Asking people for directions is an art, and one at which I am a master. I've asked thousands of people for directions in my life, and they've never failed to give me correct ones… presumably.

Following directions is a different art, one I'd prefer not to discuss at the moment.

Nighttime is one of the most challenging times of day to get directions. Not so many people around, and of those that are, quite a few of them are drunk and on their way home and not in the best condition to give directions.

In that situation, I've found that convenience store clerks are excellent direction-givers.

But sometimes there isn't a convenience store, well, convenient. And so you end up having to ask people you'd normally ignore.

Even if the only person you see is a pair of legs standing on a tree branch, with the top half of their body obscured by foliage.

I walk over and tap on one of the legs. "Excuse me."

The legs jump straight in the air. Then the legs, as well as the rest of the body, fall to the ground.

"Excuse me," I say again, "do you know the way to the Tendo Dojo?"

He struggles to speak. He must have had the breath knocked out of him. That's what you get when you fall out of a tree I guess. A lot smarter not to fall out of trees, I say.

Eventually he gets his air back. "The… Tendo… Dojo?"

I nod.

He points to a wall. "It's… it's right there!"

Great! I made it!

But something strikes me as odd.

Where have I seen this guy before?

Then it comes to me. "Wait, aren't you one of the guys whose butt I kicked for trying to beat up Saotome when he was weak?"

He cringes.

"That was you! You, Mousse, some kendo guy, and a guy wearing an aloha shirt. You were all attacking Saotome, and I jumped in and kicked all of your butts at the same time."

I smile. Now that was a nice memory. Quality.

I look down again. The kid looks like he's crawling away. "Hey, where are you going?" And then I notice something.

"What's that in your hand?" I say pretty sternly.

He looks at me with a broken smile. "Wha-what do you mean?"

I poke his hand with the tip of my umbrella. His hand opens up.

"What's that?"

"Um… nothing?"

Well, as long as it's nothing… wait, he might be lying. I look at the thing. "Is that a camera? It is a camera, isn't it?"

He shakes his head, but I ignore it.

Well, so he's got a camera. Nothing wrong with that, right? Taking pictures at night. From a tree. Next to the wall around the Tendo Dojo. Where Akane-san lives.

Wait a minute…

He… was secretly trying to take pictures of Akane-san?

I pick the guy off the ground and suspend him in the air. "You were trying to take pictures of Akane-san, weren't you? Don't you dare deny it, you sneak. So, did you? Did you?"

"N-no! I didn't take any pictures! She's not home yet!"

I set him down. "Seriously? Not even one?"

"No."

I feel a sense of disappointment for some reason. Then, righteous anger comes back. "How dare you attempt to violate Akane-san's privacy! Off with you, and never bother her again!"

I let go of him, and he tears off into the darkness.

I watch him go for a minute, then turn around and jump over the wall. I stash my backpack in the usual place behind a rock next to the koi pond.

"Sheesh," I talk to myself. "What a loser. Taking secret pictures of Akane-san? That's just pathetic."

I jump into the pond and let the change come over me.

I climb out of the pond and trot into the house. 'Seriously, though, how pitiful can one guy be?'

Notes: This started off as a drabble on the prompt "Sympathy", but I soon realized that there was no way to tell the story I wanted to tell in only 100 words.

And then I ended up changing the story anyway. :)