A Different Kind of Hangover || Rin

Jasmine could only chuckle nervously as Rin tilted her head. The blonde begun scratching the back of her head rather sheepishly, painfully aware of the verbal beat down she was likely to now receive from the little Raven after coming to her all cut up and bruised. She didn't have anyway to prove it; honestly more often than not Rin was the one in the hospital with Jasmine rushing over there to make sure she was okay, ironically enough. But Jasmine was almost certain that, were their roles reversed - as anyone with a lick of brain power would say they should be - the blonde lioness just had this hunch that Rin would give her so much shit for being reckless.

Although strangely enough not a single word about it came from her dark haired roommate. Jaz wondered if it was because of recent events. It likely was. So many things have changed over the course of the past couple of weeks, the normally very quickly adaptable lioness had sometimes found it a little difficult to acclimate. Though as often as she did she simply grit her teeth and let the wave carry her, trying her best to clear these stormy waters. For better or for worse Jasmine's prior life had helped her aid Rin in what the brunette likely considered the most annoying shit she's dealt with in her life. Jaz had been like that one annoying fly you just couldn't get rid of, buzzing around you as though its life mission was to annoying the living crap out of you.

While all that was true and honestly Jaz had even annoyed herself a little by being this obnoxious, the blonde girl wasn't about to let Rin wallow in self-hate and loneliness. She knew exactly how destructive Rin's deranged thoughts were likely to be and she'd be damned if she let the shorter femme suffer through this alone.

A soft hum leaving her lips, a small smile was still on Jasmine's lips as she approached and sat down where instructed, "Okay," she said, outstretching her arms to give Rin a little more access. Her limbs were cut up and bruised in various spots, blue and green spots all over. Her knuckles had also been cut up and bloody pretty badly, yet surprisingly intact. She sat still as Rin began cleaning up her wounds; it had sometimes stung a little, making some part of her want to hiss or jerk back but... honestly? The fact that Rin was doing the patching up was rather... calming? Jasmine didn't show a single sign of discomfort nor did she make any attempt to complain or recoil. She was just sitting still, that very same nervous smile on her face.

"Oh... well, the soldiers wanted a piece of me. Or fifty. So they kept coming at me all day. It was kind of cute, really," the blonde lioness explained, another chuckle leaving her. "Normally I wouldn't have really bothered but after a few things they said I just couldn't help myself, y'know?" She added, yet decidedly left that part of the explanation for another time. Rin didn't need to know that part of the reason she decided to go HAM on a couple of dumbass soldiers was the fact that they had insulted her. That'd probably make her even more worried. Or, more likely scenario, now that she thought about it? The current Rin was probably going to try to punch them in the face. She didn't know whether to be proud or scared of that fact.

Rin's touch was like silk against her rough skin, making her sigh contently. Part of her tried nuzzling into the Raven as the massage progressed, a low purr leaving the lioness throat. Fuck, that felt so nice. Even the pulsating pain in her bruises was slowly starting to melt away, replaced with a warm sensation of belonging, if that made any sense. Fucking butterflies; they were returning and it made her want to giggle like a dumbass. The last couple of weeks had been so mentally taxing, so emotionally draining... it was nice to just kick back and relax, have a talk, do something... normal without any shitty undertones.

In a very Jasmine-esque way, the blonde did something she hadn't attempted in what seemed like forever. She knew Rin now had boundaries and that trying to cross those boundaries was dangerous. But at the same time something very fucking annoyingly warm had overwhelmed her; she'd been trying to keep the cold darkness away from Rin for too long, thus having been drowning in it herself. The little bit of warmth she was now receiving was like an oasis after a three-day-long walk in the desert: so damn intoxifying she couldn't dream about leaving just yet. Thus, she gently took Rin's hand with her own, placing a gentle kiss on the outer side of her palm before nuzzling it against her cheek.

"I have just the idea. It won't be fancy, but if it's spicy you're going for it will do the trick," she said, her voice likely one or two octaves higher than normal and she was very painfully aware of this. Like a dog depraved of food for too long (or, in this case, a girl in love who hadn't seen her inamorata for way too fucking long), Jaz just couldn't help herself. Sure, she wasn't going to push it too far. But fuck if some affection wouldn't have felt nice.

"Listen, smartass. I'm not about to take a hit lying down. They were being little shits. I showed them that they're better off being little shits with whatever they call that bitch of a commanding officer. Stubbornness had nothing to do with it, so can it with the attitude," Jasmine supplied, mostly as a joke. It was no secret to anybody that Jasmine wasn't someone who backed down from a challenge. Whatever you'd throw at her she'd respond by throwing back something at least three times larger. That's just how Jasmine functioned - you did good, she did her best to do better. Was she a pretentious overachiever? Some would consider her to be one, yes. But if you bothered to ask her you'd realize that all she was trying to do was be better. Not better than everyone else, mind you. Rather, she was trying to be better than she herself was. Every day was a fight. A journey to improve. More often than not said journey was a bitter pill to swallow - she was only human, she had limits, and while she definitely sought to overcome those limits, everyone needed a breather now and again.

There was also one surprisingly unknown fact about Jasmine that should've come as obvious to anyone by now. She didn't much care about people bad mouthing her. Back home there was plenty of that. Enough to probably make even Mick Jagger feel like an ugly good for nothing piece of shit in his prime. That didn't change when she came to Yuuei either. Several mishaps along the way was all she needed to get the reputation of somebody that wasn't exactly considered the paragon of justice or even friendship, regardless of the fact that she apparently won second place in that strange popularity contest that the school hosted internally. Jasmine never cared about any of it. It just... didn't matter. If she were to be blatantly honest she'd even go so far as to say all of it was beneath her. But there was one thing she wouldn't stand for. The cliche of cliches. And yet said banality wasn't as commonplace as people thought it was, mostly because people never walked the talk.

You can say shit about her. She won't even bat an eyelash. Her friends, though? There was no coming back from that.

Hell she wondered how she hasn't ripped Maximilian's head off of his shoulders yet. Probably because that sad hot piece of garbage wouldn't know what common sense or rational thought was if it slapped him across the face. With a cactus. Twice. On either cheek. 

That was the entirety of the reason Jasmine had gotten into this mess in the first place. Sure, when she arrived the military were being flacid dicks about it. Egging her on, trying to get her to fight. Fight she did, but a simple spar to get them to fuck off was all that that situation was supposed to be. And then they said the magic words.

You fucking monster. Just like that bloody skank of a friend in the infirmary.

Honestly? Jaz couldn't have known that that particular sentence was aimed at Rin. But her very first instinct was to snap. Oh and snap she did, unleashing a hell that would be remembered by Sergeant Yoshi Miwa and her men for quite a fucking while. Damn cunts.

"Surprised?" Jaz asked, rolling her eyes, "It's not like I've been training three times per day every day for the past several months or anything. Dumbass," she replied, the last word coming out a little quieter than the rest as she heaved a sigh and leaned back into her chair, feeling some of the exhaustion from before multiplying due to having sat down. Despite how trained she was, the prior spar did take a lot out of her and now that her muscles had gotten some reprieve they barely wanted to start functioning again. A part of her considered they were cramping but honestly she was too tired to check. Heck, she was too exhausted to even process the feeling of pain. Huh, that was actually quite a useful skill.

"Yes, mom. Thank you for the lecture. Anything else I need to look forward to? Hey, you never know, maybe a swarm of a gajillion bees is about to attack me and sting me so hard my ass will turn blue. Wait, that seems like a scenario we've been in before. Huh."

Rambling aside.

The blonde lioness hummed at the Raven's words, her mind quickly considering all the place she knew about. One came to mind. It wasn't anything special - something like a kebab or burrito or whatever place that had set up shop near the military grounds to earn a quick buck. She'd seen quite a few people go there on their downtime - students and soldiers alike - so she figured it would be a good thing to try out. And on the flip side it wasn't that far meaning she wouldn't tire her legs out too much. And she wouldn't have to spend too much money. God was she broke after getting all the tools she needed. Both for her tattoo stuff and that bike she was planning to build.

But lets not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? She still had yet to requisition a garage from Kobayashi to be able to hone her craft.

Anyway.

Groaning, the fiery teenager hopped up to her feet, feeling no worse for wear, yet quite a bit tired. Smirking slyly, Jaz took Rin's hand for her own, intertwining their fingers as she did so, purposefully ignoring any and all protests that might have come from the significantly shorter female, "Lead the way I shall," she said, marching out of the infirmary and taking the little Raven with her.

"So," she began as they walked the hallways, totally ignoring the soldiers or students that might have seen them on the way out of the compound, "how's your day been?"

"Yeah, yeah," Jasmine replied, waving her off. She sincerely didn't want to get into an argument about what was right and what was not. What was childish and what wasn't. Rin wouldn't understand that particular point anyway. They never saw eye-to-eye in matters like this. Jasmine agreed that what was most important was making sure that people were safe from actual harm. She agreed to that whole-heartedly. However she wasn't about to let those dearest to them be shittalked by anybody. She'd seen and felt the damage that verbal abuse could do to somebody. And, besides... if a person she respected and loved was bad-mouthed by somebody, she wasn't about to let something like that slide regardless of the fact if that person was present in the area or not. Something like that just left a very bad taste in her mouth.

And, besides. She was free to punch whoever the hell she wanted.

"Yeah well I might as well be," she supplied, "I'm fine. Don't worry about it." The last part was accompanied by a wink. Even if she was exhausted and slightly injured, it was minuscule at best. Frankly the lioness could go for another round or five and be relatively fine. Her tenacity when it came to fighting was borderline unmatched as she was somebody who could get back up on her feet when others would put her down. That was part of Jasmine Noir's charm and battle prowess, after all.

My moms tend to die, she wanted to say, but kept the sentiment locked in her head. That was a bit too dark for the current mood.

"Stolen samples? Huh. Who the hell would steal blood samples? What are you working on, anyway? Sounds a little sketchy," the blonde lioness answered, both a little curious and worried. She hoped Rin was getting herself into any kind of trouble. The last time that happened was enough for the both of them and a good number of others.

"My day was just that - fighting. Fighting, fighting and fighting. People just can't leave me alone it seems. I have no idea if it's because of that vanity fair Yuuei calls a ranking system or whatever but everybody now wants a piece of Jasmine fucking Noir. That and the soldiers here are utter pricks. Like, I get the idea of wanting to test the capability of one of the most destructive quirks around but Jesus Christ I'm a human not a fucking lab rat," she said, an annoyed sigh leaving her lips. "Then again... this does remind me of home. Kinda makes me happy in a real twisted sense, y'know? Like I'm in my natural habitat, as fucked up as that sounds. Had me going there for a while."

As the two of them conversed, they finally approached the food truck. A couple of soldiers were just done getting a kebab each, meaning there was no line and the two of them were free to order. Ignoring the glare the two soldiers she had, funnily enough, punched in the face before, Jasmine approached the truck, looking through the menu, "I'm thinking enchiladas. Heard they're pretty great here? How about you?"

Jasmine had locked away what Rin had said about the QED deep inside the back of her mind, deciding to keep quiet about the situation for now. This felt like a touchy subject, one that shouldn't have been discussed where practically anybody could hear them. A lot of questions swam in her mind, first and foremost in regards to exactly how Rin had acquired this information. But she thought it better if she kept her mouth shut for now and asked questions later, simply offering a short for sure! upon being asked to join the little Raven in her endeavor to the medical area. Considering the fact that Rin had caught the scent of something shady, there was absolutely no way Jasmine was going to let the girl walk into this shit by her lonesome self. Rin was strong, but the gods only knew the girl was a bit dense in terms of fighting instinct. Why did Jaz say that? Well, because of her personality Rin likely wasn't somebody who could be merciless in a fight - something that was too often necessary. If you worried about an opponent, chances were you were going to get blindsided and fucked up. It had happened to Jasmine herself once or twice. Never again. Ever.

When they reached the food stand, Jasmine had practically ignored the handful of soldiers that were giving him the stink-eye. It didn't really matter so long as they didn't give them any shit. And if they were to say anything or even do anything, Jasmine was pretty sure she was still capable of breaking some skulls even if she had been utterly exhausted and spent for the day. Did she consider the repercussions that would've followed had she fought the military outside the military grounds? Sure. Did she care? Not... really? It wasn't like she was about to go punching them for glaring at the two girls. And if they started something, she could fight back and simply plead self-defense. There were witnesses around - namely the food stall people - who she heard were quite pro-Yuuei, if the small smile on the chubby-guy's face who worked the stall was anything to go by.

"Howdy girls. You two alright?" The older man asked, leaning over the counter by supporting himself with his elbows, inquisitive brown eyes glancing over the two females.

"Hanging in there, yeah," Jasmine supplied with a slow salute.

The man snickered at her, "Yuuei, right?"

"1-A, at your service!"

He chuckled again, "Heard you kids have been doing drills with the military. Those guys can be quite the bunch to deal with. They're not giving you any trouble, are they?"

The blonde lioness simply shrugged at the question. The action did sting her shoulder a bit, but it wasn't anything that was easy to notice, "No worse than the usual, really. What gave it away? The bandages? Or Rin over here looking like she's about to pass out from worrying about everything a little too much?"

"Hah!" He laughed. He didn't know exactly what the taller blonde had in mind, but the girl sure looked rather nervous. Clearly the soldiers over there enjoying their kebabs way unnerving her. Assholes scaring off customers. Well, nothing he could do about that, really. At the very least he could try accommodating the two girls. "You know what? Pick anything you like. A portion each. On the house."

"Oh, shit. For real?" Jasmine asked almost immediately thereafter, her eyes widening and practically sparkling. Hey, free food was free fucking food. No way was she going to not be excited about it, let alone say no!

"Yes, for real. Just without the shit," he said, giving her the look, to which she just rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "Consider this a thank you for trying to become Pro Heroes, yeah? You guys are the future protectors of us simple folk, so we gotta help you along the way."

Man, if only more people thought like this guy, Jasmine thought, glancing over her shoulder to grin at Rin, "Well we plan to take you up on that offer. Enchiladas it is then, thanks!"

After a few brief moments, the two girls got their food - as take-out, per Rin's request - thanked the guy serving them and went on their way. Rin was nervous, that was obvious enough without the little Raven explaining that to Jasmine verbally. But, instead of eating on the go, Jasmine had insisted that they go to a certain place just outside the military grounds, all the way around the compound. Jaz was silent along the way, trying to resist the urge to utterly devour all the food she had stored in a small, see-through plastic bag. God that smell was intoxicating. Jasmine had to actually focus to keep herself from scarfing down on both her food and Rin's.

After a few moments they reached a set of abandoned buildings. Rin might have been a little nervous to enter considering the circumstances, but Jaz only grinned as she egged her on inside. The two of them went up several flights of broken down stairs, up to the fourth floor, before they found themselves on the roof. Out in front of them was quite the view - the whole of Musutafu could be seen far into the horizon, the setting sun painting the city a luminous orange. It was the time of the day where looking directly into the sun - while quite bright, didn't hurt your eyes. And boy did the warmth feel nice.

Sitting on the ground, making herself comfortable with her back against a large, broken down AC, Jasmine moaned as her muscles relaxed once again. She tapped the ground next to her for Rin to sit down before she dug into the plastic bag, giving Rin her food and then unwrapping her own.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, the question came.

"How'd you find out about this Quirk Enhancing Drug, anyway? Or that there's shady shit going on?"

It had never left her mind. And she wasn't about to let it be unanswered either.

Silently, the blonde lioness resigned to simply listen to the story. She had remembered the shark villain her Aussie friend/rival/whatever the fuck had fought. It was all over social media in one way or another - Darren had actually handled the situation quite well considering the circumstances. He adhered to the rules. Or rather, he went around the rules. He didn't actually fight, only rather simply used his quirk to keep the shark occupied while authorities arrived on the scene. To be honest, though... Jasmine fully believed Darren would've been able to take the shark down by himself. The Australian fuckwit was strong - undeniably so. Sure he lacked the brainpower here and there but in terms of fighting the guy was probably just as good as she was. He lacked the experience, that was true, but his instincts were right up there.

She sighed; Yuuei rules, while they made sense for certain situations, sucked so much in the grand scheme of things. It's why she kept considering going back to being Ember. To just... shed the school, the rules, the constraints and the people who... and just take up the mask. 

But that was a story for a different day.

On some level, Jasmine thought she should have given Rin just... so much shit. She had managed to get herself into trouble and... no, that wasn't an accurate assessment. Being the top student at Yuuei had gotten her into trouble, and she hadn't even breathed a word of it to the blonde lioness ever since it happened... fuck knows when it even happened. That... hurt. Then again she knew she was being a little hypocritical considering her track record. She breathed out lowly. Guess that's what Karma was all about, huh? Not the first time she decided to bite her in the ass.

Despite feeling a little shitty because of something seemingly so irrelevant - yet not as much in her own mind - Jasmine was simply glad Rin was okay. Sure, the military had been shit, personnel shit, routines shit... so much shit. The lioness herself didn't really pay it too much attention, though. She could handle it. The little Raven, on the other hand, had gone through so much crap before all of this even started Jasmine could feel her own blood starting to boil, and yet on the outside she was calm, borderline unnaturally stoic. Her eyes glazed over the sun in the horizon, her vibrant lilacs reflecting the yellow-orange-red hues of the dying sunlight. Quietly, she simply dug into her food, taking a decent bite.

The food didn't even taste as good. Funny how that worked.

She ate it anyway, savoring every bite just to recharge herself and be ready to welcome another day. Or, well, to be ready for her evening work-out routine.

"Yeah, things have been pretty jaded here," she said, still looking somewhere into the distance. Even if she was speaking, she wasn't really... there. Her mind had wandered somewhere momentarily. "These are good," she then added before taking another bite, licking off the sauce from her fingers moments later.

"How bad was it?" She asked, "the fight, I mean."

With masked curiosity, Jasmine listened to Rin's explanation, trying to picture the fight in her mind. She could imagine Rin inside a cage, facing that very same shark monstrosity she remembered seeing in uTube videos. Confident, standing tall, the little Raven slit through her hands with the rings Jaz had given her and used her blood manipulating quirk to fight against the much larger foe. As Rin explained, Jasmine could imagine the entire fight unfold, adding a little detail here and there to give herself a better image of the fight. Then the shark went wild, overpowering Rin momentarily. It was... it was an image that worried the lioness. But it was, at the same time, a strange type of worry.

Don't get the lioness wrong, though. She trusted Rin. Sure, the Raven was no real fighter, but the Ace of 1A firmly believed that Rin was fully capable of handling herself in a fight. That's just how potent and versatile her quirk was. Sure, she was more of a medic, and her quirk aided her with that in more ways than one. But Rin could be a fighter when she needed or wanted to be. Maybe Jasmine hasn't seen it in action yet, but something about how stubborn Rin tended to be let Jasmine know that she wouldn't take a fight laying down, especially one with such forced bullshit circumstances.

But at the same time, Jaz just... didn't want Rin to fight. While she could fight, she wasn't a fighter. She wasn't meant to be a fighter. Jasmine, on the other hand, had been through the nitty and gritty. She had learned to fight and flourished in the battlefield. She had long since accepted her role as 'the muscle' and she was totally okay with it being like that. Hell, by this point she wanted it to be like that. Yes, she was well aware that Rin wanted to draw out more of her 'feminine' side. The little Raven had, prior to that happening, tried her damndest to get the more softer sides of the lioness out into the open. But the thing was... Jasmine wasn't comfortable in those situations. It wasn't 'leaving your comfort zone,' it was more like crushing it beneath her heel. It was too much. It wasn't her. Jasmine herself wanted Rin to be that, while Jasmine would be the one to shoulder all the fights.

In a way, the lioness saw this as Rin being the shield while Jasmine herself was the spear. It probably made little sense, but it was how Ember's mind functioned. The thought process of a martyr, maybe, but it was simply who Jasmine Noir was.

At the end of it all, Jasmine simply offered a nod as she finished her food, deciding not to comment on the fight as she knew she wouldn't have anything nice to say. And there was no real point to say anything mean either - it was in the past. If Rin didn't want to tell her about it earlier that was her decision, like it or not. Instead, Jasmine focused on what followed thereafter - their Sundays. God, it really has been a while, hasn't it? With recent events, Sundays had all but disappeared from their lives. Rin had been... distant, for understandable reasons. And Jasmine had dedicated herself to changing and helping Rin along the way. They were so preoccupied with their own thing that their us time had practically become a thing of the past. And that...

...was sad.

Jasmine simply smiled as she looked up at Rin, taking her hand after having finished their food, "I think I'd like that," she said, pulling herself up, yet never letting go of Rin's hand afterwards. Instead, she intertwined her fingers with the little Raven's... a small symbol of how they were still connected despite all the bullshit.

"Think we should get some snacks?"