She observed them both as his friend began pulling at his shoe, his legs rested across his friend's knees. His friend noticed a bruise on his ankle, so he began poking it. He was in clear distress of pain and annoyance after a couple of minutes of continuous prodding of the bruise.
"Okay, seriously, stop. That hurts."
He finally said but his friend just laughed and continued on as usual.
He repeated it a couple more times before giving up, which this caused her to speak up.
"He said stop."
They both looked at her slightly surprised, but his friend covered it up quickly by changing his expression to a held back sour look. This did not scare her, even though if his friend were to stand up, she would be towered over. It didn't matter to her; he was in pain and his friend wasn't backing off.
With a testing look towards her, his friend poked the bruise one more time.
"Stop. You're supposed to be a good example to your peers, but this isn't being a good example at all."
His friend's looked dropped but rolled his eyes.
"You're teaching us that rejections are just forms of continuing to push what we want, not caring about the other person's wishes and well-being. But that's not right. No means no, just like how stop means stop and don't means don't. He said stop, so stop."
His friend just looked away and muttered a "whatever" but removed his hands from his ankle, no longer bothering the bruise anymore.
She nodded her head and smiled slightly as he looked at her and mouthed a 'thank you'.