A dangerous encounter on the way home.

On Tuesday, the bell signaling the end of last period rang, and the sighs of relief could be heard all around the classroom. Yet beside Leonardo, Maeda-san closed her notebook with focused eyes, took a deep breath and let it out slowly and quietly.

“Alright,” she muttered in Japanese. Or rather, it was an expression equivalent to the sentiment. She always spoke Japanese when she was talking to herself. Leonardo pretended not to notice, choosing to keep himself busy putting his things away in his backpack.

“Ready?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she nodded, once more with a strong resolution Leonardo didn’t understand quite well. “We… We’re waiting for Straight-san, right?”

“Right.”

It wasn’t like Angela had any plans, and they’d all be walking in the same direction anyway. They met up with the blonde girl at the school gate, and there was a moment of tension when Maeda-san and Angela’s eyes met. The younger girl was the first one to bow.

“Nice to meet you, Straight-san. I’m Reiko Maeda.”

Angela’s eye twitched. “Don’t call me that. It sounds weird,” she said, waving her hand dismissively in front of her face. “Call me Angela.”

“V-Very well, Angela-san! T-Then you can call me Reiko as well!”

Leonardo had to laugh at the exchange. “You just met and you’re already on a first name basis? I’m jealous,” he joked.

“You can call me Reiko too, Contreras-san!” Reiko insisted with an earnest look that took him aback.

“Alright,” he chuckled. “But you call me Leonardo as well, okay? I don’t think my last name meshes very well with Japanese honorifics, anyway.”

“O-Okay! Then… Leonardo-san,” she said, her smile almost blinding.

Angela blinked several times as she looked at her before grinning teasingly. “Well, aren’t you the energetic one?”

“S-Sorry!”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Angela laughed. She gestured for them to start walking and they started heading towards the Tensai Residence. They could hear people whispering around them, and though Leonardo understood very little, he could hear Reiko’s name being uttered, as well as the words ‘school’ and ‘friends’. Judging by Reiko’s sad face, they weren’t saying anything good.

“What are they saying?” he asked, his face hardening.

“It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter,” she tried to dismiss it with a **** smile.

“It seems to me like it matters to you,” Angela said.

Reiko pursed her lips and looked down before speaking. “They’re saying that I’m friends with you two only because you’re descendants of the Tensai clan. They think that I don’t hang out with them because I don’t think they’re worthy of being friends with me.”

“And that’s a load of bullshit, right?” Angela asked casually, making Reiko snicker.

“Yes,” she nodded and told Angela a short version of what she told Leonardo yesterday.

“That’s stupid,” Angela said, scowling and causing both Leonardo and Reiko to laugh. “What? You’re saying it isn’t?”

“No, I just had the same reaction,” Leonardo explained.

“You should just do what you want. What’s stopping you?” Angela asked.

“I don’t want to get yelled at every time I go back home,” Reiko said with a sad smile. “And at worst, they’d probably disown me.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Leonardo asked with a wrinkled brow.

“I wish I was,” Reiko sighed. “They said they’d do it to my brother if he studied P.E. instead of business management.”

“What the hell? Do all Japanese families have a stick up their ass?” Angela asked, looking disgusted.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Reiko chuckled. Angela’s reactions seemed to amuse her. “I’ve lived on this island all my life, but yeah, many families here are traditionalists, though mine might be a bit more ****.”

“But they let you hang out with us because we’re from a hundred-year-old clan?” Angela asked.

“Pretty much,” Reiko nodded.

“I don’t understand Japan,” the blonde sighed, shaking her head.

“There she is, bro! That’s the woman!” Leonardo heard someone say, and it took him a second to realize that was in Japanese. Hey, he was really starting to understand it!

But his happiness was short-lived. Right as they approached the edge of town, walking up the road that led to the residential area, a group of four guys seemed to be waiting for them. Leonardo’s jaw dropped when he saw them. They all wore their school uniforms in a messy way, with their pants slightly below their hips and opened jackets that showed their wrinkled shirts. Leonardo recognized one of them as the guy Angela beat up yesterday morning. Another one of them had short bleached hair and carried an iron rod in his hand. Another had a blue T-shirt instead of the standard white, buttoned shirt, and a heavy metal chain dangled from his hand. And last but not least, one had an honest-to-god pompadour like the stereotypical Japanese delinquent.

Were these guys for real? As a kid, he’d watched shows where thugs dressed like that. Did people still do it? It felt like a parody or something.

“Oh no…” Reiko gasped.

“You know them?” Leonardo asked.

“Not personally,” she swallowed. “But they go to our school and usually bully other students.”

“Oh?” Angela said, sounding amused. “Step back, kids,” she told Leonardo and Reiko. “You’re in the splash zone.”

“Eh?” Reiko exclaimed, but Leonardo just held her by the wrist and pulled her back with him. He could feel her shaking. “Leonardo-san?”

“Leave it to her,” he shrugged. “I doubt those guys are here to talk, anyway.”

“B-But…!” Reiko turned to look at the four men, who were talking to each other. “T-They’re saying Angela-san is the one who beat one of them!”

“She did,” Leonardo nodded. Reiko looked at him with wide eyes. “And now they want ****?”

“Y-Yes!”

“I’ve been feeling pretty stressed these days,” Angela said, walking up to them as she rotated her neck and shoulders. “You guys want a fight?”

The guy in the blue T-shirt lashed his chain at Angela, but she effortlessly sidestepped it, letting it hit the ground. “Woah,” she said, grinning. She stepped on the chain, and no matter how hard the guy pulled, he couldn’t get it back. His face was turning pale.

The guy with the bleached hair ran to Angela with his iron rod. Angela caught the weapon in the middle of its swing with only her left hand, stopping it dead. She made it look easy. She threw a fast, snappy punch to the guy’s face, making him recoil from the pain as he held his nose and screamed, his weapon discarded on the floor.

“Is this what this town has to offer?” Angela asked, sounding bored. “These guys are making ME feel like the bully.”

“W-What the…” Reiko gasped, a small smile appearing on her face.

“She’s pretty awesome, isn’t she?” Leonardo chuckled with a toothy grin.

The guy with the chain let go of his end and rushed towards Angela with his bare fists, screaming his aggression.

“Oraaaaa!”

“That’s more like it!” The blonde grinned. She opened her hands and stopped all four of the guy’s punches with her palms as if they were boxing mitts. When the delinquent tried to knee her, she reacted even faster and kicked his other leg, making him fall knee first. That looked like it hurt quite a bit, and he stayed on the ground holding it.

Then the guy with the pompadour, seeing his friends so easily taken out, took out a butterfly knife from his pocket and rushed at Angela with an expression of half-anger, half-fear.

“Angela-san!” Reiko exclaimed.

“Ah, a butterfly knife,” Angela smiled, sighing with nostalgia. “That takes me back.”

The guy thrusts the knife at Angela’s stomach, putting all the weight of his body behind it. But she turned her body and let the knife pass by her, taking the opportunity to slap the guy on the back of the head and making him fall flat on his face.

Angela kneeled next to him, took the knife and put the flat of it against the dude’s cheek.

“Doesn’t feel nice to be at the other end of it, does it?” she told him, grinning. The delinquent, despite not understanding, let out a terrified shriek.

“Angela,” Leonardo spoke in a chiding tone.

“I know! I’m just trying to scare him a bit! I’m not gonna cut him!” She assured him.

And in the brief moment that she was standing up, the last guy, the one Angela had beaten yesterday morning, ran up and grabbed the iron rod that was left on the floor. Angela sighed, getting ready to counter him as well, but the guy didn’t aim for her. Instead, he ran up to Leonardo and Reiko with **** eyes.