Yousei: I'm back from california! And while I was there, I thought up a whole new plot!
Olivier: Have fun in California?
Yousei: *jumps up and down* YES!!!!
Kiki: What made you so happy?
Kyouju: HEY!! You aren't one of Yousei's muses!
Kiki: *shrugs* Am now. I'm one of her favorite characters now.
Yuri: But, did you buy anything in California?
Yousei: Beyblade manga, in Japanese!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kyouju: Yay!
Yousei: Yeah! Kyouju's alwasy like 'I made this machine, I'm so proud of me.' and Kiki's all 'weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee jump jump jump' and Yuri's all funny lookin' and all 'I destroyed
driger, now I'll destroy dragoon,' which he does. And Olivier doesn't exist in the book I'm reading.
Hehe... Many Kai/Rei moments. I'll babble at the end of the fanfic!
Kiki: ^^; She only owns one of the mass produced manga, and not politically.
Kyouju: As in, she doesn't own beyblade!
Olivier: I'm not in any of her fics...
Yuri: We aren't in this one, either...
Olivier and Yuri: Yay!

______________________________________________

"Takao, I'm in love with you."

That about ruined everything. Or at least, it seemed like it at the time.
Everything had been fine in my eyes, but he just shattered it.
And he was so calm too, it was somewhat strange, then again, after
that, everything was.

"Max, W-What d'you..." I asked trailing off and stumbling on a slight
back-step.
I recovered pretty quick, after a short glance into Max's eyes and stood
up correctly.

Looking in to his eyes, for some reason, seemed like a horribly frightening
thing to do. When I did though, I could tell he was serious, and, at the
moment, a little afraid...
I'm a little more observant than people think, and I read people pretty well.
Or, I read my friends well. I can read Max, Kyouju too. Rei tends to look
calm all the time, but if I pay attention I know how he feels, for the most part.
And Kai only has 'I win' and 'I hate you' emotions, so I gave up on him.

"Look, Max, I'm not sure... How I feel about you. I don't know... I mean, I
know your my friend, and I know your my best friend, and possibly something
more, but I'm really not sure." I said, slowly wording it out in my head.

I paused and glanced around, something Max once told me I do when I'm nervous.
"Until I figure it out, we can stay friends, and everything will be the same... So, friends,
no matter what I answer. Okay?"

Of course, that hadn't worked. At all. Did you know that it's REALLY hard to
avoid someone, when you share a hotel room with them?

"Friends, then." Max said, sounding somewhat less cheerful, but not really very
unhappy, and extended a hand.
I reached out and we shook hands.

At the time, shaking hands had been really difficult. It was somewhat like I was
afraid that it would hurt, if I touched him.
Now, remember when I said that the whole 'friends' thing hadn't worked out?
Yeah, it just broke apart.
We just slowly, quickly actually, stopped hanging out. At practices we would
barely talk, if at all, and neither of us went to the others houses to play anymore.
We just separated. And also, I was just plain weird after that, like at the next
practice. Not only that, but Max never seemed to smile anymore. He would smile,
but solely for the purpose of keeping the others from worrying. Ussually when he
smiles, he's generally happy.

"Max, Takao, you two battle. Takao, try to stay on defense, Max needs to work on
offense. Takao, STAY on defense, he just needs to have someone to attack. If you
switch over, you'll end up just winning, so-" I interrupted Kai before I could stop myself.
"I might not." I said, before thinking about it.

I mean, I know I ussually act on impulse, but normally I know WHY I did that.
I didn't know, I just felt a strong need to protect Max. Which was strange, because
for some reason I was also afraid of him. But not directly.

"That is... Uuh... Max has beat me before, so..." I gave up and looked away.
Kai, Max and Kyouju were staring at me strangly. Max looking especially confused.
Rei smiled at me knowingly.

At the time I didn't know why he looked as though he understood. I mean, he had no
idea what was going on in my head. He later told me that he had the same urge to
defend Kai before he had it figured out.
Lucky for him, he thinks before acting, so never embarassed himself.
But basically, every time we were in a group was like that. Not exactly, like the same
thing over and over, but akward. Things were just plain akward.
Rei helped me out a lot. I tried forgetting it happened, but I couldn't, it was nearly the
only thing I could consentrate on.
I mean, my beyblading suffered. In that condition, no offense meant to Kyouju, but
even he prabably could have beat me.
But anyways, Rei actually forced me to let him help. I'm glad though.

"Practice is over for today." Kai said, before turning and heading towards his and Rei's hotel
room.
Kyouju folded his laptop and headed towards his room, Max shrugged and headed towards
ours. Rei grabbed my wrist and dragged me to his and Kai's room.
"I'm going to help you, because you're so stupid." Rei said, sounding strangly nice for the
content of what he said.
He dragged me into the room and left the door open.

'Course, Kai was already there.
"Kai, leave for a bit. I need to help Takao with relationship troubles." Rei ordered, firmly.
Kai raised and eyebrow, but silently left, however, turning back and mouthing 'Max?' to
Rei, who nodded. I saw it, but I'm not sure they know that.

Rei closed the door behind Kai and turned around, leaning against it.
"Surpirsingly, Kai could've helped you a lot on the subject of emotions." Rei said, paused,
and continued.
"But I doubt you want to tell him about your relationship troubles."
"I don't want to talk to YOU about my 'relationship problems.'" I said, pointedly.
"Troubles, Takao, I said 'troubles.' If you're going to quote me, do it correctly."

I found out that Rei's a really nice person. I mean, I knew he was nice, DUH, but I
just took it for granted all the time. I really apprisiated it at that time.
He just kind sat there and listened to me explain and whine about what was happening.
He would nod every now and then, to show that he was still listening, but he didn't
comment on stuff, like saying, 'You should have done this.'
He was only going to tell me what I could do NOW, not what I could have done THEN.

He's really caring, and it's not so embarassing, talking to him.
So, I talked to him. Told him about Max telling me he loved me, our friendship
disappearing off the face of the planet, Being confused.

Because, like I told Rei, I felt sympathetic for Max, for hafting to wait and all that
probably sucks, angry, because it was somehow his fault... That wasn't true, but I
kept telling myself that it was anyway.
Also, I felt confused, duh, and that was about all I felt. There was something else,
but at the time I didn't know what it was.

Once I had finished ranting, Rei sat calmly and raised a hand to his chin in thought.
"Well... I have no sure idea of what you should do, truthfully. However, I'm positive
that you have at least a crush on Max, so it might be more and it might not." Rei paused.
"You don't even know, yourself, so my answer is, once again, not a sure thing, but I think
you need to be willing to accept whatever YOUR answer is, in order to find it." Rei
shrugged and turned around, silently telling me that that was all I'd get from him.

So, I left and wandered about for the rest of the day. I went to bed, the entire time thinking
about what Max had said, AND what Rei had said.

Ussually when I have dreams, they're just weird. Nothing makes sense, and it's just a
combination of whatever crosses my mind in my sleep, plus the disability to cancel the
thought.
That night was different. When I woke up, I knew I had dreamed something, but I had
no idea what. It was just like I had dreamed of nothingness and confusion, because when
I woke up, all I could remember was... Nothing. But I none the less KNEW that I had
dreamed something.
I'm not sure if that had anything to do with the Max situation. It seemed like it shouldn't,
but it FELT like it did. I'm not sure how, but it just seemed like it had helped me, despite
it being a small void of emptiness.

I woke up and looked aorund the room. Max was still sleeping, lying on his side,
hands curled into small fists infront of his face.
The only thing I could think of the time was 'cute,' but I pushed away the thought.
Then I remembered something;
'you need to be willing to accept whatever YOUR answer is, in order to find it.'
I realized that I had just refused to accept something.
Didn't that mean that I was in denial? But Rei had said that I had a crush on Max, that was
true, I guess. I never really thought about it.

That day was pretty boring, but I did get it figured out. Everything.

Max sat on the edge of the top bunk of the bunk bed, kicking his feet, softly.
He glanced at the clock and sighed, murmering to himself;
"3 in the morning and I'm not tired at all. This sucks." He said it in English, but
I actually paid attention in English class before. Plus, being around Max, English
rubs off on you a little.

I was awake, watching him out of the corner of my eyes.

"Hey, Max?" I asked quietly, sitting up.
He leaned over and looked at me.
"Yeah? What is it, Takao?"
I grinned.
"I love you."

Max basically instantly lit up. You could tell, even though all he did was smile
softly. His eyes, once again, how I see Max, his eyes were brighter than they had been
the past few weeks.

"I'm glad." He said quietly.
Neither of us said anything after that. I'm not sure why, I think we were both afraid that
we would wake up or soemthing.
Everything would be normal now... If not better.

Another minute of silence and then;

"Hey, Max, wanna go dump a bucket of water on Kai?"
"Sure, lemme get my shoes on, so I can run."

_____________________________________________________

Yousei: And here I learn about my non-existant skills.
Olivier: Tell us about the manga!!
Yousei: Okaaaaay!!! Yeah... Kai... Has...
Kyouju: Has...?
Yousei: A DAD!!!!!!!!!
All: wooooooaaaaaaaah...
Yousei: Yeah!! In the manga. THERE WERE KAI/REI MOMENTS!!!
Yuri: Um... Yay?
Kiki: She likes that pairing; Yay.
Yousei: Yeah! It was when Rai challenged Takao and Kai's all like; "I'm gonna fight this battle." So Takao tries to stop him, but Rei's all "Let him do what he wants." And Kai looks at him, and Rei looks back, and Kai walks past Rei, and it has the funny line in the BG...
Kiki: That all?
Yousei: Kai says he wants to fight that battle because it's a test for himself, and it shows Takao thinking: 'Is that really why Kai wants to do THIS battle?'
Olivier: I see...
Yousei: Kai hits Takao. REALLY HARD! It's... FUNNY! And Max talks in English. He says 'wow' and stuff. His mom looks neat.
Yuri: The end, shut up already.
Yousei: aaaaaw, fine. The end!