Easiest Thing in the World

Mikey sat on the porch, watching his father argue with Coral. He had just finished with his own training, and he had half a mind to go skating before hitting the shower. It was so warm, he was going to sweat no matter what he did. However, his friend's loud voice disrupted his train of thoughts.

"WHY NOT?"

She had asked the same question for the last five minutes, just a little louder every time. Splinter's voice was as calm as ever.

"Because it will not work. I told you so four years ago. What I teach here is not something that you are adept to learn."

She growled and hit the floor with her left hand. She would have hit it with her right, but it was still wrapped in bandages.

"And why not? You taught Raph and he's just as hotheaded as I am!"

Mikey sighed and scratched the scar on his leg. It had been almost two months since the fight with Karai and the purple dragons, and his leg was as good as new. Coral didn't need the sling any more, but she could barely lift her arm above her waist. Still, she had gotten it in to her head that she had to get back to practice. She intended to work with her left arm until her right one healed, but things were not working out for her.

"It has nothing to do with that, my dear. You and my son are very different in a fundamental way. It is that difference that makes it impossible for you to learn what I can teach you."

"And what is that?"

Mikey decided to stick around for this. Besides the obvious physical factors, he knew very little about what separated his brother from Coral. Well, Except she could cook and he was a bit better at building an engine.

Splinter took a deep breath. He had to explain this in the right way. It was far too easy to say it wrong and damage her forever. He would not want that. She was a dear friend to his sons, rivaled only by April and Casey.

"The difference between you two is that while my sons are people who fights to protect others, you fight only for yourself."

Mikey almost opened his mouth to disagree. He couldn't count the times Coral had taken the blame for something he had done. Coral beat him to it.

"What? So, I'm like a bad guy, is that it?"

Splinter smiled. He had seen his fair share of martial-arts movies, and Coral's type was usually portrayed as the bad guys'. That is, the people who didn't fight to protect others but to gain strength for themselves. He believed the outlook to be very unfair.

"No, that is not what I mean. Please calm down and listen."

The girl growled and sunk down like a sack of potatoes, glaring at him from under her messy hair. Well, at least she was being quiet.

"Fighting to protect others is the way my master Yoshi taught me. He made me swear on my life never to use what he taught me to harm another human being. I was never to fight for myself, but to protect what was important to me. That is what I have taught my sons as well."

Splinter glanced at his youngest son and smiled softly before continuing.

"All four of them are people adept to just that; protecting. You, my dear Coral, you are not a person meant to protect others. It does not mean that you are a bad person, it just means that you have a different way of thinking."

"Different how?"

"Yeah, master Splinter! How does that work?"

Splinter waved for Mikey to come back in and watched as the two teenagers sat up in a more proper manner, Coral's curiosity overwhelming her annoyance at the moment.

"Let us create an example. Let us say the two of you are fighting a common enemy. You have your backs against each other as you try to fend them off. The difference between you is that while Michelangelo will focus on making sure you are not hurt, you, Coral, will be focusing on beating your enemy, trusting Michelangelo to fend for himself."

"So, in short, I'm selfish?"

Splinter smiled again. It was easy to say yes, but there was more to it.

"Not quite. It's more trusting then selfish. Unlike all of my sons, you do not worry about how to protect your friends. You believe them capable of standing up for themselves without your help. Whether you are right or not is another matter, but you're way of thinking regarding your friends is that you believe them either as strong or stronger than yourself. If they can not win, you can not help them, anyway."

He watched as the girl pondered over what he had said. Mikey gave it some thought, too. It was really easy when you had seen the whole thing happen.

"Suppose it would be hard for you to think differently, though. All your life you've been hanging around people who are better fighters then you."

That loud thought got him a fist in the arm. Splinter sighed but did not protest. It would be a reasonable explanation.

"Aoie! It's true! First you came here two days a week and watched Leo and Master Splinter and then you started hanging out with Raph and Casey and then with Kar…"

Mikey bit his tongue when he saw the twitch in Corals right arm. He cleared his throat and kept going, intent to smooth over his mistake.

"Of course, you'd feel like you didn't have to worry about your comrades when you're used to those kind of people."

"Than how come you don't have the same problem, huh, wise guy?"

Mikey flashed her a cocky grin and leaned back on his hands.

"'Cause I'm awesome!"

There was a grunt and a sweep of a leg aimed for his hip. Mikey had to roll over with a little shriek so he wouldn't get hit. Back up, sitting on his knees, he held out his hands in a typical " Don't hurt me I didn't mean it like that" gesture.

"Okay, okay! Like this! You're lucky, ya know. You never had a brother who would always get himself in wa-ay over his head so that poor me had to come bail him out! I mean, I don't remember once coming to a new school or class or whatever without Raph instantly picking a fight with the roughest person there. I've covered his back so many times I've never had a chance to doubt that I'm needed. I've always had equal ground with my brothers okay? You didn't get that chance."

"Aeh! Don't matter anyway! You still won't teach me, will you, Splinter?"

Glad to be out of the crossfire again, Mikey lay down on his stomach as his father shook his head with a gentle smile.

"Man, what a total drag…!"

"Maybe you could take up boxing?"

"Maybe you could shove it?"

Mikey's turn to make a grumpy noise.

"Hey, don't dismiss me just like that. Maybe it would be good for you to focus more on your arms then on those mean kicks of yours."

Coral was about to say something quite mean back, but stopped as she thought about it. Maybe it was not such a bad idea.

"Hey, that might actually work."

"I would think it possible, yes. Perhaps it is worth a try?"

"Yeah! Thanks Mike! You actually said something useful!"

"Don't sound so damn surprised… I'm not an idiot!"

All the response he got was a laugh and a nudge on the head as the girl bowed shortly at Splinter and left. Still, he had to say something.

"Well, break a leg, Coral!"

" I'd rather not! The arm's bad enough!"

As the door in the fence shut, he dragged himself to the edge of the porch and started putting on his sneakers. He felt his father come up beside him. Tying the last knot he looked up at the old man.

"Do you think it will do her any good?"

Splinter had just been wondering the same thing. Perhaps more brute force was better than techniques when it came to the young woman's ways.

"At least, it will do her spirit good to have something to do while she heals. I just hope Raphael and Leonardo can find something like that."

"But Leo's fine, right? He wouldn't go all around the world if it didn't work right? He wouldn't leave us if he wasn't sure…?"

Splinter patted his head with a reassuring smile. A small nod was all it took to regain Mikey's unquestioning smile. The trust he had in Leonardo and Splinter was hard to break.

"Well, I was thinking of going skating along the riverside! I'll be home for dinner!"

"Please buy milk on the way home!"

Mikey threw his father a thumbs up as he left the same way Coral had, grabbing his skateboard on the go.

He wasn't really surprised to find Susie on the half pipe. She was just as addicted to skating as Mikey was. It was a bit funny because her scraped knees and elbows, together with her freckled cheeks and skinny limbs, made her look much younger then she actually was. Man, though! She could do such an awesome Ollie 360!

After blowing off a good set of steam they both got smoothies at the ice-cream parlor by the riverside and sat watching the street with the sun blazing on their backs. She told him about her father's newest invention and they agreed that it was convenient having a nerd in the family when stuff broke down. Then Mikey told her about Coral's latest fit and that Don was going over to Sid's every day with no exceptions and that Raph had started sleeping at home at least three days a week, but that nobody had any idea what he was doing the other nights, or even during the days. And then he told her that Leo had yet to write a single letter.

"Don't they have emails in Japan?"

"They do, but Splinter warned us that it was very likely that granddad doesn't even own a computer. So it's ye old postman we have to rely on."

She bumped his shoulder a bit.

"Don't look so down, he's probably just really busy. Either that, or he doesn't know what to write. Don't worry, he'll write soon enough."

The bright-eyed boy rolled his skateboard back and forth with his feet and pouted.

"What if he doesn't miss us at all?"

"Don't be silly! He's probably homesick and afraid that if he writes, he'll get even sicker! He's your brother, of course he misses you guys."

The pout lessened, but no smile yet.

"I miss you when you're not around!"

He looked at her, smiling just a little bit. She was grinning back with her board in her lap over her crossed legs. She was a bit cute like that, with the sun framing her in gold and backlighting her red hair so it looked like it was on fire.

"Really? But you see me here every day even now when school's out!"

She bumped him again and took the last sip from her smoothie.

" I can still miss you."

He smiled and leaned a bit against her side. Looking out over the crowd he voiced another thought that popped into his head.

"I miss Karai…"

She looked at him, face warped into a skeptical mask. He hadn't seen the look on the girl's face as she took down Coral, but he had been there when the ambulance-drivers had popped her shoulder back in place before they moved her. It had hurt, probably more then popping it out of place to begin with. It took a cruel person to cause such harm.

"Really?"

"Well, I miss the old Karai, the one that hung out with us. She was good for Leo. She was special to him, ya know? Someone he could tell everything to. I miss her."

She put her cheek on his shoulder. He did have point. She had been nice.

"Yeah. I miss that Karai too."

"Why do people make their lives so complicated? I mean, it's really easy!"

Susie sat up and smiled at him again. He gesticulated out on the street as he continued.

"I mean, dude, it's so simple! You live, you eat, you sleep, you go to school, you get a job and you marry someone and then you have kids and then you die."

He sighed and leaned back on his hands on the low brick wall.

"Why do people have to make up stuff to complicate it? Like, take Raph! He's had a crush on Coral for years, but he won't admit it cause he can only think of her as a friend. It's stupid."

"You know that Coral has a crush on Raph too, right?"

He looked at her with wide eyes, then he thought about it.

"That would explain a lot…"

"Like what?"

"Well, like the time Raph and Casey where missing a part for their new bike, and she spent an entire day digging through the junk yard trying to find it. Or all the times she'd show up at the door with a bag of barbequed meat just to cheer him up. Damn, there are a lot of stuff that they've done like that."

"Do you think they know?"

Mikey smiled at her and shrugged.

"We're Hamatos! We're late bloomers!"

She laughed and he joined her, explaining further.

"And that's what I mean! They make it so damn hard on themselves! It's easy! If you like someone…"

"Yeah."

"And they like you back…"

"Yeah."

"Then that's all there is to it right?"

"Yeah, I think so."

And that was when he noticed that for every "yeah" she had leaned closer, and, look at that! So had he. Might as well prove a point then. It was nice, and her lips still tasted like strawberry smoothie. As they parted again, he smiled at her.

"Like that…!"

She giggled and her cheeks turned pink. Easy as pie. Why did everyone make such a fuss over how hard it was to get a girlfriend?

"I have to buy milk on the way home. Will you come with me?"

"Sure!"

Nothing more to it, really. All that's left is to skate off into the sunset.

[A/N: Feedback? Please? Next chapter goes to Raph! Then we are back in buissnes! X3]