Chapter Two: Fire and Ice
No. No. No. No. No. Not again. What have I done? Hotaru didn't dare open her eyes. She sat on her bed, knees folded tightly against her chest, rocking just slightly.
Kaiya, having taken care of the flames, pulled the water back into her bottle and got up from her bed. "Hotaru?"
"I'm sorry!" the fire starter yelped.
"Hotaru, everything's fine. Look. Open your eyes," Kaiya said gently, moving closer to the girl.
Hotaru opened one eye, didn't see flames, so opened the other. She blinked as she looked around carefully. "What? What happened?"
Kaiya smiled, "Something exciting!"
"No, really, Kaiya, what happened? It did happen, right? I mean, I thought it happened." Hotaru was all of a sudden very confused.
"Yes, it happened. You shot fire at me. Neat trick, by the way," Kaiya said. "But it's okay, because I can do this," Kaiya pulled some water out of her bottle, formed it around her hand, and froze it. "See, Hotaru? You're fire, and I'm ice! What are the chances of us meeting like this, huh? Isn't that awesome?"
Hotaru wasn't really thinking about whether or not this was a good thing, a bad thing, or a dream. She was just staring at the ice.
"Hotaru, did you really think you were the only freak in the world?" Kaiya asked.
"Well, yeah, it did kind of feel like that…"
"Oh! We'll be like Pyro and Ice Man!" Kaiya said excitedly. Then she realized what she'd just said and amended, "Okay, maybe not Pyro and Ice Man. Um, hmm. Well, maybe like a good Pyro and Ice Man. And girls. Obviously. Oh, Hotaru, this is going to be awesome!" With that Kaiya launched herself at Hotaru, giving her the most awkward hug in the universe.
A knock came at the door, and the RA walked in. "Hi, uh, Ladies," he muttered when he came in to see, not the scene he expected with bloodshed and one girl standing triumphantly over the other's body, but the girls actually hugging. Girls were weird.
Kaiya and Hotaru sprang apart, and Kaiya went into hyper-mode. "Hi! What's up?" she asked, kind of bouncing in place. Almost like a dashboard trinket.
"Well, we, uh, had some complaints about yelling, and someone said they smelled smoke, so I was just checking to see if you ladies knew anything about that?"
Wow. Someone who actually cared what Kaiya did. This was new.
"Well, as you can see, no fire here," Kaiya said, gesturing to the whole room. "And, we're fine now. Just a little roommate argument is all. We've resolved it on our own. Right, Hotaru?"
Hotaru, still a little shaken, nodded. She didn't know what was worse, shooting fire at her new roommate or receiving a hug from her.
"Are you sure, Hotaru?" the RA asked.
"Yeah, we're, um, fine. Just getting used to each other is all," Hotaru said as calmly as she could.
"And no fire here at all? Not even a little candle?"
"Well, I do have…"
"Candles aren't allowed in the dorms. We know that. We would never break campus policy. Maybe the smell was coming from outside. The air flow is always weird in dorms," Hotaru interrupted before Kaiya had the RA searching their whole room. This, with Kaiya's scattered belongings, would have taken a while.
The RA narrowed his eyes at the two of them. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something was strange about those two. Still, he couldn't prove anything. He didn't smell any smoke or see any candles. And, they'd been hugging. They would probably become like best friends for life or something like that. Who was he to mess with that? This was college, after all. RAs were supposed to cut some slack sometimes. "Well, all right. If you need anything, I'm at the desk all night."
"Yeah, sure, we'll call you at the desk if we need anything," Kaiya muttered.
"Thanks, Mike," Hotaru said as the RA left.
"Okay, so, spill, when did you first figure out you had powers?" Kaiya asked almost as soon as the door closed. Hotaru really wished she was more careful. It wasn't like they were talking about first kisses or something normal like that. Talking about this kind of stuff got you sent to scientists for dissection.
"I was ten," Hotaru said.
"Hotaru! What are you doing?" Song, Hotaru's best (and only) friend asked, coming across the beach.
"Look what I can do, Song!" Hotaru pulled a long whip of fire out of her hand and threw it up in the air. "Isn't it amazing?" She was old enough to know this was not normal, but young enough to think maybe it really was a super power.
Song screamed and ran away, back up the beach to call her parents to come and get her away from the Jia's summer estate on Ember Island. Hotaru never saw her again, though she tried to write her letters explaining it was just a trick of the light. Of course it wasn't real fire. That would be crazy.
It wasn't until she was fourteen that Hotaru realized it was a curse. That was when she really had to start suppressing it. Now it just came out of her when she was angry. She was like the Hulk or something. A monster. Uncontrollable. Powerful. Frightening.
"It was the summer. It was really hot. I just felt the fire in me, and then there it was," Hotaru added after a moment.
Kaiya looked curiously at the girl. She knew from experience fire starters were different. Destructive, powerful, and set off by anger. Hotaru seemed scared of her power. But, maybe, maybe the girl could learn to control it. The Ghost had certainly been able to control it. Not that Kaiya was supposed to know about the Ghost.
"I was six," Kaiya said proudly. "Hahn, that's my older cousin, and I were at the beach one day, and this stupid pasty touristy kid came up to us and stole my beach ball! It was brand new and was one of those ones that also functioned as a globe. It was great! I loved that ball. Well, when this stupid kid stole it, I kind of flipped out, and the next thing I knew, I was throwing a wave of water at him. Down he went, the ball went flying, and then I caught it."
"Kaiya, that was totally wicked!" Hahn cheered.
"Hey, you, no rough housing on the beach!"
"Until now Hahn was the only other person who knew about my little secret. Does anyone else know about yours?"
"Yes, but they won't say anything." They've been too well bribed, Hotaru thought.
"That's good. It's always good to have someone you can trust," Kaiya said, thinking about Zakk. She still couldn't believe she had almost told him everything. All about her powers and all about her secret mission to find out the truth about her Uncle Zan's death. All about the Red Spirit and her battles with the Ghost. But, no. He'd been a jerk in the end. Who breaks up with someone right after senior prom? Honestly?
"How do you, um," Hotaru faltered.
"Control it?" Kaiya guessed. Hotaru nodded. "Just practiced. It was pretty easy to get away with it. My Aunt Keira has this big house on the beach that I usually stayed at because my parents are…well, that's a totally different story. But anyway, I would go out swimming, but instead of swimming, I would practice my powers. I can do lots of things. Fighting to fire prevention to parlor tricks. I can even make an ice surf board and ride waves on it!" Kaiya bounced again, remembering. Man, do I miss that. "What about you? Can you control it?"
"Is it that obvious that I can't?" Hotaru asked.
"Just a bit. I mean, I did get you awfully angry. And, honestly, if we had been by the ocean, I can't say I wouldn't have froze you in a giant ice cube or something," Kaiya offered. "But have you ever tried?"
"When I was younger, I did. But, then, I couldn't do it. I, it was too much. So, I stopped trying to control it and started trying to hide it."
"Well, that's silly," Kaiya stated. "This is part of who you are, Hotaru. You can't just hide it. You can't tuck it away deep inside yourself. You're ignoring a big part of what makes you, you. You know?"
Hotaru blinked. "Well, how am I supposed to learn to control it? It's not like I can go out into the middle of the ocean where no one will notice a giant ring of fire coming out of a girl's hands!"
"Well," Kaiya said, "Think for a minute. You're a smart girl. What have you got now that you didn't have when you were younger?"
Hotaru blinked again.
Kaiya sighed. "You've got me, stupid." Kaiya pointed to Hotaru then to herself, smiling. "Fire meet ice."
