Confront

Diiiiiiing, dooooong!

With one slender finger poised over the doorbell, more than ready to press down on it again, Uriko decided to rid her rigid position, and slouched her knees, trying to relax herself into a casual pose. Clutched in the grip of the other hand that she had dangling next to her side was a piece of paper she had found lying on the table of the hotel room when she woke up that morning. It was a letter from her friend, and the contents confused her, as his artfully twisted words did not explain anything to the point of understanding. Now, as she stood on the front porch before his house, she awaited the opening of the door so that she could ask the ninja why he left without her earlier.

When she discovered he was gone, a feeling of desolation and abandonment struck her, and she instantly wondered if her zoanthrope compatriot was one of the guys at her school that played the one-night-stand game. But no, not Kenji, he was far from resembling those knuckle-headed jocks; surely he had a good and reasonable explanation for leaving the hotel without her. The feline found his letter, and alongside it was the room keys and his borrowed credit card on the table, and had regarded them with curious bewilderment. She gathered together what little belongings was brought, and checked out of at the receptionist desk, then called for a cab to bring her home. The box of condoms and the bottle containing the remainder of the wine that she did not finish consuming stayed in the room, as she felt no reason to take them with her.

A quick shower and a change of clothes later, Uriko left her house to head over to her friend's residence, armed with the letter, and many questions that soared through her mind. She had his credit card in her pocket, although she was so irritated with his earlier ditching that she briefly contemplated not giving it back to him. The sun bore its warm rays down onto the earth, making everything sparkle and gleam in the light, reflecting the various colors of a lone butterfly that fluttered about the place. The winged-creature breezed around the Kenpo student's auburn bangs as she walked, briefly swooping down to land on the tip of her nose, which she strangely did not notice, even when it flew off seconds later. She was unable to enjoy the beauty of the current day, when there were clouds of doubt and suspicion mixed with a sliver of anger lingering over her mood.

Brought back to the present, the female student glanced down at the hand that grasped his letter, and unbidden her eyes started to scan over the message, once again baffled by the enigma.

Uriko,

Last night was unforgettable. I will treasure what we shared together for an endless time, and look back on it as a rare, beautifully shining jewel amongst the pile of rubble and dirt that is the representation of my life. I would not have felt remorseful about our experience, if only both parties had been completely and thoroughly aware of what was happening, but unfortunately, that wasn't how the situation went. You are not at fault in the least bit, and your trusting innocence is what has grazed and shattered the morals of my insistent conscience. I promised to protect you from harm, Uriko, but I have failed, far more times than I should ever been allowed to, or forgiven. At the very least, I swear what little honor I deserve that you will never ever be hurt by my own hands.

Kenji

…What a strange letter, she thought after reading it over, and then tucked it into her pocket as she continued waiting for her friend to answer.

The door swung open at that moment, startling the girl back to reality, and she was met face-to-face with Kenji, a nonchalant expression plastered on his features. Blush quickly fanned her cheeks when she saw that he was shirtless; sweat glistened on his forehead, implying that he was in the middle of doing something that took a considerable amount of effort. A towel loosely hung around his neck, lingering over his shoulders, and he appeared to look flustered, as if he were surprised to find his schoolmate standing on his porch. She shot him a pointed look, and raised the hand that held his letter, and the second he spotted that, the ninja allowed a frown to mar his brows as he elicited a quiet groan.

Uriko started to open her mouth so she could begin questioning him, but he predicted her action, turned his back to her, and strode away further into the house, leaving her there alone. Setting her jaw in determination, the sixteen-year-old persistently followed him, pushing the shutting the door behind her as she tagged along after his retreating figure. She tailed him across the living room, past the kitchen and stairs, all the way until he stepped out into his backyard through the sliding door that was already open. Paying no attention to her presence, he immediately walked over to the middle of the concrete ground, and threw off the towel that encircled his throat.

"Excuse me," she piped up, feeling irritated when she spotted him practice his fighting techniques, acting as if she did not even exist. He continued his training; ignoring her annoyed initiation, he sliced swift punches into the air, and combined them with a full-circle turn that had his elbows crooked at a hooked angel, and finished it off by a double-legged roundhouse kick. The observing female had to admit that her friend looked direly impressive throughout the performance, his chest heaving with effort, his bangs flinging about the place wildly in sync with his movement. His muscles seemed to tense whenever he executed a blow that would prove to give devastating fatality should it had hit certain vulnerable parts of another fellow fighter.

The ninja agilely back-flipped all of a sudden, landing several feet behind Uriko, making her even more agitated that he would try to escape the extension of her view. She pivoted to watch him, and discovered he was now striking his fists and sides of his feet at the thick trunk of a large tree that sat snugly in one corner of the grassy section past the concrete floor covering. To her surprise, he flipped his position so that he supported his weight by his hands, standing on them as his legs shifted toward the tree, and surrounded a small branch. Hooking his feet securely around it, Kenji yanked off the perturbing piece of wood and threw it over a distance, and the stick landed neatly onto the towel he tossed aside earlier.

"Wow." She blurted aloud; unable to suppress the fact that she was impressed with his stability in his body and the wide range of new combination attacks that he must have stored within him.

He pushed off the ground, and leapt back on his feet, retaining a normal standing, while his only response to her exclamation was a brief, silent flicker of amusement in his pupils as he quickly glanced at her, then immediately averted his attention elsewhere.

"Grrrr…" she growled with all of her feline dignity, and marched over to his location, grabbing a hold of his arm; that stopped him from his practicing, and when she forcefully jerked him toward her, he could not do anything else but face her. "Damn it, Kenji, I'm trying to talk to you," she ground out quietly, restrained frustration in her voice.

"You would be smart to leave me at once." Her companion shot back acidly, icy anger bared in his eyes as he tugged himself out of her grasp, all the while glaring at her through emotionless, half-lowered lids. "Can't you take the hint that I have been trying to imprint upon you?"

"I can be stupid if I want to!" The Kenpo student sassed, and on impulse, she grabbed his chin with her fingers and manually turned his face to look at her, but she inwardly cringed when she spied a dark, unspoken deadly gleam in his otherwise light-shaded irises. The corners of his mouth pulled back into a slight snarl, and she could barely hear the quiet sound of a dangerous growl slowly making its way up his throat. Her gaze quickly darted down to peer at his hands, and she found them hanging stiffly by his sides, clenched into fists and for some strange reason, both of them were trembling. She moved her eyes back upward, and drifted by his chest, which was rising and falling in a readily fast paced rhythm, signaling his increasing annoyance.

"Leave." He spoke softly, but there was steel in his command, and a sliver of pleading in his eyes for her to obey him. "Leave now, before you entice me into doing something that we will both regret later, just the same as the event that happened between us last night."

"What?" Uriko exclaimed, her eyes widening, as she was obviously surprised by his admission. "You regret last night?" Her brows twisted in confusion, and she could only manage out, "But… Wh…Why??"

"You should know." Came the simple statement as the lean teenage male stepped away from her and turned his back once again, heading for the exit of the backyard that led into his house.

"You wait right there!" She demanded in a hiss, and sprung off the ground, leaping into the air and sailed over his head, descending down to the earth with mere inches separating their standing forms. A stern look creased her expression, and the girl folded her arms across her chest as she fixated a raised eyebrow at her friend, and regarded him for a silent moment. He responded to her wordless challenge, moving forward and decreasing what small space was in between them, smirking arrogantly when she bit her lip and stepped back a little ways. Kenji felt the strange urge to keep pursuing until the shadow of fear inhibited her eyes, and then while she was dumbfounded with fright, he could zero in and raise his hand to strike her, a dark voice whispering in him that wanted to hear her scream…

She gasped at that moment, almost as if she had heard the evil possibility soaring through his mind, and whirled around to run from the backyard and dart into his house. Clinging to the sniggering, persuasive words that danced in his ears, his arms shot out and immediately, his fingers latched onto her shoulders, holding her strongly so that she could not scamper away from him. A ruthless laughing noise sounded in his head, sending the ninja deeper into the abyss of gore and bloodlust, intoxicating his senses with the need to inflict pain. His grip on her tightened considerably, making her grimace with his raw display of commandment, and hinted at how he wanted to dominate over her.

A whimper escaped her lips, and it seemed to bring him back to his normal state of mind; he released his hold and reeled back as if mere contact would cause both of them to suffer. She blinked at him in curiosity, wondering what invoked him to let her go and Kenji stared at her wordlessly, while an uneasy look formed over his facial features. His eyes darkened and he opened his mouth, seeming as though he were about to reveal a malicious secret, and she leaned forward, eager to hear him speak. Then it appeared that he changed his mind, for he turned away from her and crossed his arms over his chest, copying her earlier motion, and now the two were in the same pose.

"You were drunk last night, weren't you." It was not a question, rather a matter-of-fact statement.

Uriko withheld the small gasp that bubbled in her throat - there was no possibility of him knowing that she had drank wine the night before - and croaked out instead, "I-I don't know what you're talking about…! How could I have been drunk if I don't even drink?"

"Don't lie; I found your wine bottle. You left it on the table, and I saw it." He released a heavy sigh, then shook his head and his body quivered briefly, as if the information affected his very being. "You were drunk. That's the reason why you… went to bed with me, because you weren't sober and fully aware of what was going on, since you were distorted by the alcohol in your system."

"That's crazy," she denied, glaring at the back of his neck. "You can't get drunk from just drinking half a bottle of wine. I mean, it's not like I was drinking vodka or something else that strong! I only felt tipsy last night, in a dreamy state, like everything was floating softly, and it felt like there was little that could go wrong and bring me down." A small smile touched her lips. "It was like escaping into a fantasy world."

He turned around and fixated a pair of cold, silently calculating eyes on her, while a melancholic twist lifted the corners of his mouth in an unreadable expression. "So you admit it, you drank. It really is pointless to lie when there is blatant evidence proving you to be wrong."

"Well… well… all right, so you caught me in that little fib," Uriko admitted reluctantly, glancing down at her hands guiltily, then her head snapped back up to look at him. "But that doesn't explain why you ditched me and left the hotel room before I woke up this morning! What exactly did you mean in this," she shoved her hand into her pocket and yanked out the piece of paper that betrayed his strange and mystifying words on it, "this letter that you left behind on the table along with all the other stuff?"

His face paled at the sight of the mentioned letter, and he displayed visible signs of timidity as he ran a hand through his cobalt-colored hair in nervous instinct. "Oh… that. I didn't think you would… keep it after you read it."

"So, since I did keep this, would ya mind, you know, annotating your letter for me?" She asked, moving around so that she could his face, and she tilted her hand in his direction, waving the drafty paper before his nose.

"My message is not meant to be clearly deciphered." The mole zoanthrope replied, easily evading her question and felt a slight pang of guilt when she trained mournful, begging eyes in his direction.

"Tell me, Kenji," she urged, moving toward him and not stopping until her lips were next to his ear. "You sounded so sated and depressed in your letter, and you kept talking about how you betrayed me in some way, and failed on… something or other. What exactly were you talking about? Why do you think that you failed me, does it have something to do with your promise?"

He shook his head vigorously. "Not merely something, but rather almost everything. I took advantage of you last night, and that was undoubtedly a failure in my sworn promise to protect you…"

"Oh please, Kenji, you did not take advantage of me last night, no matter what you think!" The feline insisted, and blushed in anticipation of her next words, "I would never take back the night for anything. And… and I'm glad that… that my first time was with you, instead of some other poor substitute."

"That was… your first time?" Kenji crooked an eyebrow. "But… but what about the previous years that you attended prom, after it was over, didn't you and your date stay at the hotel overnight…?"

Her nose immediately wrinkled in disgust and she made a gagging motion, opening her mouth and allowing her finger to hover in the pose of being stuck in her throat. "Gross! I wouldn't have slept with those guys if they were the last people on Earth! They were such losers, and after I found out that they only asked me to prom because of one thing, I hung around with my reliable friends, and left the dance with them instead of my dates. I'm not stupid, after all!"

"I know that," he smirked slightly. "Well… I have to admit that I'm pleased to hear… hear that last night was your first time, even though I don't know… I don't know why you chose me to have the privilege of… claiming your innocence…" His voice was barely above a whisper now, and his cheeks flushed red with embarrassment at how bluntly he was stating his thoughts.

She giggled softly. "You're blushing, Kenji, how cute! I didn't think you'd be that flattered, especially after you were going on and on about supposedly failing to protect me. Come on, when have you ever done anything to me against my will, or that was harmful and forced?"

Unbidden came the memory of his most recent nightmare, and Kenji shrank back at the remembrance, casting eyes filled with guilt around the backyard as he avoided her gaze. The auburn-haired teenager sensed his hesitancy, and a bit of a frown creased her delicate features as she reached her hand out and lightly tapped his shoulder. "Kenji? Is something wrong?"

"Yes… I suppose you could say that…" he mumbled, and then as if in a trance, began to listlessly walk toward the entrance leading into his home, with the Kenpo student following him, while she was baffled by his sudden mood change. He knew that she was behind him, and led her to the living room, waving his hand at one of the couches and motioning for her to sit in whichever she chose. She complied, plopping down onto the cushion of the single seat - his older brother's favorite chair - and waited as the mole zoanthrope sat leaning against the right side of the loveseat across from her. His expression was gravely serious as he stared at her intensely for a few silent moments, and for a moment she worried about what he was going to discuss.

"Last night, I had another one of those weird dreams," he spoke, his eyes never leaving her as he continued talking. "It revealed to me an atrocious… deeply horrible secret that had lied dormant within my mind, hiding the sin that I committed for quite some time, until it was unearthed yesterday."

She nodded, her irises shining with compassion and concern for him. "Was it… was it back from when you were Bakuryu, a couple years ago with the ZLF craze and everything?"

To her surprise, Kenji laughed, but it was a bitter sound that echoed in her ears, bringing an inkling icy alarm to her nerves, and a suspicion that ignited in her acute senses. "Contrary to both of our beliefs, it was quite recent. Very recent. In fact," he locked eye contact with her, "so recent, that you should have a clear memory of what happened that still is hovering like a dark cloud in the back of your mind."

"What… what are you talking about, Kenji…?" the confused girl asked him pointedly, her voice indicating that she was in no mood to be bullshitted, and hear him dance around the subject.

"Dear kitten, I am sure that you remember last weekend. Or, to be more specific, the Saturday of last weekend," he clarified, watching her carefully, awaiting any signs of a reaction from her, somehow praying that she would deny what notion he would bring up in the near future.

"L-Last Saturday?" Uriko stammered, unable to cover up the quivering note in her tone. "I-It wasn't anything special, I mean, it was just a Saturday like any other, nothing out of the ordinary happened…"

"Uriko." A small fire of restrained anger burned in the depths of his hazy brown irises. "You don't have to pretend like you don't remember what happened. The dream I had yesterday? It was about last weekend, and I now know…" he trailed off, and a raw, pained expression crossed his facial features, "I know that I forced myself on you."