[REG] Deer caught in Headlights (Rohan, Ari & Khalla) [END]

[Daffupanda]

Coffee dates weren't all that rare for Khalla and him to share (technically, in her case it was more tea than coffee, but still). It'd grown into a familiar habit and while it was true that the shops were usually crowded, which was usually vaguely upsetting, he'd slowly become able to zone out of the crowd in question by focusing his attention on his papers, drink and the ultimately, on the girl sitting either across from him, or to his side.

Spending at least part of the afternoon out with her had become part of his normal schedule, and had it not been for the fact he was expected back at the school so he could give some extra credit classes, he'd have stayed longer. As it was, Rohan's gaze lowered to check his watch and he scowled at it before excusing himself from Khalla's side. He'd then hesitated a moment before sharing an innocent token of affection with her and had left the table they'd been sharing, outside the shop.

They'd already paid for the drinks, and they'd been sitting outside due to the good weather, so he'd simply turned around and left. One of his hands held some papers, with the other was firmly stuffed into his coat pocket as he walked down the street, snaking through the crowds of people with ease despite having his gaze fixed on the papers he was holding. Turning his wrist, he checked his watch again before deciding that he had time and that even if he walked slowly, he'd get to the school with enough time to spare.

He'd always liked to have the classes prepared before the few students arrived to seek out his help anyhow.  

[kalindara]

Ari had spotted them a while ago. She'd been walking past, minding her own business, when the familiar blonde braid had grabbed her attention. Seeing Khalla several times a week for kickboxing training made the blonde easy to remember and pick out of a crowd. Normally Ari would have gone over and said hello, but Khalla seemed to be on a date. Initially surprised, Ari had felt a smile twitch onto her face and was about to let it go and move on. Until she realised, after a few steps, that she recognised the dark-skinned man from somewhere, too.

It took longer to place him. She'd hovered, trying to remain out of sight, while frantically racking her brain. It helpfully remained as scattered as usual, popping up identities that were easily discarded. It wasn't until the man left and began heading in the direction of Crystal Academy that it finally twigged. Khalla's 'date' was a teacher. One of their teachers.

Teeth grinding together, Ari quickly strode after him. Older, and therefore with more power in the relationship, clearly he was the better target for her interrogation-masked-as-innocent-questioning... Oh stuff it, she'd kick his a** if he was sexually harassing Ari's protege.

"You! Hey, you!" she yelled as she chased him down. Yes, she still couldn't recall his name. Goddamn it. "Crystal teacher!"  

[Daffupanda]

A frown crossed Rohan's features, his head snapping up from the papers he'd been reading in order to look around, "TA, not teacher. TA," he sounded irritable, as if he'd answered to that call several million times, and thus was getting annoying. It took him a few moments to finally spot Ariana, despite the fact he'd answered her already.

"Your manners are lacking," he told her, "It's rude to call for people just using 'hey' or 'you'," if he knew why Ari was approaching him, he sure didn't show it, because rather than looking guilty or ashamed, he looked irritated and mildly annoyed to have been interrupted from his thoughts. His hand remain in the air, holding the papers he'd been reading, as if he were waiting for the girl to leave so he could go on his way, "What do you need?"

He didn't particularly recognize her, but then again, the girl looked intelligent enough (if not... abrasive, what with the tone of voice she'd used), and he generally only dealt with students that had problems with classes. The more intelligent ones like Khalla, usually never really had a need to seek him out, and quite honestly, Rohan never really paid much attention to faces anyhow.

Had he known what the girl was approaching him about, he'd have continued walking.  

[kalindara]

"Right, TA," Ari corrected herself. A slight frown crossed her face as her brain made a connection. "Science, right?" Though she couldn't recall exactly which class or still what his name was.

Being younger than a proper teacher didn't make this any better, Ari scowled. It was still wrong in every sense of the word. And Ari had no idea exactly how consensual this was... God, what if he was using his position to force Khalla? Ari still didn't know why Khalla felt the need to defend herself - she really hoped it wasn't due to some a*****e teacher (sorry, TA) trying to force a student to sleep with him. There was no guarantee Khalla would admit to anything like that, either. Ari had seen Law and Order SVU, she knew how these things worked.

"What are you doing with Khalla?" she demanded. She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to give herself some appearance of authority. "You're a teacher - assistant teacher - and she's one of your students. I can't even begin to list all the ways this is wrong."

And in case he was thinking of just walking away and telling her to shove it, she added, "Though I'm sure the headmaster, or the parents' association, would be more than happy to come up with the full list."  

[Daffupanda]

"Rohan Dalry, English literature," he corrected his features showing his dislike for the conversation at hand as he tried to place the girl; he had seen her before, but he'd never really stopped to talk to her, "And you are?" the girl's tone of voice and the way she was looking at him was not really sitting entirely well with him, and he would rather know her name so he could henceforth avoid her.

"I...what?" his current train of thought derailed into a metaphorical mountain side and his expression changed from annoyance, to confusion and then to something unreadable, "I don't believe that is any of your business," of course, then again, he hadn't really stopped to look at the situation from Ariana's point of view.

His hand lowered, from where he'd been holding the papers up in the air, "She's not my student," technically she'd never been his student, even if she'd used his office to catch up on some assignments for other classes, "And she graduates within a few weeks," another pause as she mentioned the headmaster, and he lifted his gaze off the girl to look at the sky, as if to ponder that through; that could go rather potentially wrong, for many reasons.

He was going to have to talk to Khalla, because this was the second person that had ambushed him with these questions, the first being Ursula, "I still not particularly think this is any of your business. Maybe you should go talk to Khalla herself, before throwing any accusations around. You looked smarter than this from afar."

It was no wonder he was more deft at making enemies than making friends.  

[kalindara]

"Sorry, I suck at names," Ari snapped, irritated that he thought that was the most important thing here. She wasn't going to let herself be distracted by petty things like manners.

Ari's eyes narrowed as Rohan talked a lot and still managed to say nothing. A claim that it wasn't her business, check. Excuses (poor ones), check. Threats and insults, check. Yep, so far it was running exactly like SVU, all the usual remarks from the guilty suspect.

"I'm Khalla's friend. I'm also her martial arts instructor, because she said someone was threatening her, and I saw signs of abuse myself." Admittedly, the bruises and injuries all pointed to physical abuse, not sexual. Not that the two had to be mutually exclusive, Ari argued. "So yeah, I think it is my business when an older guy in a position of power is hanging out with a teenager. What, you couldn't get a date your own age, so you're trawling for students?"

This guy... pissed her off. Sure, Ari knew she came off as less than intelligent (half of which wasn't her fault, stupid brain that mixed things up). But insulting her and expecting her to latch onto that instead of the fact that her friend and schoolmate was in a highly inappropriate relationship (whether it was consensual or not)? He was the stupid one, if he thought he was getting away that easily.

"Everyone knows victims of abuse don't speak up about it," she scoffed. "Khalla would just deny anything was going on. I bet she'd even say she was 'protecting you', or maybe even that you're 'in love' and 'no one would understand', so that's why it has to be a secret?" Although she refrained from making air quotes, the mocking tone Ari adopted when she repeated the likely excuses made her point without needing visual aids.

Maybe she wasn't going to get anything out of Rohan this way. (Not many abusers or rapists confessed easily, after all.) Maybe she should just beat it out of him...  

[Daffupanda]

Had Rohan known the girl was comparing him to television show characters (specially ones from SVU), he would have looked utterly appalled at the thought. Instead though, confusion was giving way to irritation again, and he was scowling at her as if he could somehow make her leave by sheer will alone. In his modest opinion, this girl 'sucked' at a great deal of things aside from names.

"Hmmm..." he watched her through hooded eyes, "She's never mentioned you, sorry. And if she has, I might've not been paying atten--" he stopped mid sentence as she continued talking, and a baffled look came upon his features. He was so baffled by the information Ari was issuing forth that he completely missed her jab, "She's been hurt?" the question sounded sincere, but it could have been faked, for all she knew.

His eyes narrowed as he pondered the situation out, effectively zoning out of the conversation at hand, as if Ari weren't particularly important at that given moment in time, and thus not worth his attention. In all honesty, it wouldn't have surprised him if she'd been ambushed by ahhh... questionable individuals on her way home. He was going to have to talk to someone; was there even a way to make sure a random civilian remain 'safe' from said 'questionable individuals'? Or was he, personally, going to have to look out for her? The later was going to hinder his extracurricular duties quite a bit, and he wasn't sure how it'd look like if he dropped in, in his powered form, and saved her from a threat.

ARGGGG.

The fact the girl was still talking, brought Rohan's attention back upon her, "It's not a secret," he told her plainly, "Maybe if you were better acquainted you'd have known about it. At any rate, I don't have time for you, though I do thank you for letting me know about this. I'll do something about it," and with that said, he was apparently done with her and prepared himself to leave.  

[kalindara]

Ari was almost ready to believe that Rohan wasn't behind the bruises Khalla had been wearing the first day she walked into the gym. Almost. He did appear to be very worried... but how well could she trust that? Ari had thought she was a good judge of people, but even for a teacher, Rohan just pissed her off so badly that it was impossible to remain objective.

He really expected her to believe it was public knowledge that he and Khalla were dating? What kind of idiot did he take her for? For starters, she'd never heard such a thing. Secondly, there was no way he would have kept his job - if the headmaster hadn't kicked him out, the parents surely would have gone above his head to force the department to fire Rohan.

And then, after spouting such nonsense, this a*****e was just going to walk away from her? Oh no, Ari didn't think so!

"Maybe you misheard me," she said quietly, dangerously. "Khalla's learning to take care of what she can. And as for the rest? I'm taking care of it right now."

Spinning in place (and thank god she was in jeans), Ari executed a perfect roundhouse kick at her departing teacher's (TA's) head...  

[Daffupanda]

It was her voice that alerted him. Rohan had turned his head minimally to look over his shoulder when the girl spoke, and the movement he caught out of the corner of his eye made him react far faster than he could think things through.

He moved instinctively, and as the kick came towards him, he spun around and blocked it with his arm. The speed in which he'd reacted, not to mention the way he blocked the attack, betrayed he at least knew how to fight, which must've looked rather odd from Ari's point of view. Specially given Rohan's general... clothes style, job, and the attitude he'd displayed during the conversation.

His gaze, which had remain almost indifferent during the more verbal part of their encounter, had narrowed dangerously. However, his demeanor soon enough changed, and mild panic hit home; s**t, he really shouldn't have moved like that! He should have let the girl kick him, because this was going to open a whole new can of worms, he just knew it. In his defense though, it'd been an instinctive reaction and he hadn't put thought in it, which left him looking extremely awkward, mildly panicked and generally out of place. Plus, it was allowing Ari to see through the first cracks he was displaying on his self-imposed emotional armor.

He really, really hadn't meant to move; he'd just reacted.  

[kalindara]

"Huh?" Ari blinked, staring at her blocked leg for an indeterminate period of time. Slowly, she forced her limbs to move past the shock, leaving her standing in front of the TA again. Only this time, she actually felt like she wasn't the one in control here. s**t. She'd always felt pretty invincible, having her kickboxing to fall back on. But clearly that wasn't enough in this case.

"Teach, you know martial arts?" she asked awkwardly. Oh yeah, not to mention attacking your teacher couldn't be a good thing. Crap, she hadn't thought of that.

Did this make him more or less likely to be abusing Khalla? This might explain why Khalla felt the need to learn similar skills, to defend herself. But the whole point of any of the martial disciplines was just that - discipline. Bullies and abusers couldn't hide for long in classes, they showed their true colours in how they conducted their fights against other students, and were summarily kicked out before reaching high levels. Was Rohan good enough to fool whoever his sensei was? Or was Ari completely mistaken about this, and attacking one of her teachers (and Khalla's boyfriend) for nothing?

"It was a nice block," she offered. "What style are you studying?"  

[Daffupanda]

s**t.

s**t, s**t, s**t.

As the girl's leg lowered from the attack and back on the ground, Rohan slowly lowered his arm; the papers he'd been holding were now scattered around him, and people were giving them odd glances as they passed by, "I...uhm," if Ari hadn't noticed the change in his demeanor before, it was glaringly obvious now, "I really didn't mean to do that," to his credit, and for some odd, bewildering reason, he sounded like he was actually sorry he'd moved. Which was strange, given the fact he hadn't been he one to attack; he'd only defended himself, "I... self defense, for the most part," a really awkward pause followed, "I'd been mugged before."

It was true he'd taken classes, even before he'd joined the negaverse; it had to do with the fact he was a skittish person and felt the need to have something to fall back upon if the situation went particularly grim. It had also helped his cause that he'd been in quite a few fights since his recruitment (the outcome wasn't as important as the practice he'd gotten).

"I... really don't know," another pause, "It was before I came to this city, and I've forgotten the terminology," his answer was awkward, but he was really hoping she'd buy it, "It was a nice kick?" he offered back, then turned to look down at the floor, where the papers lay scattered before bending down to pick them up. A sigh followed, "Look. I don't know exactly what's going on, but I can assure you I haven't laid a hand on her," he seemed to hesitate and looked awkwardly up at her, "In any sort of way."

He really didn't think falling asleep on the couch while watching a movie counted - he was leaving that out, either way.  

[kalindara]

Wow. Suddenly it was like Rohan was a whole other person, his demeanour changed so dramatically. It gave Ari pause. It seemed she needed to reconsider how she was going about this.

"Uh, sorry to hear that," Ari replied automatically at hearing Rohan had been mugged. It seemed to be going around. Of course, there were muggings and then there were 'muggings' where the Negaverse was actually to blame. No, you couldn't blame someone for wanting to know how to defend themselves in Destiny City.

"That's a nice reflex for someone who hasn't studied in a while," Ari approved. Maybe he'd kept up practicing (like she kept asking Khalla to do), or maybe he had enough muggers approach him to keep his abilities sharp.

She nodded slowly, finally starting to believe Rohan about not mistreating Khalla. He seemed very sincere, especially now that he'd dropped the douche act. Still, there was really only one way to be sure...

"Alright, you're coming with me," she said. Giving a decisive nod, she grabbed him by the wrist and began pulling him back the way they'd come from.  

[Daffupanda]

The moment he'd picked the last piece of paper from the ground and was just about ready to stand up again, he felt the girl grab his wrist. Blinking in confusion, Rohan lifted his head up to look at Ariana, "What exactly--" he never got to ask whatever it was he'd wanted to ask, because the redhead proceeded to tug at his arm and effectively began to pull him down the street.

Surprise was the only reason that allowed her to pull such a stunt off, "I... wait! I-- Hey!" he looked behind him for a moment and then in front of him; struggling against her was just going to attract even more attention than they already were, so he resigned himself to letting himself be dragged about. He was staring to question why everyone felt the need to drag him around.

It was only when he realized that the girl was dragging him back in Khalla's general direction that he began to stiffen; this was going to be interesting, not to mention extremely awkward, "I'm sorry," he managed when the blond came over, "She ambushed me," a pause, "And tried to kick me," tried being the keyword, "Will you please tell her that I am, in fact, not taking advantage of you, and that I am most certainly not abusing you?" he seemed to ponder what he'd said, and decided to elaborate, "In any way?"  

[kalindara]

"Khalla," Ari nodded to her friend, face grave and slightly worried about how this might go down. She wasn't sure which would be worse: being right about Rohan, or being wrong. "Yeah, sorry about this-" directed to Khalla, not to Rohan, "- but I saw you guys having your date, and I'm worried, okay? Seriously, dating a teacher?" She held up a hand over her shoulder. "TA, whatever. Semantics. It's your position that counts, not your age. You're still an authority figure with power over students."

It was slightly reassuring that Khalla seemed worried only for Rohan's sake. Maybe it was all innocent. Or maybe if Rohan got angry, then Khalla felt the brunt. Ari couldn't stand the twisting, sour thoughts of worry and suspicion, so she wanted this out right here, right now - even if it meant she came off looking like an idiot (which wasn't so unusual).

"Look, he knows how to fight, you've been beat up pretty badly before. He's your teacher, you're his student... I just want to know he's not taking advantage of you or hurting you." She shrugged at Khalla. Awkward had nothing on how she felt right now. "If it's my mistake, I'm sorry. But if there's anything - anything at all - going on that you don't like, or want to talk about, I am always here to listen. And kick some a**."