Miles Kuroda had just finished highjacking some kids so he could buy snacks before his karate lesson at Nu‘uanu YMCA. He liked Stevenson Intermediate. A new facility, it brought together more new faces he could punch.
Before walking up Punchbowl, over to the Y, he stopped to watch students sliding down the school’s grass slopes on cardboard. All were male, except one.
Miles felt something stir in him. Seventh-grade was a whole new world in more ways than one.
As Miles gazed at the object stirring him, she came down fast and flipped over the side, landing on the concrete sidewalk.
Miles ran to her. “Eh, you okay?”
The girl, examining a skinned knee, looked up smiling. “Yeah, I’ve had worse falls.”
“Huh, really, wow.”
Miles offered her his hand. She stood, then immediately sat down again.
“This is worse,” she said. “I hurt my ankle.”
“Try come,” Miles said, pulling her up.
He maneuvered her to the wall to sit.
“Darn,” she said, “it’s getting bad.”
“Where you live?”
“Up Punchbowl. Right on Prospect Street.”
“I goin dat way. Whas your name?”
Together, Denise Chan and Miles Kuroda hobbled up Prospect to her grandfather’s home. Denise invited him inside. Miles helped her to the kitchen. They sat drinking Cokes. Miles was in heaven.
“Hi, Daddy,” Denise said, as David Chan, Sr. came into the kitchen. “He’s a policeman,” she told Miles.
“Hey, Dini,” her father said, “who’s your friend?”
“Miles. He helped me home. I hurt my ankle.”
Chan knelt. “Which?”
“The right.”
He touched it. “Hurt?”
“No.”
He gently manipulated it, diagnosed a sprain, not a break.
Denise put her foot in a bucket of ice water.
“I gotta go to work,” Chan said. “A half-hour from now, I want you to switch, soak it in the hottest water you can handle.”
An older boy came into the kitchen.
“David,” David Chan Sr. said to his son. “You gonna be here in thirty minutes?”
“Yeah, why?” He reached a Coke out of the refrigerator.
“Denise sprained her ankle. Miles, here, was kind enough to help her home. In thirty minutes, change her to hot water. Can?”
“No sweat, Pop, can.”
“Honey, after dinner do the same thing. Thirty minutes ice, thirty minutes hot water. Okay?”
He headed out.
“Who’re you again?” David Jr. asked Miles.
“Miles Kuroda.”
“Nice to meet you, Miles. Thanks for helping my little brother.”
Denise reached out to slap him, but he pulled away. “Oh, shut up,” Denise said. “He’s always saying that.”
David Jr. said, “Well, if you were any more like a boy, you’d be my brother.”
He laughed and left.
Denise growled. Miles smiled. Yes, he was in love all right.
* * * * *
Aloha #WriterTuesday, I hope you’re holding up well with sheltering. Today’s #WritingPrompt is
love
Use it to inspire a piece of writing, any style, short or long, and then post what you wrote on your site and link back to me, or simply post it as a comment below. I would love to read what you write : )
Lanning Lee 