5/2/15 Update- I have aged the main characters from 15/14 to 18/17 because I expect things to be get more explicit and feel odd writing about that for middle schoolers. Hope you don't care about that, but like this story. Enjoy!

...

When I found her, she was crying.

It was Christmas Eve, and I was talking a walk since I had nothing better to do. I didn't have any family to spend the holiday with, so I didn't feel festive in the least. My parents had moved in the summer to the Phillipines for work, sold the house their son had lived in for 18 years, and put him up in an apartment that had nothing interesting surrounding it. My older brother was in Tokyo with his boyfriend for the holidays, my grandparents had all passed away in recent years (or had been considered as such for years), and my only aunt lived in America. And while I should have been studying for the college entrance exam to Kansai or Osaka City University (which I had a poor chance to get into to begin with), I was wandering the streets of Osaka wondering why a girl was on the curb, crying quietly.

She was an enigma in other ways too. First off, I had no clue how old she was. She was obviously on the small side, so I was thinking middle school. But somehow I knew better to think she was that young. She looked more mature through her tears than any 12 year old I ever me Maybe a first year at one of the other high schools nearby? I couldn't see her face, but I could see her hair. Her hair was a deep red and long, tied into a ponytail and hung to the middle of her back. Next to her was a backpack, but one of the straps was broken. It might have been because it was stuffed to the brim with things, bulging. Next to it was one of those reusable grocery bags, also full of stuff. A runaway, or visiting pehaps?

"Hey, are you doing alright?" I crouched a few feet from the girl, her hands buried into her face as she sobbed. She begun to rub them, and shot me a look. She had big expressive eyes, and her face was contorted into a sneer.

"Who the fuck are you?" She spit at me, obviously angry. I didn't think it was me, but I didn't want to be wrong either.

"Haru Nakasato," I told her honestly, "and I am just worried. A cute girl like you shouldn't be crying on the street before Christmas."

"Cute?" She said first, catching that slip of the tongue I hadn't noticed. It was true, she was cute, but now was not the time to be saying that to some person I didn't know. She abandoned that train of thought, however. "I was not crying! I have no clue what you are talking about!" She demanded I believe her, but her face was freshly puffy from her sobbing.

"I mean, it looked like you were crying." I said the worst thing possible.

She got up off the street, causing me to stand straight up. Menacingly, this little girl stomped towards me, pointing a finger in my face. "I don't know what kind of shit you saw, but I wasn't crying! Say I was crying one more time, and I will shove your head up your ass!"

I was intimidated, fully believing she could make good on that threat. I decided to change my tactics. Regardless of what she said, she was crying, I did see it, and I decided to help.

"I noticed your backpack strap is broken. Did that just happen, or has it been like that?" She narrowed her eyes at me, as if I asked her a stupid question. I gulped, and followed up. "I mean, it would be really awkward to carry a stuffed bag like that on one shoulder." I felt like he may have been sounding dumb, but that didn't stop me. "And carrying the backpack like your bag kinda sucks, so I'm guessing it broke just now?"

"Your point is?" She sniffed. Her crying seemed well and over, so now I was just looking to help.

"Well, with that much stuff, it seems like you are going somewhere." I told her, hoping to find out if I could help.

She huffed. "Not really."

Cautiously, I asked, "Are you running away from something?"

She snorted, and seemed to snicker for a moment. "Running away? More like kicked out!" She covered her mouth after revealing too much, especially to some guy she didn't know.

"Why would your parents kick you out? They sound like total assholes!" I said, really thinking that way.

She shrugged. "I mean, I'm not surprised they kicked me out for something, but that stupid dog pissed on my towel. Of course I was gonna knock its lights out."

"..." Stunned is the only word for how I felt. "You... you knocked out a dog?"

"It pissed on my towel!" She defended herself, as if knocking out the family pet made perfect sense. It did a little bit, but still.

"I mean, I get being mad at it and punishing it but... I mean you could have killed it if you could hit it hard enough to knock it out." I played on both sides of the coin.

It seemed like this struck a chord with the girl. "I mean, I wasn't trying to kill it. Just teach it a lesson."

This girl was obviously a bit violent. Maybe that Napoleon complex thing I read on the internet? But it didn't seem like she was terrible or anything. "So, are you trying to get to a train or a bus station? Trying to get to a friend's house? I could help carry your things..."

She shook her head. "My friends? Moving in with them would be a bad idea. They don't have any respect for their own things. And I don't need you to carry my stuff for me, I am plenty fine myself."

I was at a dilemma. During her response, I had an epiphany. A relatively basic epiphany, but one none the less. I was alone for Christmas. My apartment was empty, and my couch was pretty comfortable, and my fridge was stocked. The one nice things my parents did was wire me more than enough money each month to get by on. It was enough to cover for two people. This girl acted tough, but all it would take was a strong guy or a few guys to do terrible things, I had seen documentaries of what living on the streets could be like online. It seemed like an obvious suggestion, but I hesitated to make it. She would probably think I was some kind of pervert, or that I would want "payment" in return or something. But, worse case scenario, she says no and I call the cops to take her in. She would probably hate that, but it was probably safer than staying on the street.

"You know, if you want, you could come over to my place and stay the night."

She looked at me with great disgust. "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"Look, I'm just trying to be nice. I got a free couch at my place, and you can stay for a night or two until you figure out what to do."

She kept looking at me, her expression softening. "What about your parents? I doubt they want some random girl staying over."

"Well, my parents live out of the country for work. It would only be me and you."

She continued to look at me, sizing me up, seeing if I was a threat. She took a glance at her stuff. "How far away do you live?"

"About 5 blocks, it isn't far."

She looked back at her stuff, and huffed. "I guess. It is better than sleeping under a bridge or something. Does food come with this offer?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I don't mind you eating some. As long as you don't try to take all of it or something."

She trotted over to her stuff, and slung her bag over her right shoulder, the left strap being broken, and grabbed the bag in her left hand to balance her out.

"You said your name was Hanu something, right?"

"Haru Nakasato. And yours is..." I asked my future guest what hers was.

She turned around, and stuck out her free hand. "Well, Nakasato, I'm Saki Mizukuro."

I grabbed her hand shaking it. It was then something became terribly clear.

There was a legendary deliquent in Osaka, who in the last year and a half had proven to the bane of any other high school deliquent and some adults as well. She was dwarfed in size by any of her foes, and had bright red hair, rumored to be stained by the blood of her victims. Ruthless, and never ended a fight without her opponents total surrender, she was never to be crossed. Her name was also Saki Mizukuro, but she was known by a different name, roughly the first syllable in each one. Sa-Mi. Translation?

I had just invited into my apartment "The Shark".