"If you hadn't pulled out that spinning kick, I totally could have beat you!" I complained for the thousandth time, knowing Kaz wouldn't believe me.
"Um, that's called taekwondo? Extra points for a spinning kick. Duh," he explained sarcastically. I rolled my eyes and rubbed my side where he had hit me in response. Yep, that will be a bruise, I thought to myself.
Kaz and I were walking back from our Friday taekwondo class, both sweaty and gross from working out. Our master had wanted us to spar, and Kaz had won rock, paper, scissors, which meant he was guaranteed the first hit (per our unusual tradition... it's kind of a long story.) He kicked my ass.
We continued walking in the dark, content to disagree in comfortable silence. It wasn't a long walk; we usually made our way to our alley shortcut, then went our separate ways — him to his grandfather's house and me back to mine. I must have gotten lost in thought because Kaz jolted me back to reality by saying, "Hey, Mads, did we have AP Gov homework?"
I rolled my eyes again — I do that a lot with Kaz — and replied, "Yeah, a bunch. I guess it'll be a late night for you then, George." His name wasn't actually George of course, and my name isn't "Mads," it's Rose. Mads is Kaz's nickname for me. I've known Kaz since first grade, and one year we learned about James Madison in history. The old president was apparently very short and grumpy, so of course Kaz started referring to me as "Madison." Hey, I can't control being 5'1 when my best friend is 6'2. George Washington on the other hand, was tall and commanding, so (of course) he gave himself that president. I guess it just sort of stuck.
Kaz Kahana is my best friend, and I'm his. It all started on that fateful day in first grade when we were talking about what extracurriculars everyone does, and Kaz and I both said we do martial arts. It's been eleven years and we're still best friends. People don't usually understand how our relationship works for a lot of reasons. For one, Kaz is that guy. You know, the one that is tall, muscular, and handsome and who every girl would commit murder to be with. His wavy, dark hair is parted messily near the middle of his face (because he can't be bothered to do it any other way). Despite his lack of attention to it, his hair somehow always looks good. He is muscular -- I'll give him that -- as years of taekwondo have definitely made his figure easy on the eyes. Before you get any ideas, no, I am not swooning over this boy stood beside me. I am one of the only people that knows that underneath his rugged, athletic look, he is an idiot. He is just -- objectively -- handsome. He has dark brown eyes and a certain softness about the way he moves. It's as if despite his towering figure, he's worried he'll step on or harm even the tiniest bug. His famous, mischievous smirk rarely leaves his face, although sometimes I wish I could slap it off him. My opinions of Kaz overall? Definitely overrated. Moving on.
I consider myself to be super average. I'm not ugly, yet I'm no super model. I am short, but proportional. I find it weird to describe my own appearance, but I know that people often talk about my naturally curly hair. I consider it wavy, though. Some days, I wake up with perfect curls, other times, its just frizzy yet somehow straight at the same time. I can't be bothered to style it; I suppose Kaz and I have that in common. To give myself some credit, years of taekwondo have done well for my physique. But again, I am no supermodel. What else? Brown eyes. Nose I don't like. Size 8 shoe. Ugly hands (in my personal opinion). That's about it.
Socially, Kaz and I couldn't be more different. I have friends, I don't get teased, but I don't have the same cloud Kaz has following around him wherever he goes. People just naturally gravitate towards him. Ironically, for all the girls trying to get with him and guys wanting to be cool, you would think he acts conceited and confident. Actually, Kaz shuts every single one down and somehow still denies his conventional attractiveness.
He's what I call, "quiet when it's convenient," and I tease him a lot about it. See, he's not shy per se, but he doesn't generally talk to people he doesn't want to, save the sarcastic comment every few seconds under his breath. No one hears these comments except me and whoever's lucky enough to be right next to him. There's always a group of people laughing for seemingly no reason in his general area. I've gotten in trouble with teachers countless times for supposedly "laughing too much," but when I tell them it's Kaz's fault, they assume I'm lying. "That guy? The quiet one who gets straight A's and barely says a word in class? No way."
Then there's also, of course, the fact I'm a girl and he's boy. No matter what people assume about us, we aren't dating. We're just best friends. Although I suppose we never verbally established that we're just friends, I've always assumed it's just a given. Plus, how could someone like me be with someone like him? It obviously doesn't make sense. Those people just don't know what they're talking about.
I was once again snapped back from my thoughts by Kaz asking something else about our AP Government class. For the supposed genius of our high school, he sure does ask a lot of questions... I started to answer as we entered the alley, still oblivious to anything unusual.
"Yes, dummy, numbers 4 through 8 need to be done before tom-" Kaz threw up his hand up in a "Stop" motion. His face was deathly serious. I had more tact than to ask loudly what was going on, so I instead shot him a quizzical look. He mouthed only one word back in response: followed. Wordlessly, he moved so his back was to mine, his face still shrouded in the nighttime darkness.
We stood there for an eternity, our breath coming quicker as we readied for an attack. Maybe we should have been more scared, alone in an alley with someone following us. Then again, attacking two black-belts with fourteen years of martial arts experience is probably not the easiest target choice. The next part happened so fast at first I took a second to understand what was happening and the darkness only made things harder.
A man wearing an all-black uniform jumped out from the entrance to the alley and dashed towards us. He didn't appear to have any weapons, although the darkness and his loose clothing could be deceiving. Kaz and I had already silently agreed immediately running wasn't an option. We were in the exact middle of the alley and our shortcut was still too far away. Plus, we don't know how fast this guy is. Ideally, we could intercept him and make an opening to sprint for the dumpster that marked the passage to the back street and our respective houses.
Guess we're fighting, I thought, I can work with that. Time to put these martial arts skills to use. We decided all of this in the split second the man began his charge toward us. I took a ready stance, bouncing slightly on my feet. My hands came to their ready position in fists, ready to block a blow or, if necessary, deliver a punch. The adrenaline was already pumping. I could feel Kaz move to my side now that we knew the direction of our enemy. As the man closed within ten feet of us, Kaz suddenly dashed to the left. It was an extremely strange move — we had a better chance if we stayed close together. He knew that, so why did he suddenly dive away? I didn't have a chance to look at him or think about it because the man finally made it toward me.
His first punch was messy, as if he wasn't quite sure what he was doing. I easily dodged it. He regained balance and moved back. Instead of striking again, he whipped around toward Kaz. I looked up to see Kaz bending down and grabbing something. Had he found a potential weapon? A ray of moonlight caught Kaz's face as he looked around, his hand closing in around something long and thin off to the side of the alley. Despite the fact it was a dark night, he seemed to just glow there, as if the shadows were repelled by his eerie glow. Upon seeing his face and confidence, the man's whole demeanor changed. He went from reckless and distracted to extremely cautious.
That's when things got weird. I can assure you that in the moment I had absolutely no idea what was going on from this point forward. That has become sort of a trend, actually. The man didn't do what I thought he would, which was charge again, or even run. Instead, he put his hand to his belt and grasped something. It was on the other side of his body, so I could barely tell what it was, but slowly, he began to pull it out. As he did, it seemed to grow longer. I could now see he was... pulling out a sword? I was flabbergasted. That definitely had not been there a second ago; he didn't even have a sheath. Where was he getting a full-length sword from? It was like some kind of crazy magic trick.
Of course, his rabbit-out-of-a-hat trick was NOT what we should be worried about. It was the fact that he now had a weapon, and we didn't. Definitely not good. Before I could warn Kaz or even say anything, the attacker had drawn his sword and was moving toward Kaz. I took the chance to grab a large cracked brick I saw on the ground, waiting for a moment to throw it. One rule rule in martial arts — which sort of goes without saying — is if the other guy has a sword and you don't, do not attack. The brick didn't leave me with much, plus, I might hit Kaz. Was this the end? If he chose to strike Kaz, who was currently bent down, he might not be able to dodge because he had the low ground. But, if Kaz died here, this would be a pretty boring story.
That's when I found out what he had lunged for: a fallen tree branch on the side of the alley. Despite this being a a life-and-death situation, and despite my best friend possibly about to die, my only (very stupid) though was, If he dies, will I still have to help him with his homework? The man brought the sword down upon Kaz. With the reflexes of a trained swordsman, Kaz brought the branch up to block. Somehow, the man's sword shaved off the few little twigs that were stuck to it, leaving only the long thick part.
"Thanks, I was worried those would get in the way," Kaz said. Perhaps the only part about this that made sense was that even in the face of death, Kaz would make a sarcastic comment. He used the man's temporary shock at his parry and Spider-Man level quipage to pop up and... start attacking?? As far as I knew, he had never wielded a sword before. But here he was, striking with the speed and accuracy of a trained swordsman... using a stick. Our new alley friend had no choice but to go on the defensive. Kaz was turning the branch into a deadly weapon. They only exchanged a few blows before the man started to recover his senses. Yet still, Kaz held his ground. I was starting to feel optimistic at this point... but then another man in the same outfit as Mr. Invisible Sword dashed around the corner. Uh oh, I thought. While I still had my brick, I knew it wouldn't be smart to run practically unarmed into a sword fight. Although I'm no damsel in distress, I didn't have secret sword training, and those guys meant business. I thought it was all over until Kaz started taking them both on! Now, I was really shocked. How long has he been doing secret sword training? And how do I learn to do that?
Sensing the urgency of the moment, Kaz's speed and power increased further. Somehow, he seemed to just keep getting faster. My eyes must have adjusted better to the darkness because the alley seemed to be lit up a bit. Kaz was good — no, amazing — but the men had the actual swords. After blocking a particularly harsh blow towards his head, Kaz risked a glance to me.
"Uh, this branch isn't gonna hold if I hit any harder." I understood exactly what he meant. He kept a cool tone, although I could sense that his voice now carried a nervous edge. I couldn't ask more because they were on him again. How was I supposed to know what would make a good sword? He's the one with the apparent secret training. I dashed to the nearest house and scanned for anything useful. I saw it. A metal broom. Perfect! I sprinted forward to it and knocked off the bristle part. My hand closed around its cool metal surface as I pulled it towards me. I silently apologized to the people living in the house, thinking, if we survive this, I'll buy you a new broom. I ran it back to Kaz, who had led the battle so that the two men were on the opposite side of him as I was. Dang, I thought, he's really good if he can even control their positions. Who the heck taught him this? I held up the broomstick so he could see, silently saying, This good? He nodded his head in approval. With his approval, I tossed the broom into the air. In one swift motion, he dropped the stick, grabbed the branch, and parried a blow from Mystery Guy #2 without even blinking. Damn, he was good.
"Now that's more like it,” Kaz growled. Well, I thought dumbly to myself, this was not what I was expecting when I woke up this morning…
