Shin thought that it was odd as he called Tatsu, but she did not pick up. It was now happening more often than not and he was not sure what to make of it. He went over to her place a few times and most of the time he was turned away. She was acting weird, he thought. She was acting like not only did she not want to be bothered with him, but she did not even want to acknowledge his existence.
“I think my girlfriend is cheating on me,” Shin commented as if it was nothing, telling Trin that information. He thought that would explain why she was acting so strangely, even though he did not think that Tatsu was the type to cheat. She just did not seem to like being around people.
The best friends were lounging on the sofa in their living room in their pajamas. Trin was leaning on the couch while Shin was leaning on her, which was his way of hinting that he wanted her to brush his hair for him sometime that night. She was silently refusing; the lazy bum needed to do something for himself, she huffed mentally. He knew that if he kept it up, she would cave and brush his hair for him. He just had to out last her.
“Can you blame her?” Trin riposted, almost as if she did not care.
“Are you siding with her?” he inquired.
“Maybe. I mean, what have you done for her?” the blonde pointed out.
Shin shut up from that. He supposed that it did not even matter. He had known that he and Tatsu were not going to work out from almost the start of things. She had never seemed too enthused about the relationship in the first place and he never seemed that way about girlfriends anyway.
He was starting to wonder about himself too. He had been doing a lot of clubbing lately and he was starting to note that more and more often, his attention was shifting toward guys in the room that were looking at him. Sometimes, while a girl was speaking to him, he would not even be paying her any mind due to the fact that a male would have his attention.
“Trin, how did you know you were gay?” Shin asked as if it was nothing at all, like that had been talking about the whole time.
“Why do you want to know?” she countered in a similar tone.
“Because I do.”
“Well, you can’t have everything you want. Why, does God’s gift to women think he’s gay?” Trin teased a bit.
Shin rolled his chocolate eyes. He did often act like he was God’s gift to the opposite sex. He knew that he could get girls easily, and often did. It was just that for a long time, he found his mind wandering to the same sex. It was happening a lot more now and he was not sure why. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Tatsu was being flakey with him and it was not the other way around like it usually was when he was with a girl. It just seemed like as more time passed, it was going to be something that he was going to have to look into. He was going to have to explore the same gender, he believed.
“How are things going with you and your girlfriend?” Shin inquired.
“Did I ever say I had a girlfriend?” Trin countered.
“Of course not, but I can read your mind, duh,” he commented, as if that was the truth. He was around her enough and knew her well enough to where he pretty much could read her mind most of the time.
“Ah, yes, I continuously forget about this power since you never wash the dishes when I’m thinking you should,” she remarked.
“You never think it fast enough.”
“Ah.” Trin nodded as if that made sense; it made sense coming from him anyway.
“So, what’s the deal with you and your girlfriend? I know you wait for her after class when you shoo me off,” he stated.
Trin rolled her eyes. “So?”
“Well, what’s up with her? You’ve been with her longer than any other girl, haven’t you?” he asked.
“So what of it? You’ve been with your girlfriend longer than any other girl too, but you two don’t seem to be doing much. Besides, she’s not my girlfriend,” the blonde answered. She had no idea what Shego was to her and she typically did not think about it. Whatever the hell they were, they seemed to be doing fine by them…sort of anyway.
Whatever she had with Shego seemed lacking, but Trin would never admit that, not even to herself. There was a void in between them and neither thought on what it might be. They were similarly skeptical on things since they got along as best could be expected, so they were not looking to trouble the waters at the moment. But, she suspected that they were lacking a certain amount of trust that should exist between mates, which was probably why they never thought of each other as girlfriends.
“She’s not your girlfriend? You mean you ditch me for a friend?” Shin scoffed in disbelief. His harpy did not make friends. She had associates and girlfriends. Associates were for business and girlfriends were for whatever semblance of pleasure Trin got since she disliked touching, loathed kissing, and actually believed that sex should be considered criminal when it came to her. She would never leave him for a simple associate while she would do so for a girlfriend, as she had a habit of wanting girls to feel somewhat special while with her for whatever brief period of time they would be together.
“Must you be silly?” she retorted.
“Well, excuse the hell out of me for knowing you. So, explain to me how things are with this girl who is not your girlfriend,” he said.
“They are…” Trin paused and considered the best way to put things and it caused her to shudder when the first and possibly best way to explain things hit her. “It’s like being with you,” she said. It had crossed her mind a few times, but now she realized that was how things actually were.
“Like being with me?” he echoed in a puzzled tone.
“Yes, it’s like being with you if you had breasts. She and I spar like I do with you, just as hard too. We speak to each other in the same manner that I do with you. She demands my attention whenever she’s with me just like you do and she gets on my nerves just like you do. Uncle Shin did not have children before you, did he?” she inquired.
“I am the one and only, baby,” Shin declared with pride. He doubted that he would have been born if his father had had a child before him. His parents would have seen what they were working with and realized that they needed to focus all of their attention on keeping their insane offspring from dying, which was what they did with him. They did a good job, although he did keep them on their toes, making sure to come close to death at least once a month when he was little.
“Yeah, who would want more after you?” she remarked.
“So, what you’re saying is, if I had breasts, you’d let me screw you mindless?” he asked, almost as if it was something that he wanted to do. He actually never had been inclined to want to have sex with his evil twin. He did find himself looking at her sometime, but nothing too deep to the point where he would want to screw her. She was like a sister to him, after all.
“I didn’t say all that. You have a girlfriend that you need to screw.”
Shin arched an eyebrow. How did she know? He had to find out. “How’d you know I haven’t screwed her yet?”
“You’re not the only mind reader around here. Besides, you’ve told me enough information for me to surmise that you’ve done very little with your girlfriend, like most of your girlfriends. You almost seem anti-touch,” she commented dryly.
He did not argue. Most of his girlfriends, he never did do anything with. He was no virgin, but he did not sleep with as many girls as he could, which was weird for him. Shin was close to the very definition of hedonism and yet, he did not indulge in the flesh too often. They both knew that was strange.
“So, you were saying your girlfriend is cheating on you,” Trin said, waiting for him to elaborate on that. She continuously said “girlfriend” because he never bothered to tell her the names of his girls and she never bothered to tell him the names of hers. It was almost as if they thought if they did not give the girls’ names then they did not exist to the other and they could always see themselves as the centers of each other’s universe.
“Probably.”
“You’re calm about this. It’s rather surprising,” the blonde commented. She had never had a girl cheat on her, but she could see it in their eyes plenty of times that they wanted to. She could do a lot of things for her girls, but physical pleasure was asking way too much of her. She cringed just thinking about it.
She was not sure what she would do if she did have a girl cheat on her. It would bother her, especially if the girl tried to kiss her after she found out that she was being two-timed. She already often wondered where the hell someone’s mouth had been when the person kissed her, but to know that it was on someone else’s filthy mouth and now the person was trying to kiss her, the very idea made her want to throw up.
“I know,” he agreed. He did not know why he was so calm about it, but it really did not bother him if Tatsu was cheating on him. What had he done to hold on to her, after all? He just wished that she would break up with him instead of doing something that was actually unlike her. It would actually make things easier on him too because he would not have to worry about her anymore and he could do whatever he wanted without having to think about needing to spend time with her.
Tatsu herself could not believe that she was cheating, on both Kim and Shin in her opinion since she had not said anything to either of them about the other one. She felt rather bad about it too; the guilt slowly eating away at her. She knew that eventually she was going to have to do something, probably break up with Shin. She would just need to get the guilt to stop; she hated the feeling.
She told herself that she should have done something, like break up with Shin, a long time ago. She and Shin got along rather well, but they probably never should have been a couple. She did not like many of the things he did. She was not looking to party at all while that was one of his favorite things. He did not like to take her out when it was just them, like on a regular date. He hardly ever hugged or kissed her. It was just so obvious that they should have never been a couple, she told herself.
It did not matter. She did not know what she was going to do about everything. She did not like lying, especially to Kim, but she knew that if she told the truth, Kim would be hurt and she would probably want to break up. She liked having Kim around because the redhead took her into consideration whenever they did something together. It was not something that she was used to and she had grown to appreciate and like it. She did not want to lose that and she did not want to cause agony to the person that made her feel so wonderful.
“I did this to myself,” Tatsu commented to the air, sounding rather angry about things.
She did not feel sorry for herself because it was her fault. She had made the mess, so she needed to figure out how she could get herself out of it. She guessed that the first thing to do would be to break things off with Shin. She doubted that he would care if she broke things off because he more than likely knew that they were hardly in a relationship at all. He was a very smart guy, after all.
She was not sure what she would have to do after that. Should she or would she tell Kim? She knew that if she kept her mouth shut, it was unlikely that Kim would ever know. After all, who would be able to tell her? Only she and Shin knew that they were dating and she doubted that someone like Shin knew someone like Kim.
But, it would not be right, her mind told her. She cared about Kim and she would rather be honest with the redhead than sneaky. She sighed; relationships were such trouble. She hated having to think so much on something and still not know what to do. She would rather be in a situation that just allowed her to act, where she almost instinctively knew what to do. Right now, she was not sure if there was a solution to her problem. Not a favorable solution anyway.
“Look at what you did, idiot,” Tatsu berated herself. She figured that she was going to lose Kim either way. The guilt would get to her if she did not tell and if she did tell, it would hurt Kim and she was willing to bet that a smart girl like Kim would not want anything more to do with her. She was going to be all alone again.
It never would have bothered her in the past to be alone, but she did like Kim. She liked being around her and doing things with her. Hell, to a small extent, she liked being around Shin too, but with the way he acted, there was a chance that he would still want to be friends. The problem was that he just was not the same kind of good company as Kim was.
Tatsu wished that she could stop thinking about it. She did not want to trouble herself with her screw up, but since it was her screw up, it stayed on her mind. She knew what she was going to have to do after a while and that did not help ease her mind.
“What is wrong with Drakken? Why does everything blow up now!” Ron hollered in a tone of disbelief as he and Kim were trying to escape yet another lair of her arch-foe. Ron really wanted to know why every time they went after Drakken now an explosion had to follow. It was not even like they were causing things to blow up. Fires were just going off and sparks were flying on their own. It was mighty sloppy work in Ron’s opinion; most people would agree with him.
“I don’t know, but I wish he would get his act together,” Kim said and then she noticed bits of the ceiling breaking off. “Look out, Ron!” She jumped to push Ron out of the way and saved him from having debris collapse on top of him.
Ron stumbled because of the suddenness of the shove, but the sound of things crashing to the floor let him know why he had been pushed. He turned around to make sure that Kim was still with him and not buried underneath the ceiling. He breathed a sigh of relief that she was all right. He grabbed her by the hand and they continued on their way, trying to get out of the self-destructing lair in tact.
They made it to an exit just as more of the ceiling was caving in. Kim pushed Ron once more to make sure that he got through the exit. He fell into the snow outside, but quickly turned around, looking for Kim. He did not see her and his heart sank.
“K.P!” Ron screamed at the top of his lungs hoping for an answer. “K.P!” he continued to yell as he tried digging through the snow and junk from the lair. To compound his problems, there was a snow slide and he lost his place. “No, no, no! KIM!” he hollered as tears gathered in his eyes and he just started digging where he now stood.
“What the hell are you screaming about?” Shego inquired as she climbed out of the snow, shaking the cold, white powder out of her hair.
“K.P’s trapped in there!” Ron answered, not thinking about who he was talking to. He just knew that he needed help finding the redheaded hero.
“Trapped? What the hell do you mean?” Shego asked in a frantic tone.
“She’s in this mess somewhere!”
“Damn it! Okay, you search there and I’ll search on the opposite side,” Shego said.
Ron agreed because he would take any help he could. Hell, the devil himself could have shown up right now and offered to look in exchange for the blonde’s immortal soul and Ron would have readily agreed. He began searching for the missing redhead and Shego did the same.
Shego’s heart was in her throat as she looked around for Kim. She hoped that everything turned out all right and not because she did not want Trin’s little sister to die. It was because she did not want Kim to die. She was not sure what she would do with herself if something like that happened.
Shego and Ron lost sight of each other as they continued their search. As minutes ticked by, Ron began getting colder and colder and to make matters worse, it started snowing. Shego did not really notice the freezing weather since her powers kept her warm. They continued searching and then Shego dug up a slender, small hand. She yanked until the arm connected to the hand emerged from the snow, which was followed by the body of the unconscious hero. Shego breathed a sigh of relief.
A million things flooded the thief at once as she saw how blue Kim was. Among the things that she felt were dread and sorrow, thinking that she might be too late. She felt anger toward herself, Drakken, and even Ron if Kim was dead; Drakken had put Kim in the situation, she had delayed Kim in the situation, and Ron was supposed to be there to help Kim, but obviously did not. She even felt some disappointment in Kim for being such an idiot as to get caught up in some of Drakken’s madness. But, then her mind reminded her that Kim needed help and Ron was probably freezing to death looking for his best friend.
Shego checked to make sure Kim still had a pulse and then she searched for Kim’s communication device. She started walking while holding onto Kim and trying to figure how to contact Ron on the thing. She did not want to end up saving Kim only to have the redhead find out that Ron froze to death looking for her. Once she figured out how to call Ron, she kept her eyes open for shelter in the snow storm while ordering Ron just to get off the stupid mountain while he could. She promised him that he would see Kim soon enough. He obeyed because of the weather and he was very close to dying from exposure; he hoped that she was telling him the truth.
The pale woman eventually found a small cabin, which was good enough for her. There was not much in the place, but there was a bed for her to lay Kim in to warm the girl up. She stripped Kim from the wet clothing that she was wearing and then wrapped her in the blanket on the bed. She also stripped out of her own clothing, which was also wet and laid down next to Kim. She thought that the added body heat would help Kim.
Now that she had a chance to collect her thoughts, Shego asked herself what the hell was she doing. Why was she so worried? And as she stared at Kim, it hit her. All those times she was trying not to hurt Kim, it was not because she did not want to upset Trin, but just because she did not want to hurt Kim. She liked being around Kim; she liked Kim for some reason, just the vibe that the teen gave off, the type of person that she was. She liked Kim.
Next time: break ups all around!