Red Desire | Kylo Ren x Reader

Already Been Hurt

Inhaling deeply, you wheezed out a heavy exhale of hot breath and your body shook from the effort. Keeping your defensive stance, you blinked rapidly in an attempt to try and keep sweat from dripping into your bloodshot eyes.

You really needed to have clear vision right now. Needed to have a good view of what was in front of you. Otherwise, you'd probably never hear the end of it.

It felt like this had been going for hours and your body was now starting to give up on you. Like you were finally waving your white flag and calling for a cease-fire. Like you were a balloon full of air that was leaking out the only thing that was keeping you together.

"Again."

A low whine left you as the words you had heard all day continuously echoed throughout your mind. When was it going to be enough? When would you get to stop? When would this be over?

Pulling your right arm back behind your aching body with as much strength as you could muster, you launched it forwards and watched it land into the stiff foam shield. Your clenched fist bounced back at you with as much force as you had exerted toward it. Wincing in slight pain, you used your left hand to swing up beneath you and landed it directly into the middle of the foam in a swift uppercut.

Scrambling through your jumbled brain, you tried to remember all of the moves you had been taught and had gone over time and time again. To make it all easier on yourself, you had developed a pattern of the moves to help keep things in order. Sometimes you only used your arms in the exercise and punched away. Other times, you used the power of your leg to swing up and kick into your target to give your arms a bit of a break. 

Repeating these motions by alternating between your arms and legs, you were able to keep up a relatively steady pace. It was absolutely exhausting, and you could feel your form starting to drift away from what you had been taught. Your muscles felt like rubber as you mindlessly followed through the given commands over and over.

Allowing both of your arms to drop to your sides, you inhaled a shallow shaky breath trying to inhale more air. It was like your lungs were screaming at you to stop what you were doing and slow down. This felt like being tortured, except this torture was supposed to somehow help you protect yourself in the future when you were thrown into another battle. 

Right, because when a blaster is shot at you, throwing a fist towards it was going to be super helpful.

"Again."

This brought on a spike of adrenaline that had been beneath you and you wound your leg up and kicked it outward harder than you had before. Your arms were nearly shaking at this point as you used each of your fists to drive them directly forward. It was taking a great effort at this point and with each hit, a grunt of pain left your body.

"Concentrate, you need to focus your energy."

You rolled your eyes and groaned out as you let out a frustrated breath of hot air, "We've been at this forever. I can't keep going anymore. This is just a waste of time and energy at this point."

Jonah raised his eyebrows at your snarky comment as he stepped away from you slightly and held the shield in front of his torso with a tighter grip as if challenging you. Unlike your current state, he looked both relaxed and calm while you were furiously sweating and were fighting to stand upright.

"That's how you improve, with repetition," he said with a slight hint of annoyance in his voice. "We need to keep going."

Your jaw fell open and you let a hand rest on your hip as you spoke, "We? I think you mean me," you replied in a snap. "I think I've mastered how to punch a foam square that's placed directly in front of me. When can we get back to using weapons and, I don't know, actually learning skills that will help me not get killed?"