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 Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 11:12 pm
Question asked or not, Reiki might’ve been content to let Demeter fiddle with her skirt as necessary. Sometimes, people just needed to soothe themselves in these little ways, whether that meant fiddling with your skirt, pacing around a dingy basement while dragging Reiki behind you by his fuku’s collar, or, like Reiki’s middle sister Hinami, trying to lift more than Reiki did even at risk of hurting herself just because she needed to feel Accomplished and had never entirely grown out of measuring accomplishments in units of Beating My Brothers. Decent people just didn’t act like dicks about people’s self-soothing gestures.
They just didn’t.
Thankfully, he’d made a safe bet on Miss Deme’s pop-culture knowledge, and met her memory of the movie with a grin. “It’s nose, not knee—but both are actually good points of reference here,” Reiki explained. As he went on, he gestured at the relevant locations on his body. “Your solar plexus is actually a pretty complicated specific location? But for our purposes, just think anywhere in and around the upper stomach region. Hitting the stomach itself is generally pretty okay; it’s sensitive there, and even people with great abs won’t pull them taut all the time. But the higher up you go, the closer you get to the diaphragm, which can knock the wind out of someone. Gives you a solid advantage.
“The instep—that’s just like Sandra Bullock showed off in the movie. Stomp on someone’s feet and you can make a serious mess for them. Feet are full of bones, tendons, and nerves. They’re sensitive and very easy to disrupt. The nose is a similar story; there are a lot of nerve endings in the nose. Plus, it’s easier to break than a lot of people think. But even if you don’t break it, getting someone in the nose with your elbow, palm, or knee? Can really mess them up good. The knee like you said? Is really easy to mess up, too. Trust me; I do all kinds of knee-intensive stunts in my non-senshi job and there are a million ways to mess up someone’s knee. Use the side of your foot? Get someone in that little cleft in the back of the knee? And it can be an instant David and Goliath situation.
“And the groin—well.” Reiki shrugged, with a bashful grin. “Whatever someone has in their pants, it’s sensitive down there. And in a fight, you don’t wanna be honorable. There’s no way of guaranteeing that anyone who starts a fight with you will play fair, so do not be afraid to knee someone in the crotch if it gets you out of danger faster. You also want to stay aware of your surroundings, because if need be? Almost anything can be a weapon.”
He paused to reach into his subspace, and pulled out a cast iron frying pan. “I can’t let you keep this, since I have to give it back to my brother later? But…” Reiki held it out toward her. “What do you think you can do with this, sweetie?”
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2023 7:47 pm
Demeter refocused, nodding as she listened to him, touching the parts of her own body (well, MOSTLY) to help her keep it in her memory bank with something tactile. Okay, cool. Made sense. Then, when the frying pan came out, all sense left Demeter's body in favor of going RAPUNZEL!!!! and she snatched it from him, immediately swinging it and clocking Murikabushi across the face. Once she realized she'd broken his glasses, however, she let out a terrified little meep and froze.
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Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2023 12:36 am
—Okay, well, Reiki had walked right into that.
He didn’t even have time to flinch before the frying pan whacked him in the face because………well, he had walked right into it by asking her what she could do with a frying pan. The crack…… Okay, his nose kinda stung? But thankfully, the CRACK! only sounded like plastic.…… Letting his glasses drop to the ground, Reiki took a moment to gently prod around his cheeks and eyes.
……Okay, no aches in his cheeks. No shattered fragments of his glasses left behind. Even with him squinting and trying very hard to focus, Reiki’s astigmatism barely let him see Demeter clearly. “My glasses, my glasses,” he deadpanned, reaching into his subspace pocket. “Oh, Daphne, you know I can’t see a thing without my glasses……”
Fortunately, he had a hard plastic case, in which he kept a backup pair. Once he slipped them on, Reiki crouched down to pick up the broken pair. “Please don’t worry about this too much, okay, sweetie? They’re still covered under warranty, so like……” He shrugged. Damn, Demeter’s whack! with the frying pan had split them in a jagged half, right down the middle of the nose-piece, which could’ve been a lot worse. Or, well, the fractured lenses were pretty bad, Reiki guessed, but if not for that, Reiki probably could’ve hot-glued these back together without too much difficulty. “I’ll just lie about how my sister ran them over with a car or something, it’ll be fine.”
Looking up at her with a smile he hoped was reassuring, Reiki told Demeter, “A+ for use of improvised weapons, by the way. You’re doing all the badass bisexuals who fought for our liberation at Stonewall proud.”
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Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2023 12:40 am
Oh, no. Ohhhh gosh. She'd totally just—she winced, fretting over him and dropping the pan as she held up her hands uselessly, not sure what to do. He seemed really unconcerned, so... ? Good sign? Or maybe bad sign and he had a concussion!!! She didn't know!!!! .... Okay yeah she was pretty sure he had a concussion. "Um... what?" she asked, tilting her head. "Are you sure you're okay? I'm not, um... Y'know, I'm really just straight."
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Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2023 12:45 am
Reiki blinked back at her for a moment, perfectly lucid but……distinctly confuzzled?? Tilting his head?? To the side?? Did not particularly clear things up or make what she was saying make anything more resembling sense??
“……Are you sure?” Immediately after asking that, Reiki winced and shook his head. “Ah—I’m sorry, I didn’t, like—? I shouldn’t question you about your own orientation or anything, that’s so rude when I don’t know your life and do know that my family raised me better than that? Especially my grandmother, but like……?” Reiki shrugged, innocently explaining, “I won’t say that my queer-dar is perfect or anything? But it’s generally pretty reliable, and I just……really didn’t get any straight vibes from you, y’know?”
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Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2023 12:49 am
Demeter frowned, looking down and fiddling with the hem of her skirt again. It really ought to be strawberries now, she thought again, frowning deeper. "I'm really quite sure," she said firmly. "I've never had any thoughts like that. Not that it's wrong, of course, but it's just not me." She was just... y'know, a good, sweet, straight Christian girl, who didn't think that there was any problem with being gay or whatever, and loved her parents very much even if she was pretty sure they wouldn't like it if she came out as gay—if that were even true! Which it wasn't! She was totally straight. And sure, sometimes she had to needle her parents about gay rights, but, like, she was just a good ally! Really!
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Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2023 12:58 am
For all Reiki generally stood by his queerdar, he just……nodded and gave Demeter a small smile.
“Okay,” he told her gently, because it was. If she really was straight, then okay, he’d guessed wrong and he could live with that. Some days, he thought at least ten wrong things before breakfast; it wasn’t like he was new to being wrong. And if she wasn’t straight, then Reiki wouldn’t help her any by trying to push her in ways that she wasn’t ready for. Everybody’s journey was their own, to be had at their own pace.
So, for right now, Reiki just pulled himself to his feet, bringing the case of broken glasses and the frying pan with him. “How about we call it on this lesson, get back out in the real world, and I buy you an apology milkshake? As an ‘I’m sorry for assuming and overstepping’ sort of thing?”
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Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2023 1:01 am
Demeter nodded, relieved that he dropped the subject. She had the funny feeling he didn't quite believe her, but as long as he didn't try to push it anymore, they were good. "Milkshakes sound great," she agreed. Good way to end the day, too.
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