My arms felt like they were going to fall off, my feet were beginning to become wobbly and my consciousness kept slipping away. I blinked twice to shake off the bead of sweat that threatened to blind what little vision I had left as it hung on the end of my eyelashes. The rain made me cold, soaking all my clothes and leaving my hair in a wet mess. I believe that my palms had begun to bleed as they pressed down on the wet, rocky terrain.
I've been in this stationary push-up position for god knows how long, I just want to go home.
No one else was getting punished, apparently breaking the close combat instructor's wrist and three of his ribs wasn't something that was taken lightly. Weird, I thought they would have loved it.
I shook my head again as I tried to keep steady. I can't show weakness. I'm going to volunteer for the Hunger Games in two years. I'll finally be able to impress my father, I've trained my whole life for this, I can't give up.
"Agh," I let out an exasperated grunt when I suddenly feel something weigh me down, someone was sitting on me. I push up slowly and painfully so my chest wouldn't touch the ground. I shake my body as violently as I can to get whoever it is off of me but it doesn't work, instead I get a hand to push down my head forcefully.
"What the f-," I'm about to curse the person to oblivion when I see a pair of black leather, lace-up training boots planted on the floor, and I grin because I instantly know who it is.
"Get off me, Clove," I say in mock anger, failing in shaking her off again. I can't help the small laugh that escapes my lips.
Yes, despite the environment and the state I'm in, I manage to laugh.
Clover chuckles too. "How can you still have energy to smile, beefy?"
I sigh in between a smile. The rain finally slows down. "My name's not beefy," I remind her for the umpteenth time.
For some reason, when I turned fourteen, which was exactly five months ago, she started calling me "beefy". When I asked her why, she said it was because I had "filled out". I still didn't know what that phrase translated in to.
"Of course it is," she says. "Look at those," she pokes my bicep and takes away the last bit of strength I had invested in that body part. I almost collapse to the ground but she gets off me and presses her palm against my chest, supporting me with all her strength, Clove may be a small girl but she was definitely not as weak as she looked, I learned from experience. I gain control of my arm again and prop myself up. As soon as I get up, water starts dripping from the wet ends of my blond hair. I look at my hands, yep, there were calluses and ugly, bloody things. Nothing I wasn't used to.
"Taec told me to pick you up, he told me to tell you that you should go apologize to him in the hospital right after training because he's our close combat instructor and he'll tell your dad what happened if you don't," she narrates then looks at me with expectant eyes.
She couldn't be serious. I knew she wasn't because, those expectant coy eyes were teasing.
I chuckle. "That weakling isn't getting anything from me," I say as I start walking, eager to change into a dry shirt. My white training shirt had been soaked by the downpour, leaving it sticking to my body, irritating me.
She laughs. Somehow her laugh sounded like a chime to me, it was just so soft and comforting to hear. "I thought as much."
We walk together until we reach the building that held our dorms. The training camp was a kind of boarding school, I guess. Clove follows me all the way up to my room. Her room is on the other side of the building, on the girls' side, and it wasn't forbidden or anything but it was quite a long walk. There was no point in arguing though because Clove would always be on this guys' side of the building most of the time, she said that the girls' side was always so filled with high-pitched laughter and girlish giggling she hated.
She gets ahead of me and opens my door, having memorized my pass code. When I enter my room she's already lying down on the bed like it was her own room, I disregard it, it was always like this, and I close the door behind me.
I head straight to the bathroom and fix myself. I take a long hot bath and when I'm all done I head out to my room with a towel wrapped around my waist. There was absolutely no reason to be shy with Clove, I didn't know why I think like that but I do.
I head to my dresser and pick out clothes, I head for the bathroom again to change.
"Why are you even hiding?," I hear Clove's voice as I'm about to enter the bathroom and I turn my head to look at her. She's busy playing with the holographic gaming device I got but she pauses it and turns to look at me.
"You're a girl," I say with a soft chuckle.
"No, I'm a Clove," she says, sticking her tongue out.
"Yeah, and I'm so glad you're the last of your species," I say sarcastically.
She turns the game back on and shrugs as I close the bathroom door behind me.
...
It doesn't take me five minutes to change and as soon as I'm done I open the bathroom door and plan to just lie down on the floor since Clove has taken residency on my bed.
But as soon as I open the door I feel a hand grab the shirt resting on top of my chest. The next thing I know is I'm on the floor, face down, and Clove is sitting on my back, holding her small custom-made pocket knife. I sigh, defeated, because I know that the next thing she's going to do is throw it to my wall, which she does. It sticks and there's a small hole on my wall.
"Hey," I say and shake her off successfully. But before I can stand she's sitting on top of me, her knife to my throat and her face so close to mine I can feel her breath. It was always like this.
"'Gonna cut my throat, huh, Clove?," I grin.
She just grins back and I feel the knife press harder until it stings and I realize that the knife actually cut me.
"Ah," I say in a little pain. "The hell, Clove."
This had never happened before. Clove would push, but never this far.
Her eyes widened a bit, she didn't expect her actions either. But it took only a second for the surprise in her eyes to be replaced by a smirk and soon I felt her lips on my neck then her tongue, licking what was probably the blood that had trickled from the cut she gave me.
"Clove," I say her name.
She chuckled and got up.
"Forever the tease," I sighed then chuckled softly before getting up and sitting on the floor, Clove beside me.
"Cato," she says my name. And there was no sarcasm or anything in it, it was even almost gentle, she just said my name. It made me curious.
"Hm?"
There's a small pause before Clove smiles, and it's a little weird. It's like she holds back something she really wants to say which piques my curiosity even more.
"Nothing." She says what I think she's going to say, and I let it go, for now. She looks away and seems to drift away to another place.
I open my mouth to ask something but close it again, she doesn't seem to notice.
And we sit there in comfortable silence, I realize this is how it's always going to be. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I want it to change.
A/N
She's not his girlfriend. Careers in training aren't allowed to have boyfriends/girlfriends.
So, I don't know if I should continue this, because I kinda' have an idea, or just keep it as a one shot.
What do you think? Tell me through a review ^^
Thanks for reading, don't forget to review! Sorry, no proof-read. I was sleepy.
STANDARD DISCLAIMERS APPLY. I OWN NOTHING AND NO ONE EXCEPT FOR THE STORY.