Xiayou sat by the edge of the bath, robed in a bright white towel. She let her long bangs fall down, looking into her reflection in the steamy water. She marveled at how she could look so grown up, just by letting her hair down. Perhaps she would try and wear it like this more often.
"Jin wasn't kidding about this place!" thought Xiayou as surveyed her surroundings. Sleek but sturdy bamboo walls were constructed around the baths for privacy, but the open ceiling made it feel like being in the outdoors. The place was lit by dim candlelight so not to interfere with the cosmic natural light show that took place in the sky at night. Xiayou sighed. The stars, the candles, the wonderful aroma soaps steaming up the air, this truly was the most romantic setting she had ever experienced in her young life. Her heart was filled with such emotion she thought it would burst. She could be content for the rest of the evening just sitting here with her feet in the water. For some reason unknown to her, she glanced over at the entrance to the baths. That was the first time that she had really taken concern that she was all by herself. Not that it mattered, it was good to have some alone time once in a while, and there couldn't be a better place to have it than this. She quickly discarded the towel and slid in to the water. It was a little hot for her body to take all at once, but she didn't care. She spread out in the shallow pool, barely touching the bottom of the bath as she let herself float. She just needed to relax, that was all. Okay she definitely saw something in the corner of her eye this time. She flipped over suddenly, crouching beneath the water she peered over the bamboo side of the bath to see the shadowy figure come into focus…Jin? Xiayou exhaled deeply, more annoyed than anything else. He was standing at the threshold of the baths, but once she had spotted him, he began to walk in. She stared him dead in the eye, her head cocked to the side, not saying anything as she wanted to give him a chance to explain himself. He continued on his way though, steadily walking towards her, his gaze not deviating from her own. When he neared a little to close for comfort, she snatched her towel down upon her, consequently completely drenching it, a small price to pay for her modesty though. Alas he came to a stop, a few feet away from the edge of the bath. Xiayou searched his face for any sort of emotion that could clue her into what exactly he was thinking, but could find none, which was highly unusual for the extreme awkwardness of the situation. Was this some kind of joke? Xiayou grunted in disgust, climbing out of her warm bath to confront this annoyance. To her dismay, the heavy, wet towel clung to her body as she stood up, further accentuating her feminine curves. Not quite the effect she was going for, but even that wasn't going to stop her from unleashing her wrath upon Jin. Her already narrow eyes thinned to tiny slits, as she gave him her most surly glare.
"WHAT are you doing here!" she yelled.
"I think you know." Replied Jin suavely. She was sure definitely joking, but Xiayou was not amused.
"Oh believe me, I'm flattered, but I came here to relax BY MYSELF and in case you haven't noticed, this is the women's section any way," she pointed abruptly towards the entrance,
"So get a move on!" Jin sharply grabbed her pointed arm by the wrist. But before she had a chance to react to the crushing pain he was causing her, he twisted her arm, kicked her feet out from under her, sending them both falling to the ground with him on top of her. She felt pain all over her body where they landed upon the floor. She screeched, clawing and striking at him with her one free arm, the other arm being trapped beneath her, under his body weight. The side of his face now bleeding where she had gouged him, he brought his hand up to her throat, ferociously squeezing it wile pushing her jaw up and back to quiet her while he forced her legs apart. Only able to resist Xiayou at his grip enough to breathe, she could no longer combat him, under the strangling hold.
Hwoarang entered the hotel room cautiously. Though he was pretty sure she was at the baths, one could never be too careful. His mission: to retrieve car keys from room, and make it down to the lobby where Jin was waiting for him without being spotted. Were he to bump into a certain girl, they would doubtlessly have to bring her along. It was all Hwoarang could do to convince Jin to bring him along in the hunt for who knows what, but if Xiayou were to make a big deal about going as well, Jin would probably just leave the both of them. To his slight shock, Hwoarang found Xiayou asleep on the bed, though her rest seemed anything but peaceful. She jerked about, like she was fighting off something, or someone.
"Xiayou?" Hwoarang rushed to the bedside shaking her lightly to free her from her apparent nightmare. She began to struggle back shaking her head back and fourth, her whimpering undecipherable.
"Xiayou wake up!" shouted Hwoarang, shaking her harder, then resulting to pinching her sharply on her arm to free her from her subconscious. She shot up abruptly, barely containing a scream. She looked around, finding herself in the room she had probably never left. It was all just a dream.
"Xiayou, it's okay, it's me." Said Hwoarang, stroking her sweat drenched hair softly as he pulled her into an embrace. She squirmed uncomfortably out of the hold, as being hugged wasn't exactly the comfort she desired at the moment. This worried Hwoarang though.
"Are you alright? Look Jin and I were gonna head out on our own, but if you want me to stay with you here I will."
"I'm, I'm alright. I just had a, a weird dream, that's all." She said, "I want you to go with Jin. He needs all the support he can get right now." This was definitely cause for concern. Was Xiayou now turning down her piece of the action?
"Are you sure you're okay? You don't have to be here alone if you don't want to-"
"Look, I'm fine. I want you to go with Jin to look for, whatever. I'm going to take a shower here so I need the room for myself anyway." She said sternly. Hwoarang was somewhat perplexed, but he didn't argue. He stood up to leave.
"Don't forget your car keys." Xiayou said. He picked them up off the dresser table then left the room, shutting the door firmly behind himself. Xiayou bolted up all the locks after him.
After taking a long hot shower and getting dressed, Xiayou went down stairs to see what was going on. She had already missed the ride for any real action when Jin and Hwoarang took off, but for some reason she felt okay with that.
As the elevator door opened letting her out onto the main floor, she thought about how crazy this all really was. Jin would never dream of harming her. Though she had to admit to herself, he was a little weird at times, but not perverted rapist weird. Xiayou wondered though, if these intensely strange dreams were becoming a pattern. The night before she dreamt of a dead woman found in some woods somewhere. Xiayou had always known herself to be a sound sleeper, especially when she was high, like she was the night before, but since Jin came everything was so chaotic.
"It's really not his fault, so much is happening around him." Xiayou thought, "It's probably just all the excitement that's got me wound up."
Xiayou spotted the young woman that worked in the hotel dusting off the lounging furniture in the lobby, and figured she would know when dinner was, if indeed this hotel served any.
"The two young men have left already if that's who you're looking for." Said the woman.
"Oh no, I knew they left, I was just wondering if you all have anything to eat around here." Asked Xiayou.
"I'll make you some dinner right now." She replied.
"Oh that's not necessary, I don't want to keep you from your work-"
"Please," the woman interjected, "it would be my pleasure, I don't have anything else to do right now, really."
"This is really good, um," Said Xiayou with her mouth half full,
"Jokura is it?" she shoveled more food into her mouth with her chopsticks. The pretty, slender, young lady with blonde streaks died in her hair smiled.
"Yes, thank you." She said bowing her head.
"Oh no thank you, I mean stopping what you were doing to prepare this great meal for me? I don't know how to begin to thank you!" exclaimed Xiayou.
"I only ask that you brag like this to your companions as well. Tell them what they missed when they left you behind." Jokura said. Left behind? Xiayou wondered slightly where her host had picked up on that, though it was probably blazingly obvious. Jokura continued on though.
"It can be hard though, a young girl like you holding her own with grown men like them. They do that to you a lot? Pair up and take off that is."
"I hold my own," Said Xiayou beginning to be slightly offended. "I can't say Jin, Hwoarang and I have been really hanging together long enough to-" Xiayou stopped upon seeing the woman mouth Jin's name to herself.
Jokura looked up at Xiayou inquisitively,
"Jin Kazamaa? He used to live here you know, its been so long. We all thought he was dead," she bursted out.
Xiayou was silent. She was reluctant to comment on something she knew so little about, and rather annoyed at the extreme awkwardness at which the subject had been brought out. However, Xiayou could understand that people would be concerned and perplexed if they didn't know what was going on. But she wasn't really informed either. And what little she did hear from Jin made her conclude that the people here weren't very nice to him.
"You're really talented you know that? You get to use your culinary talents a lot working here?" said Xiayou, using her extraordinary skills of diverting the attention in any situation to the subject of her will.
"Sadly not as much as I would like." Jokura simply replied, taking the hint.
"You should go somewhere that lots of people can taste your cooking, then."
"That would be a dream, but I've never even left this dull, old town."
"Really, nothing exciting happens here? No big type people come through here ever." Asked Xiayou.
"Well, there has been a more seedy type of character coming through this town recently. Criminal types you know? Not at all the people I want living around me. Why just the other day ago, a woman's body was found out in the woods by elder Junto and his wife on the foot of dove's hill. Apparently she was beaten unconscious then left there to die. She's in a coma now, residing in the hospital across the street."
Junto…Ludan…Dove's Hill. Xiayou stood up abruptly. So it hadn't been just a dream.
"What- what is it?" replied a startled Jokura.
"I…have to pee!" she said brightly.
"Oh are you going to finish your dinner?" asked Jokura.
Xiayou was progressing out of the room rather quickly by now.
"Oh it was so good and I ate so much, I…just save a little for me I'll be back soon." And with that Xiayou was out of the dinning area, and crossing through the doors of the inn.
Xiayou eyed the surroundings of the small medical center. It was cozy, but it seemed abnormally inactive. Perhaps that's just the way these small towns were. The place really looked more like one of those old folk' homes or rehabilitation center than it did like any hospital. The secretary at the desk didn't seem to give Xiayou a first glance, so she just walked on through. No security of any kind seemed to care or wanted to stop her. Xiayou climbed up a flight of stairs entered the second floor hallway. She walked the entire length of it, then stopped. Immediately as she entered the room she felt something, as if she had been there before. As she wandered further in she tried desperately to conjure up the exact memory that led her to be there. And then Xiayou saw her. A-woman looking deathly pale with short-cut hair laying face up on the hospital bed. Xiayou sat next to the woman on the bed, surveying the monitoring equipment, then turned her focus to the face of the inanimate woman. Her expression looked peaceful and warm, strangely familiar as well, considering Xiayou had never met the lady in her life.
"Why am I here?" Xiayou asked quietly, "Or for that matter why are you here?"
"Now what exactly is it that we are suppose to find in these woods?" Hwoarang asked though he knew he wasn't going to get an answer. Jin just pushed on ahead. Hwoarang sighed. He knew that this whole trip was some sort of premonition of Jin's and that there really was no answer as to what they were doing. Asking obvious questions wasn't going to help. Hwoarang followed Jin at a distance, by keeping his eyes on the moving light emitted from Jin's flashlight, since it was too dark to actually make out his form through the dark foliage. It hadn't seemed long at all before they came to a clearing and a raised area of land. Jin having stopped at the hill, Hwoarang caught up with him at a leisurely pace.
"This your hill?" Jin nodded, seeming reluctant to go any further. Hwoarang took the initial to press on. They hadn't come all this way not to at least check out what was up there. Walking onto the grassy hill brilliant moonlight lit his way so that he didn't even need his flashlight. After completing his short trek to the summit of the hill, Hwoarang stopped, turning slowly about to observe what little he could in the surrounding darkness. Nothing was up there, nothing at all. As a matter of fact the place seemed completely void of all energy. All sounds of the forest or rustling of the leaves and various forms nightlife was oddly inaccessible from the very top of the hill. Hwoarang started to sympathize with Jin's reluctance to come up there. Jin always seemed a little more connected with the 'unknown' elements anyway.
"This is creepy, I'm outta here." Said Hwoarang to himself. He turned and began back down the hill hoping to find Jin and leave the woods altogether. At which point Hwoarang heard sounds which was very weird considering hear couldn't even hear his movement. They were footsteps or boot-steps rather, crisp and clear.
"Oh shit…." Hwoarang took a brutal dive unto the ground rolling downwards rapidly only a fraction of a sectond before the all too familiar rapping of continuous fire sounded.
Had Xiayou not turned her head upon hearing them, she would have noticed that the woman's eyes opened the exact moment the gun shots rang out. Xiayou would have leapt to her feet at once, knowing that Hwoarang and Jin were probably in the center of those horrible sounds, but she felt a cold hand grip the back of her neck. Startled, Xiayou looked down at the woman. She lady stared at her with an expressionless face gripping Xiayou's neck most uncomfortably. The next feeling Xiayou experienced was unlike anything she had physically felt in her life. She felt her blood race and her heart stop simutaneously, every muscle in her body so strung that she was shaking; yet she felt completely relaxed. In fact she couldn't feel anything save a strange, seemingly electric pulsing through her head.
She could steadily feel herself growing wearier… then it stopped. And the pain began. Xiayou screams were deafening, she thrashed wildly about the hospital room, knocking the monitors and machines into disarray. She barely paused to take a breath and scream more, she screamed in pain, she scream out of intense fear of what was happening to her. Xiayou felt as if her innards were being torn apart from within and her skull was being bashed in. She spun about the room, now breathlessly wailing, not able to feel her self-inflicted pounding on her head over the internal throbbing pain. She bumped into a tray table with dishes, and now screaming more resolutely, she flung the objects across the room. One of which flew through a window shattering the pane as well as the glass, which scattered into endless fragments. Her fit continued as she grabbed the table by the corners throwing it on the floor. Consequently, she tripped on the overturned table and flew face first into the adjacent wall, tumbling down to the ground. To tired to react from the pain any longer, she pulled herself into a fetal position, still convulsing violently.