Between the Hazing and Training (Private)

"Corsica, yep. Most beautiful island in the world," she said. "Except my mother, she lives in Brittany."

Ryan nodded with a smirk. Her and that damn island... "So where's Brittany? It sounds like an island so is it in the Atlantic or Mediterranean?"

"It's not an island, it's like, North East France. Imagine Scotland, but without the highlands, and the people speak French," she explained, warming the squeeze bottle between her hands. "Lots of dolmens and cromlechs in the countryside. Haven't been there in ages though."

Ryan nodded. "Uh huh." He'd never been to Europe, or payed much attention to any detailed geography of the area. "So when do you plan to leave for France?"

"I've got to buy my tickets first. Actually, my aunt's buying them for me. Should be in a month's time though," she said, before examining her hands and feet. She really wanted to get five tattoos and was deciding where.

"Well, I hope it goes well for you over there." Ryan got up, only to sit back down his bunk across the room.

Chiara sat back down on the bench and went to work. Left foot took about five minutes including skin prep, right foot about the same. Then she switched to right hand, swiping the henna into Korean words.

Chiara briefly glanced at him. She wasn't exactly into sharing personal stuff, but this was Ryan. He and Namir were probably the only ones of her siblings who could ask her stuff and have a 60% chance of getting a reply.

"Depends," she said. "What's the question?"

"Well you see," Ryan got away from slouched sitting position to sitting up, "I've been here for, like, about 9 months or so, and all of that time I've been living here. I've had plenty of chances to ask this, which means I probably have, but it's on my mind right now: what does your mom do?"

She snorted. "You mean apart from being a full-time b!tch?" She took a few moments to finish the tattoo on her backhand before shaking the droplets off the bottle. "She's a special ops mercenary," Chiara finally replied.

"So she's a contractor? Interesting career path." Ryan took a second to lay back down on the bunk. "What's her background? I'm assuming she had some kind of legit military experience beforehand."

"Yeah, she's been in the French army for a good while," Chiara said before pointing at an old, worn backpack in camouflage colours hanging on the wall. "That one belonged to her, back in the days. She gave it to me for my tenth birthday."

Ryan looked over and examined the rucksack (OOC: assuming that's the kind of backpack you were going for. I'm imagining something the size of a hiking backpack here.) Chiara had. "That's nice. You ever use it or just keep it for looks?"

"Used it for my combat missions. But now one of the straps is ripped so I just leave it there." She shrugged. She didn't like the topic of her mother that much, unless she was ranting about her.

"That's good you got to use it." There wasn't much else for Ryan to add, so he just pulled out his laptop and started it up. He was blowing off a week of school to be at camp, so Ryan was having a friend email him what he missed.

Chiara just shrugged and kept doing her tattoo. The last one, she would've loved to have it at the base of her neck but wasn't skilled enough yet to twist her arm that far behind her back. In the end, after considering and examining different body parts, she went for the knee she had injured in her last combat mission. The knee which had taken the bullets and had to be replaced. It felt like the perfect place, albeit weird at first sight, to place the last Korean word. Baekjul bulgul.

When that was done and had dried, she stood up, showed her backhands then her feet and knee to Ryan. "Whatcha think?"

Neck deep in some B.S. online homework, Ryan gladly took Chiara's offer and looked over. Giving her the thumbs up, he added "Looks good, but what are they?"

"The five tenets of Taekwon-do," she said, then pointed at her right foot. "Courtesy, (other foot) integrity, (left hand) perseverance, (right hand) self-control, and indomitable spirit (knee). It sounds corny as fck, I'm totally aware of that." She shrugged, "But I haven't been to Taekwon-do training in ages and I miss it."

"Ah." Ryan turned his attention back to his computer, now opening a tab for Yahoo Answers. "Have you ever asked around and seen if there's anyone here who does Taekwon-do? It's not like there's a shortage of punching bags out there, so a few are bound to know that way of fighting back."

"A few do, yeah. But..." How could she word what she was thinking, what she was feeling? It was quite childish. "See, it's not just the training that I miss. Back home, I went to the dojang with my cousin, he's the same grade as me now. It's just the whole... Ah, you know what, fck it," she said and turned around, starting to put all her henna stuff back into the bag.

"You don't miss the fighting; you miss fighting with your cousin." He looked over at his half-sister, looking to confirm his inference. "Right?"

She grunted. "Yeah. But it's just the whole atmosphere from there, we had a kickass instructor and a tight-knit club, we went to competitions and sh!t. And I know I couldn't really get that here. Know what I mean?" The small redhead shrugged it off, swallowing away her nostalgia. "But I could ask people if they want to do some Taekwon-do training with me once or twice a week," she mused.

"Yeah, I feel ya."

Turning back to his computer, Ryan let his midget sister finish. "You know, that'd probably scare some folks away if you asked them. Sure it's just training, but still."

She smirked. "Then that's their problem. I'm sure there are some kids out there who wouldn't mind though."