Okay, well, here's the start of another quite long story. And...I've been cruel again. I'm afraid I've been VERY cruel this time, but it was so I could try my hand at a KaiLee. Even if you think that pairing couldn't work, please give it a chance!


Rei opened his eyes, looking around blearily. When he saw the harsh wooden bars around him, he was puzzled for a second, then he remembered. Remembered being greeted off the plane, walking out of the aiport, and then everything going dark.

He remembered what had happened when he'd woken up- He'd been tied between two poles and interrogated, whipped and beaten when his elders, the people who had nurtured him as a child, received the answer they didn't want to hear. Everyone had looked shocked when he'd told them the truth, rearing up to scream "YES! I'M GAY! HAPPY NOW?" Before collapsing back to his knees, sobbing.

With a certain amount of horror, Rei realised that the reason he had woken up was that someone was outside his cage, staring in at him. He sat up and looked out. "Mariah?"

"How could you? How could you do this to me? To all of us?"

"I...I'm sorry for hurting you. But I am what I am and I can't change that."

"Was it Max?"

"No."

"Was it Tyson? I swear, I'll-"

"It...wasn't Tyson. Isn't Tyson."

"Who was it? Who turned you into...into a freak?" Rei turned his face away, tears gathering in his eyes.

"It's Kai. And I still love him."

"No! He's brainwashed you! You're not gay! You're supposed to marry me!" Rei looked back at Mariah's accusing eyes and sighed.

"Mariah...I'm sorry. But I love Kai, and I'll always love him, and if that means I have to die then I'll die."

"But I love you!"

"Then...do you understand why I can't just deny it?" Mariah gave a growl of anger.

"Did you sleep with him?"

"A couple of times."

"I wish I'd never fallen in love with you at all! You disgust me!"

Rei blinked, his amber eyes empty, as they had been ever since he'd woken up in his cage. He'd been given a week. A week in which he could repent, and if he wasn't prepared to do that, a week in which he could prepare himself for death. And now there were only two days left.

It had been nice, despite the circumstances, to sit and watch the village bustling around him. It was like being young again. Every so often, people would stop and stare at him, some with pity, some with anger, and some with downright disgust. Disgust, just like the disgust plain on Mariah's face as she stared at him. "You're wrong, all of you. It's not...disgusting. Or it doesn't seem that way when you're in love. Will you tell him, after you kill me?"

"Never! I'm going to tell him that you never want to see him again because you hate him so much!"

"And what will that change? He would never believe you anyway. I promised I'd phone him two days ago. Obviously, I didn't phone. Kai's a paranoid kind of person. He'll wonder what's happened to me. He knows I wouldn't break a promise to him, so he'll automatically think something's happened to me." Rei wiggled his bare toes, smiling to himself. "When I die, Mariah...will you be happy?"

"Yes! GAY! HEATHEN!" Screeched Mariah, before stalking off, leaving Rei on his own. They'd taken his watch off him, and all his clothes apart from his trousers and boxers, but judging by the number of people running around he'd say it was about...midday. Time for...

"Rei?"

"Hey Lee."

"I...brought..."

"Thanks." Rei accepted the parcel of food Lee passed to him through the bars. "How are you?" Lee shook his head.

"Isn't that what I should be asking you?"

"Me? I'm the same as I was yesterday."

Lee sank to the floor, his back to the bars, and sighed. "I don't see why you can't just pretend for long enough to get away from here."

"I'm not going to say that I'm not gay. Because I am. I shouldn't have to pretend to be what I'm not. Just...promise me that when they kill me, you'll tell Kai the truth. I know Mariah won't, and I want him to know...I don't ever want him to think I abandoned him."

"I'll tell him. God, Rei...I'll miss you..."

"I'll miss you too. If I don't get another chance to say this...please have a happy life. Find a wonderful woman and marry her, and if you ever come to question your sexuality...don't come home. Thank you...for being there for me. And...they took Driger, but even if they don't give him to you, I want you to have him. I...love you...in a platonic sort of way. And don't be angry with Mariah. I know I've hurt her, and maybe she's wrong to think the things she does but it's for a good reason." Rei's hand slipped through the bars and patted Lee's once.

Lee nodded and sniffed. "I hope they make it quick, Rei...you don't deserve to suffer..." Rei nodded and opened the food parcel. Watermelon, mushrooms and some nuts and berries, with a small flask of what Rei presumed was water. As he started to nibble the seeds out of the watermelon, Lee was called away.

Rei spent the rest of the afternoon seeing how far away from his cage he could spit watermelon seeds. The cage itself was about five feet high and the same across- a cube of thick bamboo bars, with gaps in between them, just about large enough to fit his head through, but not the rest of him. When he'd run out of seeds, he started humming, tapping his fingers on the dusty cage floor and clicking his tongue. Some of the people passing frowned at him, but he'd realised that there really wasn't anything more they could do to him. After all, in two days he was going to die, so he figured that they'd done their worst already.

When he got bored of taunting and annoying the locals with his tuneless humming and drumming, he curled up on his side and went to sleep.


"Are they the knives you're going to kill me with?" Rei asked, leaning as far through the bars as he could and giggling. "Are you going to stab me or just cut me until I bleed to death? Huh? Tell me, I hate waiting to know things!"

An elder who was standing nearby glared. "Pay no heed to the gay. It's becoming deranged." Rei laughed even more, until tears ran down his cheeks.

"Heed me? Heed me? Hah, what's the point if I'm going to die?" The two people who were sharpening knives a few metres away from his cage tried to carry on, but Rei continued to speak. "Do you know where me and Kai went on our first date? A gay bar. It was...oh, it was just like heaven. All those hot, sweaty, half-naked people dancing, all pressed up close and every single one of them gay. All of them checking me out, but I was Kai's. I let him have me. All of me. He was so good...better than any of you would even dare to imagine.

"In Russia, it's more relaxed. Well, more relaxed about gays, in some places, anyway. Actually, a lot of Kai's friends are gay- Tala, Bryan, Spencer. Even some of my team are! Funny though, I don't see any of them being put to death for liking penises!" Everyone around looked shocked and slightly sickened, and Rei smirked. Much as he refused to admit it to himself, waiting to die was driving him slowly crazy. "You don't like that word, do you? Penis. Penis, penis penis. Erect penis. Sucking on a penis. Man sucking man, man on man, penis, backside, pain, pleasure, and hot, sweet, loving, passionate sex." Rei giggled and sat down inside his cage. "Shame on you, Rei, you say, for loving another man. For kissing another man. For being made love to by the most wonderful man on the planet. Shame on you for daring to be honest, for telling us the truth!"

Everyone had stopped and was staring at him, rapt. "Shame on you for being a man-lover. A gay. A puff. Can you think of any more?" He went straight on without waiting for an answer. "The word I use for it though, in my own head, is 'happy'. That's what Kai makes me. I mean yeah, when I had sex with him it was amazing, but he's wonderful in so many other ways. Like when we just sit together, holding hands, not talking, just holding hands, or when he cooks for me, or when he pulls me onto his lap and tells me he loves me."

The elder present, a wizened old man, glared even harder. "Stop it from talking. It is a twisted, heathen sinner."

"Go on then! Gag me or whatever! But you can't gag my mind! You can't reach in through my ears and stop me from thinking! I love him, and I'll love him until I die! Granted that's not very long, but I have honour, and I have dignity! I won't stop loving him just because you tell me it's wrong! And I'm not an it, I'm a he, and I'm a he who likes other he's! If that means I have to die then I have to die!"

And then someone crept into the cage behind him and knocked him out.


Damn, I'm cruel. Mind, I'm in a pretty malicious frame of mind at the moment because of all my stupid exams!

Next Chapter: Ouchies for Rei, and an angry Kai.

Anyway, R&R please!