Mondo Oowada stands in front of Chihiro Fujisaki's door. He swallows, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead, and manages to knock.

After a few minutes and a hesitant "Coming!", Chihiro opens the door. She peeks around the door meekly, fingers curling it. "O-oh," she says. "Hello."

She's nervous. He knows why. It's why he's here – to apologize again, for making her cry. He doesn't like making girls cry, really, he doesn't, it just ends up happening because he can't control his voice.

"Hey," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "I, uh, just wanted to say sorry. For making you cry. A good apology, I mean."

"Oh," Chihiro says, eyes downcast. Then she looks up, and Mondo is fairly certain that she isn't totally terrified of him. A little terrified, maybe, but definitely not totally terrified. "D- do you want to come in?"

"Uh, sure," Mondo says, following her into her room. It was a normal enough room, apart from the line of computers in the corner, but, hey, that was to be expected – he was working with a Super High School Level Programmer, here. She sat down on her bed and he pulled a chair to sit down on.

It was awkwardly quiet for a few moments, Chihiro studying her hands and Mondo's eyes flicking all over the room, trying to distract himself from the fact that he was in a room alone with a cute girl. He didn't know how he'd gotten into this situation. He'd just come to apologize, he'd expected Chihiro to just nod and slam the door, not invite him into her room. Did she want him to make a move? Was that what girls wanted when they invited him into their rooms? This had never happened before.

"U-um-"

"What?" Mondo snaps, maybe a bit louder and angrier than he'd meant it to. "Wait, no, shit- sorry."

"It's okay," Chihiro says, managing a cute little smile. Mondo swallows. She is really cute, isn't she? Like… she might not be super hot or anything, but she's… she's incredibly cute. Probably the cutest girl here. "I was just going to ask you… what… what riding a motorcycle's like."

Mondo blinks. He doesn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this. But he'll talk about this, because it is something he knows about. "Great," he says, sitting up straight and leaning forward a little. "There's nothin' more free, you know? Never mind that other shit, it's just you and the bike and you're free. You've gotta try it at some point…"

He trails off as he realizes that she's quite possibly not going to make it out. Not that he thinks anyone has a personal grudge against her, she's just so small and weak that it would be easy to pick her off. She seems to realize the same. He can see tears well up in her eyes.

Before he totally knows what he's doing, he puts a hand on her shoulder. "Hey," he says, managing to keep his voice at a low enough volume so as not to scare her. "Don't cry. I'll protect you from any prick that wants to bash your head in for an easy way out. You'll be fine."

She looks at him, wiping tears from her face. "Really?" she asks, voice small, and if Mondo's heart wasn't rock-hard – or, rather, what he pretend was rock-hard – it would have crumbled at that moment. Not so good of rock after all, huh?

But Mondo just nods, and Chihiro's lower lip trembles, but she nods too, managing a smile. Mondo nods again, feeling his face soften.

"We'll both make it out of here," he says, sitting back. Chihiro nods and they just sit for a while, enjoying each other's company.

Mondo hopes he can protect her, but he has a sick, growing feeling in his stomach that tells him he won't.

great job protecting chihiro, huh, mondo?

Oh, also, I don't want to get into the whole Chihiro gender debate, so all I'm going to say is that Chihiro is referred to as female in this because that's how Mondo sees the situation. It's from Mondo's POV, that's how he sees it.

Also, this is a little awkwardly phrased at times and a little short, but, um, the first night I was going to write this I got sick, and then I just sort of lost the spark I had back then and now it's decreased in quality.