Sticky hands

Waiting for the black-haired girl, Darren looked at memes on his phone, scrolling through his favorite pages through surrealistic images splattered with text that teetered right on the edge of nonsense, without fully making the plunge, captioned sport events commenting on recent news, and a disturbing amount of images that could only be described as cursed.

He figured he should start stretching a little. After liking a funny picture of a dog with motion blur, he threw his phone back in his sports bag, zipped it closed and threw it to the ground. He crossed his left forearm over his right triceps, did the same the other way, stretching his pectoral muscles, and then his back by putting his hands over his head and pushing up an imaginary ceiling.

When Rin arrived, panting, Darren was stretching his palm outwards with his other hand, and when the girl essentially told him to get this over with, he answered, shaking his hands to stretch his wrists at the same time: “Damn. You find him that scary? I’d say we can pretend like we did it, but with that hardass, he’s probably gonna test you or something. You know he damn fucking well would do it too.”

He cracked his neck, rolling his head back and forth and from side to side. “At least you’re warmed up, I guess. You can lose the lab coat, though. This ain’t the infirmary shift,” he commented with a grin. “Alright, follow me.”

The delinquent lead her to a tatami area the army put together. There were other people on the mat, which was large enough to accomodate everyone, regular civilians practicing judo with the soldiers, privates sparring with each other, and now, two U.A. students who didn’t like each other on an improvised martial arts lesson.

“Mind the others on the mat. Can’t fight for shit if you can’t keep track of your surroundings anyway, it’s good practice.” He stepped on the mat casually after having removed his shoes; dressed in a loose jogging and a Clash t-shirt, he didn’t need to change either. “You can salute the tatami if you’re into that traditional shit. Supposed to thank it for softening the landing when you fall on your ass. I don’t think the mat minds much, but thanks anyway, tatami-san.” He bowed with an exaggerated manner, thinking himself the funniest man in the world.

“Anyway, enough bullshit, we gotta job to do. Hit me,” he said casually. “Don’t worry, I can take it. Just hit me however you want.” He grinned. “Bet you’re dying to, eh?” It was only a hunch, but he knew the studious type tended to hate his type. Plus, the whole evil overlord thing, which the school had been made well aware of thanks to Alex ranting about it in the class chat 24/7. There was that too.

The shit-eating grin he was wearing probably helped, too.

Darren’s eyebrows jumped a centimeter or two when the girl told him what she thought about the principal. “Wheee, you really ain’t like that dude. P.E. class killing you that much? The key is to run on the weekends,” he said cheerfully, missing the point by a mile, blissfully unaware of what had happened with Nick and the principal's rather lackluster response.

One thing he soon realized is he was very much as odds with the Rin in front of him. To his relaxed cheerful persona, she answered with cold professionalism. From what little he gathered occasionally crossing her path at school, she was the perfect class president type, always carrying important official papers from place to place and spending the rest of her free time in the infirmary, or so it seemed to him at least. Now that he thought of it, he had no recollection of seeing Rin ever enjoy herself. She was always working for others.

What a life, Darren thought. He had to admit he was a little curious. He liked to analyze people, when he wasn’t training, fighting or looking at memes on his phone, and Rin was a rather interesting case. Devotion was her defining trait, it seemed to him, and it was an emotion the psychopathic teenager had trouble understanding, as it was often driven by guilt or a sense of duty, two other emotions he lacked.

When he suggested that she must be dying to punch him, she answered carefully, making sure to point out that when she was doing violence, it was a selfless act of protection. Darren couldn’t help but chuckle, almost as a reflex. “Bullshit,” he said. “Everyone get that feeling in their gut when they manage to hit their opponent just right. It strokes your ego. Winning a fight, passing a test, curing a patient, it’s all the same shit. You can’t tell me it doesn’t make you feel good about yourself. You can’t tell me you’re not doing it, even just a little bit, for yourself.”

He shrugged. “That being said, I don’t give a flying fuck why you do things. You do you, as they say. Anyway, less talk-talk, more punch-punch. Show me what you got.”

He meant to give himself a second to assess Rin’s stance, but the girl didn’t give him time for that. Her bandaged left fist suddenly got bigger and closer, causing his eyebrows to jump up once again and his reflexes to kick in. A single blue spark fizzled on his hand as he reflexively used a small activation of his quirk to shoot it up and in front of his face, comfortably catching the 1-A class president’s fist in his palm. “Hot damn,” he said.

The activation of his quirk hadn’t been really necessary, but she startled him enough that his reflexes took over. It was a light jab, but the punch was clearly heavy with emotion. Frustration, maybe a feeling of powerlessness, definitely some killing intent: holding her fist and staring at Rin, this is what Darren read in this punch. He smiled.

“Not bad! I was 'fraid I’d have to go on that whole spiel about not being afraid to hit people like I had to do to Kutsu. Glad that’s out of the window.” He was still holding her fist in the palm of his hand, his grip relaxed enough that he wasn’t grinding her bones into fine powder, but tight enough to make it clear he wasn’t letting go either. He shook her fist a little as he walked around her arm to get a better look at her shoulder. “I see your arm is relaxed too, which is good, but your shoulder is stiffer than Cian-sensei’s mannequins. It should roll into the jab, and when you make contact, you contract everything, and then you relax everything and pull your arm back in guard. It’s called a snapping punch. Don’t lag behind, or you’ll get caught just like that.”

He finally let go of her fist, allowing her a moment to try it out. “All relaxed, remember. Snap when you hit. Like snapping a wet towel, only your first is the towel. And then pull back.” He held a palm in front of him. “Punch here like I told ya. If I catch you before you pull back, try again. If I say it wasn’t strong enough, try again. When you pull back your fist, pull it all the way back so that you touch your cheek. Your stance ain't matter much for jabbing, but you should have your left foot forward and the right one back at a 45 degrees angle. That shit is universal, you see that in every martial art, so you better get the habit right now.”

The delinquent’s face was for once rather neutral. It wasn’t the first time he taught someone this shit, and he had it down to a kind of routine by now. All he hoped for was that Rin would pick up on it quick enough that the principal would be satisfied, and it didn’t land their asses in trouble. “We’ll try some defense next, but first you gotta get that relaxed arm thing down or we ain’t gettin’ nowhere. You can’t defend for shit if you’re all tensed up like an asshole in a gay bar.”

Rin was surprisingly lively. As soon as he let go of her hand, she resumed her pursuit of the first objective, like a machine. Darren again quirked his eyebrows when he caught a second punch, parried a third, swayed away from a fourth as he continued his explanations, a smile growing on his face. It wouldn’t be as boring as he thought, all things considered.

His eyes kept looking the girl up and down as she threw her jab again and again. For a beginner, her arm, shoulder and wrist were relaxed enough, but everything below the shoulder needed work, from the angle of the midsection to the foot stance and distance management. However, the delinquent knew all of that could only be improved with hours and hours of practice, hours and hours that they should have had but now didn’t as they both slacked.

They now had to do what every high school student once did: cramming for a test the day before it’s due, condensing weeks of knowledge into a serviceable understanding that could be demonstrated well enough to get passing marks.

“Correct,” he answered to her praise of his abilities, his face lighting up not unlike a dog raised his ears when you called him a good boy. “At least you’re pretty sharp, and you don’t look too tired. I think we can work something here.” She waved her left hand, informing him it was her leading hand. “Okay, then reverse everything. Simple as that. It’s called a southpaw in boxing.”

She then mentioned her lack of strength, making the delinquent flash to his fight against Jasmine, and the subsequently increased amount of time he spent lifting increasingly heavy weights in the gym room at school since then.“Well, the point of martial arts is pretty much to beat up someone stronger than you physically. The whole David and Goliath business, yknow. Counters, feints, footwork, all that shit doesn’t depend on strength. Then you have judo, where they keep telling you over and over it’s all about using the strength of your opponent.”

He shrugged. “I won’t lie, that shit is only half-true. Strength is a big help when you’re trying to throw somebody, and it’s definitely a good thing if your punches are worth ten of the opponent’s own. There’s a reason the likes of me and Jasmine spend so much time in the weight room at school. But you don’t have to be completely defenseless, even if you’re weaker than your opponent, physically I mean. Again, that’s the whole point of martial arts.”

Surprisingly, Darren was speaking in a rather patient manner when he explained the theory, compared to the much more boisterous tone he usually employed. Rin was seeing a side of the delinquent that Kutsu had seen a few days earlier, and the entire martial arts club as well: the side of Darren that was happy to talk about his passion and share it with anyone who asked. From the way he spoke about it to the sparkle in his eye, it would be clear to Rinkusu Kurama that she was talking with a proper fight nut.

“Anyway, enough talk. I have a good idea for what we’ll do next. Sticky hands!” he exclaimed with a smile, knowing perfectly well how it sounded. “It’s a big thing in Wing Chun. It’s a form of kung-fu invented by a small Chinese lady, so it ain’t based on physique. The idea is that you touch wrists, and from there you practice trying to hit each other. Eventually, they do it blindfolded.” While he was speaking, he stepped in range and demonstrated. From the close range position, with the wrists in contact, even someone unfamiliar with martial arts would feel the incredible kinetic sense you got for what your opponent was going to do.

He first just pushed and pulled in every direction from the outside -- meaning Rin’s wrists were between his and her centerline -- and instructing her to resist so she would get a feel for the sensation, but he suddenly twisted his hands around her wrists to put his fist on the inside, and from here jabbed once with each hand in quick succession, his fists rolling over each other, stopping an inch from her face, hopefully enough to make her flinch without actually hitting her.

Far from mercy, Darren did that to prove a point, as he immediately grabbed her collar afterward and stepped in to trip her with his right foot as he gave her a hint of a punch, barely putting a tenth of his strength here. When expecting to be hit in the face, people tended to recoil, and that was what the technique banked on. If the opponent was on the back foot, then it was easy to trip them without using a lot of force. Should his attempt work, he’d control her fall by grabbing one of her arms firmly and help her get up as he would anyone else, with a rough pull.

“Eventually, it leads to that. You try now.” He would then offer his wrists in a loose guard for the girl to experiment with. He wouldn’t fall on purpose, however, and instead would nitpick on the raven-haired 1-A class president’s attack, correcting every detail of her stance, moves and timing as she attempted them. While a patient teacher, the delinquent was also unreasonably exigent with beginners, believing in the “throw the kid in the water so he has to learn to swim” approach to teaching wholeheartedly.

The delinquent smiled. It seemed they reached the same conclusion, which was a good sign. At least he didn’t need to sell it, especially since he was very much under the impression that anything he sold, Rin wouldn’t buy.

Their little practice ended with the girl flat on her ass, as Darren expected, but she didn’t make a scene of getting up and at it again. Rin was easy to work with, she listened to instructions and she applied herself, and it seemed that as long as she had a drive to do something, she would try her best. As a reward, Darren helped her up.

They quickly got to practicing the sticky hands again, and in the middle of their practice she raised a question. “Well, yeah. That’s the point. If you’re weaker than someone, you wanna best them somewhere else. Speed or technique allow you to make use of your opponent’s strength against them.” His smile got a little more devious. “Though it only works if your opponent has worst technique than yours.”

With that, he continued giving her instructions as he pushed and pulled, showing her techniques to get around a guard, to defend a punch and the basics of proper footwork. “You want to be light on your feet and always keep moving. The instant you stop to think, you’re dead. It goes for your head too. You want to think light and on your feet.” Sometimes, it made little sense to anyone but himself.

They did that for a while, until Rin had to run off to another engagement. He tried stopping her -- afraid she didn’t learn enough to keep the principal’s wrath way from the both of them -- but it was apparently more important. As such, the delinquent found himself alone on the tatamis, feeling a little stupid.

It passed quickly once he found a soldier to spar with. A fight was just the pick-me-up that the delinquent needed, as was often the case.