Chapter Thirteen: My All (Title Taken from a song by the one-the only…Mariah Carey. Calleigh's POV)

It was tournament time, and I'd managed to convince myself that seeing Jin would be ok, and that I could handle it. I looked around. I wasn't a rookie anymore. I knew everyone here, and I felt comfortable, for the most part. I sat two feet from the entrance, watching it, and hoping for…well, you know what I was hoping for. It would be the ideal friendship reunion. Like they always show on television. We would see each other, and all the time we spent together would flush back to us, and we'd just hug and cry for hours. I'd stayed up the whole night before, writing a reply to his letter. It was only two pages, but I had gone through so many drafts. I didn't have the address, so I decided to give it to him whenever I saw him.

I had seen many people I recognized from the previous tournament. I saw Craig Marduk, the vale tudo fighter, Lee Chaolan, who I could have killed the second he walked by me, but the first person I saw that I truly knew was Julia. She walked through the gate, Steve hot on her heels, and it was like they knew I would be waiting there. Julia tugged Steve behind her, and they walked up to me.

"Calleigh?" Julia asked, grinning, as both she and Steve hugged me. "How have you been?" she secretly knew the answer already, but decided to ask anyway, in case it had changed.

"Hey Jules, hey Steve…" I address them both, and gave them a hug. "I've been fine, I guess…" I lied. "How about you guys?"

Steve smiled comfortingly, and shrugged his shoulders. "We've been the same…" he told me, in his thick English accent. "Have you heard from Ling or Forrest?" he asked me, looking around.

I nodded. "Ling is coming, and so is Forrest…apparently, they're seriously involved…" I laughed, and looked at the gate, to see them walking through. "Forrest likes the cradle, and Ling likes the walker…"

Julia laughed, and shook her head. "Oh, come on…it's only seven years difference!" she joked, as they approached us. "Nothing to call the Enquirer about…"

I flashed Julia a grin. It was the most genuine grin I'd given in months. As soon as I looked from Julia back to the entrance, though, it faded away quickly. There he was…the whole reason I was here. Jin walked through the gate, and looked toward us. The second he made contact with me, though, he turned away, and headed off toward the training arena.

I wanted to walk straight up to him, and tell him everything was all right, and just hug him, like I'd planned out in my head, but I couldn't. I'd done this in my head so many times, but right now, it just wasn't coming out the way I wanted it to. Seeing him brought so many things back, but it also brought back the bad thing. The ONE bad thing, that kept replaying itself in my head. I sighed, and looked away. If he really had devil genes within him, why did he look so hurt? And why hadn't he gotten his revenge on me? Nothing seemed to make sense right now. Maybe I needed a little practice myself. Practicing always cleared my head. How could I clear my head of Jin, by practicing, when Jin was in the practice arena? I didn't know, but it was worth a try.

I looked at Ling, Julia, Steve and Forrest, who were now buried in conversation. "Hey, guys…I'm going to go practice. Anyone want to join me?" I asked, nudging my head toward the practice arena.

Julia looked toward the practice arena, to see Jin walking in. "I'll go with you, Calleigh. Ling, why don't you stay here with the boys, to make sure they don't get lost…" she turned her attention to Ling. She knew that Ling would attract Jin's attention to us, and she knew I didn't want that. I'd have to say that, out of all the people in the tournament, Julia was my best friend. Christie and Ling were my close friends, but I could always talk to Julia. She knew me better than anyone else (now that Jin and I had lost contact), and she really seemed to care.

Ling nodded her head, and linked her arm to Forrest. "See you guys later…" she waved to us, as she, Forrest and Steve walked off.

"So…you're only training to be close to Jin, right?" Julia asked. She knew me so well it scared me. It was like we were twins separated at birth, only we looked nothing alike. "Because you do know he just walked in there…"

I nodded, and shrugged. "That's part of it, yeah…plus, I wanna drop this in his gym bag," I held out the letter to Julia. "I stayed up all night last night writing it…"

"How long is it?" Julia asked, taking the letter from my hand and looking the envelope over. "It doesn't weigh enough to be over two pages…"

"That's because it's not…it's only two pages…" I explained. "I didn't seal the envelope, because I thought maybe you'd look it over for me. Just to, like, tell me if it seems too desperate or whatever…" I asked, sort of pleading with Julia.

"Sure…you want brutal honesty, or just quasi-honesty…" she asked, opening the envelope.

"Brutal…it's the only way I'll know if I'm an idiot for even wanting to give it to him…" I sighed, opening the door to the training arena. Jin was the only other person there, so I decided to be as silent as I could. Then, I remembered that almost nothing could distract him from his training, so I just went back to normal.

Julia read over the letter, and handed it back to me. "Give it to him, Cal…it'll definitely help the situation a lot…" she nodded, and put her arm guards on. "And he needs to know how you really feel, so yes, you should definitely give it to him."

I glanced quickly at Jin, who was beating a sandbag to a pulp on the floor. "I'll be right back…" I told her, bringing the letter toward Jin. I was tempted to hand it to him, but instead, I dropped it into his gym bag, and ran back to Julia. "For some reason, I'm still terrified…"

"Would the fact that he's absolutely mutilating that sandbag have anything to do with it?" Julia asked me, standing behind our sandbag, to protect herself from flying grains of sand headed in our direction.

"That might be it…" I looked at Jin, and everything came back. Everything I had felt, everything we had said…something told me that things were going to be normal faster than I thought.

~~

I'd give my all to have just one more night with you.
I'd risk my life to feel your body next to mine.
Cause I can't go on living in the memory of our song.
I'd give my all for your love tonight.
Baby, can you feel me, imagining I'm looking in your eyes?
I can see you clearly, vividly emblazoned in my mind.
And yet you're so far like a distant star I'm wishing on tonight.
~~ 'My All' – Mariah Carey ~~