Cold Midnight (Chihiro)

[Kazuya Hikari]

Alex headed up the stairs that led to the monorail. He had just finished doing research for a project at the library. As soon as he had finished, he was out the door, and checked his cellphone, it was already evening, and getting dark, too dark for him to walk, and he didn't want to take a taxi, and seeing the entrance to the monorail gave him his final decision. Monorail it was. He picked up a newspaper from one of the stands on his way over, and headed through the entrance. His student pass in his pocket, he headed up the stairs, his book bag held underneath his arm, the newspaper in his left hand. Lining up along side the crowds of people waiting for the monorail, he didn't have to wait long. He saw the bright lights of the monorail, as it came rushing past, and stopped. The doors opened in front of him, and Alex stepped in, standing in the aisle, for most of the seats had already been taken. The doors closed shut, and the monorail started up, rushing past the platform, and the cityscape came into view. Alex leaned against one of the poles, and opened his newspaper, reading it. Or at least, tried to. Until he heard two guys nearby speaking to each other loudly and excitedly.

"Hey, check out that girl!" "Huh? Dude, that one?" "Yeah, that one!" "Shit man, she's hot!" And so on. You get the point. Alex looked out of the corner of his eye curiously, and saw the two guys, they were from 774, and the girl they were oogling, Alex didn't recognize. Although there were lots of people in the monorail car, Alex could still clearly hear their conversation. And he didn't like it. The monorail slowed down, reaching the next stop. Alex's stop. And apparently, the girl's too. Alex folded his newspaper, and exited out of the train as soon as it stopped and the doors opened. He followed the girl down the stairs, and onto the sidewalk, only to hear the two guys voices again, who were slightly ahead of him. "Hey, she's all alone! Why don't we..." "Yeah! She looks like she wouldn't resist." Now Alex was really getting tired of this. He knew better than anyone appearances can be deceiving.

He looked ahead, and saw that the two guys had caught up to the girl, and were trying to pull a fast one. "Hey gorgeous, how about you hook up with both of us? I promise we won't do anything bad." "Yeah, we don't bite." They didn't, but Alex did. Stopping behind them, he made tapped one guy on the shoulder, as he turned around and simply introduced his fist to the guy's face. The guy fell back, clutching his nose, as the other guy stared in shock at his buddy, before attempting to knock Alex out. Alex easily ducked underneath the guy's wild punch, and slammed his fist into the guy's stomach, sending him reeling backwards, and in a comedic fashion, the guy tripped backwards over his friend, and landed on the ground, knocked out. The guy who had been clutching his nose, got back up, and tried to knock Alex out, but Alex just launched a roundhouse kick, and knocked the guy to the ground. All in less than five minutes. "... That was pathetic..."

[Chihiro~]

Chii loved studying at the local cafes rather than the library. The library was far too silent for her, it freaked her out. Cafes on the other hand had a wonderful variety of white noise that allowed her to work peacefully. Mild indie music coming across the speakers, the hiss of the espresso machine, the flurry of the blenders, the muffled chatter of patrons. It was like music to her.

But now Chi was hungry and to return to the school campus for dinner and probably a movie back in her dorm. She slid her metro ticket, made her way through the stall and onto the train. Once the pneumatic doors shut, the Asian girl found a seat, bringing up her headphones from around her neck to her ears to play some music. She could still hear a lot of the conversation going on, but most of it was muffled out. In her peripheral vision, she noticed the jackasses. San Diego was full of them, it meant nothing.

After a few stops later, she got off to walk the last black and a half to school. She had pulled the headphones off to rest around her neck once more, but the music still poured from them so she could listen while still being alert.

"Hey gorgeous, how about you hook up with both of us? I promise we won't do anything bad."

"Yeah, we don't bite."

Chi paused for a second, noticing the jerks from the subway approaching her. ...really? It was such a pathetic offer than the junior didn't even give them a second glance. As she started walking again, the nearest one tried to grab for her arm. She knocked it away with a simple arm block, but as she was turning to deal with these two schmucks, another buy came out of nowhere to knock them both on their asses.

The Asian girl watched in a sort of stunned silence. Not stunned because she was impressed, but stunned because she hadn't seen it coming. This boy was probably doing what he thought was right, you know, protecting a girl from her assailants and what not. But one thing to note about this particular girl: She HATED being the damsel in distress.

So, once the havoc was done and both assholes were taken care of, dark brown eyes looked at her 'knight in shining armor,' unamusement written all over her face.

"My hero."

She said flatly, shaking her head and turning on her heel to walk away.

[Kazuya Hikari]

"..." Alex looked at the girl with a calm but bored expression on his face, he honestly didn't really care if she was grateful or not, he didn't do it to be thanked, he did it partly because he was sick of hearing the two guy's mouths continually flapping even after exiting the subway, but mostly he was bored. Though it seemed they weren't ready to give up, the guy Alex had landed a roundhouse kick on tried one last time to get Alex, but failed, for Alex just jabbed his elbow in the guy's face, again. Lucky guy huh? "... Just stay down already." Alex muttered in a low voice, now it was starting to annoy him.

He then noticed the girl look at him from the corner of his eye, an unamused look on her face. His wooden bokken strapped to his belt, Alex saw her shake her head, causing him to cock an eyebrow at her, his front hair falling naturally into his gray eyes. "... Well excuuuuuse me, princess." Alex retorted back sarcastically, though there was a bit of teasing there too, it was just well hidden, he casually shoved his free hand into the pocket of his dress pants, as the girl turned on her heel to walk away, not that he was trying to spark a verbal war on purpose, but he was sarcastic almost if not ALL the time.

[Chihiro~]

"... Well excuuuuuse me, princess."

Smirk.

Chihiro's footsteps slowed, and with a carefully dull and blank expression, she turned around to face the boy who thinks he saved her life or something. Princess? Well that alone could either be a compliment or an insult, but the obvious sarcasm in his voice and the elongated 'u 'of 'excuse me' seemed to be a clear indication that he wasn't pleased with the fact that she turned and walked away.

"You're excused."

She said politely enough, vowels clipped and concise. She didn't speak overly loudly or anything, in fact she spoke in a normal tone, her words bouncing over the buildings on either side of them, slicing through the evening quiet to the savior's ears.

Dark eyes stared at him, taking note of the groaning figures scattered on the ground around him in her peripheral vision. Her stare was not a challenging one but a patient one. Was he going to speak again? Ask for a thank you? Hah.

[Kazuya Hikari]

A smirk tugged at the corner of Alex's mouth at the girl's response, despite the polite and concise tone of voice she had spoken in. He looked back at her with his gray hawk eyes, making it seem like he was glaring at her, when really, he was mildly interested. Although he had no idea, this girl was, if not on par, just as sarcastic as Alex normally was. "... Uh huh, riiiight." Alex replied in a quiet but sarcastic tone of voice, as he held his hands up and mockingly shrugged his shoulders, while the guys he had punched out laid groaning on the ground around him, they wouldn't be getting up any time soon.

He wasn't going to ask for a thank you, he didn't do this to get favors, or to be thanked, or any other lame hero cliche that could be thought up, he did it simply for the heck of it, and partly because he hoped the two guys would provide a bit of challenge, but they were nothing but jokes, not even worth the effort. Alex was no hero, not even a good guy, he was more like an anti-hero now. He didn't give a damn about anyone, and didn't care about anyone. He was about as neutral as neutral could get, he didn't take sides, he didn't fight for justice, he just fought to get stronger, simple as that. "..." Without a word more, Alex began to walk past the girl, heading down the sidewalk towards his apartment in the distance.