The End of Fire and Ice

chapter 7: inferno

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."
ೃ⁀➷ William Shakespeare

┊ ➶ ｡˚ 　　°

The time for socializing was upon me as I sauntered over to the same spot Jay picked yesterday to see him already waiting there. Luckily, there weren't many people in this corner so I didn't feel too much pressure.

"Hey there, Jay," I greeted him as I took a seat beside him for the sake of being polite and didn't expect to get anything in return.

Which I didn't.

Instead, he just jumped right into the questions.

"Have there been any developments with your powers?" I can already tell this conversation is going to be as exciting as one of Jake's lectures on how to use my powers better. So not exciting at all.

"No, not really. At least not anything interesting. I can freeze things and make pretty snowflakes. That's about as far as I go with practicing."

"You should practice more. You're going to have to put your powers to use and simply knowing what you can do won't be as helpful as actually doing it," he lectured, crossing his arms tightly over his chest.

"I know. I know. What about you, Mr. hot-head. What are your powers like?" I gestured my hands at him in a grand manner to deflect his impatience from me as much as possible.

"I practice for a full two hours with my groupmates and the progression of my powers has been greatly improving over the past two years. My ability to create and manipulate fire is in league with the best in my group."

"Wow," I remarked with my eyes widening slightly, "good for you, hotshot. You should show me sometime."

"No stupid. That's not going to happen. We can only use our powers during group practice time. I'm not getting slapped around because some ice girl can't keep her curiosity to herself."

"Geez, you are no fun. Let's talk about something else then. How about..."

I gazed around the common room trying to come up with a question until my eyes landed on Sunghoon, "who in here would you protect at all costs? Like, someone you really want to help when it counts." I admit, this was a stupid question, but I'm curious if this guy has any friends.

"What kind of question even is that?" Jay said, his eyes narrowing at where I was looking.

"I don't know. I'm trying to ask questions I've never asked before," I babbled out as I got that nervous feeling again. It was like a snake slithering up my throat, eating up every word I was trying to say.

"I'm not answering that," he scoffed, shaking his head at me. He made me feel stupid and I wanted to kick him in the face for it.

"Damn it, Jay. Why do you always say that? It wouldn't hurt you to answer. Isn't the point of this to get to know each other?"

"You answer it first, then I'll think about answering."

"Honestly," I breathed out, pushing out thoughts of the day we'd be forced to kill one of our own and how badly I wished it was him right now, "I think I'd do anything I could to protect every single blessed person in this facility. All of you guys are family to me and I want to help all of you see the world. Now you answer."

"No. It's still a stupid question. I don't want to have stupid conversations about your stupid questions, stupid," he sassed like a child, closing his eyes as he leaned his head on the back of the couch. Not giving a single care about how sharply his words stung.

"It's not stupid Jay. Is that the only word you know? I've known you all my life yet never once did we have a civil conversation with one another that wasn't about the progression of our powers or if we were hiding anything from the instructors. It is so infuriating that it took us almost 25 years to have this conversation."