fandomhighdorms | Self-Defense Club, The Gym, Monday afternoon

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Self-Defense Club, The Gym, Monday afternoon

The punching bags were back, and Hoshi was already taking a few punches at one as she waited for everyone else. "Welcome back. I hope you guys had a better weekend than I did," said Hoshi with a frown.

"The best way to stay safe is to avoid situations where you might run into trouble, like areas with poor lighting or trying to walk home after dark by yourselves. And, for goodness sake, when the island gets invaded, you're better off staying in your safe location than taking a chance on the streets," said Hoshi, making eye contact with everyone in turn.

"That said, if you do run into trouble, you should aim to disable your opponent by striking certain points on the body, which are listed on the handout that I'll pass around," she continued. "Keep in mind that this should only be for self-defense. You shouldn't go around hitting people. We don't have any dummies to practice on today, so we'll be using the punching bags instead."

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For Cal, the most stretching it seemed that his legs were getting while he concentrated on his arms were what he got when he stretched out his foot to nudge Amber with his toe.

"Heeeeeey," she said, leaning forward to grab her foot, pressing her forehead to her knee.

"Hey," responded Cal with a grin, stretching an arm behind his back. "You survived the weekend in one piece, I see."

"Oh my gosh yah," she grinned and sat back up. "Ma and Loretta, they don't bother me much."

Amber checked him out. "You survived too, I see."

"Hey," Cal said, "only thing I was worried about was meeting your mom, and I would have considered anything short of a hook in the crotch as a success."

"Pfft, after meeting her you totally know now that you had nothing to worry about." Pause. "Okay, maybe your crotch but it's cool, right?"

"Well," Cal said, a teasing tone in his voice, "she didn't hate me, so..."

"Ma doesn't hate anyone besides Gladys Leeman, so you're good."

Amber stretched over her other leg. "What'd your ma think of me?"

If only the answer to that could be as easy.

"She liked you," Cal said, honestly. There was, of course, a lot more to it than that, but now wasn't exactly the time or place. "She thinks your cute and nice and all of that stuff."

"Cool. I didn't get a lot of time to talk to her," she said, eyeing him.

"Yeah, I guess I kind of...usurped all the time this weekend, but...I haven't seen her in a while and I know she just wanted to...With both me and my brother gone, and Dad passing away..."

Cal grew quiet, holding his position with his arm behind his head, stretching it out, and then he dropped it to his side.

"It was a real good weekend, just the two of us. Very...I don't know..Zen."

"Oh, I'm not begruding you your time with your ma, Cal," she told him, as if his explaining offended her.

"I'm glad you got your time with her. It's as it should be for Parents Weekend."

Cal frowned at Amber's tone. "It sounds like you're begrudging something," he said, although cautiously.

"No, I'm not. I just don't want you thinking I'm like that, you know? I'm anything but selfish, I think."

"I wasn't thinking that," Cal shrugging, reaching for his toes. "I just...covering all my bases. It was a real good weekend for me."

"Covering all your bases? What's that supposed to mean?" Amber only asked because she honestly didn't know what he meant by that.

"Well, you know," Cal shrugged awkwardly, "just in case you were mad at me for not spending much time with you this weekend. It's hard to tell sometimes."

"I wouldn't be mad over something like that," she told him. "I didn't realize I was mad at you so often that it made it difficult for you to tell."

"Well, it's just...sometimes...you know...things between us seemed strained, and it's like one of us doesn't realize it until it's too late."

Like now.

Except he knew that any strain this time came entirely from him, thinking too much and mulling over things that he just wasn't sure about yet.

Or, Cal realized, it could just all be in his head, and things were actually fine, and it was all him.

It was hard to tell sometimes.

"Oh."

Amber blinked, looked down at her lap. She knew what he was talking about and couldn't really act like she didn't.

"Is something on your mind?"

"...Kind of," Cal admitted. "But I don't want to talk about it here."

"Okay, then where, and when?" she asked. Obviously it was important and this was now bothering her. Great.

Cal stretched a moment longer, not really paying attention to what he was stretching, but, instead, just wondering how he kept doing crap like this. He just wanted to talk with Amber and have fun today, but he really did need to work on that whole wearing-your-emotions-on-your-sleeve thing.

"I don't know," he said. "It'll come up when it comes up."

"Okay, that's kind of crap, Cal," she said, but not really unkindly. "You have something to talk to me about but you're just going to let me worry until you get around to it?"

"You wanna talk about it now, in self-defense club?" Cal asked. "If it was anything to worry about, you think I'd put it off?"

Ignore the fact that the answer to that was a very resounding yes, of course he would. Cal Stephanides could put off anything if he tried hard enough.

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