Runaway
chapter 3

"What are you doing here, punk?" One of them asks.

"Uh..." I all I can say now. What am I going to do?

"Well?" the same guy asks, all of the gangsters are VERY huge; bigger than me at least.

"Nothing, really." I manage to choke out. I can't show them I'm afraid, that'll only make them feel better about themselves. So I stood up again.

"Oh, really?" I'm guessing this guy's their leader, or at least the talker, but, then again what's the difference?

He punches me hard in the jaw. If I can get my brain to work again, I'll be able to block his attacks. Hopefully.

He starts punching me again, too fast to block... I know I need to think of something right now. I feel blood dripping down my arms and legs and now I know there's nothing I can do, I feel like an idiot. There's no place to run or hide, but I'm not going to do that, I'm stronger that that... now the others are joining in and I know that I have to do something before they kill me. What did I do to deserve this?

I close my eyes. I don't feel anymore blows, am I dead now? I open my eyes and the leader punches me in the stomach, sending me back to the ground. Then he steps on my chest. Are they going to leave now? Please... make them go away.

"Hey!" I hear another voice, I'm praying it's not another one of them. "What do you think you're doing?"

The pressure on my chest lightens and the gang directs their attention to the other boy. I manage to lift my head slightly and see they boy who stopped them. He has silver hair and aqua eyes; that's something you don't see everyday. He's wearing a leather jacket, and that's all I can see without lifting my head more, and it's painful enough as it is.

"Nothing." Replies another member. "What's it to you?" The silver haired punches the leader pretty hard, he falls to the ground and shouts in pain. Pretty impressive, the gang members are all bigger the silver haired. The leader and the other boy are fist fighting now, and the leader's losing. Losing real bad, I would cheer but it hurts just keeping my eyes open, I thought the pain was supposed to go down, not rise with every waking moment.

The gang leader is now beat and they all run away. The silver haired boy's walking toward me. Or... at least what's left of me. I hope he's not going to beat me up after what the lasts guys did. I'm dead for sure. The silver haired sits down next to me, his eyes are cold and emotionless, and I'mreally nervous now.

He puts me in a sitting position, which is hurting like hell, but there's nothing I can do about it. All I can do is moan. He rests my jaw in his gloved hand all I hear is "You'll be fine" before I black out...

I wake up earlythe next morning. The sun hasn't risen, but I just know it has to be at least 5:00 AM; I just have that feeling. How long have I been asleep for? I feel a little better, I can move again, but it still hurts a lot. I roll over on my other side, and see the boy from last night sleeping next to me.

The sun is rising now, it only seems to have been only about a half an hour. The other boy instantly wakes up and turns around facing me. For some reason I can feel my face and neck getting real warm, I hope I'm not blushing. He sits up. He's pretty muscular and is wearing jeans and yellow shirt, mostly covered by that leather jacket.

"So you're not dead." He said. He doesn't sound happy, or sad even, just thoughtful.

"Thanks for staying with me for the night." I say, he really doesn't seem to care that I'm trying to communicate with him, though.

"Sure." he says, and leaves it at that. I look down and see that I have bandages on my legs and arms.

"Did you help me after I--"

He nods slightly.

Well duh! Of course he helped me, who else is there? He must think I'm the stupidest thing on the planet now.

"My name's Sora." I say, trying to be polite.

"...So?" he asks. Is he trying to make me feel stupid?

"So what's you're name?" I ask

An awkward pause.

"Riku." He says expressionlessly.

Another awkward pause. I'm beginning to feel real out of place now.

"How old are you, anyway?" he asks "Ten? Eleven? Twelve?"

"I'm fourteen!" I say, I don't look that young do I?

"What are you doing out here anyway? You should be at home."

"I'm running away." I reply nonchalantly.

"A kid like you?" He asks, almost amused.

"Well, how old are you?"

"Fifteen." And he's calling ME a kid?

"We're a year apart...and you're calling me a kid...?" I ask

He looks at me. "Do you even know where you're going?"

"What do you mean?"

"Where are you headed?"

I look at the sky. "...I don't really know."

"You don't even know where you're going." He repeats.

I know I'm really blushing now. "Well...um..."

"You don't know where you're going, you don't know how to defend yourself...you should just go home before you wind up dead."

"I know how to defend myself..." I mutter.

"Well," he says "you were doing a great job last night."

"They caught me off guard...they were too fast." He nods, I can't tell whether he believes me or not.

"Well, lets get moving." He says out of no where

"Huh?" I ask "Both of us?"

"Yeah." He says in a "no-duh" tone.

"But I'm still hurt, shouldn't I rest a little more?" I don't care how pathetic I sound anymore. I AM IN PAIN.

"If you walk and move you'll feel better. Now let's go. Those guys who were beating you are such idiots, they'll be back soon enough."

"Okay."

I'm kind of glad I'm not traveling alone, but can I find a way to make Riku like me?