except her demeanor, which was even more nervous than her voice; her name was... "Satou-san, right?"
She had spoken gently, but even that quiet question was enough to make her flinch. "Yes!" she squeaked, and Hikari was careful to keep the frown she was feeling off her face. Whatever this girl's problem was, the last thing she needed was a near-total stranger to start scowling at her the moment she tried to open a conversation.
"All right, then," she said, as softly as she could and still be heard on the train. "What did you need?"
"I..." Satou ground to a halt for a moment, then took a deep breath before plunging desperately ahead. "Could you teach me?"
What?! She froze for a second, too startled by how out-of-character the question seemed, and then the connection formed. Hikari'd underestimated her. She wasn't as weak or broken as she seemed, not if she was willing to try and work her way past her obvious problems by taking a chance and just walking up to someone the rumor mill spoke of the way her friends told her it did Kanzaki Hikari...
Though, from the look in her eyes, and the way she stood all crunched-in like that, she was very, very close.
It was impossible to say yes, of course. She might have known the techniques of her school backwards and forwards, but there was a lot more needed for serious instruction that she just hadn't learned yet - judgement and people skills and psychology and simple experience that a girl her age simply hadn't had time to gather.
Besides, Takamachi-sensei's wife was an abuse counselor. Even if that wasn't what had Satou so scared - which she wouldn't have bet even a single yen on - he and she would still have a far better idea how to go about helping the girl than a student like Hikari wouldn. "Well," she said, "there's a dojo I know near the school that-"
"I can't afford that," the other cut her off, and her face was dissapointed but her voice so flat it made the hair on the back of her neck stand straight up.
"I've known Takamachi-sensei for years," she tried to persuade, but Satou talked right over top of her.
"I'm sorry this was a stupid idea and I'm very sorry to have EEK!"
Hikari caught her wrist as she turned to flee the car, remembering at the last second to just ring her fingers around the joint rather than squeezing the way she would have in practice and maybe pinching the bones together and hurting her.
Satou flinched anyway, and from the way the corners of her eyes tightened and her lips thinned, it wasn't a nervous or put-on one, either.
For a moment the two girls stood in the tableau, meeting each other's eyes, then Hikari looked down and slid her hand up slightly, gently, pulling the uniform jacket's sleeve away from the wrist she'd caught.
Hikari sucked her breath in between her teeth. It was quite possibly the ugliest bruise she'd ever seen, which, considering where she spent her Sundays and weekday afternoons, was saying quite a bit. As vividly colored as a poisonous tropical frog, it ringed the entire revealed stretch of arm, broad most of the way but narrowing where the attacker had laid... likely 'his'... thumb.
The precise same place that Hikari accidentally had, herself.
She took a moment to look at it, thoughts racing a mile a minute, before gently sliding the cuff back into place and meeting Satou's shamed, terrified eyes. "I'll help however I can," she said softly, picking the best approach she could see. "But, unless somebody having his head cracked open is what you really need, I really do think Takamachi-sensei and his wife could help you more than I could."
Then she let go.
Satou drew her hand back and cradled it against her chest with her other one, and for a moment Hikari thought she was going to burst out in tears. Then she caught herself, took a deep breath, and straightened to her full height - which still only came up to about the more athletic girl's chin - before bowing deeply. "I would... like that. thank you."
Hikari grinned. "Okay, then. Would you like to meet them today, or is another time better?"
Satou was eager to begin, and said so, and they changed trains at the next station.
When they got off at their last stop, though, Satou got almost to the steps leading to street level before freezing completely and going utterly white. Hikari glanced back when she felt that the other girl had stopped following her, then traced her fixed, wide-eyed stare to the sturdy, handsome boy standing on the far landing.
Clearly, hew was the one, but, much as she wanted to, giving him what he deserved wouldn't really help at this stage. Unless she put him in the hospital, which would have gone a long way towards ruining her own life, he'd just ignore the lesson and take his humiliation out on Satou.
Besides, she wasn't the one who'd been hurt, so it wasn't really her place to pulp the jerk.
"Come on," she encouraged, and took a gentle grip on Satou's elbow to tug her ahead, "it's not far."
"But, Jiro... He'll..."
"Don't worry. I'm right here."
As they passed him he stopped just watching with an ugly look in his eye and grabbed the shorter girl's shoulder. "Where the hell were you?!"
"I spilled a soda," Hikari lied, stepping around in between them. "Her uniform was a mess, so I took her to my place to clean it up."
"Buzz off!" he snapped, and there was more than a little alcohol on his breath. "This ain't any business of some too-tall bitch with freaky eyes!"
"Anything that concerns a friend of mine is always my business," she snarled back, and heard the irritating, grating buzz that always showed up when she was angriest in her own voice. Her eyes would have stood out badly anywhere in the world, let alone a country as homogenous as Japan - one, the right, was the same bright green as her mothers' had been, but the other was a deep burgandy red that made them contrast vividly at any distance, and she was well aware that she was badly oversensitive about them.
"You ain't her friend," he sneered. "She's mine."
"Who I hold dear ain't yours to control!" Hikari retorted, then caught his arm as he tried to slap her and brought her other hand up for bracing and twisted. He screamed as the tendons and ligaments holding his elbow together ripped and tore, then staggered back, sobbing, once she released the mangled limb.
For a long moment she just stood, watching him and waiting to see if he'd get up to try again, and then Satou pushed past her from behind and crouched to try and help him somehow. Jolted, she glanced around at the staring crowd as her mind began to catch up with what had just happened, and her hands started to shake.
Hikari closed her eyes and sighed. 'Dammit,' she thought.
Aaaannnd... cut to commercial!
Ja, -n
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"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"