Kim and Jack's Band — Chapter 2 — Who Decides
Just between us: the one who calls the shots in the duo isn't always who you'd think.
We don't have a band. Kim insists on making that clear.
This stays between us. If you tell Jack, I'll deny everything and finish you off afterward.
In our duo, the one who decides what we do is Jack.
I know it doesn't look that way. I'm the rational one. I have an argument for everything, I explain little, I spend few words, and I'm against it. Always. Doesn't matter what Jack proposes, I'm going to be against it and I'm going to argue against it. It's automatic. If Jack says the sky is blue, I'll ask since when.
Except Jack is Jack. He's emotional. He's persuasive. He talks, and talks, and talks, and in the end we always do what he wants. Every time.
He doesn't win on the argument. He wins on the exhaustion. And on the fact that, deep down, I know he'll never propose something that could really hurt us. He's reckless about everything except that.
And here's the part I hate to admit.
There isn't a single choice Jack made in this life that didn't take our brotherhood somewhere better.
Every time I give in and we do what Jack wants, we gain something. Even if it's just an absurd memory to laugh about later. But there's always something good left over. Every single time.
It was Jack who insisted we try for the Elite Academy scholarship, and I was against it for a whole week. It was Jack who dragged Nina into the group, and I was against it until after she was already in. It was Jack who got me into LDI (main line, ch. 3). Every one of those things I fought with every argument I had. And every one took me somewhere better than where I was.
If it were up to me, we'd be sitting still. Sitting on a wall. Doing nothing, forever.
I'm a stone that doesn't move. Jack is a force that pushes. And he gets the stone rolling.
I'm never going to tell him that. The guy's ego is already too big. If he found out, he'd become unbearable.