Chapter 24

The next day Hitomi was sitting on her sofa watching TV, still rather moody from what had transpired yesterday. On the evening her father had called her and told her, in non mistakenly words, that she should only come to the dojo again when she finally had sorted out her problems on which she had thrown her phone across the room, yelling that she was fine.

And since she wasn't in the mood to get another earful from someone else she simply stayed home. She phoned her trainer and told her that she was sick so that she wouldn't get into a fight with someone from her team and tried to cool off.

Thus far it didn't really work that well. Sure she wasn't as angry as yesterday but she still felt this anger inside her.

Grinding her teeth together she zapped through the channels, something that she had done countless times today.

The first thing she had done in the afternoon, after having dragged herself out of bed yet another time since she couldn't get any sleep at all during the night, was getting some workout, which she had done in the park from the other day. But that hadn't done much for her mood.

After returning she showered and since then had glued herself to the TV, only stopping for the occasional snack, which had – lo and behold – consisted of a slice of Sachertorte, but even that didn't do much to improve her mood.

As for now she was watching some kind of silly talk show, but didn't really pay attention to the topic of the discussion. It was probably something about sexuality or who's the father of the child, since that was what talk shows usually boiled down to in the end.

But really it was either watching this or those silly telenovelas that were on TV at this time of the day, and then she might as well just put her brain into a blender and grind it to a fine paste, since it would have the same result and would actually be more pleasant.

The ringing of her doorbell saved her from having to watch as some guy with tattoos was about to lift his shirt to show his piercings. Hitomi walked to the door, tugging at her sweatpants, which were loose, that had gone down a bit.

Opening it she found Viktor standing there, grinning.

"I'm not buying anything." she echoed what he said a few days before.

"Oh ha ha, someone please give this woman an award; she thinks she's funny." He said to no one in particular. "S'up?"

"The ceiling. And I try." she said, folding her arms under her chest. "Something you wanted?"

"Yeah, wanted to tell you that the boys and me are going out tonight and you said that you could use the breeeeeeak? Hey everything alright?" he asked when he noticed her expression.

"Yeah don't worry. Just a bit miffed. I didn't get any sleep last night and slept until afternoon." she half-lied.

"Damn! Well you still up for this?" he asked.

Hitomi thought about this for a moment, she had tried to blow off steam already, but maybe this would help?

She shrugged. "Sure, why not?" Can't get any worse now, right?

Me and my big mouth she thought, finishing off her cola and leaning her head to the side as the girl dancing in front of her was sliding down the pole upside down.

Somehow Viktor had this great idea of taking his friends, and thus her, to a strip-club he knew.

"Are you crazy? You just can't take me into one of those!" she had complained. "I'm a girl!"

"So? You're one of the guys anyway." he said. "'sides it's not for long and believe it or not other girls are there too. And I'm not speaking about the ones that are undressing."

Her jaw dropped and she was left speechless when he called her one of the guys. She pretty much gave up right there, letting him lead them to the club they were currently sitting in, and now she watching some floozy shaking her ass who looked directly at her.

Did she just wink at me? She wondered and felt herself flush a little. She tugged at her tanned-leather crop top, which had a slight harness look to it, to not look at her directly again.

This whole scenario reminded her way too much about that one time when Tina had drank a little bit too much during their stay on Zack Island and did a pole dance in the casino lounge, much to the embarrassment of her friend Lisa. If Bass ever got wind of that one he would probably suffer a heart attack.

She turned her left where Viktor and Sven where sitting, the former watching the girl while the latter was more interested in his book. Looking to the right she found Tim Riedel watching the girl. Tim was another friend of Viktor and a quiet guy that didn't talk much, tall and a bit on the plump side, but a really nice person that enjoyed helping other people, which went hand in hand with his job as a nurse. His round face was always covered in dark brown stubble, matching the short hair on his head.

"Hey Viktor." he said, but her neighbor didn't seem to hear him. His eyes found her. "Could you, please?"

Knowing what he meant she tapped Viktor on the shoulder, getting his attention, and pointed to Tim.

"What?" Vik asked.

"Maybe we should leave. We've been here for a while now and the way things are going you'll have no money left for the rest of the evening and I don't want to pay for your ass again. Besides I think Hitomi's a bit uncomfortable about this."

Viktor seemed to contemplate this for a moment, looking at her, then nodded. "Yeah you're right."

They left the club, but not before the stripper could slip her a sheet of paper with her number on it. Blushing bright red she threw it into the next trash bin as they walked to the bar that they were supposed to go to originally. Viktor pulled her to the side. "Sorry for that, I guess I wasn't really thinking there."

"Don't worry it wasn't so bad, well aside from the stripper hitting on me. But don't take me to a place like this again, like ever." she told him.

"Still, I guess we've been friends for so long that I've got a problem thinking about you as anything else than one of my friends, which are guys. You're pretty much the only girl who's 'just a friend' to me." he explained himself.

"I told you, It's fine. Let's forget about it." she offered him a small smile, touched by his words.

"Ok then. Let me buy you a drink though." he offered her.

"Sure."

The four of them entered the bar, a rather simple place, and Viktor greeted the owner, who stood behind the bar, before they moved to sit in one of the booths.

They ordered their drinks, Hitomi taking a cuba libre, and sat there chatting away, the brunette mostly listening and only joining occasionally if she was addressed, otherwise keeping to herself enjoying her drink.

An hour and a half passed. They were down to their third round and Hitomi noticed that she was getting a bit tipsy when a guy approached her, grinning and clearly a more than just tipsy.

"Hey babe." he said but Hitomi didn't even pay him any mind as she was listening to Viktor going on about something he had witnessed when he was still working in a comic store.

When he heard the guy Viktor stopped his story, glancing at the guy. "Fuck off." he told him simply. "So and then the guy, and I'm talking of a big and bulky dude here, asks me where we got the Hello Kitty goods. I was like Oh boy and pointed to where we stored that stuff and when he went there I managed to sneak a peek at his car. Man I don't know if he was incredibly gay or so manly that he just wasn't bothered by what people think."

"Hey," the guy persisted, patting her on the shoulder and making her look at him. "How 'bout you flash that pair of tits you're sporting?"

As he asked her his friends a few booths away were howling with laughter and Hitomi scowled at him, about to give the guy a piece of her mind when Viktor, who was sitting across from her, beat her to it.

He got up and into the guys face, flipping him the bird. "I said: FUCK OFF!"

The grin dropped from the guy's face and he walked back to his friends, who had also stopped laughing.

"Stupid ass-clown." Viktor muttered angrily.

"Be cool Hager." Sven said, putting his hand on Viktor's shoulder, who simply shrugged it of. Shrugging to himself Sven turned back to reading his book, sipping from his drink every now and again.

Tim checked his watch. "Guys I need to hit the sack soon, so I think we should call it a night."

"Yeah. Let me just go and pay up." Viktor got out of his seat and walked to the bar.

Hitomi looked down at her drink, already feeling the anger from the guy's comment welling up inside of her, adding fuel to the already burning fire.

"Uh oh." she heard Sven exclaim. "Hager's in trouble."

The Karateka's head shot up and turned to look where Viktor was. He was surrounded by the guy and his friends, five in total, and one of them grabbed him from behind.

"Great, and the owner's in the storage. Uh, how long has it been since he did some training?." Tim asked a little nervously and was about to get up when Hitomi slammed her hands onto the table, clenching them into fists until she felt her nails digging into her skin. She got up from her seat and walked over to them.

"Buchfink, don't!" Sven called but fell on deaf ears. "Oh boy..."

"Shouldn't have pissed me off." she heard the guy tell Viktor and saw him raising his fist.

She got his attention by tapping him on the shoulder and he turned to her, his face suddenly getting back that stupid grin. "Oh hey, babe changed your m-"

Hitomi cut him off with a solid punch in the gut, followed by one into the face that threw him against the bar, where he slumped down to the floor.

When his friends saw that they turned their attention towards her paying Viktor no mind, giving him the chance to get out of the way. One of them lunged at her, but Hitomi grabbed his arm and turned her body, slamming her right elbow against his temple and knocking him out instantly.

Two down. She thought and turned to her next attacker, ducked under his right hook and slipped her right arm past his armpit, hooking it around and placed her left hand on his shoulder. Narrowing her eyes she gave a hard push with her upper body and with a solid crack she dislocated his shoulder.

Screaming in pain he sagged to the floor, holding his wounded shoulder.

The next one came as a surprise as Hitomi barely dodged a kick aimed towards her head, taking a step back to dodge the next one that followed rapidly. This one was a martial artist.

Tae Kwon Do, not on the level of Rig. She thought and dodged the next kick by taking another step back. Relies too much on high kicks.

The next kick she simply blocked with her right, turned it around and grabbed his leg not giving him the chance to pull back, then kicked his other leg out from under him, let him fall hard on the floor and punched him in the gut for good measure.

Hitomi turned to where she knew was the last one, who looked at her in terror and began to turn tail making for the door.

"Oh no you don't!" she grabbed one of the chairs from the normal tables, which thankfully were pretty light, and threw it at him socking him in the back and making him fall to the floor, giving her enough time to punch him, but before her fist could connect Viktor had grabbed her arm.

"We're outta here!" he said and pulled her out of the bar. Tim and Sven were already out there, waiting for them but just as eager to get away. "I think this is our cue to call it a night. See you guys."

"Alright, take care you two." Tim said and quickly headed with Sven in the opposite direction of where Viktor was pulling Hitomi.

"Hey, let me go!" Hitomi growled as he dragged her off.

Protip: Don't take Hitomi into a strip joint. She might just beat someone up afterwards.
Girl sure got a short fuse these days.

Now when I started this fic I promised myself that I would have at least one strip club in it in any kind of form.
But damn I'd sure would've loved to see Tina pull that off.

Next chapter's gonna be interesting. So stay tuned.
See ya next week boys and girl!