Impulse
Every so often I do little prompt challenges that are set inside a group I'm a part of with FF users technoskittles and OtakuLeader. We take a common prompt from a big document we have and set each other a pairing to write about as the challenge.
This time I was given the prompt "I thought you were my friend so I slapped your ass in greeting" and my pairing for this challenge is Yang and Penny, (this should be interesting) which I'm dubbing as either Ginger Spice or Paprika for shipping sake!
Hope you like it.
From what Nora had told Yang through messages last night for a couple of hours, Yang could confidently say that she had the gist of the situation. The coppertop had wanted to start attending a new club after school, their high school provided plenty of them thanks to them being a leading figurehead in the realm of high school level sports. Yang herself was part of the boxing club; in fact she was the national, high school level, female, welterweight champion but she wasn't one to brag.
Yang was excited for her friend to get involved in something that, from the sounds of it she really had a passion for. But the problem was, Nora had been nagged by her mother to go to sleep (it was 3 AM at the time) so she had gone offline before Yang could find out what she actually wanted to take part in. School hours had gone by without Yang seeing a trace of Nora, they spent a lot of their free time together but they didn't have any actual classes together so it wasn't a surprise if they didn't see each other some days.
But this was different, Yang wasn't the only one that was excited and when Nora got excited it was like trying to stop a bull at a gate. Yang doubted that the girl would even stop to look for her, she will have most likely charged off to whichever club it was that she wanted to join. Which is why, the now sweaty Yang had been running all over the school checking out the various clubs to see if Nora was there. She'd been run ragged by the time she reached the gymnasium where Yang knew the cheerleading club and the badminton clubs were practising.
It was unlikely, Yang thought as she leaned up against the main doors catching her breath, but fuck running any more, man.
She opened the door quietly, so as not to disturb the clubs while they were hard at work and she stayed close to the side while she scouted all the members looking for the springy girl and to her surprise she found her stood with the cheerleaders.
Yang didn't remember Nora being that in to dancing or anything that didn't involve contact really. But it was the kind of thing that Yang could imagine Nora liking in secret, she always was on the move after all. Yang moved away from the side and made her way to her spunky friend that was facing away from her. Yang suddenly felt mischievous at the thought of Nora's panicked face if she did something totally embarrassing, so slowly but surely Yang padded over to her friend and with a quick dash and a wide swinging arc her hand made contact with Nora's backside with a satisfyingly loud crack that stopped pretty much everything and the majority of the room turned to look at her.
"What's going on, Irn Bru?" Yang greeted. "I thought you would've come to find me before… you-"
In hindsight, Yang should've probably seen it from across the room, the ginger hair was too long, too curly. The frame was too thin and she was unmistakably a lump shorter. In short, Yang Xiao Long had just slapped the arse of a stranger, thinking she was Nora.
"You're not my friend." Yang stated stupidly.
"Well, I don't know about that." The new girl said as she turned to Yang and fixed her unsettlingly wide, bright, green eyes on her. "That's a pretty friendly thing you just did."
"You know her Penny?" One of the other cheerleading club members said. Yang heard the girl's tone taking a defensive spin and she realised that this could've actually been really bad.
If this Penny girl decided that what Yang had done was too much and called her out for assault or bullying, even though she had an excuse for the mistake it barely held together and Yang was unlikely to get away without punishment from a teacher and then most likely be shunned by this section of the sports community.
"I don't know her personally." Penny said and Yang could almost feel the other girl bristle, ready to defend her little, redheaded friend. "But aren't you Yang? Yang Xiao Long, the rising, boxing star from the year above?"
"Erm, well… yeah, that's me I guess." Yang's reply was weak but the other girls laid off her since Penny showed no malice towards her. Talk about pack mentality. "You're a freshman then Penny? You handle yourself well, I was wondering if you were in my year and I'd somehow missed you."
"Well, I am new in terms of the academic year." Penny pointed out in a strangely factual sort of way. She used her hands animatedly as she talked, it was quite endearing to Yang in a way that pulled on her maternal heartstrings. "I only transferred in to this school a few weeks ago. I had to move due to the family business."
That line seemed oddly scripted, like Penny had said it a thousand times before and she was trying to keep the spite out of her voice. Yang didn't press any further on the matter though, it was a story for another day. Things were getting awkward even with them making small talk, but it couldn't go on like this for long. There was really no excuse for Yang's actions at the start.
"Well either way, it's good to have you with us Penny." Yang welcomed with a smile. "The cheerleading club covers a lot of ground and things always get busy for them around the winter time with all the various tournaments going on at the same time. But they work hard and they make sure the new kids earn their stripes, so I hope you stay on it and I'm really sorry about slapping you, I actually mistook you for someone else."
Yang's face was burning now. She wished that she was holding one of their pompoms to hide her face with. But Penny, oddly enough seemed perfectly fine with it.
"Oh that's no problem Yang and thank you very much for the sentiments." She flashed Yang that unsettling smile again which didn't really help the hairs on the back of her neck go down. "Actually, I think your friend might be looking for you."
Penny pointed behind Yang and sure enough bouncing in the doorway was Nora waving her arms frantically over to Yang calling her name.
"Oh thanks, Penny." Yang took a couple of steps away. "I'll see you round?"
"You'll have to come watch us perform some time!"
It wasn't the most seamless of introductions by any means. Yang wished there had been more of an actual click between her Penny rather than the crack of a slapped arse but she had acted on an impulse and it had turned out for the better. Yang hoped that she could see more of Penny.
"I will!" Yang called from the exit as she waved goodbye. "Count on it."