Disclaimer: If I owned anyone from YYH, I'd be taking over the world.
Underlying Tragedy: There's really nothing worth mentioning in this chapter… All my good ideas have been put to use in later chapters… But wow, the angst is unbearable when it finally shows up.
Kurama: Would it be possible to make me look slightly less…
Underlying Tragedy: …Gay? No.
Kurama: But I'm-
Underlying Tragedy: You may be now…
Kay found herself walking aimlessly around the hallways again. It was about 9:30 in the morning, and she was hungry. 'I wonder where the kitchen is?' She wondered. She saw Shuiichi coming out of one of the rooms, "Hey Shuiichi," She greeted him with a small smile. "Hello Kay, you aren't lost are you?" She remained silent for a moment, but it was enough for him to draw his own conclusions. "No, I'm not lost," she tried to say as believably as possible, "I just don't really know where I'm going – but that could be intentional!" Shuiichi smiled, "I see, well if you're hungry, I was just about to go make breakfast." 'He cooks?' "Oh you can cook, good." She said, relieved she wasn't going to have to survive on crackers.
The kitchen wasn't as far as she thought it was; only seven corridors and three rooms down; there it was. "Please, sit down, I'll make some pancakes." Shuiichi offered. "Um," Kay suddenly felt weird; she wasn't used to having people do things for her, "that's okay; I can just look around and find something." "No, I insist – I would be more than happy to make you something to eat." She looked him in the eye, "No really, it's oka-" "Sit." Shuiichi said more commandingly. She immediately sat down in a chair.
In a matter of minutes, there were pancakes piled two feet high in front of Kay. "Wow," She said, not really able to think of anything else to say, "That's a lot of pancakes." Shuiichi smiled at her, "Is it enough? I can make something to go with them," "No." Kay said, "This is for more than just me, right? I mean, there's no way I could eat all this,"
She saw his smile falter, "Not that I don't want to; I don't think I've ever seen pancakes look this good – and I've seen some good…Looking…Pancakes…" 'Oh that was lame.' Apparently the idiocy of her comment hadn't bothered Shuiichi, because his smile returned, "Thank you. I suppose it could be enough for Yusuke and Kuwabara as well," "Great, I'll go get them." Kay was about to get up when Shuiichi grabbed her left wrist, sending waves of pain coursing though her arm. She managed not to flinch, but her stomach clenched from the sudden jolt of pain.
If anything seemed odd, Shuiichi didn't acknowledge it: "Watch this," he said, and whispered "Breakfast." There was suddenly a great amount of noise accompanied by shouts of "Get out of the way!" Kay looked around frantically, 'What the-?' In a flash, Yusuke and Kuwabara were at the table, wolfing down as many pancakes as they could. "Whoa." Kay stated, watching the two. She reached out to grab a pancake, but Yusuke snapped at her hand, making her withdraw it quickly. 'Oh he didn't just do that.' She thought, slightly annoyed. She decided to smack Yusuke upside the head for that, making him choke on his pancake. While he was busy choking, Kay grabbed a pancake, nodding to Melissa as she walked in.
She attempted to say "Hey," but her mouth was full of pancake. Good thing it didn't matter, since Lissa spoke Attempted English quite well, and already knew what Kay meant.
Kay followed Melissa out the door, who was following Shuiichi on his way to the training room – or rather, the "Room of Pain" as dubbed by Kay.
"So where did you disappear to?" Kay asked Melissa, noting the fact that she hadn't been in the room when Kay had woken up. "Oh, uh… Heh, Youko came and carried me off to my room." "… I'll worry about what happened with him in a minute," Kay spoke quickly and urgently, "How did he get into my room? I always lock the door." She hated people going into her room; she valued privacy over pretty much everything else.
Melissa breathed deeply, "He had a key, but now Hiei has it. Youko's still got the key to my room…Uh, Koenma wants them to have the keys so they can get in if there's a problem…You know, for emergency purposes."
Kay's eye twitched, her anger rising. "Don't be mad!" Melissa pleaded, "It's not like Hiei's going to break into your room while you're sleeping, walk over to the bed, peel away the covers and-" "Stop!" Kay yelled as she covered her ears. "You have issues, you know that?" "Yeah, but at least I'm not paranoid." Melissa stated, receiving a glare.
Kay shook it off, figuring she'd just talk to Koenma about it later, "So what happened with Youko?" Melissa's eyes widened and she looked at the floor, seemingly focusing on walking, "Nothing…" She muttered.
"Do you really think you can fool me? What happened?" Melissa stopped walking and looked at Kay with the biggest blush on her face. That's all she needed to do to let Kay know, "Oh my goddess!" Kay exclaimed, "You whore!" she put a hand over her mouth, hiding a smile. "You've known him for one day!"
"We didn't do anything too bad… He's a bit open about his nakedness, but that's not the point." Kay stared at her friend, "…Rawr. But seriously – you didn't actually… Did you?" Melissa gave her a sheepish smile, "Well, not for very long… Koenma knocked on the door and I freaked out."
Kay closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. "I'll talk to Youko later." She said with a near-evil glint in her eyes. "Please don't hurt him." Melissa looked at her with a pleading look, "I won't hurt him… Yet." Her friend sighed, "let's just get to training."
"Yeah, at least then you'll be too distracted to think about how you're going to hurt Youko…" Kay rolled her eyes, "Oh please, you give me so little credit: I multitask!"
After a moment of silence, something struck her, "…I don't suppose they make condoms for demons…?" Melissa stared at her, "…I…" But she couldn't finish her sentence before she burst out laughing, followed by Kay.
"My, aren't we mature? This actually concerns you, and you can't keep a straight face!" Kay managed to say between giggles. "Oh shut up! Let's just get training over with…" Melissa managed to stifle her fits of laughter as she walked into the Room of Pain.
"Kay!" Jin yelled from behind. She turned around, letting Melissa continue to the training room, "Yeah?" The Wind master ran up to her, blue eyes glowing with emotion, "Just wanted ta let ya know, Touya's gonna be trainin' ya for a while until you get the hang o' things, then we'll take yer wind powers fer a spin." She blinked, "Alright, I guess I'll see ya later then…" She was kind of disappointed; after all, Jin was fun - Touya was too calm and collected all the time.
Seeming to sense it, Jin commented, "Well, ye know Kay, trainin' won't be all day – we can hang out later!" He was practically bubbling, which in turn, made Kay bubbly; "That'd be awesome, let's just hope Hiei doesn't come in and try to kill me again." She added with a laugh. Jin paused, "Yeah, that'd be bad…" He trailed off, smile fading.
Kay stared at him: 'Bad?' so much for encouragement. She'd expected "Oh, you could hold yer own fer a while." Or something to that extent, but no, apparently she couldn't. "Yeah. Yeah that'd be bad." She replied dully as she turned around and walked into the training room. Jin, apparently having no idea he'd said something wrong, just waved and shouted after her "Okay then! Buh bye!"
Upon entering, Kay noticed that Lissa was on the other side of the room with Youko talking about something. "Nice of you to drop by." A calm voice said off to her left. "Hello Touya, ready to kick my ass?" He smiled slightly at her, "I'm hardly like Hiei, Kay." "Ah," Kay held up a finger, "but it was your idea to have him attack me, correct?"
His icy blue eyes stared at her, reminding her of Shuiichi and his way of making her feel under the microscope, "It won't happen again." He said in a quiet voice. 'My goddess I hope not… Hiei hits really hard.' Kay nodded, "So, what's first on the agenda?"
Touya smiled at her and looked over to where Melissa was; she seemed to be focusing on forming a fireball or something of the sort with Youko. "We've already established that you can form things out of ice as well as freeze them, but those things were not on fire."
Kay stared, "You want me to freeze fire?" "Not right away, certainly not today, but that is what our goal will be for the time being." Kay's heart dropped: great, a goal. She had always hated goals: never 'exactly' living up to them, always disappointing someone. She sighed, "Well that should be fun." She said only half serious, "I'm curious as to what you can do."
"You'll see in time."
"You used a new attack with Hiei, am I right?" Kay looked at him, "Well technically, everything's new. I just found out about everything yesterday afternoon." Touya completely disregarded her comment; "I want you to use it again on me." "What?" "Now." Kay didn't know what to say; she didn't really want to hurt him – and she wasn't really 'feeling the energy' like yesterday, but she didn't want to seem weak either.
Touya seemed to understand, but instead of talking her through it, he attacked her.
He rushed at Kay with an ice sword of his own, shocking her; did he not just say he'd never do that? 'No,' she thought stupidly, 'he said he'd never have Hiei do that again. He said nothing about himself.' She managed to dodge, which seemed to be a strong point of hers lately. "Attack me!" Touya said with force, "Enemies in the Makai will not be so cautious!"
'Goddess help me!' Kay prayed silently as she focused on creating an ice sword of her own. It wasn't working. Her eyes widened as she focused her attention back on Touya, who was still attacking her.
Kay tried to create an ice wall, not knowing if it would work – or if it would hold him back for long, but she had to try something. She held out her hands like before and focused on a shield; it finally formed right at the last second, nearly causing Touya to run into it.
Kay breathed a sigh of relief, "Work!" she commanded to her hands, shaking them, "Work!" She said almost desperately as the ice began to disappear. "Forming an ice shield will not work on me, Kay. I'm an Ice Master." She stared at him, finally feeling that tingling feeling in her hands again,
"Then instead of attacking me you should be teaching me!" She threw out her hands at Touya, concentrating on her icy wind attack; there was a powerful gust of wind filled with very sharp shards of ice that would've hit Touya dead on if he hadn't seen it coming and formed a small ice shield of his own. 'Damn,' Kay thought, slouching a bit.
Kay's attention was redirected to the other side of the room when a harsh voice said "Mine." She looked over and saw Hiei walking slowly, almost menacingly towards Melissa, who… Was standing next to a wall of… Molten metal? 'Oh dear,' Kay thought, 'what did she do?'
She became defensive when she saw the murderous glint in Hiei's eye; there was no way she was going to stand by and let him attack her for destroying, what? Weapons? She held her palms up and focused on a few shards of ice, then sent them flying at Hiei as a warning; daring him to attack Melissa. 'Go ahead, Hiei,' she thought, glaring at him, 'attack her. See what happens.'
Kay suddenly felt very lightheaded but was too stubborn to let it show. Only when everything started spinning and she began to feel numb did she begin to worry; 'No, I can't pass out here…' she cursed at herself for last night's cutting as she continued to glare at Hiei.
She was torn from her thoughts by a sudden but powerful roundhouse kick to the head. Kay flew to the side of the room and finally skidded to a stop on the ground, not able to get back up. She looked up and glared at Touya, knowing it was stupid to not pay attention to her fight, and feeling weaker than she had in her entire life before everything went black.
With a jolt, Kay was brought back into reality. She opened her eyes with some difficulty to see Touya walking over to her, ice sword gone, with a slightly worried look on his face. "That was fast," He commented, "you were only out for a few seconds. I was worried I'd pushed you too hard your first day."
He stopped a few feet away from her, receiving a slight glare. "You wish," Kay said quietly, "hn. You had nothing to do with it." She stood up quickly, ignoring the numbness in her limbs. Before Touya could question her, she formed a few ice daggers and had thrown them full force at him.
Her teacher managed to dodge three of them, but the forth nicked the side of his left arm, causing a small amount of blood to trickle out. He looked at her, amused at how aggressive she was in her weak state. "Next we'll work on aim." Kay sweat-dropped, "Lovely."
Kay walked semi-painfully out of the training room roughly three hours later with only one thing in mind: bed. She rubbed her sore arms and trudged to the only room she knew how to get to from there, which happened to be the kitchen – good thing, too; she was starving. As soon as she neared the lovely room that bore food, Kay's nose picked up on the wonderful scent of chicken and something else she wasn't familiar with.
Entering the kitchen, she was greeted by Shuiichi, "Hello Kay, how was training?" She made a face, "Ow." She muttered as she sat down. "Food?" She realized she sounded like a Neanderthal at this point, but she was too pained and hungry to care. Kay gave Shuiichi a huge smile as he placed a picture-perfect meal in front of her, and devoured it in less than 30 seconds. She sighed, "Thanks Shuiichi, I was starved." "My pleasure." He beamed. 'My God this guy is far too nice for his own good.'
Kay realized she was no longer sleepy. Sore, but not sleepy. "Well, so much for going back to bed," she muttered to no one in particular.
"Bed? Why would ya do that?" A happy Irish voice said in her ear, making her jump slightly. Kay turned around, "Bed means sleep. Sleep means happy Kay." She justified. "Oh please," Jin rolled his eyes while smiling, "There's too much ta do – c'mon!" He grabbed her wrist and practically ran out the door, nearly knocking Melissa and Youko over. "Sorry Liss," Kay called behind her as Jin continued to whisk her through various hallways.
"Where are we going?" She asked as she tried to stop, only to realize Jin was a lot stronger than her, and he wasn't stopping. He looked back at her with a toothy grin, "Outside, o' course! There's no room in here." Kay blinked, 'No room? Room for what, this place is huge!'
"Though, I always seem ta get lost on me way back to the front doors…" Jin trailed off, then got a mischievous grin on his face, "But who needs doors?" He said while walking over to a nearby balcony. "Um, doors are always nice – whoa this is at least six stories high!" Kay's eyes widened as he hopped up on the ledge, not letting go of her wrist, "What are you doi-" she let out a surprised yell as he dove off, taking her with him.
It took Kay a moment to realize she wasn't falling. She looked at Jin, who was grinning ear to ear; still holding onto her wrist, "See?" She looked around; she was floating in mid-air a few feet away from the balcony.
"But we can do better than jus' float around all day, right?" Kay stared into his big blue eyes as if to say, "That'd be great, but I can't fly." Jin didn't bother explaining, but just grabbed her waist and launched her up into the air, "You can do it!" Kay shut her eyes, "I CAN'T FLY, IDIOT!" She yelled at the top of her lungs as she began to plummet toward the ground.
It wasn't until about three minutes later that she finally opened her eyes again to see Jin a few inches away from her face, his blue eyes boring into her confused brown ones - waiting for her to say something about "not being able to fly" again.
Kay looked down to see the ground slowly approaching her feet. As her toes softly touched the ground, she looked back up at Jin, "Oh, well… Maybe I can." She felt like an idiot, "I wish someone had told me about that sooner."
The Wind master laughed, "Oh good, fer a second I thought maybe ye were afraid o' heights like Touya." Kay felt devious suddenly, 'Afraid of heights? Touya? Really?' Though she hardly had time to form a plan, before Jin grabbed her hand and flew off again, this time not creating wind for her, as if to say she had to do it herself this time.
Jin made a sudden incline and released Kay's hand, sending her flying up again, only this time she didn't mind. She concentrated and focused on not splattering on the ground, knowing full well that since she had done it once, she could do it again.
Kay descended slightly before a strong updraft blew her back up again. She grinned, put herself into a dive position, and used her knowledge of aerodynamics to build up her speed going down. About 20 feet before she hit the ground, a strong gust propelled her up again, making her smile. Flying was like freedom: no rules, no boundaries, nothing but flight. Now she knew why Jin was so damn happy all the time.
Jin flew up next to her, "Fast learner, ye are!" Kay laughed, "Well if I wasn't, wouldn't I be dead?" She and Jin zoomed around, laughing without a care in the world. Kay tried spun around a few times before continuing her rise and quick drops.
Kay couldn't believe it; she was flying! She remembered how her dad had said nearly every day of her life that he wished he could fly. He used to say he would have an airplane one day, just so he could be that much closer to his dream. "My dad would love th-" she cut herself off, earning a quizzical look from the Wind master. 'Right, my dad… Well, father figure, I guess.' She thought, shaking her head. 'He can't know…Hell, if I accept Koenma's offer, he won't even remember – ah, screw it, I never liked him that much anyway.' And she blew off any thoughts of her family.
Kay looked down at the balcony to see Melissa watching her with a mixed look of shock and glee on her face. Kay flew down and came to a sitting position in the air just off the balcony, "Hey." She said, grinning. Melissa stared at her, "I wish I could fly like that…" Kay smirked, "Wish granted!" She said quickly and grabbed onto her friends wrist and brought her up to meet the wind that had picked up considerably. "NO WAIT!" Melissa yelled frantically, "I'm afraid of heights." Kay sweat dropped. "Make up your mind." She snapped and crossed her arms.
It was then that Kay realized the wind keeping her up had died down, and she seemed to be looking up at Melissa. 'Hm?' She gasped as the wind suddenly stopped supporting her, forcing her to grab onto the ledge. "What the hell?" She slightly yelled, happiness gone. Jin flew up to her and brought her up to the balcony again, "Sorry lass, should a' told ye about that; flyin' can be a bit drainin' at first. You're gonna have to work up yer endurance." Kay sighed, "Oh, well thanks."
She was actually really glad Jin had shown her she could fly, because there was no way she would've tested that out on her own.