CHAPTER 13
“Reina.”
I turn around and see Risa rushing down the hall. For once Ai wasn’t with her. That made me kind of worry. Did they get in a fight?
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just needed to ask a favor from you.”
Now I’m curious. Why would she need my help? If it’s not relationship help then what is it? I listen and wait for her to tell me.
“I know Ai isn’t so excited about her birthday, but I want to throw a party for her at my place. I was wondering if you could help me with it?”
“Yeah sure, I can help you. What do you need me to do?”
“I need you to buy decorations and chips. I already have Eri, Sayu, and Koharu doing something else. And I’ll be keeping Ai busy since I can do that better than anyone else.”
I grin.
“I’m sure you can.”
She blushes and nudges me.
“Not like that!”
I chuckle.
“But don’t worry, that I can do. Here’s my number in case you need to reach me.”
I pull out my cell phone from my book bag. Risa takes out her cell and copies down my number. She wraps me into a hug after. That was unexpected. Faintly, I hug her back.
“Thank you. This is very important and hectic for me. And it’s hard to keep a secret from Ai-chan, she knows me very well. So I’ll need all the help I can get.”
“No problem. When is her birthday?”
“Next Tuesday. I fill you on all the details later.”
“There you two are. You aren’t trying to steal my girl are you Tanaka?” Ai interrupts
We both jolt. She just came out of nowhere! I hope she didn’t hear about what were planning. Ai walks up behind Risa and puts a protective arm around her waist. She puts on a playful smile and I shake my head smiling back. I think she didn’t hear what we were saying.
“Nah she’s all yours Ai.” I joke back
Risa smiles and plants a kiss on to Ai’s cheek. They’re so cute together.
“What were you two talking about anyway?”
“Nothing! We were just talk about school work that I needed help on.” Risa nervous says
Ai raises a brow. She isn’t buying it. Damn that could be trouble. Quick, I have to think of something else to change the subject! Uh…
“Where is everyone else?”
I let out a squeal of surprise and in a flash I ran to Risa and Ai, hiding. Sayu stood where I was grinning her little mischievous smile. I rub my aching butt. She laughed seeing my reaction.
“Did you just…”
She nods. I feel my cheeks burn in embarrassment. Ai and Risa laugh making my cheeks feel even hotter.
“Hey Reina, whoa what’s up with your face?” Koharu asks point at my redden face.
I look away trying to hide my face. This is just awkward and weird now. Close behind Koharu I could see Eri make her way over to us.
“Hey guys what’s up? Why is Reina’s face so red?” She looks at me curiously
Before I could say anything the bell rings, saving me from having to explain everything. I’m for once actually happy to get to class.
“I’ll see you guys later bye!” I say that in a rush and hurry to my class.
***
I was avoiding and dodging Sayu the whole day after that, you can never know when she would strike again. Everyone found it funny, but yeah I would like to see it happen to them, and THEN find it funny! That was pretty much my day though. I got some homework like I always do and another project due next week. Other than that my school day was boring. I decided to walk home today. I needed to pass a couple of stores anyway to get things for Ai’s surprise party.
“Hey wait up!”
I looked behind me to see Eri hurrying down the stairs towards me. What was she doing here? Her house was in the opposite direction of mine. I wasn’t going to push her away though. I enjoyed her company the most out of everyone else.
“Aren’t you going home?”
She rubbed the back of her neck and looked around. That was a bad topic to talk about. I put an arm on her wrist to get to look at me again.
“Come on let’s go to my place then.” I suggest
Her smile instantly goes back up. She agrees and follows me away from the school grounds. We’re quiet after that. I didn’t know what to say. I was too afraid I might just say something she wouldn’t want to talk about. I knew she didn’t want to be home right now, but I wasn’t going to ask why. I really wanted to know, but I just won’t push things. We walked down the street and made a turn and walked into a small alleyway. It was a shortcut I took to my house almost every day.
“There you are.”
On instinct I pushed Eri behind me and turned around. It was the guy that groped Eri’s butt before. I glared at him. He had a lot of nerve showing up again. My body went heavy and my heart was racing a mile a minute. Something told me this wasn’t right.
“What are you doing here? Looking for another beating?”
He laughs a cold and scary laugh. A smug smile appears on his nasty face, I want so much to just punch it off. I could hear Eri whimper faintly and grab on to me for comfort. I had to get her out of here. I was somewhat ok with him trying to hurt me, but he wasn’t going to lay a FINGER on her.
“I was thinking the other way around.”
He puts both his hands that were behind his back in front of him and his smile gets even bigger. Shit! He has a crowbar! This really is not looking good. If I knew we would play unfair I would have brought my switchblade with me. But my parents took that away from me when they found it, but I have just in case things like THIS happen.
“What’s a matter? Don’t think you can take me on?”
Can he be anymore of an asshole?! My body grew hot and my muscles were so tight they were starting to cramp. I wanted to punch his lights out. I looked around me. There was no one here or watching. This could get bad fast. Eri clutched my hand even tighter. She knew what was going to happen.
“Eri, I want you to get out of here.” I whisper sternly
I don’t keep my eyes off of this guy. I know better than to do that. He twirled the crowbar in his hands grinning from ear to ear. I felt Eri tug at my arm.
“I-I can’t leave you! You’ll get hurt!”
“Eri don’t argue with me just go. I can handle him. Don’t worry about me.”
Her hold on my hand loosens. She’s hesitant at first, but her grip on me gradually disappears. She can’t be here to see what would happen. I know for a fact I would not leave this fight unharmed, but I won’t tell her that. And I sure as hell won’t let her see that either. I hear her feet smacking the ground as she runs away to the end of the alleyway. Now it’s just this son of a bitch and me.
“You’ll be sorry. You made me look like a fool in front of my friends!”
I laugh. Can he be any stupider? Is that why he’s back? To try and get some of his pride back? Boys are always so stupid. He runs at me swinging his weapon. I was lucky enough to doge this attack, but I wasn’t so lucky on the second hit. He swung his crowbar again and the steel weapon hit my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I bend over out of breath. I bite my lip pushing all my pain aside and tackled him to the ground. The crowbar went flying out of his hand. I threw punches wildly, not caring if they landed or missed. I just wanted to hurt him so bad, he wouldn’t even think about coming near me ever again. I was throwing hit after hit as hit face. Somehow he got his arms free and grabbed me by both shoulders and pushed me to the floor. My head hit the ground with a loud smack. I felt dizzy; he took this chance to get the crowbar back and stands over me. I can barely see, my sight is blurry, but I can still make out his stupid little smirk.
“Any last words?”
I stare at him. I wasn’t going to plead for him to stop. I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. He shrugged and lifted the crowbar above his head. For some strange reason the only thing that was on my mind was Eri. I needed to know if she was ok. I waited for crowbar to meet my face. I closed my eyes. There was nothing I could do.
“Hey you!”
I opened my eyes; the guy above me turned around and got a fist to the face, sending him stumbling back. I rubbed my eyes to see who it was that just saved me. Yossie looked down at me. She held out a hand for me.
“Are you ok?”
I took her hand and stand back up. The guy groans and I look back at him. The punch wasn’t enough to knock him out. He gets back up and charges. Yossie grabs him back the back of his shirt and throws him into a wall face first. His crowbar clatters to the floor. That would be sure to knock him out. I go and kick the crowbar to the other side as far as I could.
“Are you hurt?”
I clutch my stomach. It really hurts and so does the back of my head, but other than that I’ll be ok. In the back of my head through all these horrible events I’m thinking about Eri.
“I’ll be fine. Thank you for helping me.”
“Why was he after you anyway?”
“It’s a long story.”
I begin to walk to the other end of the alleyway. Yossie doesn’t ask any more questions after that. That had to be the smartest thing; I really wasn’t in the mood to answer them. Not when I was in so much pain. When we reach the end of the alleyway there was a scream not far by. My body went stiff. I knew that voice.
“Eri! We have to save her!” I scream to Yossie
I forget about all my pain and run in the direction the yell came from. She follows close behind me. I look around franticly for anything to tell me where Eri was. I had to save her! I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. There was another alleyway I spotted and ran to the entrance to see if she was there.
“Shut up! You’re so whinny!” One-guy growls
The bastard, he sent his two friends to wait at the other end, just in case one of us got out. That didn’t piss me off though, what did was that one guy who held Eri down while the other one was trying to rip open her shirt. Eri’s face was covered with tears and her skirt was lifted up high to her waist. She had a few cuts around her legs and it was covered in dirt. Seeing that made something in me just go crazy with rage. I rushed over and punched the guy on top her straight in the nose. I felt something in his nose crack when my fist connected with his face. He cried out holding his nose. The other guy holding her let her go and tried to attack back. I easily dodged his hit; I punched him right in the eye and kicked him in his balls. He went down after that. Both of the pigs got up and ran away. That should teach them! I kneeled down to Eri’s side. She was crying hysterically. I pushed down her skirt, smoothed it out, and fixed her hair. The first few buttons to her shirt were ripped off. I wanted to do more than just hit these guys. I wanted to murder them!
“Eri…it’s ok, I’m here now. They won’t hurt you ever again.”
She clung on to me sobbing, uncontrollably. From some reason…I was crying too. I could feel my tears slowly drip down my cheeks. They were silent tears of course; I didn’t want Eri to know how scared I was for her. I was so terrified of losing her or having something bad like that happen to her. I swallowed down my own sobs to try and stay strong for her.
“I’ll give you a ride home, hold on.” Yossie tells me
She pulls out her cell phone and started pressing buttons. I didn’t care who she called, just as long as it wasn’t my uncle. I didn’t want him to know about this. I stroked Eri’s hair trying to sooth her. She was still crying and her body was shaking so much in my arms. I was afraid she would just break out any minute. I stayed with her until the Yossie told us the car was here.
“Come on we have to go.”
I tried to get up, but Eri pulled me back down and tightened her grip. She was terrified. I had to try and calm her. I had to get her to move. If I let her stay like this who knew what could happen to her. She was just too fragile.
“Eri it’s ok. We’re going to my house now. We’ll be safe there.” She wasn’t letting out. “Eri?”
I lift her head up to look at her straight in the eyes. “You can trust me.”
Her crying stops, she gives a small nod and lets me go. I get up, help her up and walk out the alley. Yossie opens the back door to the car and we get inside. She takes the front. Eri buries her face into my neck and I put a protective arm over her.
“Is she ok?”
“She’s fine Rika just take them home.” Yossie mumbles
Rika faces the front of the car again and pulls out to the street. I give her the directions to my house and sit in silence the whole ride after. My body might be in tremendous pain, but all I was worried about was Eri. And I was glad she was ok.
Topic: This Thing Called Love(UPDATED 11/26/14) [COMPLETE] (Read 178111 times)