A/N: Well, this is another Shifu heavy chapter, but I promise you'll hear more from the rest of the gang soon. I don't have much to say here, so enjoy the chapter!
Ingredients: Kung Fu Panda, Dreamworks, copyright, salt and pepper (to taste)
Chapter 21: The Way to a Man's Heart is Through His Stomach
As Shifu slowly drifted back into consciousness, he let out a low groan and, for the first time in years, pulled his blanket over his head to block out the sunlight that filtered into his room through the small, high windows. He could feel a constant painful pressure behind his eyes, his throat was dry and sore, and he was getting queasy from the sense of vertigo that plagued him. In short, he was hung over. True, it was not his first experience with the adverse effects of drinking, but his youth was long gone and to be honest, he had never been much of a drinker even in his "wild" years. And wild for him, even back then, was more like mundane for someone like Lin.
He should have never allowed her to drag him down to her level. True, parts of last night had been, for lack of a better term, fun. However, it had definitely not been worth the pain he was currently in, burrowing in his own bed sheets just to get away from the sun-
He cursed under his breath once he realized exactly how late in the morning it must have been for the sunlight to be so bright, and flung the sheets aside, jumping to his feet. He then nearly fell over and vomited from the way the room spun at such sudden and dramatic movement. After a few deep breaths he managed to steady himself and get his wits about him; that was when he realized that he was shirtless. He never slept shirtless. And his pants were the same ones he'd been wearing the day before. And, when he really thought about it, he couldn't quite recall how he'd made it from the village all the way back to his bed.
It would be no good to jump to conclusions, so he went about getting properly dressed as quickly as he possibly could given his current condition and headed down the hall to the kitchen. He couldn't exactly run, but he got as close to running as he could without causing another bout of vertigo. The moment he reached the doorway of the kitchen he spat out, "What did you do?" with as much venom as he could muster.
Lin turned and raised her eyebrows at him from where she was wiping down the countertop, a smug grin plastered on her face. "That's no way to talk to your drinking buddy, now is it?" She then pretended to be hurt, pressing one hand worriedly to her chest. "And after you gave me your heart dust."
Shifu groaned as he recalled some of the more ridiculous things he'd said under the influence- including holding up his empty hand as if there were some sort of powder in it and then pretending to blow the imaginary sand in Lin's direction, proclaiming that it was his heart dust. "What I meant was... Where did my shirt go?" That query sounded innocent enough.
"Oh, that." She rolled her eyes at him, then turned back around and lit the stove. "You were so wasted last night that I had to tuck you in. And seeing as how you vomited all down your front- which I believe I tried to prevent by warning you not to mix liquors- I took pity on you and threw your shirt in the wash."
He leaned against the door frame, relieved that he hadn't been running around the village half-naked; still, running around with vomit all over him was probably worse. "This is all your fault," he needlessly pointed out.
She just laughed at him as she took a large cup from the cabinet and filled it with the contents of a nearby pot. "I'm guessing you have a hangover befitting of last night's events?"
"You don't?"
"Nope."
If he didn't think his head was going to explode before, he certainly did now. "Not even a little?"
"Not at all." She chuckled again at the horrified look on his face. "I guess I forgot to tell you my one hundred percent guaranteed hangover prevention method," she sighed, not sounding guilty at all.
"Yes, you did," he grumbled, and managed to shuffle over to the table and sit down.
"Well, here it is now. It also happens to be a hangover cure." Then she set the cup she'd been holding down in front of him.
He picked it up and peered at the contents, then took a tentative sip. It was nothing more than room temperature water. "You're kidding, right?"
"Nope! Dehydration is one of the sources of a hangover, and when properly prevented can curb the effects of one." She laughed again. "I was drinking water all night. And you weren't."
"If it were in any way alright for me to hit you, I would." He took several huge gulps from the cup, while Lin continued to laugh at him. "Laugh all you want, but you're the one who has to be my student for the rest of the day."
"Yeah, yeah. Keep talking shit, old man. Practice makes perfect, y'know." Then she actually smiled at him- and it was that same disarming smile she'd had on her face the other night, when they'd spoken.
He almost spit his water out at the sight. An actual, genuine smile from her was something he had thought he'd never be on the receiving end of, especially that early in the morning. "What?" he choked out.
"Eh?" she replied. "What what?"
"What was that for?"
"What was what for?"
"Never mind," he gave up. "Where's Tai Lung?"
"He's already training." She took his cup and refilled it for him. "You're the one who's late today."
"Crap," he replied.
Lin stopped fussing about and stared at him, her eyebrows raised.
"Oh, what? I've heard worse from your mouth." He drank some more water and grimaced. "What was that stuff you shoved down my throat last night?"
"Fermented liquor made from sorghum," she rattled off in an encyclopedic fashion as she set a pan over the stove and poured some oil into it. "It typically has an alcohol content of fifty-three percent." She then crossed the room again to take his water from him and finish it off. "You were so drunk."
"Me?" He grabbed the cup out of her hand, narrowing his eyes at her. "You started a bar fight."
"No I didn't," she replied immediately, her tone completely innocent.
"Oh yes you did, I saw the whole thing!" He handed the cup back to her for a refill once he realized that it was empty. "And then I had to drag you out of there, kicking and screaming!" That had been before all his good sense had gone completely out the window, luckily enough- and Lin had simply brushed the incident off and dragged him to a different bar to shove more alcohol at him.
"Well you're a kung fu master, you coulda helped me out a little," she huffed as she poured more water into his cup and once again drank from it. "B'sides, that guy needed a bottle to the head to knock some sense into him." She handed the half-empty cup back to Shifu and went back to the stove, breaking two eggs into the heated pan.
"I don't see why you don't want to learn kung fu." His head hurt enough that he was willing to still drink from the cup- just that once, anyway. "Do you make a habit out of picking fights with boars twice your size?"
"Hey, I was defending your honor, remember?" She finally grabbed a cup of her own from the cabinet and filled that one with water. "And c'mon, anyone who goes up to strangers in a bar and says they're a coupla nancy boys is gonna get his ass kicked. Especially for using that kinda outdated terminology."
He would have shaken his head at her if he didn't know that such an action would make the room spin. "So you're sure you weren't just angry that he thought you were a man?"
"Eh?" She looked as if that possibility had never occurred to her. "Huh, I guess he did think I was a guy, didn't he? Weird." Then recognition dawned on her face, as if she had just realized something. "Hey! He was saying we were gay together!"
"Yes. Yes he was." Shifu wondered exactly how drunk she'd been that she hadn't been able to pick up on that.
Lin just started laughing. "That's hilarious!" She abruptly stopped laughing, her eyebrows knitted together in thought. "I'm just remembering all his jabs..." Then she snorted. "He called you my wife."
"I remember that, too," he grumbled, embarrassed at the thought of it. He was even more humiliated to think that Lin had incited a bar fight in his defense- in his opinion, it only made him seem even more like her "wife."
"Hey, sorry. I totally thought you were gonna jump in, I swear." She snorted again, then broke out into full-fledged laughter. "We gotta do that again sometime!"
"No. We do not." He cringed to think of what might befall him if he was ever connected to the previous night's events. Luckily, he didn't think anyone in that grungy place had known who he was.
"Y'know, I had more fun 'an I thought I would. With you, I mean." She gave the eggs a toss and smiled again, though this one wasn't necessarily directed at him. "Guess every now and then it pays off to take out the ol' ball and chain."
"You crack me up," he retorted sarcastically. Then, with great hesitancy, "I had a somewhat good time as well..." And it was true, to his surprise; while Lin was incredibly tight-lipped when it came to her past, she was anything but on almost every other subject. She'd spent the more lucid parts of their night debating with him about everything from politics (apparently she thought it was the Emperor's only goal in life to oppress the working class) to science (she had talked about the discoveries of someone he'd never heard of who was apparently a relative of hers, Galileo). Then somehow the conversation had turned to anatomy, which had resulted in Lin telling him much more about a wolf's genitals than he ever needed to know. That had been about the time the boar had interrupted them. "Until you incited a senseless bar fight," he added.
"On your behalf," she replied. "And thanks. I'm glad you weren't miserable for at least one night of your life." She took the eggs off the stove and went about assembling something with them- he turned away once he realized that he was watching her more intently than he would have liked.
"Yes." He cleared his throat, feeling a little uncomfortable all of a sudden. "How does your arm feel?" He thought it would be a good time for a change of subject.
"Hurts like a bitch."
"I'm not surprised," he said, but refrained from elaborating to keep himself from going into a full-blown lecture; after all, she had practically dived into a crowd of fist-fighting drunks who had ranged from large-ish pigs to steer- in other words, they were all at least twice her size. The fact that he had managed to drag her out of the fight without any major injuries had been a miracle. "So..." He tried to think of something that would catch her interest, but realized her interests were all pretty much encompassed by the previous night. He settled on asking a question, since that usually annoyed her enough to change the topic on her own. "...Where did you learn to urinate while standing?" It was something of a lewd subject, but according to Lin public urination was simply a normal part of drinking.
"I'm self-taught," she informed him proudly. "It's a pretty damn useful skill, I gotta admit."
"I wouldn't go around bragging about that if I were you."
"So that's what she said," Lin replied, sounding as though a great question of hers had been answered.
"...What who said?" He had a feeling that he would regret asking, but his curiosity got the better of him.
"The last girl who saw your junk," she answered, without missing a beat.
"You are a horrible shrew, and you will die bitter and alone." Shifu doubted his poignant observation had done anything more than amuse her, but it was still worth a try.
"That's the plan, anyway." She let out a bark of laughter as she walked up behind him and slapped him on the back a little harder than he would have liked. "Now, I think it's about time you had something to eat." She then placed a bowl full of rice, eggs, cabbage, and some reddish sauce he couldn't identify in front of him.
"What is this?" He picked up his chopsticks and poked tentatively at the food.
She sat down next to him and tutted at him like a mother would do to a small child. "Don't pick- and it's fried eggs over rice with a mild pepper sauce and raw cabbage. It's a hangover-friendly breakfast!"
"In what way?" He still had his doubts about the meal.
"Well, y'see, in addition to dehydration as a result of alcohol consumption, a hangover's also the result of several chemical reactions as your body breaks down the ethanol. For instance, before your body converts ethanol to acetic acid, the ethanol's gotta be converted to acetaldehyde, which is much more toxic 'an alcohol itself-"
"Alright, that's enough-"
"Don't interrupt me," she warned sharply, slapping him again. "Anyway, since you're so impatient, I'll wrap this up quickly. As a result of several other chemical processes you probably wouldn't understand anyway-" she paused to glare at him- "the liver's ability to supply glucose to tissues such as the brain is impaired, resulting in the symptoms of hangover. There's a lotta other factors at work, of course, but I guess you don't wanna hear about all that. The point is, all these foods help your body break down ethanol, thus curbing said symptoms. Now eat."
"How do you even know all that?" He took a bite of the dish, surprised to find that it actually tasted good.
"As a woman, I make it my business to know everything." She haughtily blew on her nails, then rubbed them on the front of her shirt.
He snorted skeptically at her, but made no comment on her proclamation. Obviously, she did not know everything; he was starting to learn that she didn't even take most of her smug posturing seriously, though it still grated on his nerves. He decided that changing the topic again would be a good course of action. "I had better check on Tai Lung." That was actually true, as well; he wondered, though, what he would tell Tai Lung about his uncharacteristic absence in the morning.
"He's in the training hall, just like you'd want him to be," Lin informed him, then miraculously got up and started to clean the kitchen on her own. "I tried to get him to slack off, but he insisted on training." Then, with an impish grin she added, "I also taught him what a hangover is."
"I despise you," Shifu groaned, the throbbing in his head renewed at that information. "It is as if your entire reason for existing is simply to make my life more difficult."
"Man, if I had a yuan for every time I heard that I'd be set for life. Or I'd at least be able to afford some new clothes or something."
The complaint about her current salary was not lost on him. "Yet you could afford a night of heavy drinking," he pointed out.
"Oh! That reminds me!" She suddenly shoved her hand into her belt, produced some type of rag, and tossed it at him.
He caught it, and upon closer inspection found that it very closely resembled the bag he kept his money in, aside from one critical difference- this bag, unlike his, was empty. "...What is this?" he asked slowly, though he already knew.
"Last night was on you." She sounded much giddier than was appropriate for the moment. "I mean, you insisted... After the heart dust, of course." She let out a snort of laughter. "Lightweight."
There were times when she could really make him feel like he was on the verge of an aneurysm- and this was one of them. "You are dead," he threatened, then stood up from the table a bit too quickly and almost fell over from the wave of dizziness that hit him. "Once I get my balance back, that is," he amended when she laughed at him. "And don't think I'll forget about this, either."
"Oh, I'm sure I'll be picking up tiny grains of rice for the rest of the day," she sighed. "But it was worth it." She grabbed a washcloth and walked over to wipe down the table, pausing to give him a somewhat painful flick on the nose. "As the french say, such is life."
"And how would you know what the french say?"
She just rolled her eyes at him in response. "Go check on Tai Lung."
He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at her; as usual, she was hiding something. However, he was not exactly in peak condition, and he did need to speak to Tai Lung, so he would forego his usual barrage of questioning; besides, there were more pressing parts of her past to find out about. "I expect you to meet me in the training hall in ten minutes..." He paused as he remembered what Lin had told him about his shirt; a bath was definitely in order. "Make that twenty." He turned to leave with as much dignity as he could muster, but judging by her quiet snickering behind him, he had not managed to muster a whole lot. He paused in the doorway and turned to glare at her, then asked, "How long does a hangover normally last?"
"That depends on the person and how much they drank," she answered evenly. "But judging by what I've seen so far, yours'll probably last... The whole day. At least. Might go over into tomorrow."
"Wonderful," he grumbled sourly, and ignored her renewed laughter as he walked away as quickly as he possibly could without feeling like the floor was going to drop out from under him. Somehow, he would get her back.
It had been an admittedly trying day thus far. While Shifu's hangover had certainly not made matters any better, it was simply one item on the long list of aggravations that had piled up throughout the day. The trouble had started when he'd gone to check on Tai Lung. The young snow leopard's curiosity had apparently been piqued by whatever Lin had told him, and he'd asked a series of embarrassing questions that had included, but were not limited to: "You're not gonna throw up, are you?", "Is this gonna become a regular thing?", and his personal favorite, "Was last night a date?" He had given Tai Lung so many laps up and down the mountain for that one that he'd be surprised if the boy would ever even be able to look at a stair again.
He had naturally followed up the incident with a proper bath- after all, he had vomited the night before. This had proven to be a very big mistake. Less than halfway through what should have been a relaxing if perfunctory bath, the unthinkable had happened. Lin had walked right in. And to top it all off, she had been completely unfazed- in fact, her exact reaction had been a shrug of her shoulders and a simple proclamation of, "Meh." That one word had hurt his pride more than he cared to admit. She could have thrown him a bone and pretended to be embarrassed. Then he would have at least been able to maintain the illusion that he still possessed something for a woman to get embarrassed about. And that was not the end of her craven desire to humiliate him; when he'd asked her exactly how much she'd seen, she had simply stuck her thumb out, placed it between her legs in a parody of his privates, and laughed. Just thinking about it made him want to take his frustrations out on the training hall's equipment, but he knew that the Jade Palace's budget did not have room for those kinds of repairs.
He might have been able to recover from such horror if not for him returning to the training hall only to find Lin telling an audience of both Tai Lung and Master Oogway, in detail, miming his every movement, about the heart dust incident. It was not that funny, but apparently everyone else seemed to think so. And when he had attempted to break up her little story time in order to actually train her (which he honestly didn't even understand himself- she most certainly did not deserve his help) Master Oogway had been the one to say, "What, we do not get any heart dust from you?" That had killed him a little bit on the inside. It really had.
Of course, no matter what type of grueling exercise he tried to force her through after that, she still took one look at him and let out an amused snort, her mouth turning up into that obnoxious grin of hers. Even when she was picking up grains of rice with chopsticks (more attempting to do so rather than succeeding) she still acted smug. Then she had prepared an unbearably spicy noodle soup for lunch, and upon his complaint she had crassly answered, "It'll make you poop, then you'll feel a lot better."
After that, he had been nearly immobilized by the horrible cramps that had followed. And, in the most unfortunate sense possible, Lin had been right. Thus he had decided that he was in desperate need of meditation, and so while Tai Lung studied one of the thousand scrolls of kung fu (Crane style, to be exact) he had retreated to the training hall, lit a bank of candles, and attempted to get to some level of inner peace.
Needless to say, it was not going well. All he could do was dwell on the stresses that had been piling up throughout the day. He honestly did not know if he could take one more aggravation- and just as he thought that, he suddenly felt a warm weight settle on top of his head.
"What're you doing?" Lin's voice confirmed his dread.
Shifu slowly opened his eyes and glared balefully at the candles laid out in front of him. "I am meditating. You have heard of it, haven't you?" He reached up and grabbed the cup of tea she had balanced on his head and set it down in front of him.
"'Course I hearda meditating," she huffed, poking him in the side of the head. "I just figured it'd kinda break your concentration to say 'inner peace' over and over. It's kinda weird, to be honest."
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, willing himself to not get worked up; after all, it would only agitate the persistent symptoms of his hangover. "I doubt you would know anything about meditating. Have you ever even tried it before?"
"Not the kind you seem to like." She actually sat down next to him, to his utter chagrin.
"What kind is that?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at her; he didn't like where this conversation was going.
"The neurotic kind," she replied casually, then attempted to mimic his pose. "So how d'you do it, exactly? You picture something or blank your mind or whatever?"
"It is not something you should attempt if you aren't serious about it." He waited for her to take the hint and leave, but he had no such luck.
"It's not that I don't take meditation seriously, it's that I don't take you seriously." Then, to add insult to injury, she leaned forward and sniffed at the candles.
"They are not scented!" he snapped. "If all you can do is sit here and insult me, then you need to go."
"Aw, are you still mad at me for making fun of your willy?" she teased with a grin.
He didn't think he could take much more of her; and he was certainly not going to get into an argument with her about his "willy," as she had so elegantly put it. "How many times must I tell you to leave me alone before it sinks in?"
"Okay," she sighed, sounding incredibly put upon. "I'll stop. Now, how d'you do that whole breathing thing or whatnot?"
He could feel his throbbing headache intensify at the mere thought of attempting to meditate with her. "There is no such thing as joint meditation. It is a solitary practice." He hoped that the finality in his tone would end the discussion, but of course his hope was in vain.
"Then how does anyone learn to meditate? Oh, wait, you're talking about the Zeu Buddhism approach, right? If you point at the moon, I won't look at the moon, I'll look at your finger."
He blinked at her, staring for a moment; she was clearly talking about Zen Buddhism, yet she had used the Shanghai dialect term for it- and did not even seem to notice what she had done. "You mean Zen," he corrected slowly, watching her for a reaction.
"Yeah, that's what I said," she replied easily, completely unconcerned.
At first, Shifu was ready to argue with her over the slip-up; of course, he'd suspected that Lin had been lying all along about having never been to Shanghai, and now she had provided him with actual proof of her lie. However, she was acting as though she had said nothing out of the ordinary. Then again, perhaps she saw nothing unusual with using the Shanghai dialect term- she had apparently been all over China, and could have picked the word up anywhere. Still, he knew she'd been to Shanghai- he felt it in his gut.
He decided to go along with her and pretend that he hadn't noticed; to start an argument over something so small would be pointless; she would only make up an excuse or completely deny his accusations, and would only protect her secrets with more determination than ever before. It would be better to let her believe that his suspicion had not been aroused, to get her to let her guard down.
He cleared his throat a bit, and finally spoke. "How do you even know that?" he asked; after all, he was surprised that she was familiar with Zen Buddhism at all.
"I toldya already, I know everything," she replied casually. "Like the story about the Bodhidharma's eyelids-"
"I know that one," he quickly interrupted- the last thing his still-queasy stomach needed was a mental image of someone cutting his own eyelids off. "Why don't you try this with Tai Lung?" he suggested, hoping that it would get her out of his hair.
"I thought you wanted to teach me all this kung fu type of stuff," she argued, stubborn as always.
"And I thought that you didn't want to learn any of it!"
"Well Tai Lung told me to be nice to you," she snapped back.
Shifu blinked, taken aback by the statement. It wasn't just the fact that Tai Lung had told Lin to do something, but that she was actually doing it. And on top of that, it involved an attempt to be nice to him. "You're trying to be nice to me?" To say that he was incredulous would be an understatement.
"Yeah, you're right, it's a waste of time," she grumbled, standing up. "I'll be in my room if you need anything, and you better not go in there-"
"Or you'll kill me and make it look like an accident," he finished. "I know." He rolled his eyes at the empty threat. "Fine, if you can manage to be quiet, feel free to meditate... In the general vicinity." He didn't know why he was letting her stay; it would only end in yet another fight, and that was the last thing he needed at the moment. He supposed that he was just getting soft, but if Tai Lung wanted them to get along, he felt he should at least put in some effort.
Lin raised her eyebrows at him, apparently caught off-guard by his concession. "Yeah?"
"Yes." He knew he was going to regret the decision.
She sat back down and once again mimicked his position, this time with much more accuracy; it was somewhat impressive the way she could copy a pose so well with only a couple of attempts. "So how long does this usually take?"
"A lifetime," he replied shortly, frowning to himself at the fact that he had just complimented her, even if it was only in his thoughts.
She snorted.
"You agreed to be quiet," Shifu reminded her, well aware that she wasn't going to listen to him.
She gave him a thumbs up, then settled back into her meditation position and closed her eyes. Amazingly, she didn't say anything at all after that.
After a couple of minutes, he couldn't resist waving a hand in front of her face, just to be sure. He was relieved to see that she didn't react, and was finally able to relax enough to focus on his own meditation. However, it wasn't long before he was once again interrupted, this time by a single, sudden, loud snore. Shifu slowly opened his eyes and turned toward Lin; of course, she was fast asleep, her head resting on her shoulder and her mouth hanging open. He briefly contemplated leaving her like that, but then again, he didn't want to risk angering her. She did, after all, control his meals. "Lin. Lin." He tried to wake her up gently, but it didn't work. He decided to give her a little push, and she nearly toppled over sideways before catching herself and straightening up with a soft snort.
She blinked her eyes open and peered at him as if she knew exactly what he had done. "I think I reached Nirvana." Then she yawned.
"It is more likely that you were dreaming," he pointed out, raising an eyebrow at her in silent criticism.
"Guess this means I gotta cut my eyelids off," she sighed, her shoulders slumping as if she were actually serious about such a thing. "Damn."
Despite himself, Shifu smiled at the joke. "I think your attempt to 'be nice' was somewhat successful."
"Yeah, don't get used to it," she replied groggily. "Y'know, I think I should do this meditating thing more often."
He snorted at her and frowned. "By 'meditating thing,' do you mean 'taking a nap'?"
She just laughed at him. "That, too. See, lookit how nice I can be!"
"Yes, almost like a normal person," he shot back.
"And while we're on the subject, I just wanna letya know that I didn't mean to embarrass you too much earlier, y'know, when I got the free show." She elbowed him and let out a lecherous chuckle as he blushed at the memory. "It's just that nudity isn't really a big deal for me. I mean, it's not like it's anything I ain't seen before. Many, many, many times before."
That last tidbit hurt to hear more than he could have ever expected. Although, he really had no reason to believe her, except for her deadpan reaction to seeing him naked. "...Thank you," he grumbled sarcastically. "That makes me feel so much better."
"I'm just saying," she went on, feeding on his discomfort as always. "I mean, the nude form is perfectly natural. Well, depending on how grotesque the man is- and I've seen some grotesque ones." She paused and wrinkled her nose as she apparently recalled these instances. "Then again, every now and then there're men who really put the awwww in 'au naturale' if you get my drift. I remember this one time-"
"Now would be a good time to put an end to your words in my ears," Shifu interrupted, rubbing at his forehead to try to relieve the sudden pain there. The last thing he needed to hear about was Lin's sex life.
"Anyway, my point was, you're around the middle." She held out her hand flat in front of her and squinted, as if viewing some sort of imaginary gauge. "Like, on a scale of one to ten... A solid five. Maybe five and a half."
"Wow." He had thought that there was no possible way she could have humiliated him any more in that one day, but once again she had topped herself. "That was beautiful. Almost like a poem."
She punched him in the arm, as was her habit as of late. "Oh, relax. You really gotta learn how to take a joke. Besides, I feel as though we've really bonded in the past twenty-four hours. We drank together, I tucked you in like a little baby, saw your cash and prizes, and you went more 'an thirty seconds without shouting at me or threatening to beat me up. Yet I feel like there's something missing..."
He could tell there was a joke coming, but unfortunately he was too slow to cut her off.
She held her hand palm up, as if she were holding something in it, and then blew in his direction. "This is my heart dust."
His eye twitched a little bit at the joke. "Start running."
"Well, I better get started on dinner." She gave him a pat on the back as she stood up, as though he had just said something completely low key and amicable; then again, for them, it might as well have been. "Good luck with your quest for inner peace. Try not to strain any inner muscles."
"Your wit is so razor sharp that I fear I may cut myself on it," he replied flatly.
She simply gave him a light swat on the back of his head. "Drink your tea before it gets cold," she ordered, then walked away.
He turned to glare at her back a moment, then picked up his tea and took a sip; it was oolong, yet there was a bit of a floral taste to it. He blinked, surprised by that particular twist.
"It's rose!" Lin called from outside the training hall doorway, as if she had known exactly what he'd been thinking.
He hated when she did that.
Unfortunately, he was starting to realize that he didn't necessarily hate everything she did.
Lin flopped down into her bed with a loud sigh and rolled onto her stomach; it was one of the amenities she would miss most once it was time to leave the Jade Palace. She had never been able to have such a comfortable bed, and doubted that she ever would again, so she might as well enjoy it. Besides, it was pretty late at night and she needed a break from all the "training" Shifu had been putting her through. To be fair, he was technically right every time he complained that he was only doing what she had asked him to, but she didn't see why he felt justified in insisting that she treat him any differently. It wasn't like she was his kung fu student or anything.
She had at least taken Tai Lung's advice and attempted to be somewhat nice to him; it actually hadn't turned out too bad, either. And she supposed she owed it to Shifu to show just a glimmer of kindness. After all, she did like him, despite how much she loved to start fights with him, or how much he tended to aggravate her. Sure, he was stubborn and neurotic, and took everything way too seriously, but he was funny in his own way, he was dedicated to what he loved, and he was a good man. Not that she liked that sort of thing.
Besides, he had been a hilarious drunk. And once the alcohol had taken the edge off, he'd been much easier to talk to. He actually had been willing to have a serious discussion with her, rather than dismissing whatever she said as either an outright lie or a joke. And he'd known a few things, too (not as much as she did, of course). At least, he'd been able to carry an intelligent conversation for the first hour of the night. After that... Well, seeing him projectile vomit had been well worth the cleanup afterward. And she had been able to milk so much amusement out of his hangover, as well. She'd also be lying if she said that she hadn't enjoyed seeing him naked, as much as she'd made fun of him at the time.
She was thinking too much again, and she knew it. What she really needed to do was focus on important things, like her budget, her impending journey west, or even the progress she was making with her left hand. Speaking of which, she supposed it couldn't hurt to give her calligraphy another try. She'd been at it for most of the night, but then again there was a reason she ran on a thirty-six hour schedule- she liked to get things done. So, with a low grunt, she pushed herself out of her bed and sat down on the floor, which was strewn with dozens and dozens of pages covered in her previous attempts. She grabbed a brush and her still-wet ink, a fresh piece of paper, and steeled herself for disappointment.
With a deep breath, Lin set the brush down on the paper and attempted to make a straight line. And, amazingly, she succeeded. She paused, glancing incredulously back and forth between her left hand and the paper; she couldn't believe that she'd actually been able to do it. It hadn't been too long ago when the result would have been a wobbly mess. She decided to go even further; she dipped her brush in ink, then carefully drew the character for "man" (the first she had ever learned) in her usual bold calligraphy style.
And it looked right. It looked as though she had actually written the character, rather than a half-dead, palsied version of herself. "Ha!" she exclaimed in her excitement, and began to form entire sentences. They all looked right, and her hand didn't shake once.
She knew, of course, what this meant. It meant that she was going to have to thank Shifu. While normally such a task would fill her with dread, and she would only carry it out with great reluctance, this time was different. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd been so elated; she felt as though she might burst, in a good way. She actually wanted to thank him, she wanted to share this feeling; in fact, if he had been sitting beside her right at that moment she would have kissed him full on the mouth.
She managed to calm herself down after that particular sentiment crossed her mind; that wouldn't do at all. Still, she had to do something. At least go tell him that she was actually grateful for the torture he'd put her through. With a decisive nod to herself, she tossed her brush on the floor and stood to leave her room; she would find Shifu right at that moment and tell him precisely that, and she would not be overcome with emotion of any kind. She liked to think she at least had some self-control, after all.
Not for the first time, Shifu found himself completely unable to sleep. His queasiness earlier in the day had kept him from eating as much as he normally did, and now that he was feeling better he was also getting hungry. And, as loathe as he was to admit it, he wanted something sweet. The last thing he wanted to do, though, was to walk down the hall and ask Lin to make him one of her many treats (perhaps that thing with the bananas) after he had argued with her over how unhealthy dessert was. Well, that was actually only the second to last. The real last thing he wanted to do was sit up hungry all night because he'd been too much of a wimp to suck it up and ask Lin to make him a midnight snack. He could probably attempt something himself, but he knew that if he put even the littlest thing out of place Lin would have his head; she was very territorial when it came to the kitchen, and was overprotective of her organizational system, to say the least. Besides, he wasn't a very good cook. He would never be able to make a dessert like she could make it, and admitting that much didn't hurt his pride. He was a kung fu master, so what use did he have for a skill like cooking? And there was nothing wrong with admitting that someone was good at what she did, even if that person was Lin.
That was when he realized exactly how he could convince her to make him something: with flattery. In the time he had known Lin it had become quite obvious that she was far from immune from a well-placed compliment. He had watched many times as she had made a complete three-sixty from enraged to complacent at the slightest word of praise from Tai Lung. The technique had even seemed to work for Master Oogway on occasion. Shifu realized that attempting to flatter Lin into making something for him would be rather manipulative, but he also realized that in the time he had spent contemplating his options he had become too hungry to care. Besides, if he did drop a comment or two on how good her cooking was, it certainly wouldn't be a lie.
He stood up and walked out of his room, his mind made up; he was going to march right up to Lin's door and ask her to make something for him. It was her job, after all, and after she'd spent the better part of the day making fun of him she didn't really have anything to complain about. He was perfectly within his rights to ask her for dessert. And even if she did get angry with him, he had nothing to worry about; he had fought with her before and he could fight with her again.
Shifu stopped in front of Lin's door and instantly had second thoughts- who was he kidding, anyway? He had been losing the upper hand in their constant struggle for the good part of a month, and now he was acting as though she were his mother or something of the sort, seeking her out for a snack in the middle of the night. He felt like a child just thinking of it. She probably wouldn't appreciate being bothered so late at night, either, although judging from the light coming from inside her room she was still awake. It was a bad idea, interrupting her in- whatever it was that she did, and it was even worse to admit that he actually needed her for something, no matter how trivial. He decided to forget it and leave when her door suddenly swung open and Lin stepped out, then stopped short to avoid walking straight into him.
"Oh, uh, hello," he greeted, wondering what to say now that he'd been caught. Perhaps she'd been on her way to the kitchen, anyway. "I just wanted to... Uh, could you maybe... Make some dessert? Please?" He supposed that since they had run into each other anyway, he might as well ask her.
Then, out of nowhere, she threw her good arm around his shoulders and yanked him toward her; before he even knew what was happening he found himself in the middle of a hug, of all things.
"...Is this a yes?" He was confused, to say the least; it wasn't often that he found himself in such a situation, and the last person whose warm embrace he would have expected to be in was Lin's, at any time of the day or night. He knew she had a softer side, of course, but to experience it so intimately- and there was really no other word to describe the feeling of her pressed up against him, her breath tickling his neck- was entirely different. He managed to snap out of his shock long enough to reach up and awkwardly pat her on the back, for lack of a better response.
Just as suddenly as the hug had happened it ended. "Oh, uh, sorry," Lin sputtered out as she pushed him away so forcefully that he thought for a second she might actually attempt to throw him across the hall. "I just was going to, y'know, find you... And... Hug you inappropriately. And now that I'm done, I'll just go back to my room and, uh, sleep. G'night." She practically ran into her room, slamming the door.
Shifu just stood there, dumbfounded. "Okay," he replied belatedly, then realized that it was probably weird to still be standing outside her door. He headed back to his own room, no longer hungry and still confused as to what had just happened. After all, he had never received any sort of physical contact from Lin that wasn't either intentionally annoying, violent, accidental, or a combination of the three. An outright hug from her, one that had come with absolutely no prompting whatsoever, was monumental.
Perhaps she was finally showing some modicum of gratitude toward him for all he'd done for her in the past weeks. And while he would admit no such thing, even under pain of torture, they had bonded a little bit at the bar. He once again swore to himself that he would never have another drop of alcohol as long as he lived as he thought back on that exceedingly strange night. She'd probably only dragged him along with her so she would have one more thing to hold over his head.
As he thought of that, it occurred to him that Lin's unexpected embrace could have had an ulterior motive to it, as well. He wasn't sure exactly how she could possibly use the hug against him, but if anyone could turn a gesture of affection into blackmail material, it was Lin. Yet somehow he wasn't inclined to actually believe that. Whatever reason she may have had for throwing her arm around him, the gesture had felt genuine.
He shook his head at himself as he walked into his room; it was bad enough that he'd just thought of something as "feeling" genuine, but he must have been losing it if he was basing his judgement on that. Perhaps he was just beginning to trust her as Master Oogway had urged him to do, but in a way that was even worse. After all, she was hiding something from him- from all of them- and no matter how she tried to butter him up by being "nice" to him or hugging him he could never lose sight of that.
But maybe he was being too harsh. Maybe there really was nothing of note in Lin's past, maybe she really was just trying to get along with him, and maybe she really had just embraced him out of an admittedly justified sense of gratitude toward him.
He snorted to himself even as he considered that possibility; sure, and maybe the Mongols just really wanted to be friends with the Chinese and frolic together through the fertile steppes. He would be keeping just as vigilant an eye on her as ever, and if in the process he was subjected to more impromptu embraces, then that was a sacrifice he was willing to make. For the greater good, of course.
A/N: I actually feel kind of bad for Shifu, for once. Not bad enough to stop abusing him, but still. Maybe he'll get just a little revenge. Also, that scented candle joke is probably my favorite in the whole fic... I had it written from the beginning and have been waiting anxiously to finally use it.
I know Zen Buddhism is the Japanese term (Ch'an being the Mandarin), but since the creators often refer to Shifu as "the least Zen Zen Master," and Zen is the term that's generally used in English, I decided to go with that.
As for next chapter, expect to see Lin finally get that sling off, and Tai Lung will consult Oogway on the sensitive matter of romance.