The End of Fire and Ice

chapter 2: I had always known you, but then I met you

"Today I bumped into you again. You seemed like that flower long forgotten in the old diary."
ೃ⁀➷ Avijeet Das

┊ ➶ ｡˚ 　　°

"Jin, you're dazing off again, darling. How are you supposed to kick some flame thrower's ass if you can't focus on instructions for 5 minutes, hm?" Sunghoon once again pulls me from my thoughts.

"Don't 'darling' me Hoon, and I wasn't dazing. I was simply plotting how to kill you."

"As if. You'd never hurt the love of your life. Now shh, I smell the roach coming," he whispered as he pulled me to my spot in line.

Before I could snark back, our instructor, Mr. Doyle, entered the large training room with his clipboard in hand. He had a rather dark and brooding presence.

I've known this old man all my life but I never felt like I was more than a stranger with a name to him.

The training room was massive. It had to be to fit all fifty of us. Typically we were separated into groups and occupied different parts of the training room in order to improve the flow of things. There was a section for weightlifting, stretching, cycling, and a track that looped around the entire second floor. There was even a pool on the floor above this one.

All ice afflicted were lined up on the left and all fire afflicted on the right. Lucky me being the last person in was the first to be approached by the Doyle roach.

"Bae Jinjoo, last in line as usual. You'll be paired with Park Jongseong for today's training," Mr. Doyle said in the irritated tone men reserve for women they think are dense or stupid.

He swiftly moved past me and down the line, announcing each of our training partners for the day without so much as another glance in my direction. As if he hadn't just said the strangest thing I've ever heard, and that's coming from someone who was told she had ice powers.

I knew better than to respond or protest, but you better believe I wanted to. Why on earth was I paired with a fire afflicted for training?

Of course, I knew Jongseong. It was part of my job to know him. But we had always trained with those within our same blessing. Today we were switching it up and I couldn't help but wonder why.

Today's training was set to consist of a three-mile run and the rest of the time we are supposed to lift weights or do whatever one does to get stronger. I wouldn't know. For every session till now I had been paired with Sunghoon. And like the angel he is, he'd always find a way to cover for me while I snuck out to a place unknown to almost everyone.

The library.

A place I had heard of in a whisper from the lunch lady, Mrs. Ramona, and stumbled into out of insatiable curiosity almost ten years ago. I've continued to stumble into it ever since.

For some reason, I have a feeling that mister Jeongseong will not be so willing to let me sneak away.

With this in mind, I approached him with a goal and no possible way to achieve it. I suppose I'll just have to find an impossible way to achieve it...I suppose I'll have to play nice.

"Hey Jongseong, has anyone told you happy birthday today?" I cheered, showing him a rather fowl and unconvincing attempt at a smile.

"No, and I'd prefer to keep it that way." He fronted back, not so much as glancing at me as he headed to the indoor track.

"Well, that's too bad, happy birthday Jay! 365 days till we die, isn't it exciting?" I babbled out, trying to keep pace with him. We haven't even started running and he is already in the lead.