Disclaimer: In real life, shoulder dislocation is no joke. Nobody should mess with a dislocated limb unless they know exactly what they're doing. That said, the dislocation story here is based on life. And "dislocation" sounds really funny if you say it enough times.

"And if you think that's funny," Chiyo said, handing Ayumu a steaming plate, "I found out later that they all three died in a Mexican standoff right at the front desk. They were quoting Reservoir Dogs for weeks after."

"Reservoir Dogs?" Ayumu snapped a pair of disposable chopsticks expertly and picked up a piece of chicken. "Never heard of it."

"That's too bad. It was a good movie, but really violent. How's the food?"

Ayumu took her first bite and chewed slowly, eyes closed. She left her friend hanging for a few seconds, then opened her eyes and smiled. "It's really good. I...." and then the rest of the flavor hit her. "Oh! Ohh! Holy--! Oh!" She stood quickly and rushed to her mini-fridge, grabbing the carton of milk and downing a quarter of it in one go.

"I only used half the bottle..." Chiyo said apologetically. "Are you all right?"

Ayumu waited for her breathing to return to normal before replying. "That's... that's all right... I should toughen myself up a little anyway."

Chiyo giggled. "The big, bad martial artist still can't handle a little sansho."

"Hey, I quit quite a while ago. Could still kick you in the nose if I stretched out, though, so watch out."

"Yeah, I meant to ask. If you were having such fun, why did you quit Tae Kwon Do?"

"Hm..." Ayumu raised a piece of carrot to her mouth, contemplated it, chickened out and set it back down. "I almost can't say. Part of it was that tournament," she gestured at the picture, "And another part was... well, things happen, you know?"

"What was wrong with the tournament?"

"Oh, nothing! Nothing. It was an awesome experience, but a little nerve-wracking. We three were the only ones there representing our school, and me and Tomo were the only girl yellow-belts, so we got tossed in with the guys."

"Really?"

"It wasn't bad. So there were four schools, and we all had different colored uniforms. Kagura hated that; she said that we were all there representing ourselves and it shouldn't matter where we came from. Oh, but it did, kinda... one of the schools was visiting from Korea, and they were a little more... devoted than the rest of us."

Kagura and Ayumu sat together in the line along one edge of the ring. It was the gymnasium of a High School they'd never heard of in a prefecture they'd never been to and would probably never visit again. "Odd," Ayumu said under her breath, "I never that I would die in a place like this."

On the mat before them, two young men circled each other slowly. Both seemed to be overly-defensive types. One was from the black-and-red school, the other from the hosting school in a conventional dobak.

"Oh, come on," Kagura, also whispering, punched her arm lightly. "Don't get like that. You'll do fine."

"Sorry..." It was kind of hard not to 'get like that' when your overactive imagination was busy compiling a list of seven-hundred horrible fates you could meet in the ring. Ayumu cringed as the local kid made his move, vaulting forward—and taking the other's foot squarely in his throat. "Is that... is that legal?"

Kagura glanced over at her. "Nervous?"

"I think I'm gonna throw up."

"Did you eat anything this morning?"

"Nope. Couldn't."

"Then you're golden!" Kagura grinned and patted her back. "Now, be quiet and watch."

Red-and-black definitely had the upper hand, throwing blow after blow into his reeling foe and finally dropping him to the mat with a side kick. Ayumu felt a sympathetic jolt in her stomach as he fell. "Kalyo!" the center judge barked, halting the match. He then started counting for the fallen combatant. "Hana! Tul! Set...!"

"Is he okay?" Ayumu asked softly. The student on her other side nudged her to be quiet.

"Yodol! Ahop! Yol!" That was ten. "Kuman!" End fight. As soon as the words left his mouth, the loser rose easily to his feet and took his place to bow.

"That's just weak," Kagura grumbled. "He's fine. Couldn't he last another thirty seconds?" Ayumu nodded, but secretly sympathized a little with him. She wouldn't want to get back up after a beating like that. "I expect better of you, by the way," her friend added.

The two combatants quit the mat and the next match was announced.

"Dokgo Hyun and Kasuga Ayumu."

"Hyun? Hey, you lucked out!" Kagura said, pulling Ayumu to her feet. "You got one of the Korean kids!"

"Great," she replied weakly. None of the matches involving a Korean student had gone well for the other; after all, it was the national sport over there. The foreigners had trained in an entirely different atmosphere and were deadly serious about their art.

Kagura walked to a folding chair next to the corner judge and sat. She was Ayumu's coach for this match; it would be hers to watch and offer advice during the breaks between rounds.

Ayumu took her place, wishing for a blindfold and a cigar. Her heart was racing, her legs shaking. Hyun was just a little bit shorter than her, whipcord thin in his yellow dobok, with sharp, dangerous eyes. She wondered what she looked like to him. "Charyeot! Kyeongre!" They bowed. "Joonbi!" Both struck stances.

Their eyes made contact and Ayumu smiled ever-so-slightly. Lo and behold, the corner of her opponent's mouth quirked upward a little. Maybe this wouldn't be so... "Shijak!" And suddenly she was already blocking a jackhammer-like kick at her stomach. It rocked her even through her guard; she hopped back to avoid taking his follow-up to the face.

Not deterred in the slightest by his kick only meeting air, Hyun advanced. Ayumu threw a kick of her own, which he pretty much ignored, taking it on his arm. Unfortunately for him, their momentums were just so, and this was the one of the 1/7 kicks that Ayumu managed with exceptional form, and the planets were aligned just right...

CRUNCH!

Hyun's arm gave way far more than it should have. Oh, my God, I hurt him! Ayumu whirled away and crouched before the center even broke them. She didn't know what to do—had she ever even injured anyone before? There was a slight commotion, but it swirled about her without her notice. After a few seconds, Kagura crouched in front her.

"Is he, is he all right?" Ayumu asked frantically.

Her friend was watching over her head, her expression a strange mixture of amusement and horror. "Dislocated him... and you'll never guess what he's doing."

CRACK!

"Joonbi!" What? The fight was going on? She stood and turned to see Hyun working his shoulder in a circle. Had he just...? Again they struck stances. Ayumu smiled nervously, but Hyun's eyes only narrowed. Wonderful!

"So then what happened?" Chiyo asked, taking the last piece of chicken from her plate.

Ayumu glanced between her own, barely dented meal and the empty carton of milk, then sighed. "Do you have to ask?"

"I guess not. How bad was it?"

"Well, I don't want you to think I endured this savage beating or anything. It was just a sparring match, after all." Ayumu took another bite and swallowed it quickly. "But he was pissed."

"Wow..." Chiyo couldn't say she had ever had an experience quite like that. She was about to comment further, but Ayumu suddenly started laughing. "What is it?"

"I just realized how funny that whole story was!" She took a few more bites in rapid succession, then shook her head merrily. "The look on my face must have been priceless!"

"I didn't think it was that funny."

"Maybe it's one of those things that has to happen to you," Ayumu said. "Don't tell me you never laughed about the ceiling tiles."

"But I n..." Chiyo trailed off. It was probably just Ayumu being Ayumu. This was the girl who had enjoyed repeatedly sticking her face into a pan of flour looking for that penny at the athletics festival, after all. It shouldn't be a surprise that she found having the snot kicked out of her amusing.

"And you know," Ayumu commented as she psyched herself up for another bite, "We almost got our revenge on him, too. Kagura got to fight him for second place."

"How did that go?"

"It started off well..."

"This is so cool!" Tomo squealed, "She's kicking that guy's ass!"

"Shh..." Ayumu nudged her. They sat together in the front row of bleachers, watching the last bouts of the lower-belt tournament. Well, in theory. Ayumu's attention had drifted over the last five matches, but Kagura's duel had her riveted.

Hyun leaned towards his coach, nodding his head as the older boy gesticulated and spoke rapidly in Korean. Kagura sat alone on her end, serene and confident. Though now that Ayumu noticed, her head was bobbing slightly. "What's she doing?"

"Huh?" Tomo looked closer. "Oh, that. She got biffed in the nose three fights ago. She's been snirking up blood for the past half hour."

"Oh." How pleasant. Ayumu was starting to get the sneaking feeling that the martial arts weren't for her... though she knew that Kagura would tell her not to trust that feeling and that they were for everybody. "There they go."

Hyun and Kagura advanced to their lines and stood ready. "Joonbi! Shijak!" And they collided once more. And though Hyun was putting forth a heroic effort, it was clear that Kagura owned this match. She confidently blocked every attack he threw, and when she struck back, it looked like she was sticking her feet into him without effort—only the way he jerked and reeled from her blows showed what force they had.

"She never spars me like that," Ayumu commented softly.

"She probably goes easy on you," Tomo said.

"And you, too."

Whatever Tomo's reply would have been was lost as Hyun unbalanced himself and allowed a turning kick to knock him on his back. Kagura's friends stood and cheered—then Ayumu realized that they were standing in a sea of yellow doboks and sat down quietly, tugging on Tomo's pantleg. Her concern was unjustified; many of the others clapped, regardless of what school they hailed from.

The center started counting. Before he reached two, Hyun sprang to his feet and stood ready. But as they were waiting for him to reach eight (the count never stopped before then), cruel fate intervened. A tiny runnel of blood rolled down from Kagura's injured nose and caught the center's eye.

"Kuman!" he cried.

"What?" Tomo yelped.

"Huh?" Ayumu gasped.

"Did he just--?"

"Was she—?"

"Didn't Master say--?"

Hyun looked apologetic as they bowed and shook hands. Kagura just looked sort of lost.

"They were running the tournament with outdated rules," Ayumu explained. "Kagura was disqualified because the judge saw her blood."

"She must have hated that," Chiyo said, eyes wide.

"She was inconsolable," Ayumu agreed. "Well, for about ten minutes. After a while she decided that it was our first tournament, and we should just roll with it. And Hyun was so nice about it, too, he wanted to give Kagura his trophy. Nothing like the first-place guy. He was a jerk."

"What did he do?"

"Well, as the Korean kids left, this guy—I don't remember his name—looked back at us and flicked his dobak at us, like this." She tugged on the shoulders of her shirt. "And he said, 'Game... Blouses.' None of us knew what he meant, but the way he said it..."

"Oh, no..." Chiyo said with an expression of horror. "Even in Korea?"

"What? Do you know what he said?"

The prodigy pinched the bridge of her nose and looked at the floor. "That line comes from the bane of my existence. It was like a religion back at my college... please, change the subject before I get a splitting headache."