Oh wow. Didn't expect people to be turning into to this weird pairing of mine. Oh well, I'm happy either way!
But first, let's answer a review!
Geraze90: Thank you! I pride myself on doing left-field pairings. I find it much more fun to jump through hoops for my ships that make zero sense to anyone but me and just do what I want to make it work!
Glad you like it so far though!
On the day when that circus would come to Metro City, a mild storm hit the area. Gusts of wind threw endless rain against the windows in endless, relentless patter. The abode was in an old building so the gale whistled through the cracks. And so did the cold. Ken shuddered as he entered through the front door with a motorcycle helmet under his arm. Used from the looks of it. It was the sign Juri had been waiting for as she grabbed the keys.
The rain refused to let up once they hit the streets, but it didn't deter Juri while she ignited the engine of her motorcycle and hopped on. Less than two feet away, Ken stood and stared at the machine before he tentatively took a seat behind her. He had to wrap his arms around her stomach as they drove off, racing down the street, past traffic, past happy families wanting to enjoy the day in each other's company.
Adrenaline filled Juri, and a sense of purpose drew her forward down the path of the life she knew. The motorcycle came to a stop in a packed parking lot that stood next to a massive, fenced-in circus tent.
They entered the cue before a family of five but stood trapped behind a family of seven. Both were filled with young children in the single digits. Maybe double. Juri's patience ran thin, and she sort of hoped for some solidarity when she looked at Ken, even though she knew it was unfeasible. He had a pained look on his face but for different reasons. He looked like shit, he probably felt like shit.
But what did she care for his feelings?
A young boy bumped into her by the time they reached the ticket booth. He stopped and stared at her, and she glared death and murder at the brat. Ken bought the tickets but the placid conversation with the teenager in the ticket booth was lost on Juri as a mother stepped in to pull her child away.
"Sorry, he didn't see you. Ain't that right, honey?" she smiled, polite apologies highlighting the dimples around her mouth.
"He has eyes, doesn't he? He could use 'em," Juri answered flatly.
Immediately, she felt Ken stare a hole into her back. She knew; it was a dumb, rhetorical question. It was the type of inquiry a person would make when they were ready to pick an argument. When they were pissed off for whatever reason and needed to take it out on someone smaller.
The mother blanched, a little breathless with surprise, probably not used to having strangers pick fights with her. She looked like one of those unreal people in stock photos. Some perverted joy filled Juri at the woman's discomfort, evaporated by a hand landing on her shoulder with a firm grip.
"Sorry, ma'am. Just a minor case of foot-in-mouth disease," Ken interjected warmly, untangling the tension by sheer willpower alone.
The mother snapped her eyes to him, and her dumb brat looked less ready to urinate himself. Juri looked at Ken as well, finding herself situated between curious and irritated. The mother shared her child away and Ken let them pass before he guided her deeper inside the tent. They found a seat on a bench furthest in the back that stood mostly isolated from the number of children and parents present.
"Maybe don't pick a fight with little kids. Jesus Christ," Ken leaned into Juri and whispered those words. She couldn't help but roll her eyes.
"He could have said sorry, and I wouldn't have said anything."
Mirth broke Ken's stern expression under his hood. "Since when did you care about manners?"
"Hm," Juri shrugged. "Good point, Kenneth."
At some point, she was going to run out of names to call him which started with Ken.
The circus acts did little to amuse Juri. And Ken. Mostly it entertained the developing brains of children. It was the standard fare; animals doing tricks, line dancers, athletes on trapezes not falling to their deaths and snapping their necks. Most interesting, was the presence of the ringmaster, Phillippe. Back on the pinboard, the image of him was a mugshot taken after the final fall of the Mad Gear Gang.
Well not final since they were revived yet again.
Anyway, Phillippe had been stripped of his red nose and makeup in the mugshot. He was balding and looked exceedingly creepy. Like a stereotypical freak driving past schools in a white van, waiting to lure children into his maw. Which was ironic as his crimes were wholly drug and weapons-related. The clown getup just highlighted the creepiness.
No wonder he was in a circus. As a ringmaster, he had a way about him that was probably required for a man in his position; outgoing, articulate, and charismatic. Quite dramatic too. Gentle and patient with children although he probably shouldn't be anywhere near them.
Quite bored, Juri looked at Ken looking at…somewhere else. Someone. She didn't get too invested in that, keeping her eyes locked on him. Noting how his body grew tense. Noting how stiffly he sat on the wooden bench. Then she finally traced the source, further down on another bench, situated between an elderly man with his granddaughter and some kid approaching adolescence.
A brown-haired woman with her hair in two buns. For a while, Juri saw nothing special about her – until she raised her arm to tuck some brown hair behind the ear of the teenage girl that was with her. Spiked cuffs were on the woman's hands, just as real as Juri remembered them.
Oh. Juri wasn't expecting to see the little Interpol lady ever again.
As the event came to an end, guests moved in droves to leave. Everyone except Juri and Ken. Chun-Li and her overgrown pet semen moved with the flow of the crowd, but she must have felt the probing of eyes staring at her for she looked upwards towards the pair for but a second. Ken was one with the shadows under his hood so she only spotted Juri – and hurried her child out of the tent like they were moments away from being mauled.
The ringmaster remained in the middle of his stage, looking at the empty benches until his eyes rested on the pair. Like on cue. Like they were being invited. Juri could feel hesitation radiate off Ken on account of Chun-Li's presence. Maybe he sat and listened after any signs of her remaining somewhere nearby. Juri hopped off the bench without any such precautions, passing many more before she climbed over the wall to the ring and neared the creepy clown.
"Can I 'elp you?" Phillippe asked, his very thick Cockney accent lacing his voice with such force like a slap across the face. "The show is already over, bird. I could give ya an autograph though."
Time for the encore, Juri thought. Confusion belied the smirk on Phillippe's face, but narcissism almost masked it. This was a man who lived for the spotlight, only tentatively sharing it with other performers for the sake of money. Grandiose much in the same way as Bison – was. But better at hiding the megalomania. Juri wouldn't come to such conclusions if she didn't know the clown was a notorious criminal.
"Sure," Juri lifted her eyebrow in open mockery. If Ken wasn't going to take charge, then she would. "Suppose you could also tell me what you do with all your smuggled goods?"
To this, Phillippe blanched. His smile remained, unnervingly so, but something in his eyes change. It was as if he was working in real-time to construct the perfect deflection and construct it well enough for her to buy it. She didn't.
"I got goods. I 'ave me animals."
Not even a deflection. Just a stupid statement.
Phillippe had dark eyes. Black hollows that lacked life. Voids like on his mugshot, which wasn't even that old. A valueless grifter with no sense of honor. Those empty eyes of his moved upwards just slightly, right above Juri's head. Right at something or more likely someone moving behind or above her. Probably Ken making his dramatic introduction. Somehow it him to clench his fists around the cane in his hands.
His inattention was the cue for Juri to strike.
She lurched at the clown, and he retaliated with a smack across her temple with his cane. The impact staggered her momentarily, enough for the clown to dart for the opening at the other end of the tent. Agile, he was, sprinting at a speed faster than Juri could keep up as she chased after him.
They made it past the backrooms of the circus, past the curtains, past props, tarps, tools, and benches, past clear light. Into the darkness and the whipping rain. Running to the point where Juri wondered where they were going, across gravel roads and past steel pipes and wagons.
She was half-expecting Ken to run past her since this was his journey. She expected something or someone to try and stop her by getting in the way up front. She wasn't quite expecting something to hit her from behind in the blink of an eye – then the full weight of a body that sent her stumbling forwards into the gravel. Juri's head smacked against a nearby railing for the wagons where some animals stood. She hardly noticed the smell of elephant excrement, even as the impact was hard enough to make her see stars.
Juri and whoever her attacker was rolled and shoved across the dirt, the rain, puddles, and pebbles until she ended up pinned to the ground where she had her arms twisted in a double wristlock and her cheek smashed into small rocks. Under the pounding rain, Juri heard nothing but her own heartbeat and her lungs burning for air behind her chest, trying to recover from the impact.
When her vision cleared and adjusted to the dimness, she looked over her shoulder and saw that her attacker wore brown buns on top of a woman's head and a stern, furious expression twisting her conventionally attractive features. The sight of her caused Juri's vision to glow red.
"What did you do? What the fuck did you do?!" she snapped, bristling at the equally biting counter she received.
"What the fuck were you thinking attacking a ringmaster for a circus?!"
"He was my prey!"
"Ugh, you never change!" Chun-Li growled. "And here I thought you were beginning to turn a new leaf."
"Yeah, well. Thanks to you, I just might not."
Chun-Li kept her grip but not to the point of pain. Pain wasn't her goal. She was just sort of…controlling Juri, pinning her down and keeping her in place. Either until she had calmed down or provided sufficient answers. With those lawfully good types, sufficient answers usually meant jail time after a long dance with juries and judges. Still, Juri relented, swallowing her pride just enough to ignore her base instincts of fighting back and clawing eyes out. Besides, her joints were beginning to ache from the constriction.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Chun-Li asked with something between confusion, suspicion, and distaste. The silenced stretched, the rain poured but in the stormy weather, a singular voice brought an end to this charade.
"It means she's with me," Ken said in a faint huff like he had been running. Took him long enough.
Chun-Li looked upwards into the dimness with a disbelieving expression. That voice must have rung some bells in her memory bank. Weren't they buds? Juri didn't recall Ken ever mentioning any of his comrades except in passing.
"…Ken?" Chun-Li uttered and all about forgot the woman in her grasp. She rose to her feet with her arms moving between wanting to embrace him and keeping them straight down the length of her body. "Oh my god…you've been here all this time."
"If an investigation is required, I'll cooperate. But the last thing I need is your help," Ken didn't even attempt to match her gentle approach; guarded and shielded like the night when he released Juri from chains.
Astonished, Chun-Li gave him an incredulous yet partly wounded glance. She closed herself off by folding her arms over her chest. "But you're willing to let Han Juri help and set her loose to attack circus workers. Optics, Ken."
The words came out snarkier than she intended, and she softened the blow by releasing her arms to dangle alongside her sides. "Sorry. I know you were framed for what happened in Nayshall. I know you're trying to set the record straight."
Despite Chun-Li's forthright sympathy for Ken's struggles, the reminder, the echo of what had occurred, and the implication, unintentional or otherwise, of what had been lost struck Ken in a way that brought abject gloom over him. She knew the details, but she probably didn't know all of them, did she?
"I'm not in Interpol anymore so don't worry about an investigation. I will help you though because you're my friend," she smiled into the ensuing silence. It was frankly a bit nauseating.
"How touching," Juri couldn't help but quip as she stood up. Her face prickled from the pebbles once embedded into her skin.
"Please, shut up," Chun-Li snapped without looking in her direction. Her attention remained mostly, now fully, on Ken. "It'll be challenging with Juri around but I bet there's a reason why she's here."
She managed to evince a desire for an explanation that Ken ignored outright as he shook his head.
"Chun-Li, you shouldn't…you don't need to burden yourself with my struggles. You can't afford to," he answered with an implication of his own. That she would get hurt. That she'd be known as a terroristic enabler – at least until the truth was out, however it may look like.
"Yeah well, I'm gonna stick around," Chun-Li ignored the subtle warning. "Now shall we go somewhere dry so I can get the intel?"
As it turned out, the teenager that Chun-Li dragged with her was not her actual child but someone whom she adopted – and subsequently trained in martial arts. Li-Fen was her name, a teenage girl who was enamored with Chun-Li to the point of even having the same hairstyle. It was…well it was a thing, Juri concluded. It did nothing to her.
It did weird things to Ken.
It was the way he'd look at Chun-Lin interacting with Li-Fen. Not so much the brat herself. It was the bond between mother and daughter, between parent and child. Something painfully nostalgic. It was plain for all to see if they paid attention but to Ken's credit, he didn't attempt to hide it except when he introduced himself to Li-Fen.
The young girl had looked him up and down until it must have occurred to him that they had met at one point. Probably on the final raid of the Shadaloo base. The young girl was a little more tentative towards Juri but then again, Juri didn't bother with endearing herself. Not like she looked friendly either with rain, dirt, and blood staining her skin and clothes. Still, Li-Fen chose to believe her adopted mother when she was told that Juri could be trusted.
As the clock ticked closer to late night, it was determined that they would have to pick up from where they left off tomorrow. Apparently, an easy process as Chun-Li and her kid were on vacation in Metro City. Ken had reluctantly agreed and Juri was going through the motions. She could imagine the occasional spats that would come from this so she hoped Ken could withstand women occasionally bickering. Especially women who were rivals.
It didn't seem to cross Ken's mind however, not even as they returned to the abode and he got busy with patching up Juri's new headwound, going with her collection of fading marks. There was sort of a dejection in the way he moved, probably from the failure of tonight's mission.
"So?" Juri prompted while she pressed a dishtowel of ice cubes against her cheek – that cheek that collided with the ground. It had already begun to swell.
"So?" Ken echoed, confused, trying to fight his disinterest on account of his tiredness. Weary or not, he was meticulous in dabbing the wound on her forehead with ointment. She could do it herself, but he was better at tending to wounds.
"What's what you? Leering at the not-Interpol lady and her kid?"
Ken chuckled into a legit laugh, hiding his strong anguish. Gently, he carded his hands through the fringes of Juri's hair, combing it out of the way and pushing it back in place to inspect the gash behind hooded blue eyes.
"Since when did you care about my feelings?"
"I don't. I just need to catalog your destruction. For science."
"Yeah, yeah," he sighed, still smirking. He swept her hair back in place and she found it odd how his touches still lingered across her skin. They tended to do that.
Maybe her mind was remembering what it felt like to be touched when someone didn't intend to hurt her.