Chapter 16
"You know that I seriously hate you right now?" Leifang asked her.
They were sitting down on a bench a little bit outside of Grizzly Gulch, having just completed their third run on the Mountain Runaway and the German's mood was on a total high whereas her friend looked like she lost a few years of her lifespan up there, so pale was her face.
It had taken a lot of convincing but in the end the Chinese had caved in and accompanied her friend on the ride. Big mistake, at least for her. The first time had been fine, but after the second time, Hitomi noted, that her face was starting to turn white and after the third she had all but threatened her to stop or she would beat her up right there, and it wouldn't even be the first time she did that.
Hitomi shrugged and took a bite of the snack that she had bought on the way to the bench, smiled and offered her friend to try it too.
"Ugh, no thanks." Leifang said and tried not to look while she was eating, the white turning slightly green, and holding a hand to her lips. "I think I won't be eating anything today."
"Fought some of the toughest martial artists of the world but can't stomach a ride like that, what are the odds?." she muttered and dug in, amused at her friend, pulled the map out opening it dexterously with one hand and checked her watch.
"Well excuse me if I don't make it a habit of going into amusement parks!" Leifang complained, glaring at her but lacking any real fire behind it.
"Don't be such a baby," she said and swallowed the last of her snack, putting the paper plate and plastic cutlery into the trash bin and folded the map back together, glaring back. "Besides if you can complain then you must be feeling better."
They glared at each other for a moment, then stuck out their tongues, blowing raspberries at each other and broke out into laughter, the Chinese starting to look a bit better now. "Just promise me to never take me on one of these rides again."
"I promise," she put her hand over her breast where her heart was and added, grinning cheekily. "Cross my heart and hope to die and all that. We can pinky swear too if you want." She held out her pinky to emphasize what she said, wiggling it playfully.
Leifang huffed and slapped the hand aside, but couldn't help herself and smiled. "All right I believe you. So you've been checking your watch, what does that mean?"
"Well I want to see the Festival of the Lion King." She told her simply.
"The what now?" Leifang asked, raising a puzzled brow.
"You know, the Lion King, the story about Simba, that cute little lion." She said then did her best at mimicking the voice. "'I'm gonna be king of Pride Rock!'. 'Hakuna Matata!'."
The Chinese could only shake her head, looking at the Karateka blankly. "Sorry."
"Are you seriously telling me you don't know 'The Lion King'?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Sheesh, what did you do in your childhood?" She asked incredulously, not believing that her friend didn't know about one of the most basic child movies ever.
"Playing with my friends in school, reading Chinese literature, taking piano lessons and practicing martial arts, add to that the fact that my parents didn't go out of their way to make me watch Disney movies. And when I had time on my hands to actually go watch one I was too old for something like that."
"Well I learned Karate from a very young age too and-" she halted and looked at her friend, narrowing her eyes. "Hey, what do you mean 'something like that'?"
"Those kind of movies are for children, are they not?" Leifang shrugged. Hitomi jumped to her feet immediately, narrowing her eyes even more, and grabbed her friend's hand, all but dragging her along with her as she headed to the big building looking like a straw hut, ignoring the stare that they got from the other visitors.
"No they are not, those are movies for the whole family and everyone can watch them." The German explained adamantly, as they stopped directly in front of the building, where a few other people were waiting for the next show. "And the next time you're gonna visit me we'll be watching a few of these 'Children's movies'" She lifted her hands and formed quotation marks with pointer and middle-finger on both hands.
"That's sounds like a threat." Leifang giggled and gave her friend a charming smile, making Hitomi flush a little at how she acted. "So does that mean I'm allowed to visit you again?"
Hitomi chuckled and scratched the back of her head. "Yeah, I guess I just gave you permission."
"Great!"
"Just make sure to tell me beforehand this time."
"Oh, believe me, I will. Or else my feet will kill me again."
"Hmm, I could always give you another foot massage." Hitomi joked.
"Watch out what you say, I might just pick you up on that offer." Leifang winked at her and nodded to the door that was just opened for the visitors to enter. "Now let's go and see what that fuss about King Lions is all about."
"It's 'Lion King'!"
After a few more moments the two spent the next twenty five minutes watching a simplified version of the Lion King in form of song, dance, puppetry and visual effects. The visitors were seated in four rows, each named after an animal: Warthog, Giraffe, Elephant and Lion.
Hitomi and Leifang were sitting in the Elephant row and the German was surprised that the show was actually in English, though two of the actors that were dressed like monkeys summarized what was being said and there were subtitles being projected onto the screens above each seating section so that no one would be left out of the experience.
Through the whole show the German was walking down her own personal memory lane, remembering perfectly how her parents had taken her to the nearest cinema for the very first time to watch exactly this movie. And while she simply loved the movie it was this memory that made it her favorite.
She didn't notice the small smile on her friend's lips when she found herself singing along to Hakuna Matata.
"So what did you think?" she asked Leifang as they left the building and walked at a casual pace through Adventure Land.
"I'd be lying if I said I got it," Leifang said, then gave her friend a teasing look. "But at least I understand what was up with that 'Grrr!' back in the Circus. Someone's very fond of lions."
Hitomi had to think a little, but yeah she did tease Eliot that way after they had checked out the Circus, too bad there were only Tigers. "You'll get it once we see the movie at my place."
"I look forward to it." Leifang said genuinely, folding her arms under her chest and cocking her head to the side. "So where to next?"
Hitomi pulled out the map of the park and looked it over for a moment before tipping onto a location while saying. "Toy Story Land sounds good right now."
"The what land?"
Hitomi simply rolled her eyes.
A few days had passed since their trip to Disneyland. The Chinese had to all but drag Hitomi out of there later that day, as it was starting to get late and after some initial pouting the Karateka had agreed and they left.
To make things up to her friend Leifang had decided to show her some of the major tourist attractions of Hong Kong. With that she led Hitomi through Wan Chai straight to the Bowen Street, which they followed for a few minutes, being passed by joggers and people taking their dogs on a walk until Leifang pulled her off road and onto a track that led them up a hill.
Walking on the track for a few more minutes the two of them stopped when they saw a granite monolith, about 9 meter high and aligned in a 60 degree angle. Hitomi looked around, a few were standing around it, some standing closer to it, burning joss sticks or lighting candles as well as offering a bit of money to the small open air temple nearby before praying to it.
"This is what we call the Yan Yuen Sek," Leifang explained to her, tapping a finger against her chin, trying to remember something. "Now what was it called again in English... Ah doesn't matter. Over there we have a great view of the Victoria Harbour and-"
Hitomi had already drowned out what her friend was telling her and walked towards the small temple.
This must be like one of those temples Mama had told me about she thought to herself, remembering how her mother had told her that they would visit a temple one day together and she felt a small tug at her heart as she stopped in front of it, halting for a moment before pulling out some money and offering it to the temple. She then climbed the stairs to the stone to pray alongside the other people there, who interestingly consisted only of women.
A lady in her 40s stood beside her, muttering a prayer in Mandarin. Hitomi put her hands together and closed her eyes, opting to pray in silence. She did so for a few minutes until a giggle from behind her made her open her eyes and look over her shoulder.
Her friend was standing there, a hand raised to her face and a grin on her lips, shoulders shaking in laughter that she seemed to hold back.
"What?" Hitomi asked and furrowed her eyebrows.
"Do you know what you are praying for?" The question made Hitomi blink in confusion, drop out of her praying posture and turn around to look directly at her friend.
"Health and good luck, right?"
This made her friend burst into laughter, earning some looks from a few people that weren't busy praying.
What's so funny? She thought and asked the same once her friend had calmed enough to answer.
"I remember what people call this place in English," Leifang told her, shoulder still shaking. "It's called Lover's Rock. People, especially women, come to pray here for a happy marriage and fertility."
"Oh." was all Hitomi could say as she looked over to the rock, and now that she thought about it the shape did look like a- She flushed immediately as soon as the thought crossed her mind.
Leifang burst into laughter again, but unlike the other times she had heard the Chinese laughing it sounded, in that very moment, beautiful and made the Karateka feel less embarrassed than she would normally have been, making her join in with a small laughter of her own.
After her friend had finally calmed down they took the bus to St. John's Cathedral from where they took the famous Peak Tram that brought them up to the Victoria Peak, or simply called The Peak by the residents.
As they made their way to one of the highest lookouts Leifang explained to her that this area of The Peak was very popular with wealthy folks and that a lot of them had houses here and when Hitomi asked why her parents didn't she replied that with all the tourism in the area they decided to have their estate a bit more out of the public eye.
"Besides, Father always says that people who live here are a bunch of posers that need to show off their wealth where everyone can see it." Leifang told her as they approached one of the many public parks that inhabited the areas around the actual summit, which was closed to the public.
They stopped and looked down the mountain, directly at the Kowloon area, but the German found herself looking at the Chinese, watching as her braids moved with the wind, then looked directly at her face, taking in her features, the shape of her lips, the soft curl of her brows. Again the German found herself rather envious of her friend's beauty.
The Chinese turned her gaze towards her, noticing that she was staring and smiled at her, which the Karateka returned with one of her own before looking at the scenery, unconsciously moving closer to her friend who, if she noticed, didn't say anything and with every breath she could smell her friend's perfume.
Despite it being rather cool up here because of the wind she could feel herself growing quite warm.
Hakuna Matata, pfft. More like Can you Feel the Love Tonight if I have any say in this!
And isn't Hitomi just cute? Wonder if that rock will help in that healthy relationship department.
See you next week.