"Come on. You'll like it, I promise."
The other girl only makes a face. While Aisha would normally call that a success, she would rather draw out a smile this time. Mending Ayano's sour mood is the whole point (well, half of it, anyway) of tonight, after all. "You already know, like, four others there, they won't complain if you drop in unannounced."
"I'm not worried about that." She sounds strained, annoyed. Angry, almost.
"Taylor?" Her friend nods in answer, and Aisha can't find it in herself to resist rolling her eyes.
"Look, she'll be out by tomorrow – well, I mean, unless they find something on her, which..." she trails off at the look she's given by her companion. "Which, yeah, not gonna happen." They walk in silence for a few moments. All the time that she manages to somehow not to voice her next thought, with a teasing smile present on her lips. "Unless there's something you're not telling me about?"
"Hmpf."
"There we go!" She bumps into Ayano's shoulder. Give it an hour or two, and she'll have Ayano laughing like a maniac. Booze may or may not be involved, depending on if her other friends get involved. Might not be the best of ideas to get the other girl intoxicated in Aisha's opinion. It would be an instant mission failure should she turn out to be a sad drunk. And while getting her home wouldn't be much of a problem - she's so not dealing with the parents. "And lemme tell you, it's not that bad in there, the cell I mean. Spent a few night in there myself – I mean, can't always make a clean getaway when a party gets too wild, y'know?"
"Not really, no."
"Ah. Well then, it's high time you got to." She all but chirps out. And really, it is. Maybe then she wouldn't be so strung up about her not-girlfriend spending a day at a police station. Everybody does, sooner or later! Well, every friend of hers, that is - sometimes even because of Aisha herself. "It'll be awesome, you'll see."
"I don't really do parties."
"And that," Aisha states dramatically, even raising her index finger, "is precisely why I'm taking you to one. Worrying yourself sick won't do you no favors. Just let go for one night, enjoy yourself! Everything's gonna be better tomorrow." Or not worse, at least. She hopes. "Tell you what, how about we go meet up with Taylor when she's released?" The look of annoyance gives way to one of... well – not curiosity - Ayano's expressions don't often range that high - but it is inquisitive. "You could buy her, uh- I don't- something sweet. Sugar makes everything better, always." Even the talk of it, apparently, seeing as her friend's lips twist in a small smile. Score! She didn't put so much effort into ditching her brother, just so that Ayano could be his spiritual extension with that frown of hers. No frowns allowed! As long as they're not caused by her, that is. "And then we could go and try to punch some fashion sense into her head."
A sound somewhere between a snort and a dying animal escapes Ayano's lips.
"Define fashion sense," she answers with a judging look.
"Hey! I'm doing you a favor here, no mocking me. It's called style. I got one, you got one – Taylor... um-" She's pretty much the antithesis of having a style. Heh, hehehe, oh, does she want to see Ayano's reaction to having the older student wear something more form-fitting - or simply wear less, for that matter. "-uhm, she needs guidance. She's never gonna catch some boy's eyes otherwise." Aha! Without fail, the girl's expression turns sour for a passing moment, like it always does whenever she hears any talk about Taylor and boys (Brian in particular). It would be adorable if it weren't so freaking hilarious.
"Maybe she doesn't want to catch any." If lemons had a voice... keep it together Aisha, don't laugh, she can do it. She can!
"Nonsense! You seen the way she was ogling my brother?" Brian himself was probably the only person who didn't. "She's definitely in the market."
"Why the sudden interest?" Oh, it's a treat to watch her trying to act all prim and proper, with all that acid right beneath the surface. Can't be good for the girl. Fortunately, Ayano has her friend to help burst the bubble! It's no good to keep all that jealousy bottled up. The Asian girl needs a way to unwind, one Aisha intends to deliver.
"The friends of my friends are my friends?" If you wanna be my lover, and all that shtick. "I mean, I didn't even know her before I found her with you. Is not like you were friends with her before you met." For a moment, Ayano looks very much like she's going to argue that indeed, they were friends (or more, who knows with that girl), before meeting, before giving it up. Her face doesn't exactly relax, but it does look less strained.
"I suppose."
Aisha's not sure if it's a comfortable silence or not that they fall into after that. She usually just tends to ignore whatever awkwardness crops up, and soldier on. Ayano, for her part, mostly doesn't even seem to notice any when it comes, and boy is it a spectacle to behold whenever it happens with other people around.
"You know, I've been wondering actually. I get that you don't know my brother, but I haven't seen him pay any attention to girls in like- ever. Maybe he's just gay?" That would answer so many of her questions... and create so many others.
"Why ask me?"
"Uh..." Really? "Cause you might just know more about that than me? Dunno, just wondering aloud."
The other girl looks pensive for a moment, going as far as to drum her thumb against her chin.
"See what sort of stuff he reads, check his browsing history, on his phone too, that's important - people don't usually delete that from phones as opposed to computers. See what company he turns around in, pay attention if he's looking after someone when they pass him by. Does he work?"
"Nghyeah."
"Talk to his co-workers. See if he talks about girls. Check his room, and for hidden stuff, I mean, like under the mattress or behind furniture." … "Maybe take her to a pool?" she quietly murmurs the last part.
Aisha can only stare, for the time that it takes the other girl to come back to the world of the living.
"What?" she asks, voice perfectly neutral.
"N-nothing. It's uh-" Phew, ok. Maybe- maybe it's best she tries to forget that one."-very comprehensive. Thanks."
"Not a problem, this way." With that, she looks takes a sharp turn towards an alley they're passing.
"Hey, where're you- it's that way." She points in the direction they're supposed to be heading in.
"We're going to Rill seventy-three, right?" Aisha nods. "There's a bus station on the other side here, we can cut a few minutes if there's a bus soon." A bus? The shorter teen attempts to recall, and finds that she's no idea whether there is one or not. "My legs are starting to hurt. Please?" Seriously? She knows Ayano is not the most athletic of girls... or athletic at all, to be honest, but it hasn't even been a mile!
"You know, you need to start actually doing stuff in PE." Then again, she's lazy too. "Got change?"
"Yeah, come on."
"Wait, wait." The other student stops, looking back expectantly. "Mother never taught you about dark alleys and all that? Let's go arou-" Aaand she's gone. Ugh, who knows? Maybe her mother did not teach her about the dangers of taking shortcuts like that. Do- did those work different in Japan? All she knows about that hellhole comes from one history class (which, pft, yeah) and old anime, shortcuts like those led to nothing good in those either. Is it racist that she's basing her knowledge of that place on some old cartoons? Well shit, nobody's perfect.
"Fuck, wait up!"
That girl sure walks fast for someone with aching feet.
She runs up to Ayano, everything becoming hidden in the dark as they enter the unlit alley. Urgh, she hates these places. They usually smell like piss and decay, and this one is no exception. Some dead cat or dog must be rotting away in just a few steps' distance. An all-around dump, like many- she barely avoids colliding with the other girl as she abruptly stops. What the- oh. Good going, a dead end.
"Shortcut my ass, told you we should've gone round." The girl doesn't answer. "Ayano?" Finally, she turns around, holding something in her hands. What is it? Aisha can't tell, her eyes still not adjusted to the dark. "Let's go, this place is giving me the creeps."
"So quick to leave?" She whips around at the new voice, booming from behind them, to see a silhouette of a man framed by what little light comes from across the corner of the alley.
Fuck. Ayano is so getting her butt kicked later on.
"Yeah, you know. Kinda drab in here, nothing much to see and all." Her face almost hurts with the forced smile. Though she doubts the guy can even see it. "Just, gonna leave and forget this place ever existed. Right?" She says over her shoulder, though the girl she's addressing apparently doesn't catch that she's supposed to follow her lead, staying silent instead.
"Not gonna be that simple." Is that a knife in his hand? Fff- of course it is. God fucking dammit, Ayano, fuck! "You empty your pockets, and you better empty them - cause I'm gonna check. And then you get to walk away. Got it?"
Fuck you. "Got it." Losing twenty dollars plus her shitty phone isn't worth being cut up by some dipshit. All the same, fuck him.
"And you?" The man asks Ayano.
"Yes." Eh? How does she get to sound so calm, relaxed almost, in a situation like this?
"Good. Come here then, no funny business."
They approach him, slowly, Aisha being the first of the two to part with her possessions, turning out her pockets to avoid being touched. Then it's Ayano's turn.
"What, no phone?" The man asks once she appears to be done.
"No." Christ...
"Tsk, right, a teen without a phone. I'll believe it when I stumble- ooooo! Fuck!" Aisha throws herself back, just in time to see her friend getting whacked in her face with a fist, and being thrown back with the force of the hit. Something clutters to the ground. A knife? But the thug is still- Ayano had a knife?
"Couldn't just make it easy, could you?" Their robber gasps out, holding his side. She- she stabbed him. And he hasn't even dropped his knife.
Aisha breaks out of her stupor, running to the Asian girl, now on the ground. Unresponsive, unconscious. Ayano's stillness in stark contrast to her own, shaking hands.
The next moment, there's a hand on her shoulder, and she's thrown, head first, into the wall. Ow, ow-shit, piece of-
"And now-" She looks up from the ground, covering her head. "-all of our evenings- are ruined," their robber heavily breathes each word out. "But guess- what? I'mma make- sure- yours is much- fucking worse."
The first kick digs itself somewhere below her ribs, making Aisha cry out in pain. Something- something gives, cracking under that boot. The second kick lands in the exact same spot, making the girl whimper on the ground, teeth clenched. The third kick...
-the world pulls sideways, pulling Aisha along with it, a sensation of loss overcoming her spinning mind-
...the third doesn't come.
After a few seconds, she chances looking up from under her arms. Through tear filled eyes, she sees her assailant walking in Ayano's direction - by now woken up, and somewhat successfully trying to get to her feet. A kick, planted squarely in her chest, knocks her back down. Their mugger then making sure the teen won't be able to stand up again, trapping the heavily panting girl beneath his boot.
"Was it worth it? Losing your life over some fucking phone?" Life?
No, no- no-no-nononono!
She slams into the man, making them both fall over, with him at the top and her beneath him, both on their backs. She would howl in pain, if the effort she'd made hadn't pushed all the air out of her lungs already. She unsuccessfully tries biting into his thickly-covered arm, as that is what's in front of her face, ignoring both the grinding pain in her chest the man's struggling causes, and the freezing cold of the ground beneath her.
It can't be more than seconds when Ayano joins her - falling on them both, stuffing something into the man's mouth as to muffle his screaming, then raising a knife. Her knife.
Aisha freezes when it plunges into his chest, suddenly keenly aware of her own right beneath it. The blade doesn't touch her, but the ice that instantaneously forms in her chest gives her a moment of doubt. With the second strike comes the man's even more violent heaving, and with his, her own, as his weight crushes into her wound anew. The third one makes the ice in her heart explode in a panicked frenzy.
She starts violently thrashing, screaming, beating her fists against the both the man and the girl above her, neither paying her any sort of attention. Only one of them shows any signs of slowing down, as with each next stab - each felt by Aisha as if it would be the one that would go all the way through, into her own body – she can feel the mugger grow weaker and weaker, life seeping out of him, until he stops struggling completely. She grows quiescent along with him, eyes shut, trembling like a leaf, capable of nothing but listening to the sounds of a blade cutting and tearing at flesh, to the rapid, heavy breathing of the one wielding the knife.
Until, finally, it stops.
She's not sure how long the silence reigns. She doesn't care to count the seconds.
Eventually, some of the weight lifts off, and Aisha immediately scrambles from under the unmoving body. Only when her back hits the wall does the teen allow herself to whimper. Fuck. Fuck! This- this was-
She puts her head between her hands, biting back a sob.
A commotion before her draws the girl's attention away from her thoughts, a welcome respite. Her eyes land upon her- her friend, looking around as if searching for something. And whether be it thanks to the moon, or her eyes having finally adjusted to the lack of light, Aisha can now see the whole alley.
The body.
The blood.
The- rotting thing sticking out of the man's mouth.
Ayano... Her face terrifyingly void of anything at all.
"A-Ayano?" She staggers out, having to force each syllable through her teeth, clenched from the pain "Ayano?" The girl doesn't pay her calls any attention, instead kneeling by the cooling body to rummage through the sweatshirt's pockets. The girl pauses, for one short second, as she pulls out both their money and Aisha's phone. "Ayano!" Nothing. "T-this isn't funny!"
Undeterred, the taller girl cleans off the blade, and her hands, on the mugger's clothes, then – with a soft click – folds the blade in her hand, before putting it away in her pocket. Along with the money and Aisha's phone, her expression not changing one bit the entire time. Is- is she in shock? Can't she hear her? Maybe her ears got busted when she got hit?
The unheard girl pushes herself further up against the wall. In the meantime, her company having taken off her jacket, turned it inside out before slipping it back on. Effectively hiding the bloodstains. Before the shorther girl can walk over to her friend, Ayano starts walking away.
It takes Aisha only one look at the body lying on the ground to make her decision. "H-hey! Wait up!"