The Shooting Star

K’s brisk stride faltered, resulting in him falling behind briefly until he lengthened his pace to catch back up to the older man. Him, a model? Seriously? “…….. You’re joking, right?” The look he shot Benimaru was some strange mixture of annoyed and flabbergasted. Somebody had smacked the model upside the head hard enough to rattle his brains, surely. Because why else would he think K’ of all people would be cut out for modelling, let alone even want to do it in the first place? There was a defensive edge to his tone as he added, “And the hell’s that ‘sposed to mean? I look fine!” He’d showered just this morning, so he was squeaky clean! And his clothes - which were the exact same ones he’d worn yesterday - weren’t all that dirty, considering he hadn’t done anything more strenuous than shuffling away from naps on the couch to grab snacks or use the bathroom. They weren’t stinky, just kind of wrinkled. Admittedly, he hadn’t really been bothered to wash his hair the past couple of days, resulting in a bit of greasiness… But at least the perpetual bags under his eyes were less noticeable than usual due to a random bout of a couple of night’s worth of decent, mostly uninterrupted, sleep. Overall, he thought he looked okay enough for a regular day out. He definitely didn’t look his best, sure, but he certainly didn’t look his worst. Now that would’ve been a nightmare to look at. Nevermind the fact he didn’t actually care to bolster his atrocious social skills. He was more than content to stay quiet, and stick to communicating strictly with people he knew and could tolerate if he could help it, thanks very much. “Could you seriously not have asked me for a less annoying favour?” Like sparring partners, for instance, which he would’ve been totally fine with. He jabbed his gauntleted finger at the agency building, indicating the image of the model that was quite possibly Benimaru…. maybe. “I mean… I don’t even know the first thing about this shit!”

K’ had had… a premonition, of sorts, when he woke up this morning. Some sort of mild sense of foreboding. It’d plagued him for a good couple of hours, bugging the hell out of him, until somebody started knocking on the apartment door. At which point the foreboding intensified. They didn’t get visitors often, and rarely was it somebody outside of the tight-knit little family circle of people he knew and kept in regular contact with. So when Benimaru’s grinning face greeted him on the other side of the door, asking for a favour, K’ had slammed the door in his face. Or tried to, anyhow. The model had jammed his foot in before he could complete the action. He’d looked smug about it. And become smugger still when Maxima noted their guest and cheerfully booted him out of the apartment, thereby forcing him to comply with whatever request it was that the model required his assistance with. Assholes. Both of them. Presently, Benimaru was leading him towards a massive white building. The top floors were more window than wall, and the lower floors had massive posters of beautiful people plastered to them for all to see. One of them looked like it might be Benimaru, but K’ wasn’t entirely sure. “All right,” he sighed, finally breaking the seething silence he’d held for the entire walk. “I’ll bite. Where the hell are you taking me and what’s this favour you’re ringing in?” @electrostxtic

“Why give me shit for it in the first place then? Geez,” K’ huffed. Not so much annoyed as he was mildly exasperated. A snort followed on the heels of his huff, the arch of a silver brow accompanying the noise. “And ‘glory days’, really? That makes you sound like a fossil.” His curiosity was faintly piqued though. Benimaru had been to more KoF tournaments than he had; must’ve been attending them at least a handful of years before their partnership in ‘99… What kinds of weird shit had he seen back then? Because from first-hand experience, these tournaments always had some form of weird BS going on throughout the duration they were hosted. Maybe he’d ask the guy sometime… Another snort. This time accompanied by an upwards twitch of his lips into a tiny, lopsided grin. Little by little, he was starting to come out of his shell; slowly allowing himself feel at ease. It seemed Benimaru’s charms and sunny disposition were making some headway in parting the thorny barricade K’ kept himself constantly wrapped up in. Despite this, his humour remained dry, sarcastic and still slightly barbed. There wasn’t all there much actual bite to it. Mostly. It was just easier for him to express himself that way, and it wasn’t something he was going to grow out of anytime soon. “Yeah, cuz you’re noisy. It’d be hard not to.” Despite the sunglasses, K’s massive eye roll towards Benimaru’s reason for being here was palpable. Of course he was chasing women. Should’ve figured that from the start. “Sorry for your loss.” Not really. And it was obvious from the dryness of his tone. Taking note of the model’s faint discomfort under the sun’s glaring rays, he added, only slightly easing up on the dryness, “Well, I guess make yourself comfy then, Romeo. Since you don’t look like you’re leaving anytime soon.” He flicked a lazy hand at the surrounding sand as an open invitation for Benimaru to lay his stuff down wherever. Welcome to Casa del K’: Home Away From Home edition. “If you get thirsty, or whatever, there’s a store up over the dunes.” He jerked a thumb behind him, indicating the general direction. He pushed his sunglasses higher up his nose, then stretched a little, before relaxing back into his comfortable recline. A sudden thought hit K’, so as an afterthought, he added, “… Pretty sure they sell umbrellas, too.” Which was his gruff and awkward attempt to show some care and kindness. Because he was pretty sure models needed to look after their skin; to keep it free of blemishes, or something?

“Nothing wrong with familiarity,” he mumbled. More power to Benimaru for being able to work together well with a myriad of different people; that was a skill of its own really, K’ would grant him that. But it was much, much harder for him to do the same. He was too prickly and too distrusting. And had a tendency to do things on his own without really consulting with people, almost like he expected them to know what he was doing and follow along with his silent plans seamlessly. Very much not a good team player. There was also the fact that he had the charisma level and social aptitude of a rock. Despite that last point, his lips twitched up into a wry smirk at the playful jab, immediately able to tell it was just that: playful. It seemed what little time they’d spent in each others’ company previously wasn’t entirely in vain. Surprisingly enough, K’ responded with some friendly enough ribbing of his own. “I should’ve. Would’ve given me an excuse to keep napping while you two flapped gums at each other. Not that I’d get much sleep listening to you both, though.” There was a hum of vague interest at the mention of clashing plans. K’ himself never really had to deal with that with his own teammates, since they didn’t have much going on in their lives now that the NESTS Cartel was long gone. Aside from Kula regularly coming and going with her guardians, it was only really Whip whose schedule didn’t always mesh with his own. She had her responsibilities to Heidern’s unit, whereas K’ didn’t really have anything going on between KoF tournaments. … Aside from half-hearted, always fruitless, attempts to rummage through long-abandoned NESTS bases for answers to his lost past, anyways. And Maxima no longer had a normal life to return to, seeing as he’d given it up completely to become the hulking cyborg he was to this day. Not that he seemed to much mind being a full-time babysitter. “I see…” K’ said. His head tilted towards Benimaru, a silver brow arching slightly at the model. “And what plans would those be? Because knowing you, I’m sure they didn’t involve you sitting way out here where almost nobody’s around to see you peacocking around.”