Kim had run into Tatsu quite a few times after those first couple of incidents. It was odd in both of their opinions. They had lived in Middleton all of their lives and had not seen each other in the sixteen years that Kim had been alive, but suddenly in a few weeks they had crossed paths over a dozen times. Kim joked that it had to be fate; Tatsu only shrugged while trying to get away.
The redhead had taken it upon herself to be Tatsu’s friend when she noticed that no one was ever with the mechanic. Tatsu did not put up any active resistance, but she did not change the way she acted, which usually scared people away, but not Kim. The teen hero stayed around Tatsu and eventually the mechanic just accepted her presence, but she still did not change her demeanor.
Kim usually hung around Tatsu when Ron was “busy.” He considered playing video games busy while Kim considered it a waste of time. She did that because Ron was uncomfortable around Tatsu and that was rather clear. He said that something about the blue-eyed female was just creepy; he thought it had something to do with her eyes actually. He had never seen such ice blue eyes and he thought that when she looked at him, she was staring into his soul. It just chilled him to the core of his being; he was not alone in that, which was another feature of Tatsu’s that kept people away from her.
It was actually a good thing that Kim hung around Tatsu without Ron. Having two people around her would have bothered Tatsu to the point where she would have made a serious effort to get them away from her after a few minutes. She just was not that social, which Kim noticed.
“So, what do you say we go to a movie?” Kim suggested while walking with Tatsu. She ran into the mechanic at a corner store and helped Tatsu buy some healthier food than the older teen usually would.
“Now?” Tatsu inquired with a slightly puzzled expression on her face.
“Yeah, now. I’m free. Do you have anything you need to do?”
Tatsu thought about it. She had cars waiting, but she could always get to them later on. Did she really want to go to the movies? She supposed that it would be all right. She had gone a couple of times to the movies with her boyfriend on the few occasions that he actually came back to town to spend time with her. If she could go out with him and not slay him, then she figured that she could easily stand being with Kim for a while.
“I’m good. We can go,” Tatsu answered.
“That’s great. There’s a new movie out that I’ve been dying to see,” Kim stated. She knew better than to try to drag Ron to the movie and Monique had been busy for the past week.
The mechanic did not argue with Kim. She figured that it would be more energy than she was willing to part with to ever argue with Kim since the girl seemed so strong-willed and determined to be her friend. Besides, she had quietly noted a while ago that being around Kim was not totally unpleasant, although she was still getting used to the company.
So, she went to the movies with Kim after bumping off her “groceries” at her garage; potato chips, donuts, and a bag of baby carrots could count as groceries to her. The mechanic brought the tickets. She was not sure why she had not let Kim pay, but she would not have thought about it if Kim had not protested when she pulled out money. Tatsu let the hero object, but she still gave up the money in her pocket when time came to pay for the tickets.
“You didn’t have to do that,” the redhead pointed out.
“I know,” Tatsu answered.
“So, why did you?” Kim asked curiously, almost as if she could not understand why the mechanic had paid for her to get the movie.
Tatsu shrugged; she just felt like paying. Was that a crime? Kim let it go, knowing that if she persisted, it would get on Tatsu’s nerves and she might just walk out of the theater. It was a wise move on Kim’s part; it seemed like she was learning a lot about Tatsu already, although she did not think that there was much to learn. Tatsu was easy enough to read in Kim’s opinion. All she had to do was make sure not to push anything too much and remain friendly while talking to the older female and everything seemed to go well.
The movie was a romantic-comedy. Tatsu did not imagine herself as a romantic or a comedian, so she was not enjoying the movie much until she glanced over at Kim. She saw that Kim found the movie entertaining, laughing at some points or just looking enthralled in the feature. Kim’s reaction seemed to make going to the movie worth it to the mechanic.
Tatsu thought that was weird. Being around someone who was enjoying herself did not usually affect her like it was doing with her for Kim. She supposed that it was her subconscious forcing her to make an effort like the hero was making an effort to be her friend. The redhead was being nice to her and seemed to enjoy being around her and she would like to return that for some reason that was beyond her. She considered that she might understand why if she just continued to be around Kim for a while.
Trin was reading by the window in her shared apartment with Shin. The half-Japanese fellow was in the living room, playing a video game for lack of a better thing to do. He had pestered Trin earlier about helping him make the life of a professor a living hell. He did not particular care for the professor, believing the man to be a racist. For once, Trin did not think that he was jumping to conclusions, but she had opted on not helping him at the moment.
Shin had noticed his roommate was acting strangely and had been for nearly a month. Usually, she would have been all for teaching a bigot a lesson or two, but now she seemed distracted. He did not like that because it meant someone other than he was getting her attention. He liked it when she focused on him and typically he did not have to share her unless her siblings were around. He figured that he should voice his theory as to why she seemed so distracted now.
“So, who’s your new girlfriend?” Shin inquired without bothering to take his eyes off of his game. He sounded as if it was nothing, as he always tried to make things out to be, even though Trin having someone take up time that should be his was something to him.
“Excuse me?” Trin countered in her usual tone. She did not take her eyes off of her book.
“Who’s your new girlfriend?” he repeated. He guessed that she had a girlfriend because in the past, the few girls that she had that could be considered girlfriends did take up her time, even though he thought that her idea of being a girlfriend was weird.
Trin had had a few girlfriends in her life since she hit puberty and was certain that she was a lesbian. She was not the most social being, even though she was pretty, so she did not mingle enough to have a girlfriend constantly. She also had a deep hatred of touching, kissing especially, which made it hard for her to maintain a physical relationship, which did not even include sex. In fact, the idea of sex seemed utterly disgusting to Trin; she could not even watch love scenes in a movie without turning away.
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Trin stated soundly, almost as if she was calling her best friend an idiot for even suggesting such a thing.
“What do you mean you don’t have a new girlfriend?” he asked. That did not make any sense to him. She had to have a new girlfriend because that was the only way to explain her behavior, especially the fact that she was not helping him get at the racist professor.
“Why are you even worrying about me having a girlfriend? Don’t you think you should focus on your girlfriend? I mean, when was the last time you even called her?” Trin retorted.
The ebony-haired young man conceded that point. He had no idea when was the last time he called his girlfriend. She was hard to talk to on the phone anyway. She was the kind of girl that he needed to see if he was going to be in contact with her.
“You’re a horrible boyfriend. I don’t see why she puts up with you,” Trin commented and she meant that.
“Because I’m damn cute,” he replied with a confident, arrogant smirk.
“I’ve seen cuter,” she teased him, still focusing on her book and not looking at him.
“Like you even look at guys, you dyke,” he countered.
“Ouch,” she said dryly. One day he was going to shock her and say something witty, she commented mentally.
“I guess I should call her, though. See what she’s up too or something like that,” Shin yielded.
Trin rolled her eyes. She did think that he was a very neglectful boyfriend. She did not see why his girlfriend stayed with him, why any girl stayed with him. He picked up girls by being totally confident in himself, but then he did not do anything with them. He hardly paid attention to his girlfriends when they were out and when he took them home, it was out of sight, out of mind with him. He did not even treat them like girlfriends from what she could tell, he treated them like friends.
Shin went and grabbed his mobile phone. “Hey, lover, what you up to?” he asked his girlfriend once she answered the phone.
“Nothing,” she answered in a mumble.
“You’re never up to anything, Tatsu,” he commented. “You miss me?” he inquired in an almost teasing tone, like it was obvious that she missed him because he was, well, him.
Trin rolled her eyes again in the background. She had never met Shin’s current girlfriend. All she knew was that he met her at street race back in their hometown. She thought that out of all his girlfriends, Shin treated Tatsu the worst, but she seemed to return the favor. Most of the time, he never wanted to drive out to see her and Tatsu seemed to be of like mind in that because she never came to the apartment or even to their town. He hardly called Tatsu and she almost never called either. Their phone conversations were typically quick, but Trin did not think too much of it.
Shin and Tatsu were still together, so they had to be doing something that worked for them. Things did work for the couple mostly because neither of them really seemed to be trying. Sometimes, Trin considered that they were both too lazy to break up with each other, but other times, she thought that they really got along better than Shin did with any of his girlfriends.
When Shin was with Tatsu, he could get her talking, but it took some effort, which he did not really mind. It had to be about a race that she worked on the cars that were competing. Sometimes, he could get her to talk about cars point blank, which he actually did not know much on, but he could compare her knowledge with other knowledge that he held. He liked that about Tatsu, which was one of the reasons why he would not break up with her, even though to the untrained eye (and trained eye with Trin) their relationship seemed to be stale.
Trin actually thought that the couple seemed more like friends than anything else from what she knew about them. When they were in Middleton and she was hanging out with her sister, Shin took that time to go hang out with Tatsu. He did not seem to take her on what Trin would consider dates, but she guessed that as long as couple was together, where they went was a date.
While Shin was on the phone with Tatsu, talking about an engine that Tatsu was currently working on, Trin thought about what Shin said earlier. He seemed to be under the impression that she had a girlfriend. Usually, when he made guesses like that, he was on the money, but he was way off at the moment, in her high and mighty opinion anyway. The only female that she had spent time around was Shego, who seemed to show up every few nights when she was alone and they would battle.
Shego seemed to be stalking her, but Trin did not mind. She liked when Shego showed up and they could take each other on. The best part was the more that they fought, the less she wondered about her demons coming out and something going terribly wrong. Their fighting now seemed to be more like heavy sparring, which was something that she did with Shin. They were looking to injure each other, but not to the point where the other would unable to function during the next fight. They exchanged banter while fighting, but it was nothing to be considered deep or as if they were girlfriends.
Yes, Shego was an attractive woman and Trin silently admitted that her knowing how to fight only added to it. Trin also was starting to believe that Shego was just as much of a lesbian as she was, but she was not looking for a girlfriend at the moment, not like Shego anyway; or so that was what she told herself. She did not even like Shego.
Shego was annoying to the point where Trin would like to staple her lips together to keep her from opening her mouth. She doubted that they could build a relationship off of something like that. Then there was the fact that Shego seemed to like bodily contact, getting a kick out of pinning Trin when she could and rubbing up against her; such actions helped the blonde conclude that Shego was lesbian. Trin was not comfortable with touching outside of fighting, especially by people that were not her family. She considered that Shego might just do such things to be a pest, quietly noting how tense Trin became when she did brush up against the blonde in a naughty manner.
And then there was the major factor, which was that Shego was her sister’s arch-foe. It was far from cute to date her little sister’s enemy, she thought. Hell, it was not even good to have whatever the hell they had at the moment. She did threaten to kill Shego if something terrible happened to her little sister. Shego had only laughed at the time; she had been easing up on Kim ever since she met Trin.
(New day)
Shego was waiting for Trin to come out of a building. As far as she knew, the blonde had to go speak with a professor, which was why she was going to be alone. Shego had actually developed some hatred for the boy that was always around Trin, namely Shin. She wanted Trin to herself so they could do their thing and Shin made that hard by constantly being around Trin. The green-skinned woman, of course, found many opportunities to pounce on the blonde when she was alone, though.
She wanted Trin alone because she was not looking for anyone to interfere with their time together. She liked battling Trin, but not for the sake of fighting. She was looking forward to soundly beating the blonde one day, but mostly she liked taunting and teasing Trin. It was amusing for the simple fact that Trin had comebacks, which were usually missing when she had something to say to other people.
She wondered what was taking Trin so long after a few minutes passed. How long could it take to sort a matter out with a professor? She desired to check on the blonde because she wanted to make sure that nothing was going on. But, as soon as she was willing to go in, Trin exited the building.
“Where the hell have you been, Possible?” Shego inquired while stepping out next to the blonde. She probably would have surprised anyone else by seemingly just appearing by their side, but Trin did not even finch.
“What’s it to you?” Trin countered.
“Nothing, except you’re screwing around on my time,” the green-skinned female stated, as if she was serious.
“When did it become your time?”
“When you became my bitch,” Shego remarked. “My name is tattooed on your ass,” she added and then she groped the aforementioned area. Oh, that felt very nice, the villainess noted in the back of her mind.
Trin yelped, which was unlike her, but she was very surprised by the move. She swatted at Shego to get the villainess away from her, which worked. Shego had noted not too long ago that grabbing Trin in a personal area truly got to the blonde, so she groped her every now and then to be annoying. Well, Shego did it to be annoying and to touch a hot chick; yeah, she was into girls. She was definitely going to start grabbing that ass more often, she told herself.
“Don’t do that,” Trin huffed.
“Why not?” Shego asked and she did it again. That ass was just calling her now.
“Ah!” Trin screamed in frustration while moving away. “You keep doing that and I’m going to think that you want to be my friend,” she remarked with a taunting half-smirk.
“Like hell I do. Who in their right mind would want to be your friend?” Shego scoffed.
“Who said you were in your right mind? Look at what you do for a living,” the younger female riposted.
Shego chuckled a bit. “Such a smartass.”
“That’s my line.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, let’s get to it,” the emerald-eyed female stated. They had a good time teasing each other, but now, she wanted to get to the fighting.
“I’d like to, but I have a couple of papers to get to,” Trin answered.
“Papers?” Shego groaned. She now hated college because it was cutting into her fun.
“Yeah, I’ve got English papers.”
“What about that guy you’re always with? Can’t he do them?” Shego inquired.
“Shin is handling the history papers,” Trin explained. She hoped that he got to those soon too. He worried her with the way that he did things because he always waited until the last minute while she was more interested in doing things as soon as possible to get them out of the way.
Shego rolled her eyes. “So, how long is this going to take?” she inquired curiously.
“I don’t know, but I don’t have a free night to play around with you. Why don’t you go keep an eye on your boss and make sure he doesn’t kill himself or something for a while?” the blonde suggested.
“Nah, I think I’ll stick around and bug you.”
“Trust me, once I get home, the only thing in creation that can bug me is a half-Japanese psychopath that I’m going to have to kill one day,” Trin remarked.
“Doesn’t he ever go outside?” Shego wondered out loud. God, what kind of man was always underneath a woman that was not even his girlfriend?
“Why? You act like I would let you in my apartment anyway.”
“Like I would need your damn permission.”
Trin just rolled her eyes. She hoped that Shego was not planning to follow her home. She and Shin had never actually discussed having company over the apartment. They did not really have friends, so they did not have to worry. Shin never seemed to be so serious with a girlfriend to feel the urge to bring her over and Trin tried to never have a girlfriend near by so the question of coming over would never come up. If Shego was serious about coming over to the apartment, even if not right at that moment, it could pose a problem at some point in the near future. Trin wondered what she had gotten herself into while Shego wondered what would happen if she happened to stop by the apartment sometime soon.
Next time: Shego in Trins room; Shin at a club thinking about his sexuality; Kim requests that she and Tatsu become a couple.