Resurgence
You're tired, and bruised. Your clothes are torn and your knee's scraped and the only reason you're tolerating this state of affairs is because the only other person here is just as banged up as you, nursing a beautiful black eye and absent-mindedly running fingers through shoulder length hair and cursing.
You should not, you suppose, have been quite as frank about how much better you were then some (most) of the third-year pre-regulars, beating them in straight sets 6-0 in glorious sweeps of speed, proclaiming your disdain, thinking that your previous fame would hold sway in junior high over your sempais as it did over your compatriots. (It would. Just not yet, only a week into the new term.)
You had not expected to be jumped and beaten, by three boys all taller and bigger than you, snarling this is what we do to upstarts, holding your arms and preparing to break them.
You had not, also, expected to be joined in the fight by the only other boy in your class who had made a choice to join the regulars, the one who kept long hair and beat you in history.
Between the two of you you sent them running, because you were strong, and so was he, with a hard face that dared you make something out of his altruism.
"I'm only," he said then, grimacing at the soreness of his cheek, "helping you out this once, there won't be a second time."
You didn't say anything, but the set of your jaw told him he wouldn't have to. You wouldn't be that careless again.
Two years on, he's kneeling in scattered strands of his hair, just as bruised as then, telling you in almost the same angry tone voice that you didn't need to do that.
"I'm only," you say, "helping you out this once, there won't be a second time," and you see in the glint of his eyes that there will not.
-end-