The next day, Ren and Kai were in the meeting room. They were talking casually until—boom—the door was kicked in hard by John.
"YOU!" he yelled.
Kai was shocked. He didn't know why John suddenly came here yelling at Ren. But Ren knew exactly why John was acting like this, and simply got up and looked at John dead in the eye.
"You reported me."
"And now they say I'm not allowed to go on patrol or anything because I'm suspended from SIED work! Why the hell would you do that?! Why would you report me to Kelsey?!" John said, angry, then paused for a second. "Wait a minute… is this because I told you to quit martial arts? Are you this fucking petty? You can't take someone's advice, so you just throw them under the bus?!" John said angrily.
"Oh, just as I suspected from a person as self-centred as you," Ren mocked. "You think everything is about you, and do everything for you. No, I did not report you because of your so-called advice. No. I reported you for two reasons."
"First of all, it is because what you did: you ruined the whole mission by threatening Duke and his friends and starting the fight to begin with. You deserve to get in trouble because of it."
"And second of all is to help Duke and his friends, since if I didn't report what you did, then Duke and his friends would have been slapped with assault charges against SIED officers, which would have put them in a lot more trouble than they deserved. But since I told them what you did, now that won't happen. In fact, their situation has gotten better, because they won't get as much consequences as before as compensation for your actions," Ren said.
"You know I had my reasons for starting that fight to begin with," John said.
"Oh, I definitely know why you started that fight. You wanted it. You're so annoyed because you didn't get the challenge that you wanted, so when you saw the opportunity, you created the challenge that you wanted," Ren said. "You're just complaining because you were the weakling of that fight. Here is Kai—he did great, and he never complained about what happened because he did great."
Kai was extremely uncomfortable being brought up in this argument.
John bringing up Ren's performance in that fight made him irritated.
"You know what? If you wanted a challenge so bad, maybe you should have picked a savage planet instead of Earth. They would have definitely welcomed you there as One of their own.
Ren's words angered John beyond belief. He stepped closer, his fist charging up and glowing. Ren had his shades ready. They were just about to fight until—
"Hey, hey! I think this is enough, okay?" Kai stepped between them and pushed them away from each other with his arms. "Look, maybe you guys should calm down and drink some cold water or something. Just relax, okay?"
Kai felt a little awkward doing this because normally Ren was the one who calmed him down, since Kai was supposed to be the hothead. So calming two people so they wouldn't fight was weird and difficult for him. But luckily, John realized nothing good would happen if he fought Ren out of nowhere. Heck, that was the reason they were in this situation to begin with, so he just walked away, still angry.
Ren decided to leave as well since there was nothing for him to do here anyway.
"Hey Kai, I'm leaving. Do you want to come with me?" Ren offered.
But Kai didn't respond. He just looked away awkwardly for a second.
"About that… dude, I'm kinda… I'm planning on training with John a little bit. It can also calm him down a little, and maybe then he could see your point. After all, you were kind of in the right in that conversation," Kai said, scratching his head awkwardly.
Ren didn't say anything for a moment, then nodded.
"Yeah… I get it. Then see you later."
Ren walked out of the room. And even though he didn't show it or say it, he was kind of hurt. Just a little, that Kai chose to stay with John instead of leaving with him.
Ren left the building, still angry about this whole thing. Everything was going fine until John made his stupid suggestion.
Ren was angry because he didn't want to give up on practising martial arts, because he loves training and practising martial arts.
He first realised this during the fight with the Gunshot leader. At the time, he was angry because the leader was defeating him even though he sucked at fighting. He relied on his power and threw sloppy punches, and that made Ren angry. In that moment, he couldn't analyse why he was angry, but later on, after that whole situation was done with, he tried to understand that feeling he felt before. And he realised that maybe he isn't just using martial arts… maybe he actually likes it.
And the fact that someone who doesn't even know how to throw a punch managed to land hits on Ren made him angry.
With that realisation, he continued practising martial arts even though he was just practising some basic ones like boxing, jujitsu, karate, whatever. Without learning extremely advanced ones beyond the common ones, he still practised. And when John suggested that he quit martial arts, he just got angry immediately because of that one suggestion.
And the resentment continued, even after that talk.
That made him realise he doesn't just like martial arts… he loves practising martial arts, so he doesn't want to stop doing it, but still…
…gghg.
He just scratched his head in frustration and kept walking.
He doesn't have anything to do right now, and since he doesn't have to work or go on patrol, he might as well have some fun. So he pulled out his phone and started texting Jackson and Mori, to see what they're up to.
Group chat:
Ren: Hey guys, what are you up to?
Jackson: Nothing much, we were just going to some event happening.
Ren: Do you mind if I join you guys?
Mori: Wait, don't you have some SIED work or something?
Ren: It's complicated, but currently I'm free.
Mori: Oh, it's perfect then. Come join us.
Jackson: It's called Greenfield Open Day. I will send you the location.
Ren was surprised. Greenfield isn't that a training location?
But then he remembered.
Oh right… the whole reason we were able to go there and fight Iris is because there were preparations going on for some event that was gonna be held there. I guess this is the event.
It might be nice to go there to have fun this time.
And with that, he headed towards Greenfield again.