Loss
It was seven fifteen PM when the phone rang.
Kai was reading on the sofa and made move to get the phone and so I had to answer it.
It was for him (a shock in itself) but more shocking still it was a woman and she sounded impatient.
I shouted for Kai and was more than happy to relinquish (Hey word a day calendars work wonders) the phone when three minutes later when Kai finally dragged his arse off the sofa.
I went back to the kitchen to finish dishing out what Rei had left us for dinner (one for kai, four for me. That kind of thing) and give him some privacy (See I do understand what that word means!)
Kai entered the room not long afterwards looking, oddly, even paler than usual.
We ate in silence. I was afraid to say anything and he didn't even seem to notice I was there.
He calmly collected our plates after the meal was over and I retired to the living room worried.
He seemed too calm (Which is an odd thing to say about the ever-calm Kai). He wasn't the most open person in the world but I felt like I knew him; knew his moods and his habits, knew which bands he did and didn't like (He actually got quite verbal watching the music channels). I knew that he secretly smoked when we weren't around. We were team mates and friends. We had been for years and I had never seen him like this (where were Max and Rei when you needed them?).
For the next hour the silence was un-nerving. It made the suddenness with which it was broken all the more disturbing.
I could hear the horrible clank and smash of the plates breaking in stereo. Crash after crash echoing through the whole Dojo.
When I gained back my senses I managed to make my way to the kitchen.
Inside Kai was calmly picking up plate after plate from the draining board and smashing them on the floor.
It was eerie ho collected he looked while conducting such an irrational act.
I knew that I had to stop him before we lost all our plates.
It was then his composure began to slip. He looked up at me wildly as I approached and tried to hold his arm back. It was the first time in a long time I'd felt anything other than completely safe when around him.
He was shaking his head, looking around the room like he was trying to remember where he was.
Something was very wrong.
I tried to pull him towards me, to comfort him. He pushed me back with such force that he knocked me into the kitchen counter and propelled himself back into the fridge door.
I advanced again. Slipping slightly on the crockery as I went and praying that I could calm him down.
I wished Rei was there to help, or Max who'd grown so mature now…
His breathing was heavy and slightly choked.
"Kai?" I asked not knowing what else to say or do.
He seemed to calm a bit at the sound of his name or my voice and I ventured slowly forward again. "Kai what's wrong?"
He backed off a little and looked at the floor. Everything was silent except our breathing and the cracking of my feet against the broken plates.
"Shit Tyson your feet" he said suddenly dropping to the floor and trying to clean up the plates.
My feet were bleeding. In all the excitement I hadn't noticed. But now so were his hands…
"Kai" I said crouching down and trying to stop him. "Kai stop it you're cutting your self."
He carried on working feverishly.
"Kai please…" I begged frightened and close to tears "Please." I could feel my voice breaking.
I didn't know what I was supposed to do.
He had stopped. The kitchen floor was a bloody mess. Kai was staring at his hands intently.
"We should get some bandages" I said standing up. Inwardly I thanked Mr Dickenson for forcing us all on that first aid course. Guess I'm not the only one that notices how often we get injured in our battles, especially with all that random property damage (thank you Kai)
"I have to go home" he whispered as I opened one of the cupboards. He was smudging the blood over his hands like moisturiser.
"You are home," I said confused.
"No." He said pulling out the dustpan and brush. "Back to Russia."
It was silent while he cleaned up and silent while I bandaged my feet. I tried to bandage his hands as well and he nearly let me.
"What about us?" I asked as he made his way to his room "We have a Championships soon…"
"I'll be back" he said "Do me a favour ring Mr Dickenson tomorrow , oh and tell the others to train on their own until I get back."
"What if they ask why?" I don't know why but I really didn't want him to go.
"Tell them that my grandfathers dead."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I couldn't sleep that night. I could hear Kai packing in the next room. Somehow even after the noise had stopped I knew that he wasn't asleep.
Somewhere around two am I made up my mind to join him and by four I was packed and ready to go.
At first I could see that he was ready to protest, but in the end he just seemed too tired.
I called Mr Dickenson at seven, just before we got on the train and told him to tell Max and Rei when they got back. By nine we were boarding the plane.
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
The plane journey was long. Usually I would have slept through it. But everything just felt so wrong.
So I spent the whole journey with Kai sitting stiffly next to me staring out the window trying to think of way to comfort him.
Which was hard. I was so sure that he hated his grandfather. I knew that if my grandfather was like that I would hate him…Kai was rarely as straight forwards as me though…
CCCCCCCCCCCCCC
It was dark when we finally arrived, but not too late.
Kai, who had rushed so quickly the day before seemed to be moving slower and slower the closer we got to the airport doors.
I was shaking already. I remembered how cold it was in Russia.
Kai veered off to the right just before we reached the door. I was about to ask what he was doing when one of his slightly shaky hands pulled out a box of cigarettes.
His hands shook too much to use the lighter so I took pity on him and helped without comment.
He knew that I hated it when people smoked but now did not seem like the time to preach about lung cancer (as much as I would have liked to).
We rode to the house in a limo (well I say house but really I should say estate) in a limo. Again I was itching to make to comment but I'm not sure that he would have heard me anyway.
Once we reached the (I assume) main house (how many building still constituted one house anyway?) he stopped gesturing for me to wait.
He had smoked another two cigarettes by the time we even rang the bell.
"How did he die?" I whispered urgently suddenly realising that it was probably important.
"Heart attack" he muttered but didn't look convinced.
How ironic.
"It's stupid but I always thought that it would take more…"
His speech was cut out by the door being answered.
I don't speak Russian so I have no idea what is said between the butler and Kai.
Kai seemed younger than he was when he tentatively climbed the steps. As if the weight if his memories were pushing him back in time.
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
The house was full of cold looking people in suits. They were all staring angrily at Kai.
"So the grandson returns for his inheritance," one particularly snooty woman accused in Japanese.
"What inheritance?" Kai answered back. I wondered if the language choice was for my benefit, or if they thought that Kai still had amnesia.
"Don't play dumb boy, you know as well as we do what you were being groomed for. Any assets not already stolen by you the first time your grandfather was arrested will be yours now."
She was seething, I could almost see the anger lines drawn in the air above her.
"Your stock portfolio is quite impressive for someone who is Denying all monetary knowledge," a balding man in glasses added.
"Always your grandfathers pet," another agreed.
"Of course he taught you how to manage his companies…" the first woman started again adding something in Russian at the end that I did not understand, but made Kai tense visibly.
"Where's the body?" was all he asked.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Some of them were quite openly taunting him in Russian as he was led away, even I could tell.
"What's up with them?" I asked.
"They're just angry because they know that they are going to be fired." said Kai giving me a pained smirk. I could tell that he wasn't joking.
"What's a stock portfolio?" I asked afterwards, even the words sounded alien.
"I'll tell you later," he lied.
I didn't push him to explain. I didn't want to push him like everybody else had been doing. I came to support him after all.
I wondered what Max and Rei were doing.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
The body looked creepy.
I mean Kai's grandfather had looked creepy alive, but he looked even creepier dead.
A million words could not describe the look on Kai's face as he stared down at his grandfather. 'Something between pain and elation' (But that's not right either).
We just stood there for what felt like hours. Kai just staring with that look on his face. My leg was beginning to cramp.
"I hate you"
I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard it. The loathing in that voice made me question it's humanity.
"I.Hate.You."
I looked up at him, tears pooling in his crimson eyes that he would not allow to fall.
"I hate you. I've always hated you. Even when I thought I loved you I hated you…"
Once again I think that Kai had forgotten I was there.
"I hope you're being cremated, I want to see you burn! I wish you were alive so that I could kill you myself…"
Kai looked at his hands, still scratched and bandaged from the other night. (He was far too good at bandaging himself)
He raised his fist and slammed it hard into his grandfathers chest. I heard a rib crack, I was sure about it.
Kai beat his grandfathers body angrily vomiting words of hate.
Since that phone call days ago my courage had left me. The only brave thing I had done was getting on that plane with Kai. I had even let those bastards say mean things about my friend…it didn't matter what language they were in! I was angry at myself for handling this all so badly, for being so weak…
I jumped forward and tried to restrain Kai. Wrestling him away from his grandfathers now slightly gruesome body.
His was body was now so weak with emotion that I managed to wrestle him down to the floor.
He had stopped struggling but his breath still sounded ragged and harsh.
"Why did he leave?" his asked his voice young and oddly innocent. It was scarier than his rage.
"What?" was all I could manage to ask.
"Why did he have to die? He was all the family I had left."
"You have us Kai. I tried hoping that it meant as much to him as it did to us, "Me, Max, Rei and Kenny. We'll always he here for you."
"No you'll die too," said Kai jerking his arm from my grip "Like my parents and cousins, uncle and niece…all dead…all of them."
I didn't know what to say.
After a moment he wobbled to his feet.
"I need a shower," he said, his voice whole again, cold and hard. I used to find it comforting, after I got to know him. It was good to lean on Kai, to hide behind his strength. I didn't know if I'd ever be able to hear that voice again without wondering what he was hiding. Without wanting to cry.
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
"Don't bother to unpack too much," Kai ordered over his shoulder after we'd been shown to our room. "We won't stay long. Just for the funeral and maybe to visit some friends."
I knew that he meant Tala and the Demolition Boys.
"It won't be an open casket funeral," I joked not sure if I had crossed the line but knowing that I had to lighten the situation up, at least a little.
He smirked and this time it seemed genuine rather than a twisted parody of something else.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
He took his time in the shower. I wondered if he cried in there. For all his earlier breakdowns I had yet to see any of the tears in his eyes fall.
He came out already half changed and staring off into the distance. I wondered what he saw when he stared so intently, wondered if he saw anything at all