Chapter Text
The day had started off with mundane normalcy.
Ying went through the monotonous motions of getting ready for work, dealing with the trivial parts of her morning with a heavy heart. The house had a bleak cloud hanging over it due to Shifu’s recent mission given to them. He was stressed. Ying could feel it. And, historically, Shifu never knew how to handle stress.
Just the day before he visited them with a new, vigorous training schedule and a requirement to spar. They obliged with hidden sighs and downcast faces. According to Shifu, the sparring had gone terribly. His usual criticisms ran slightly below the belt and danced dangerously on the edge of being unnecessarily harsh. It was more than de-motivating.
Ying didn’t miss the way her friends deflated. She supposed she looked the same.
Sitting herself down at the reception desk, she resisted the urge to hit her head repeatedly on the wood. It was far too easy to get bored at the front desk, nothing ever happened and all she did was book tours and accept donations. Taking out her phone she held it strategically out of view from the public and the CCTV cameras. Shifu could be watching at any moment.
I’m so bored, someone talk
Fan: how can you be bored with shifu being such a dick
He’s just stressed
Fan: don’t make excuses for him
This is his way of coping, you know that
Jia: I have to agree with Fan here, he was really mean to us yesterday
Cong: Ditto that
Cong: And he took my almond cookies!!!
Cong: Who does that to a person?
Yu: I already told you I’d help you bake some more today, don’t be so dramatic
Yu: And Fan’s right, you need to stop making excuses for him
Not you too…
You guys are being ridiculous
Jia: But Shifu’s been really on edge lately since he left for that random trip
Jia: Something needs to happen, to snap him out of these habits
Fan: he needs to stop being so mean to us
Ying turned off her phone, ignoring the onslaught of messages erupting their chat, in favour of addressing a customer approaching the desk with a piece of paper held tightly in his grip. She stared at him in recognition. He was the guy who visited the Palace almost regularly. He was always alone, with only a phone in his pocket and a few coins ready for spending at the gift shop. At first, they’d laughed him off in private. The prospect of a kung fu nerd was pretty rare, and pretty funny in an odd way. But after a while of his constant visits Fan, and Ying herself, had started to become a little suspicious of him. The whole situation was more than weird. And the fact that he was currently standing in front of her provided her mind with more to worry about.
Ying turned to him and cleared her throat. “Hello, what can I do for you?”
“I – uh, I’m looking to apply for a job here?”
“Sorry, we don’t have any vacancies here.” She lied through her teeth curtly. Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie. For obvious reasons they couldn’t accept any random person into the system – but they sometimes did feel like having only five staff members was a little detrimental.
The guy looked positively crushed and Ying almost felt a twinge of guilt.
“Nothing at all? But could you – could you take a part timer?” He asked desperately.
“No, sorry.”
“Could you at least give my resume to the boss?!” Ying almost faltered at the mention of Shifu. He’d be so angry at her if she even considered the prospect of mentioning this guy to him.
He slid the paper towards her. “Consider me?!”
What she wanted to do was roll her eyes back as far as possible and yell that Shifu would never allow this and he couldn’t possibly understand how much she wanted to –
“I’m really sorry,” She forced out. “but it’s out of my hands.” She hit her hand on the desk to relieve the frustration bubbling up and walked away.
She’d probably get in trouble for leaving her shift, but so what? They’d already pissed Shifu off enough just by falling back on their training, what more damage could she do just by simply leaving her shift? It wasn’t as if the reception was ever a necessary job. Ying made a bee-line for the staff room and pushed the door open with more force than intended, leaving it to swing back and forth on its hinges.
The tunnel leading from locker number 5 was hardly ever used. Even though it was undoubtedly cool if dwelled on in thought, she found that the others became bored of it very quickly. Ying, after having lived at the house for most of her life, was already used to the odd tunnel. Yu at first liked it since she was small enough to easily run through without hitting the side of the wall or injure herself, but after constantly asking Shifu to put a light in there, she vowed not to use it while it remained dark. Jia hated it from the beginning when the top of his head scraped the ceiling even when he crouched slightly. For Cong, the novelty of it had taken a while to wear off, it was only in the last few months he’d finally stopped using it and walked outside like the rest of them. Fan only went in the tunnel with Cong, it was an ongoing joke that he didn’t like the dark. (“No Ying it’s not that I’m scared of the dark,” He’d always say. “I’m just wary of what could be in there!”)
Going straight to the back door of the house, she changed lighting fast, happy to be out of her work uniform. Ying had no real training plan thought out. She simply knew that she didn’t feel like working, and Shifu was already annoyed at her, so why not do something she wanted to do for once.
…and that something turned out to be kicking a fence in possibly the messiest kung fu she’d ever done.
She’d only got part of her anger out on that poor fence before she heard the tell-tale sound of a body drop to the ground.
Ying turned her head immediately to find Shifu of all people, standing behind a bush, fuming.
Oh what have I done now…