Holding Honoka’s hand as we exit my old home, I see Officer Abe leaning against one of the vans smoking a cigarette.

“You fucking cunt! You almost got me fired!” He snarls at me.

One of the other Officers tells him, “Abe, come on, she’s a little girl. Chill out, you just got into trouble over this downstairs.”

“Fuck her, fuck you, and fuck Aoki too. While I’m at it, fuck all of you too, you guys said nothing downstairs to back me up!”

“Of course not Abe, you were in the wrong.” Another officer says.

“It’s all this little cunt’s fault!” He retorts.

Honoka begins to say something and I hold up my hand to stop her. I can fight my own battle of wits, thank you very much, especially when this moron is unarmed. Of course, there is also the little fact that what he called me made me very angry.

I shake my head while smiling sadly and tell him, “You’re not overly bright are you Officer Abe? You’re the one that almost got yourself fired, not me and here you are again doing the same thing again.”

“Fuck you!” He snarls at me again.

“Seriously?! Is that the extent of your linguistic capabilities? Tell me this, what do you think would happen if I turned around and told Lt. Aoki what you just said to me?” His face pales, but his eyes blaze with hatred. “Right, you would instantly lose your job. You’re the one that is driving nails into your own coffin, not me.” I shake my head again and continue, “Controlling yourself and developing some people skills would go a long way in helping yourself. The only difference I can see between your brother and you is age since you’re just as immature as him. Every time he gets caught doing something wrong it’s always someone else's fault. It never occurs to him that if he didn’t act that way, he wouldn’t get into trouble.”

“Fuck you, you smart-mouthed little bitch! Someone needs to teach you a lesson and I’m just the one to do it!” He growls out savagely. His face contorts into a hideous grin as he begins walking in my direction. When one of the other Officers grabs his arm, he angrily shakes them off and continues coming at me.

Honoka pushes me behind her and tells him, “Officer, I would really rather not have to hurt you, so please stop.”

He laughs sardonically at her and says, “Oh? What does a cute little thing like you think you can do to me?”

Honoka sighs and mutters, “Some men.” When he gets within arms reach of her, she suddenly lashes out, slapping him in the throat with the back of her hand, and making him gag. Grabbing his throat, he falls to his knees while gasping and choking.

She turns to look at me and calmly asks me, “Sora, would you mind going to get Lt. Aoki for me, please?”

I nod and head back into the house thinking, ‘I’m extremely glad Dad called Honoka to come get me. There’s something seriously wrong with that man. I never would’ve thought that he would actually come after me.’ When I get to the top of the stairs, I call out, “Lt. Aoki, I’m sorry to interrupt, but would you mind coming up here for a minute. We have a problem.”

“Sure Sora, your Dad and I will be right up. We’re preparing to leave anyway.”

“Thank you.” I reply and head back outside to wait with Honoka.

I stop upon reaching the doorway when I see him flat on his back staring daggers at Honoka. His expression says he wants to kill her. He seems to be one of those that never learns from their mistakes. I shake my head sadly wondering how people like him ever make it through life. I’m very sure if he keeps this up he’ll in up in prison.

She tells him, “Stay down this time. I don’t really want to hurt you, but I’ll do it if you force me to,” sounding as if she was trying to reason with a two year old.

I tell her, “Honoka, from where you’re standing he can see up your dress.” She nods and takes a couple of steps away from him without taking her eyes off of him.

I imagine this is going to be a rather large blow to his ego. A cute girl easily 10 centimeters shorter than him and probably half of his weight doing this to him without even messing up her hair. Hindsight is 20/20, but I should’ve never said a word to him and simply gone back to the house. Of course, that’s assuming he would’ve let us do that and that doesn’t seem all that likely with his attitude when we walked out of the house.

“What’s up Sora?” Lt. Aoki asks as he exits the basement door behind me. I look at him over my shoulder and gesture to Honoka and Abe. He looks at the scene when he reaches the door and sighs.

He mutters, “I knew he was dumb, but I never thought he was an idiot.” He then looks at me to ask, “What happened Sora?”

“Umm. I’m don’t want to repeat what he said since it’s rather vulgar, but suffice it to say he blames me for him getting into trouble downstairs. When I explained that it was his own actions that caused the incident, he made some more vulgar remarks. He made me angry with what he called me, so I wasn’t exactly polite in how I spoke to him. I told him he needed to learn how to control himself, learn some people skills, and grow up. He then decided to teach me a lesson and came after me. One of the other officers grabbed his arm to stop him, but he shook them off. Honoka stopped him and apparently she had to do it more than once. Oh, he’s a pervert to boot. He was looking up her dress as well.”

He looks at the other officers for confirmation and several of them nod. Lt Aoki shakes his head and sighs loudly. “Abe, you had best hope that Ms. Ikeda isn’t fertile or you just signed your own death warrant.” Abe’s face drains of all color and he looks terrified. “Sora, he didn’t lay a hand on you, did he?”

I shake my head. “No, Honoka pushed me behind her when he came toward us.”

Honoka looks over her shoulder at Lt. Aoki and says, “Lucky for him I’m not. Regardless of that, this type of person shouldn’t be a police officer.” She turns back to look at Abe. “As for you, Sora is right, you need to learn to control yourself. Counseling wouldn’t hurt either. That being said, once they fire you for this, if I see you anywhere remotely near Sora again I won’t simply knock you on your ass.”

“Ms. Ikeda, do you want to press charges against him?” Lt. Aoki asks her.

She looks over her shoulder at Lt. Aoki again as she replies, “That’s probably not a bad idea since they would force him to get counseling in prison before he could be released. He damn sure needs it or he’s eventually going to kill someone, but no, I don’t. He isn’t worth the time that it would take me away from Sora. I doubt this taught him anything, but let’s hope it has.”

She looks down at Abe. “You’re lucky it was me and not her father, he would’ve beaten you senseless for talking to Sora that way, but we both know that’s why you did it. You thought you could get away with it because we’re girls.” She holds her hand out to me and says sweetly, “Come along Sora, we’ve wasted enough time, let’s go home.”

After I take her hand and we’re outside the gate heading home, I hear Lt. Aoki’s voice float over the wall saying, “Damn Eiji, that’s some woman. Remind me not to piss her off. Honda, Kato, pick up that piece of shit and throw him in a van. Abe, you’re one lucky son of a bitch, but you won’t think you are for long when we get back to the department.”

“I’m sorry Honoka. If I hadn't said anything to him that wouldn't have happened.”

“Don’t apologize Sora. You didn’t do or say anything I wouldn't have, and to be honest, you said it much more politely than I would have. Even if we simply tried to ignore him and walk past him, it still would’ve happened. He was blaming you for whatever happened downstairs.”

“He was rude to me downstairs. He took the computer I was using and told me ‘Little girls should be at home playing with dolls.’ Needless to say, I didn’t react very well to that.”

She chuckles. “No, I don’t imagine you did, and I don’t blame you in the least. When I first joined the JSDF there were several people in my training unit just like him. Anytime they would fail or get into trouble, they would try to blame others instead of facing their own shortcomings and correcting them.”

“Umm, Honoka?”

“Yes, Sora?”

“Would you teach me how to defend myself? I know I still have to gain my strength back before you can, but would you please?”

She stops, turns to look at me while I look up at her and she asks me, “Can you tell me why, Sora?”

“You aren’t always going to be right next to me and there are lots of people just like him out there. If something happens without you right next to me, then what do I do? Even assuming I can get the emergency signal out, it will take time for them to respond to it.”

I pause for a moment as sigh, then continue, “I found out the hard way that a lot can happen in a very short period of time. I’d like to be able to at least slow someone down who wants to hurt me until help can come. When those men attacked the house what happened in the kitchen took less than a minute. A minute seems like a very long time when someone is trying to hurt you.”

I sigh loudly while grimacing, and then continue, “Honestly Honoka, I hate the very idea of learning to fight. I abhor violence, but being the subject of so much bullying in school and those men attacking the house has taught me something. If you can’t defend yourself and the people you love, then you’re at the mercy of those who have no qualms against using violence.”

She pulls me against her to hug me and then tells me, “Good answer. Alright, I’ll teach you.” She kisses the crown of my head. “Come on Sora, let’s go home.” She takes my hand again and we make our way back to the house.

When we open the door, I see Chinatsu standing there with her arms crossed and looking upset.

“Hi Chinatsu. We’re home.” I tell her.

“Don’t you ‘Hi’ me, we have something we need to talk about.” She snaps at me and grabs my arm to pull on me.

“Chinatsu, wait a second, at least let me take my shoes off.” She releases my arm, but continues to glare at me while I take off my shoes. Once I have, she grabs my arm again and pulls me upstairs to my room. She pushes me ahead of her through the door, locking it when we are inside.

She turns to face me, her eyes flashing angrily. “Don’t you ever leave me behind again! I’ve done nothing but worry and imagine all kinds of horrible things the whole time you were gone!” She yells at me and crosses her arms while glaring at me again.

“I know Chinatsu. I knew you would when I decided to make you stay here. If I had taken you with us I would’ve gotten nothing done because I would’ve been watching you the whole time.”

She starts to interrupt me. “No, damn it! I let you have your say without interrupting you! You’ll give me the same courtesy of letting me finish as well!” I snap at her hotly while her eyes widen in surprise. Perfectly understandable since I don’t usually talk that way to her.

I take a breath and slowly let it out to calm myself somewhat. “You can be angry at me all you want, but I’ll never, ever take a chance of taking you to a place where something could happen to you. I let you have your way in most things, but I love you far too much to take that kind of chance. So, you can be mad at me, you can even hate me if you must, but it’s not going to change my position.”

I take her hands in mine while looking into her eyes, pleading with her to understand as I continue, “I have no faith in my ability to live without you. If something happened to you, I couldn’t take it. I’ll repeat myself again. No matter how angry you are, or how much you might hate me for doing it, I’ll never take you somewhere where something could happen to you. If something happened to you, it would destroy me. So, what am I to do? Put the person I love the most in the world at risk merely so she won't be separated from me? That’s never going to happen. I would willingly suffer through the most painful, gruesome death there is a thousand times over rather than take a chance of something happening to you... There, I’ve had my say, you can resume yelling at me all you want now.”

After I let go of her hands and turn around to go sit down on my bed, she slips her arms around my waist and pulls me back against her.

“I’m sorry Sora. I know you did it to protect me, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. The fact is, I simply don’t like being separated from you. I’ve always hated being apart from you. I guess that makes me a clingy bitch. You know that what you said goes both ways, right? If something happened to you, it would kill me. I love and need you Sora, that’s the end all, be all of it. That’s true whether you’re my girlfriend or my sister.”

I turn around in her arms to look at her. “Chinatsu, you aren’t a bitch and you can always be as clingy as you want with me. I love it when you touch me.” I touch my lips with a finger. “These are yours.” I lean in to kiss her for a moment, then take one of her hands and move it to my right breast. ”These are yours too.” I move her hand down to my ‘special place.’ “This is yours as well.” Then I move her hand to over my heart. “There isn’t one single part of me that doesn’t belong to you, especially my heart. Can you feel how fast you make it beat just by being close to you? I love you Chinatsu.”

“I love you too Sora.” She melts against me, holding me tightly against her.

“Do you feel better now?”

“Mhmm. I’m sorry I yelled at you.” She says quietly.

“Don’t worry about that. If you didn’t care about me you wouldn't have gotten upset.”

“Sora?”

“Hmm?”

“I wish I could have your baby.”

“You know that’s actually possible don't you?”

“Huh? Really?”

“Yep. Really. They’ve been able to do that since 2021. It’s simply a lot easier now since nanotechnology was developed.”

“I didn’t know that. Well that makes it easier, then would you have a baby with me?”

I chuckle. “Don’t you think we ought to wait till we’re a little older? Mama and Dad accept our relationship, but I'm pretty sure they would get very upset if we get pregnant at thirteen.”

She giggles. “I wasn't talking right this minute silly. I meant when we are older.”

“I figured that’s what you meant. I was just teasing you, but to answer your question, yes. If you still want to when we are old enough, I’d love to.”

“Sora, if they can do it that way, why do they make us get married then?”

“Because two women will always have girls as children. If you mean why don't they just fertilize our eggs with whatever genetic material they want, I would hazard a guess that it’s because there would be hell to pay if they tried to do it. That would basically be making all fertile women slaves in that respect. I know I wouldn’t stand for it. I’d rather kill myself than let them do that to me.”

“I know you’re talking hypothetically, but don’t say things like that.”

“Sorry Chinatsu, I know you hate it when I do.”

“Sora, I meant it, I want to have your baby. I won’t change my mind.”

“I know. I just hope she’s as beautiful as you are.”

“Sora?”

“Hmm?”

“Make love to me please, but leave the lights on. I want to be able to see you.”