Note: This is one of the few drama sort of stories that I've written. So I'd appreciate any advice or critisism. One thing you should probably know is that it might have been an idea for a manga. I don't remember now 'cause I wrote it awhile back now. It's not finished, but I'd be more likely to finish it if I get encouragement. -fishes unashamedly- :D Well, guess that would be all. --kera.

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"Fighter": Chapter One

I lost my best friend when I was in highschool.

He was the light in my little life, always making me believe that I could strive for more because that's what he went for. Even though I was a girl, he didn't mind including me into things once in a while. He had guy friends, he just wasn't the type that excluded someone just because they happened to be the opposite sex.

I always hoped that maybe one day we would find out that we loved each other, get married, and live happily ever after.

But then he disappeared.

Just like that. One day, our homeroom teacher announced that Ben Davidson hadn't been seen or heard from since Friday evening.

It was strange... Me, with my glasses, and my long, dark hair and plain features, I just got angry. At first I was depressed, and I didn't do any of my homework. But then... something just happened. I got angry at the people who'd taken him, or killed him, because he must be dead or... or something by now. And then my grades slipped for real.

I got sent to the school counselor, and when she said, "I know you're angry. It's okay to be angry," I just lost it. I stood up from my seat, abruptly, and I just threw over the chair I'd been sitting in. It was really heavy, but I just flung it like it was a regular kitchen chair.

And I exploded, "Yeah, I'm angry! And I know I'm angry, and I don't need you to tell me that!" And then I stormed out of the office.

After that, my mom and step-dad tried to send me to a real psychiatrist. I told him I didn't want to have anything to do with him, and I knocked off all the little trinkets and magazines he had on his coffee table. As I was about to leave that office too, he called to me, "I have an idea..."

I heard him out, and what came of it was a karate class. He told my parents that I could benefit from some "constructive outlet" of my anger. I went with it because I needed some kind of outlet--I agreed with the head-shrinker at least in that.

But I just ended up getting worse, and my parents finally thought that maybe sending me to a different school would help. It didn't. Mainly because of the gang.

--

The first day at my new school, a group of guys caught me out in the hall by myself, trying to find my class. I tried to avoid their comments about my shyness, my flat chest, and my glasses, but eventually, they tried to grab me too, and I couldn't just walk past them and stare at my feet anymore.

When the dark-haired, hispanic kid grabbed my arm, I dropped my History book on his foot, twisted my arm like I'd been practicing for about a month in my Karate class, and shoved him up against the wall to my right.

"Whoa!" a scrawny, blond kid exclaimed, and a tall, brown-haired kid agreed, "Didn't see that coming, did'ya, Diego?"

I grabbed my book from the floor and started to get out of there, but the last kid, a brown-haired, brown-eyed, average-looking guy said, "Hey, we're not going to hurt you. We were just teasing, that's all. Right, Diego?"

Diego turned to me, blushed and rubbed his sore cheekbone. "Yeah... sorry about that, yo."

"Getting yourself into trouble again?" another guy's voice approached from behind us.

I turned and stared.

This kid was of medium build, but nearly as tall as the tall kid, and although his eyes were dark-brown, his hair was a dirty blond color, and there was a strange upward tilt to his eyes. His blonde hair reminded me of Ben's, but Ben had had sea-green eyes, I told myself sternly.

And suddenly, I hated this guy for looking like my best friend. Plus, if I guessed right, he was the leader of these misfits. And I wasn't so much a rebel myself that I felt like getting along with them. They were probably all regulars in detention.

"Oh, hey, Max," Diego said, rubbing his shaved skull nervously.

"Right," Max replied, giving him a knowing look. He turned his attention to me then, and I had to take a breath to compose my reaction. "Was this numb-skull bothering you?"

"No," I retorted, plainly, "I was bothering him. But I'm through, so you can have your turn." And I turned on my heal and strode past the skinny, blond kid and toward the room that I thought was my class.

I heard a low whistle from behind me and a couple of rude comments from Diego and the average-looking guy. The tall kid said, "Cold one, huh?"

And Max replied, "More like a ghost, if you ask me."

"How's that?" the kid replied, and just before the door closed behind me I heard Max's answer.

"'Cause it's like she's not even there..."

--

It was sort of true, actually.

Ever since Ben had gone missing, I'd lost interest in life. I shut everything out except for my anger, and that included my Karate class. But that was about the only thing I let invade my space. I didn't talk to my mother, let alone my annoying step-father, and I didn't interact with any of my other girl-friends at school.

They tried, but when I just sat through a whole conversation without saying one word, they finally got the message and left me alone. And now I wasn't even around them anymore--I was in a totally different environment.

I didn't know anyone at this school, besides the forced encounter with those jerks, and I didn't want to get to know anyone.

I sat at the back of every class, and I only made token efforts to do any of my homework assignments. On the bad days, I didn't even do that.

My mom was usually yelling at me about not getting anything done around the house or in school, and I usually just sat there, ignoring her. Mostly, I didn't even remember what she said later when I thought back on those lectures. Not that I did think back on them very much. I just didn't care.

But then something happened to change that: the guys wouldn't leave me alone. Whenever one, or two, of them happened to be in the same class as me, they would make it a point to sit next to me.

Every now and then, they would whisper a question or something else that I would blatantly ignore. And each of them had introduced themselves to me by the end of my second day at the new school.

The tall kid was named John, and the average one was named Tommy. The little punk, with the blond hair, was Aaron, and last of course, were Diego, and Max, their leader.

No matter how much I ignored them, they plagued me, always suggesting that I come out with them to such and such a place after school was over. I got the feeling they were all vying for the attentions of a female who could fight just as well as any of them.

Either that, or they were deliberately trying to annoy me.

After a particularly stressful day of listening to Aaron chatter on about his pet hamster, I left class--just got up in the middle--and went looking for Max.

I opened about a dozen doors, and finally spotted him at the back of one of the classes, looking bored and only slightly awake. I said to the teacher, who like the rest, looked at me questioningly and wondered, "May I help you?" or "Are you looking for someone?"

I answered this time in the affirmative, "Mrs. Henderson wanted to see... uhm..." I pretended to be digging in my brain for the correct information. But, really, I'd memorized Max's full name the first time he'd told it to me. "Ichikun? Ichida? Maxwell Ichida?"

Max sat up, with a funny, little gasp, and Diego, who happened to be seated behind him, snickered, and reached forward, nudging Max's shoulder with a fist, then pointing in my direction. Max looked toward me, and I called again, "Max Ichida, Mrs. Henderson wanted to see you."

He blinked, sleepily, rubbed those uptilted brown eyes of his, and got up. He glanced back at Diego, when he started to get up too, and Diego sat back down. He met me at the door, and I stepped away and pretended to head down the hall. But when I heard the door shut behind him, I whipped around and hissed, "What are you and your punk friends trying to pull? Do you want to fight me or something?"

"What?" he whispered back, sounding both harsh and confused.

We were interrupted when the door to his class opened again, and we heard the teacher question sharply, "Where are you going?"

Diego answered casually, as if he were the most innocent boy on earth, "To the bathroom, miss...?"

"Okay, but if you're not back in five minutes, that's detention," she answered, and he returned, cheerfully, "Yes, ma'am!" The door closed behind him, and he ventured toward us, strutting with his hands in his baggy khakis.

"They're all annoying me!" I hissed at Max, turning my attention back to him. "Tell them to leave me alone, or I'm going to start picking them off one by one."

"Whoa, chica," Diego said, stopping next to Max, "You mean that, or you just frontin'?"

"Does it look like I mean it?" I demanded, and a teacher stuck his head out of his classroom and wondered, "Do you have hall passes?"

We nodded, and he told us, "Well keep it down then." He let the door slam behind him, and I grimaced.

"Just leave me alone!" I told Max, and he frowned.

"They're not gonna leave you alone," he said, and my mouth dropped open. "We've been trying to get you to join the gang. We thought it'd be better than letting you run around here all angry at everyone, starting fights on your own. Pretty soon, Kat's girls are going to catch on to that you're a fighter, and she's gonna come and confront you."

Kat? Who was Kat? I wondered. "I don't give a care about any stupid girl--"

"She uses knives sometimes," Max continued, bull-headedly. "Last year, her and the girls cut up some chick's face for calling her a B. She's not someone you want to put in a bad mood, even if you do know karate. And besides that, as soon as she finds out, she's gonna wanna fight you just 'cause."

I wanted to say that I didn't care again, but instead I asked, "What does she look like?" I wondered if maybe I'd already seen her around.

"Tall, blond... She's got..." He made a motion over his chest with both hands, and I got the picture.

I was of medium height, build, and had dark, wavy, long hair, which I mostly kept in an unflattering pony-tail. It was a hairstyle that I used far too much, as evidenced by my little, stretchy band that was beginning to fall apart because it had been stretched so much. I was skinny, and flat-chested, as Diego had instantly noticed when he'd first seen me, and I wasn't very attractive--plain was a bit of an exaggeration.

"She wears too much makeup, especially eyeliner," he continued, "And she's pretty, but she's always trying to lose weight."

I remembered a girl and her cronies talking about calories and stuff behind me one day in the cafeteria. They had ignored me, but I hadn't cared. I'd wanted to be ignored.

"Maybe I want to fight her," I said, suddenly, and Max gave me a worried look.

"You're not serious," he retorted. "She's vicious, woman!"

"My name," I said, finally introducing myself, "Is Jesse Tian."