Suki Inoue was a generally excitable girl.

According to her mother, she was born with more energy than any child was meant to have.

Bright and explorative since her very first breath five years before.

She had apparently almost wriggled right out of her father’s hands when she’d been handed to him, almost shocked his hair stark white.

She yearned for adventure, stimulation, new experiences.

And she couldn’t get that sitting around and doing nothing.

Which is why, when her big sister got in trouble in class and was late in picking her up from Kindergarten, she made the executive decision… to sneak out and take a walk around the surrounding neighborhood.

Now yes, her parents had told her not to and her big sister threatened to give her forehead a real nasty flick if she left on her own, but she had meant to come right back.

Really! She did!

And she would have been.

Had she not gotten turned around.

“I’m lost.”

Okay, lost.

It wasn’t her fault, for sure not.

She might have become a bit too enlivened in her minor excursion and ended up taking a few more turns than she should have… while not paying attention.

It happens to the best of us.

So she wandered a bit more in the hopes that she’d find her way back eventually.

Operating word being ‘eventually’.

Seeing as all of the streets looked the same after a point in Suki's eyes, this ended about as well as anyone could have expected.

After a while, she considered utilizing her one skill that she had been developing for a little over half a decade.

This skill boiled down to a very simple concept that a quote from the girl in question could explain far better than anyone else.

“If cry loud, people come.”

-Suki Inoue, 3 Years Old

A young visionary, truly.

A young visionary who was ready to enact a plan.

Clearing her throat, with big drops of tears in her eyes, she opened her mouth to let loose the loudest wail when-

“Whaddya mean no!?”

“‘Actly -hat I sa-d.”

“You little jerk!”

“Stop talkin’ to us like that!”

-she heard the sound of conflict nearby.

Several voices, one of them oddly familiar.

To most, that would be a sign to keep walking and mind their business.

But to this curious, lost little girl, it was a sign of adventure.

And so, following the voices, she turned another corner onto a little side street which housed a playground.

The playground not too far from the kindergarten building, she noted absently.

Her original objective of finding her way back had been forgotten the second she laid her eyes on the scene in question.

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Suki was a happy girl as she stood at the school gates on a brisk spring morning.

How could she not be?

Her best friend was back in town.

And he seemed just the same as he was when he left, if a bit more expressive, maybe.

Yesterday was perfect in her opinion.

Yeah, she may have been a bit late to meet him at school in the morning due to oversleeping and missing her train, which then led to some random punk picking a fight with her after she bumped into him, but she did get to see him that morning.

And honestly, he looked good.

His hair was well-kept, the look in his eyes was… thoughtful just like she remembered, and he wore the uniform well.

It seemed to fit his… aesthetic?

That was what her sister would call it, she was pretty sure, even if Suki didn’t understand what that meant, really.

Well, that aside, just the sight of Aoi yesterday made her feel pretty good.

If she were to describe it, she’d say it was like the feeling you’d get after taking a nice chill bath on a hot summer’s day.

Nothing quite like it, she’d say.

And she got his number too!

No falling out of contact this time.

And as she saw the blue haired boy turn the corner from the direction of the station, she couldn’t help but smile.

Ikeda and Inoue, together again.

She had all sorts of ideas about what the two of them could get up to.

Lunch together, games at Rainy’s, ice cream at Halen’s, movies at my house-

Really, the possibilities were endless and she was excited to tell Aoi about all of them.

And then she saw his eyes.

Bloodshot and unfocused.

And then she saw the rest of him.

Hair disheveled, clothes unkempt, his blazer unbuttoned, shoes on the wrong feet.

She was concerned.

And that concern only grew when he arrived at the gate and just… stared.

Not at her or anyone or anything, just… straight ahead.

“Uh… Aoi?”

No response.

She waved a hand in front of his face.

“Aooooi.”

Still nothing.

Snap! Snap! Snap!

“Oi!”

Clap!

That seemed to do it.

Aoi blinked, his eyes widening and darting about before settling and focusing on her.

“Oh. Hey, Suki.”

His voice sounded… croaky, it was still nice to hear him say her name though.

Not the time, see if he’s okay.

“You alright?”

He took a second to answer and she could almost hear the gears turning in his head before he responded with a simple, “Yeah.”

She was no longer concerned.

She was absolutely apprehensive.

“Uh, dude-”

“We should get going, yeah? Don’t wanna be late.”

She blinked.

He’s right, but…

“Uh, yeah. Sure.”

“Lead the way then.”

And with that short exchange, they were off.

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In the middle of the playground were four children.

Three of them, older than her, about her sister’s age.

One of them looked kinda dopey, one had a really skinny face, and the last was just kinda… plain.

The most notable thing about him was that she couldn’t pick out anything notable about him.

The fourth was the same age as her and someone that she recognized.

They always ended up being sat next to each other in reading circles and their cubbies were right next to each other because their last names were pretty close to each other’s.

Hers was Inoue and his was…

It was…

Um…

Aoi. His name was Aoi.

That, she could remember.

She also remembered that she hadn’t spoken more than ten words to him in the three months they’d been in Kindergarten together.

Not that she hadn’t tried, of course.

She tried to talk to everybody.

Even though most of them didn’t try to talk back.

Or play with her.

Or even act like they were in the same class.

But she still tried to reach out to everyone, including Aoi!

Aoi was… different though.

Quiet.

He wasn’t mean or anything, he just… didn’t talk to people much.

Or at all, if he could help it.

Most of the time, he just sat wherever looking… bored.

She would say hi to him, and he would stare back blankly before waving once and going back to reading his comics.

No, wait, manga.

Her mom would want her to call it manga.

That aside, she never would’ve expected to see Aoi in a situation like this.

He was quiet, so she just thought he’d spend his time outside of Kindergarten doing whatever it was that quiet people did.

Yet there he was, looking for all the world like he was about to get jumped by three kids much bigger than him.

“Take it back, you little jerk!”

“Yeah!”

“You better!”

The one leading the three older boys, the plain one, had his hands tightly balled into fists.

But, oddly enough, Aoi…

“…Yea, no.”

“Whaddya mean ‘no’?”

“I mean that I meant what I said. You’re dumb. Stupid. Not very smart. Cats are hairy, water’s wet, and you guys are idiots.”

…didn’t seem to care as he mouthed off to the now further incensed trio.

She had never heard him speak so much.

“Hah!?”

Though, seeing how much angrier that seemed to make the boys, Suki couldn’t help but think that that may have been a good thing.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“You little-!”

And when she saw the leader of the three older boys cock a fist back and bring it towards her classmate’s still-indifferent face, the young girl surprised herself with what she did next.

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“And all the way over there’s the Old Sports Building. School rules say to stay outta there or you’ll get… tetanus or something.”

It occurred to Suki that it probably would have been a good idea to actually look up things and refresh her knowledge of the campus before showing Aoi around.

She didn’t pay much attention when she herself was being shown around the campus, so most of her knowledge outside of things about the main building was limited, to say the very least.

“Ah. Tetanus, huh?”

Aoi didn’t seem to mind though.

As a matter of fact, he seemed kinda… spacey.

His eyes were less glossy than before, but they were still unfocused.

He responded to questions and stuff, but he wasn’t entirely present.

Did he sleep?

Didn’t look like it.

Not at all.

Should I ask about it? No, right? We just started talking again yesterday, so is that over the line? Nah, Aoi wouldn’t get offended… Would he?

“Say, Suki?”

The blue-haired half of the pair spoke up suddenly, breaking the silence between them.

“Mm?”

A good response, a strong response.

“Got a question about Bouts.”

“Shoot.”

The headmaster had told her that Aoi would need a bit more help getting re-acclimated to how things were in Konmachi.

Apparently people in Tokyo didn’t live life like they did.

No friendly fights in the streets, no fighting teachers for extra credit, she even heard that fighting was outright banned in schools.

Weird.

“So, when I was fighting…”

“Yamaguchi.”

“-Yamauchi, it was a ⌈Scuffle⌋.”

Suki nodded, “Mhm. Also, ‘Yamaguchi’.”

“When I fought him, he was using brass knuckles.”

“Mhm.”

Yamaguchi’s weapon of choice, she was well-acquainted.

“And I hit him with a baseball bat.”

Suki raised a brow.

“You?”

During yesterday’s lunch period, she’d heard about the fight that broke out in 1-5 while she was gone.

She knew that Aoi was involved, that information was easily gleaned by asking literally anyone in their year.

But she didn’t know that he used a bat.

That just… didn’t sound like him.

For his part, Aoi just nodded.

“Yeah, me. But that’s not the important bit.”

It’s not?

“What I wanna ask is, was that only okay because it was a ⌈Scuffle⌋ or are weapons and stuff allowed in ⌈Throwdowns⌋ and ⌈Skirmishes⌋ too?”

That… was a good question.

“Well… as far as I know, it’s okay. You’re not really restricted to any particular style once you’re in a Bout. You just follow the general rules and agree to whatever extra rules you and your opponent can agree on.”

“General rules?”

“‘Don’t kill your opponent’, ‘Try not to damage school property’, ‘No outside interference’, and ‘The fight stops when the announcer says it does’.”

The words flew from her mouth in a rapid fire pace.

Aoi blinked, seeming fully present in the conversation for the first time that morning, “You rattled that off fast.”

Suki shrugged, “Been in a lotta Bouts.”

“Didn’t the semester just start last month?”

“Didn’t you just transfer in yesterday?”

“...”

Aoi had no response.

Despite herself, Suki couldn’t help but think that that was a good thing.

The quiet almost made it feel like they were kids again, the only thing missing was her motor mouth.

----------------------------------------

It was like magic.

One minute, she was watching the situation unfold between the quiet boy in her class and the trio of older kids that he had insulted.

The next-

Thwack!

“Ack!”

-her face was on the wrong end of someone’s fist.

Suki had thought herself pretty sturdy, but the hit floored her, making her slide back a bit, kicking up a bit of dust and sand from the playground.

“Owwww…”

Her sister’s forehead flicks hurt way more, but getting punched in the face still hurt.

“What the-? Where’d you come from?”

The boy who hit her was understandably confused.

Suki, hand held to her cheek, slowly got to her feet.

Her eyes were locked onto the boy who hit her, hitting him with her meanest look.

It… wasn’t very effective.

“Why’re you starin’ at me like that?”

“Yeah!” Dopey chimed in.

“Why ya starin’ at him, kid?!” Skinny added at the top of his lungs.

Suki couldn’t help but think to herself that these guys were kind of annoying.

Even so, she kept her thoughts to herself, choosing instead to stand in-between the older boy and Aoi.

“Don’t hit him!”

The words flew from her mouth with more force than anything she had said in her whole life, the stinging in her cheek giving each syllable a bit more bite.

“Huh?”

“Hah?”

Two confused responses, one from behind, the other from her front.

“You can’t hit him! I won’t let you!”

The words she was saying didn’t make sense to her.

She didn’t even really know Aoi.

Like, yeah, their cubbies were next to each other at daycare and she would say hi to him when she saw him, but they weren’t…

“What? You his friend or somethin’?”

No.

No, she was not.

“Yeah! And I ain’t gonna let you hit him! You hear me, Stupid!?”

And yet, her mouth shot off like the truth just wasn’t fashionable anymore.

That was something that she needed to fix.

She heard a sharp intake of breath from behind her as soon as she said what she said.

She turned her head to look back-

THWACK!

-and her body spun as she flew back from a heavy blow to her cheek.

She hit the ground with a hard thud.

That… really hurt.

Her cheek stung in two places now.

And she could taste metal on the inside of her cheek.

She spit.

A red glob of saliva sat on the tan sand beneath her.

Ah, she was bleeding.

Her vision was warped and weird and wavy, several spots around the now slowly drying blood in the sand darkened.

…she was crying.

She got hit… and started crying.

She felt really, really stupid.

“Dude…”

“What?”

“Not cool?”

“Ah shut up, you two!”

She could hear the trio of boys start to argue about something or other, she didn’t really care, she just wanted to curl into herself and disappear.

Step!

Step!

Step!

Footsteps.

Someone stepped lightly towards her.

She looked up and saw blue.

Aoi.

He looked at her, his face had the same expression it always did when she saw him.

Boredom.

She looked at him.

He looked at her as crouched down to meet her at her level.

There was complete silence between the two.

A silence broken by the more unlikely of the pair, as far as Suki was concerned.

“Hey.”

It wasn’t a greeting. Suki knew that much.

He wanted to make sure he had her attention.

“…”

She didn’t say anything, didn’t have the words to, opting instead to meet his bored stare with her own tearful one.

And her keeping his gaze must've been as much confirmation as he needed, because he asked her a question moments later.

“Why’d you do that?”

“...?”

Why’d she do that?

Do what?

Get punched in the face?

Get punched in the face twice?

She didn’t know.

She didn’t plan to.

She didn’t walk over to the playground thinking, ‘Oh man, should I play on the swings or get punched in the face first?’

No one thinks like that!

She got lost, saw a boy that she knew, saw he was in trouble, tried to help him, and got hit.

Really, all she wanted to do was-

“…help you.”

Words stumbled out of her mouth drunkenly, the first few having gotten lost along the way.

“Huh?”

It made sense that Aoi couldn’t hear her, what with her voice being so low and the three boys’ getting louder and louder, but it still frustrated her a little bit.

Even so, she spoke up, the ache on the outside of her cheek getting a bit stronger alongside the sting on the inside.

“Wanted to help you…”

She didn’t know what specific reaction she expected from Aoi at that moment.

It’s not like she really knew him well.

She didn’t know if he’d laugh at her or walk away or call her dumb or whatever.

Seeing how he acted at Kindergarten and how she just saw him acting a couple of minutes ago, literally anything was possible in her mind.

Well, everything except what actually happened that is.

She didn’t expect to see his face slightly tinge with red as he stood up without a word.

She didn’t expect to see him walk right over to the still bickering trio of boys as they almost came to blows.

She didn’t expect to see the little blue haired boy tap the leader, the boy who punched her twice, on the shoulder.

“Hey.”

“Huh?”

And when the boy turned his head to look at Aoi-

THWACK! THWACK!

-she definitely didn’t expect to see the boy go flying after Aoi popped him in the mouth.

It happened so fast, Suki almost couldn’t keep up.

Like, one minute, the older boy was standing just fine, a head taller than both she and Aoi.

The next, he was lying in a heap, several feet away from where he was just standing.

His friends took a second to catch up, looking back and forth at their friend who had just been launched several feet by a boy in Kindergarten and the boy who launched him.

A boy who just… turned around and walked three steps away before stopping and turning back to the two remaining older boys.

Suki couldn’t see his face, but when she heard him speak again, she heard nothing but boredom in his tone.

“Well? Let’s go.”

For the one girl in the situation, the fact that the boy could do something so amazing to her and still seem so bored with the situation at hand.

For the two older boys, it must’ve seemed like getting splashed with ice cold water on a scalding hot day.

They reeled back like they were the ones that got hit, looking back at their friend once more before turning their full attention to the blue-haired kindergartner, their faces set with rage undercut with a bit of… nervousness.

“Let’s go!”

“HYAH!”

Even so, they rushed the younger boy, fists and voices raised.

And Aoi, he just stood in place with his hands at his sides.

Tap!Tap!Tap!Tap!Tap!

The boys were closing in on him and the only movement that Suki could see from him was the tapping of his foot, his sneaker kicking up dust and sand as he waited.

And the first one to reach was Skinny, who lashed out with a wild haymaker.

A wild haymaker that Aoi just stepped to the side of.

As Aoi dodged to the side, Skinny stumbled; kicking up dust and desperately trying to keep himself from falling forward and face-planting. He sputtered and coughed as some particles floated into his face.

As Skinny coughed and recovered, Aoi found himself face-to-face with Dopey, who raised up a leg and tried to kick him.

Aoi dodged the kick with another side step, this time ending up on Dopey’s left side as the older boy tried to regain his footing.

“You little bitch!”

Had Suki not been cringing in pain at the volume of Skinny’s voice, she definitely would’ve flinched at the boy’s curse as he regrouped and charged at Aoi again, fist raised for another wild punch.

And Aoi, for his part, seemed to see this coming as he just grabbed a handful of a still recovering Dopey’s shirt and yanked the older boy in front of him.

The pair of older boys realized what was happening just a second too late as Skinny’s clenched fist rocketed forward-

THUD!

-and found a target.

That target being Dopey’s face.

It was a vicious strike, one that knocked all the spit out of its victim’s mouth(didn’t draw blood though), and it would surely leave a mark.

But Aoi didn't seem satisfied with that.

No sir.

What Aoi did next, Suki would remember for years to come.

She watched as Aoi, who was right behind Dopey, pulled his leg back-

THUD!

“Ouagh!”

-and drove his knee hard and deep into the older boy's side.

To an outside observer who was just comparing the size of the two, it probably didn’t look like much of a hit.

Dopey would probably beg to differ.

As soon his body registered, he fell bonelessly with nary a sound after the initial cry of pain.

If Suki couldn’t see him writhing in pain on the ground, mouth open in a silent scream, she would’ve thought he died.

And Skinny… Skinny backed up.

She couldn’t see his face from where she sat, but she could definitely see him take a big step back.

He was… scared.

And when she turned to see Aoi’s face, she understood why.

On his face, she could see something that she’d never seen from him before.

A big toothy smile.

Not the kind that people said she had more often than not, this one looked… vicious.

Like a wolf who had found a particularly juicy rabbit.

And to tell the truth, it made her feel… something.

Something that she couldn’t quite describe at that moment.

But it wasn’t exactly bad or anything, she thought.

Just… different.

And a second later, as if what he already done wasn’t impressive enough, Aoi vanished.

THUNK!

And reappeared a moment later, both feet off the ground as he drove his knee into the older boy’s chin.

In the red evening glow, Suki could only describe the sight in one word.

“...Awesome.”

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The first floor of the new practice building was buzzing with activity, despite it being so early in the morning.

Classes didn’t start for another couple hours, but most of the sports and martial arts clubs preferred to get their days started early.

“Hey, Inoue.”

“Hey.”

“Yo, Inoue.”

“Sup.”

“Thanks again for your help the other day, Ms. Inoue!”

“Don’t mention it!”

And due to this, whenever Suki shows up for some reason, she’s bombarded with greetings and thank-yous from pretty much everyone there.

“Someone’s popular.”

“Nah, not really.”

A group of girls from the… tennis club, if she remembered correctly waved at her enthusiastically.

She gave them a wave back.

“‘Nah, not really’.”

Bump!

The blue-haired boy lightly bumped her shoulder with his own.

She couldn’t help the small smile that played on her lips as she bumped him.

“It’s true, though. I just help out where I can.”

In the month that she’d been attending high school, she’d taken to helping pretty much any club that needed it.

She didn’t plan on joining any, so she figured it was a good way to kill time that she otherwise would’ve spent training at home.

Though, now that Aoi was back in town, maybe the clubs would be fine with her taking a less active role.

They walked a bit further, Suki receiving greetings, thank-yous, and requests for help all the while, until finally-

“Here it is.”

-they arrived.

The Judo practice room looked plain from the outside, like any other room.

On the inside, however-

Sliiiiide!

“Welcome to the Judo Club!”

-you step straight into Hell.