"-hasn't even looked at me lately! It's all about the students and the tournament and training and, and, and... Aaaaaaaah, Andyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"
King turned a well-practiced deaf ear to her teammate's drunken complaining. It happened every year. KoF came around, Mai came around, Mai went straight for the appletinis, King got an earful of Andy's continuing failure to notice the gorgeous woman throwing herself at him. This year Mai seemed especially put-out, something about a rock that was as big as she was? King was fluent in Shitfaced Shiranui Mai, but she'd missed a few key phrases and hadn't bothered to catch up.
"...youth is fleeting." Mai's chin was on the bar. King was going to have to cut her off soon. "Soon, all of mine will be dried up and gone. Did you know his voice is starting to change? It cracks in the middle of all his kiais. It's so cute but, but, but I remember when he was just a squeaky little kid and now he's almost a man and what does that make meeeeeeeeeeeeee?"
"Whose voice is starting to change?"
"I told you, Rock's is. He sprouted like a weed and now he's as tall as me and his voice is changing and pretty soon he'll be in KoF too!" She waved her drink around for emphasis, then, realising it was sloshing dangerously close to the rim, took a big gulp.
King filled a glass with water and placed it in front of Mai as a hint, which Mai failed to take. "And Rock is...?" she prompted.
"Terry's kid. Adopted him around...around...six years back? Seven? '95, how many years ago was '95?" Mai's eyes flickered blearily around the bar like it had the answers. When it failed to provided them, she started counting on her fingers.
"Terry has a kid?" King said, surprised. Everyone knew Terry Bogard loved kids - it was impossible to miss the crowd of ankle-biting admirers - but she hadn't known he had one of his own. But now that she thought about it...the kid she'd seen tagging at Terry's heels for the past few tournaments had seemed a bit too familiar to just be a fan. "How'd Mary react? She doesn't strike me as the maternal type."
"They sat down and had a sensible adult conversation about it and mutually decided to stay friends until Rock's on his own." Mai stared at her glass, voice downcast. "...I've never had an adult conversation with Andy..."
I don't think that's Andy's fault. King internally chided herself for being cruel. Mai was silly and flighty, but she knew how to be serious when the situation called for it. Besides, it's not like I'd ever pick Terry as someone to have an adult conversation either.
"Anyway," Mai rallied again, "Rock's big and he still won't stop calling me Aunt Mai! I keep telling him to call me "sis" but he won't, the little brat."
"If he's Terry's kid, aren't you his aunt by definition?"
"No!" Mai blinked. "Yes! But...no. I would be, if Andy would just accept me! But no matter what I do he keeps running away and do you know how many years it's been? I swore I'd marry him before I even met Terry and now Terry has a kid and that kid is as big as I am and Andy still won't marry me! He's a coward!" She swayed with the strength of her declaration, right before she swayed too hard and burst into tears. "I didn't mean that! I'm sorry, Andy!"
King rubbed her temple. She could feel a headache coming on. Next time, cut Mai off two drinks earlier, she thought, and ignored how she vowed the same thing every year. Lacking better options, she patted Mai on the shoulder and thanked her lucky stars the bar was nearly deserted at this hour.
Maybe it was the headache, maybe it was that Mai had been pulling this routine since '95, but King opened her mouth to speak the words she'd never had the courage to before.
"Mai...why are you so set on Andy? A gorgeous woman like you could have any man she wanted. You don't have to keep chasing after someone that doesn't want you."
That stopped the waterworks. King could almost see the gears turning in Mai's head as she tried to come up with an answer. "He's handsome," she finally declared.
"Ah, but there are many handsome men out there," King replied.
Mai took a minute to digest that. She came back with "He's nice..." in a slightly more uncertain tone.
"There are nice men too. Rarer, yes, but you'd have the pick of the litter." If you can bring yourself to sort through the chaff King added in her head and didn't mind the mixed metaphors. Mai could handle herself against her fans, she knew how to take out creeps.
Mai paused for the longest time yet. She swayed gently on her seat. Then, in a small voice, she said: "...he's not interested in me."
"Eh?"
"He was the first man to ever resist my charms," Mai explained. "So I had to have him...do you get it?"
King most certainly did not. Some incomprehension must have shown on her face, because Mai kept going. "He wasn't interested, so I had to make him interested. The Shiranui arts never fail! ...except they did."
"The thrill of the chase?" King hazarded, which got a vague sort of nod from Mai. She resisted swearing. "Mai, did you ever think about what you were going to do if you caught him?" A metaphor involving coyotes and roadrunners appeared before her. She let it remain unsaid.
"Marriage is a woman's happiness!" Mai declared, clearly now on firmer ground. "We'd get married and have children and carry on the Shiranui ninja arts and it would be perfect!"
"I don't see how a woman's happiness is any different from a man's..." King muttered. Poor Andy. I'd run away too. She took a minute to try and work her thoughts into the completely foreign framework of Shiranui Mai. "Mai, have you ever considered that it might be you chasing Andy that's making him run away?"
Mai stared like this had never occurred to her before. "You mean I'm coming on too strong?"
"I'm saying that if you put the brakes on, you might be able to have that adult conversation. Then you can find out what Andy actually feels." And hope for your sake it's not "get this crazy woman away from me".
"Skittish prey requires a still hunter..." Mai muttered to herself.
"And in the meantime, you can find out what you actually want." At Mai's look of bewilderment, King gave another push. "Catching someone doesn't mean you'll have a happy marriage, right? You need to think of yourself and what you need. Experiment. Try someone else. You're still young. Why not have some fun on your own terms?"
"Experiment...fun..." Mai sunk deep in thought. She sipped at the water in front of her, giving King the chance to pull away the remains of her drink. It seemed like the idea was taking root. King gave a pleased little hum and started to wipe down the bar, giving herself over to the familiar concerns of bartending. It was getting time to announce last call.
By the time she had worked her way back over to Mai, the ninja was sitting much straighter on her stool and her water needed refilling. King took the liberty of doing so while Mai spoke. "You're absolutely right, King. I'm going to have a fling! After all," she smiled the slightly-too-bright smile of the drunk and tossed her hair back with an airy wave "if your way is blocked by a stone, flow around it!"
"That's the spirit," King said, and was about to move off again when a hand landed on her elbow. She turned back to Mai and-
-wow. Mai was leaning forward, her deep, dark eyes focused on King's with an intensity usually reserved for battle. Her lips were pushed forward into a little pout that caught the dim light and invited touch to see if they were as soft as they looked. Her sleek, shining hair framed the edges of her face like ravens wings, her cleavage pushed up from her tight, form-fitting dress, and her perfume floated around them like smoke on a cool night.
King's knees knocked together. Were these the Shiranui techniques? Why the hell was Mai using them on her? Not that she minded...well, she did mind, this wasn't what she had meant, but it was hard to think of a good reason to mind when Mai's dark eyelashes were so clearly outlining her beautiful eyes. She'd never seen Mai like this before.
Mai tugged at King's elbow, drawing them closer across the bar. Like this King could smell the alcohol from three appletinis on Mai's breath, but it hardly seemed to matter right now. "No time like the present, right? I always thought...that if I couldn't have Andy, I'd like someone like you, King."
"Y-yeah?" King was pretty used to women's attentions and usually enjoyed them, but something about the way Mai looked right now made her feel like a flustered teenager.
"You're handsome, you're kind, you're strong..."
"You're-" drunk King started to say, but that would ruin the moment and suddenly she didn't want to do that. She could feel her heart beat and it was telling her to go for it. Her brain was still telling her to think about what they'd do in the morning, but it was fighting a losing battle and they both knew it.
If Mai even remembered in the morning they could deal with it then.
Mai smiled, slow, lazy, and inviting.
King leaned forward and tasted the apple juice on her lips.
"I want him because he doesn't want me" is the only explanation I can come up with for why Mai is so devoted to Andy.