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“Malin, I wasn't trying to judge you,” Hinako Shijou insisted at the short girl with her bright blonde hair tucked under a brown bandanna. “I was just suggesting that... maybe... your fighting style is not exactly... what we...”
“What?” Malin snapped at her. “Not like yours or Athena's? Well, excuse me if I can't blast people with my brain, and I'm sorry if I don't feel like being a fucking sumo wrestler. And where do you get off judging me? You know how ridiculous you look? You're not even in the same weight class as a sumo.”
Hinako blew out an exasperated breath. “It has nothing to do with weight. Sumo is about discipline of the body and mind.”
“So you are judging me,” Malin growled. “You're acting like I was trying to kill you. I wasn't. The shock baton was on its lowest power setting.”
They were at Athena Asamiya's penthouse apartment, getting in some practice before the King of Fighters tournament. Through her agility and sleight of hand, Malin had convinced the High School Girls team's captain, Athena, that she should fill the vacant third spot. Hinako had not been convinced, and having just experienced Malin's fighting style on the tatami mats in Athena's private gym, was now even less so. The school girl (though Hinako questioned even that, since Malin refused to say what school she attended) seemed like less a fighter and more like Wile E. Coyote, relying mainly on weapons and gadgets, devoid of any honor.
Athena could sense the tension in the room after Malin and Hinako's spar, and had suggested they all take a break. She'd left the gym to get some refreshment, leaving the other two girls to argue. “I am not judging,” Hinako insisted, using that tone Malin had heard all her life, the one that told her when someone was lying and she was being judged. “What I was trying to say is that...”
“I don't belong on this team,” Malin finished for her.
“I wasn't going to say that,” the other blonde said, perhaps a little too quickly.
“But you're thinking it, right?”
“Malin, please...”
“No, fuck this, I'm done talking to you. I'm gonna go look around.”
Hinako raised a bandage-wrapped hand to her lips. “But... we can't just wander around. We don't live here.”
“Wow,” Malin said with a roll of her eyes. “Here I thought you were just a preppy bitch, but it turns out you actually did go to school.” With that, the smaller blonde turned on her sneaker-clad heel, and stalked out of the gym.
“Athena?” She called as she walked down the hallway. She had no idea where the kitchen was, and didn't know her way around it, but anything was better than talking to that wannabe Sumo. Next time, I'll throw that damn salt in her fucking eyes, Malin thought to herself. She hadn't gone far when she saw a large pair of double doors on her right, twice as tall as her. Malin tested the knob, and finding it unlocked, entered.
Once inside the darkened chamber, she felt out a bank of light switches on the wall to her immediate left. After flicking them, she found that she was in what appeared to be some sort of studio, furnished with several mike stands, two racks of various instruments, and even a grand piano. The small blonde couldn't help but give out a low whistle, and started towards the rack of woodwind instruments.
“Wow,” she heard Hinako's voice behind her in the doorway, ruining the suddenly good mood she'd found herself in. “I didn't know Athena had this in her apartment.”
“Why wouldn't she?” Malin's tone suggested that Hinako was an idiot for not knowing it. “She's in the music business. Still... this is pretty sweet.”
“How would you know?” Hinako asked her.
“And what's that supposed to mean?” The other girl snapped back.
“Well, I... don't see how you could... appreciate something like this. I mean... can you even...?”
Malin said nothing, instead she finished her walk to the woodwind rack, removed one of the clarinets. After taking a moment to check the reed, she raised the mouthpiece to her lips and started to play. Hinako recognized it as Aaron Copland's concerto, and her mouth fell open in awe. She was unable to speak for the next minute, watching and hearing Malin play. It was an instrument that she clearly had experience with.
The smaller blonde didn't finish the entire concerto, but she didn't have to. Feeling she'd made her point, she stuck the clarinet back on the rack. “You think you have me all figured out,” she told Hinako. “But you know fuck-all.” She walked past Hinako, nudging the sumo girl with her shoulder on her way to the door.
“Malin, wait!” She was almost there when Hinako called her name. She turned and saw the other girl standing by the instrument racks, her cheeks slightly red, looking somewhat abashed. “I... may have misjudged you.”
Malin cocked a blonde eyebrow at her choice of words. Hinako shook her head and said: “No, I... I did misjudge you. Pretty badly.” She pressed the palms of her hands together in front of her chest and bowed. “And for that... I'm sorry.”
“Look, stop bowing, okay?” Malin said, growing uncomfortable. “You're not the first person to pretend to know me, you won't be the last. So just forget it.” She was about to turn back to the door when Hinako called her name again.
The Sumo girl tossed Malin one of the clarinets from the rack and selected one for herself. “Do... do you know this one?” She asked. Hinako then began to play the opening to Gershwin's “Rhapsody in Blue,” which Malin recognized the second she started. So she joined in on her own instrument. After they were done, the brown and white-clad girl gave her a smirk.
“Don't make me laugh, Hinako,” she said. “That was clarinet 101. Here, try this one.” She moved away from the door, closer to the racks, then raised the clarinet again and started to play Brahms's “Sonata #2.” Hinako recognized it, and without saying a word, joined in.
It was then that Athena entered the room, bearing a tray laden with three glasses of sparkling water, and some fruit, cheese and crackers. She almost announced herself, and then she heard the melody filling the studio, not to mention witnessing her teammates cooperating at something, without being at each others' throats for the first time all day. So without a word, the J-Pop star set the tray down, walked over to the piano, and joined them in their jam session...