Description: Stealing fire is an important milestone in any Trickster's life; and for Pás, it's more literal than one might expect. Out his favorite pair of shades and looking for a little turnabout revenge, K' tracks Pás down in her dorm. But what he hadn't anticipated is that she's developed an idolizing admiration for him, and has determined to make him her mentor. Accordingly, the trickster girl soon turns their encounter into a deal: his shades and a covenant not to molest him anymore, in exchange for a chance at making herself his protégé-- IF she can land a clean hit on him in a fight.
It's those lazy hours before dusk, and the setting sun gilds the world golden brown. The too-warm air cooks the room leisurely, thick and heavy and musty to breathe in, and if Pacific High's resident subtropical Brazilian isn't slow roasting in ecstasy. It's evenings like these what remind her of home, when the skies would get red all over, and the endless heat would go right on into early morning. There would be no reprieve from it in the worst months, and soon enough you'd get used to the warmth sticking around.
So much that you'd get lonely with feeling it around.
Pás celebrates the slow return of summer by basking it in like someone's spoiled cat, deciding to spend this warm evening inside and sprawled across her bed. Testament to Pacific High's vast wealth -- or that possessed by its student body -- this dorm sprawls with a floorplan to rival many small apartments, decorated tastefully with sculpted walls and freshly-polished hardwood floors. The elborate french doors have been left open to let in the sunlight, and it slants across the room, along the stained floors, and along the exotic girl sprawled along one iron-railed bed.
With her long-limbed body heaped precariously, her eyes closed, and her arms crossed to pillow her head, she looks either asleep or well on her way. And knowing Pás it's either one or the other. Her only betraying movement is the rhythmic flexing of one bare foot that kicks in time to the Black Crowes plaing tinnily off her headphones.
It's hot. It's lazy. It's soothing. It's as perfect a night gets for someone like Pás. So why does she suddenly feel like someone's not right?
Her foot stills its movement. Her eyebrows twitch imperceptively. And, without warning, as if right on cue, one dark eye opens.
It had not been difficult to find her. His official match with the Brazilian student had given him enough information about her for him to track her down: her name, and her school. Once he was at Pacific, it was merely a matter of asking around; she was recognizable enough that he had absolutely no trouble discovering just which room was hers. Few, even those who recognized him, questioned his motives in looking for the girl known as Pás. Those that did got shut up.
Boys are technically not allowed up here, but K' has no problem slipping past what safeguards there are to protect girls against invasions precipitated by his sex. For a boy that's known for his violent rages, his unrestrained outbursts, and his foolhardy taste for recklessness and explosions... K' can be really damned subtle when he needs to be. It's part and parcel of being raised a killing machine by a clandestine, top-secret organization; you have to learn to murder without anyone ever knowing you were there. That you exist.
That you're standing just outside the cracked door of an unwitting girl, slowly easing the unlocked door open with a deft silence.
The almost predatory care he takes in this delicate operation would be menacing, if not for the fact it's triggered as much by an acute fear she'll launch at his person and start touching him again as it is by a desire to intimidate. This is mind, K' cautiously peers around the opened door with a crafty wariness before risking entrance. Discerning that her eyes are shut and her headphones are in, the boy steels himself and heads into the breach.
When Pás cracks open that one dark eye-- no doubt prompted by the sudden sense of being watched, not to mention the intrusive scent of leather, fire smoke, and boy-- it'll be to see the most unimpressed K' ever staring directly at her: yellow eyes narrowed and arms crossed.
>> look K' --> He looks like he wants /something back/.
Pás stares at K' for a beat.
"AIEEEEE!" Then she squawks and rolls right off the side of her bed, falling right out of sight.
THUMP. There's no confusing the universal sound of someone's ass hitting a really hard floor.
An instant later, the girl peeks back up, just the top half of her head and her big brown eyes, which are staring widely. She stares straight up at K'', looking the way someone does when they've seen a ghost, seen the dead walk, seen Jesus descend from the Heavens and ask what's for dinner. This is something that shouldn't be happening. This is something that just isn't possible.
After a moment, she just points a disbelieving finger his way, poking it forward at the air to emphasis the words that just aren't coming. Give them a bit of time. "Y-you," Pás bleats, "are in my --"
She stops, her half-hidden eyes swiveling back and forth like a cat clock, taking in the room around her. She's not mistaken. She blushes helplessly. "--My room."
Then, without warning, the girl fighter springs to her feet, all five feet and six inches of her, dark skin, long hair, jeans, and her stringy halter top that says EDERALDO GENTIL standing as tall as she can, not quite realizing that her long-forgotten iPod is still dangling from her the bud in her left ear. Pás is so far behind realizing anything that isn't, "W-why are you... here... in my room?!"
Revenge. Have we mentioned how much K' likes it? If we haven't, allow the mean way in which that initial wariness bleeds away into a nasty confidence to hammer the point home.
Fairly self-satisfied with himself at having managed to turn the tables so completely on the girl, K' smirk widens at her reaction of pure shock. His yellow eyes track downwards when she tumbles right off her bed and out of sight, and-- his initial anger against her somewhat abated by this effect he's had-- he waits patiently enough for her to get up. This is not exactly what he was expecting in regards to a confrontation with her, but he isn't going to argue with anything that keeps her from trying to put her hands anywhere funny.
Eventually, she finds her breath and starts into whatever it is she has to say for herself. The boy lifts his brows curiously, almost mildly, seeming to encourage her opinion... but the patronizing quality of the expression just makes it come out far, far more infuriating than it is accomodating. When she finally manages speech, he regards her neutrally a moment before he finally just shakes his head. His smirk hara-kiris a little wider.
"I told you," he explains, quite slowly, "that you have something of mine. I also remember telling you," K' continues graciously, letting his arms uncross, his tall frame threatening to lean forwards into an advance on Pás' very person, "I was going to get it back..."
And punish her a little for good measure. Pás has kissed him like three times now, which is three times -too many-. The look on her face right now, however, might just be punishment enough to mollify him-- unless she goes and does something else to aggravate him in the next five minutes.
Certainly this isn't the first time Pás has had a boy in her room. There have been many boys before and there will be many more boys to to come. But never like this.
It's because they were all let in. She took the initiative, she gave out the invitation, and she was always aware, always expecting, always prepared to be one one step ahead. She was always in control, even if they didn't really know that, every single step of the way.
But this is different. There is no control. There is only her own shock and disbelief, not so much that a boy is in her room but that a boy is in her room and she has no idea what to do. She never would have expected K' to come within twenty metres of her, much less do something as ballsy as invade her own personal space. He's the last person in the entire world that she expects not ten feet away from her, killing her privacy and cramping her style.
She has no idea what to do. The last two times she encountered him, she was always in perfect control of herself, of the situation, even when she was getting the blood beat out of her. Neither of those times come close to preparing her for a moment like this.
So Pás just stands there very shyly, hugging her arms tightly to her sides and trying to look as tall and thin and unintrusive as a hangman's tree. But the noose isn't too far away. And he keeps staring at her.
She keeps blinking owlishly at the boy; it's her turn now to creep back and keep as much space between them as possible. "How -- how did you..." she starts to ask of him, her voice airy and awed, before she shuts herself up, especially when he makes it clear why he's come. Pás blinks some more. Her back straightens. "Oh! You are... euh, you are lookings for--" her voice cuts and her lips move haltingly. The English for the word fails her. So she makes little O's with her thumbs and forefingers and holds the rings of her fingers gesturingly over her eyes.
"Aiiiii, sim sim. I am keeping them. I am return, yea? Allow me to get?" She asks, nodding eagerly at him with wide eyes. Haltingly, wary as a game animal crossing Highway Roadkill, she sidestrafes across the room, inching past K' and intent on keeping a wide berth. She takes step after step after sudden running leap straight through the open veranda.
K' could have a lot of things to say about the concept of control and lack thereof. He could talk about how the utter lack of control he's had-- and still has-- over his own fractured life has made moments like this all the more gratifying, in a mean sort of way. This, however, is neither the place or time.
Almost curious now at her continued strange reaction-- he had expected more teasing, more assertiveness, and a hell of a lot more unwanted groping-- he studies her intently as she continues to falter. Any other boy would feel his vengeful, outraged drive dwindling away at the shocked and startled look of her: might feel a little sympathy tug traitorously at him as she hugs herself and looks uncertain. K', however, just stares all the harder and more narrowly.
Part of the awkwardness of this particular situation might also be attributable to the fact that K' has no conception of how people in polite society interact (i.e. NOT invade girls' rooms when they want something, even if the 'something' is innocuous). It doesn't occur to him that being painfully blunt and direct might not always be a good idea when dealing with other people.
The impropriety of it all entirely lost on him, he just watches her as she backs away and tries to make sense of her situation. Unhelpfully enough, he makes no reply at all to her verbal fumblings, letting them all founder on a foreboding and grimly -expectant- sort of narrow-eyed silence. He's not here for her rambling words or assurances, he's here for her action in giving him back his god damn shades. And right now, she's stalling like hell.
She's also, quite suddenly, trying to escape him.
Pás is a quick, wily girl. K', however, is one of the fastest young men in his usual fighting bracket. A swift flex of his chi blurs him in a sudden streak of wispy black, the boy intercepting her rapidly and decisively just as she tosses herself out the veranda. His left hand snares out, seizing her by all that's left within his reach by the time he gets over there: her ankle. Not optimal, he thinks, but-- good enough.
Busily hauling her right back in, determined she's going to stay right here and reap exactly what she's sown, K' maintains his grasp grimly-- even if he means he has to hold her upside-down. He's convinced she's going to go right back out again if he lets go. "See," he explains darkly, the sibilant word hissed out on a slight breath of exertion, "now, we have two choices here. We can do this the easy way... or we can do it the hard way."
Having long since discovered that the human imagination tends to be far worse than anything he can say aloud, K' fails to elaborate as to what exactly the hard way is.
She's gotta get the hell out of here.
Pás doesn't even take a moment to reconsider. In two wide steps she's stepped up the railing and pushed herself right over. The world opens its arms to receive her, like it's hoping the girl is going to cauterize its big red bleedy sunset skies. The wind whistles past her ears. Gravity pushes against her teeth. The far-away ground comes up close--
And then it all just stops. Her spine bows like a bunch of railray cars forced to emergency brake, all her vertebrae smashing into each other, one after the next. For a moment, she blinks dumbly down, way way down at the ground, as if asking it with her eyes why it's not moving. It's because she is.
Pulled out of the frying pan of a two-storey freefall and into the fire -- both hypothetical and very, so, so very literal -- one swing of K''s arm brings the escapee Brazilian safetly home.
Hanging upside down by her own ankle, Pás slowly and very torturously looks up. From her precarious position, an upside-down K' face glares up. And she is just staring impossibly back. She knew he was fast. She knew he was really, really fast. But she didn't realize he was this fast. The girl stares like she's already forgotten why she was halfway out the window, looking as reverent as someone can while dangling upside-down.
After a moment, the girl lets a slow exhale go and her arms slowly cross, as if she were truly the most long-suffering of long-suffering martyrs, canonized by being dangled upside-down by a really hot guys who broke into her bedroom.
St. Pás, indeed.
If anything, K''s swift, if not impossible display of skill has broken the ice, because it takes one hell of a quick hand to catch someone like her. She's more slippery than snake shit. The girl lets a lot of her previous nervousness go, distracted from his unexpected presence by the sheer prowess he's seemed to bring her. And it wouldn't be a good host not to accept such a rare gift. Her nervousness lessens. Her smile starts to return.
And, getting her bearings back, Pás replies impishly, "Why not both? I be easy and you be hard."
So Pás would rather pitch herself two stories to a painful landing than remain in K''s company much longer. Fine! This is a common enough reaction to him, K' is used to it by now. However, it -does- rather interfere with his purpose here. He could go through her abandoned room himself, but it would be a bother and might not even yield results; it would also not really solve the real issue K' has with Pás, which is not just 'missing shades.' Besides, it'd be extremely hard to explain why he was poking through her drawers if somebody caught him.
That in mind, he stops her egress decisively; and in the aftermath, against all common sense, she gives him another doe-eyed look. He frowns uncomprehendingly down at it, momentarily put off. He's -never going to understand that-.
What he -does- understand, however, is that the smile creeping back onto Pás' face means he's made some kind of mistake. The proof comes moments later.
Her impish reply has predictable results. K' does the first thing that comes to mind. His eyes slit, his mouth flattens into a killing frown, and he spurns her from him harshly, slinging her right back onto the bed where she started: probably with enough force to fetch her up against the headboard. He does that chiefly because even -he- is not asshole enough to hurt a girl by spiking her into the hard unforgiving ground-- at least, not without a little more provocation than that-- but doubtless she's going to find a way to pervert it all and make him fluster even more.
For now, mercifully, he remains oblivious. He just paces slowly back and forth, mildly agitated now and keeping his distance, his path between the door and veranda cutting off escape. "You are seriously trying my patience," he eventually stabs at her, coming to a stop and glaring. He can feel himself losing the advantage... and most maddeningly, he thinks it's something he did, but fucked if he knows what. Too bad he's not too good at dealing with people he can't scare, coerce, or just ignore. "You got nothing better to do than mess with people? Figures, I guess." He straightens, huffing out a sound of disgust as he finally looks around and processes their wealthy surroundings. "Spoiled shits like you students here never had to worry or suffer a day, gotta fill your time with -something- else."
It doesn't take much to pitch Pás halfway across the room. Lean, light-footed, aerial things like her seem to weight little more than throw pillows. She hits her bed with a reckless bounce, the mattress squeaking violently in protest to its sudden abuse. Her head thunks against the baseboard, and though for a few moments Pás sees so many stars she can map out a few constellations, she seems surprised when she realizes she's not on the floor.
Or back out the window.
Or worse.
She picks herself up a moment later, rubbing the back of her head tenderly as she arranges herself over her bed. Despite her slow, eventual return to more habitual behaviors, Pás crosses her legs and seems to stay put. She gives K' some space for now, a decision perhaps mitigated by the wide-eyed look she's still giving him, her dark eyes like one big intrigued highway. She hasn't forgotten that he's broken into her bedroom, and that it's really freaking her out in a way she doesn't like, but Pás is nothing if she's not adaptable.
She watches him closely, carefully, as she carefully bites down on her bottom lip, pressing her teeth against the flesh there. Her head tilts, and she seems to weigh his last, biting remark with considerable thought, her eyelids drooping a little, her mouth ghosting with a smile. She bends up one knee, plants her arm against it, leans her chin down on her hand, and looks at him.
"Now that's not fair," Pás replies loftily, feeling decidedly coy, "don't tell me you never had suffer with boredom, yea?" Her mysterious smiling sharpens, going crooked at one corner. She looks K' up and down, squinting one eye, a look on her face like she's thinking to herself. "You come up here because you think I mess with you? Shiuuu... you are most amazing fighter I have ever seen! I never think /you/ would come /here/! Ha!"
K' nurses some private relief when Pás keeps her distance and just curls up on her bed, looking unlikely to threaten him anymore with a return to her usual antics. Fixing her with a wary, severe glare, he surveys the curiosity in her gaze... but doesn't know what to make of it at all. He had thought to just give her a good scare, maybe kick her a little-- revenge for all those kisses-- get back what was his, and leave: hopefully having put her off bothering him anymore. His is a vindictive nature; he doesn't like the idea of letting all these slights of hers slide, and it helps that he hates spoiled kids who merely dabble in fighting.
But things are working out to become a little more complicated than he had intended.
"No," he shoots back harshly, his spine stiffening like an angry cat. "I don't have the time to be bored. I shouldn't have had time for this, but I figured you might like to know you piss the shit out of me. One of these days it's going to be too much. Think of it like a warning." Oh, K', what a simple world you inhabit where it's an acceptable solution to all ills just walk up to people and say these things to them. It helps that he's disconcerted at the speculative, thoughtful way she's looking at him, unsure of what's going on under that dark hair.
"And I don't -think- you mess with me, I kn-- what?" K' listens just enough through his impatient tirade to actually hear that last thing she says, and it stops him dead in confusion. He stares at her a moment, not certain how to take what she's saying, before he huffs an annoyed breath and sinks back against the wall, shoving his hands in his pockets and casting her a sharp look. "...guess you haven't seen a whole lot of fighters then, if you think that. Heh." The short, humorless laugh comes paired with a slight snarl, a bitter look written momentarily in his yellow eyes.
"Why the hell wouldn't I come, anyway?" His gaze sharpens past that instant of bitterness, focusing in on her. "I told you I would. I don't let people get away with pulling shit on me." A long, sulky pause. "And I liked those shades." He's particularly fond of that pair; for contrary to popular belief, K''s sunglasses are not all exactly the same.
Playing the antithesis of that tall young man who looks one locked joint away from premature rigor mortis, Pás flops down along her bed and oozes along it, settling along her stomach with her head nestled in her hands and her feet kicked up into the air. Her legs flex back and forth as she beams at him, looking like she still hasn't got past the fact that he's in her room.
These are the things of teen girls' daydreams.
"Shiuuu," she echoes again, dismissing his self-deprecating return with a shake of her head. "It is true. I would not say so if it was not; I do not believe in wasting a words. I view many fighters. And you? Opa!" Excitely, she pushes herself up to her forearms, her body arching off off her bed. "There is no one who moves like that. I am not knowing how you do it. But I want to.
"Humm.. I--" Pás starts to consider out loud, before she's stopped by another glance towards K'. That previous blush seems to return to her, though this time only at half-mast, the reddening faint underneath her dark skin. She chomps back down on her bottom lip. She goes back to thinking, gone off her own little word that seems utterly ignorant of all the sharp barbs and threats her intruder had sent her way. That isn't important. This is.
Without warning, she sits up in a single, smooth, and slothful movement, giving her head a shake to push her heavy dark hair away. With her eyes never leaving K', the Brazilian leans decidedly backward, reaching for the only drawer of a small, innocuous table perched at the head of her bed. She opens it slowly.
And Pás comes bearing gifts, as the golden brown sunlight glints off familiar pair of sunglasses that dangle from her fingers. Smiling luxuriously, she opens the sunglasses and slides them on, looking back up. K''s reflection mirrors back at him as she says, "Let's make a deal."
She lolls back against her pillows like someone's expensive cat. "Right here. Right now. We have a fight. You win, you get to take these back. But, if I get one clean shot on you? I /give/ these back to you, which is so much sweeter. And you promise to teach me to fight like you. Yea? No?"
The more she continues to give him that rapt look and spout those equally-rapt words, the more K' just looks at a loss. Accustomed to being told he's subpar, or that he's fallen short, or that he's simply some kind of waste, the attitude of reverence he gets from Pás is completely novel. Unlike a certain God of Battle, K''s arrogant, sneering confidence in a fight is, in actuality, mostly show. There are few genuine feelings of adequacy to bolster it.
As such, he says little in reply to her, the uncomfortable cast to his gaze enough to speak to his reaction. "...Think what you want," he eventually returns grumpily, though he finds the flattery too novel, interesting, and... well, -pleasant- to really tell her to save it. Thusly occupied in rumination on the girl's startling admission, he doesn't notice when she slips into a contemplative silence: much less take heed of her subtle blush when she looks at him. He does notice, however, when she moves.
Inevitably, yellow eyes track right over to the sunglasses that suspend from Pás' crooked fingers, and his gaze follows them as they slide right onto Pás' face. Any other young man might have found something oddly attractive about a girl wearing his articles of clothing... but K' just feels a renewed burst of annoyance. Especially when she mentions 'a deal.'
K' hears it out generously enough. His eyes narrow thoughtfully on her, his hands unhooking out of his pockets to cross back over his chest. He gets back what he came for, whatever the outcome... but if she lands a hit, he has to teach her? K' considers. The idea of -anyone- wanting him of all people to teach them is patently strange... but there -is- something strangely appealing about an actual license to beat the foolish, flippant naivete out of this girl on a regular basis.
"What's to say," K' eventually points out with a sudden craftiness, "I shouldn't just beat you senseless and take them? I doubt you could stop me." He lets that hang a moment, before he finally leans back against the wall with a muted sigh. His eyes narrow languidly on her, his head tilting to one side, and he wonders idly to himself why it is even this spoilt, aggravating, slip of a girl can manage to genuinely amuse him once in a while, even despite her transgressions. He doesn't realize the answer to that question is because she's one of the few people who honestly displays a liking and admiration for him, and nobody can help but warm up a little towards that.
"...But fine," he finally accedes, figuring 'teaching' can't be much worse than maybe beating her up every once in a while. "You think you can land something clean? Come on." One hand frees itself from K''s crossed arms, lifting smoothly, and-- punctuating his words-- the boy gestures her towards him. "But in return for giving your 'deal' a chance instead of just kicking the shit out of you... -you- promise not to kiss or touch me anymore. Unsolicited."
"Psiiiiiu. On /course/ you can fight me up and take them," Pás replies in an impatient huff, leaning her head back and rolling her eyes up at the ceiling and past it, begging Cristo up there to give her some help. "It would be very sexy for both of us, yea yea. But I am sayings it would not taste as sweet as me givings them back. Don't you get it? It means you will have won in many more ways than what can be seen."
The girl pushes K''s sunglasses down the bridge of her nose to wink playfully at him. "Or felt."
But, soon enough she goes quiet, watching the boy steadily, transparently as he thinks. Even though she might not look it, with her sleepy body, heavy, dangling limbs, and perpetually lidded eyes, every nerve in her body is poised directly at him, like a row of iron filings standing on attention and facing some sergeant magnet. His silent contemplation feels like years for her. Is it a yes or a no? Will he agree or will he find himself too irritated of her to accept? Or, worse, will he think she's not worth the time?
Pás forgets to breathe as she waits.
'But fine,' and she startles immediately, brightening up to a few thousand watts. Needing no further encouragement, the Brazilian grins fiercely suddenly explodes into quick movement, vaulting her own bed and landing in her usual, light-footed way. She stretches on the spot, loosening her vertebrae, rolling her shoulders, and jerking her head to either side, already primping herself into a fighting stance. But her guard drops, much like the entire world does from under her feet, when K' lists his fine print.
"Aiii!!" Pás shouts back the next beat, her hands flung up in disbelief and her expression wraught with horror. She bemoans, "Como?! Nao! How can you ask that?! How?! It... it is like, shiu Pás! Do not drinks the water! Do not in-breathe the air! It is like... you take the sun from the heaven! How does life grow in the dark?! How--"
Her last breath sags out, turning into a sad little bleat at the end. And pouting very intently, she looks at K', weighing his terms visibly on her face. She shakes her head, relenting with a sag of her shoulders and a grieving sigh. One hand tosses dismissively. "Sim, sim. I give deal."
With another woe-be-gone shaking of her head, Pás tries to remember the fight in the midst morning the loss of something precious. Over the mirrored sunglasses, her dark eyes quickly survey the room, the untouched, immacuate settings looking all too unlikely to host violence. Is this good enough a place for it?
Pás shrugs. Good a place as any. Marisol will forgive her.
She gets down to business. She has one chance to prove this to him. One chance to make this deal happen. All she needs to do is pull a clean hit on him. Her stance widens. Her weight shifts to the balls of her feet. Her hands lift to knot back her inky hair between her pair of bleached braids. And, most importantly, she adjusts K''s sunglasses on her face.
They're staying on.
COMBATSYS: Pas has started a fight here.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Pas 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: K' has joined the fight here.
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K' 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Pas
COMBATSYS: Pas focuses on her next action.
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////////]
K' 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Pas
"You assume," K' replies her craftily, a hint of her trickiness abruptly reflected right back at her, "that I would feel less gratified just taking them by force than I would if you gave them up." A flicker of a smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth, Pás's chosen idol showing himself to be a sight meaner than Marisol's (for despite appearances, Shenwoo is actually a pretty nice guy). "And the truth is... it makes very little difference to me, either way." A shrug follows. "But if that's how you want to play it..."
He is silent for some time, and wholly unaware of the tense and eager anticipation that strings through Pás's lean frame as he takes his time thinking it over. The funny thing is? While Pás fears he might not find her worth the time... he wonders if perhaps this girl couldn't find somebody better than him to latch onto.
But eventually, he acquiesces. His willingness to do so is possibly increased, just a bit, by the sudden realization that he can tack on his own fine print in return for accepting her deal. Perhaps he can even get her to -drop- the crazy idea entirely by stipulating something she can't bear to give up. Her dismayed reaction draws no sympathy from the boy, his eyes hardening on her horror and loss. Beyond that unforgiving scowl, he's almost hoping the terms will be too much for her... and for a few moments, it seems like they will be.
Her agreement comes presently, dashing that hope; but still, K' finds the ultimate arrangement more than good enough. License to beat her up every once in a while, on top of getting his shades back and also extracting a covenant not to molest him anymore? That's worth the bother of having to impart some actual lessons. It's not, he thinks, watching her as she preps herself eagerly, like there aren't a lot of points I wouldn't mind beating into her.
Of course, there's nothing stopping Pás from continuing with liberal slatherings of affection, under the claim his terms only barred kisses and gropes. But K' doesn't notice that potential loophole. He just watches her as she finally settles in, no doubt focusing entirely on that one hit she has to land. That one hand he'd used to gesture her on hovers absently at his side, sparking suspiciously with a familiar heat... and then, heedless of their (very flammable) surroundings, it abruptly swipes outwards, describing a wide arc of crimson flames, which the boy immediately slams towards Pás in a deterring swath. "Get around that," he challenges lazily, obviously feeling a bit confident about his ability to severely reduce her mobility in these cramped quarters.
COMBATSYS: Pas blocks K''s Second Shoot.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////////// ]
K' 0/-------/------=|==-----\-------\0 Pas
That stolen, killing fire suddenly PLUMES through the room. Pacific students, milling and basking in the warm evening sun far below, turn startled looks up when scalding flames suddenly cough out of one dorm room's open veranda. Some stare. Others just shrug.
It's Southtown.
Standing off against the boy she's chosen as her mentor, facing him like two gunslingers on the high noon draw, Pás reacts but a breath after K'. Acting off the swipe of his arm, she suddenly moves to one side, shooting out one arm back toward her own bed and grabbing down. With a fierce rip, the Brazilian pulls free a blanket from her mattress, unfurling it like the Matador against el toro. She throws it against the direction of the blaze, the quick oxidization pulling it over the worst of the blaze.
It doesn't snuff the fire, but it sure helps. Saved from the worst of it, the girl merely bears down and focuses on protecting her face against the burn, lifting both her hands and letting her own skin crackle and spark with her own chi, its energy helping to negate the sheer blast the rocks past either sides of her.
And a few moments later, through the lingering flames and billowing smoke of the half-charred room, Pás returns. She doesn't get around it as K' had hopefully advised, but leaps straight through one tower of smoke, appearing almost out of nowhere in her mad descent at the boy. With her clothes singed, her skin raw in places, and her grin all the brighter, she throws herself into a reckless front handspring, trying to intercept him with a sudden, spun kick as her body corkscrews madly through the air.
However, not to waste her killer momentum, the instant after her kick, should it strike, she tries to ground herself with one hand planted on K''s shoulder, trying to vault herself up and over him to aim a matching strike at the back of his head.
COMBATSYS: K' blocks Pas' Devil's Crossroads.
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K' 0/-------/------=|==-----\-------\0 Pas
K' finds his fire met with a rather unlikely defense, and for a moment he's given some pause. His hand lowering in the wake of his flames, the boy narrows his eyes against the sudden smoke that plumes up as the blanket goes up instead of Pás. ...hmph, he eventually shrugs, but the sound isn't entirely dismissive. Resourcefulness isn't a sin; it's fine for the girl to use what's around her. But she's going to have to learn to do that without the prop.
It's not an observation he voices aloud. He isn't yet bound to give her a single word of advice, and therefore feels no particular obligation to do so.
There are other things he notices about her subsequent attack, but they go tantalizingly unvoiced. The boy just prepares himself for it, his stance setting as he catches her first thrown kick at the ankle and pushes her back: not hard enough she can't recover in the air and land properly, but hard enough to keep her thinking about her balance. His blocking hand swings downwards afterwards, a frown starting to pull at his features; the force behind that kick is leaving its mark.
Still, for all her force, there seems to be a lack of pure drive behind it. This girl fights for fun... something somebody like her can afford to do. The reminder of that sours his expression, even as he shoves his hands in his pockets moodily and simply kills the distance between them, his chi speeding him in an indistinct smear of black. He swerves around her, angling for her back, and aims an arcing kick upwards at her shoulderblades.
COMBATSYS: Pas fails to counter Medium Kick from K' with Branded Mule.
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K' 0/-------/-----==|======-\-------\0 Pas
And his assessment could not be any truer. Every one of her playful attacks come ensconced with the Brazilian's dismissive smiling. Whether she fights with her drooped eyelids and deceptive smiling or her incited, vigourous abandon like a playful kitten gone drunk on catnip, there is little -- or no -- seriousness bridged in Pás' movement.
For reasons unknown, she doesn't seem to care about anything... except for her own amusement.
As expected, the Brazilian makes a twisty, bendy recovery from her stopped kick before her feet even touch the ground. She curls her spine almost unnaturally and gives her momentum a breakneck spin, spreading her legs and managing to catch herself, half-collapsed, straight into the straddle splits. The force behind her drop strains the muscle in her legs, her perpetual grin faltering from the pain.
Though the sunglasses mask it well, her eyes are alert, already trying to attune themselves for K''s trademark speed. Even then it gets hard to follow him. Suddenly, he's no longer in her peripherals, and feeling spooked, she tries to get back up, pushing to her feet. She goes by her gut, almost feeling him behind her, and with her esteemed recklessly, turns around the instant K' reels back. She reaches out, trying to snatch one hand at his leg, but he's got the distinct advantage... and in more ways than one.
One kick and a couple eyeblinks later, Pás' spine collides heavily against one wall, denting it before she collapses into a half-sprawl. Looking up, that grin of hers still hasn't gone away.
It infuriates him. Her nonchalant fun-seeking ways, her casual habit of touching everything that comes within range, her carefree approach to life-- it all aggravates him beyond belief, the eternally-dour boy never having found much to laugh about when it came to life. Unknowing of her past, only able to see the mask she shows to the world, K' figures her to be some naive girl who hasn't yet experienced anything of what life can really throw. He envies it at the same time he disdains it.
It might almost be worth letting her tag along with him, as she so obviously wants to, just so he can show her how things really work. On top of that, strangely enough something bothers him about her discovering how evil life can be the hard way. It's the same sort of way he feels inexplicably bothered at the thought of those YFCC kids having to suffer what he did. Funny how K' can have those little, unexpected protective urges even towards that he most envies: the normal life.
That little conflict is part of why he looks about twice as irritated now as he did when he first came in the room. Not accustomed to any sort of unselfish thought, he pushes it all from his mind and just focuses on the fight. If he can escape without a hit, after all, he can leave and not think about this any more.
He sees her attempt to stop him, but instead of trying to back out he just follows through faster. It pays off this time, sending her reeling away, and K' retreats back into his customary loose stance. He regards her quietly and unreadably a moment, before he just presses the attack with a sudden lunging, snapped kick; never someone to go easy on an opponent, no matter who they are.
COMBATSYS: Pas endures K''s Minutes Spike.
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K' 0/-------/----===|=======\==-----\1 Pas
Despite her impish smiling and loosened body language like she don't give a damn, Pás is putting the deepest of concentration into this fight. The tiniest of details would reveal her to those who'd know where to look; it's the fact that, since she's made the first move, she hasn't said a word to him.
Using the wall to push herself back up to her feet, Pás' sharp eyes quickly realize K''s movement. He fights aggressively -- much more aggressive than most. He doesn't even give her time to form any sort of strategy. He's forcing her to think on her feet.
She's going to make him her mentor even if it'll kill her.
Bracing one foot back against the wall, Pás does all she can, letting her honed muscles and years of training think for her. She pushes off, striding quickly forward to meet him, revealing nothing but a mysterious quirk of her mouth of her plans. Instead of focusing energy on trying to escape him, trying to turn to break the blow... she braces, gives her right angle an odd twist, and takes the kick right in the ribs.
The kinetic force CRASHES into it, and just as she had hoped, spins her in the degree she had positioned her feet. Instead of being moved back, she goes for a spin, and at the last moment, snaps up one leg in return, taking advantage of K''s closeness with a fierce roundhouse aimed straight at his jaw.
And she's not done. Should it connect, she makes a smooth mutation of her stance, letting her kick fall and switching her weight to that landing foot the instant her other leg circles up, reaching for a second strike. This is how she continues on, weaving leg after leg of tangling spinning kicks, her weight balanced back and forth between feet as she advances step after step.
Finally, at the last kick, instead of twisting to one side, she lets her weight fall forward, and for one brief, snaky moment, tips herself upside-down in mid-air, bringing both legs overhead to try to drive her feet straight at her idol's pretty face.
COMBATSYS: Pas successfully hits K' with Dama Branco.
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K' 0/-------/--=====|==-----\-------\0 Pas
He wasn't exactly expecting her to just meet his thrown kick head on... and the way she seizes and uses the force of it to her own advantage is another unexpected contingency. K' lands swiftly out of his attack, narrowing yellow eyes at her attempt to crack a turning kick straight at him, and his chi spikes again. He moves to just dismissively duck right under it, no stranger to the power of belittling demoralization in disrupting enemy concentration--
--but she'd sped her heel a little faster than he thought. The first kick lands, and then the second, and then all the rest; the final double-heeled shot finally snares the elusive boy decisively, sending him slamming back-first against the far wall with a decidedly satisfying impact.
His head dips in the aftermath. Silver bangs drop across his eyes and hide his expression, his hands hooking slowly into his belt loops. Is he going to honor their deal? For a long few moments, the answer to that isn't in the least bit clear. He looks as likely to renege and beat her senseless as he is to acquiesce.
"...heh." The sardonic sound finally cuts the air. At the least, K' is staying put right where he is, leaned against the wall: shoulders slumped, long legs bracing him upright. Eventually he flicks a stare up at her, the look in his yellow gaze considering and sharp. "Feels like you really do want it, though I'll never get why."
Irritatedly, he fishes for a cigarette, seemingly having no qualms about smoking up her room even further. Lighting up with a cursory flick of his fire, he squints at her over the first breath of smoke... and then beckons her at him impatiently with an expectant gesture. The words implicit in the motion are clear. Give those back, DON'T MOLEST ME, and then we'll talk the rest of the deal.
COMBATSYS: K' takes no action.
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K' 0/-------/--=====|==-----\-------\0 Pas
Freed from her final, twisting kick, the bruised and slightly burnt Brazilian falls into a crouch, her hands and feet landing mutedly against the singed hardwood. Breathing hard, her back and shoulders bowing slightly with the movement, she gives away her own fatigue. Landing just a single clean him on him has been hard work for her, and it shows.
Soon enough, Pás looks up, and despite the hurt, her realization of victory swarms across her face, infecting all features in its storming wake. Beaming brightly, she gives her head a triumphant toss, shaking her dark hair back and rubbing a forearm against her sweaty brow. Propping herself against one knee, the girl grunts but stands back up, assuming position to just stamp her hands in her hips, hold her head on high, and just grin at K'.
Looks like she's won the bet. And his consolation prize is one new protege.
Ever fluent in body language, it doesn't take the Brazilian long to read the hidden tome under K''s irritated, smoking face. When he beckons, Pás just laughs in a resigned way. She takes his sunglasses off her face, her uncovered, mischevious dark eyes shining champagne-amber in the light of the setting sun. Slowly and gently, suddenly taking great care handling property that is not hers, she folds them shut, her smile gone slanted as she gives her stolen goods one last look. Finally, she looks back up at K', staring at him as her full lips purse in a decided way. She lays a kiss on one lens of his sunglasses, leaving behind a print of her caramel lipstick before she casually tosses them his way.
"Psiu, Acendedor," Pás asks smugly of her new mestre, "what is lesson the first?"
COMBATSYS: Pas takes no action.
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K' 0/-------/--=====|==-----\-------\0 Pas
Rolling a lick of smoke about in his mouth idly, K' watches Pás with a casual appraisal as she gets her breath back after her efforts. She's got a ways to go, but what she has is a good start. Mere moments after the evaluation crosses his mind, however, a private stab of horror follows on its heels. Don't tell me, he thinks annoyedly to himself, sighing out that little plume of smoke and letting his eyes lid in disbelief, I'm actually getting into this idea.
He doesn't know it, but it's the mere fact of 'feeling needed' that makes him a lot more amenable to the arrangement than he thought he would be. Pás is not only one of the first /normal/ people of society to actually like or admire him... she's the first to make him feel he's really got any value or worth. It's enough to mollify anyone, especially if you're already arrogant like K' is; the chance to shape somebody else after your own preference is always a nice shot to the ego.
Helps that she finally gives back his favorite pair of shades, too.
Snaring his returned shades out of the air with a practiced swipe, K' one-handedly flicks the arms open and-- narrows eyes at the kiss mark. But after a moment, he just shrugs and slips them on anyway, apparently not wanting to get lipstick on his clothes by wiping it off. He'll get rid of it later. Feeling a lot more confident now with those familiar lens to obfuscate his eyes and hide his expressions, he lets a smirk coil around his smoking cigarette. There. That familiar mask is back.
He's not saved from his new obligation, however... a fact that's hammered back in when Pás asks for her first lesson. He muses a luxuriant amount of time, smoking thoughtfully. What -is- the first lesson? He hadn't thought this far ahead. "I guess we'll go over some rules first," he finally answers craftily, knowing how much Pás likes rules. "You -remember- your promise not to kiss or feel me up--" that's what he really bargained for here, in exchange for giving her a chance to make him her mentor at all, "-- and you do what I say. I haven't got the patience for too many runarounds."
Finally, however, he seems to relent. His hidden gaze sharpens a little bit as he ticks off what he's noticed. "You got some decent tricks," he shrugs indifferently, the words coming out laced with smoke, "but they need to come out faster. Training can help that. So--" He's in front of her in the next instant, a smear of obfuscating black the only intermediary between previous and current position. "...can chi." He narrows his eyes on her consideringly. "Don't see you using much of it, though..."
Alternating fanning the air a little to get rid of the residual smoke sitting from K''s fire and dusting off her own seared clothes, it takes Pás just a bit longer than normal to notice her new mentor's new look. When she finally glances back up at him, his mirrored shades stare back, her kiss tattooed over one eye-lens. She can't help it. The girl bursts into giggles, lifting one hand to cover her mouth as her eyes crease with amusement.
When he reiterates his so very important conditions, her schoolgirlish tittering finally fades, replaced with a half-hearted groan as she gives a complaining roll of her eyes. Don't remind her. Ever so begrudgingly, she complies, living her right hand the way gringoes do on their television as a testament to her word. "Sim, sim. I am promise. Honour of the scouting." No kissing. No fondling. How will she ever get by?
Thank Cristo he didn't include hugs.
Dropping her hand, she lets her hands twine behind her back, giving her head another shake with a slight cough. Her ribs are hurting something awful, but even then -- it's nothing against that sudden cut to her pride. K''s remark earns a fast reaction, the Brazilian staring at him with startled eyes, looking stung around the corners. "Decent?!" she echoes, a little huffy. "Shiu! They have so much more than th--
"--ai..." Pás bleats, choking on her words when, out of nowhere, she gets a faceful of K'. She looks him up and down visibly, not quite having enough of watching him /move like that./ Soon enough, her surprise grows a smile, a big sloppy awestruck one that reeks of puppy love. Her face flushes a little, and in a sudden turn of events, /she/ backs up a little, finally the one asking for a little personal space. "Euh... that is chi? I never thought you could use it like that. I--" she pauses, looking properly chastised at K''s reproachful comment, "Sim, I am guess so. I jes never figures mine so powerful that I use it so often."
K' frowns articulately at Pás when she laughs at him, every quirk of his expression filled with the disgruntled and bristly annoyance of a ruffled cat. Still, it seems he can't even be bothered to do anything about that mark: not immediately, anyway. It'll be a sad day when such a small thing as a kiss on his lens could completely derail him past any recovery, after all.
And he proves that soon enough, when he manages to quiet her laughing with a cool reminder of his terms. Looking quite pleased with himself at having neutralized this threat to the integrity of his person, he doesn't quite notice the loopholes that are left. If Pás is lucky, he won't remember up until she first flings her copious affections-- none of which could rightly fall under 'feeling up'-- at him.
The longer he sticks around, the more he's figuring out ways to get under her skin. The added leverage is a relief to him; he's not about to play on any field that isn't, at the least, even. And when she asks his advice, but then takes offense to the delivery... K' shows her a little of that tricky, blurring speed that attracted her attention in the first place.
"I'm not about to call anything that doesn't fool me more than 'decent.' Or passable," he returns coolly from his new vantage point right in her face: his word choice and delivery perhaps a bit cruel. Has Pás finally met her asshole match?! Even if not, she's certainly met somebody who can do to her what Shenwoo does to Marisol: force a blush and a shy retreat. Not that K' is really aware of the meaning of all that shuffling and face-reddening. She backs away, and K' just stays where he is; he isn't going to argue her giving him space... even if he was the one who invaded hers in the first place.
He hears out her reasoning for not using her chi in silence, his eyes thinning more and more as she goes on. At the conclusion of her words, he finally huffs a dismissive sound with a breath of smoke. "Che. If you never use it, it's never going to -get- any stronger. Shame. There are so many ways to use it beyond just this." A hand lifts, flickering fire imitating her sparking chi about his fingertips. "And you don't even -need- a lot of chi to get shit done. It's not even like I have a lot." His expression darkens, that admission running puzzlingly counter to the displays of intense fire he's shown in the past.
The Brazilian girl pouts back her eloquent response. Despite all her begging and contest for him to mentor her, it's starting to appear that she's one who's never received much criticism in her life. Or orders. Spoiled thing like her was probably given the keys to her own limousine before she was toilet-trained.
However, as much as it visibly seems to be eating away at her pride, much less her innate sense of freedom, Pás listens to K''s chiding. Stepping back to lean herself against the nearest wall, her arms crossed loosely over her chest. Her heavy-lidded eyes turn on cue, drawn by the sudden flare of fiery chi as it is granted life from his hand. Lifting her own dark-skinned, long-fingered hand, she turns her gaze upon it, tracing every callous on her fingers. Mirroring him, her own chi crackles to life with the soft hiss of a roman candle, making its own light and heat, though its display never quite matches his fire. Hers seems to be much more juvenile, constrained to the flint strikes before the first flames, and never to get any hotter.
Her hand clasps and her own sparks fade, snuffed inside her palm. Pás lets her hand drop. "Ufa, I had never thought it to be any more than the..." she pauses, searching for the word, "supplement? Back home -- ai, that was in Brasil -- I was not trained to use it. No one, they did not know to how. I teach myself, yea..." but her voice lowers, "but not very well." Her pout nearly comes back from the dead to haunt her mouth. "So where am I start? What do I do?"
If nothing else, K' will be good for destroying Pás's spoiled unaccustomedness to command and criticism. He's not one either to brook argument with his whims or tolerate pouty expectations that he'll hold back the harshness of his tongue.
But now that the adrenaline is wearing off and reality is sinking in with her more substantive questions, he's starting to feel that everpresent spectre of self-doubt gnawing at his peripherals again. Against all his inclinations towards simply not caring about others, against his selfish nature, he almost... feels a secret concern about steering Pás wrong. Well, he reasons, at the least, what he's learning from Geese Howard has applicability here as well; he can pass what he learns there.
...well. Not -everything- he learns there.
His yellow eyes rest on her hand as she sparks her own chi to life, and he considers it in light of what he himself has learned of chi: both from his time with NESTS, and what he's picked up from hanging boredly around the YFCC. She seems to have no problem calling it up from the environment, he assesses, but then she leaves it in that raw state. She does little with it.
"Look," he finally starts slowly, trying for the first time to put in words what he's so far done largely on instinct, "-I- mostly taught myself. I only started getting real guidance recently. So I'm not gonna guarantee anything I do is right. But everything I heard about it, everything I do myself, everything I'm getting taught now, it all says that force of will is what you need. And you get that from what you feel." Chi command was never something K' has had problems with, himself; after all, he has a considerable will and fights on sheer savage instinct, and instinct pulls heavily on raw emotion. Now, the Kusanagi fire...? That was always an entirely different beast: an internal power, springing from the blood rather than the mind, which K' as of yet does not have the confidence, spiritual strength, or knowledge to use without that glove.
Unceremoniously, that quick and reckless side of the Brazilian girl seems to return to hibrenation, as she stuffs her hands into her pants pockets, crosses her ankles, and leans back against the wall, watching K' under the sleepy slant of her eyelids. Even with her perpetual freedom rankled, she maintains her art of the truly unaffected, and most of his internal worries are gone unreturned by her slouched standing and mysterious smiling. She's not too concerned. About much.
Even when her new mentor offers his first caveat, going on to imply that everything he tells her may not be right... Pás shrugs it off. No one, not even the fire-wielder himself, can tarnish her opinion of K' and his sheer power and skill she's been lucky to witness. If she had any doubts about wanting to be his study, she wouldn't have asked him. But she doesn't. She wants him to teach her.
And Pás always gets what she wants.
"Shhhhhhiu," she exhales breezily to that silly talk, tossing one hand in a dismissive way. "You have the amazing. That is all you need. Ufa, the fact you have been learned it all from yourself? All the better!" Her arm lowers to rest her hand on her hip, her weight shifting to one leg as she tilts her head and considers him. As K' goes on to reveal the power of emotion, Pás has only to answer that with growing amusement, before she lets out an airy laugh. "Then we will have none problems! I am always feel!" She beams. "Feeling happy!"
K' is going to have a lot of work.
Nonplussed. That's the best way to describe K''s face right now. The serious, perpetually-grim young man doesn't handle flippance all too well, and Pás's dismissiveness of his reservations just leaves him looking puzzled. Pushing a hand through his hair in perplexed silence, he eventually lets his bangs fall back in his face with a simple sigh and pulls his shades off again: hooking them in a jacket pocket.
He isn't much equipped to deal with her continuous praise and admiring looks, either. He talks an arrogant and cocky fight, but his actual confidence is a fragile and tenuous thing. He tries so hard to prove he isn't the failure NESTS branded him as, that when affirmation is so breezily and casually handed to him he doesn't quite know how to deal with it.
It -does- kind of feel nice, though. Just like it feels so weirdly nice to finally be -needed- for something that doesn't just come circling right back to Kusanagi-related crap.
Even so, this isn't really something he can handle for much longer. Blindsided by this sudden development as he was-- the last thing he ever expected to happen in his life was for someone to want him for a mentor-- he's going to have to escape soon just to figure out what he's got himself into. Whatever it is, it won't be easy; especially considering her last airy declaration.
K' just stares at her a long time. Eventually, he palms his face with a long sigh, smoke hissing past his teeth with that despairing sound. "...'Happy.'" A long, disbelieving silence thereafter: one which clearly suggests 'happy' is not exactly what he was looking for. "Uh. Let's... start this -another- time, huh?" he eventually continues, trying desperately to buy a little time, fixing a baleful yellow eye on her up through his fingers. Letting his hand drop and stalking over to a little box of tissues on the dresser, K' takes one without bothering to ask and proceeds to wipe the kiss mark off his shades. Like hell he's forgetting about that.
"Yeah... How about you think on that a couple days," he says, a little more confidently despite the fact he's simultaneously retreating out the door as he talks, "and then, you come find me. YFCC." Already half out the door, one hand flicks in a dismissive gesture. "If you can't find me, ask somebody..."
He'd probably feel better about this situation if he knew That Bastard Shenwoo is in pretty much the same boat.
Lamb's blood must have been painted on her cradle to have passion pass her by, because the Brazilian girl seems entirely bereft of it, and happily so. Looking like someone who's not missing anything where emotion is concerned, she's the epitome of the terminally unconcerned. She's nirvana. She's zen. She's the one hep train straight to coolsville. She lacks the egg white to emusify the worry into her, and it slides right on down and off the girl's back.
She's definitely going to be a headache.
As poor K' starts to mentally balk against the sort of mess he's found himself in, Pás just smiles on in her mysterious way. When he proposes to begin her training some other day, her smile widens into a jagged grin and she shrugs approval, not quite seeming to mind either way. After all, she got him to agree to it. She got his promise -- his oath. She's not worried about him reconsidering. If she knows anything about this boy, she's got an inkling that he's got a stubbornness that goes unparalleled. He's not the type to double-back.
"Sim, yea, yea," she replies lazily, pushing off from the wall with one shoulder. "You my boss, yea? I do what you say. Two days, Acendedor. Then I find you."
Pás pauses. Her face is locked in transparent consideration. Then, like a mushroom cloud does over an atomic blast, her smile grows. "Psiu!" she exclaims at last, stepping forward. "I cannot resist this! You say no kisses, you say no intimate handlings, but you say no--
"HUGS!" Pás squeals as she launches at K', leaping forward to nab the poor boy in a fate worse than NESTS experimentation. She clamps down on him and gives him a tight, affectionate squeeze, the kind she only reserves for her teammates -- especially Luc Shroedinger. He's already been mentally reorganized to 'trusted friend.' As she leeches on in bliss, the girl promises endlessly, "I thank you so much! We will be best partners ever! I will work so very hard for you! You be proud of me! I will swear it!"
He really isn't the type to go back on statements he makes. He makes few enough commitments to anyone or anything, that those which -are- made tend to carry some decided importance. K' has very little to call his own in this world, and among the few things he has to his name is his word. It's rarely given, but when it is, it is usually not easily broken at all. Many are the days in which he wishes, fervently, that this were not so.
Like this day, for example. In so many more ways than just one.
It will be a lot of work to turn this girl into something that could even come close to satisfying him. Right now, what irritates him most about her-- and coincidentally, also what he thinks will hold her back the most-- is the fact she just doesn't seem to -care- about anything. Nothing fazes her, but nothing motivates her, either. And it's all because the only reason he can see that she has to fight... is pure fun. Shits and giggles. It angers him; his hatred of mere sport fighters and talentless thrill-seekers is intense.
As such, he resolves anew: I am going to kick this nonchalance out of her.
Or maybe just kick her, as the case may be, since with that ominous sudden exclamation the girl makes her next move a sudden bolt at him: one accompanied by a blood-chilling declaration that she has found a loophole. Pás limpets onto his back, dangling off his shoulders, and K''s eyes-- if possible, narrow even further. His tall frame freezes under her touch, every muscle going taut.
For a very long, very ominous few seconds, the boy is completely still.
"Fine, fine, just... get off me," he eventually answers her gushing, his response gracious enough all things considered. His eyes stay as flat as his voice. He just keeps walking, a half-hearted attempt to pry her off him essayed, but not really followed through to any potentially awkward-looking degree. Even if it doesn't work in getting her off him, he just keeps on going. With enough mileage, he is -bound- to dislodge her eventually.
Log created on 22:01:23 04/01/2008 by K', and last modified on 05:07:17 04/13/2008.