Description: Chun-li and K''s seemingly impossible mission to save Whip from the clutches of Mr. Big succeeds, but at a price. Can K' recover from his wounds, and what of Whip's own physical and mental condition? Also, why is Shurui in the middle of all this?
The week didn't seem like it could get any worse when Shurui bumped into one curious dictator clad in red. What followed were nightmares and fits of paranoia that could only be attributed to her own self, rather than any stalking on Vega's part. Then there were her own powers. Like a shirt returned after being stretched out by someone larger than you, Shurui's inability to actively and constantly control her powers proved to be frustrating and at times frightening. .... However, when she finally found out about K' and Whip, it put everything in perspective. Fuck whatever happened to her; she'd say that whatever the two siblings went through was so much worse, if only due to the vague details she had as to what happened. And so, Shurui became a little sentry, keeping watch over the room in some fashion until school, sleep, food, certain visitors, and things like doctors and nurses scooted her out. The nightmares remained, and any nurses unfortunate enough to attempt to wake her from a light snooze often promptly ran off.
Shurui's taken to drinking energy drinks since then.
The leaves outside the hospital room frame blue sky against orange-red as the girl comes back in for the day, fresh from another day at Gedo High. Depositing her backpack against the wall with a quiet motion, she sits at a small table in one corner of the room and takes out some textbooks and a magnifier. Homework, it seems. Math. The room becomes quiet as she works, all except for the beeping of equipment and the distant pleasent laughing of a pair of nurses down the hallway.
The doctors all knew it was a terrible thing to think, but they thought it nonetheless. None of them said it, but they all privately thanked God that, when Whip came into the hospital yet again, /this time/ her brother was also injured. Too injured to give them a hard time out of his usual frenzied overprotectiveness.
Once the relief had passed, pity for his condition set in. The girl was badly injured, but this time her brother seemed worse. It looked like some savage and wild beast had been at him, from the way the flesh had been stripped in tearing rags from his shoulder and the top right part of his chest, and to top it off he had had two holes punched straight through his torso: one fresh and bloody, the other barely given a chance to heal before trauma similarly tore it open again.
Exhaustion exacerbated all the other wounds he had sustained until they could not truly be called 'lesser.' Surgeons had worked on him intensely for hours. Merely cleaning the infected injuries had been a monumental task in and of itself, and when they were finally through with him, he still didn't wake up for days. Whip might well have roused from her unconsciousness before her brother: who'd gone through two rounds of Yamazaki and exhausted himself to the brink of collapse.
The only sleep he'd let himself had, in those few days he was searching for his sister, had been the few hours he gave himself in Chun-Li's care.
It's not a common sight at all, to see K' completely incapacitated like this and for this length of time. He looks out of place in a hospital bed, unresponsive and still, his body taking longer than usual to mend the trauma it's been subjected to. And he doesn't look prone to waking anytime soon.
Whip may not look it, but she's been conscious for hours. She woke in the early hours of the previous morning, when the skies were still dark and the room was cold of any life, breathed in slowly, and remembered everything. She was dying. She fell asleep knowing she would not reawaken.
But now she was awake. She had sat up in bed, seeing the world, fuzzy and blurry, out one eye. Only one eye. She had touched her face and felt the raspy touch of bandages. There were more on her body, tight in places, restricting movement. She smelled like hospital. She was in one.
It was hard to see with just one eye that didn't want to work, and the dark room made everything so hard to see... but when she turned her head, she knew what she had seen. It was her brother. And he wasn't moving.
Whip slouched back down on her bed, feeling suddenly heavy. She didn't want to be conscious any more. She went back to sleep, hoping she would remain that way for a long time.
But she's been long used to ungranted wishes; she's been awake for hours when Shurui dutifully arrives, slipping into the room and setting up shop. By this time, the Ikari's mind has cleared and she's spent much of the day alone to her own thoughts, which have been mostly dark and ugly. She's not aware of it, but it won't be long until the medical staff find her conscious, assess her condition a step up from critical, and finally allow the young woman to be debriefed by a certain mercenary unit that very desperately wants to know what happened the past few days.
For now, she has her peace.
When Shurui enters, Whip responds only with the turn of her one, unbandaged eye, watching the girl with a quiet detachment. She doesn't move, nor does she speak up, having little spirit to do anything but look on.
Shurui's insistant watching is a minor annoyance that pales to K''s sentinel-like watch. She can easily be ushered out of the room; there's no distrust held between her and the doctors, especially when the sputtering life force that is K' and Whip only seems to get better over time in their care. To some, it may seem endearing, to see a short girl so set on keeping a watch on the two that they sometimes find her asleep at the small table.
It took Shurui a moment to realize Whip was awake, as close as the Ikari soldier's consciousness seemed to the same coma she had a day ago. But Shurui, whether Whip wishes for it or not, eventually notices, her pencil and magnifer dropping to the table as she rushes to Whip's side. Her expression wanes as she moves her head close enough to realize Whip's detached gaze. She goes quiet then, gazing at Whip's face, her mind struggling to find words.
By some miracle, she finds some.
"I know I'm not the one you want to see right now," Shurui begins, dark eyes a rare shade of sympathetic, "... But he's getting better. He'll want to see your face when he wakes up." The girl's face is tired, sad, but not the exhausted one of someone pushing herself. In her weird state, she probably can't afford to. Quietly, and, with a burdened slowness, she points a finger to her eyes. "His recovery is slow, and his energy is faint. But it gets just a bit brighter each time I come here. The surgeons did a good job on him."
Carefully, she reaches out to touch the cheek of Whip's own face, mirroring her action a few seconds earlier if Whip doesn't turn her face away. "If I could, I'd show you. I'd show you what I see. I'd be your eyes. But until then, please, hold on for him. If that's not enough, then do it for me. Rest, heal, eat, drink. I won't leave you until he wakes or someone comes in to take my place."
For as long as Shurui has known Whip, that Ikari soldier has been warm. She would look on that girl, on her brother, and on others with kindness in her eyes. For a weathered soldier, she did not care to disguse affection and care. She was always expressive. She would even very easily cry.
Whip's single, brown eye is almost cold as it watches Shurui now. Whether or not she wants to see Shurui, her face reveals little. She doesn't seem to mind either way. There is no measure of spite, no anger, not really even a palpable sadness; it is almost like that warmth in her has cooled, and cares just a little less. It's all she's felt since she awakened to find her brother unable to do the same.
She does not even move as Shurui draws close to the bed, merely watching the girl almost facelessly with that single eye, the other hidden under thick layers of gauze that wrap around her head. Broken glass had been ground into her eye, the cornea scratched beyond belief. The surgeons were afraid of the possibility of the young Ikari losing an eye, though her astounding rate of recovery has surprised them before. It does again.
She remains quiet, only flinching minimally in the face when K' is mentioned. Relief flickers at the corners of her features, Whip trusting Shurui enough to believe her words. But they don't offer her anything more. Whether K' recovers or not from his extensive injuries, it does not remove the reason that put him in that bed. She knows he came looking for her. She knows he managed to find her. It was supposed to be a routine assignment, but her monumental failure brought about every last one of his injuries.
--Surgeons worked on him.
Whip's eye turns away, her expression briefly pained. The hatred she has for herself hits a point that her mouth suddenly tastes toxic. She only glances back when she's touched, looking up at Shurui with her single, sullen eye. Tired defeat writes clearly across Whip's aura and her face. She doesn't pull away, but her eye eventually closes. After many moments, she replies, her voice thin and grainy, "Stay with him," she entreats, with a strange inflection in her voice that suggests something more. "Don't... worry about me."
Don't look at me like that, Shurui wants to say. I may not see it exactly, but I feel it. The sensation is not due to any special gift her powers grant her, however; it's the simple lack of something that was once so common in Whip's manner that causes it to be all the more noticable. A cold void, even if Whip doesn't look at her with any amount of negative emotion. Directed towards her, that is.
The touch stays there as soon as it's realized it's allowed, slowly trailing to cup against the side of Whip's cheek, the touch small and cool. Hesitant, even, as if something inside wants to pull that hand away out of embarrassment. She's more used to contact than K', only recieving a marginal amount of discouragement from her environment; still, it can be tempting to pull back out of fear of being vernuable. "I'll stay with him. And you. You have no choice in that; he's right there and I don't want to leave you alone now that you're awake." The sympathy in her eyes turns to a strange sort of crossed empathy. ".... I'm sorry I wasn't there when you woke up. It's really scarey, waking up from something like that, isn't it?"
The hand against Whip's cheek quivers, slightly, then subsides.
"It's not your place to tell me what I should or shouldn't worry about," Shurui now says, a small frown on her lips. "It's not K''s either. I'll cry and worry and all that shit, but it's because I got something in my life worth worrying about." Shurui's frown continues to stay on those lips, despite the content and emotion behind her words. "... And that's my choice. You have a choice to. Don't waste it."
And for the duration of Shurui and Whip's short interaction, the subject of their attention doesn't stir.
K' is a lot more tranquil-- and tolerable-- when he's asleep. Or, more aptly in this case, in a coma. When awake, he possesses a sort of understated, suppressed intensity: a force of presence that makes everything and everyone else around him seem like mere background. Awake, he alternates between smoldering stillness and a restless movement that constantly drips threat. Rarely is he ever anything in between.
Now, however, his usual demanding, focused nature finds itself easily wiped away by the forced peacefulness of unconsciousness. Now, he's finally getting some of the rest he so sorely needs. And Shurui and Whip are given a much-needed break from his overbearing demeanor.
But soon enough, as if able to sense Whip's overwhelming guilt even from beyond the veil of consciousness, K' starts to rouse. Awareness returns slowly, like trying to reach the surface of a frozen pond. A lot of people would have started up in blind shock upon reawakening... but K' was engineered to have too perfect a control over his body for that. Long since conditioned to treat every involuntary loss of consciousness as a potential threat or danger, and to remember wariness as soon as he becomes conscious enough to process thought, K'-- like a sophisticated computer system that just suffered some inexplicable bluescreen-- boots up in Safe Mode.
This entails a total lack of movement as he regains consciousness. His senses sharpen first, the attention of his body first diverted to figuring out where he is and if he has to keep playing dead. The moment he figures out he's in a hospital, he relaxes marginally; and he relaxes the rest of the way when he hears Whip's voice, every last inch of him comforted to hear her speak.
Assured that he doesn't have to be tense or on guard anymore, he finally cracks one yellow eye cautiously open. The light instantly hurts him, and he shuts it again. A sigh pushes out of him, and with that breath comes the inevitable question: "...where is she." He wants his sister.
Don't look at me like that, Whip also wants to say. She can see the sympathy in Shurui's eyes, and it's not deserved. Not for her. All she can dredge up, past the overwhelming want to feel nothing, is anger at herself -- anger at her own failure, and the consequences it wrought upon the people closest to her. K' is in pieces and Shurui looks like she hasn't slept right in days. She had taken her own failure in her mission in stride and had prepared to die. This shouldn't be happening. She shouldn't be here.
She feels no more than another agent of the Syndicate, with a purpose that brings about destruction. It was just the smallest of slips in her function as a soldier that gave K' every one of his injuries, the collision of her two worlds bringing about unspeakable ends. What does she do in response to this? Is she supposed to give one thing up? Does she give up being a mercenary, and who she is, or does she give up her friends -- who she loves?
She can't decide. And she doesn't deserve sympathy for her indecision.
Whip is warm against Shurui's hesitant, meaningful touch, but the look in her eye is not. The girl's words are strong and heartfelt, but the Ikari soldier looks as though she had not heard them at all, standing in a guilty detachment from the lot of it. Sullen and dispondant as she is, the young woman reaches her breaking point when Shurui apologies to her. /Apologizes./ It's the last thing she should be doing--
She doesn't try to shrug away from Shurui's hand. But Whip's own hand, bruised and much more callused, flexes, shifts clumsily, and moves on top of Shurui's. With that gentled patience of hers, she tries to pull the girl's hand away, holding it within her own for a heartbeat. Then she just reaches out to let it go back to the younger girl's side.
Waking up isn't what's scary, she's thinking in response to Shurui's words. It's what comes after.
Like the sudden, unexpected sound of her brother's voice rising up from unconsciousness. Whip's one eye turns on him, widening, startled by the fact that he's alive, awake, and speaking. Relief surges through her, choking her up. Then it darkens and mutates into guilt.
She doesn't reply to her brother's call. Whip says nothing at all. She turns her face away from both of them.
So focused is Shurui on Whip that, again, she doesn't notice her other ward beginning to rouse to unconciousness. It's such a subtle process that it's not until a few seconds before he opens that first eye that Shurui looks away from Whip. Then, amazingly, he speaks. "..." A look of relief comes to Shurui's worried face. Her shoulders slump. There. K''s awake. Evidence for Whip. She can now focus on getting well, and K' can do the same, and they-
Whip's not answering. Suddenly concerned that Whip's unresponsiveness was due to some sudden coma, Shurui's gaze goes back to Whip, and finds... well, that Whip is the same as before. Except, instead of speaking, Whip simply chooses to lay there, head turned away from Shurui's eyes.
Shurui wets her lips nervously. "Whip. I can't speak in your place, you know. He wants you, not me."
If the silence from Whip continues to last, the odd twitch resuming in that hand of Shurui's, though it does not seem to carry any threat of violence. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself and say something!" Rude words for a woman who went through hell and back, but the neutral mask on Shurui's face cracks just then, naked fear in leaking through into her expression and words. "... We've all been through our own hells- drawing away from each other doesn't solve anything. We have to stick together, or we'll burn ourselves out before we have a chance! Please..." Her hands grip the railing, their owner fighting to regain her composure. "...." She sighs, and says another plea, her voice tired. "C'mon."
Though his eyes are shut and his expression does not appreciably change, Shurui won't be able to blind herself to the way K''s aura-- rousing from its passive unconsciousness-- is starting to shudder and twist around in a panicked sort of way, as if searching. Finally, his brow knits: the one concession he will make to his concern. His right hand moves across the sheets feebly.
But... but he heard her just now. Was he just hallucinating that? Is she all right, or was he just hoping so hard he was he imagined her voice?
"Where is she. I heard her!" His voice starts to rise a little, and though it's still little more than a rasping, windy thing half the volume it could normally muster, the insistence in it is undeniable. A shadow of its usual strength lurks beneath its quiet tone. K' latches to Shurui's voice without even hearing her words, knowing that here at least is something he can be sure is present, and-- as always-- he starts demanding. "I want her!"
Under normal circumstances, he would probably never have let himself be heard saying such a thing. But he's not entirely in full possession of his faculties quite yet, and he can only focus his mind on one thing. He wants to know that all he did wasn't in vain and his sister is now safe and awake.
Shurui's sudden, sharp, and entirely apt rebuke should be more than enough to startle Whip out of her self-deprecation. But it's not.
The fact of the matter remains is that this is the first time Whip has ever seen her brother injured, truly, critically, injured. And as she watched him in the early hours of this morning, an unconscious, gored-out mess of what used to be, she didn't know what to think. K' had always been so strong, stronger than she was, and his unmoveable power had become her touchstone. She finally saw him as something vulnerable and mortal... and she's still having problems reconciling that. She felt lost.
So the first instinct was a rather natural one -- the choice for Whip to blame it all on herself.
She doesn't flicker a muscle or twitch a finger as Shurui snaps, then pleads at her, staring off at something else with an eery patience. Whip's only movement is the slow blinking of her unbandaged eye. She doesn't speak up. She doesn't register a single word. She's hoping that if she stays still for long enough, Shurui will leave her bedside and remain by K''s.
But even as good as Whip can pretend she's past the point of caring, K''s broken, crumbling demands cleave into her like strikes from an axe. One eyebrow twitches, and she tightens her jaw in earnest to ignore his shouts. Her eye closes. Finally, when he proclaims wanting her near, her silence breaks. "I'm here," Whip's gravelly voice speaks up, low and soft, but able to be heard. Her eye doesn't open, she doesn't turn to face either of them. She just says, tiredly, "It's fine."
Finally, Whip speaks, if only to answer that raspy whisper of K''s.
"..." She stands back, shoulders slumped and tired. Taking Whip's hand and holding it in her own, Shurui says, "I'm staying in this room until someone comes to watch for me, so feel free to tell me if you need something. If the doctors think you're ready, I can get some ice chips if you want them. I'm going to go over to K' now." Of course, it would be easy to see that without Shurui explaining, but the words seem more an attempt to not allow Whip to sink any further into her shell than she already is.
The hand releases Whip's own, Shurui looking worriedly back at Whip before walking the few steps to come over to the neighboring bed. There, glancing over at the painfully conscious K', Shurui takes a moment to regain her wits, her neutral expression almost breaking again due to the added strain of K''s aura banging against her wounded senses.
It isn't Vega, though, and for that, Shurui can be glad.
"I'm sorry I'm not the face you wanted to see- but Whip's on the bed next to you, as you might've gathered. You're in the same room." She wants to grasp K''s hand, just as she did Whip's, but, just before her hand subconsciously nears his, she stops, remembering herself. No, he'd probably react negatively to that, to someone's touch, right when the person he wanted to physically confirm to exist is Whip. "Her body's healing up; the doctors were really amazed at how her wounded eye's doing. She might regain sight if predictions come true. Mentally, she's still exhausted. Can't blame her, though. Been watching you both as much I can."
Does she think K' will care or want her quiet words? Not really, but information is always a good way of giving control to someone. Nothing makes you feel more hopeless than a lack of knowing where you stand. "... Is there anything I can do for you? I can't give you want you really want, but I can at least make you more comfortable."
Hearing Whip's voice seems to soothe K' immensely. His head turns aside listlessly into the pillow, his hand stilling and his aura slackening. He's not very good at inflections even at the best of times, terrible at picking up when someone mouths words they don't mean: right now, he doesn't have a prayer of detecting that Whip's 'I'm fine' might not be 100% sincere.
Besides, it's probably the 'I'm here' he's more interested in, right now.
The young man exhales a sigh. So he didn't fail. Not this time. Comforted by that thought, he listens blankly as Shurui explains that Whip is recovering. Perhaps, he thinks drowsily, Whip is just too tired from recovering to talk much. He certainly doesn't feel up to doing much of anything himself. It must be the same way for her. He ought to let her rest...
"Nothing," he finally murmurs in response to Shurui's last question. His aura perceptibly dims further as his head turns further into the pillow. "Just gonna sleep a while." God knows he needs the rest.
Whip's hand inside Shurui's is gentle and patient, but also a heavy and unresposive weight that does not even notice it has been touched. As appreciative as she feels of the younger girl, the Ikari soldier hasn't the spirit to show it. Sprawled along her bed, she says and does little, and when finally let go, her hand merely returns to uselessness at her side. Upon soothing her brother's anxious shouts, the sister has no more to say. When Shurui spends those moments watching over and consoling K', Whip's side of the room is silent.
Ultimately, too injured to keep up the pretense of consciousness, K' goes back to sleep. And across the room to her bed, his sister seems apt to join him; her unbandaged eye is closed and her guilty face has regained some peace. She's fallen asleep as well, having not the will left to fight off the drugs that still marinate her blood.
With both siblings silent, the room becomes a more lonely place. And it remains that way through the evening and the night.
Time passes. Morning comes quick, and when it's time for their little, loyal sentry to awaken and visit them briefly before school, it was probably something of a surprise to find Whip awake and out of her bed. She already looked worlds better than the evening before, and while she was still deemed unable to walk, she was healthy enough to remain sitting in the chair beside her unconscious brother's bed. Bound in bandages, dressed in a robe and looking weary, she seemed both content and miserable to watch him. Fortunately, Whip had been much more receptive to Shurui, and while there was still substantial distance about her, while she was only a shell of her usual warmth, she managed sparse small talk, apologized for the way she was the night before, and thanked her for being there.
When it was time for classes to take Shurui away, Whip was still sitting sullenly by K''s bed.
And now, later in the day, when Shurui's many responsibilities free her up to return to the two siblings, the hospital room is a different place. A kindly nurse on the ward mentioned that Whip requested she be moved to a ward two floors down, something gladly allowed by her surgeon when her condition was deemed far from critical. Unlike her profusely-injured brother, she was on the mend. There was also talk about the Ikari soldier having to meet with her mercenary company among other government officials for reasons that remained classified.
Either way, she's no longer there.
That night, Shurui, true to her word, stayed. Only when a nurse came did she go down to eat at the nearby cafeteria; the only concession she made was to use the restroom. As time lagged on and the girl found it difficult to keep her eyes open, Shurui's head slumped against the table, the mask of sleep obliverating any tense or worried expression on her face. That is, at least, until she started dreaming.
Why did a crazy man dressed in red make such an impression on her psyche that she has to relive it over and over?
If Whip paid attention, it would seem that Shurui was either sleeping against the table, not seeming to mind her sleeping position in the least, or walking around, quiet as a cat, checking out some hidden malady that she's found fit to brood over between her two wards. Eventually, when morning comes and exchanges are made, Shurui's mannerisms akin to a groggy kitten's, she goes off to school, stopping by her dorm room for a change of clothes and making other preperations to make herself decent.
It was the longest school day ever.
Back to the hospital, food in hand- or, at least, in a white plastic bag. Prepackaged goodness, ready to eat. If she can't get Whip to eat, she might get K' to eat, provided he's conscious enough to consider food at all. .... Except, the situation has changed. ".... What." Shurui's face goes white as she listens to the poor nurse. ".... You're lucky he hasn't woken up yet. Where is she right now?!" Idiots. Everyone's idiots. He'll go *nuts* if Whip isn't there, and he'd probably not be in any mood to deal with Shurui. Why the hell did Whip agree to do this!?
To make matters worse, K' has slept pretty soundly the entire time. Ever since he passed out, he's not batted a lash to the coming of night or the break of day. And while he slept, his wounded body mended with the help of the drugs filtering through his blood and the periodic attentions of the staff. He reawakens after nearly a solid day of sleeping, and when he does it's with the strength to struggle up to a sitting position and look around.
The first thing he notices is that Whip is gone.
If Shurui and the nurse, just outside the door, hadn't already noticed their charge waking up, the demanding, questioning "Shurui!" that ensues will probably alert him. The fact that much of its usual strength has returned to his voice probably isn't a promising sign. K' rarely actually /shouts/, mind, but that's because he rarely ever has to; his voice just carries, however far it needs to go, in the sense that it's ultimately something people ignore at their own peril.
Where the fuck is his sister? Was he out so long she was discharged? Did something happen? This is really not a time when he wants to be apart from her, after all; he just came really close to losing her.
"She asked to be reassessed and taken out to intake?" Shurui's eyebrows furrow in confusion. "Her brother was practically up in arms when he momentairely thought she was away!" The nurse, helpless to really answer her questions beyond that initial bit of information, just gives the shirt girl a helpless look, excusing herself to deal with the rest of her shift.
And that's when Shurui hears a familiar voice calling her name. "..." Turning around and walking into the room to what could be certain death, she places the plastic bag at the side table by K''s bed, and studies, for a second, his aura. It's stronger. It's amazing, how fast he and Whip manage to heal. Did she heal that fast when she came back from the Casino ordeal?
..... She can't even remember. The mental pain overlapped with the physical and made things hard to tell where one ended and another began. Oh, Whip, you *idiot*. Now Shurui has to deal with a possibly violent K'.
".... She transferred wards. It was her decision. Maybe it's an Ikari thing?" She digs through the plastic bag. "I brought a lot of things. Eat what you think your stomach can hold. I can see what's up, or stay here with you; just say what." Her eyes look with a cautious, reserved worry and affection, reflecting her wish not to make white-haired twin feel smothered by her.
... She can't actively admit to the both of them that they're as close as family to her, even if there's a chance the feeling may be mutual. Family can free you, but it can also weigh you down. Whip and K' had the advantage of having a previous bond; would they really need to feel responsible for her beyond her being a simple ally? "If you reopen those wounds moving around before you're able to, you'll be stuck here for a longer amount of time. You won't have a chance to do anything if something happens."
"She decided to -what-?"
It doesn't sound like K' is taking it that well.
K' is so angry he can't even look at Shurui or process what she's saying. Turning his head aside, he drops it into his hands and just tries to puzzle out why on earth his sister would leave for another ward. What the fuck, seriously. He goes after her, gets himself nearly killed, expends all he's got for her, and this is how she chooses to repay him? She can't even deal with being in the same room as him?
What the hell?
It has to be something else. There has to be some other reason. And he's going to find out exactly what, one way or another. Probably right after he finds out why the hell she thought it was a good idea to run off to this mission without telling him in the first place. But he knows he won't be able to move for shit right now, knows he can't go after her, which is why-- when his head lifts again-- his yellow eyes fix directly upon Shurui with a disturbing intensity. She offers him food, she offers him her company, she offers him a lot of things. But right now there's only one thing he wants.
"I want to know why she left." Oh, K'. At least Whip had the decency to recognize Shurui's vigil and affection. K' will think to do so as well, with time... it's just that he isn't too good at feeling multiple things at the same time.
It's a demand that doesn't surprise Shurui, nor makes her feel at odds. With K' in this condition, Shurui can't hold it against him, nor Whip.
If she hadn't been through Marise's torture, she probably would have been a lot less patient with both. It's her recovery from that that keeps coming back to her, influencing her actions. Shurui had apologized to Whip because, when she first woke up in the hospital and didn't immediately see a familiar face right by her, she was scared too. She wasn't alone, of course; the people who would have known or thought to be there were either recovering, or were cycling back and forth between obligations just as she had with K' and Whip. Her father wasn't there; he was dead.
She apologized that she couldn't change that one thing for Whip. Instead, Whip was forced to make up her own ways of dealing with whatever tramua she gained.
It hits Shurui then. Whip's actions. It could have been guilt. When K''s glare hits her, Shurui doesn't look away. "I think I know why, but I'm going to hear it from her myself." Her eyelids lower, her gaze finally moving away. ".... I think it's guilt." She turns from the bed. "... I'll get her back for you, even if I have to knock some sense into her first." And, if K' allows her or says nothing else, she walks off, going to seek out the missing Whip.
The hospital administration is more than helpful to point Shurui the way down to Whip's new surrounds; she's been transferred two floors down to the in-take/out-take ward, a step up from emergency reserved for patients who are mending from minor surgeries or awaiting discharge within the next couple of days. There's little need of constant monitoring and quarantine, unlike the more dutiful floor where her more critical brother currently rests.
Whip should be using this time for mending, but there's no rest for the weary, especially those employed with the Ikari Warriors. She had received orders earlier that morning calling for a debriefing, all dependent on her current condition. Her response was that she would be ready to commence as early as the afternoon. It's protocol for all operatives suspected MIA, and she doesn't doubt that the Ikari may have thought her dead. She'll be met with some superior officers along with representatives of the Japanese government, who no doubt expect to be in the loop of any information she's gleaned from the Syndicate.
For now, Whip sits in a private room and plays the waiting game. A sobering thought struck her that Commander Heidern may be in attendance, even though the possibility was slim to unlikely. But it wasn't impossible. For a healing patient, she's been forsaking rest to fix her appearance to something close to respectable, despite all her stitches and the way bandages still cover one of her eyes. She's finding it extremely difficult to look in a mirror and see her own face, but busy-work can be a blissful thing for someone who doesn't want to spend a moment thinking. All stray thoughts turn immediately to K'. And even thinking about him makes her nauseated.
The door opens, but the person who enters isn't staff or a member of Ikari. Instead, it's the tired Shurui, quietly closing the door behind her before anyone could see her and intervene. "... You could've left a note," she says, softly. "He was about ready to come looking for you. I don't know how I convinced him to stay- I guess I'll take it as some sort of compliment." She walks over to Whip and finds a chair, sitting down by her.
"Is it guilt? Or do you feel like you're a danger to him?" The questions are blunt, but the emotion behind them is anything but cold. "You're not gonna heal here-" she points to her head, "unless you answer these questions. Either that or you just shove it all away in one small space and let it bumrush up at the worst moment. I'm still running away from my fears. You wanna be like me? Get scared of shadows? Be afraid of charging into the fray for your friends because you'll end up as someone's test doll?" The words sound bitter towards the end, though the negative emotions seem not to be directed at Whip herself.
"You have a brother. If I am what a horrible person described me as- that is, a 'fake human', I have no chance of ever having what you have. So when my father came into my life, it was a short but meaningful period. He was old; if I had met him much earlier..." She looks down. "... Could have had a lot more time with him. That's why you have to cherish every moment you get, good and bad, with the family you stumble across. Life's not good about giving second chances. If you feel guilty, remember- if he was in the same position, would stand around worrying about how you coming after him would've inconvienced him? Or would you have at least looked for him?"
Shurui's hands clasp inwards in her lap. "You might think that me being there is enough to satisfy him. But I'm not his sister, no matter how much I feel like he's a brother to me. He's still opening up to that fact; you're the only one that's able to get in that crack of that door before it shuts again. And he wants you to."
Whip looks up when the door opens, her back immediately stiffening into the posture befitting an obedient soldier. For all her bandages, bruises, and blue hospital robe, she's got on her military airs when Shurui steps in. The young woman pauses, looking visibly surprised to see the young girl then; she was expecting quite the opposite. Dour government personnel, Shurui Chiang is not.
She's sitting on her bed, looking worlds better than the younger girl had last seen her; she's been cleaned, her bandages replaced and wound meticulously, and her dark hair has been brushed into sleek professionalism. Her appearance has all the hypothetical pleats of a freshly-ironed uniform, and it's only the underlying physical evidence that suggests Whip has undergone her ordeal. All traces of it are cleaned from her face.
Emotion doesn't even threaten her until Shurui starts to speak. That single, unbandaged eye creases with surprise, and she's asking, confused, "Shurui?--" before the younger girl cuts her off with a startling question. Whip stiffens slightly in response, already guilty.
But Shurui is far from letting up. She invites herself purposefully in the room and starts talking, as the Ikari Warrior soon finds herself completely helpless to hear all of it. When the younger girl seems to out her reasoning as guilt, Whip has the decency to look shocked, before her expression locks down like a military front expecting a siege. Her jaw tenses slightly, and her single eye averts away.
But, so unlike her volatile twin, Whip takes it all with terse, unhurried patience. There's a slight darkening in her demeanour, but she looks too tired to do anything but remain detached. Silence persists for slow, empty moments before she speaks.
"It's better off shut," she replies, using Shurui's metaphor in a voice that should not sound so cold, so firm. It may be the first time Shurui has ever been acquainted with Whip's military side. Her face is austere around her bandages. She continues critically, tonelessly, "This should not have happened. It is not protocol. I cannot tolerate a repeat." The look in her eye changes, and her harsh voice softens, "I don't think I can do this."
Whip looks back at Shurui, her single eye studying the girl's face. "Please go be with him."
Her hand moves before Shurui can stop herself; the solid emotional control she's carried all askew due to Vega's interference.
It's better off shut.
One hand grabs ahold of Whip's arm, while the other slaps Whip across the cheek. It's not particularly hard; the worst it could do is leave a red mark on Whip's cheek. "Stop saying that. He doesn't want me for the same reason you didn't want me when you and K' came back from that one guy's kidnapping. He can't find comfort in me. All he sees in me is something he needs to protect, and how is that going to fucking make him feel better?! That's what I meant.." Her voice halts, shaking. "That's what I mean..."
She just slapped Whip. She just.... slapped.... Whip. Before Vega, it would have been something she regretted, but she would have carried on. Now, faced with a dislodged psyche and nightmares combined with the fear of losing some sort of family structure, her weakening control breaks. Thankfully for Whip, it's in the form of memories, rather than any harmful energy. .... Unfortunately, it means it's coming to Whip's mind.
In retrospect, it probably occurred within the space of a few seconds, but time has a different meaning within the realm of the mental. A man. No, not a man. Something red? No. A grinning vision of hell, energy flowing into a horrible shape, filling not just the vision but every sense at the same time. An evil presence, raging, the stuff of nightmares. A thing that has given up humanity for power, that has chosen to gaze down into the depths of someone's- Whip's? Shurui's? very soul.
Words ring. 'I've seen what comes after, and your refusal simply solidifies that path all the more. It's a trench, now - soon, a pit with no way out.' It's just a memory, but mere memories are exhaustive. Perhaps, if Whip glanced at a face and not an aura, it would be worlds easier to identify the presence. But a spreadsheet and the real thing are completely different entities.
The memory stops as soon as Shurui gains the presence of mind to stop back. "....." The look on her face becomes one of horror as she stumbles backwards, tears running down her face. "..... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry-" She shakes her head, pulling away until she presses against the door. "I can't.... I can't even *control* myself... What the hell?!?" Her hand reaches for the door handle; she awkwardly wrestles with it to get it open.
She has to get away. Get away until she can regain control.
Even while injured, even with her world foggy around the edges from pain medication, Whip's combat instincts are never in forfeit. Thanks to years of painful conditioning by the Cartel, and then through extensive, daily routines imposed in the rigourous Ikari training schedule, her reflex to defend herself comes as naturally to her as breathing. She is never without this important response, and it is so profound in her that it has the ability to occur when she is not thinking, even when she is not fully-conscious.
It's a survival mechanism when living a life like hers.
However, even as Shurui Chiang grabs her arm, Whip's defensive instinct, the one that would mobilize her to take swift, violent recourse against the girl is absent. It does not even trigger, not even when she's slapped across the face.
That's how deeply, innately harmless she's processed the younger girl to be. So count Whip surprised when the hit wings her head to one side, her eyes widened not from the sting, but the sheer shock of it all. Glancing back, her single eye stares at Shurui like that was the last thing she ever expected her to do. The faceless surprise infects her for just the briefest of instants, and then it slowly mutates into anger. Her jaw tightens. Her unbandaged eye hoods. Aggravation cuts into the Ikari soldier's face as--
--something else cleaves into her mind. Her expression goes blank as, for the first time, she feels something force itself onto her mind, and she sees something that did not come from her own thoughts. It's disconcerting, almost even frightening, but it doesn't mean that Whip is so startled that she's not paying attention to detail. Everything she sees and hears, bleary and formless as it is, gets stored away to one part of her mind. It's something she'll definitely be retrieving for later.
For now, she simply deals with the shock of Shurui spooking, the girl's tears surprising Whip more than her hand did across her face. She spends three seconds too long simply reeling from the suddenness of it all, and then is simply, mechanically trying to move after the girl. "Shurui..?" she calls, confused, disoriented, and peripherally regretting standing up. Her body may be ready enough to be off of the intravenous tubes, for military debriefings, but walking is another matter. She stumbles stiltedly after the girl, afraid she's not going to be able to catch her in time. She calls as Shurui wrestles with the door, "Wait!"
Shurui fumbles for the knob, finally turning it and-.... she stops. As overpowering as Shurui's fear is, her concern is just as persausive a force. The stumble and the weak aura are felt in Whip's mind instantly sets Shurui's mind to the task of getting the soldier back to a seated position.
Again, unintentionally, the contact brings thoughts that are not Whip's. But these are something else, something... more comforting. And not entirely confusing to seperate from Whip's own psyche, somehow- Shurui's powers don't seem to be of the calibur to overwhelm a person's will. Yet.
Concern. Love. A sisterly love, warm and something almost innocent, like a child's love for an older sister, despite the almost protective manner to Shurui's actions. But even children feel the need to protect, to shelter, to hold. To sustain. Few people can stand tall and infalliable forever. This too, is a part of Shurui's world. It's not all scary men and nightmares. It's closeness, acceptance, an affection for things looked down upon by others.
Shurui, having realized the contact again, snaps her hand away. "... S-sorry. It's just that... a guy with the same powers as mine stalked me. Sort of.... short-curcuited my mind. ... Been trying to get a handle on things ever since, but it's harder now that my subconcious does things I never knew I could do in the first place." She attempts a shakey smile. "Wanted to try to hide it from you guys; I'm scared I'll see what you're thinking. Private things. If I calm down a little, maybe I'll get things out of control. .... Just... I really hated myself for slapping you like that, and so I...." She trails off.
"... Please don't exclude K', okay? Promise me. He's not going to accept me without accepting you first. He can't afford to focus on accepting someone who's going to possibly drag him down, like me. I can help everywhere else, but that's no good when you've been trained to focus on being a weapon and all. I can't relate to him there."
"Shurui.." Whip just echoes at first, relieved to watch the girl return, and already curious to know the reason why she nearly left. Why she's crying. How she was able to do that with her mind.
How she's able to do it again. Her backward pace stalls momentarily, Whip's one eye blinking away a stinging sensation as foreign emotion pours into her mind. It's not even her own emotion, but she nearly tears up at it. Whip has always needed little provocation to cry, but she has to physically fight the urge now. It's not a good time, not with Shurui frightened, not with the Ikari expected at her doorstep any minute now.
Despite her usual stubbornness, the soldier doesn't put up a fight when it comes to sitting back down, her still-injured body still reeling from the effects of sudden movement. Nearly bleeding yourself to death carries consequences that will be felt for days to come, a perpetual state of weakness and tiredness that likes to linger on. But even as her body relents, the look on her face is still tense with concern, and the sudden, confused worry she feels for Shurui is enough to even make Whip forget a little about her own self-deprecation.
The rest of it falls beneath the way she tenses when the girl reveals what's happened to her in Whip's absence. She tenses, alert and reactive, clear disapproval tensing her face around her bandages. While Shurui's spoken troubles would no doubt receive immediate, aggressive ire from her volatile twin, Whip takes it in with a tempered thoughtfulness. "Stalked you? When? You shouldn't hide important things like that. You --" the young woman sighs, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by all of this, knowing she's not going to get a good grasp on anything until she's free of painkillers and with a clear head. "Listen, we'll get to the bottom of this. You're safe with us," promises the soldier who can barely stand up under her own power.
Mention of K' has a profound effect on Whip. The guilt seems to return to her face, and her eye averts away with momentary unease. It seems Whip's mind hasn't changed on how responsible she feels for her brother's current state, but she's seemed to have mollified from her original, stoic dismissiveness. Sighing airily, she replies, "Tell him I'll visit him in a little while. I have work I need to finish first. Please stay with him for now, and come see me if you need to go anywhere." She's half-inclined to pull some mercenary strings and ensure the girl a police escort.
Whip pauses briefly, and adds, in a firm voice, "You're not dragging anyone down. All right?"
"I would have told you, but later," Shurui says, taking off her hoodie to reveal the white tee underneath. "When you could have dealt with it. Worrying about it doesn't help you any, and just because you go out of your way to protect me doesn't mean I shouldn't try to do the same back, in my own way. He didn't say he'd be back immediately; when I refused him, he just... walked off." Covering her hands with the hoodie's sleeves, she holds Whip in a tight hug, trying her hardest not to make contact with skin. ... She's not sure how tolerance her body will be to the smallest bit of contact right now- she doesn't want to chance it at all.
"I believe in the both of you. You give me strength."
She steps back, and slowly nods to Whip's words. "I think he'll accept that. I won't be able to stop him once he's mobile, but at least he won't yell at me now." She grins, even though her smile's slightly lopsided. "... I was concerned too, though, so it worked out." She pulls out her cell. "Call. If something comes up, you can at least call me. I'll give the phone to K'."
If and when all is said and done, Shurui departs, allowing Whip the task of composing herself before facing a crowd of her peers. Now, to go face K' and tell him what Whip said...
K' hasn't moved since Shurui left.
The young man is still sitting up in bed, uncharacteristically listless, when she returns. His yellow eyes fix in an absent look out the window, though there isn't much to see. He's vastly recovered from how he was last night, but he's probably still not quite capable of getting up and walking around quite yet. No doubt, this is something that reassures both Shurui and Whip immensely.
Detecting the girl's approach before she opens the door, K' turns an expectant gaze towards her as she comes in. Some of that expectancy freezes and then melts away when he sees Whip isn't with Shurui, but mercifully he says nothing.
He just fixes Shurui with the intense regard of his yellow eyes instead, asking wordlessly why she came back to him empty-handed. The stare may in fact be worse than any words he could have spoken aloud.
Ah, she could find K''s room with no sight at all by this point. Just.... keep walking until you're hit by a stare that could burn down villages. .... She promised him Whip, after all, and instead she comes back sans any sort of Whip.
But she has something else instead.
"... I found Whip," Shurui says, walking over to pull up a chair by K''s bed. "She was getting ready to do some business stuff- probably related to the Ikari. .... That's probably the reason she moved to another ward for now. If someone was spying in on us, any information she might have gained from her situation would've placed a lot of people in danger, including us." She sits down. "However. I made her promise to come back once that's done. She wanted me to stay with you until then." Shurui then takes out her phone. "I also told her to phone this way, if something comes up.
After a few moments, K' remembers himself. His piercing stare finally softens, modulating down to a look of immense tiredness. Normally he wouldn't be caught dead looking so exhausted in front of one he's taken on as a ward... but right now, he's barely got the strength to sit up, much less concentrate on how to arrange his features to emote something a little more reassuring.
It's easy to tell that K' is disconcerted by his own weakness. It sits uncomfortably with him: doubly so because it has the timing to come on the heels of a long period without his implanted fire. He's never been this injured before. He's never felt so physically weak as he has the past few weeks. It's all quite a lot to get over.
Hopefully, now that his control is slowly coming back-- K' finally given the chance to /learn/ to control his flames, rather than simply given an easy on-off switch-- he can shed some of that discomfort.
Watching her in continued silence, K' listens as Shurui reports about his sister. His gaze averts to the far wall once she's done talking, some of the threat leaking out of his demeanor to leave a burdened person who seems so much older than his teenaged appearance. A few moments pass, before his familiar, dark voice finally breaks its silence.
"As long as she's fine." There seems to be a lot on his mind. "I guess I'll talk to her later."
The sign of weakness doesn't seem to phase Shurui at all- if anything, she seems to cue on it, attempting to do whatever she can to bring some level of comfort to either sibling. Whatever it takes. ... That includes going to school and providing for herself.
It may be a disservice to not tell him everything that happened, but that's best left for a time where he's more healed up. Even Whip understandably had trouble, and she was able to walk around with some effort. "She is. Still weak, but she's well enough to present a report. A lot better than last time you woke up." She pauses a moment. "She's still working through some issues mentally. It's probably the first time anyone ever went that far to save her, whether or not she had more than one willing person around. That's bound to make anyone who feels they're independent take a second look at themselves."
Will he see her? ".... You will." Shurui's mouth becomes set. "Even if I have to find her and drag her back here. And I'm not leaving you until she's back." She gets up, rummaging through the plastic bag until she comes across a bottle of water. "... My other offers still stand. Is there anything you need? Ice chips?"
.... The image of her feeding ice chips to K' is an amusing one, but one that brings to mind a serious point she hadn't thought of before. Unscrewing the cap and drinking from it, she sits down. "... Don't think that I think you're weak by seeing you in this state, by the way. I know enough of the context. So don't act tough when there's something I can do to make you heal faster. Even if it's as simple as.... well... ice chips. Or adjusting your pillow."
K' gives Shurui a strange look when she implies Whip might be having trouble with the idea he'd go so far to save her. He doesn't seem to parse that at all. Why would she have trouble with that idea? He's her brother. If she's in trouble, he goes to get her. It's how it works. He thought she'd be able to grasp that. Is that why she wouldn't reply him until Shurui told her to?
Well. There -are- a lot of things Whip has been dumb about in the past. He shouldn't be surprised she's choosing to be dumb now about this as well.
For the time being, however, he's content to dismiss it from his mind until it starts directly affecting him. Shaking his head, he indicates that it's all right to drop the topic. The last thing he really wants or needs is to have some kind of talk with Shurui about feelings and impressions right now. Talking with Shurui won't even help, anyway; it's Whip who's presumably having problems, not the half-blind girl sitting so patiently at his side.
When asked if there's anything he needs, he simply shakes his head. Not half as verbose or warm as his sister, he doesn't seem to know how to interact with Shurui in a friendly manner one-on-one. But when she urges him further, he wavers momentarily. His eyes fall to the sheets, irritated but ultimately reflecting compliance. "...Ice is fine."
It's still clear that what he really wants is his sister.. and Shurui's assurances that she'll stay until Whip makes good on her promise can only assuage that so much. But for now, he really is very parched.
Shurui nods at the vague request, then promptly gets up. Walking over to the door, she opens it and sticks her head out, attempting to flag down a nurse. After a few seconds, she steps back. "She said she'll get some for us right away."
Thankfully for the dry-throated K', the nurse's entrance is quick, as promised. In one hand she holds a plastic cup of ice chips. "I can feed him if you w-" She stops, as Shurui wordlessly closes her hand around the cup.
".... I'll do it. Thanks." Shurui's fingers, in a way that's too casual to be misinterperted as anything else, briefly overlap against the nurse's own as she takes the cup. The nurse, unable to tell the alternate motive for this contact, simply smiles and says, "Let me know if there's anything else you need." She then walks off, exiting through the doorway and closing the door behind her.
No reaction. Either the physical contact needed to be more solid than that, or Shurui's regained control for the time being. Her shoulders slump in relief; while it wasn't good to use an unsuspecting nurse as a momentary guinea pig, it was better her than K', fire or no. That over, she walks back to the bed.
"I'm gonna guess that you'd rather go thirsty than have me feed you ice." Shurui looks to K''s lying arm. "Able you able to lift one of your lower arms? I can support the cup to make sure it doesn't spill if you lose your grip, but you'll be the one tilting it." She moves in, if only close enough to register a nod or a yes or no from the stubborn K'. "Will you agree to that?"
It'll be a compromise. She'll spare him the shame of being hand-fed ice chips, but she won't leave him completely to his own devices. Awkward? Yes. But it's K'. And that's just the sort of game you have to play.
K' shoots Shurui a flat look when she presumes that his pride would sooner let him dehydrate than be fed. The look states, rather plainly, 'Yes, it would.' He doesn't even seem keen on the compromise Shurui offers him. Once she gets close enough, he lifts an arm, hand turning expectantly, waiting for her to just give him the damned cup of ice and leave it there.
Well, he -does- heal abnormally fast. Maybe he -is- capable of supporting it by himself by now. At the least, he seems well enough to sit up without wavering.
"I can handle it," he says quietly. And indeed, if given the cup, he seems fine at holding it... if a little bit shaky. Apparently, K' doesn't care if the cup spills; they can, after all, always get another one.
There is a long pause, in which K' tilts the cup back and lowers it again without event. He lets the first few chips melt-- which they do quickly, given the sheer heat of him-- before swallowing. When he speaks again, his throat is considerably less raspy. "I don't break that easily, Shurui."
I takes a while... but finally, some of his austerity softens. When he looks back at her, his gaze is a little less sharp than usual; though it's still relatively impassive. "...You were here the whole time? How did you find out?"
A smirk comes to her face as K' lifts his arm, but the look in her eyes is one of relief. She's glad his ability to heal is gaining its regular speed, now that the hardest hurdle to overturn as been passed by. And so, she entrusts the cup to K' without a complaint, sitting down in the chair next to his. ... This is a good thing, to see him insist on this. While his accepting her proposal would be as good a sign, pure acceptence may signify worse things. ... Or, at least, a tired hand and a K' not wanting to experience a small pile of ice melting through his blanket.
"... I know," Shurui replies to his next comment. "... It's hard to forget that. You two are definitely siblings; stubborn and independent as hell."
She's silent, allowing K' some space to continue drinking from his cup, all while she gets up and moves over to her backpack lying against the wall. When he asks his next question, Shurui stops, straightening to look over at him. "... The hospital called around trying to find next of kin. When I came up, well, they probably remembered me from the kidnap incident." And therein lies another reason Shurui's not too eager to leave the two. "Been here since. The only times I left were to go to school and work. Other than that, been here."
K' doesn't answer immediately. He's busy with his cup. He hadn't realized just how thirsty he really was until he took his first drink. Listening as Shurui talks, he silently tips back some more ice. It's a good thing the girl is probably accustomed to just how taciturn K' is by now, because the young man is not half as forthcoming as his sister.
"Told you not to get too attached," he sighs: a parent sadly but tenaciously going over something he's had to say far too many times in the past. "The two of us're always gonna be in some kind of trouble." Shaking his head slightly, he glances back up at her. "But I guess it's kinda late for that now."
She probably doesn't have anyone else left, anyway. Just like him and Whip.
He looks like he wants to find something else to say, but the words don't come. He never was articulate. Instead, he just returns his attention to his ice: making a quiet and aimless game of trying to swallow the pieces whole and feel some of their chill before his own heat melts them into unsatisfying, lukewarm puddles. He seems disquieted by the girl's devotion, but simultaneously unsure what to do about it.
'Told you not to get too attached.' Shurui laughs at this, mouth closed, shaking her head. "And I don't bring trouble on my own? Someday someone will come searching for me who isn't NESTS. You think I think about that?" The smile disappears. "... We're always going to be a danger to each other. If it isn't you, it's me. If I have to leave you two for your own sake, or vice versa, I'd rather enjoy the moment while it lasts. Sometimes, that's all we have in life. NESTS took our memories. All we can do is rebuild and become stronger, so they can't prey on our minds."
Shurui has friends, at least. Gedo was the right school to go to as far as finding people to relate to. No one really questions her anymore; there's either something more important to worry about, or there's a subtle understanding. No one's had to deal with meglomaniac scientists who aspire to be god, but they could at least relate with trying to avoid a gang they've quit, or trying to change away from a life of crime.
"So, really, I do this because I want to." She gets up. "... Do you want some more ice? Or some food? I can hail another nurse down for you."
Yellow eyes reappear over the rim of the cup as K' casts a rather narrow look at Shurui. Her logic is foreign to a young man who has spent his life protecting himself by running away. In months past, if someone had told him 'we'll always be a danger to one another,' his instant response would have been 'then we should not be near one another.' But over the past year, he's found some people he would actually feel badly to abandon. And one person who he never could leave.
But there's one thing she says he can't argue with. 'I do it because I want to.' Whatever he might have said to press his isolationist point dies, and he makes no further comment. He just lowers his cup to the sheets tiredly, his eyes shutting. He looks, for the time being, pretty harmless in his utter exhaustion.
At least, up until he speaks again. He doesn't open his eyes or turn his head, but the pointed quality of his voice is hard to miss. Archimedes claimed he could have moved the world if given a lever and a solid enough place to stand; if he'd wanted to try, he could have stood on K''s paranoia. "Is that literal?" A moment, before he clarifies, "That somebody other than NESTS is going to come looking for you."
"..." Shurui's lips thin. "... Yes and no. Someone very powerful approached me wanting me to go with him so he could teach me or something, but his aura was..." She shakes her head. "He offered me power, and I turned it down. His aura wasn't healthy at all. It was inhuman. No, beyond inhuman. He stank of trouble. I refused him. We got in a minor scuffle- nothing physical, though. He then left." Shurui looks directly at K' then, with a blunt gaze. "I wanted to tell you this after you had healed up. I didn't want you to get riled up about something that had already happened. You have Whip to think of too; it's important you both are allowed to heal mentally and physically."
Moving over to grab her bottle of water, she drinks some more, composing herself. "I don't think he'll come after me. In fact, the only reason I *do* think he did was because someone commented on my powers during a neoleague fight. She was just calling them 'crazy', but that might have been enough for him. That, and the fact that I managed to win the match against someone who was kinda famous." .... She won't go into what sorts of fame her opponent had, but it's clear that woman had skill.
She doesn't dare say the man's name. Not yet. K' might know it. "Whip knows a little about it already, by mistake."
He might have suspected, from the first moment her tone dropped like that, that something had happened to her in his and Whip's absence. The thought is sobering, in a way; it reminds him he can't keep his eyes everywhere. Look for one and lose the other.
He isn't convinced that this is something to just be brushed off. Shurui says she doesn't think the man will come after her, and K' makes no immediate response: his expression merely becoming troubled. He doesn't like the way Shurui noted him as 'someone very powerful.' Does that mean this is yet another person K' won't be able to handle on his own?
K' isn't letting her off easily (though mercifully, he doesn't seem to register the significance of 'by mistake'). His yellow eyes thin, narrowing on her with pinpoint focus as he bends all his force of will on her straight through his eyes. "Who was it? Do you know?"
The silence disturbs Shurui. Her mouth thins. "Y'know, these things'll happen. You can't be there 24/7- you got stuff in your life you gotta do. It's the same with Whip. That's the way life is. .... You... get what I mean?"
The stare soon follows. This is a part of deciding to allow someone like K' be included within your circle: the natural and constant state of paranoia. No matter what his relationship with her is, it's clear he's seemed to have taken upon himself her safety, more or less. Shurui knows that. And that stare just taps into that, making Shurui reveal one single nugget of a factoid.
She can only hope K''s been too busy with his own life to be familiar with the name. "Vega. If it comes down to him coming after me... don't go after him." Her fists clench in her lap. "His powers deal with the mind. That's an area no fighter should ever have to fight in." She wets her lips. "I now know why psychic powers are so dangerous. Because what people like him do with them. What people like me do when we lose control. But..." She looks up at him. "... Do you ever feel that sometimes, with your powers? I know it's not just 'chi'. You sorta... had to learn by yourself how to do everything. It was kinda like that for me, but it wasn't until now that I realized how scary it could be. But I know I'm not alone in feeling that way."
K''s jawline hardens when he's told he can't be there 24/7. He looks very much like he objects to that. But willful as he is, the fact he can't watch and control everything in his life is simply a truth that can't be denied. Any normal person has long since learned to live with that reality.
K', not being a normal person, seems ready to fight that to the best of his ability.
That same will fixes his gaze so strongly on the girl she's eventually forced to give up information to him. And what information it is. At the name, K''s eyes widen perceptibly: a rare sort of expression to cross the taciturn, customarily-unshakeable young man's face. "I thought..." He falls into a thoughtful silence. Word of the dictator's fall had not been much of a secret... but now, it seems he's returned anyway.
For once, K' looks at a loss for what to do about this.
He's drawn out of his thoughts eventually, as Shurui talks on. Turning a confused eye on her, he tries to follow her speech even though he only tuned in midstream (notably, right after the part she told him not to go after him). "...'Sometimes'?" He huffs out an amused breath. "I was made to be dangerous. It's been a fight for control, all these years, to -stop-. Never had anyone to tell me how." He lifts a shoulder in a shrug. "From what I can tell, it's like that for anybody that can fight."
A grin hides along the slight curving of her lips as she senses K''s frustration. "... You know, it's not like I make it hard for you, either. Me living at the apartment means you see me every day, and you *do* have my phone number." ... He better not take that as an excuse to call her constantly at work, however.
But that can't soothe all of K''s paranoia. In fact, that'd probably require some hardcore medication. Shurui stays silent a bit, thinking over the facts before speaking again. "Yeah... I dunno. Maybe it's a guy posing as him? He was... very powerful, though, whether or not he really was Vega." Shurui looks down. "I don't know."
Eventually, another smile is coaxed out of its shadow, strangely enough, at K''s words. "Yeah, I can see what you mean by that." She allows for silence to take over then, taking another sip of her water bottle. "If you want straight water, I brought another water bottle."
K' turns his face aside with an irritable shrug, brushing off her attempts to make things seem not quite so bad. It's clear he's not entirely reassured by her words, but for the time being there's little he can do about it save rest to regain his strength... and then focus on learning to use his fire again, with the same precision he could while wearing his glove.
"Might as well assume it was him," he eventually says, breaking his silence. "No point underestimating anyone."
Finally giving in to tiredness, he leans back against his pillows with a muted sigh. Pushing aside his half-finished ice-- already mostly melted just from him holding it-- he lets a hand lift to rest across his eyes. "No. I'm fine. Just need to rest."
Whether it was by wearing him down or something else, Shurui seems satisfied with the results. K' needs to sleep. "Yeah. But for now, I agree- get some sleep. I'll be sticking nearby until I need to be someplace or Whip shows up, so it doesn't make any sense to worry about things right now."
Standing up to leave K' to his own devices and allow him some semblance of quiet, Shurui moves over to the table area and pulls out a textbook, in order to set to doing her homework. If and when the hour gets late, she'll simply take a nap of her own, resting her head against crossed arms over the tabletop.
Log created on 23:35:20 10/18/2008 by Shurui, and last modified on 02:08:38 11/10/2008.