Description: Last thing Frei remembers is taking an epic hit indeed from the mighty Takuma Sakazaki and falling unconscious. Now he is awake once more, facing dry cleaning fees, potentially illegal homeopathy, and two stout men determined to get the facts of the situation wrong at every turn.
Kansas is a very far place from Southtown. Being on the grounds of the Kyokugen dojo, however, makes it seem just that extra special bit further. It seems almost surreal to those on the outside now, just the sheer idea of doing all this extremely difficult manual labor exactly by hand. Hammering, sanding, measuring, all of it by hand. That's just how Kyokugen rolls. Or rather, stands and works, because Takuma's typically the only one who gets to sit.
One Howard Rust, still a relatively fresh face with that happy little white belt, is making good on a payment agreement by working on a shed... by hand. It's not going as well as it really should be, considering that he's... well, he's probably one of the best craftsmen you'll find for miles. But craftsmen typically use tools, and some of these more complex things Takuma's been making him do by hand has been... a challenge. All this to try and get his right hand back into fighting shape, of course, something he's willing to stomach.
But sometimes, a man just needs to know when to walk away for five minutes and get something to /drink/.
"I'm, uh, I'm enacting that water break," he says to whoever might be overlooking him as he shakes out his right arm, a pop from the elbow. Having seen most of the typical parts of a Kyokugen afternoon, he strongly doubts any real surprises on the way towards getting anything to drink. He's a working man, he enjoys relative stability and predictability and he's just beginning to get a handle on what can be considered stable and predictable at the Kyokugen dojo.
Or so he thinks.
Four hours, three beers, and half a marathon of "Walker: Texas Ranger" ago, conflict had erupted on the Kyokugen training mats not even a football field away from Howard Rust's current location. The YFCC's Frei had approached Takuma for permission to advertise some YFCC thing on the Kyokugen grounds - Takuma graciously accepted, and proceeded to put Frei's face into the ground.
Takuma then got into his hot tub, and did all the rest of the things outlined above.
Frei is recuperating at the moment, draped in a Kyokugen gi with a "$50 Off" coupon gingerly settled into its belt.
Given this, it might make sense that Sakazaki's leaving his home at the same time Rust is getting up from his shed construction. The old master's skin is a toasty red, his hair still drying, and he wears a baby blue terry cloth bathrobe to nail the idea home: This is a man who has -just- left the hot tub. This is a man who is walking down his staircase in broad daylight, a man whose broad steps indicate a mastery of his home, his art, his -day-. A man whose stride cares nothing for the delicate balance necessitated by a belt-bound robe, whose swarthy inner thighs peek free to laugh gaily at the shining su-
A passing student catches a glimpse of Takuma walking down those stairs. His face blanches - he drops everything he's holding and looks away. Takuma's paying too much attention to Rust to notice the younger disciple. Takuma's smile is the smile of the carefree.
"Mr. Rust! How is the shed coming along?? And your hand?" A (disturbingly) deep chortle replaces Sakazaki's exhalations for now; he finishes his descent and sets a course meant to intercept Rust's own.
Fighters are quick healers and, if they're in the business for a while, also used to short bouts of being entirely unconscious while their tougher-than-civvies bodies start rolling out the healing process. The tougher fighters tend to rebound quite quickly, and Frei himself also learned the knack a long time ago for slowly using ambient chi to heal himself. It's all very mystical and strange but it does mean that usually a couple hours of solid napping will leave him in tip-top shape. Apparently, that nap happened here at the Dojo, and now it is ending.
"Frei!" shouts a male voice. And then there's Takuma, in his apron and everyday homespun gown, opening the curtains. "Come on, sleepy head, get up!" He stalks back over and tears the blanket off a sleeping Frei, who blearily looks up into his makeup-covered face and well-carmined lips etched into a massive, toothy, red-rounded smile. "I bet you were so excited about the Kyokugen Faire that you didn't sleep well, did you?" Then he starts charging a massive burst of gold-white chi between his hands.
Frei sits bolt upright with a start, green eyes impossibly wide, breathing in big sharp gulps, staring ahead in terror. This persists for a few moments before he seems to really wake up, then look down. All here. Yep. He pats himself down for a moment, then pulls something out of the white cloth belt of his apparent clothing. "Oh, hey," he murmurs, sleepily. "$50 off."
The camera now pans down to the outside of the dojo. Specifically, a tree under which some students are training. Everything seems calm and peaceful. Yes indeed.
"WHAT THE HELL!"
The leaves stop shaking. The students, interestingly enough, don't bat an eyelash. Does this happen a lot?
Compare Takuma's mastery of his home and the carefree nature in which he strides his castle, fresh out of the hot tub, to a man who cannot seem to get his superiors to agree with some of his lesson plans for the next semester and remain insistent on putting a fair bit of studies on cultural architecture in the mix as opposed to actually building things.
"Oh... hey," the forty-year-old man clears his throat as he looks toward where he's going after averting his gaze away from the admittedly powerful frame of Takuma Sakazaki as if to not catch more of a sight than he's looking for.
"Ahh... well, the, the foundation's fine," he starts, "walls're... the ones I just did, I think I, uh, I need to do one over, it looks a li'l... too uneven." That's probably the best way he can describe it, though he winces inwardly at the query about his right hand as much as he does the rising costs of lumber, as he doesn't want to have to waste wood starting over!
It becomes harder for him to avoid the sight of Takuma since he's walking about in his way. "My hand's, uh... numb. Hurts. More... numb 'n hurting," he mumbles before clearing his throat, "numb." He starts to gesture towards the kitchen in which to state his desire to quench his thirst, when there is the sudden yell that has him turning his head.
"Uh," the shop teacher doesn't recognize the voice off the bat as he scratches the side of his head, "sounds like some guy's upset over no refunds, or... or something."
Frei will find his *actual* clothes locked in a footlocker at the base of the bed. The lock is nothing fancy, but it is not exactly polite to go around breaking other people's posessions (locks included) - this is the philosophy Takuma is banking on. Attached to this foot locker is a receipt, printed on receipt paper, purple ink marking it as 'authentic' and likely from the Kyokugen Billing Dept. (Yuri, Labelmaker, Yuri's imagination.)
'Kyokugen Gi: Eleventy billion dollars or some fashion tips.' This has been crossed out and replaced with a firmly inked '$250', written by a man's hand.
Outside, Takuma idly toys with the Master(R) Lock key in a robe pocket. He's watching Rust's progress, mannerisms, and demeanor, expression still cheerful, eyes wide, attentive. "Yeah? It sounds like you're putting your all into it, then! The kids could learn something from you. Hard work is what'll get it - keep at it!"
Then Frei shrieks; Takuma laughs, and steps closer to Rust, head shaking. An arm is slung around the other man's shoulder. "He's just making his first step down a long, rewarding road. Hard work pays for itself, you know. Why, one of the basic precepts of Kyokugen Karate is that a man is only as strong as he works at strengthening himself, be it through nailing together wood with his hands, or striking bulls dead with single punches! The early bird can't catch the worm if its neck isn't strong enough to pierce the soil! Giraffes have to fight for every mouthful of eucalyptus they eat!! A shark, when angered, can e--"
Takuma is guiding Rust towards the house, towards the kitchen, to water, to Frei. He distracts himself momentarily - he's discovered something ELSE in his pocket. What could it be...??
So, to contextualize just exactly what is going on, the following noises are heard, in sequence, to those people entering the Kyokugen building proper, coming from the general direction of wherever Takuma left Frei:
Rustling of cloth. Light footsteps, spaced evenly apart, bare feet on a wood floor. A period of silence. Footsteps, a little harder this time. What might be muffled conversation. A dull *thud!* of something hitting the floor. Slight footsteps again, rhythmic, going in one direction away and then coming back. A metallic *CLANG!* noise, followed by another muffled possibly-talking, then silence. Footsteps moving away, evenly-spaced. Another pause. Heavy footsteps, moving rapidly, then another, louder, sharper metallic *CLANG!* noise, a sound like someone sticking a fork in a light socket, someone distinctly shouting "OW!", and then silence.
Frei descends a staircase right in the path of Takuma and Rust a few moments later, wearing the gi, looking seriously perturbed. He's favoring his right foot, and his long red bangs are in severe disarray.
When he actually processes who is in front of him, he actually stops in mid-step, right leg slightly bent, foot in midair, gripping the banister. He doesn't move after that.
Rust's shoulder, a little tender as it is, nonetheless shoulders the arm like a man. He has a few inches on Takuma in height, but there's a bit of a slump to Howard's movements. He's tired and thirsty, it's been a long enough day as it is, but largely makes confused 'uh, okay' looks on his face as to what Takuma explains as the reason for that yell.
His head lifts up at more sounds. What's going on in there? He gives Takuma another look somewhere in between the first 'CLANG' and the second, looking back forward at the 'ow.' It does kind of sound like someone stuck something in a light socket. He used to do that back in college, himself, he reminisces silently while his knee pops. Saved him the costs of buying coffee when money was tight. Then his health insurance costs went way, way up when his doctor found out he indulged in that sort of recklessness.
"Hunh, what a day," the man brings his left hand to his face and just rubs it, shielding his eyes from what would be an amusing truth the moment he caught sight of it.
...It is a bag of herbs! Or something! "Oh, right. Lee. Some Chinese folk junk." The two older men are proceeding down a lengthy, narrow hallway at about the same time Sakazaki's younger visitor is, in order - Knocking over long-dead, horribly maintained bonsai; encountering (and dropping) Ryo's ages-old Hot Wheels collection; electing to move away from said collection; encountering a dead-end; electing to vault said collection; vaulting said collection only to land on one car and ride it, one-footed, straight over the live wire between the Sakazaki's living quarters and the staircase he's currently standing on.
Takuma doesn't blink or halt upon seeing Frei. He's still got an arm over Rust's shoulders, he's still making his way towards the kitchen. It's when *Rust* stops that Takuma does - brown eyes regard the youth before him, and he's smiling once again. "Everybody was saying that gi fit you like you were born to wear it. I didn't believe them, but looking at you now -- phew! I'm glad I gave you the coupon; it was my last one!" And then he's pushing past, passively inviting Frei to his kitchen.
"Come on, now, let's get that hand looked at. I want to try out this stuff Lee gave me. I think it's supposed to help with aches and pains?"
Takuma vanishes into the kitchen. "That or it's that... whassitcalled. Marryjuwana. -Apparently- very popular these days, especially in medicine."
They are actually about to walk right by him and Frei hasn't said anything. There is a moment, however, where his green-eyed gaze tracks onto Rust and the Pacific shop teacher can see the expression conveyed merely by Frei's gaze. It's a deep gaze. It has a lot to say. At least one of the things it says is: what are you doing here, followed by: what am *I* doing here, followed by: ... --- ...
Takuma acts as if nothing is wrong, because presumably in his eyes nothing IS wrong. And then he casually mentions he and Rust might go off and enjoy old man pot brownies which, frankly, sends him into a spiral of visual thinker-sparked mental imagery that is, compared to his dream of Takuma as Crono's mom, like comparing the sun to a laser pointer. 'This can't end well' would have to be written in 40' tall letters of flame to even approach being adequate enough to express the sentiment.
Then that second is over and Frei's right foot comes down on the stair it was frozen above. His hands swiftly come up, one perpendicular to the other to form a 'T', and he says quite simply, "Hold it."
He then turns toward Takuma and Rust, HOPING that they've stopped walking, and says: "Thank you for the gi, which I'll be sure to launder and return. Where are my clothes and, perhaps more importantly, _who put me in these ones_."
"Yeah?" Asks the teacher in his usual sort of mumbly tone when his throat is dry and he's tired while he rubs his face just a bit more to work out whatever kink rubbing his face will relieve as Takuma catches sight of Frei, and at first he assumes he's talking about him. How in the hell is this gi flattering?
"What coup--" He means to ask, having never remembered there being one as he removes the hand from his face to catch sight of Frei. Compare the green-eyed gaze to the brown. One doesn't need to pierce too deep into Howard's eyes to know all he has to say about the matter: 'what?'
"Fred?" Comes the question out of his lips, once again getting Frei's name wrong. He rubs his head again. "Frei. Frei. Not... Fred. Why did I say Fred?"
He's interrupted from this train of thought with Takuma looking to have his hand looked at. Ahh, might as well. His doctor said whoever operated on his hand definitely saved it from becoming unusable. Rolento did his work so very well. Mr. Rust frowns at the thought as he has a look at that awful, injured hand of his that serves as a little souvenir of those events that came to pass through the invasion.
"That... stuff? Uh," he looks a bit reluctant at the idea as he reluctantly starts to follow deeper into the kitchen at his sluggish pace when Frei suggests they all 'hold it.' He looks back up his way again.
"Who put you in... uh. Look, I've been building a shed back there with, with my bare hands," he clears his throat and shakes his head, hands held up, "Iiii got no idea what you're, you're talkin' 'bout."
The kitchen is actually within Frei's frame of vision, and Rust is happily able to stand between Takuma and the youngster. Rust continues a conversation Takuma's lost interest in - the old master is currently working at his counter, small bag of herbs untied and laid out as a burlap square, greens bundled atop it. While his demenaor suggests a certain lack of concern for details, Takuma puts this preconception to rest when he -knows- he's got work to do: peppermint oils, homemade balms, tea tree oil, and water are mixed into a mortar bowl - the herbs bundled atop it. A pestle is applied to the mixture; Takuma takes both in hand, and turns his attention back to his pupils, working away.
'-are hands. Iiii got no idea what you're, you're talkin' 'bout.' - Takuma's eyes narrow; he regards Frei over there in the distance, curious. Just what -is- going on.
"...Mmm. Looks like somebody must have put you in a better outfit for healing up. I'm not sure who it might be, but I know how the procedure goes. Kyokugen gis are soaked in all sorts of mystic springs and, ah..." Takuma looks up and to the left, grinding away at the herbal mixture in the bowl. By now the whole room likely smells of mint and cloying pungence.
"...Secret dyes..." Takuma's still mixing. "My point is your clothes are locked in a box up in the room where you woke up. You'll probably get them when you pay for the gi. There was a coupon for it, right?" Takuma is speaking directly to Frei, but turns his attention to Rust now. A broad grin.
"Come into the kitchen, both of you, so I can get a wrap on that hand. This -should- help. You'll get used to the smell." It's either Chinese herbal analgesics or pot, so...
In the alternate universe version of these events, this is the moment when Frei's villainous second personality awakens, sets fire to the building, and then flies off to plot universal destruction because he is a MONSTER and any universe that would create such an abomination as himself cannot be allowed to continue existing.
In that universe, Rust has full, spiky blond hair. It's probably for the best he would never know about it.
In *this* universe, Frei is struggling to keep up with the facts of the situation. Okay. So his clothes and ideally his bokken are upstairs in that box he tried unsuccessfully to force open. Right. Takuma thinks these clothes are enchanted, and while Frei is a proponent of properly-practiced herbal medicine, he somehow doubts he needed to have this getup on to spend healing surges during that short rest. Doing good so far. 'Pay for the gi' seems to go in one ear and out the other, since the redhead has no bloody intention of paying anybody for anything performed under either duress or, and to him this is critical, in a state of unknowing unconsciousness. And now Takuma is inviting him in for what smells like a poultice of Altoids.
There's a moment where Frei just pinches the bridge of his nose with his eyes closed. The world draws perilously close to a 'One-Winged Freingel' moment, because causality works that way.
Then he opens his eyes and actually LOOKS at Rust rather than sort of around or through him, and says: "...are you TRAINING here?"
The middle-aged man's nostrils flare once at the scent. Truth be told, he rather prefers the scents of society and construction. Cement, gasoline, the works. He's out of his element with all these herbal and natural smells. Being on Seijyun grounds was like stepping into a whole new world where anything and everything he knew and loved was replaced by the deep scents of flowers and nature.
It was a bit terrifying, which says a lot since he grew up out in the country in the middle of nowhere.
Unlike Frei, he more or less endures the scent. Another nostril flaring moment shows he is beginning to regret this decision as Takuma goes on and on about the properties of the Kyokugen gi. If that stuff were true...
"Huh?" He turns his head to Frei's sharp look in his direction as he goes into the kitchen. "Yeah, actually... doin' lessons. Most the time after school's let out I head out." He himself is dressed the part of a Kyokugen student. His white belt should tell Frei plenty about how far - or rather, not far - he's come.
As he draws deeper into the kitchen the especially stronger scents become overpowering. Please tell me this stuff doesn't use the grass they use for the athletic fields, he prays inwardly to himself as he visually flinches at this, afraid it's going to set off some of his allergies again.
"I'm, uh... I'm... also here for a glass of water," he speaks up a bit towards the end of the sentence since now he's breathing in that scent and holy hell it's strong!
Takuma has presumably been through this kind of brow-knitting, eye-narrowing resistance before. Frei's entire inner monologue and external indicators of frustration are noted, smiled at, and summarily forgotten. Instead, the old man regards the greenish-brown paste in his bowl. "Mmh. That'll do it."
He unrolls a thick ACE-styled bandage onto an adjacent countertop, and begins to liberally coat the thing with his mixture. Once there's a good, disgusting amount of minty hell on the dressing, Sakazaki dumps the mortar bowl into his sink, washes his hands, and gestures to Rust - and Frei - that they should come into the kitchen.
And they do. And Rust's face has torture written all over it. While the shop teacher is asking Sakazaki for a glass of water, he'll have to notice the growing creases in Sakazaki's forehead, the accelerating conversion of his thick eyebrows, the terrifying convergence of his mouth's corner with the bottom of the wrinkles before his cheeks.
Abruptly, Takuma's reaching for Rust's hand, smells be damned! He speaks while he works, motions firm, barely "gentle". Poultice finds its way around palm, knuckles, between fingers, and all the way up to Rust's wrist. It *burns*, but it's a soothing thing, a sign of an intensely methylated medication.
"Mr. Rust is training here, just like you are! People don't walk through these doors and challenge Takuma Sakazaki to a fight without expecting to learn something, and lessons being what they are, you should be thankful I'm letting you get away with a $200 karategi after fulfillment of the requirements listed on your coupon! And as for you, Mr. Rust -- This is not the time to act like one of your students; it smells bad, but this is what'll keep you going harder and longer than anything else! Progress is not HANDED to us - we win it, fighting on the backs of giant, aggressive eagles! Our lives are constantly threatened by the heaving, unexpected tragedies we encounter in this wind-torn savannah of Life!"
The poultice is -tied- into place.
"So please, Mr. Rust. Fred. Deal with it, and set a good example for the younger children." There is, as always, a certain 'or else' appended to the statement.
It applies to Frei, too.
It is probably for the best that once the avalanche starts rolling from the top of Mount Takuma, it likely drowns out the rest of the world enough so that the mumbled responses of Frei, who has indeed moved into the kitchen through the gravity of the conversation, to Takuma's various misstatements are for the most part probably unheared by anyone but him.
'just like you are!' "Well, not really, but..."
'listed on your coupon!' "Wait, _what requirements_?!" followed by a scanning of it.
'giant, aggressive eagles!' "It's not like he needs to be saved from Mordor..."
'Fred. Deal with it.' "My name is Frei, actually..."
The disparate lines of the conversation end once Takuma has definitively tied the poultice around Rust's hand. All things considered, it's homemade Icy-Hot but in Frei's not expert but certainly journeyman opinion, it will *probably* actually work as a topical analgesic/heat therapy thing, so to that he looks at Takuma with a bit of impressed respect. The guy is clearly a little delusional or, in the way many great men can be, simply oblivious, but at least he can deliver in more ways than one.
Oh right. Delusional. A good reminder.
Frei's voice drops into the momentary silence: "You realize I'm not giving you $200 for this gi, right?"
Mr. Rust's not kidding about how numb his hand feels. He only realizes Takuma's grabbed it when his right shoulder makes another creak as if to say 'hey, I'm moving' and then he realizes 'hey, it's moving' and it's got Takuma's especially firm grip. His mouth opens a little as if to voice his protest as the poultice finds itself a happy(?) home on Howard's hand. His fingers twitch a few times while he winces, mostly quiet through Takuma's explanations to Frei as he stomachs the smell and the burning.
It is sort of like stepping into a hot tub that's running a little hot, but soothing after you give it a chance. His arm continues to twitch as he tries to soak in the promise of soothing relief in the face - or maybe arm brace - of burning.
"Uh... yes, I, I know, I'm sorry, ah," he clears his throat at the end of Takuma's lectures and monologues, not out of disrespect but he really really needs something to drink here! He tries to flex the fingers on his right hand in and out, "I'll... I'll set a better example," he clears his throat as he reaches for a glass. Somewhere. Anywhere, with his left hand. No, he's going to want me to use my right hand. I want me to use my right hand, but not as much as he wants me to use my right hand. When Frei mentions he's not going to be paying for the gi, the teacher accidentally shoves the glass out of a cupboard.
"Ah dammit!" He curses as his knees pop in unison, eyes shut as he seems to have awaited the inevitable shattering of glass to punctuate the moment.
A silence. He caught it! Good, good, he thinks as he puts the glass on a counter, only to stop and stare at the hand that caught it - his perfectly healthy, if non-dominant, left hand.
He's not sure if Takuma's going to be whipping him over /that/.
'Not paying $200 for the gi, right?'
'Not paying $200 for the g-'
'Not paying $200-'
Immediately upon finishing his tying of Rust's poultice, Sakazaki hears three words, three very -significant- words. While he does take on a particularly intense expression, and briefly, brown eyes fill with all kinds of portent, he doesn't actually have a response for Frei.
The Planet does. Briefly, the air is filled with an aura of unease, while the trees outside tremble from their very roots to the tips of their leaves. Everywhere, students pause in their laughter, speech, and communication to attend to the disquiet nestled in the pits of their bellies; some fifty feet away, a withered elm topples to the ground, its last strength having left it. Birds have stopped chirping, and the wind has quieted enough so that distant cars seem -so- much louder.
Chi radiates from Takuma Sakazaki, golden yellow to the trained, viscerally palpable even to the untalented. It seeps from his pores. "...I... suppose that you'll just have to work it off. Or pay for it! Ha ha! We wouldn't want to steal, would we?"
As soon as it came, the awkward global pause leaves. Life returns to normal. Sakazaki's expression normalizes, and he focuses on Rust.
Rust and his left hand, and the glass in it. The bandaged hand, still on the counter. Rust's pleading eyes. Sakazaki is, for the moment, gentle - his expression softens further, and he smiles to Rust, warm. "I didn't mean to keep you from drinking. You're thirsty, I'm sure. Take it easy with the right hand until that salve kicks in, but when you're able, I want you right back out there. Mercy won't be allowed!"
Except for right now. Must've been all that heart-stopping money talk.
Frei seems unperturbed when *that* happens. If anything, his expression seems to say something along the lines of: 'oh, *right*. One of *those*.' He is easy to briefly surprise or confuse but, perhaps somewhat ill-bodingly for his own personal safety, Frei is decidedly difficult to intimidate. Someday it's going to get him into trouble, though this is usually a phrase used in situations where that trouble hasn't happened yet and frankly, the trouble's already happened. MORE trouble is more certainty than possibility.
"I didn't mean to say I was going to *keep* it..." Frei says distantly, ducking his head forward and pressing his fingers into his temple. Not for the first time is the red-haired young sage struck by the fact that he can, with relative ease, coak fire and flood from midair but actually getting another human being intent on following through with his/her established notions of reality to listen to him for five seconds and then internalize what he's saying is in most cases just this side of impossible. "I mean, thank you for giving me something to wear while I slept and all, but once I've got my clothes back I'll be on my way. I mean, I can have this thing dry-cleaned if you want afterwards." He does not add: it's not as I'm sweating battery acid, but that seems like a nice gesture.
For the briefest of seconds, he looks past Takuma to Rust, however, and smiles a genuine smile. "I'm glad you decided to get some training," Frei says evenly. He recalls his last meeting with Rust, and Frei making an exhortation to the Pacific teacher to not let his comeback gig go fallow, and to instead make an attempt to pursue more study.
And craziness aside, he does sound heartfelt when he says: "I think you'll learn a lot here." It's the truth. It's enough of the truth that he can say it with absolutely 0% visible indicators that there may be more to that statement than he's letting on.
That tension is sure palpable to a man like Mr. Rust, if only filtered through the panic over catching a glass and not using his injured hand for the catch in question. Thick. It's like the whole world has stopped over, to his eyes and awareness, a glass. A glass that looks no more or less special than other glasses like it, but one he's hesitant to break because of the odds that these things might be worth the US dollar equivalent of eighty dollars each.
He sighs in visible relief at that smile and that allowance to finally get himself a goddamn drink!!
"Yeah, that's... that's, that's the plan," the teacher clears his throat as he turns on the sink. Truth be told, he prefers tap water. He swears they put something in the supposed filtered water. Something unnatural. Something disgusting. It is as though this man feels it is perfectly okay for his water to contain lead and/or other subtle pollutants and this may or may not explain a number of things about him as he savors that one good glass of water. Oooh. Yeeeeeah.
It takes him a moment to comprehend Frei's actually talking to him since he's focused on the whole concept of rehydrating himself before going back out and restarting that wall he's not too happy with for that shed. "Me?" He looks from the glass. "Uh... yeah, things... things just kind of, lined up that way," is the best way for him to describe it in such short order.
"I'm... actually, uh, I got shown a few cool things you can do when you're kicking someone, it's... ah, maybe I'll show you next time," he clears his throat again.
Frei's complete nonplussment does not go unnoticed by Sakazaki. He's just enough of a cool character that he's keeping a straight face himself. Rather, he's content to watch Rust become notably irritated in the backlash of the moderate eruption. Glasses and water becomes a focus for the shop teacher, and Takuma's able to go on convinced that yes, he's still got it.
Frei is just being a shining example of youthful impertinence. One day, Sakazaki will quash -all- of it. He'll start with Ryo, who's almost strong enough to be a -danger-. Sakazaki's brows furrow, and he regards the two in the kitchen, increasingly concerned.
"Sounds like the day's planned, then! I'll be by in a day or two to see how you're doing with that hand. I'm not expecting miracles, but we'll get somewhere, or my name's not Sakazaki." Rust receives an armclap on his good shoulder, and Takuma levels a stern gaze to Frei.
"You'll get your clothes back when I get that gi returned to me with a dry-cleaner's receipt. I want Ryou's." Ryou's, the most expensive dry cleaner in all Southtown.
With that, Takuma politely excuses himself. He's got a curve to keep ahead of, and countless students to beat down. Can't let the kids get a leg up on the status quo!
For a moment, Frei takes a deep breath and savors the idea of going back up to that room, picking up the foot locker, and dropping it out a third floor window. It says much for his character that this fleeting dream is just that... fleeting. He will, dutifully, march home in his Kyokugen gi, and when people ask him about it, he will say that he was soundly beaten by Takuma Sakazaki, the head of the school, and that if you want to know more, here is where you should go. If Takuma doesn't get at least $250 out of that, considering Frei's relative fame in the fighting world, then it's Frei's failure more than Takuma's.
It occurs to the YFCC instructor that this may have been Takuma's plan all along, and he smiles placidly at the thought, even as the Sakazaki patriarch walks right past him and out the door.
"You know," Frei says to Rust with a slight smile, crossing his arms over his chest and watching Takuma walk out and onto the grounds with an expression of total innocence, "you really will learn great things from Sakazaki-sensei." That much Frei really believes. He's gathered that Rust is expected to do things with his injured right hand, and that the Pacific teacher thinks it's all about regaining physicality with it. In his heart of hearts, Frei knows that Takuma is *actually* attempting to change Rust's attitude about his injury and his prospects, and has rather a deep respect for him thereby.
Brushing off the front of the jacket, Frei tightens the cloth belt on the gi and taps his foot on the ground, glancing at the back after twisting his body just so for a moment, in a surprisingly girly fashion. "You know, it's actually not a half-bad fit, all things considered. It might be worth $200 after all... though I don't think that whole discussion was about the gi, per se." Cryptically, he leaves it at that, probably reinforcing Rust's unshakeable belief that anyone who has experience in the fighting world is an irredeemable psychopath who speaks and acts in riddles.
"Good luck with the shed," Frei says, as he heads out the door. There's a few beats, before the red-haired head pops back in, fingers curled around the doorframe and the chi sage's face wearing an expression of embarassed contrition. "Don't let him do anything to my bokken," he asks, as if Rust has any power over Takuma. "It was a gift from my mother."
With that, he's gone. Frei Tsukitomi-Renard: fighter, teacher, living sandwich board.
Log created on 21:18:52 12/03/2010 by Frei, and last modified on 02:16:48 12/04/2010.