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Fuyuhiko stands, his back against a wall, facing three teenagers, not much older than him, but clearly stronger and taller, with muscles bulging underneath their tight long-sleeved shirts to block out the crisp breezes of the fading October day. Fuyuhiko himself has his arms folded, trying to look calm, but he’s out of breath from running until he hit a dead end and he’s worried because even he can’t take on three people at once and he knows that Peko must be downright terrified right now since she’s not by his side.
Fights aren’t exactly uncommon in his life, considering he’s grown up as the son of one of the most dangerous mafia leaders in Japan. He’s almost always well prepared for some sort of violence against him. Problem is, that preparation is usually in the form of Peko or his own personal gun, and at the moment, he has neither, and he’s kind of fucking scared right now.
Maybe if he hadn’t been such an idiot, this wouldn’t have happened. He just had to “accidentally” slip some information to a person he knew was a backstabbing informant in a halfhearted attempt to initiate some sort of action between him and a rival gang. He just had to convince Peko to let him go to a park well within the rival gang’s territory so he could test his skills against someone other than Peko. He just had to tell Peko that no, he was fine on his own, and she could sit by the pond feeding ducks while he went off to a store down the street, when really he just wanted to run into the rival gang’s leader. And run into he had. And when the small group chased him into an abandoned alley well out of Peko’s sight and hearing, and when he realized he was truly all alone, he started realizing that this entire plan wasn’t thought out at all.
The leader of the three- his hair is straight and neat, in a military buzzcut- steps forward. “We heard you were going to call in the police on one of our parties, so you could get rid of us and take some new territory for your own.” Right now, he could totally fess up. A quick confession, an even quicker beating as a warning, and then he could be on his way to get yelled at by Peko. Of course, he can’t swallow his pride enough to do so. Instead, he musters up his best glare into the face of a rival.
“So what if I was?” He tries to look menacing, but there’s enough of a tremor in his voice to make the leader smirk. He raises a fist and brings it down into Fuyuhiko’s face.
The first punches are easy enough to dispatch- the leader might be stronger, but most of Fuyuhiko’s 16 years have been spent in self-defense classes. When the two thugs join in on either side, though, he knows he’s fighting a losing battle. The first punch that makes contact sends Fuyuhiko falling back onto one of the walls, barely managing to catch himself before his head collided with the dirty red bricks. He stumbles to his feet briefly before being thrown backwards by another punch, and then a kick to the ribs. He feels the cold, sharp sting of metal tear into his lip, and tastes the blood now dripping down his face. He manages a few punches and kicks of his own, but they’re useless against the swift blows of his opponents. The same metal ring that split his lip scratches down the side of his left arm with another punch, and he gasps in pain.
The leader holds up an arm to stop his friends, holding up Fuyuhiko and pinning him against the wall by the collar of his torn, bloody shirt. “Fucking had enough yet, punk?” Through the tears that are stinging at his eyes and the blood that’s running down his face, Fuyuhiko grins. It’s cocky and almost certainly a fatal move, but he has never backed down from a challenge, and today won’t be the first day that he does.
“You- fucking think… That weak-ass shit is enough to keep me down?” He hears the furious growl of the leader, and braces himself for the next punch. The sound of a fist hitting skin is slightly more distant than he expects, and he feels no pain. Foolishly, for a few seconds, he thinks he’s dying, but when he opens his eyes he realizes that the sound of the punch was one of the men standing behind the leader being knocked out, Peko standing coldly above him.
The remaining two gangsters turn around, the leader dropping Fuyuhiko’s collar and tossing him to the ground to turn around. Fuyuhiko barely manages to keep his eyes focused on Peko, because he doesn’t want to see the two fuckers lay a finger on her, and he’s weak and injured and can’t do a fucking thing to help her.
“Please allow me to take him home,” Peko says quietly, calmly, like she hadn’t knocked someone out with a single well-aimed blow. The leader starts laughing. Fuyuhiko grits his teeth in anger.
“You think you’re gonna stop us from killing him, girly? We men have still got some unfinished business, and there’s no need for some pretty little slut to get involved.” Peko narrows her eyes, carefully drawing her sword from its sheath. Fuyuhiko tries to stand- nobody fucking insults Peko and gets away with it- but it hurts to even move his arms, let alone put pressure on them. He sinks to the ground again, barely clinging to consciousness. He can feel Peko’s gaze flicker to him before returning to the teenagers in front of her. The leader raises his fist again, but hesitates for a single second. That’s all Peko needs as she kicks his legs out from under him, anticipating the other teenager’s moves and blocking his fists with her sword. She spins around and hits him over the head with the blunt side of her sword- not enough to kill him, but only to knock him out for a few minutes. That’s all the time she needs.
The leader is stumbling back to his feet, screaming obscenities and wordless shrieks of rage. He lunges straight for Peko, but she easily dodges his hands and grabs the back of his shirt, throwing him to the ground. He’s stunned for a few seconds, and as soon as he flips onto his back to stand up, Peko has one leg on his chest, pinning him down. He looks shocked. She frowns into his face.
“You are never to insult a member of the Kuzuryuu family again. And you will never touch him again,” she says calmly, quietly. The leader nods pathetically, and makes a move to stand up, but Peko hits him once on the head with the blunt edge of the sword, and he blacks out as well. She immediately turns to Fuyuhiko, kneeling down next to him.
“Bocchan? Can you hear me?” Weakly he nods. She sighs and checks his injuries. Most of his skin is covered in quickly darkening stretches of bruises, and there’s various cuts and scrapes on his arms, chest, and face. He has a black eye, his nose and lip are both bleeding heavily, and he’s holding his left arm gingerly, on account of the deep scratch that will more than likely scar. But he’s alive, and that’s what Peko’s grateful for at this moment. She picks him up carefully, mindful of the bruises, and carries him home.
On the way back, Fuyuhiko’s sliding in and out of consciousness. He picks up on bits and pieces of Peko’s scolding- which isn’t so much scolding as it is her berating him for going off alone without any protection and her getting upset with herself for being so irresponsible. He doesn’t know if he tells her that it’s his fault for being a dumbass, but she does seem to lighten up on the scolding after a while.
When they make it home, Peko sets him down in his bed and begins tending to his wounds- cleaning out the deeper cuts with alcohol and bandaging them up, bringing an ice pack to stop the swelling on his eye. At first, Fuyuhiko hisses with pain at the sting of alcohol cleaning out the scrapes, but he notices Peko’s hands shaking as she dabs at the bloody wounds, and he’s feeling really fucking awful about being so stupid. She finishes cleaning him up and gets him a clean pair of clothes- the tattered, bloody ones are pretty much trashed- and helps him button up his shirt when his heavily bandaged arms fumble with the intricate buttons. He looks up at her, intending to thank her for the help, but glances away guiltily when he realizes her hands are still shaking and her eyes are glistening with unshed tears. He feels like shit for making her worry like that, so he takes one of her hands with his less injured one.
“You don’t have to worry about me, you know,” he mutters, a slight blush filling his cheeks. “I mean, I am old enough to take care of myself.” She meets his gaze and grins slightly, not saying anything, just quietly pointing to his bandaged arms.
“Perhaps you should work on the whole ‘taking care of yourself’ initiative a bit more,” she finally says, and Fuyuhiko smiles at her.
“I’ll try to quit being such a reckless little shit if you spend the night in here with me,” he promises. She smiles and rolls her eyes, folding back the blankets so she can lie next to him. She’s still wearing her day clothes, but she takes her braids down so her long silvery hair flows neatly down her back. She takes off her glasses and sets them down on his nightstand, reaching up to turn off the lights. Fuyuhiko’s exhausted, but he still has to tell Peko something.
“Good night, Peko,” he says, and then hesitates for a second before adding, “I really do appreciate everything you do for me. Thank you.”
He can’t see her smile in the darkness, but he can hear it in her voice as she replies. “Good night to you too, Bocchan.” He can barely make out the words she whispers next.
“… I promise to always be there for you.”
Fuyuhiko smiles into the darkness and closes his eyes, falling asleep next to the person he trusts the most in this world.