Sympathy for the Delinquent [Hayley]

Sean gave the adolescent girl a sideways look and shrugged. Despite his imposing appearance, he was one of the chillest bouncers in town. He winked at Darren, who answered with his eternal dumb smile before he diverted his attention to his new-month-old friend. She still talked like a delinquent as she took her seat, and he still thought that’s what the girl was and more importantly, why she could fight like she did last time. When she said she was into anything with an electric guitar, he smiled wider and offered his left first for a bump.

“60’s, 70’s and 80’s is my shit. Damn, that shit's a century old now.” When she asked about his school, he stretched his arms out front, cracking his knuckles. He was clearly remembering good memories. “Let’s see. I kicked some cardboard ass, played a game of dodgeball soccer tennis, fought a Mister Freeze human ice box type of dude, ate a big-ass burger with a promiscuous redhead, taught a wildling how to send memes in the class chat, got splashed by some Evian-ass girl when I came back from a fight at midnight, ate lunch on the roof -- by the way, people have a problem with wearing shirts at this school, I swear -- and... I think that’s the highlights.” He turned his head towards the crazy rock chick, ignoring the multitude of questions this short recollection of his first month in school was bound to raise. “What about you, Bee Gee?”

For once, Darren was dressed somewhat nice, as he knew the bar was too classy for his delinquent ass. Emphasis on ‘somewhat’: the bar wasn’t that classy, he just had a tendency to dress like a hobo. He was wearing a year-old brown leather jacket which was starting to tear at the sleeves’ openings on top of an equally old t-shirt, which used to be white but now had a patch of light pink across the torso. The outfit was completed with a pair of jeans ripped at the right knee and a pair of leather boots of the same brown as his jacket. Living alone with his mother, he sometimes did his own laundry, which consisted of shoving all his dirty clothes in a drum, press start, forget to add the detergent, add it while the machine was running, remembering he forgot to add the color-absorbant sheet as well, throwing everything on the rack haphazardly, realizing his shirt was now of a pale pink from shoulder to belly, and deciding to pass it off as a fashion statement.

It barely showed under natural light, but as the bar’s lighting dimmed and switched to black lights to welcome the band on stage, his formerly white shirt was now almost fluorescent and his laundry mishap very obvious. Darren was blissfully unaware. The performers were dressed like the early 70’s Stones, with appropriate outfits.

“Check out the singer, dude sings like a bitch in heat. Or, yknow, like Mick Jagger,” he joked with the same idiotic smile he seemingly always had on around Hayley. She was easy to be around, and Darren could relax and be his idiotic self around her without having to force it, unlike with some girls at school.

It helped that Darren had no desire to stick it in a human beehive.

Bee Gee listened to him quite intently, despite her best efforts to hide it, which only served to make him even prouder of all the shit he got himself into. Hell, half of that he wasn’t supposed to do at school.

When she began talking about himself, there was a noticeable shift for half a second. She tried to play it with a shrug and an “I’ve been around”, but he could tell something was going on here. He squinted his eyes at her for a second, and doing so brought a memory for last month. He’d done exactly the same when she told him she “didn’t need” hero school. Most people said they didn’t want it, rather.

He shrugged. “You’ll tell me all the juicy details,” he added with a smile when she said she’d been in a few fights. Luckily for the rock chick, he was a delinquent and he assumed she was the same. Hell, she looked very much the part in khaki and combat boots. Maybe she meant that she got all the adrenaline she needed from bar fights.

She then addressed a certain Gerald. “Who the fuck is -- Oh.” Apparently, she named her bees. The beehive girl grabbed it ever so casually and pulled it back inside her hand, which was certainly rather creepy, but then again, Darren was a student of UA. He was used to seeing creepy quirks on a daily basis.

Plus, his subconscious couldn’t be kept from toying with the possibilities more holes offered, before his brain slapped him on the back of the head with a rolled-up newspaper -- Darren’s mind is a strange, confusing place -- and reminded him there are fucking bees in here.

But she just said they only sting when she told them to, protested his subconscious. We already discussed that we’re not sticking it in a human beehive, answered the brain.

I warned you, it's a strange place.

He could only give her an uncomfortable smile when she explained they like to walk about. He was looking for something to say, anything, but then the band came on stage and he could make his dumb joke, which to his relief made her snicker. They were still sitting on the barstools when the band started playing Jumpin’ Jack Flash.




That’s when he spied in the corner of his eye a free booth. It was one of those booths with a leather seat against the wall and a small table in the middle, originally meant for couples wanting to snug on the seats. Right now, though, it was the only seats available and the lumbar support they offered had the barstools beat, so he hopped off his seat. He showed her where he was headed with a nod and grabbed her forearm to lead her here, as oblivious to the girl’s rosy cheeks as he was to his shirt. Once they’d be seated, he’d order another coke -- the golden rule ‘don’t order carbonated drinks when you’re out with a girl’ was completely lost on him, ask her what she wants and keep up with his idiotic jokes.

“So, how do you tell Gerald from the others? Hell, was he trying to break free earlier?” He looked at her with a jokingly forced look of suspicion on his face. “Are they here against their will?” he said with his eternally dumb smile, grabbing her hand to show her the hole.

Despite the lights, or lack thereof rather, the girl’s embarrassment was beginning to show, in the words she used, in her attitude. Darren was getting curious. It didn’t seem like her, what with the bar fighting and all. He listened to her explanation with his eyes wide open, staring at her.

“So… You’re a beehive?” A stupid question came to his mind, was immediately transferred to the lips. “Do you… Make honey?” Of course, his dumb ass had no idea if hornets made honey or not. He just called any stringing yellow insect a bee. Biology was not his favorite subject at school.

The mental image of the inside of her body being a beehive gave Darren’s imagination some wild ideas. He shook his head to shake those thoughts. He knew how likely he was to say something stupid when he was being careless, so he decided to change the topic. Hayley was talking about quirks, so he went with that. He remarked that she looked embarrassed when talking about her quirk.

“Tell me about it,” he answered, “I can black myself out or even make my fucking brain explode with my own blood if i use mine like an idiot.” He shrugged. “The principal at my school says it’s like everyone’s got a gun on them. I’m beginning to think he’s right.” He made a finger gun with his right hand, closed his left eyes, shot at nothing. “And you can damn well shoot yourself in the foot.” He turned to Hayley again, scratched his head, grinned like an idiot. “Hey, you’re lucky, at least you don’t risk blowing your fucking head off,” he said on a light tone.

The band was playing Gimme Shelter now. Darren stretched and slouched in the seat, changed the topic again. “So tell me, Bee Gee, why do you fight?”

To the delinquent, it was an innocuous question. He simply assumed Hayley was the same, a fight nut delinquent like him. It never even crossed his mind that the girl might have been a vigilante on the down low.

Uncharacteristically, Darren looked very serious for once, holding his chin like he thinking man he most definitely was not, looking directly into Hayley’s eyes, nodding from time to time with the palpable intention to look smart. It worked only passably. It was impossible to tell whether or not he was acting to take the piss or if he was just an idiot. The man himself probably couldn’t tell either.

In any case, it looked like he was listening very attentively to Hayley’s lecture about hornets, even though he would forget it about twenty-six seconds later, give or take a couple seconds. He asked one more stupid question.

“Do you even have organs? Or is it just all beehive?”

Subtly, without anyone noticing, a part of Darren’s brain had managed to take control and was now running his mouth, which is something he usually did anyway. It was a part of Darren that was a little too interested in Hayley’s insides. A part of Darren’s brain who had been denied earlier, who had been told that a beehive was no place to poke at with a stick.

It was quickly subdued. The rest of Darren’s brain were still adamantly against the idea, though Darren’s curiosity was getting interested. The politics of Darren’s brain in the foreseeable future were about to get rather complicated. Again.

This is adolescence, after all.

Afterwards, the conversation drifted on to fighting. Hayley had a very serious expression for a second before relaxing. Darren’s eyes narrowed again. He remarked to himself he often narrowed his eyes around Hayley. That girl is shifty, he thought. He couldn’t put his finger on what exactly, so he irresponsibly shrugged it off. Most of his friends had been delinquents, after all, and he was pretty sure he went to a yakuza's house once while accompanying a friend to see his father. Darren liked shifty. The boy was very shifty himself.

“I like punching people,” he answered, blunt as truth, looking at Hayley with a smile on his face. It was a genuine smile, the kind you see on people who are thinking about the things they love. “Kicking is fun too,” he added with a much dumber grin. “Judo is okay. BJJ is wack,” he added crossing his arms and closing his eyes. He supported his statement with a sage nod. The effect he was going for was that of a wise martial arts master, although his leather jacket, blonde hair and the fact he got two minors into a bar didn’t really sell it. As a result, he looked like an idiot, and had a remarkable ability to make people wonder if he was doing it on purpose.

While his body language was justly subject to debate, his words however were as sincere as the cries of someone pleading for their lives at gunpoint. He was always serious about fighting, and he hated the ground grappling game for being boring and a little too homoerotic for his tastes. Instead, he preferred his treasured interactions with half-naked sweaty men to happen in a square ring.

Both sports involved a lot of hugging half naked sweaty muscled men anyway.

Darren imitated Hayley when she took a swig of her drink, but he was thirstier. It required a lot of lubrication to keep that smart mouth of his running 24/7 like it did. He was in the middle of his glass of Coke when Hayley told him she played guitar. He made a “mmmh!” sound and finished his drink quicker.

“Aaaah. That felt good. Shit, you play guitar? Can you play in a band? Cause I play bass, and I have a great idea,” he said. “See, there’s this girl in my school. The perfect boring normie girl, yknow? Always nice, everyone likes her, vanilla as fuck. You see the kind? Well, get this. I hear she works at a maid café. Not only is that funny in and of itself, but they’re hosting a music night. And she’s gonna sing in it. It’s gonna be that normie pop trash, guaranteed,” said the very judgemental blondie.

“Here’s the plan: we sign up, we say we’re some candy-ass pop-punk band. I got me a drummer, don’t worry. Hell, we can get you a pink wig to sell it.” His eyes were sparkling at this point. His mind was racing with ideas, all dumber than the previous one, all funnier. “And then, we get on stage, you throw the wig in the audience, we go ONE TWO THREE FOUR and we open with some Teen Spirit type of shit.” He was making himself laugh now. “Can you imagine their faces when them maid café nibbas hear distortion for the first time of their lives? It’s gonna be fucking glorious. You in?”

And just like that, Darren was roping Hayley into his shit again. The girl was soon to learn this was a usual pattern when interacting with Darren, and it was often best not to agree with what he asked you to do before asking a series of questions.