Prompt: kimiko tries her hand at painting, until Rai jokingly told her to 'paint him lik y one of her french men' and she acciderntally lightrs her paintbrush on fire (Submitted by epiphany-on-toast at tumblr.)
If there was one thing Kimiko Tohomiko was known for—aside from her impeccable taste in clothing, of course—it was her anger management skills.
That was not to say there was a distinct lack thereof of these aforementioned skills; on the contrary, Kimiko was very dedicated to learning how to keep her emotions in check so that they would not overwhelm and consume her. This was particularly true when her role as the Dragon of Fire was made known to her—because her powers as a Dragon were so closely linked to her mental and emotional state of mind, loosing control of the latter meant that she was at distinct disadvantage when attempting to use the former. And so Kimiko not only doubled or tripled or even quadrupled her efforts at keeping her anger in check, but in fact quintupled her efforts to do so.
For a time, it helped: meditating at the temple had its obvious benefits, as did many of the breathing exercises and focusing techniques Master Fung taught her and the other monks. When Kimiko was younger, her grandmother had enrolled her in tea ceremony classes, and years later, Kimiko found that making a fresh pot of tea was something that could calm her almost instantly. Her training in ballet also helped her alleviate her anger, as did tinkering around with her various electronic gadgets.
Unfortunately, however, Kimiko could not always sit down and meditate, or make tea, or dance, or fiddle around with some new device whenever she could feel the restraints on her temple gradually beginning to fray, and so decided that she would have to learn other ways of alleviating anger. Reading helped, somewhat, but only in certain cases. Writing her thoughts down in a journal only made the situation worse—Kimiko remembered everything in vivid detail whenever she wrote it down, and that only served to make her angrier, and as such was all the explanation she needed whenever she had to tell someone exactly why she'd burned another journal to ash for the fourth time this week.
Her next attempt was painting. Kimiko had stationed herself in the temple courtyard with a new easel and a fresh palette of water colors, determined to capture the delicate beauty of the cherry trees in full bloom on canvas. Or, at least, she was going to try.
Sketching the tree on the canvas was simple enough (she credited it to her many years of coming up with new outfits with Keiko and their other friends in Japan), but Kimiko was pleasantly surprised to learn that painting came surprisingly easy to her as a remarkably good likeness of the tree began to take form on the canvas.
It was then that Trouble decided to intervene, however, in the form of a roughish young man named Raimundo Pedrosa. The old boy had been passing the time away by idly kicking his soccer ball around the temple grounds, and as he rounded the corner bouncing the black-and-white ball from one knee to the other, he was astounded to see Kimiko, of all people, painting. This naturally piqued his curiosity, and so he caught the soccer ball with both hands mid-bounce, rested it against his hip, and jogged toward her.
"Hey, Kim," he said as he came to a stop beside her. "What's up?"
She didn't look at him. "I'm busy, Rai. Go away."
Raimundo's natural response was, of course, to smirk. "What'cha painting?"
Kimiko gritted her teeth, mentally congratulating herself for not acknowledging him with a look and instead focusing on her painting. "I'm painting a portrait of Cyclop's hairy back—what do you think I'm painting?" She had to admit, though, that she could feel her patience beginning to grow thin. Focus, Kimiko. Focus.
He grinned and brought his face down to hers. "Need a model?" he whispered in her ear, voice decidedly smug as he raised his eyebrows suggestively. "I'm a busy man, but I'm sure I could squeeze you in somehow."
"Nah—I think I'm good," she replied through gritted teeth. "Thanks for the offer, though." Kimiko could feel the paintbrush begin to splinter in her hand.
And that's when Raimundo finally did it. He pulled away from her slightly, but rested his hand on her shoulder. "I mean it, Kim," he told her. "I mean, you could even paint me 'like one of your French men', and I—"
He never got a chance to finish the sentence; the paintbrush burst into flames, and a very angry Kimiko ended up with one of her legs through the canvas as she leapt to her feet to allow her to better dispose of Raimundo without any witnesses being present. All she ended up with, however, was the burnt remains of the brush, a ruined canvas, and a scrape along her knee from where she'd fallen after kicking the easel in her rage.
Somehow, though, Raimundo had managed to escape the damage, and was now observing her from a few feet away while simultaneously bouncing the soccer ball on his head. "Oh," he said. "Are we going to work in charcoal next? Make sure you get my good side!"
In the end, it appeared that most artistic pursuits didn't really help Kimiko's anger issues in the slightest.