breathe easy for a while || lei : blitz

I am not a proud person. I don't gloat about how attractive I am or my incredible strength or sharp wit (of which I don't even have anyway). I'm not arrogant, I don't strive for the spotlight or stand myself up above everyone else, staring down my nose at those beneath me. I am reclusive, quiet. I much prefer the shadows, as far away from the public eye as I can put myself without completely fading from existence, more comfortable with mystery than majesty. I know I'm a great career and a worthy opponent in the training center, but I certainly don't glorify myself for it- arrogance isn't exactly in my quota. However, when someone - a girl, of all people, a whole head shorter than your six feet, three inches - completely and utterly beats you down and humiliates you in front of every one of your peers (people you've beat down yourself, people who would love the chance to see you fall and relish in it.), you can't help it when your sense of dignity crashes and burns.

My toes sink into the sand as I walk, the brilliant red-gold rays of the sun sparkling off the tiny grains and turning the beach into a crimson canvas of reds and yellows in its dying light. It's a beautiful day, despite the frigid chill of winter that has been creeping down into our little summer wonderland here in District Four. But I'm not here to marvel at the weather, trudging along with my head bent forward and the seafoam iciness of my eyes fixed on the ground at my feet, breath huffing from between my chapped lips in a puff of steamed air - a walk of shame. I've had my fair share of losses in my life, but never at the hands of a five foot seven blonde chick who looked like she belonged in a salon, not a training center. It was a low blow (literally - I have bruises where no man should ever have bruises.), and what little pride I have has all but been snuffed out in a pitiful puff of smoke. Poof.

What had happened? How could she have taken me down so easily, like it was the easiest thing in the world? It had been almost effortless - like batting away a pesky fly - the damn smirk never even leaving her face, that familiar fear I so often see creeping into the eyes of those around me when my temper begins to boil never gracing her features - not even a flicker of it. I don't consider myself a bully, as I've never harmed anyone unless they've provoked me first, but I am a force to be reckoned with. At least, I thought I was. I didn't even get in a single punch.

I must've been so lost in my thoughts, as I didn't even notice that I'd stopped walking. Nor did I notice the girl not ten feet away, standing directly off to my left with a red-tipped paintbrush poised above an easel, until she opens her mouth. She politely tells me I'm in her way, and I really am, but for some reason her words piss me off. Maybe it's the crappy day I've been having, or maybe I'm just an ass, or maybe it's because the last girl who told me to move punched me in the nuts, but in that moment I decide that being a stubborn jerk is the best way to respond.

So instead of being a gentleman and apologizing before continuing on my way, I narrow my eyes and growl, "Then move."

"I'm sorry. Maybe you didn't hear me correctly. I was here first, and I asked you to move." Part of me admires the girl for her boldness, but another part is still boiling with anger and humiliation over my recent defeat at the hands of a girl who had been just as ballsy, a fresh wound that only continues to fester. But this girl is different, from what I can see of her in the fading sunlight. While the other was all ice and steel, cold blue eyes like twin glaciers and a face of angles that screamed don't fuck with me, this girl seems all warmth and flame, with thick, messy-brown curls and molten dark eyes where the other girl had white-blonde wisps and orbs of frosted glass. Even pissed off, she somehow manages to be somewhat polite. I would have punched a bastard like me by now.

But that fire inside of me is only burning hotter and hotter by the minute, roiling beneath my skin and muddling my anger-addled thoughts into something that whispers violence through my ears, urging me to show this girl that she can't get away with telling me what to do. My fists clench at my sides, glass-bottle blue eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. Even though she's done nothing wrong, and even though I know somewhere deep down that I'm being childish and cruel, I can't seem to stop myself from growling, "I heard you fine. And I'm staying right where I am, bitch."