Bee Sting With school over, Yoruichi grabbed her books and slammed her locker shut, then headed down the stairs to the first floor. As she rounded the stairwell, she occasionally noticed the unabashed stares of her fellow students, some of whom went into fits of giggles at her passing. Once she reached her destination it only took her a few moments to identify her young friend, who was slowly walking towards the exit. "Hey, Soi Fong!" she called jovially, and the shorter girl turned her head slightly to acknowledge her presence. "...Hi, Yoruichi-san." The athletic girl's smile faded just a bit, almost imperceptibly, at the preoccupied look on Soi's face. She smiled, but it somehow seemed as if she was forcing herself. Yoruichi felt a slight pang of worry, but she dismissed it as paranoia. "Hey, uh...How were classes? Did you manage to get that math homework done?" "Oh...School was fine," Soi answered half-heartedly as Yoruichi got in step with her and they walked out the door and into the bright sunlight. "...I, uh...think I may still need to review that geometry stuff, though." "Oh, not gonna beg Kisuke for help?" she teased with a grin, but Soi didn't answer. "...Hey, something up?" "...Huh?" Soi muttered as she blinked up at Yoruichi, who was looking at her with a curious expression. "N-no, I'm fine...why do you ask?" "...No reason," Yoruichi shrugged, turning her attention back to the sidewalk, saying nothing until they reached the corner of the street a few minutes later. "Well, take care, all right?" she said with a smile at Soi. "Sure. You too," the Chinese girl said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm as she walked in the direction of her house. Yoruichi took a last look at Soi over her shoulder, then headed down the other end of the street toward her own home. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Soi gazed at the textbook she was supposed to be reviewing for Japanese History class, but after realizing that she had read the same line over three times she tossed the book aside with a huff. Against her will, her troubled mind wandered to the way Yoruichi had been acting after school-- the way she'd immediately asked how she was doing when she suspected something was wrong, her habit of staying nearby on practically a daily basis... ...She is just pitying me. The girl nearly laughed at herself as she slid out of her chair and onto the floor. She'd been solitary for practically her entire academic life, had been completely at ease with her social status as one of the 'lone wolves,' but had clung to the first inkling of kindness she had recieved without questioning it. I should have known better than to believe it, she groaned as she considered her own folly. Was she really so lonely that Yoruichi's attention had been twisted into actual compassion by a desperate mind? No, she thought as her eyes narrowed. I don't need pity. I don't need someone like her as a 'friend' if all she sees me as is a little pet. I never needed friends before. I sure as hell don't need them now. Even so, the freshman could not help but feel saddened by her new impression of Yoruichi's character. Yoruichi hadn't given it much thought when Soi had walked away a week ago, dismissing her behavior as fatigue. Now, however, she was beginning to worry. She hadn't seen Soi face-to-face since then; the Chinese girl seemed to disappear whenever Yoruichi noticed her in the halls and became deaf whenever she tried to get her attention. What bothered her most was not necessarily her suspicion that something was upsetting her friend, but that she was so concerned about Soi Fong in the first place. It wasn't that she hadn't felt a filial sort of affection for the younger girl, it was just that when she got home her thoughts didn't linger on anything but the present. Yoruichi wasn't sure why Soi being morose affected her at all, but she had resolved to find some way or other of discovering what was wrong. At least then she would be able to forget about it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Soi took her time once she had finished her shower in the locker rooms, saying goodbye to her fellow karate students as they left through the swinging wooden door dressed in casual short sleeves and pants to provide comfort against the humidity reigning outside the gym. After wringing the water out of her still-damp sheet of long hair, she carefully set about the task of twisting it into two long strands, finally tying each end around a slender metal hoop. She'd been doing this since her mother had done it on a whim to celebrate her first day of middle school, and she had continued the hairstyle every day since to the point where it had almost become relaxing. It didn't help much with her current state of worry, though. It had been hard coming to Karate for the past few meetings, as she saw Yoruichi regularly there and of course they had their short practices afterwards. But Soi had found that by letting herself be angry at the upperclassman as opposed to nervous had made it much easier to ignore her, and she'd gotten out of their short lessons together by being one of the first to shower and thus leave earlier than her peers. Fate, however, seemed to have other plans today. Soi had ended up at the back of the line due to others sitting closer to the showers, and one of the first had been Yoruichi. She would be out long before Soi, which meant that if she went as slowly as she could, then perhaps Yoruichi would get tired of waiting for her and would go home. Once she had sufficently arranged her twin braids, Soi grabbed her clothes (the gi, which had meant quite a bit to her before, she considered tossing in the garbage on her way out before her frugal inclinations got the better of her) and carefully opened the door just enough to peek out. Good, she's not here, Soi assessed from her brief glimpse of a small portion of the gym, then opened the bathroom door and walked straight for the exit. Unfortunately, the door opened of its own accord, revealing none other than the Shihouin girl standing just beyond the threshold. "There you are, I was just looking for you!" Soi found herself unable to speak, knowing that she was trapped and that Yoruichi had probably intended that to be the case. "...Come on, let's get some practice in." With no remaining options, Soi nodded, keeping her face as neutral as she could. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- There was not a word spoken between them as they went through a handful of basic attack patterns. They rarely talked during their training sessions anyway, but the silence today only made Yoruichi more anxious. She had hoped that Soi might open up about her anxieties-- she did not feel comfortable about directly asking the younger girl, but she would listen if she felt the need to speak. "Hey, good job," the upperclassman said with a smile, finally breaking the stillness. "...How about a little sparring?" Soi didn't answer, she merely positioned herself so that she was facing the other girl, then made a short, half-hearted bow to indicate respect for one's opponent. When Yoruichi finished her own bow, she was still smiling, and the sight of that perpetually jovial face stirred an anger inside Soi that she had been trying to restrain for the whole week. Why is she even bothering to do this? Is she so cruel that she's still pretending that I'm her friend? After shifting her feet into an attack stance, Yoruichi took a step forward and aimed a punch at Soi's chest, which she blocked with a sweeping motion and brought it back in time to stop a sidekick headed for her solarplexus. "Good one!" Yoruichi said encouragingly as she stepped back. "But you aren't attacking. If you don't you're just gonna get beaten--" "...Why are you doing this?" The dark-skinned girl blinked as Soi spoke to her for the first time in seven days. The freshman's eyes were hidden behind her bangs as she stared at the ground and one of her hands was clenched into a fist. Before Yoruichi could answer, Soi ran at her and threw a punch straight at the upperclassman's face with surprising speed. Yoruichi was still faster, however, and blocked by pushing the hand away moments before it made contact. Soi staggered for a moment from her own inertia, then swiftly brought her leg up in a roundhouse kick that her opponent dodged by leaning backwards. "Is this just a laugh for you!" "What are y--" Soi didn't give Yoruichi a chance to finish as she threw a flurry of blows at the taller girl, one of which finally resulted in the sound of air being knocked out of her lungs. In spite of Soi's obvious state of distress, Yoruichi couldn't help but be a little impressed--no one had managed to so much as touch her for the last three years on the karate mat. Meanwhile, Soi was only getting more and more frustrated with every attack that didn't land, with every fruitless bit of exertion that Yoruichi blocked and evaded. The older girl's composure and her maintenance of a defensive posture sent the message that this was all just practice to her, that she didn't consider the petite and shy Soi Fong of being capable of hurting anyone. Finally Yoruichi managed to catch a frenzied uppercut, and with a strong grip restrained Soi's arm. "Let go of me, goddamnit!" Soi yelled hysterically, her normally peaceful eyes burning with anger, with the desire to hurt Yoruichi no matter how desperate her attempts became. Yoruichi's face was not plastered with her normal carefree grin, but rather a neutral serenity that contrasted greatly with her agitated friend. "No. What's wrong with you, Soi?" Yoruichi didn't realize that she'd just broken her own unwritten rule about not prying into the business of others, but she needed to know what could have made Soi angry enough to attack her out of the blue. "Why does it matter to you! Do you think that I NEED someone like you to look after me? Or is it just because I don't have any friends? Did you think that I'd get depressed and kill myself if I was left on my own!" The upperclassman's eyes widened slightly in comprehension, but other than that there was no change in her expression as she continued to hold onto Soi's wriggling arm. "...Is that why you've been avoiding me?" "It's true, isn't it! You probably think you're doing me some big favor by pretending to like me, don't you! Well, I don't need you to fight my battles for me, I don't need you to protect me and I sure as hell don't need your goddamn pity! I don't need friends and I never will, so why don't you just GO THE HELL AWAY!" With a single yank that took all her might, Soi broke free of Yoruichi's grip and sent her fist flying again, only to have the black belt catch her again. This time, Yoruichi didn't content herself with just stopping Soi's attack; she shifted herself so that she was behind the younger girl and restrained her in a full-nelson. For a few minutes Soi struggled against the much stronger upperclassman, screaming curses and demanding to be released, even trying to kick backwards but Yoruichi used her movement to pin her to the ground. Finally, with an acquiescent sigh, the freshman's slight muscles relaxed, and sensing that there was no more fight left in her, Yoruichi released her and tumbled over so that she was lying on her back. Neither said a word or made a sound, save for irregular attempts to slow their own breathing. Once Yoruichi had recovered from the surprisingly difficult task of holding her protege in place, she sat up, leaning her arm against a raised knee and staring at the plain wall on the building's far side. "...Why did you do it?" The upperclassman didn't turn at the sound of Soi's voice, slightly muffled by the plastic she was still lying face-down on. That was all she said, but somehow Yoruichi knew what she was really asking. The only problem was that she couldn't really answer. Why had she stayed around Soi Fong all this time? She had to admit that the freshman had been partly right-- at first, she had felt sorry for Soi and for her poverty, that she was picked on by a callous jerk and that she didn't seem to care that she was a social outcast. Sometime in between then and now--she wasn't sure exactly when-- but she had actually begun to enjoy the other girl's company. It was refreshing to be around another person who had no interest in her social status, one who had actually refused her company when anyone else would have died from ecstacy. It was a casual freedom that she had only really felt around Kisuke at first, and somehow seemed to have been transferred to Soi as well, the last person she had ever expected to meet in her life had it not been for walking on that bridge on that particular evening. The truth was, she was glad that she had met her, as glad as she had been when Kisuke had helped her so many years ago, but like with her oldest friend, Yoruichi lacked the ability to put her sentimental feelings into words--it was just the way she had always been. Perhaps that was why she filed away her current thoughts and said something that conveyed far less emotional attachment than she really felt. "Soi... I don't care if you think I'm pitying you or not. If you want to believe that, then you go on ahead. But I'm only going to tell you this once: I don't get along with people who I feel sorry for, or who I don't like being around." The younger girl quietly considered Yoruichi's words before realizing that they were true. Judging simply by what she had seen of her interactions with Urahara, she wouldn't be friends with someone she didn't care about. Yoruichi had spent all this time with her because she had wanted to. The anger she had felt evaporated in an instant, replaced by self-loathing. How could she have misjudged Yoruichi like that? "...I...I'm sorry, Yoruichi-sama," Soi managed as she picked herself up slightly, eyes still fixed to the floor. Yoruichi let out a small sigh of relief, glad that her friend was back to herself again. "Soi Fong..." Yoruichi said with a look of false exasperation, her good humor quickly returning, "...You don't need to apologize around me. As far as I'm concerned, you've done nothing worth being sorry over." She stood up and walked over to where Soi was, then extended her hand much like she had when they had first met. "Here--can you stand?" Soi looked at Yoruichi for a long while before she finally accepted the hand and used it to pull herself up. "...Um..." Soi began as she looked anywhere but directly at Yoruichi, "...We should go home, it's getting late." "Ahh, well said," Yoruichi responded with a grin as she ruffled Soi's hair, making the girl sheepishly turn red and look away again. "Plus," the upperclassman continued, not noticing her friend's reaction, "...I should get some ice on that bruise you just gave me." Soi instantly prepared to apologize but upon seeing that Yoruichi was still smiling stopped herself, remembering what the older girl had told her just a moment ago. "...Does it hurt?" She asked instead, her voice sounding as if she was afraid to say the wrong thing. "Well, let's just say that I think I have an idea of how Ichimaru felt when you belted him." At that, Soi's sober expression finally melted into a small laugh. A strong Soi was all well and good, but Yoruichi had toadmit she liked her this way alot more.
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