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Feels Like Home

Chapter Four

She Finds Out The Meaning (Of Hard Work)

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After that scene, the twins had barely enough time to take their shoes and socks off before it was time to begin. "OK, everyone. Line up." The sensei's voice bellowed across the sports hall, which was what his karate club used as a dojo. It was huge, and so the sensei only used half of it; the other half went to some badminton players. Netball baskets were on the wall at regular intervals, and lines for different ball games had been painted on the floor.

There was a bit of confusion as the class moved into their appropriate places, but the finished line up went like this:

The four black belts (the sensei and Satoshi among them) who had attended stood at the front and faced the rest of the class, then in three more lines stood the students. If they had originally faced the black belts then they would've turned to their right and would now be facing the wall. They were standing in descending order of belts: black and brown, brown and white, brown, purple and white, purple, green, yellow, orange, red, white and finally the no belts – those who had no uniform.

Riku and Risa followed Daisuke timidly as he went to his place in the second line. "Oh, right," he said sheepishly. "White belts stand on the back row, behind the red belts but in front of the no belts." No belts basically meant all of the fan girls who came to karate just to see Dark (Krad and Satoshi were just bonus).

As if that wasn't enough, they all wore the same things – spaghetti strap tops and jogging bottoms with waists that looked too big for them – and wore their hair loose around their shoulders. Not very practical, but that wasn't why they did it.

Being a green belt, Daisuke was pretty high up in the ranks. As they stood in line with Risa behind her, Riku looked around for Krad and Dark and spotted them in the first row. Krad was incredibly high, a black and brown belt, but he didn't look at all pleased – probably still mad at Dark for reaching the dojo first.

But Dark, to Riku surprise, was only a purple belt. How could he let Krad get ahead of him? They might have just started Karate at different times, though. Dark noticed her watching, and winked.

There was a noise from behind her – all of the girls, including Risa, had sighed. "H-he winked at me!" Risa squealed.

Riku sighed too. "Oh brother…."

The sensei told them to turn around and to kneel down. They bowed with their heads close to the ground, after the sensei in respect, and after a short speech the sensei and then the rest of the class stood up. "Spread out," he told the students, and started the warm up.

The warm up was very long and tiring, especially for Risa. But she put her heart into, or at least enough to save some for Dark. She gazed at him dreamily, in contrast to Riku who ignored him altogether. If she tried glaring at him, someone might take it the wrong way and think she was staring. Definitely not worth it.

After thousands of jumps and stretches and sit-ups and press-ups and every other kind of exercise, Riku and Risa were ready to call it a day. Unfortunately, it wasn't even a third of the way through the session.

"Riku, I can't go on much longer," Risa complained as they trudged to their water bottles. "I can't do it…"

"Oh, pull yourself together! We can do this." Riku was hardly one to talk though.

"But I'm so tired… I really can't do this anymore," Risa replied. "Riku, when are we going home?"

"For heaven's sake. I'm not going until the end and neither are you! I'm not going to be like those other girls, Risa, and I don't think you want to be."

Daisuke arrived with his own bottle of water. "Well, Miss Harada? Do you like it so far? I know the sensei works you hard but he wants us to be good at this."

He was asking Risa, but Riku answered him. "It's great, Niwa," she said. "I'm enjoying it already."

The sensei told everyone to line up again (black belts in the front line as well), and Daisuke explained that next they were doing basics. This was when they walked up and down the dojo doing individual moves or combinations of moves at every step. In consideration for the Harada twins, the sensei decided to start with the very, very basics.

"Rei," he said, and everyone bowed. "Yoi," he continued; everyone stood with feet shoulder width apart and hands in fists. "Stand ready, left foot forward with a Gedan Berai." The twins hesitated. Left foot forward? 'Gedan Berai'? What did he—?

"Hai!" The class switched into action – two dozen left feet moved forward into a front stance (a position where one foot is ahead of the other, shoulder width apart) and two dozen left fists flew into a downward block. Only Riku and Risa stood staring, and that didn't last long. They copied others as best as they could. The sensei smiled at them. "Satoshi, please help the back line."

"Ouse," Satoshi answered immediately. The twins would learn later that this meant 'OK'.

Satoshi was clever enough to stand between the Harada twins rather than with the no belts, because, as expected, they were more interested in Satoshi than in what he was demonstrating. In some ways it was funny to see them drool over him, Dark and Krad – many of the girls were older than they were.

Riku ignored everything – the girls, Satoshi, even Risa - except the karate moves they were performing; Dark may be doing karate as well, but that made her want to learn it even more. One day she was going to beat him!

Throughout basics they tried punching, blocking, kicking, knife-hands (which is also known as 'karate chops') and putting a block and punch together. It was difficult, but Riku struggled through with nothing but determination.

Risa, however, only did them half-heartedly. If something was challenging then normally Risa would find someone else to do it for her, but that wasn't the case here. She admired Riku's strength, but would never admit that she did.

For the last half hour of the session, the sensei decided that the class were to do padwork and then something called kata's. Padwork was when you paired up with a partner and tried out different combinations on each other, but you wore protective yet soft armour in case of injuries. Risa and Riku, along with the no belts, borrowed a pair of gloves with two finger holes, for two fingers each, called mitts. You used other equipment for your legs, your arms and for your main body, but they didn't need that today.

Risa practically stuck herself to her sister – she had no wish to be paired with some rival for Dark.

There was some trouble with the others, mainly because of Krad. The sensei watched him with raised eyebrows as he went over and stood next to Dark. "Hikari, what are you doing?"

Dark seemed to notice him for the first time. "Yeah, Krad. What are you doing?"

Krad blinked innocently. "I'm pairing up with Dark."

"Right." Dark smiled at Krad as if he was some psycho little kid.

Behind him, Daisuke was stepping away carefully. He was originally going to go with Dark since they were one belt away from each other, but he didn't want to get in the way of Krad.

"Would you quit talking to me as if I'm stupid?" Krad snapped. "Show some respect. If you hadn't noticed, I'm wearing the higher belt."

The smirk was inevitable. "Really? And here I was thinking you were colour-blind."

"Why you—"

"That's enough boys." The sensei stepped between them. "That is exactly why you two never go together. You would knock each other out." He raised an eyebrow at Krad. "Or perhaps that was what you intended."

Krad growled softly. Direct hit.

And so, Dark paired up with Daisuke, whilst Satoshi was forced to go with Krad. "Keep an eye on Hikari for me," the sensei had told him. The sensei wasn't a old man, more in his forties, but sometimes he was as wise as one.

The class spread out. With another black belt, the sensei showed the class a simple combination to start – a block to the head followed by a punch to the stomach – and then followed up with extra moves for the higher belts. It didn't take long for the twins to decide which to try out. It was hard for Riku, (making it impossible for Risa) so the sensei came over to help.

"Gedan Berai – ah, that's the downward block, Harada. OK, now punch towards your sister's face and step forwards at the same time. Wait, change legs – no, not your hands. Put them back, that's it. Right, now it's your turn, Harada, but your arms up like this…" And so it went on until Riku had successfully blocked a punch from Risa to the head with an Age Uke, or upper rising block, and then punched towards Risa's stomach. Now all they had to do was perform it on the other leg, and then Risa would get a go. No sweat.

But this one exercise took the whole of the padwork session. By the end, Riku had just about grasped how to do it, but Risa was still confused. The sensei told them to work at it.

After a drink, the higher belts returned to the centre of the hall. They were now doing kata, which was a long sequence of moves joined together. There were many different kata, some quite simple, some long and complicated, but all took practise to get right. Riku and Risa, who of course knew nothing about these, sat at the side with a couple of no belts.

Some no-belts did know the kata. Not all of them were fangirls.

The first kata was called Taikyoku (pronounced ty-kyo-ku). This was the easiest, and everyone standing in the centre did it. It wasn't very impressive, but the twins were amazed all the same. The next few were all named Heian (hee-an) something, the first one for example was Heian Shodan. They were followed with kata's with extravagant, but very Japanese, names and had a high number of moves. Only the highest belts did these.

Kanku Dai was one of them. The brown belts and the black belts stayed up, when the lower belts sat down, to do this kata, but so did Dark. He stood right at the front of the group with a cocky smile and a lot of confidence. Riku and Risa wouldn't know this yet, but Kanku Dai was in fact one of the kata's that you needed to know to receive the brown and white belt – Dark had obviously been training hard.

To Riku's amazement, Dark was actually incredibly good. Perhaps because of his teasing remarks and annoying attitude she had thought he was just a show, but the way he performed his kata proved her very wrong. Every move was just the right speed and in just the right position. Every stance was exactly the right the length and his movements were powerful and graceful. Even his Kiai, or shout of power and spirit, was great. The whole thing was perfect.

The rest of the class who were doing that kata were in shadow. Satoshi preferred it that way, but Krad was different. The scowl on his face was terrifying. The way he reacted to Dark made Satoshi shake his head; Krad was just as good, maybe better at karate than Dark was, but his scowl did nothing to tear everyone's eyes away from Dark.

Risa, predictably, was beyond herself with delight. She only had eyes for Dark, and at that moment she only had words for him, as well. "Oh my god," she breathed. "He's more incredible than I ever thought was possible… look at him go, Riku!" But of course Riku was stubbornly looking at everything but Dark, and had been ever since she'd realised that she too had been staring at him.

But this wasn't the only reason. Riku had noticed that although Dark had been concentrating on the kata that irritating smirk had never left his face. He was thoroughly enjoying the attention he got from being the star.

At the end of Kanku Dai, when the higher belts had moved back into the ready stance, Riku glared at his back.

Show-off.

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"So Miss Harada, how was it?"

Having put on his coat and trainers and so being ready to go, Daisuke had wandered over to where Riku and Risa sat, completely shattered. Riku looked up at him wearily. "Niwa… is karate always this much work…?"

"Work?" Daisuke seemed surprised. "It's just a bit of fun, isn't it?"

"Fun, you say…" Risa was so tired that she didn't bother to put her ponytail back up, and slowly took the hair band out instead. "I don't know… about that…"

Squatting in front of them, Daisuke gave them both a warm smile. "But you two were great! You looked like you were having such a good time. If you keep coming, it will get easier, I promise." He waited until the girls had put their things on, and then all three stood up and began to leave.

Almost at the door, Risa stopped suddenly. "Wait, wait!" she exclaimed. "I forgot something!" She dashed back the way they'd come. Sighing, Riku went after her. They hadn't brought any bags, so what could Risa have forgotten?

The answer was made pretty clear. Risa had run straight over to Dark. As Riku watched, her sister tugged on his sleeve, saying something, and when Dark (who had been preoccupied by girls) turned to her he said something back. Risa, being Risa, blushed heavily and giggled, and that was when Riku had had enough. She stomped over and growled, "Am I interrupting something?"

"Riku!" Risa cried. "I was just—"

"What did you say to her?" demanded Riku, taking no notice of Risa's excuses.

Dark smirked. "Nothing that wasn't the truth," he replied, and made Risa blush even more.

"For goodness sake," Riku snapped. "What was it? What did you say?"

"I'd like to know too," added Daisuke as he stood next to Riku.

Risa looked flustered. "I… I was only saying goodbye," she protested.

"Can't you hear the lady?" said Dark, his arm sliding over her shoulders. "Risa came over to say goodbye, that's all,"

Riku yanked Risa's arm so that Dark would let go and Risa would be closer to her than to Dark. "And that explains what you said how…?"

Shaking his head, Daisuke sighed. "It doesn't matter really, Miss Harada. Come on, let's go." The fangirls had come over to see what was happening between Dark and one of their rivals, and Daisuke didn't want to see their reaction when whatever Dark had said to the younger Harada came to light.

It certainly wouldn't be pretty.

He pulled Riku away, who in turn pulled Risa. Risa smiled shyly at Dark, who grinned back. At the door, Dark commented, "So Dai, how am I going to get home with two girls in the car?"

"H-huh?" Daisuke jumped a foot in the air. "W-wait, you know that's not what I—"

Strolling over, Dark ruffled Daisuke's hair. "I'm joking. Come on now, Riku, Risa. Don't keep Daisuke waiting!" He chuckled and left.

"Niwa, what did he mean?" Riku's voice was painted with suspicion. "When he said, 'how will I get home'?"

Daisuke sighed again. "Oh, my mum had this brilliant idea to take him to karate. It's not such a big deal; it's just when the subject of girls come up that you have to watch out." He smiled slightly as if to say 'you can laugh now'.

The twins waved goodbye to Daisuke in the car park before heading to their own car. On the way, Riku asked Risa for a perfectly straight answer; what had Dark said to her? "Oh um…" Risa had immediately turned scarlet. "He… well… he said I was pretty."

Riku stared. "And you went red because he told you that? Risa, he probably says that to every girl."

"It wasn't so much what he said, although that was amazing," Risa defended herself. "It was how he said it…"

Riku didn't bother asking her how he said it, but Risa still answered. "You see… I told him how amazing he was for only a purple belt, and then… well… he said I was amazing too."

Smiling wryly, Riku wondered whether to tell her that he might not be talking about her looks. In the end she kept quiet; Risa was a very, very proud person, and in her mind everyone thought she was adorable. Riku knew that most people did – many had compared her to Risa, and the answer was always the same: why wasn't she as cute as Risa?

One thing about what Risa said bothered her, though. Why was Dark so good for a purple belt? It was unreal. Surely he wasn't just naturally good at it, no-one can be that good without practise. The other purple belts weren't half as good as he was…

"Oh, what am I thinking?" she muttered under her breath crossly. "Dark is bad at everything, remember?"

Their grandfather's car arrived, and Rin stepped out to open the car door. Riku (after opening the door herself) stepped in first, followed by Risa (who either way didn't have to touch the door).

"So, girls, how was it?" asked their grandfather, turning his head to see them.

"Tiring," said both sisters together.

The old man chuckled. "Glad to hear he still works his students hard. But you enjoyed it, yes?"

"Yeah," they replied together again. Despite it all, they really had had a great time. Even Dark couldn't spoil an evening of good fun.

There was a short silence, and it was then that Risa finally remembered what she had in fact forgotten for the whole evening.

"Riku," she began. "You know I like acting…"

Riku turned, slightly uninterested.

"Well, I thought that tomorrow we could… we could go drama club!"

Riku's jaw dropped. "What? Why do I have to go? Can't you go yourself, Risa?"

"But… but…" Risa's bottom lip shook. "But I don't know anyone…"

Growling, Riku folded her arms. "Fine. When is it?"

Guilt washed over Risa's face. "…tomorrow."

"Tomorrow!"

"I'm sorry Riku!" Risa squeezed her eyes shut and clasped her hands together. "I didn't find out until today, and then I forgot all about it! I'm so sorry."

"Risa, you are such a ditz." Riku sounded grumpy as she watched the scenery outside zoom past, but her reflection showed her smile.

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And so, that was the end of this evening at karate. I hope you weren't too bored by my explanations on karate moves; they're kind of hard to explain! If I've confused you anywhere, just tell me and I'll straighten it out by the next chapter.

Oh my goodness, I didn't mean to miss out Daisuke! When I was talking about guys in karate, I just meant anime and manga boys in general! I said older boys, right? Well Daisuke is older than me, even if it is by a few days.

Anyway, my version of karate might be different to someone else who goes, because every dojo and every sensei is different. Also, Kanku, from Kanku Dai, means view in the sky. In the first move you lift your hands up and look upwards through a hole between your index fingers and thumbs. Kanku Dai is the prettiest name, I think.

Oh yeah, I haven't mentioned this before but in this story Krad's second name is Hikari whilst Satoshi's is Hiwatari. Easier that way.

This chapter seems quite short, probably because of those long paragraphs… oh well. Until next time then!

--KK

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