At the end of the dojo's youth exams, everyone streamed through the double-doors while noon-time Sun filled the courtyard. Patch oaks mixed their fragrance with the kids' sweat and grime as they spread out.
The ceremony had ended with one-v-one spars. Even though the trainers had forced them all into padding, everyone was limping and touching whatever spot ached the most. Yang had battled her friend once and got a busted lip, landing on the floor hard. Sable helped her up to continue and they bowed to each other.
As they exited, other children bustled around Yang and Sable in their own conversations, but the other kids in their second degree flanked both of them.
"You hit too hard." One of them rolled their shoulder.
Yang shrugged. "I didn't hit you harder than anyone else."
The boy on her left gestured at himself. "Quit whining. She got me in the head."
"I was aiming for your chest, but you ducked."
"What else was I supposed to do?"
Amusement chuckled around her response. "Dodge better? I don't know."
Yang asked her friend, "Are you coming tomorrow?"
"I, I...I don't know." Sable touched her forearm and looked the other way.
"You better." A different boy patted her on the back. "We'll fight em if they don't congratulate you."
Yang corrected, "You mean graduate, right?"
"That's what I said."
Their parents found them among the youth group, but when Yang's Mom revealed herself at the courtyard's entrance, a grown-up spoke aloud Mom's name.
Summer Rose, who wore a cotton tee-shirt fitted to her size and summer shorts, hesitated the moment her mouth was open. An omen of defeat drooped her dark petals of hair, so their scarlet tips swam just past her shoulders. Instead, she fidgeted with the edges of her long vest, a sheer rouge fabric that flowed behind her like a cape. At the best of times, Mom resembled a superhero floating around, never touching the ground.
However, the voice that interrupted Yang and her Mom brought the woman to the same earth surface as everyone else.
At the worst of times, Mom didn't look old enough to be twenty, when anxiety crossed her brow.
A sensei approached her through the kids, passed Yang along the way without a word, and took Mom aside. They had to speak in secret.
Yang shook her head and removed the hairband that had bound her goldilocks. "I'm dead. Oh, brother, kill me now. This is the end. It was nice knowing everyone." Friends murmured all at once trying to console her.
An outline peeked into the courtyard, but his mangy hair gave him away.
Yang seized her fists. Her voice lowered so only she could hear. "Not now. Please, not today."
Once Shell's profile fled the scene, Yang eased her grip, but she still wrung her hands together, until Mom and the sensei returned.
He nodded tight-lipped and returned the way he came.
She had tapped his elbow with a closed hand to say farewell, before Yang's name spilled with joy out of her lips. "Are you ready to go home?"
The 8-year old shoved into Mom's front and spoke where cotton brushed her nostrils and no one had to see her face. "Not really." She sniffed. "I think I did something bad, but I'm not sure."
Mom worked her fingertips into the frame of Yang's shoulders which loosened her when she didn't realize she'd been so taut.
"We can talk about it on the way."
"I don't know."
"Well, if all you want to do is take a bath then lie down in bed, that's all right, too."
Yang peeled herself off Mom and waved good-bye to her classmates. Mother and daughter crossed the dojo's threshold side by side, until the golden one halted. She stopped Mom by brushing their fingers together.
She faced the way Shell had gone.
"Yes, he's out there," said Mom.
Yang flinched. "You saw him?"
"I figure that's the bully you keep talking about — the one you got in trouble with a few days ago. It's the first time I've seen a glimpse of the poor boy. He's smaller than I expected."
"He's a jerk!"
"He does seem to be troubled." Mom allowed Yang to lead her in that direction, even though they walked next to each other.
"He's a jerk who only hurts things smaller than him."
"Why do you think that is?"
"Cause no one likes him. He has to hurt people to get attention."
"That's mean."
"Yeah!"
Mom had to explain herself. "No, I meant, it's mean to describe him like that."
Yang's voice broke. "I'm not mean."
"I know you're not, but have you ever spoken to him?"
"Like, all the time. Every time he comes around, I'm like, 'Get lost!' and he goes, 'You can't tell me what to do,' then shoves someone to the ground and takes their stuff."
Rose punctuated what she meant with a more earnest tone. "Have you ever spoken with him?"
"Why should I?" Yang stamped the sidewalk and paused their journey. "He doesn't speak with the senseis. He doesn't even speak with my friends. He just hurts people and runs away. I don't want to deal with him more than I have to. I don't want to speak with him." She spat the want like it bittered her tongue.
They had moved far enough from the dojo, all Yang could see of it was the pagoda roof and the tree-tops around it. They loomed on the other side of the courtyard's enclosure. Her training hall was a bit of sanctuary walled off from the surrounding downtown.
Facilities leaned on three or four stories. Odors of oil and combustion dust laced the neighborhood. Cars sped along the street while fat pigeons scrounged for flakes of grain within the seams of pavement.
She didn't quite know what she was saying anymore. She had kept blurting whatever justified how Shell made her cry. She had led Mom along this path so far, yet she couldn't admit more honestly how she felt. After all, Mom didn't see what Yang looked like overnight, when she kept up her baby sister by kicking and whimpering and thrashing side to side. She hated the boy. She wanted to beat him. Give her an excuse and a chance to cut loose.
The truth was she wanted him get a grip of himself.
He wouldn't have to bully anymore.
She wouldn't have to block him.
In the best alternative, they would never see each other again.
However, he did all the worst things to get attention. Until he changed his attitude, he'd make her cry.
And he'd do it again.
She didn't know how many more times she'd have to handle him.
"I could answer that question," Mom said more to their surroundings than the little girl. "He's also staring at us from that alleyway. Why don't you talk to him now, while I'm here?"
On the other side of the road, timber cabins framed the corridor in question. Their height pitched the insides in shadow. The silhouettes of two dumpsters blocked the passage, where there was only enough room between them for a stringbean child. His outline crouched on top of one garbage lid.
Yang insisted, "I don't want to talk with him."
"I could tell your Father how you refused to make a friend when you had the chance." Mom pursed her lips and cocked one eyebrow.
Yang tugged on her hair. "Ugh, fine! Just don't look, okay?" Once the street was clear of traffic, she marched away from her Mom. She wagged her finger at him. "Don't run away from me, jerk."
He recoiled but stayed where he was. The alley's darkness filtered him in monochrome shades between cloud and smoke-gray. Every visible fiber of him looked poised to spring. One quick bound backward and he'd be gone. "Hello." He sounded sullen.
She stopped at the path's threshold and planted both hands on her hips. Something in her finger-tips buzzed and traveled partway up her forearms like bracers of armor. "You can't do anything to me since my Mom's here."
"Okay," he grunted.
"I'm supposed to talk to you." She snarled the last few words.
"What about?"
"I don't know."
"Then are we done here?"
"Nope."
He worked his mouth over whatever he wanted to say, but after nothing happened for a moment, he sat on the dumpster. "How did your thing go?"
She didn't know what he meant at first. Once she realized, she barked, "That's what you ask after what you did the other day?"
He sneered. "I just wanna know how was your thing."
"You don't get to know because you're not part of it."
"Not like I have a choice."
"You had a choice at the park!"
"I'm not talking about the park."
"Well, I am, because I'm still mad about it."
"It's got nothing to do with you."
"That doesn't matter. You hurt an animal and got away with it."
Shell snickered, but annoyance grinded his voice. "Barely. You shoved me."
"I'll shove you again if I have to. What you did was wrong."
He went to hug one knee close to his chest, but he relaxed, instead. "I know. Stop talking about it."
"Stop acting like it's no big deal!"
He shrugged and turned away. She didn't know what made him act as if he didn't care. He passed her off like she was grit on his shoulders, brushed away with a few flicks of his hand. Before another word slipped out of her, he dropped out of sight.
She called for him to wait, but his footfall diminished somewhere beyond the dumpsters.
Meanwhile, Mom beckoned her to return, lest Yang do something she would later regret.
