Description: With Hotaru now at large and not in the sanest frame of mind, Shurui finally makes that phone call to K'. What follows is a a surprising small chain of events that proves to her that she isn't the only one who's suffered during the siege. But the question remains: what do they need to do about Hotaru?
What should she tell K'?
That's been the question that's plagued Shurui ever since Hotaru was kidnapped. Now, Hotaru is free, but the situation has transformed into a dilemma Shurui could have never foreseen, even at her most paranoid moments. Yes, the idea of Hotaru switching sides was one she pondered over idly, having heard stories of such events happening during the Thailand incident a year or so ago, but Hotaru transforming into this? It's gone beyond simple mindgames. SIN released an uncontrollable force on the streets. One she has to stop, before Hotaru does something that could permanently kill any chances of her reverting back to sobreity.
Staring at the dim light cast by her cellphone, Shurui swings it open, audibly commanding it to call K'. She has to do this. She can't let K' fall into the same trap she did. She doesn't have to tell K' about the injuries, or how close she possibly was to death. All he needs to know is that Hotaru is out there, and that he should be cautious.
It's at least four, five rings before K' picks up. When he does, his voice sounds a little hitched, a little irritable, and a little short, as if he was in the middle of something when Shurui so rudely interrupted him.
"What?" If there's one thing steady enough to build a foundation upon, it's the consistency of K''s terrible phone manners. And yet, under the usual irascible growl of the word, there's a note of tiredness. The sort of tone one would expect out of a wounded animal.
Just like Shurui isn't about to tell K' about her injuries or how close she came to being killed, K' is not about to let Shurui know that right now, he's dragged himself out to the little shrine just outside Southtown, and is utilizing the dilapidated building as cover as he cleans, binds, and tends the injuries Kula caused him in their recent fight. No broken bones this time, which means the healing will be fast... but still, three puncture wounds and a series of deep slashes are not something easily walked off.
Bleeding, grievously injured, and alone: forced to care for himself. Not a condition K' cares to reveal to Shurui, who would likely be more upset thinking about it.
She should've texted him. The third ring sounds, causing her to pull the phone away from her ear and consider hanging up. .... Wait. Does K' have a mailbox? ...... He'd be the sort to just have a generic machine message for it, wouldn't he?
She hears his voice. The short growl signifies that it is, indeed, K' and only K'. Bad phone manners indeed. At first, she's comforted, despite the negativity written all over K''s voice, her breath slowly releasing from her lungs in relief. After dealing with the news of several friends changing into abstracted vestiages of their former selves, just knowing that someone has stayed the same is a comforting thought, even if it's a person as unruly and grumpy as K'.
Then she hears the tired tone to his voice, which immediately brings her back to her worried state. ".... K'." Perhaps it was good to have directly called him. ".... Wait, you doing okay? If you're hurt, I can bring over some supplies from the mansion. It's not a big deal for me." She's already moving, cellphone cradled on her shoulder. "I have something I need to tell you, but I could always do it face-to-face." She tries to keep her voice steady, casual. It's not too hard; K' voiced his plans to attempt to take on some powerful people. The fact that he's able to answer a phone is proof already that he's managing.
For a long time, the only reply Shurui's concern meets is silence. Though she can't see it, K' is binding the wide cut in his side at that particular point in time, which is partially contributing to his lack of response. The young man draws the bindings tight, and the sudden shooting pain draws an audible hiss out of him. He's quiet a few moments, more after that, before he slowly replies, "Do it face to face. Who knows anymore who's listening in? You there right now? Stay where you are."
Not seeming to trust the lines enough to arrange a meeting over the phone, K' accepts no argument as to whether he should be the one moving at this point in time. He only gives enough time to ascertain that Shurui is at the estate before he hangs up abruptly.
It's about twenty minutes before he shows up: an unusually long time, for someone with chi entirely purposed around swift travel. He looks about the same as he sounded over the line, the bandages holding his torso together already reddened with blood. The young man seems largely undeterred by his injuries, however. He's already healing, and still appears in fighting shape. If only just barely.
"...." Shurui grimances. God, is he thinking she's going to freak out on him like that time Geese visited him?
.... Maybe. Her eyelids lower. She probably looked like she was being unresponsible, being so frightened at that very moment that she couldn't even remain in control of her wits. And yet, it's hard to explain how frightening it is, to see someone's aura fade and blink like that- especially the aura of someone you'd readily admit was important to you.
Once the light is extinguished, it can never be relit.
The hiss of pain makes Shurui's face fall into a deadpan expression. Stubborn idiot. "I told you, I can bring supplies ov-" He speaks. "Hey, you su-" He hangs up. ..... Again, bad phone manners. All Shurui can do is wait; at least it's quiet here. Save for the few snores and shuffling of feet for a nightly bathroom break, the mansion's refugees dreaming of happier times. At least they're safe. Warm. Protected, albiet by a force of so few.
The lawn is beginning to recover from the harsh imprints made in it from the Shadaloo forces, dew glinting in the moonlight as spring attempts to move in and repair the damage. Shurui herself waits for K' on the porch, lights off, her oversized white t-shirt a pale signal of her presence. A roll of fresh bandages sit by her side alongside some other supplies. When K' does show up, the girl's breath is cut off at the evidence of his wounds embedded in the imprint of his energy. Her mouth stiffens in a thin line. "We can talk in the supply room. There's more bandages there. Antibotics. Your wounds aren't closed yet; take advantage of this while you can." It's also a quiet area.
K' steps out of the dark surrounding the estate with the seamlessness of a creature used to moving through shadows: literally so, when he brings his chi into the equation. His white hair has the same sort of effect as Shurui's shirt, the sharp contrast setting him out and marking him as he moves quietly across the lawn. He isn't quite limping, but only through an exertion of force of will. He's not about to show off the extent of his injuries.
Considering what he was up against, however, his wounds could have been a lot more serious. That he's able to move is evidence enough that the fight actually went -in his favor-. "Fine," is his short response to her greeting, the young man scaling to the porch with a quiet sigh meant to disguise the effort required. And once he gets in close, he takes a look down at her.
His own jaw hardens into a disapproving line. He can see that she was recently injured as well, and not trivially. "What happened to -you-?" he asks, perhaps a little curtly, even as he turns away and starts slowly inside. "This what you called me about?"
"What?"
K''s not the only stubborn idiot around here, it seems. Even as Shurui moves with an unusual amount of grace, considering her injuries, the dark bruises are hard to hide underneath the fabric of her shirt and even harder to get rid of, even as her body heals the internal injuries that formly lay underneath. She looks down at her shirt, her face falling. ..... Right. This was the reason she was going to *call* him, not *meet* him. God.
"....." She pauses at K's question, then answers. "No." Technically, it's not a lie. She didn't call him about this. "I wanted to tell you about Hotaru." She leads him into the foyer and down a hallway, speaking in a hushed whisper as she does so. "Shadaloo did something to her. With the help of someone, I managed to at least get her away from them, but, from what I know, I don't think she's sane anymore. I'll have to find her to make sure."
She's leaving out details, yes, all in the hope that K' may overlook them. Turning on the lights in a guest room that's been converted into a storage room for supplies, Shurui points to a large bed that's been shoved into a corner. "We've got some rooms free if you need a place to sleep for the night, but there's this too." She looks over to the supplies, marked on the shelves with flourescent tape for easy identification. "Take what you need, and come back if you need more."
It helps to feel in control. It's the reason she's bossed everyone around since waking up, all while taking ahold of menial, day-to-day tasks with a grumbling stubborn insistence that no one help her. Clean the laundry. Hang the laundry. Dress wounds. Make sure the children don't wander into the woods out back. Survey the property. Release anger on thieves and thugs. And yet, all of it disguises one fact: that Shurui feels utterly and entirely helpless. Guilty. Weak.
The strain shows in her face as she relates to the harder aspects of Hotaru situation. ".... They've messed with her body. She's stronger than before. But it's gonna come at a price if I don't find her. They did the same to Frei and a guy named Ichiro. Maybe a few others. Frei's back, but his chi's so badly damaged that he can't even sense things around him anymore." She turns to K'. "If you see her, be careful. This isn't like the last time; if she's the same as when I met her, she's out to punish people. Even her own friends."
There's no getting away from K''s scrutiny. The effort to avoid meeting him was a valiant one, but it was doomed to failure the moment K' himself-- and his notoriously contrary will-- came into the equation. Now, K' is leveling the full force of his perception on her, noticing the bruises and reading the indication of deeper injuries that they suggest. The weapon is fluent in scanning injuries: even though he only gives her a brief once-over, not much escapes his notice in even that short assessment.
He eventually glances away as they pass through the halls, his gaze skating around as if expecting or looking for something. But soon, the effort is proven to be futile: for it's Hotaru he was looking for, and Hotaru who Shurui apparently wants to talk about. K''s eyes reroute sharply back to Shurui as the girl starts to explain the situation. He holds his silence, his expression remaining largely implacable, but what he's hearing clearly isn't making him happy.
"Did -what- to her?" From what little K' knows of Shadaloo, they enjoy meddling with humans to create walking weapons just as much as NESTS does... and what Shurui says about them 'messing' with her to make her stronger seems to point in that direction. "They experiment on her? If you got her away from them, why isn't she with you now?" A pause. "Who helped you?"
Full of troubling questions, isn't he. Shurui might be regretting calling him right about now. But it's the last statement that really gets K' to lift a brow. Punish people? "....so. They fucked with her and she wants revenge." K' looks, surprisingly enough, more bothered by the idea Hotaru wants vengeance than one would expect a creature like him to be. Bothered... and even slightly annoyed.
It sure sounds familiar to him.
Only someone with immense strength and speed could leave a procession of bruises like that. Shurui may be weak compared to NESTS experiments like K' and Kula (a comparison that may be unfair, considering the differences in experience and ability), but compared to a normal person, she's not a pushover. Whoever did it had to have been powerful. Relentless.
".... Shadaloo took her. They attacked the mansion. We repelled the first wave, but the second wave... whoever came was about as powerful as Vega was. And could copy our attacks. I was the first to fall." A hiss escapes her lips at the memory. "Couldn't remember anything after that- but, when when I woke up, it was just me and Alma. They didn't come for the mansion. They came for the fighters. Hotaru especially. The man *knew* Alma and I had different energy, so we were useless to them." A guilty look crosses her face. ".... I didn't want to tell you at the time- I wouldn't have had any idea of where they could have taken her."
She needs to change the subject quickly. The topic comes in the form of a package of bandages, which she takes from the shelf. "Here. Let's get a layer of fresh bandages on top of what you got. We might as well do that while we talk, especially if you have anything old that needs changing." Keep moving.
Whether he accepts or does something else, Shurui continues. "I didn't know what they wanted her for until I managed to find her again. A woman helped me- named Chun-li. Some agent or another. I thought she was here to steal something, but the more I was around her, the more I... well. I felt she was telling the truth," she admits, embarrassed. "She later got a lead on where Hotaru was, so we went. It was a trap, but if there was a chance we could have saved Hotaru, we couldn't screw it up. That's when we found out Hotaru was different." K''s definitely full of troubling questions. Shurui's having trouble keeping her cards straight; her secrets keep leaking out the edges of what she avoids talking about. "If it was just that, I wouldn't have called you. Getting revenge- we all want that, right? It's different, because...." It's different, because-
Hotaru could have killed her at the same time she was trying to avenge her supposed death. Shurui visibly stalls, gritting her teeth. "It's different."
K' doesn't argue with Shurui's insistence on dressing his wounds and changing his bandages. From what he's hearing, he's going to need to be in fighting shape again faster than he thought he would. His lack of protest might ring slightly odd-- the way he simply sits down heavily in a chair, letting the girl patch him up as she likes, rather out of character-- but for the time being he's not in a mood to squabble with her.
The injuries K' sustained are distinctive: all impossible to mistake as anything but the work of Kula Diamond. Three wounds impaled through his chest. A ragged, ripped slice in his side, indicative of a cutting edge that was far from straight or razor sharp. A shallow cut on his left arm. And yet, there are other injuries on him. Bruises from blunt force impacts; some burns, seeming to hint that he was caught in an explosion; even the even slices of a sword.
It seems that K' had a run-in with his little copy. And it seems that she wasn't alone in trying to kill him, judging from the fact all the wounds are pretty much the same age. That he isn't outright dead is evidence the fight went in his favor.
It's less easy for K' to read Shurui's injuries, partially because many of them have already half-healed. He doesn't try, instead concentrating on what Shurui is telling him. So it was a raid to abduct chi fighters. Figures, if they took Hotaru and Frei: both adepts in chi manipulation. It seems they messed up with Frei, if they rendered him unable to even use his chi anymore... but it sounds like they didn't with Hotaru.
"Chun-Li." K' rasps the name abruptly, recognition in his voice. "You don't have to worry about her. She's fine. Helped me before." But as Shurui slowly stutters to a bit of an awkward, evasive halt, K' starts to slowly suspect what it is she's dancing around. It's very true, it wouldn't be that big an issue if Hotaru were just angry with the conquerors and desirous of revenge on them... but what Shurui's talking about sounds like brainwashing. Or something potentially worse.
K' looks at Shurui. His eyes narrow. "Did she attack you?" Legitimate question to ask, if Shurui and Chun-Li went to confront Hotaru, and she was so 'different.' So focused on violence and revenge. So utterly changed. And... not willing to come back here with them.
He's not protesting. Good. If he had protested.... would she had been able to even so much as touch him, much less change his bandages? When she actively accesses the damage to K''s body, her mouth turns grim. Impalement. Ragged cuts. Bruises. NESTS, maybe? The physical aspects show up as fuzzy blobs only when she slips her glasses on; the internal healing process makes it much easier to pinpoint exactly where to go. She sets the bandages down and grabs some ointments and other supplies from from the shelves, returning back and quickly setting about to the task at hand, listening to K''s voice.
".... If you trust her, then I had to have been right to do the same thing." Even if Chun-li's disappearance briefly angered the girl. .... Could it have been helped, though? She was out for so long; the Chinese woman couldn't have stayed to recount information to her. Where did she go to, though? Was it because Shurui messed everything up?
While not the level of a trained aid, the way Shurui handles K''s injuries is remarkably different than before- quick, precise, clinical, and tightly wrapped. Old bandages are cut, wounds are cleaned of dirt, dried blood, and other miniscle debris. Shurui's hands deftly handle K''s bandages with a manner that suggests physical memory- she's probably had to do this for numerous people since coming here, aided and guided by the few medical staff that happened to take shelter here as well. Bandages that still are holding back blood are reinforced, Shurui's voice warning K' if she's about to pull tight.
The movement stops as K' insists on poking Shurui further, the wince in her expression more evident. "... yeah. She thought I was dead- said she was doing everything because of me and Alma. Then she attacked me. We fought a bit, but I couldn't do much against her. Her chi... it's all wrong. It's like they amplified it or something. Got pummeled against a wall- she lapsed into sanity then. Realized who I was. She then went after Seth. The guy who kidnapped her." Her shoulders sag. "Fell unconscious after that. When I woke up days later, the attendent told me that Chun-li brought me back. That Hotaru just... left us there after she beat Seth. Walked off. I was hoping she would've come back."
She goes back to her work. ".... That's why, soon, I gotta find her. Bring her back. Maybe I'll have luck this time. Maybe you might, too, if you can get through to her."
If K' hadn't wanted to be touched, then Shurui would never have gotten a hand within half a foot of him, no. That he's staying in one place and permitting her to collect bandages and supplies is evidence enough he's already decided to allow her to treat him. He's expecting her to be slow and halting about it, frequently stopping to watch what she's doing-- it's what he's come to expect from her-- but soon enough, she surprises him when she goes to work with an odd fluidity.
His eyes half-lid as he watches her shift aside clothing and clean injuries with learned deftness. She's done this many times now, he can tell. If he were a more sentimental creature, he might have briefly ruminated on how sad Shurui's new familiarity with treating wounds is.
Fortunately, he isn't sentimental. The thought passes by quickly. It helps that jolts of pain keep dumping him out of his train of thought: though Shurui warns him before anything that might potentially sting, being warned still doesn't stop shit from hurting like a bitch. But accustomed as he is to injury and agony, K' neither reacts outwardly nor makes a sound, even though he hurts just as keenly as anybody else.
K''s expression locks down even more when Shurui admits that yes, Hotaru did attack her. His eyes narrow visibly, that familiar, only half-restrained danger that comes attendant with his temper slinking into his demeanor. He tenses noticeably under Shurui's hands, not seeming to hear the subsequent explanation that Hotaru did come to her senses later. ...only to walk away from a beaten, unconscious Shurui.
"No." The sharp word pierces like a dart. "I'll find her." But from the tone of his voice... it's uncertain whether his intentions towards Hotaru are entirely as clement as Shurui's own.
To K', it may have caused a passing expression of sadness, but for Shurui, it's a boon, especially now. Even as knuckles and fingers become marked with dried blood, she feels capable. In control. Not helpless in a bed or running away. Not worrying. K' needed help. She's giving it. For now, at least, she'll leave him in a better state than when she found him.
.... Physically, anyway. "There's painkillers too." She should've thought of that. "Dunno if we have anything strong enough." Unless he indicates the need for them, she continues with her work, pushing aside clothing with cool hands to work on a jagged wound in his side.
It's K''s command that causes Shurui to finally stop. "...." Studying K' after tightening her latest bit of bandage, her mouth downturns in a firm frown. .... She can't stop him now. The cat's clearly out of the bag. In the end, it may be up to luck who finds her first, but K' will have the upper hand. ".... Remember that she's still Hotaru. They've just managed to twist her original emotions around. If we can't get her to stand still and come to reality, it may take someone like Alma to try to find the cause in her mind and fix it." Or maybe, possibly, Shurui, if Alma can't be found. Even then, it'd be a crapshoot to see if she could even handle such a task.
It isn't simple as conviction or misplaced goals, which is the only reason Shurui doesn't find herself trying to see how badly her words might sound. "Bring her here, if anything else. Maybe finding that the mansion's still okay'll help."
Leaned forward as necessary to give Shurui access to properly bandage him, K' nonetheless manages to look distant and preoccupied even in this uncomfortable and precarious position. He doesn't respond to her telling him there's painkillers, not appreciably. A vague sound of assent is really all she'll get: and at that, it's one more felt in the chest beneath her ministrations than it's actually audible in the air. He doesn't need painkiller. He needs to find Hotaru, and...
...and what? K' knows at least several things he wants to do and say to her, not all of them entirely benign. But when it comes to actually snapping her out of whatever problem she's got? He's just going to have to wing that, he has no clue how to speak to other people. Not like Shurui, or even Hotaru herself.
He's fairly determined that it should be him to do it, however, and not Shurui. At this rate, K' is convinced sending Shurui up against Hotaru might well get her killed; it's necessary someone go who would have a better shot at overpowering Hotaru should things go south.
He doesn't rouse out of his thoughts up until Shurui abruptly admonishes him to remember: it's still Hotaru, no matter how twisted and deluded. K' certainly has a response for that, his yellow eyes shifting to pin on Shurui's with an odd, vicious intensity. "I gave you to her -care-," he enunciates clearly, coldly, and damningly. "If I find she wasn't brainwashed or coerced, I'm not going to play gentle with her."
Perhaps K''s lack of sympathy can be explained by his own past. He's gone through trauma every bit as terrible: even, probably, worse. And he managed to salvage himself from mindless violence and vengeance... at least, to some small degree. He thought Hotaru was a -better- person than he was; should she fall, now that she's confronted by the same trials as him, it would disillusion him greatly.
K''s eyes stop Shurui cold.
It doesn't matter how well she could see them, or discern their unusual color through the overlay of his aura. The emotion they send is just as potent, getting K''s intended message across clearly. "...." Her eyes lower in avoidance. .... In a way, he *is* correct. She disagrees on the part on Hotaru still being in charge of her, but the latter is true. Things will probably have to come to blows.
It takes a while before she finds the right words to speak. She swallows, her voice coming out raw. ".... Yeah." She looks back up. "That was my mistake. Didn't play hard until it was too late. .... In the end, wanted to spare you having to deal with this. Change things on my own." She sniffs, going back to the next bandage. ".... That was being unfair to you, in a way, wasn't it."
"You have a chance. There's a connection between you two that's different than the one she's got with me. That might be the key, but you might have to fight her first to get her to a level where she'll see what she's doing. We don't know what happened to her. But we can't allow her to do something she's going to regret later."
K' tends to have that effect: stopping people dead in surprise and discomfort, that is. Where most would have expressed sympathy, or understanding, or even-- at the least-- some notion of clemency, all K''s eyes seem to broadcast is harsh, unrelenting censure. But then, no one should ever expect any notion of kind understanding from K'. In his mind, if Hotaru was not -forced- to act as she did, then she has no excuse. Experimentation? Mistreatment? She has only to look to him-- to his example-- to know that such things should not excuse a person from all culpability.
The moment passes. A smirk replaces the surprise, but the expression is totally lacking in warmth or humor. In fact, it almost looks accusatory. "Don't try to spare me shit. I don't need to be insulated from anything." And really, it should be pretty clear by now: K' likes handling things himself because he is pretty much a big control freak. "I'll deal with whatever I want to deal with."
Implied in that: 'and I will deal with Hotaru.' The sentiment is, perhaps, proven further when K' adds calmly, yellow eyes narrowing, "She's already done something she's going to regret." Does he intend to be the one to make her regret it? His words could suggest a thing, but hopefully that's not his intention. ...hopefully.
It's been a strange month all around, let alone a day. Friends becoming enemies, schools thought to be invincible falling to armies... hell, the only reason Shurui wasn't being experimented on alongside Hotaru was that the energy she posessed made her incompatible with the project at hand. Energy which, at any other time, would have made Shurui a prime canididate for a whole host of horrible experiments.
And now, K''s a role model.
"That was one of my reasons, yeah. Not the only one." The surprise on K''s face elects a stare from Shurui's own. "H-hey. It wasn't that I didn't trust you." Okay, that would be a lie. Shurui's played the situation where K' would storm Shadaloo's temporary base at the park by himself many times in her head. Whether he'd do it or not is moot; Shurui always expects the worst. "... It wasn't...."
It was. She was insulating K'. It may have been a good idea at the beginning, but after Hotaru's location was known? Having an extra person may have been key. She lets out a huff of air, her body sagging. "... Right. Let's keep the list of regrets low, even if it's gonna hurt her at first." She looks at K'. ".... You can rest here for tonight. Don't worry about attracting people here." A wry smile pokes at one corner of her mouth. "No place is really gonna be safe here in the city, and NESTS is bound to come here sometime once they run out of more important people to chase."
Well. K' would probably be smart enough not to try to attack a Shadaloo base by himself. Still, one never quite knows for sure when one's dealing with the volatile young man: Shurui was, perhaps, right to be a little reticent about telling him the bad news. But now that Hotaru has cut herself loose from Shadaloo, now that she's wandering about by herself? Now, there's no real reason left not to let K' know.
Other than, perhaps, the look on his face as he considers what to do. It isn't a promising sort of look. Certainly K' regrets that Hotaru has now had to experience what he did-- has, in a sense, had her innocence in that regard taken-- but now that it's happened, it's about time for her to cope without going around and hurting people she shouldn't be hurting.
Shurui's assertion that he can stay at the estate for the evening finally rouses him from his dour thoughts. His head lifts, the young man drawing a breath as he pushes aside thought and reorients on reality. For the first time, he seems to really notice the bindings about his wounds, inspecting them briefly and finding them expertly applied. A brief nod given, K' starts to push himself slowly to a stand.
"I already decided I was gonna stay here," K' says, a little wryly. "Doesn't make a difference. Like you said, trouble's everywhere lately."
Shurui always assumes the worst. She could've given K' more credit, but, even as much as she's gotten to know him, the former NESTS's reactions still manage to surprise her at times, both good and bad. K' clearly cared about Hotaru; would it be fair to throw that news at him and expect him to work around it until she came with better information? Of course, if he managed to get ahold of related information himself and knew about Hotaru's kidnapping...
No sense playing the 'what if' game. Hindsight's always going to be 20/20 no matter how hard Shurui squints at it.
At least K' knows he has a place that he can take advantage of. And, strangely enough, he's going to. "Heh." Shurui straightens, wiping K''s blood against her faded jeans. "There's a few rooms still open. I've just been sleeping here in this room mostly for the convienence, but, if you want this spot, I'll go someplace else. Doubt you want anyone poking around when you're trying to get some shuteye." It may be a storage room for now, but the bed pushed against the wall is hardly some dusty cot placed down on the floor. More like a bed more commonly seen at a four-star hotel, much like the others in the other rooms. "You gotta preference?"
A little strange. But not totally unexpected, considering what the situation is now. K' has determined he's going to find Hotaru, if he can; and he's expecting the girl to be hostile. That in mind, it's imperative he be in shape to fight again as soon as possible: imperative he be able to apply force if necessary. Certainly, an idealist would hope to be able to reform Hotaru without striking a single blow...
...but K' is about as far from an idealist as you can get.
Making it to a stand, K' lifts his head and refuses to let any sign of his tiredness or injury show in his stance. The pretense, however, isn't perfect, as becomes clear once Shurui asks if he'd rather stay here or go somewhere else. Eyes watch the way she wipes his blood away casually, looking considerably less bothered by the macabre sight than they could be, and eventually K' admits, "...I'll stay here."
The young man starts, slowly, to cross the room. "Don't feel like walking somewhere else," he adds, almost defiantly, almost as if covering for any potential weakness Shurui might impute from his decision.
Log created on 00:27:52 04/21/2009 by Shurui, and last modified on 00:24:42 04/22/2009.