Heroes

"Ahhh!" A hiss of pain. "That hurts!"

Yumiko frowned at the older man who was holding up his hands in a defensive posture, blocking her hands from dabbing the antiseptic soaked cotton bud over the bleeding cut on his face. Looking at him like a mother would look at her child, Yumi swatted away his hands and leaned back in, careful and gentle touches wiping away the blood and dirt. Still the man complained.

"It stings!"

"What are you, five?" she snapped, although the smile on her face showed that she wasn't really angry with the guy. "Honestly, Alex, you spend your days joyfully bringing pain to so many people that I would think that you would be able to take a little pain like this."

Alex frowned at her but remained silent like a scolded child.

She giggled at him as she moved her hand away and leaned in closer to him, pursing her lips to blow softly on the cut on his forehead. "Don't sulk like that," she said softly as she sat back on her bar stool. They were in her kitchen, seated at the little breakfast bar in the warm, sunny room. Yumi put the dirty cotton bud aside and doused a clean one in the same foul smelling liquid before once more reaching over to 'torture' poor Alex's face, cleaning up another cut to his skin. "Thanks for doing what you did though." She smiled at him. "You were very heroic."

Try as they might, Yumiko and Dion's personal life still managed to leak out into the world beyond their door. They didn't keep their divorce secret, they didn't see a need to hide that fact. However, Dion felt it best they keep the reason why under wraps. Yumi didn't mind and at first everything seemed to be going rather well. Both of them were moving on with their lives. Dion had got himself a little apartment and Yumi continued living in their home in the quaint little village. She'd wanted to move, but since the house was already paid for and it was where Poppy was growing up she felt she couldn't really leave it. Not to mention Astareal wouldn't be able to stay with them if she moved to a two bedroom place. Nor Jung stay over. Or Wednesday. Gosh, there were a lot more people in her life than she realised.
Anyway, rumours however quickly leaked out, and some people felt the need to verbally attack the sweet looking Asian woman. One such man had taken it upon himself to inform her that what her ex-husband was doing was wrong and that she was teaching her daughter terrible things.

Alex who was out with her at the time did not approve of someone bringing Yumiko close to tears. Unfortunely, standing up for Yumi resulted in him getting quite the beating.

"He shouldn't have said the things he did," Alex explained. "Just because...you know...and...ouch....It was wrong of him to say things like that to ...ow...you."

Flicking her head to remove some of the hair from her eyes, Yumi gave Alex a small smile. Tossing the blood coated cotton ball onto the pile, she dropped her hands into her lap. Lowering her head, she fought back the blush that was threatening to flush over her cheeks. She felt like she was acting like some silly teenage girl blushing over the boy who stood up for her against the bullies. If the words hadn't struck her so deep, Yumi knew she would have stood up for herself. She wasn't weak and didn't like feeling weak. Still, it was nice that Alex had tried to defend her like that, even if he did get his butt handed to him. Maybe dentists just weren't cut out for fighting.

As she was staring at her hands, she saw a large pair fall over them. The knuckles were bruised and scrapped. He may have lost, but the other guy didn't get away unharmed. "Yumi?" Alex sounded concerned, and when she lifted her head to look at him, she saw the emotion she heard in his voice reflected on his face.

"Its alright, Alex," she said, smiling at him. She didn't need to force the smile to her lips, it came naturally to her because Alex really did make her smile - inside and out. It felt like forever ago that she'd wandered into the bar and came upon the man sat alone at the bar. At first she thought it was just him that needed the friend, but after spending more and more time with him Yumi realised that she had needed a friend too. Someone outside the circle of people she knew. Someone normal. Compared to the people she knew and the school she taught at there was no more normal that she could get than Alex. Even having a werewolf for a son didn't disrupt his 'normalness'.

Sliding her hands out from under his, Yumi slipped down from her own stool and moved to stand in the space between Alex's knee, looping her arms around his neck. Her smile brightened when Alex's own arms circled around her, hands going to rest awkwardly on her hips for a few moments before sliding around to the small of her back. "Even if you did get your ass handed to you, you're still my hero," she told him, fingers toying with the hair at the nape of his neck.

As he frowned once more and opened his mouth to reply, Yumiko leaned in and shut him up with a kiss.