"Are you really smoking, Hirose?" Emilija Mazur spoke with curiosity. She, with her brunette ponytail and large eyes of sky blue, stood beside a lofty woman wearing a white dress shirt smothered by a black trench coat, with sharp dark eyes and a neat bob: Akari Hirose.

"I actually thought you quit," Emilija commented. Akari responded by blowing out a puff of smoke into the air. "That's quite the expression on your face," Emilija continued, wide-eyed. "Don't tell me..."

A strong gust of wind thrust through. Akari and Emilija leaned against a corner wall on a local street, near a lamp screaming yellow, yet not loud enough to usurp the night's darkness. They were the sole souls present. One shivered slightly, while the other just kept smoking, completely unfazed.

Emilija sighed. "All the businesses on Main Street would shut down before you and Aoki would have a serious fight. So I can only ask... Who hurt him?"

"Tsk!" Akari shot her head 90 degrees over, eyes stretched, and barked, "Never call him Aoki again; his name is Akira!"

Emilija maintained a blank stare. "Just tell me what happened, idiot."

"Pfft!" Akari ripped the cigarette out of her mouth and crushed it in her palm in one fell swoop. Her eyes invading the fist before her, she muttered, "He showed me a text message yesterday. From his parents. They..." She let out a growling noise as her eyes twitched and her lips quivered into a grimace.

"...Oh." Emilija's eyes sank. "I... reckon he's not in the same boat as us, but..."

"Their son is frail and gentle... and they berate and beat him for it!"

Emilija's eyes trembled. "Is that... so?" she muttered.

Emilija Mazur and Akari Hirose, as children, were united by one fact: Their parents were dead. When one of them fell down a rabbit hole of senseless violence, the other one followed, ensuring she was not alone. Two years after Akari cleaned the blood off her body, she met Akira. But she found that he too endured so much... His parents looked upon their own child only for how they could exploit him. During his teenage years, his father struck him, over, and over, and over... with the thought that, perhaps, somehow, it would make him stronger. His mother, with cold eyes, watched. Yet Akira, frail at age one like all other boys, was still frail at age eighteen. That was just how he was. And with that gentle form came a gentle personality; why else would she have fallen for him?

Between the girl and the boy who loved each other, one of them faced abusive parents, and the other lost loving ones; yet only one of them became covered in their peers' spit and blood.

"Akira... Akira is not weak at all..." Akari murmured with tearing eyes. "Far... Far from it..."

"Hirose," Emilija sighed. "How did you leave things off with him?"

"I... stayed over for a few hours." Reflecting upon that time, her eyes softened, her grimace dissolved, and her voice grew tender. "I wanted to screech into the skies. To speed down the highway and beat those bastards to a pulp. But no; I was more focused on comforting him than anything else. I shed more tears than unleashed screams."

"But why aren't you with him now?"

"Well, he needed to do some homework, but I also wanted to talk with you." Akari chuckled dryly. "Emilija, one day I reckon I'll cross paths with them. What should I do?" She smirked. "If anything, they're no different in nature from a bully. They're cowards on the inside, so if I..."

"Yeah, well, consider that a last resort. I don't think he wants you to get arrested. To be honest, the optimal situation would be to cut them off, but Akira's a dependent, isn't he?"

"Tsk! He is."

"Then what do you think he would want you to do?"

Akari walked forward. The wind came once more, the back of her trench coat soaring. "Stand by."

"Sounds about right." Emilija took a few steps forward.

"But one day, I'll have to face them." She turned her head over, showing Emilija her side profile. She glared with intense eyes, before turning further and walking back over, striding past Emilija, and facing the wall. Then, forming a fist yet again, she threw a punch right to it. After a loud thump, Akari shouts, “Why do you think I called you here?! I need to let it out… and y-you’re the only one who I won’t scare when I’m like this! DAMMIT!”

Emilija approached Akari, giving her a dull stare. "Give it a rest; are you trying to break your fist? You've already burned your palm." She sighed. "You've made your point. But I'm not the only one who isn't scared of you."

"Tch!" Her face turned red. "He must be... at least... a little..."

Emilija thought, He's told me directly he's not, but he might bark at me like a puppy if I say that. "I'm one to think he's not, but it's not like he enjoys seeing you like this, either. I'm not going to say you can't enjoy your catharsis near me, but how productive is it really? Once again, what would he think is best?"

Akari let out a drawn-out sigh before retiring her trembling fist. As her lover's image encompassed her mind, she answered with a low voice, "I should be by his side."

Emilija smirked. She walked over and patted her roommate on the shoulder. "Comfort him, and let him comfort you. There's no need to drown yourself again."

Akari blushed with a grimace. "So I should focus on him, instead of them?" she pondered.

Emilija nodded confidently. "Go at his pace. When he's ready to confront his parents, stand right beside him. But for now, just be there for him, yeah?"

After a moment of reflection, Akari grew tenacious in expression. "Alright," she pledged sternly, "I'll try. For us."

Featured Artwork by Twitter artist 2tsujitsuji. (https://x.com/2tsujitsuji)