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“Who are you and what do you think you're doing here?” Kanji found herself threateningly saying when she found an unfamiliar teenage girl leaning against the brick wall in the Samegawa floodplain.
The girl that stood before her had long grey hair that was split apart into two separate braids on either side of her head and went past her knees in length, she was holding a large bamboo sword in her right hand presumably for dealing with any person that got in her way, all the while she was using her other hand to hold the cigarette she was currently smoking whenever she didn’t have it in her mouth. Though maybe the most notable thing about the girl was the fact that she was wearing a black and yellow school uniform, the same kind of school uniform her own school had always tried to force her to wear.
“Hmm…?” The grey haired girl slowly turned her head around when she had been made aware of the other teenager’s presence, “Oh, so that’s why I felt someone suddenly watching me all of a sudden. My name’s Yu, I’m just out here for a little break.”
The other girl nonchalantly looked off to the distance and fiddled with the cigarette in her hands as she said that last part. It seemed like she really didn’t understand the gravity of the situation she had gotten herself into here.
Slamming her hand against the wall, because she was unsatisfied with the answer Yu had given her, Kanji forcibly put her body in front of the other teenager to make sure that Yu was cornered into the wall and had no chance to escape when she asked her, “I see that, but what do you think you're doing loitering around in my spot like this?”
That wall Yu was so casually leaning on right now was strictly reserved for her whenever she wanted to skip class and have somewhere quiet for her to clear her head for a bit, which she couldn’t do now because someone was already there annoyingly polluting it with their smoke filled air.
“Your spot?” Yu almost laughed aloud as she said the words aloud with how much it sounded like a spoiled child saying them, “Well, if I knew it was that important then I surely wouldn’t have stood here, but now that I am here and I am pretty comfy relaxing like this, I guess the only way you’re going get me to move at this point is if you move me yourself.”
“After all, if I’m in your spot then that must naturally mean I’m all yours too since I’m in it, which makes it alright for you to do whatever you want with me right?” Yu added with a teasing smile at the end, just egging the other girl on to do her worst to her.
Easily agitated however, Kanji fell for the bait by grabbing both of the bottom of Yu’s wrists, so she could pin Yu even further into the wall as she pressed her own body against her and said, "You keep making wise remarks like that and I’ll just show you how these hands can make quick work of you in no time. You’ll be screaming my name begging me for mercy by the end of it.”
She had pummeled plenty of people into submission with her fists before with ease, so doing it to Yu would be no different.
“Oh, how naughty,” Yu replied, clearly not taking Kanji’s threat very seriously with how much she was smiling right now, “Honestly, when I first thought I’d play hooky from class today I’d never imagined I’d have such a beautiful girl flirt with me like this in the process and yet here you are practically throwing yourself at me with how much you’re physically on me.”
“I’m…! I’m not…! This isn’t flirting you fucking idiot!” Kanji defensively spat back and said as a new embarrassed blush quickly overtook her whole face.
She didn’t know what far off world Yu lived it, but she didn’t understand how anyone could mistake threats like this as flirting of all things!
“Oh? So you just pin every girl you meet against the nearest wall and rub your body against them like this?” Yu responded, making fun of their increasingly close distance to one another despite the fact that they were still considered strangers to one another.
“No, but this is supposed to be intimidating damn it! The sudden closeness should make you afraid that I’m going to come on to you and fight you any second!”
“Yeah, I think you’re going to come onto me second alright,” Yu replied with a smirk, “though I’m thinking of you coming onto me in a way I’ll enjoy it too.”
The blush grew even brighter on the blond’s face before she suddenly shoved Yu off to the side and reclaimed back her usual spot she usually leaned against on the brick wall.
“Tch… Just get out of my sight before I really decide to beat you up!” Kanji crossed her arms and said.
Yu was really starting to annoy her with how much of a playful little shit she could be. She was lucky that she had a kind of cute face that she totally didn’t want to wreck (for the most part) with her punches.
“You’ve got to at least tell me your name first before you shoo me away though!” Yu turned around to face the other girl and insisted.
“And why should I do something like that?”
She had been kind enough already for not beating Yu up the moment she had caught her loitering around in her spot. If she did anything more for her at this rate it’d be basically like she’d be giving charity to her.
“Well, because I told you my name already, so it’s only fair of you to tell me your own in turn,” Yu answered her, “Plus, we are both classmates so it’d be good for us to know each other too right? I can see you’ve got the Yasogami High emblem on your jacket there and I just transferred there recently myself so I got a uniform of my own too.”
“Though judging by the pin on your jacket I can tell that you're still just a first year while I’m a second year,” Yu added at the end.
Which technically makes you my senpai, Kanji internally thought to herself.
“Kanji, my name’s Kanji Tatsumi,” the blond delinquent frustratedly huffed out and replied.
She didn’t really care about giving the other girl her name, but she didn’t want to be unnecessarily disrespectful to a senpai if she didn’t have a good reason to either.
“Ah, Kanji,” Yu tested the name out on her tongue and said, “Kanji’s the perfect name for a pretty girl like you.”
The blond didn’t say anything in response, the only thing that made Yu aware that she even heard what she said in the first place was the fact that her face had grown noticeably more red after that.
“Well, now that we’ve introduced ourselves to one another,” Yu started to say as she slid on the wall next to Kanji and held out her cigarette towards her, “do you want to share a smoke, Kanji?”
It would be rude for her to continue to smoke in front of her after all without offering her a hit of her own.
Kanji skeptically looked at the cigarette before her, she had never had a smoke before so she wasn’t sure if she'd enjoy it or not, but she didn’t want to seem like a wuss in front of the other girl by not taking a smoke either, so she quickly grabbed the cigarette out of the other girl’s hand and placed it in her mouth.
“Damn, this shit seriously smells and tastes like crap,” Kanji coughed out and said, after she hurriedly pulled the cigarette out of her mouth just as fast as she had put it in there.
They had always made smoking look so cool in shows and movies, but she honestly didn’t know how anyone tolerated this kind of stuff in real life. Just smelling the smoke go up her nostrils was enough to make her want to go into a coughing fit as it was.
“I know it does,” Yu agreed before she took her own smoke back from the other girl’s hand and placed it back into her own mouth like it was before.
“If you hate it so much then why do you keep doing it?” The blond delinquent asked, confused at why Yu kept smoking like this if she even agreed it sucked.
“It’s been my only friend for a long time and it helps take the edge off when things get tough in a way a lot of other things can’t,” Yu explained as she looked off into the distance once more and exhaled a puff of smoke from her mouth, “So it’s hard to quit it all together like that. No matter how much I might want to.”
“Sounds like an addiction to me,” Kanji remarked.
She didn’t know how Yu was able to get away with it. Even if she did seem like as much of a delinquent as she herself was with how she dressed and acted, her parents had to tear into her about smoking all the time right? She knew her own mom would’ve given her a massive lecture about it if she caught her sneaking smokes all the time.
“You’re right, it is,” Yu responded with a bittersweet smile at the fact, “If anything it was probably better that you didn’t like it. I wouldn’t want you to end up like me and deal with all the complications that come with a cigarette addiction.”
You say that but you continue smoking anyway, if you care about someone you hardly know that much, you should start caring about yourself more, Kanji internally remarked as she watched the other girl continue to nurse her cigarette in front of her.
She had wanted to kick Yu’s ass at first. The other girl had quite the mouth to her that just couldn’t help but ignite the easily agitated part of her, but there was also something about Yu that she couldn’t quite look away from either. As if the other girl had some secret draw about her that she just couldn’t get herself to pull away from.
“Though I guess having a terrible smoking habit did lead me to one good thing in the end,” Yu started to say as she fiddled with the cigarette in her hand.
“Oh yeah? What’s that?” Kanji took the bait once more and asked.
“It gave me an indirect kiss from you to me,” Yu plainly said without a hint of embarrassment on her face with how bold she was being.
“That…! That didn’t count as an indirect kiss!” Kanji yelled, hoping that somehow the volume would redirect Yu’s attention from how red her face was.
“Ah, but I tasted your lipstick on it,” Yu remarked.
And everyone knew that indirectly tasting another girl’s lipstick (even if it was from sharing a cigarette with one another) was totally code for flirting with one another.
“I don’t even wear lipstick!” The blond loudly pointed out.
She had never even been the type of girl that was into makeup like that in the first place, so there was no way Yu could taste something like that!
“Well, then I guess that means the flavor I’m tasting off the cigarette right now is just the natural taste of you,” Yu teased while she flashed the other girl a wink.
The flavor of Kanji, it was surprisingly sweet despite how tough the other girl looked. Honestly, it kind of tasted like a candy that she just couldn’t get enough of with how sweet it tasted.
“You’re an ass, you know that?” Kanji remarked as she looked off to the side once more to hide how pink her cheeks had gotten.
She didn’t want to let Yu see that she had “won” by getting another rise out of her.
“Maybe I am, but I’m an ass that can’t wait to spend some more time with you,” Yu turned back to the other girl and replied, as she finally put out her cigarette and finished it.
There was something about Kanji that couldn’t help but make her want to get closer to her. As if there was some secret layer to the other girl that all she needed to do was a little digging and bonding with her to find out what it was. Yes, there was certainly something more than meets the eye about Kanji, it might even be something so mysterious in fact that it may even be a complete secret to the girl herself.
“The two of us should walk to school tomorrow,” Yu suddenly spoke up and suggested, “We are going to the same place after all so it only makes sense for us to go together too.”
Kanji and her were both due at Yasogami High at the same time in the morning, so why not make the daily commute a little more interesting by having each other by their sides?
“And why would I agree to do something like that?” Kanji turned back to the other girl and asked.
Despite that possible convenience, she hardly could understand why Yu would think she would agree to tagging along with another punk like her (that she still barely knew by the way) on the way to school.
“Because then you get to have a cute girl like me accompany you in the morning,” Yu hyped her own self up and explained as she suddenly clung onto one of
Kanji’s arms and pulled her own self close so that her body would be pressed against Kanji’s own, “I mean wouldn’t it be cool having another badass girl like yourself tag along with you as a friend?”
“As a f-friend?!” Kanji embarrassingly stuttered out at how close the other girl had gotten.
Did Yu really act this affectionately with all her friends?! Or was she just messing with her in particular here?! It was hard to get a proper read on her at this point.
“Yep, as a friend,” Yu answered her, before she quickly added after that, “unless of course you want it to be more with that. I’m excited to get to know you more in any way that comes.”
The bright pink blush on Kanji’s face burned even brighter than before.
“I’m not a morning person so walking to school with you is out of the question unless you want to be really late, but maybe if you wait by the front gate after school I might consider walking around town with you since you're new here.”
She should’ve turned Yu down, it wasn’t her duty to act as her personal guide around town even though she was new here, but her dumb mouth had blurted the offer out now and she didn’t want to look like a coward by taking it back.
A smile appeared on the grey haired girl’s face as she released the other teen from her grip and said, “Perfect! It’s a date! I’ll see you soon Kanji!”
“It’s not a-” date, is what Kanji tries to correct the other girl as she leaves, but Yu had already gotten far too far away for her words to reach her.
A strange pit in her stomach formed as she watched the other girl walk away.
Something was telling her deep inside that her life was going to suddenly be a lot more interesting with Yu around, for better and for worse.