Description: Having earned some well-deserved leave time (by somewhat alarming means), Whip heads to Southtown to reunite with her brother.
Thursday afternoon finds K' wandering restlessly around his apartment in a rare moment of downtime from the KOF tournament, occasionally checking his laptop with an expression of deep concern. He's spent all the time he could shadowing the tournament even if he wasn't actively fighting in it yet, but even he can't be on his feet and scouting forever. Eventually, there comes a time he has to return to the roost.
The roost, he thought upon waking up in the morning, could use a good cleaning job. And this was already after he had tidied it up from how it was when he first moved in here.
K' rented the place from a highly tolerant, mostly-deaf old lady who didn't care enough about the professional fighting circuit to know who he was. That suited K' fine, even if her deafness meant she had a tendency to talk at him five times as loud as she needed to: and damned if she couldn't talk a LOT. She prattled at him whenever she managed to corner him walking up the stairs, referencing him constantly as a 'sweet young man.'
The first time she'd said that, K' had taken a good, hard, critical look at himself in the mirror once he got up the stairs. He detected no change in his outward appearance. And given that his entire wardrobe mostly consisted of leather and dusty old denim, K' privately thought she might be half-blind as well as half-deaf.
Heaving a sigh, K' finally grabs his laptop and hauls it out of the bedroom and into the main room. The blinds are open and pulled up, and he might as well get some sun while he's waiting for his stupid sister to post him some kind of update. She hasn't said ANYTHING in a while, and he's starting to get worried.
Wednesday night found Whip touching down on Japanese soil. She'd thrown her bag over her shoulder, shook out her hair, let go a gusty sigh waxing maudlin, and taken her first step out of the airport and into Southtown. And then she was promptly carried away by a tide of tourists. "Welcome home, Southt--wrhargarbl!"
The KOF Tournament has doubled the city's population overnight. And Whip, lasagna'd in about eight layers of hopeful fighters' abdominal muscles, can't vaguely recall it being this busy.
Thursday morning found Whip looking a little frayed around the edges, exhausted by the crowds but undettered from her plan.
It was a simple plan in itself:
OPERATION: HOTBROTHER
(Back in South America, Leona had looked a little reticent. "M- maybe you should consider changing the name." Whip just looked dubious. "Why?")
Whip knows well she could have told K' she was coming. That she was pulled away from foreign post and given some well-earned personal time. But that would be boring. She was sure he's probably be spending the last forever grumping around Southtown and being moody at everyone and trying to implode reality into a Frown Singularity, and there is only one salve out there for a retarded twin brother.
A pleasant surprise.
Between a little bit of reconn, a little bit of intel, a little bit of satellite imagery, and some good old genetically-augmented physical conditioning, K''s apartment is allowed only one moment more to roust in undisturbed peace.
--Then the window KICKS open, and a blurring, brunette-haired SOMETHING vaults inside--!
One minute, K' is peacefully typing at his laptop, trying to compose a WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU IT'S BEEN WEEKS WHY HAVEN'T YOU RESPONDED TO ANY OF MY MESSAGES that will fit into 140 characters, and yet still convey the depths of his displeasure.
The next minute, the window has been KICKED open. SOMEONE vaults inside. An intruder!! An assassin, probably!! K', very used to people swinging in out of nowhere with full intent to kill him messily, reacts immediately the best way he knows how.
The laptop skids neatly onto the coffee table as K' jumps up, lighting defensively on fire and whirling to confront the threat. He blurs forward, trying to seize this would-be killer, and if he can get ahold he's slamming this guy against the nearest wall so they can engage in some good old-fashioned interrogation about why he's there, who sent him, etc. ad nauseam.
K', fire still snarling all along his arm, takes his good long look at his attacker. Some of his zeal drains away. The flames along his arm subside in equal measure, a convenient visual representation of his deflated enthusiasm. They sputter out like a rained-on campfire.
"Oh," K' says eloquently. It may be the least elaborate welcome Whip has ever received from her brother. "It's /YOU/."
Flames now completely gone, K' pulls back in a disgruntled sort of way. "Okay. One: where the fuck have you been? Two: why the hell can't you use the stairs like a normal person?"
Dark hair strewn, suede jacket a-ruffle, the assailant's heeled boots skid across the hardwood as they scrape to a sudden halt. And its body unfolds, pulling to its full height--
--in time to have all five feet and six inches of it SLAMMED against the nearest wall so hard the foundation shudders.
The breath coughs out of her lungs. Whip's pretty sure drywall's been added to the discs in her spine.
As she sees stars, she thinks somewhat detachedly as she feels the close burn of fire heat her skin, that OPERATION: HOTBROTHER probably looked better on paper.
Stapled up against the wall, head thrown back, all that dark hair reveals the face of K''s would-be attacker.
Whip peeks innocently up.
The fire extinguishes. The initial attack stays. But it seems K' has decided to proceed with his interrogation. His twin sister is too busy staring at him, her dark eyes rounded and wide, finding herself abruptly choked up. Half the reason is she's struggling to even breath again. The other half is...
Seeing his face has made her realize how much she's missed him.
Whip doesn't reply any of K''s barked questions. She can't. She just stares her big moist brown eyes at him, chomps a little unsurely on her lip, then just launches forward to jump him with a hysterical hug.
K' awaits his answers with the complete severity of a brother who has been /worrying like hell/ and expects some kind of compensation for all the concern he has gone through. Not quite understanding exactly why Whip just keeps staring at him with that doe-eyed look, he just huffs a breath and waits for her to get her voice back.
She never quite does. But then, what she does next speaks louder than any words could have.
K' staggers back a step as Whip latches onto him, arms coming up to support her. Nonplussed, he stands still a few moments before he figures out what he probably ought to do back. Sighing an exasperated breath against her hair, he hugs her briefly back. Then, he starts on the patient task of attempting to disentangle her.
"Yeah, yeah, if you're that happy to see me you coulda at least /texted/ once or twice to say you were alive," he mutters. "That last message you sent was stupid to end all your communications on. So what, you here on assignment or you're on leave?"
Whip simply clamps down with one of those rare but infamous hugs of hers, the kind that tend to leave average people with three months of physical therapy appointments. And she just lets it all go, all of her months of painful loneliness, burying her face into her brother's shoulder so that neither of them can see her tears.
She's a woman of duty, and though her total fidelity to her responsibilities can long occupy Whip's mind, it does nothing for her heart, that miserable, lonely little thing that's always ached for a place of belonging. She's missed her family, missed her home, and appears deadset on lampreying onto it for the next week.
Fighting a little half-heartedly at K''s attempts to extricate her, Whip exhales a little gustily, the sound a little choked with emotion, and reluctantly lifts her head to regard her twin with her too-bright, red-rimmed eyes. She immediately folds with unspoken apology, confessing mumblingly, "I wanted to surprise you. Like they do on TV."
Whip's only experience with how "normal" operates.
Her expression scrunches. "I said I was on my way back to command! You really need to learn how to twit. I--" stopped by K''s last question, Whip's face is abruptly dominated with a brilliant smile. "I'm on leave! I won some vacation time!" She pauses, prouding explaining how: "Shot the Commander."
Fortunately for K', he isn't an average person. Nonetheless, he does feel something creak a little threateningly in his chest as Whip clamps down like a vise. If there was any lingering insecurity in K' that his long-lost sister might have forgotten about him, might have grown to miss him less once she returned to her comrades in the Ikari Warriors, the lonely way she clings onto him dispels many of those remaining fears.
He can't say as he hasn't missed her too. Solitary as he can be, Whip was always an exception to his general rule that he liked to be left alone.
That much is evident in the fact he even deigns to hug her back. Hugs aren't exactly a normal part of his expressive repertoire. He pulls back in time for her somewhat apologetic explanation why she deigned to keep out of contact for so long-- and why she dropped in in such an unconventional way-- and his brows skate upwards. Surprise him like they do on TV?
"I guess they -do- do that on TV," K' ruminates with perfect seriousness, his very acceptance of this answer showing that he has about as much experience with 'normal' as his sister does. "Still, you scared the shit out of me. Thought you were an assassin."
Her defensive reply re: her last 'twit' just narrows his eyes, though. "Yeah you said you were on your way back. Like what, two weeks ago? It doesn't take two weeks to go back to command. Thought you got killed along the way. I was even wondering if I should ditch the tournament to go look for you." At the least, she's safe now-- on vacation time, even! Whip should really shoot the Commander more often if it'll get her more time o--
"You shot the WHO?!" K' sputters.
"I know, right?!" Whip sparks back with an excited slap at K''s shoulder, transparently still enthused over such a lucky hit. Her mouth pulls into a fierce, lopsided grin. What's worse is that the Ikari Warrior looks completely untouched, save for the tan she's still keeping as a souveneir from the Sub-Saharan. "Should've seen it! It was clean too. Then again, your sister has always been a deadeye shot."
She smugs resolutely all the way to the couch, and in haphazard tide of long limbs, helps herself luxuriously to most of it. That usual shyness that seems to stifle Whip in most places among most people is absolutely lost within these walls. "So this is the new place? It's decent, I guess. Kind of lame. Obviously needs my touch," Whip imperiously informs K' as she crosses her arms up behind her head.
And she, mature and sophisticated as ever, makes a face at him. "You thought I got killed? Please. Do I have to tell you again that I can handle myself? You can be such a goob sometimes." Still, she smiles a little mysteriously, leaving it unspoken that she's even missed his worrying.
Though Whip will probably get over that fast.
"Now you have so much to tell me! I want to know everything that's happened. All of it. Have you joined the --" Whip's brown eyes widen. "H- have you /seen/ it out there?! It's ridiculous! And I thought the Sudanese bazaars were crazy. Are you in the tournament?" Her expression flattens.
It doesn't even take Ikari intel for her to know the Cartel's already swarming around it. "You are, aren't you."
K' blinks mildly as Whip aims a smack at his shoulder, about as affected as a horse given a good slap who isn't actually interested in moving. He still looks a little trepidatious about the idea of shooting Heidern, though when Whip enthuses about being such a deadeye shot, his expression gets a little flat. "I can vouch for that," he grumbles. "Judging by the fact you've shot me, what, three times now?"
And always for such unwarranted reasons, too. What had he ever done to deserve being shot??
His frown deepens as Whip invites herself onto the couch, stretching luxuriously across it and then decrying his new habitations as far too lame and in clear need of a 'feminine touch.' "Oh come on," he says, making his way over to the couch and shoving her legs aside so he can sit. "I like it the way it is. You better not spend all your time here just messing it up. It's not like YOU'RE the one that's really living here."
Though as Whip eyerolls imperiously and assures him that she can handle herself, of course she could never do anything so silly as get killed, K' rolls his own eyes. "Shit happens even to the best of people, Whip," he says. A pause. "Which means it'll definitely happen to YOU."
Whip's questions about his activities momentarily distract him, however, and K' frowns again. His expression goes intent and hard, the way it does when he thinks about the one purpose that could have made him join up with the KOF tournament. "I didn't want to be, I hate the thing," he says slowly. "But... come on, the Cartel is there in force. It's my shot."
A pause. "Krizalid tried to strongarm me into not going." Which of course meant he had to go in order to stick it to the NESTS commander, his eyes say a little transparently.
"All deserved," Whip replies firmly with a dismissive wave of one hand.
She makes a point of stretching enormously across her brother's couch, her body elongating like someone's spoiled housecat, going to great and assured lengths to make herself comfortable. Feeling bratty, probably still drunk on her sheer joy to see him, she doesn't politely move her legs aside at his subsequent arrival, unable to hide her grin as she takes on a feigned look of askance.
But K' knows better and just shoves his awful twin aside. Whip relents with a laugh, pulling in her legs and leaning one desert-tanned arm back against the couch to support her head. Hooding her eyes comfortingly, she acknowledges K''s cautions with a light, airy, "Yeah, yeah."
Her knuckles press briefly against her smiling mouth. "And I don't mess things up! I improve it! I make it efficient and, not to mention, technologically-sound. I mean, I bet you don't even have any fibre optics in place and--" Cut off, Whip pauses as K' asides that the apartment isn't really her home. She's resoundingly silent at that, pensive in her way; though it took a while, that shyness has ultimately returned like an old, unexorcised ghost. Averting her eyes, she plays a little with the cuff of her jeans, visibly demurring. "I could be," she says in a small voice. "Unless you felt it's better..."
The sentence tapers off. And probably only partially because her brother confirms her suspicions and incriminates the Cartel. Some of that gentle play disappears from her face, seriousness affecting Whip's soft features. "That's what I thought. The Ikari are keeping an eye on what's going down. If you find... anything, they'll back you up." She pauses. "I'll back you up."
Whip rubs a little at her shoulder. "Do you think th-- KRIZALID?"
Her head snaps to face him so quick, so abrupt, it's a wonder Whip didn't break her own neck. Despite her tan, her cheeks are rapidly paling. Her pupils are pinpointed. Her hands, unknown even to her, are curling into fists. "WHAT? When?! You didn't TELL me?! He FOUND you?"
All that gentleness ripped off her like a hangnail, Whip explodes back up from the couch, on her feet like she's intending to jump right back out that window and storm a beeline straight back to the Cartel. "What'd he DO?! Dirty son of-- HOW--"
K' might not be showing it as effusively as his sister-- he was never particularly expressive when it came to the more positive emotions, but he is happy to see her in much the same way she is him. The fact he crowds so close on the couch shows that well enough; it's rare he lets anyone actually engage in close physical contact with him, much less that he seek it of someone else.
He can tell, though, that he's hit a bit of a chord with her by his comment that she isn't really the one living here. It had seemed common sense to him at the time of declaration-- he assumed this leave was not permanent, and that she would be returning to base, and he is already guarding his heart against that inevitable departure. But when Whip suggests it could be a possibility for her to live there--
"I didn't mean it that way!" he says, perhaps a little hastily. "Of course you're gonna live here while you're here. I just assumed you were gonna go back to base soon anyway. Didn't know how long it would be before you would get another leave..."
He trails off, his yellow eyes turning away broodingly. Especially when talk turns to the Cartel. But even knowing his sister as he does, her explosive reaction at the mention of Krizalid startles him. He catches her by the arm as she leaps up and tries to storm off.
"Sit down. He didn't really do anything," he says. "Not to me, anyway." K''s expression twitches, like it wants to look guilty... but also like it's only feeling this new emotion for the first time, and doesn't really know precisely what it is, much less how to express it. "But he killed a couple random people just because I wouldn't listen to him at first. I had to talk to him after that."
He sighs. "That was all it was. Talk. He told me to stay out of the tournament. But I'm not gonna do that."
For a fleeting moment, Whip's caught arm feels like banded steel. Every muscle in her body is locked up, tense and straining, and her fists clench so tightly that her knuckles bleach bone white.
Fury is such a rarity to the gentle, patient Whip, but when it chooses to come...
She's silent in those moments, going hushed and still like the calm before the storm given life and female form. How could this happen? Or was it inevitable? Krizalid was able to find her brother. The very possibility of it is frightening. Krizalid represents the unknown variable. He's totally unpredictable. He's insane.
Reluctantly, Whip seems to sober to K''s hand on her arm, and hesitantly sits back down. Her back is rigid. Her eyes turn, listening as K' explains what happened... and Whip's anger abruptly folds in on itself. Almost bowed by some invisible weight, she leans forward, braces an elbow against her knee, and sinks her forehead into her palm.
"I should've..." Whip mutters to herself, but her voice dies off into misery. She should've killed Krizalid when she had the chance. She had a clear shot back here in Southtown. She could've even apprehended him. But she didn't. She thought she owed him that much. But she was wrong, and now he's surfacing at her brother, /killing people/, and it's all her fault.
Guilt seems to be a genetic constant for both of them.
"He'll hurt you, K'," Whip counters fiercely. She shakes her head as if to physically dispel that thought. "I won't let him. Orders or no orders, I'll keep watch on you." She can't plead him to leave Southtown. Even if she wanted to, not even Whip can deny Krizalid's strange entreat of K'. Why does he want her brother out of the tournament? What does the Cartel have planned? Or was that a trap, attempting to ensure all the more her brother could fall into NESTS' clutches?
Leaning back against the couch, her fear making her restless, Whip's brown eyes eventually turn back onto K'. She can almost see his mirroring look of guilt, and though she can't quite parse the emotion on his face, she can definitely tell that it's something new. She watches him thoughtfully. "Do you have any theories as to what could be going down?"
K''s yellow eyes search Whip's tense expression as she remains standing, her arm straining against the tether of his hand. He isn't sure what she's thinking, but whatever it is doesn't seem inclined to let her just sit down and let it go. K' sighs internally; he'd forgotten how infuriatingly stubborn Whip could be about charging off to tank entire armies-- or just one Krizalid-- on his behalf.
He didn't miss it.
Thankfully, after a long pause, he finally sits down. The guilt that replaces her anger, however, is almost worse. K' stares as she starts to berate herself. "How could you have known? You were there, I was here. You were busy. Nothing happened, anyway. If you can handle yourself so well, then why can't I handle myself too?" He shrugs. "Could probably take him by now, anyway," he says, perhaps a little cockily.
Not that cockiness is what's needed here, which becomes evident enough when Whip fiercely reminds her brother how dangerous their 'stalker' is. K''s jaw sets, a familiar stubborn look starting to plate over his face, as Whip insists she'll protect him. "Don't do anything stupid," he warns. "I don't want to have to be running after you because you thought you'd tackle more than you can handle."
But what -does- Krizalid want? He certainly couldn't have told K' to stay out of the tournament out of any benign desire. "I don't know," he confesses. "I thought at first he really did want me not to show. Like they got some kinda operation going. But then, that doesn't make sense. They wouldn't try to strongarm me about it. Too obvious. Besides, it was like he was daring me to show up."
He shrugs. Maybe it is a trap. Maybe NESTS just wants to see if it can get him in its clutches. "I doubt anything will happen," he says, perhaps more confidently than he should. "Most've the time when I go there I'm stuck around Kusanagi," the name is nearly spat, "and Yagami. Not a pair of people it's smart to be stupid around."
Whip doesn't even seem to notice K''s cocky little aside, looking determined to drive down the dour highway all by her lonesome. She just stares straight ahead, frowning a very familiar frown -- the one that suggests she's about to get all dutiful on something in a moment.
The Cartel finding K' is easily one of her biggest fears. She has no such delusions of grandeur to worry the same for herself; Whip knows that to them, she is nothing. Not worth the manpower. Barely worth the bullets. But her twin power? With what they did to him? With what he can wield? And even when he set out to even control his own power without that glove of theirs? That's got to be precious to them.
She flexes and unflexes her hands, anxious and nervous, her soldier-conditioned mind already beginning to run through battle scenarios. She's so sick of the Cartel. Sick of being afraid. Maybe Krizalid is genuinely nervous about something to do with this entire tournament. If it could possible serve a way to bring NESTS down, once and for all...?
"--What do you mean, anything stupid? I don't do stupid things," Whip suddenly clips back, her eyes narrowing. If there's anything in the world that could sober her from her troubling thoughts--
She huffs with barely-concealed indignation. "Unless protecting you is stupid. You can be such an asshole sometimes." Whip concludes mopily, but still can't stop herself from leaning her temple briefly against her brother's shoulder.
Whip still frowns grumpily off into space as she listens to K', taking in his voice and words in her usual, patient manner. "Hmm," she mumbles noncommittally to the last of it.
Then she pauses.
Kusanagi? Yagami? Wh--
Whip just squints. "Why would you have t-- that'd mean you're--" Then it clicks. Then her jaw drops.
K' watches that frown warily. He knows it well. It's the frown that usually precedes Whip doing something Pretty Dumb.
He's not versed enough in interpersonal matters to know how to soothe her, or how to calm her anxiety. As such, he just does what he does best: he is himself. It does snap her out of her silent concerns, at least, even if it's only for her to tell him that he's being an asshole. K' ruffles a little up until he realizes, courtesy of the way she leans against him, that she doesn't really mean it harshly.
With a little sigh, he turns his head to glance at the top of hers. He ruminates aloud about NESTS's possible motives, frowning all the while, up until he finally drops the identities of his team members. Not being a fan of the subject, K' is ready to move on. Whip, however, is apparently not.
K' grimaces as Whip latches onto the words, processes their meaning-- and is promptly astonished. "I know it's hardly optimal," he grumbles, perhaps projecting some of his own feelings onto his sister here, "but Kusanagi asked me and I figured..." He doesn't really want to say that he wanted the chance to study Kusanagi and maybe, just maybe, to also try kicking his ass.
"Well it was my ticket in the tournament," he finishes, more than a little defensive.
WHAT WHIP BELIEVED TO HAVE HAPPENED:
Kyo Kusanagi and K' stare each other dead in the eye, equally grim, equally... knowing.
"You can be my wingman any time."
"You... can be mine."
Then they share a sandwich as they fly off together in a hot-air balloon labelled 'BROS'.
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:
K' is trying to punch Kyo in the face probably about fifty times. Kyo doesn't share his sandwich.
Whip just stares at her twin, floored, thrown, absolutely destroyed by the utter notion that he volunteered to team up with Kusanagi. She would have had a good, uproarious laugh for anyone to ever mention a thing to her. Because that's all it'd ever be. A joke. It's impossible. It's insane.
It's...
Whip just, in her own silent way, reaches around to proudly pat K' on his opposite shoulder blade. She also conspicuously turns her face away. It's because she's trying to hide the way she's struggling to keep the grin from her mouth.
She's so proud.
What Whip believed to have happened could not have been farther from the truth. The /truth/ is that K' saw Kyo and basically exploded with rage and tried to kick him in the face, whereupon they fought and Kyo randomly decided to invite K' to join his team. K' had mulled over this furiously for a while before he had spat an ungracious acceptance-- one mostly predicated on Kyo's cunning aside that 'hey, NESTS will probably be at the tournament, right?'
If Whip feels better thinking her brother might have social skills, though, one supposes it can't hurt to let people have their happy delusions.
K' looks more and more disgruntled the more Whip just stares at him. He's not aware of what she's really thinking. Eventually he just takes a guess, judging by the shock on her face; she must be staring like that because she can't believe how K' could ever have the patience and grace to tolerate such an insufferable asswipe as Kyo. She's impressed, he thinks, with my magnanimity.
He is about as wrong as Whip was when she imagined what happened between K' and Kyo in the first place.
Thus, when Whip reaches over to pet him proudly, K' completely misconstrues it as consolation for the terrible thing K' must now endure. Man, it's so bad she can't even look at him. "Well, it's not that bad," he offers. "Least it means I'm close enough to punch him in the mouth whether he says his usual stupid shit, instead of just wishing I could punch through a TV."
Her hand pats praisefully.
Whip has never been so proud.
She'd never thought she would ever see the day. Her little twin brother... has made some new friends. And not just any friends.
He's become a willing teammate to Kyo Kusanagi.
This is a landmark day. For him to put aside all that bad blood -- literally -- and of his rage and discontent, and to storm forward into the uncharted ideals of positive friendship...
Her hand still pats.
And Whip beams. She keeps her face hidden, not wanting to discourage K''s good behaviour by embarrassing him, but she luxuriates in this moment, soaking it for all it's worth. And it's worth a lot. He joined a team. He learned the value of comrades. He even saw the good in Kusanagi past all of his... Kusanaginess. He did it to better himself. To learn the value of teamwork. To grow as a person. To--
--punch... Kusanagi... in the face.
Whip's hand stops mid-pet.
And her eyes just close into skeptical squinting. He--
Her head bows forward. "K'... you... ass."
K' isn't precisely sure why Whip is so consoling, but he's not about to argue. Hell, it makes some sense anyway. Kyo is just that bad, that some serious condolences would be in order for having to put up with him. Thusly self-assured, K' settles in to enjoy her pats--
--up until they stop.
A long silence unfolds after Whip stops. K' waits a few moments, before his gaze slowly turns to her. He has a sense that something is a little off here. Somehow, they're not quite on the same page. Bewildered, he waits for her to clarify what she means, if she didn't mean what he THOUGHT she meant.
And then, instead, she just calls him an ass.
"Why am I an ass?!" comes the predictable outburst. "You can't tell me you've never wanted to punch him in the face."
"Y- you just did it so you can hit him in the face!!" Whip sputters back, resurrecting from the spot, taking back her once so-praiseful patting hand to point a damning finger at her twin. "That's not teamwork at all! You're an ass!"
For the life of her, Whip tries to keep her poker face, tries to look the part of the stern, chiding sibling suffering eternally for certain socially-dumb brothers. "And here I was thinking y--"
Has Whip ever wanted to punch Kyo Kusanagi in the face?
Her still-pointed finger hangs in the air. Her mouth stays frozen, open mid-lecture. Rather emphatically, the young woman's jaw clicks shut, her lips pursing. Then she responds delicately, "I plead the fifth."
Unable to help herself, Whip's lopsided smile returns, her mood already lightened by her twin brother. She can't help but feel amused, letting go all of her newfound troubles momentarily to sigh out a resigned laugh and move forward to try to capture him in one of her usual, vicious headlocks.
"I don't know where you got all the jerk genes," Whip bemoans gravely. "I sure don't have any."
K' stares at Whip's pointing, accusatory finger. It's right in his face, he kinda can't help but do it. "...Why else would I do it?" he asks, genuinely nonplussed as to what better reason there could be to join up with Kyo Kusanagi than to hit him repeatedly in the face. "And I already did it a couple times, too, only we stopped before I could--"
Teamwork? K''s eyes hood at the very WORD.
"Why would I ever want to do teamwork with /Kyo Kusanagi/?" he demands, starting to bristle a little at the mere insinuation. "Or with anybody? I handle shit best when I'm by myself." A pause. "Except maybe for Maxima, or you," he allows, with what he believes is very magnanimous generosity. "I didn't join up with him and Yagami to do any team shit! I just wanted to see how he fights and maybe kick his ass a couple times. And it got me into the tournament so I could track NESTS."
And then... the question that takes the wind from Whip's sails. K' can't help but look smug as she falters, completely unable to answer in a way that doesn't damn her own argument. He all but SAYS 'I told you so,' when Whip refuses to say whether or not she's ever wanted to punch Kusanagi.
His smugness, however, is sadly short-lived. It disappears with a yelp as Whip grabs him in a headlock, K' tipping over onto his sister. "Excuse me," he huffs, when Whip brazenly lies. "I got all the same ones you did."
Whip's mighty heart is breaking.
But this young woman is nothing without her ridiculous sense of hope. If Whip's hope could be bottled and sent through a transducer, she'd singlehandedly solve the energy crisis.
So K' isn't quite ready to play with others, be a willing team player, and find the benefits of trusting comrades. That's all right. Because she's not finished with him yet. It's only a matter of time.
He's her family. She would sooner want to give up on her own humanity before giving up on his. It also doesn't help that Whip fiercely believes in K''s moral character, keeping him to high standards and grand expectations.
And the path to greatness is through many headlocks. Like the way Whip cages K' now, one arm holding her twin captive so she can rain a merciless assault on his hair until it's fluffed into a white angora mess.
"Think I liked you better in one hundred forty characters or less," she announces grimly, before her voice gets broken with a small shriek when her brother topples over onto her. "Urgh, you're heavy. Get off me!" Whip orders, trying to feign a soldier's authority but unable to quite stifle a laugh.
Nevertheless, that brutal headlock mollifies back into something far worse, far more terrible. She just hugs her twin. "I missed you, dumbass."
If K' knew the grand plans Whip had for him when it comes to learning how to play nicely with other, no doubt he'd quietly slink out the back door and be gone before her reformation crusade could even begin.
Whip is cunning enough to keep him unaware, however, and so he doesn't know better than to simply stick around: flopping insolently across her in retaliation for her vicious headlock. He seems innocuous enough now, something almost like a smirk daring his face as he cuts her ribbing off into a little shriek of indignation. But the truth is, Whip is gonna need all that hope of hers if her intent is to mold him to a standard of great moral character.
K' isn't too good at morals yet. While there's been some progress, in the way he felt bad people were killed because of him... she'll still have a long way to go to teach him about smaller, less obvious things. And God forbid he learn about the value of teamwork!!
For now, though, he seems personable enough. Or maybe it's just the way her headlock has puffed his hair up.
He blinks a little as Whip suddenly abandons all her mock irritation, swooping in for another hug. At first a little tense, K' readily relaxes, yellow eyes closing as he lets her hug onto him with all the tolerance of a cat. "I guess I missed you too," he admits only very reluctantly... though he belies that a moment later when one arm lifts to loop around her in turn.
Log created on 12:51:19 03/03/2011 by K', and last modified on 03:46:23 03/04/2011.