Chapter Text
“I’m going to be honest with you Takeda,” Jin said, holding up two heavy metal ropes, “I didn’t actually think you’d make good on your promise to teach me this.”
“And miss the chance to watch you get knocked down a few pegs? I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Takeda wound up the whips on his battle suit and began to string them through his custom-made gauntlets. He had just finished showing Jin the dynamics of the rope, and explained the weight distribution. The Shaolin seemed thoroughly uninterested and unimpressed.
“You’re real funny.” Jin grabbed a pair of army-regulation gauntlets off of the ground and began to string the whips through, as Takeda had just demonstrated. He handled them with care, careful not to make the lengths uneven. The Shira-Ryu raised his eyebrows, impressed that Jin had been watching and listening after all.
Jin attached the gloves to his wrists and began to rotate his arms to get used to the weight. Takeda had to admit; he had some nice arms. He leaned back on the wall and watched for a few seconds as the muscles tensed and shifted. “All that archery does your arms a lot of good, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess. You should get into it. Though you probably don’t have the eye for it.” Jin stretched his arms left and right, getting himself warmed up. He tensed his back, letting the muscles on his shoulders flex and rotate. Takeda let out a small breath that he didn’t realize he was holding, before ending with a grunt.
“Okay, now you’re just showing off.” Takeda pushed himself off the wall, forcing himself to look away from his arms. He was no stranger to staring at Jin’s arms. Or abs. Or really any part of his body. But he had learned to push it aside in exchange for more pressing matters. And the most pressing matter at the moment was getting Jin to fall on his ass.
Takeda dislodged the whips with a quick snap of his wrists. “There is a small button inside of the wrists. With a firm clench, you should be able to unlock the ropes and set them out.”
Kung Jin nodded, flicking his wrists as demonstrated. Nothing came out. Another flick, and nothing. Soon, Jin was flapping his wrists uselessly in frustration, his thin patience already at its end. Takeda couldn’t help but laugh, moving closer to his friend and grabbing his wrist. With the slightest bend, Takeda freed the ropes and stepped back as the whips snapped forward, looking at his friend with the slightest smile.
“Oh like you didn’t have trouble with this the first time,” Kung Jin rolled his eyes and snapped the ropes back in. Taking a small step to steady himself, he tried it again. After another two minutes, he successfully dislodged one of the two ropes.
“I’ll have you know that I’ve been described as a child prodigy.” As funny as it was to watch Jin flap his arms around trying to get the gauntlets to work, there was more he wanted to do. He walked behind Jin, grabbing his wrists. “It’s a flex, not a full movement. You control the lengths of the whip with the tension of your muscles.”
“That doesn’t make any level of sense.” Jin grunted, and Takeda couldn’t help but notice the way the man shuffled back into Takeda’s body, if only for a second. The Shirai-Ryu reminded himself that it was likely unintentional.
“It’s not about sense. It’s about feeling.” Takeda squeezed on his wrist. He was barely an inch taller than his teammate, so it was challenge to see exactly what he was doing from behind. “Close your eyes.” A beat. “Are they closed? You’re going to have to tell me these things.”
Jin let out an exasperated sigh. “ They’re closed, Takeda. Get on with it.”
“Okay,” Takeda paused, trying to think of a way to describe this. His training in the Shirai-Ryu used very little words; learning came with action and reaction. Everything was sense and intuition. “Feel your muscles and tense them. As though preparing for a fight. Tense with the anticipation of Kombat, but not as though you’re in the heat of battle.”
He could almost feel Jin rolling his eyes. Still, with his fingers on the man’s wrist, he could feel the muscle twitch just slightly, letting out both of the ropes flawlessly. Takeda moved away from his friend with a proud grin. Jin only shook his head slightly and pulled the ropes back in, before throwing them out one more time with ease. His lips twitched upward as he threw his head towards Takeda. “Your move, Peter Parker.”
“Yeah, real cute,” Takeda murmured, before moving back and releasing his own whips from the reels. “Now I’m going to train you like Master Hasashi trained me.”
“Yeah? And how was tha-”
Jin was flat on his ass before he could finish the sentence. Takeda pulled the ropes out from under his teammate’s feet and gave him a second to get back up before swinging at him again. Jin managed to duck and roll out of the way of the first one before the second whip knocked him clear to the other side of the room.
Takeda pulled his whips back in and shrugged at the dirty look that Jin gave him. “Life’s not fair, Jin.” He said, knowing that the man’s next move would be to attack back. The archer pulled back the whips and let them fly forward towards Takeda, but they stopped short before reaching him and fell uselessly to the ground.
Jin pulled them back in without a moment to pause and sneered. Takeda did his best to suppress a laugh. “What? I’m still learning, okay?” He slid forward on the ground of the training room and let out the right whip one more time, managing to get close to Takeda’s leg before the ninja jumped away. “Never pegged Jacqui for being into assholes.”
Takeda stopped cold for just a second, which gave Jin enough time to pull his whip around and catch on Takeda’s arm. He was getting better, Takeda would give him that much. “One, I’m not being an asshole. This is just the best way to learn. Two, Jacqui and I are just friends, okay. Things got…” Takeda rolled his shoulders to loosen up his arms while he looked for the words. “We were caught up in the whole end-of-the-world thing. You know how that is.”
“She dumped you.”
“She wasn’t ready for commitment,” Takeda confirmed with a little sigh. Jin stood still for just a moment, and Takeda could feel his sympathy like a pulse. Kenshi had told him that empathy was a normal thing, just passively picking up on the thoughts and feelings of others. He had never really experienced it until recently, but it was becoming more common.
Within an instant, the feeling was gone. Jin took a step back and dislodged the second rope, heading straight for Takeda. Takeda moved to the side this time, and returned with his own hit. The two whips snapped against each other, before returning back to their wielders. “I’ll wait for her though,” Takeda concluded.
“And if she never comes around?” Jin ran to his right and attempted to swing on a curve, catching Takeda off-guard. Unfortunately, the angle was wrong and the whip uselessly flung around, before finally hitting the ground with a decisive thud.
Takeda was getting tired of this talk. He was tired of romance and trying to impress everyone. He wanted to let off steam with his friend and maybe show off a little. So finally he shrugged and sent his whips flying forward. “Well then, I guess I’ll just have to move on.”
The whips grabbed Kung Jin immediately by the ankles and yanked him forward. He had the monk on his back in front of him, at the base of his feet. The ninja was just coming up with a snappy remark when he heard the telltale whiz of whips coming from Jin’s gauntlets. Before he could react, a single whip wrapped around his wrist and pulled him down, landing firmly on top of his teammate.
Takeda’s arms stopped his fall, leaving him a mere few inches above Jin, awkwardly hovering above him. He immediately released the whips and returned them to his gauntlets, expecting Jin to slide out from under him now that he was free. But the other man didn’t move. Instead, he merely tilted his head upward, looking directly at Takeda.
The two were nearly chest to chest, and Takeda could feel his friend breathing against him. His breath and heartbeat was completely steady and collected- unlike Takeda’s heart, which was going a mile a minute. He could always blame it on the sparring. But in the end, he knew it was something else. He just couldn’t exactly explain what.
Jin shifted his legs, forcing Takeda to spread out his knees and effectively straddle the man below him. Takeda couldn’t find any words to say if he wanted to. Jin only gave the slightest smirk. “What am I thinking?”
Takeda opened his mouth, but it took a few moments before words came out. “I don’t…” he paused for a moment, taking a second to notice the small freckles on Jin’s face. It was a nice face, he decided. “I don’t usually read my friends,” was all that he could say, his usually sharp tongue gone.
“You should try it some time.” Jin’s hips shifted just slightly, and Takeda was suddenly aware of every movement. “You might learn something.”
With that, Jin threw his arms back. Only then did Takeda remember that the other man’s whips were still wrapped around his wrists. Takeda flew forward, sliding across the room and finally stopping just in time to see Kung Jin standing up and walking over to him. On his back, he looked up his friend, frustrated at his own foolishness. And frustrated in other ways that he didn’t want to think about at the moment.
Jin held out his hand and helped the ninja back to his feel. “You’re learning quickly.” The words came out a little more breathless than Takeda had intended.
“No thanks to my teacher.” Jin began to unsnap the gauntlets from his wrist and wound up the ropes. “I think I’ll stick to my bow and arrow, if you don’t mind. Someone’s gotta have your ass in battle, after all.”
Takeda blinked rapidly a couple of times as his brain caught up with Jin’s words. Have my ass. He repeated the words to himself before finally mumbling “In Kombat, right,” more to himself than to the man in front of him.
For an instant, the two locked eyes and Takeda could pick up just a pulse of emotion. It was undefinable, but present and potent. Like all of his other unintentional reads, it was gone without any notice. Wanting to put the whole thing behind him, Takeda began to walk towards the training room door, Jin following him close behind him. “Who knows? Maybe you can teach me a thing or two about the bow and arrow?”
Jin only snorted. “Like I said, you don’t have the eye for it.” The two met outside the hallway, knowing that they were soon going to go their separate ways.
“That sounds like a challenge.” Takeda took this time to stretch his own muscles, as though he were looking for a fight. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, but he wasn’t sure that he wanted to say goodbye to Jin just yet.
However, it seemed that Jin was done with him for today. “Perhaps.” He paused for a moment, and again, Takeda could feel it. A little sadness, some regret. And then something else, something new. “Hey, let me know how things go with Jacqui.”
“Yeah, I will.” Takeda wanted to say something else, but he couldn’t quite find the words. Jin turned his back to walk away, and he couldn’t help but raise his hand to his temple to take a quick glimpse at Jin’s thoughts.But before he could actually read the man, he put his hand down. He decided to let Jin’s thoughts and feelings be a mystery. Just for now, in any case. “I definitely will let you know.”