A/N: Really felt like posting the next chapter because of the views that the first chapter got. Maybe it would be better if I post more...
"How do you do?" The girls greeted after Fumie. The boys got angry and dispersed. Hikari followed Fumie as she took notes on the problems that Fumie pointed out.
"We need to fix the desks, outdated toilets, foul smell…" She listed as Hikari continuously took notes.
Hikari can't help but feel a bit of sadness to lie to her friends, any one of them really, but she has her own problems. Her double life is the only way she feels accomplished and fixated on living somehow.
Years ago, she had been kidnapped because her brother had made a couple of enemies. With all the attempted kidnaps, both her and her brother got fed up and eventually she took on the life style of Ryu. Being Ryu was the only way she was able to release the anger that she had within her, but recently, it doesn't feel like it has been enough. Her brother left before she started high school because she was better protected without him.
She sighed at the memory of her brother before Fumie called for her attention again. The day was over and everyone left to go home...everyone but Hikari. She went to the bathroom and quickly changed into Ryu before leaving towards a secret spot. She passed by the liquor store to buy two drinks before heading off towards the mountain.
On top of the edge of the hill, there was a little abandoned trailer, a secret spot that Maya and her would always go to. "You look sad." She commented, handing him a drink, "Wanna talk about it?"
She took a seat on top of the trailer, next to Maya. "Just thinking about life again." He popped over the can of juice, looking over at Ryu. "You disappeared again today." Maya is always on alert about how Ryu behaves. He feels it in his heart that something is wrong, and although Ryu seems to be joking a lot, there is a lot of pain behind his words sometimes.
"Life is a rolling stone." She responded, as usual, "I don't hang out with groups. I don't belong with you guys." She frowned a bit. Her secret was a reason why she felt as though she was disconnected with everyone, but it was because she had the secret, she was able to be with everyone.
"You fight with us, you hang out with me, you buy me juice." He took a sip, "What more ways do you need to prove that you belong?" He wrapped his arm around her. Ryu was the only one who understood Maya, and oftentimes Maya would feel so disconnected with Ryu. At the end of the day, though, he knows that he was Ryu's best friend.
"Guys aren't supposed to talk about their feelings, are they?" She retorted, avoiding the subject, "Just because you have a pretty face, doesn't mean you can act all pretty."
"You're the one to talk." Maya chuckled, "This is why we're friends. You have a girly face like me too. I like that." He knows that there were other reasons too.
"I like that too." She sighed out.
The two sat in silence for a bit, drinking juice as they looked up at the bright moon shining down on them. "Do you miss her?" He asked, suddenly, "Your mom?"
Hikari's mom died giving birth to her. "I never really had her, but I guess in a way, I kind of do."
"Especially about your dad, huh?" Her dad abuses her every chance that he gets.
"Yeah…" She nodded.
"It's okay." He reassured himself more than her, "We have each other, huh, Ryu?"
"Yeah, we do."
It was upon random chance that she had caught Maya and it was lucky that she did. She was walking as Ryu one day, when suddenly, she ran into Maya. "Sorry…" She said, but he just looked down and walked away.
Her stomach turned for a bit. What was a young guy like that, doing out so late at night? He had this very sad look on his face too, so she couldn't help but to follow him. She watched as he punched a wall intensely in the alley way, before taking a beer bottle and breaking it. "Stop!" She shouted, kicking the bottle out of his hand, making it fall to the ground and shatter before it cut his neck.
"What do you know?" Maya blankly stated, before walking away, "Leave me alone."
She ran up to him and walked beside him, despite his words. "Don't do it. Life will get better."
"What do you know?" Maya repeated.
"If you die, people will be sad, you know?" She asked instead, "I'm sure that there is someone who would care about you."
"Like who?" He scoffed, "My mom hates me, my sisters don't care about me, my friends don't understand the pain that I am going through. Who would be sad that I am gone?"
"Me." She looked at him with hardened eyes, "I care about you."
"You don't even know me."
"My name is Ryu, nice to meet you." He hesitated to take the hand that she offered and left instead. She persisted on following him.
"Stop following me."
"I can't." She said, resting her arms above her head.
"Why?"
"Because I care about you."
"You don't even know me." Maya was getting annoyed at this point. Who does this stranger think, showing up and acting all friendly like that. "I don't know you either."
"That doesn't mean that I don't care about you."
"You don't know me enough to care about me."
"Then why am I still following you?"
Maya stopped walking, observing the ground. "Why was he?" He asked, looking over at Ryu. For a guy, he had such a girly face. He was also pretty short for a guy around Maya's age. His fist clenched and launched towards Ryu. With great speed that Maya had never seen before, Ryu curved his body, dodging the punch and slapped Maya across the face.
"Come on, let out that anger." Ryu provoked, holding his fists up in a fighting stance.
"I don't want to."
"Why? You're scared?" She smirked, "I guess with such a girly face, you act like a girl too."
That triggered him. "I'm not a girl!" He shouted, launching towards her. He threw a series of punches as Ryu dodged them rather than fighting back. That was, until a punch landed right on his face. Maya smiled triumphantly, but then he noticed Ryu's expression.
Ryu looked up with a smirk on his face, "You did not just punch me in the face."
Maya and Ryu were exhausted, lying down on the ground together. "You're good." Maya complimented, panting.
"Thanks." She panted back. The fight ended with a tie. Ryu was too tired to carry on and Maya was too weak to continue any further. "You never told me your name."
"Maya." He answered, "Terakawa Maya."
"Nice to meet you." It was nice indeed.
Hikari came home late that night, luckily that her father was asleep. Careful not to wake him up, she put herself to sleep in the corner of his room. The very next morning, she was awakened by a heavy punch to the stomach. She heard it coming, but she didn't want to move.
With her father's satisfaction that he hurt her, he left her alone for the rest of the morning. If she were to dodge it, she would have gotten more of those. "Be prepared for anything." He warned her, "Bakada can hurt you more than I can."
"Yes, sir." She agreed, walking out the door without breakfast. She never really got any at home anyway, or fed at all. Her tears fell as she walked to school. It hurts, being alive, sometimes. It really does. She has no one to tell her story to though, not Fumie, not Tatsuya, and especially not Maya. Maya knows that her father was abusive, but never who her father was.
"Good morning." She greeted, joining the girls before entering the classroom. The boys were complaining massively over their desks, making Hikari feel bad for getting them replaced. True to her role, she hid her feelings as Tatsuya and Fumie fought. He took a glance at Hikari before getting a double take. Curious as to what he was looking at, Tetsuya and the others looked too. Hikari adjusted her glasses and they left the building.
"If they weren't girls, I would have beaten the shit out of them." Tatsuya scowled, kicking the empty air.
"That girl looked oddly familiar." Maya thought, "Where have I met her though?"
"Eh, are you in love, Maya?" Souhei teased, "You probably saw her in your dreams."
"You're dumb." Maya stuttered out before acknowledging Tatsuya's plan. With that, the entirety of boys broke up in a mission to search for their desks.
Hikari got changed right after school and went searching for the boys, which wasn't that hard considering everyone would notice a group of yankees running at the same time. She heard sounds of fighting from afar and quickly ran to the source, seeing that Maya was about to get punched in the face. She went over and kicked the guy down before he did.
"Thanks," Maya muttered, grabbing Ryu's hand.
"I told you, idiot." She smirked, "Don't go fighting without me." Maya kicked a guy coming towards Ryu and continued on their little fight.
Two guys surrounded Ryu and then two more came over. The four held her down as the fifth came over cracking his fists. "Such a waste." He said when he punched her across the face. "You have such a pretty face for a guy."
She smirked as she turned over to face him, "You did not just punched my face."
"Hell is about to be let loose." Maya smirked to himself, watching her pick up a pipe and started swinging at the guys.
"You really have stupid good timing, bastard." Tatsuya panted, slapping Ryu's shoulder. "Thanks, but you can go home now if you want."
"And if I want to be with you guys?" She sassily replied. "I don't feel like going home."
"You don't understand, we're looking for desks…" Shohei explained, but was quickly cut off.
"For Bakada, right?" She leaned back and stretched, "I know you idiots with your school pride." She tossed them a smirk, "I happen to know where the desks are at too."
"You little!" Tatsuya hooked tried to hook her down, but she dodged it.
"The fight started because of me…" Maya admitted when she walked over. "I'm sorry I…"
She rested her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it kindly, "I know how you are. You know how I am. We can't do anything but accept each other, now can we." Maya nodded at her and smiled. "Now, let's go get your desks."
Hikari saw the rejoice they had when they found their desks again. "Thank you." Maya smiled at her, "Seriously, thank you."
She watched as they carried their desks, "Let's go get something to eat." Tetsuya smiled at her. She nodded, following along.
"Ryu!" Someone shouted, running over to hug Ryu and giving him a kiss on the lips, "I finally found you!"
"Hai?" Ryu questioned, confused. She observed that it was a very pretty lady, quite a bit older than her. Her hair was curly and brown, wearing a tight red cocktail dress and deep red lipstick on.
"Don't act like such a stranger." She whined, pulling Ryu in by her collar into her chest. "I've missed you."
Ryu remembered who it was now and kissed her back. The members stared, shocked as to what was happening. "Now's not a good time, I'll call you later." She reassured the lady.
The lady nodded and walked away. Ryu shook his head and smiled, as if she had her number.
"Cheers!" They all shouted, crashing their soda cups together, juice for Maya and Ryu of course.
"Seriously, what would we do without you." Tatsuya said after a big gulp of soda. "You should apply for Bakada, you're in high school, aren't you?"
"It's just complicated at the moment." She said slowly, looking around at the table. "I'm good where I stand."
"Where exactly do you stand?" Tetsuya questioned, looking at her.
"Now that you think about it." Satoshi thought, "We barely know anything about you, huh?"
"What is there to know?" She commented, breaking a pair of chopsticks, "I fight with you guys, that's all."
"No, no, no. We know that you had a hard family and all that, but we want to know you more as a friend." Tatsuya said, grabbing her chopsticks, "Start off by telling us who that lady was."
She sent over a pleading look to Maya, who nodded his head telling her to go ahead. "The guy that I used to follow happened to be sleeping with a lot of women. They recognize me and put themselves forward sometimes." She shrugged, "That's all."
"Must be nice!" Shohei daydreamed, "I wish I had girls approaching me all the time. Who would have thought the girliest, shortest of all us guys gets to have the most girls."
"It's not nice, it's weird." Ryu defended, "It's like, what are you supposed to do when you're pinned to the wall and getting kissed all over?" Though, she has kissed a fair share of the ladies back.
"You kissed her back, didn't you?" Tatsuya asked.
"Did you see how happy she was and how quickly she left?" Ryu retorted, "You need to know how to get out of these things."
"Eh, you know girls pretty well." Satoshi smiled, "Teach us a couple of things, sometimes. I would like to have a girlfriend too."
"You guys are idiots." Maya commented, "Girlfriends would only get in the way." Maya spent the most time with girls out of all of them. With his experience, he knew what girls were like and had no interest other than the occasional sexual urges, but then again, what was porn for?
"See, Maya gets me." She smiled. "What else do you want to know?"
"How's your family?" Tetsuya questioned, knowing her hardships. He looked at her, hoping that she would say more than just the basics of it.
"Here and there, my father hasn't changed at all since the last time."
"Just beat him up and run away." Makoto suggested, "You're a good fighter, aren't you?"
"Well, it's a bit more complicated than that." Ryu clenched his fists under the table.
"Like what?" Yuuki added.
"Well, since mom died because of me, I feel an obligation to take care of him in a way. It was my fault that he had lost the love of his life." Ryu felt tears rising, but did his best to hide them.
"No one saw it coming," Maya reached over and patted his shoulders. He would rub Ryu's back, but he knows how much Ryu doesn't like other people touching his back. "You can't possibly blame yourself for it."
She shook her head and forced out a smile, "You're right." She totally lied. He wasn't right. She murdered her mother, that was a fact.
"With all the family hardships we've suffered," Maya started, "It was like fate that we've met, huh?"
"Yeah." She smiled, drinking her juice. It was like fate indeed.
A/N: Remember to review or pm me for ideas or criticism!