Excerpt: No Leaf Clover

Chapter 1: Pai

Pai Saphyr knew something bad was going to happen that night at tae kwon do. She just knew it. It wasn’t something she could explain; it wasn’t something she understood. Pai shouldn’t have gone to tae kwon do that night, but she couldn’t stay away. She didn’t want to skip one of her few opportunities to see Zach.

Sweat ran down Pai’s forehead and dripped in her eyes. It stung a bit, but she was used to it by now. She used the back of her sleeve to wipe the sweat off her face. She looked away from her sparring partner, Brad, to the cute guy who stood three red belts down. Zach. Zach’s short brown hair fell over his smoky gray eyes. It wouldn’t be long before he’d be getting another hair cut. Pai sighed. They’d only need to change partners two more times and she’d be able to spar with him.

Her partner ki-happed. Pai jumped, startled by his yell, and turned back to face her partner, Brad. She assumed a ready stance, and ki-happed, letting him know she was paying attention to him once again and was ready to attack him. He ki-happed again. She punched directly to his solar plexus, pulling her punch just short of actually hitting him. He blocked and punched twice to her abdomen and once to her nose.

Ugh. He was so sloppy. Unlike her perfect Zach. Brad was first gup; he was a red belt with one stripe. He should have been better than her, but he was as sloppy now as she had been as a green belt. She could have compaired him to her skill as a yellow belt, but she wasn’t that mean. Though she didn’t blame him for not being as good as she was, even though it was partially his fault. He was male.

Their instructor ki-happed. They were going to change places. Pai and Brad stood at attention, bowed to each other, then moved in opposite directions down the lines. Only one more time and she’d be able to spar with him.

Pai bowed to her new partner, Alex. He was another second gup, a red belt with no stripes. The same rank as Pai. To almost any other girl at Red Wing High School, Alex would have been considered fairly attractive with his deep brown eyes and wavy black hair that he pulled back into a ponytail. Pai might have found him attractive too, had they not been competing for second gup superiority. And had she not been crushing on Zach.

Ugh. Stupid hair, she thought, peeling the plastered strands away from her eyes and off her face. Then she wiped even more sweat off her face. She’d have to wash her uniform soon to make it all nice and white again. She wanted to yank the rubberband out of his hair and use it on her own, but that would’ve been just gross. She couldn’t believe she had forgotten her rubberband. She did her best to pull her hair out of her eyes and face for now. But it wouldn’t last.

PaI ki-happed. She was ready. Alex punched. She blocked, knowing there’d be a bruise just below her left wrist before the night was over. She punched twice to his solar plexus and once to that spot just between his upper lip and nose. And she was perfect. He knuckles brushed his skin. Pai knew she was better than him. She knew she didn’t have to prove it, she just liked to. Especially when Zach was watching. She couldn’t wait till she was a cho dan bo just like him and finally have two stripes on her red belt. Then she’d really be able to find out if she was better than him or not.

Derek, their instructor, ki-happed again. This is it, Pai thought. She quickly bowed and jumped to the left, bumping into the blue belt standing there. She looked up at Zach. He was grinning at her. Derek looked from Zach to Pai. “Oh, no, you don’t. Not if I can help it.” Only by looking at his eyes could she tell that he was trying not to laugh. The rest of his features were stern; he wasn’t pleased with her childish behavior. The black belts tolerated stunts like this from the kids, no matter their rank; they even tolerated it from the white and yellow belts. Such behavior was rarely tolerated from green and blue belts. And not at all tolerated from red belts, especially not from one of his best students. Seeing his disappointment, Pai stopped smiling.

Their instructor ki-happed again. Pai wasn’t going to spar with Zach tonight and it was all her fault. Alex glared at her, but she ignored him. They bowed, finished with sparring for the night. She waited rather impatiently for Derek to decide what they were going to do for pick-on-red-belt-night, her punishment. Whatever they did, Pai just wanted to work with Zach.

“Sixth gup and up,” Derek shouted so everyone could hear him above the chatter that had started while people were waiting for his decision, “get your sparring gear on.”

Oh, great, Pai thought. If her instructor knew one way to truly punish her, it was free fighting, the thing that she was absolutley the worst at. It could have been worse, she tried consoling herself. He could be making them do jump side kick.

Unlike the guys, Pai never kept her bag out in the main room, even when she was pretty sure she would have to do some free fighting. She bowed at the entrance to the kitchen, then made a quick dash through the small side kitchen that was barely more than a hallway with a sink and into the women’s changing room. She grabbed her gloves and foot pads, and hurried back out, remembering to bow on her way.

“First, second, and thrid gups,” Derek said, “line up.”

“Yes, sir,” Pai shouted with the other guys there. The others bowed and hurried to form two lines, according to their rank. The single first gup lined up first, while the third gups lined up last. Unlike the others, Pai only had her foot pads on and was Velcroing on her first glove when she bowed and said, “Yes, sir,” with the others. Then she picked up her glove from off the floor and rushed to line up. Only she didn’t have a partner.

She looked around, and out of the two cho dan bos that were there, there was only one that she wanted to work with. Please let me work with him, please let me work with him, please let me work with him. She would cross her fingers, but she didn’t want to upset Derek any more than she already had.

Without giving Pai a partner, Derek moved on to the next group of three green belts and two cho dan bos. His two perfect groups weren’t so perfect after all. Though his face was kind of funny the way it was all screwed up in confusion.

Yes, Pai thought, now just let me work with him.

“She doesn’t have a partner,” Zach said.

And Derek got that absolutely-not-going-to-happen look on his face. Only when he glared at Pai did she realize she was grinning like a mad fool. He could make her work with Frank, the other cho dan bo, whom she really, really did not want to work with. But she knew her instructor wasn’t that mean. Derek let out a short sigh and shook his head.

The next thing Pai knew, she was quickly adverting her sapphire eyes from a pair of smoky gray ones.

“I’m not that scary looking, am I?”

No, she wanted to say to Zach, but knew she wouldn’t be able to do much more than nod.

She looked back at Zach in time to see his fading grin. He was making fun of her. No, that just didn’t fit. In the Perfect World of Pai, Zach never made fun of her. He didn’t have to. She was perfect. In the Perfect World of Pai, she could talk to him like a normal seventeen-year-old rather than the shy, giggling idiot that she was. In the Perfect World of Pai, she was the best martial artist. She was at least as good as Zach. No, correct that, She was better than he was.

“Remember what I told you,” he said. “You just need to look into my eyes.”

To make the Real World and the Perfect World of Pai the same, and to be better than Zach, Pai couldn’t not look directly into his eyes. She had no problem looking into anybody else’s eyes. Well, it was more like she would stare them down, prove her martial superiority, and then smile when they tried to avert their gazes. But she wouldn’t let them, she never did. When it came to Zach, however, she had the hardest time looking him in the eyes. Maybe it was because she knew he was better than she was, and she didn’t like having it rubbed in her face. Maybe it was something else.

She didn’t look directly into his eyes, but to that spot right between his eyebrows and just above the bridge of his nose instead.

“You know, if you can’t look at my eyes, you can always look here.” He pointed to the spot she was already looking at, making her lose her concentration. She closed her eyes to avoid looking directly into his.

Pai cleared her mind and concentrated on the spot right above the bridge of his nose and right between his eyebrows. She had to make up for her earlier behavior. She had to prove to Zach, and to Derek, that she wasn’t like all the other girls. Weak. Useless in a fight. Weak.

Zach waited for her to attack first. She didn’t like to attack first, but she liked to block even less. Attacking first was the lesser of two evils. She punched at his chin. He blocked. She punched again. He titled his head back. Not far enough. Her padded fist hit his chin. He punched at her face. She tried to block. His padded fist tapped her on the head. He quickly punched a second time. Unable to block it, Pai stepped back. He punched a couple more times, forcing her to step back with each punch. Blocking was her weak point, and both of them knew it. With each punch, she kept backing up until she backed into another red belt. Alex. He glared at her. She smiled at him. Pai turned her attention back to Zach. She wasn’t going to play this game.

Pai retaliated with a roundkick to Zach’s left side. He missed the block. She kicked his hip. Onl the padding on her foot would prevent it from bruising. She kicked again. Missed. He punched at her, grinning. She attempted to block. He pulled his punch just as his knuckles brushed against the skin under her eye. She glared at him.

She just couldn’t look him in the eyes. But that grin. And at a time like this. If he could just stop grinning for two seconds, she’d have no problem ignoring him. As if! But she had resisted so far.

Pai looked directly into Zach’s eyes. They held her captive and no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t look away.

Every time they sparred, she wanted to look into his smoky gray eyes, but there was something about it that frightened her. She was always afraid that he would see something in her eyes, like a part of her soul that she didn’t want him to see, or some secret even she didn’t know. But now, as their eyes met, as they looked deeply into each other’s souls, she wasn’t so sure.

Pai saw herself as though she were looking through Zach’s eyes. In the vision, she wore an ivory Chinese-style dress with black flowers, black high heels, and a floor length black and charcoal cape. She held a blue-bladed shortsword with both hands, like she was too weak to hold it otherwise. Blood trickled down her upraised arms, and ran together along her forearms. Fat drops of the red liquid dripped down, forming a bloody pool on the ground at her feet. She saw blood everywhere, but none of it stained her ivory dress. She wore two pendants around her neck with the sun pendant hanging on the right side of her chest and the moon pendant hanging on the left side.

She couldn’t think about this now. She had to fight him. She couldn’t think about the blood, or the strange outfit, or the blue sword, Byung. No. Pai forced the image from her mind. She needed to focus on fighting, not on the image she saw deep in his mind.

Focusing on nothing but the fight, Pai roundkicked Zach. He barely blocked. Not letting him punch her, she punched him twice and roundkicked again. Her kick landed in that perfect spot. Zach glared at her, warning her not to repeat such a move. She matched his look, warning him not to tell her what to do.

Zach punched so fast, Pai didn’t even try to block. She just kept moving back. Why is he punching so fast? There’s no way I can keep up. It’d even be difficult for another cho dan bo to block his attacks. They circled each other. He punched, forcing her to back up. She spotted an opening and roundkicked him again.

Pai was about to kick Zach when Derek ki-happed. There were only three minutes of class left, but she knew those three minutes would be as good of a workout as the last fifty-seven minutes had been, if not more so. When it came to instructing tae kwon do, Derek’s philosophy was that if you could still walk after he got done with you, he hadn’t done his job properly.

All the other students lined up in five rows according to their rank, from second degree black belts to tenth gup whit belts. Even though she had to let Alex line up before her, Pai made sure she stood behind Zach. Her two best friends, Solstice and Aisha, would say it was because she wanted to look at his tight ass. She would deny this, but stare at his butt anyway. At least until she caught herself. Like now.

“Kima ja shea,” Derek commanded from the front of the room. Pai couldn’t see him, but she could hear his voice and that’s all that mattered.

Pai and the other students ki-happed and stood in horse riding stance with their feet a shoulder width and a half apart and with their knees slightly bent, like they were riding horses. Pai watched how smooth Zach moved as he punched with his right fist, then his left, following Derek’s lead. Then he dropped to the floor to do push-ups. They all did push-ups, but he did knuckle push-ups. Really, how could anyone do knuckle push-ups! Not only that, he did knuckle push-ups while crossing his right ankle over his left. Wanting to be at least as good as he was, Pai had tried doing knuckle push-ups in the privacy of her own bedroom on the soft carpet. She couldn’t even do one. Because she had been watching Zach and only partially listening to Derek’s ki-haps, she missed a punch and lost her rhythm. While everybody punched with their left fists, she punched with her right. When they punched with their right fists, she punched with her left. She was out of sync with the other students until their next set of push-ups when she looked at the floor rather than Zach.

Almost as soon as the rounds of punching and push-ups began, they were over. Derek ki-happed. The students snapped to attention and bowed. Only Pai and Zach took the polite and more formal two steps back then bowed a second time before hurrying off to their changing rooms. Pai changed alone. She was the only female student there than night. She didn’t mind, she preferd it that way. She hated sparing against other wormen. And loved sparing against men. She liked the challenge. She liked the look they got when she proved she was better than they were. It was part of what fueled her determination. Plus, women were bitches.

After class, Pai had just enough energy to walk the ten and a half blocks home, uphill. No one knew how she managed, or where she got the extra energy from. When questioned, she only smiled at the guys. She refused to tell them that she got her extra burst of energy from sheer determination. And from not wanting to appear weak in front of others, especially Zach. She also refused to tell them that she collapsed one her bed the moment she got home.

She returned to the main room and looked around. Zach wasn’t in the crowd of students waiting for the next class to start. She stood by the coatrack and put her shoes on. He still wasn’t out. He didn’t leave yet, did he? She would kick him the next time she saw him if he left without even saying, “See ya Monday.” She really would.

To distract herself from him, she looked at Byung, the blue-tinted Korean shortsword sitting safely in its Plexiglass display case. She had to admit, she was quite envious of the students who got to learn swordfighting. After all, that was the reason she started martial arts in the first place. But more than just wanting to learn swordfighting, she wanted to learn to use that sword. When she first started tae kwon do, she had promised herself that when she was finally able to learn swordfighting, she’d learn it with that sword. Unfortunately, her mother allowed her to join on one condition. That she didn’t learn weapons training.

And when it came to martial arts, tae kwon do hadn’t been her first choice. She hadn’t even known it existed until her mother signed her up for classes. Now she wouldn’t give it up for anything. Tae kwon do was the only time she got to see him. Mainly because he lived across the river in Ellsworth, Wisconsin. And while Pai had her licence, she had no idea where he lived.

Pai still didn’t see Zach. She hoped he hadn’t left without her. Ugh. She needed something to do besides look at the sword and think about him. With her large purple duffle bag slung over her shoulder, she bowed as she entered the small kitchen to get a drink of water. Returning to the main room, she stopped at the doorway and bowed. When she looked up, Zach was standing right in front of her, talking to Derek.

Zach turned to look at her. Their eyes met. She quickly looked away, blushing. She could feel him watching her. When she looked up at him, he said, “I suppose you want me to give you a ride home since you’re too shy to ask.”

He grinned then and Pai felt her insides melting.