challenge

ˈCHalənj

noun

an invitation to compete or take part, especially in a game, fight, or argument.

Example(s):

“You need to learn some manners. So I’m challenging you, asshole!”

“Aoi Ikeda, The Judo Club challenges you to a wagered throwdown!”

I knew what the word 'challenge' meant.

And up until my return to Konmachi, my feelings on it as a word were largely indifferent.

In the less than twenty four hours that I had been returned, I had been accosted several times(one time being a complete misunderstanding), exposed to the source of most, if not all, of my childhood trauma, press-ganged into a psychotic beat-em-up school scholarship, and challenged to two fights by two incredibly stubborn individuals, neither of whom seemed to understand the word ‘no’.

So at that point, my view on the word ‘challenge’ had become somewhat ambivalent.

Especially as Inoue white-knuckle gripped my shoulders.

“That kinda hurts.”

It didn’t hurt, not really, so I didn’t hiss in any real pain or anything, but I felt her snatch her hands away like she’d been burned.

“Sorry.”

I turned back to see her hands in her pockets.

Honestly, I don’t know why she took it so seriously, but a point to her for respecting a perceived boundary, I suppose.

“Well, Aoi Ikeda? I trust that I’ll see you tomorrow for our bout?”

Unlike the peach haired jackass that had walked around me to get in my face.

“Didn’t I just say no?”

“You did.”

“Then no.”

“So you forfeit?”

“No, I never agreed to participate.”

“Then you forfeit.”

You were dropped as a child, weren’t you?

Fujiwara’s stock as a human being was rapidly plummeting with every word that left his mouth.

In my opinion, of course.

No means no, right? They teach kids that in grade school.

So I couldn’t understand why the guy in front of me wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Uh, Aoi?”

Inoue spoke up from beside me, I turned my head to look at her.

“Hm?”

“You can’t refuse a wagered throwdown.”

Well, that was news to me.

“Why not? It’s not like he threw a punch or anything.”

“Well, uh, ahem.”

Inoue cleared her throat, before asking me a question.

“You had your first bout today, right?”

I nodded and she continued.

“This morning, Yamaguchi cornered you into a scuffle. A scuffle’s pretty much any fight that breaks out between two people that wasn’t pre-arranged beforehand.”

The punch that the little redhead swung at me and the fight announcement that came after it came to mind.

⌈Challenger: Aoki Yamaguchi vs. Defender: Aoi Ikeda⌋

“For self defense and such, yeah?”

“Yup.”

Okay. Makes sense… as much sense as anything in this damn school could make.

“So what makes throwdowns different? Scheduling?”

Inoue snapped her fingers and nodded.

“Got it in one. A throwdown is a fight between two people, prearranged. There’s always a set venue and, if it runs into a class period, an excused tardy or absence pass in your ID app.”

I nodded.

That made sense to me as well, but something didn’t add up.

“Wait, but I don’t get it.”

“What don’t you get?”

“If it’s something prearranged between two people, why can’t I say no?”

“Well, if it were a regular throwdown, you could. Unfortunately, Fujiwara challenged you to a wagered throwdown.”

“Difference?”

“Throwdowns are typical. Anyone can challenge another person to a throwdown and set a date to fight, as long as the other person agrees. Wagered throwdowns are rare though.”

“How?”

Wager was just another word for bet. As far as I understood, betting amongst school children was pretty standard.

Especially for fights.

According to Inoue, though-

“Wagered throwdowns are lock-ins. If you challenge someone to one, they’re obligated to fight or give up a forfeit, which you can name. As such, they’re only given to students that impress the faculty or, in Fujiwara’s case, given to clubs that perform exceptionally to be used for recruitment.”

I had but one response to that.

“That's insane.”

Inoue shrugged.

“That’s Aotoya.”

I sighed.

“Of course it is.”

She gave me a small smile, hesitating slightly before reaching out to pat me on the shoulder.

“Careful now, my mom says that every time you sigh, a little bit of happiness escapes.”

That sounds… familiar.

“That sounds like it came out of an anime.”

“It did. Well, my mom stole it from an anime.”

Okay, that might’ve explained it, but for some reason, it still didn’t feel right.

“For real?”

“Yeah, after you left, I found her-”

“Wait, after I-?”

“Ahem.”

Before I could ask about Inoue’s strange remark, some shithead lovely individual with worth and value cleared their throat, causing the two of us to turn to them.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Fujiwara, who I had honestly forgotten about at that point, was tapping his foot rapidly, giving us what I assume he thought to be a nasty stare, but really just made him look like he shat himself.

“So Aoi Ikeda, now that you’ve been informed, I trust that I’ll see you for our bout tomorrow?”

What was said next was not meant as a dig, nor was it coordinated alongside Inoue, who spoke at the same time that I did.

“You’re still here?”

“Y-you- I- bu-”

I’d never seen someone get stunlocked before.

Every time he tried to start speaking, he would just stumble over himself over and over again.

Honestly, I felt a little bad.

Due to both mine and Inoue’s lack of care, Fujiwara was forced to come to the realization that his presence was less potent than others.

I’m willing to bet that while you were reading this, you completely forget that he was part of the scene.

Tell me, do you even remember what color his hair was?

…

Exactly.

Now, as bad as I felt about completely forgetting about Fujinuma’s existence, I honestly didn’t care enough to wait for him to say what he wanted to say.

It was likely going to be something snooty, stupid, or a mix of the two.

So, I turned to Inoue and asked, “Hey, walk with me to the station?”

She nodded and, not long after, we were away.

With a still stammering Fujisaki stunlocked in the middle of a nearly deserted hallway.

***

Honestly, when I woke up that morning, ready to begin my new life at a new school in a somewhat familiar place, I doubt that I could have predicted that I’d end up in any of the situations that I’d found myself in over a six hour period.

And honestly, as sad as it was, the least likely of them was my walk to the station with Inoue.

Now this may be shocking, hard to believe, even, but I assure you that this true:

I don’t have a lot of friends.

I know, I know, hold back the gasps.

I moved away from Konmachi before I was ten, so… yeah.

Unfortunately, despite my winning personality and graceful navigation through social situations, my social circle has remained incredibly small.

Small, as in, limited to myself and my father for the past five years.

As you might imagine, my isolation wasn’t limited to the boys in my class, but the girls also wanted nothing to do with me.

Even the nice ones that got along with everyone.

So the fact that I was getting along so well with Inoue was definitely a surprise, but a welcome one.

“So you are gonna show up tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah. I’m guessing if I don’t, I’ll be forced into the Judo club?”

“Yup.”

“Same if I lose?”

“Mhm.”

Yeah, that sounded about right.

‘Right’

Ha, as if that applied to anything related to Aotoya.

I held back another sigh, feeling a pain spread from both my temples.

Bump!

Inoue lightly bumped my shoulder with hers.

“Cheer up. No way you’re gonna lose, right?”

The smile she gave me was small, but infectious.

In the fine red light of evening, it reminded me of someone.

Someone not as cool, calm, or collected as Inoue, not in any way, shape, or form.

She wasn’t as tall, not nearly as strong, and she was definitely far louder.

Even the thought of how loud she could get sometimes made my ears ring a little.

But even so, it made me smile even wider.

Sorry about that, got away from myself there.

Uh, I guess I should tell you this mystery girl’s name after all that, right?

It’s Suki.

She was my best and only friend from the time that I was four to the time that I was ten.

That's an approximation, by the way.

To tell you the truth, I don’t remember how we met.

One day, I think I just said ‘we’re friends’ and she accepted that.

Unfortunately, we didn’t keep in touch with each other when I left.

Still doesn’t sit right with me.

“Aoi?”

Oh right, I was still talking to someone.

“Yeah?”

We were at the station at this point, standing behind the yellow line as we waited for the train to arrive.

“Wanna trade numbers?”

What?

This was the first time anyone had asked to trade numbers with me since I had received my phone.

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

I could reminisce about my one friend later.

I had a new friend to make in the present.

Honestly, the speed at which I took my phone out of my pocket amazed even myself.

I unlocked it, tapping open my contacts, and lightly cringing at the one most recently added.

Headmama? Really? And what’s with all the damn hearts?

After a quick change to ‘Headmaster’ and a short, cathartic deletion of many hearts, I handed my phone to Inoue, who quickly set to adding her number to it.

There was a particular deftness in the way that her finger glided across the screen.

When she handed it back, she pulled out her own phone and declined a call, before tapping on her screen a few times.

“Alright, saved.”

She seemed pleased to say that, it warmed my heart.

And when I laid eyes on the new contact in my list, my heart nearly stopped in my chest.

Suki Inoue

Luckily, my jaw stayed where it was, because I really didn’t want the awkward conversation with my childhood friend about not recognizing her.

Or about what I was thinking earlier.

That seemed like something to keep entirely to myself until at least our second year.

***

The train showed up not long after that, and we were away.

The late day train was less crowded than the morning one, with a lot more places to sit.

And yet, Inou- Suki chose to sit right next to me.

She didn’t say anything.

Barely even looked at me.

Just seemed content to… be there.

And had I been less shocked about the changes that she’d gone through in the last several years, I probably would’ve been as well.

But because I’d been taken by surprise, it was all I could think about all the way until Sōtsuka, where she got off the train with me and began to leave the station.

Before she got too far though, she turned back to say, “I’ll meet you at the gate in the morning. Be there early, so you have time to prep.”

“Got it.”

She nodded before walking into the sunset.

…

Alright, nothing so dramatic, but she still walked off, likely to take care of whatever errands she had talked about earlier.

And I was left alone with my thoughts all the way back to my little apartment.

***

As odd as it may sound, the sound of the rusted, creaky stairs filled me with an odd sense of relief.

Because it was something that made sense and did what I thought it would.

The sound of my key turning in my door’s lock was euphoric.

Because it meant that after six-ish hours of hellish confusion I could be left alone to sort through my feelings and thoughts.

Starting with the woman who called herself my moth-

You know what, that can wait.

Then maybe my childhood friend who I didn’t recognize and was now incredibly ho…

On second thought, that can wait as well…

You know what, fights.

I had a fight the next day.

That's what I chose to focus on.

Now as I told you before, I don’t like fighting and I’m not a professional fighter by any metric, but due to the nature of my early upbringing, I happen to know a thing or two about fighting.

Alright, Fujimoto’s a judoka, that much is obvious. We’re around the same height and build too, from what I saw.

Observation is an important skill that most people lack.

They look, but they don’t pay attention.

Don’t look into all the little details about the people that they meet.

Granted, if someone’s caught doing this, they’re likely to be made out to be some kind of creep or weirdo, sometimes they’re just seen as judgy.

As you might imagine, I may or may not have been marked as the lattermost in my younger years.

Luckily, however, my dad had just the thing for that when he noticed that I didn’t have (m)any friends.

I was about twelve years old, I think.

I don’t remember how the conversation started, but it eventually wrapped around to-

“Try smiling more. That way they won’t feel like you’re quietly judging them.”

I cocked my head to the side.

“But Dad, I am quietly judging them.”

The handsome dark haired man took a knee, resting a hand atop my head and mussing my hair.

“I know, buddy. I know. But they shouldn’t.”

-one of the best bits of advice that my father gave me.

Of course, none of those people deserved to be my friend anyway.

They were lame.

Ugh, what was I talking about again?

Fujikana, right.

He stood about as tall as I did, so our reach was about the same.

He’ll be focused on trying to keep me in grappling range to take me down.

This was obvious.

A judoka’s gotta judo, right?

The real question was: how would I stop him?

His range was my range, so it’s not like I could just dance around him and hope that I got a lucky shot.

On another equally important note, I had no idea how Fujitaro fought.

Was he aggressive, or did he prefer to counter more?

Did he play by the rules, or did he fight dirty?

These were questions that I didn’t have answers to.

And honestly, it irked me for the rest of the night.

Until I had an idea close to dawn, that is.