Ugly Duckling Pt. 1

Throughout the day, Akiko had been on the receiving end of something she hadn't been in three years, stares that weren't courtesy of anything negative. While she had never received too many negative reactions from the boys, when they saw her, they were gob-smacked. A few among them tried their luck to approach her but couldn't. She was too busy being surrounded by a barbed wire fence of curious teenage girls. Likewise, the girls looked at her in awe. How did this one girl, who while not ugly, now looked the closest thing to a magazine model. Any one of them would've killed for her beauty. In each of her classes, Akiko was approached by almost the entire female population to ask things along the line of 'Where did you get you makeup done?' and 'When were you always such a looker?'

At lunchtime, her trio of friends were no less impressed than everyone else. And true to their usual gossipy selves, there was only one conclusion.

"You totally got done up to impress neighbor boy, didn't you", Maria asked.

The other two quickly agreed with her and began peppering her with questions. She wanted to tell them everything that happened that morning. But that desire was com-pounded by the fear of asking what prompted Benjiro to take his actions. That in itself was a topic that she wished to avoid, but even telling them that she had been in his house would've been enough to send them into romantic hysterics. Instead, she tried for a sort of middle ground, "I didn't get this done for him."

At first none of her friends believed her until she dropped the bombshell, "No, he's the one who did this for me."

Whatever her friends had been expecting, that certainly wasn't it. They had several questions, but they were currently so stunned that they couldn't form proper sentences. But Akiko could decided that their looks of bewilderment deserved some kind of explanation.

"I was feeling really bummed out about something yesterday and he found out somehow. And when I woke up this morning, he came to get me and he decided to do this for me."

Akiko knew that her friends were exceptionally good blabbermouths, but this time they surprised her just as much. Instead of looking as though they were bursting to ask questions, they looked pleasantly awestruck. Their mouths were slightly open and small blushes were on each of their faces. Maria was the first to speak, "That is the sweetest thing I've ever heard of.

Needless to say, Akiko was as close to cloud nine as she had ever been in a long time. Recalling her neighbor's words, there was indeed something about looking good that naturally compelled her to stand taller. Her newfound ability to turn heads was almost intoxicating in its profoundness. There was nothing that day that could bring her down.

"Well, what happened to Higaki here", came a snide voice.

There was almost nothing that could bring her down, save for one exception. Akiko felt like she was on a roll, and had no want to stop any time soon. All she felt like doing in that moment was simply tuning Fujibayashi out and just continuing on her way. But the instinctual fear that had spent years ingraining its way in her psyche rooted her to the linoleum. Fujibayashi circled around her like a shark smelling a bleeding animal before going in for the kill. Taking a quick sweep of the hallway, there was nobody around that Akiko could depend on to rescue her.

"So, you did you decide to get back into the game then? Try to get a few boys to look your way again? Well, I can't blame you, you probably have had a bit of a dry spell."

Hot tears threatened to pool up in Akiko's eyes as the verbal assault sunk its hooks. However, for the sake of her neighbor's nearly hour long efforts, she tried to hold it all inside. Fujibayashi's cronies dogpiled onto their leader's derogatory volley of words. All that fleeting happiness within her breast of truly feeling beautiful were quickly being snuffed out. After a few moments of berating, the queen bee just barked at her drones, "Come on, girls. Let's get to class before Higaki's desperation begins to rub off on us."

Her mood thoroughly shattered, Akiko went from being on cloud nine to having a storm cloud over her head. People were still looking at her as they were before, but rather than cheer her up, it all just seemed like a mocking illusion.

...

It had been a bit of a tenuous tutoring session for Benjiro. Haruoka just seemed to be a little extra cagey than normal.

"Are y-you doing ok-kay", he tentatively asked, "If you d-don't w-want to have sess-sions here anym-more, th-there are other places we can m-move."

Haruoka looked like she wanted to be contrary, but what her teacher said made sense, "That sounds good, but it's not like we can go outside. It's getting close to freezing outside and it's not like we can do this in the library. That girl'd give us the boot."

Benjiro cracked a grin, "Are y-you kidding? W-With you ar-round, we could s-set the library on f-fire and they probably w-would just ignore it."

The image of arson gave Daitan a rare smile, "Regardless, I'm just feeling a little on edge. You probably wouldn't understand."

Benjiro knew that it most likely had something to do with the recent spat with the Kusakabe gang, but if his brother was anything to go off, the matter was settled. But speaking from experience, you could bury a matter and still felt like it was following you everywhere you went.

"You'd be surprised", he muttered to himself.

"You say somethin'?"

"Nope", he interjected, "Just g-getting lost in th-thought. Uh, w-we should pr-probably wrap up. T-Time's about over."

Daitan wasn't sure she was even attempting, but the words of the Scarecrow' brother came back to her. While she had kept an eye on him from a distance, she never got close. Those morons from Little Miss Popular's fan cult gave him a lot of hell, but by and large, it seemed to be pretty minor. Which is why she was unsure why she grabbed his arm as he was about to leave the door. Benjiro looked afraid for a moment until he heard Daitan ask, "Um, are you doing anything right now? Like, is there anywhere you need to be."

Benjiro felt he had come to expect pretty much everything he could from Haruoka: Easily provoked rage, sarcasm, being closed off, testy, competitive and surprisingly laid back once she was used to him. However, on an instinctual level, he just knew that they didn't have the kind of relationship where they just hung out.

Raising an eyebrow, "Wh-what's the catch?"

Daitan just shook her head with an amused grunt, "No catch. Just want to make sure that nothing bad happens."

He still felt uneasy being offered to do...something with Daitan, but after thinking about it, maybe this was a chance to improve his trust with her. There was only a few days until his quota of tutoring Daitan was over, and he was sure that this was probably her way of tying things up with a bow before parting ways.

"Sure, why not?"

Daitan relinquished her grip on the skinny boy's forearm, "Then that settles it. There's a karate tournament going on in the auxiliary gym right now. If we head over there now, we'll only miss less than half of it."

Benjiro's eyes lit up, "Our school has a karate club? That is so cool!"

A few amused snorts came from Daitan, "Didn't know karate was your thing."

The mop haired boy shrugged, "Eh, it's n-not, but I practic-cally grew up w-watching stuff l-like UFC and boxing. I c-could never d-do it mys-self but I still l-love it."

The odd pair, the nerd and the tomboy, the skinny and the athletic, made easy back and forth talking as they walked down the hallway. It was no surprise to Benjiro learning about how Haruoka while not exactly a master considered herself an unofficial martial artist. She rattled off one or four of the fights and scraps she got herself into along the way, while her audience of one listened with the kind of horrid fascination that crime show lovers have. Just outside the school doors, they saw a figure in a corner, curled up in a fetal position. The braids in her hair gave an obvious clue as to whom it was.

Benjiro knelt down and carefully extended a hand,"H-Higaki, wh-what's going on?"

Akiko snapped her head up and spat, "It's none of your damn business!"

The sudden outburst made Benjiro reel and land on his butt.

Her hands tightened as she shook "Besides, it's your fault that I'm having such a terrible day! So just, go away!"

"Hey, sis", Daitan intervened, "What's your problem? He asked you a question, you don't gotta bite his head off."

Akiko turned a pained expression to the taller girl, "And who the hell are you?"

Crossing her arms and leveling an unamused stare at the angry girl, "Name's Haruoka and I'm the Scarecrow's temporary student. Now do we have a problem?"

Even behind the layers of makeup, Benjiro could see the color drain from Akiko's face as she realized who she was rudely speaking to. Before conflict could erupt, the peacemaker came out, "Woah, b-before anyth-thing happens...", he turned to the curled up girl, "Higaki, w-we were just on o-our way to the k-karate competition. W-Want to come? It m-may take your mind off wh-whatever's going on."

Akiko nodded and drew herself up, more out of a hope that her neighbor could smooth things over, should they go south. The rest of the three minute walk to the gym was silent with Akiko and Daitan sizing each other up. Standing between the two girls, Benjiro could feel their stares practically burning a hole into each other, 'What in the world have I gotten myself in the middle of?'

A question he would continue to wonder for a long while.