Rating: T
Pairing: Kai/Ray, mentions shortly Bryan/Tala. If you wish, you may also be able to see a love-triangle of some sort. Or it could be just friendship. You decide.
Warning: It's a Christmas-related story, so Christmas-haters beware. Contains the idea of boy x boy. There is also a hetero-relationship if you wish to see it that way. If you must warn people about yaoi, I think it's only fair to warn them about het, too.
Disclaimer: Beyblade and it's characters (still) do not belong to me, I'm just borrowing them to amuse myself and (hopefully) the others.Beta: Nancy, yet again. I swear, the girl is too nice to me.
Summary: Well people, you know what they say: Christmas's the season to be jolly and gay...
A/N: I've always liked Christmas. Kai/Ray is the first Beyblade-pairing I fell in love with. I just had to do a Kai/Ray-Christmas-story. I had to!
I still have trouble deciding whether it should be "Ray" or "Rei". It's "Ray" in this story, though.
Happy birthday Ninni. :)
I adore any possible reviews and constructive criticism.
Twas the night before Christmas… Actually it was only the 17th of December, but no one ever seems to say "twas 8 nights before Christmas". And to be quite honest, it didn't really feel like Christmas-day either. To Kai, Christmas meant that his house was full of evil-minded Russians who cursed and smashed his belongings. Four Russians from the Abbey were more than able to make the house seem full. Kai could only wonder how they were able to do that. His house was a close to Moscow-located mansion, he had more than plenty of both inside and outside space, and still every Christmas he seriously considered buying a bigger estate. The way he figured it was that those four friends of his had all big enough egos to fill a residential neighborhood. When their egos would clash, it was like walking through a war-zone to everyone within a mile.
Kai looked around and listened. No sounds of smashing porcelain or arguing, only laughter and voices coming from the television. Nope, Ian, Spencer, Bryan and Tala definitely weren't around. And talking about Bryan and Tala, those to had been acting a bit weird lately. Not even mentioning the articles the newspapers had been putting out for the last couple of weeks, the "Famous Russian bladers are queer!?"-ones. He would have to ask about that one day. He hoped that the rumors were true though, because he knew that deep down, his friends had always been destined to fell for each other.
Even though Kai Hiwatari might seem like your average rational and sensible-type of guy, he had always been a great believer of kismet, fate, destiny, whatever people wanted to call it. He knew that some things were meant to happen. He was meant to get together with his long-time crush this Christmas, for instance.
Now, to get back to that "twas the night before Christmas"-poem, it didn't quite fit the moment even if it had been that particular night. The poem would have continued "when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse." So clearly, according to the poem, it should have been quiet there. It wasn't quiet. Not at all.
"Cheer up Kai! Smile a bit! It's the holidays man, you should be jolly instead of gloomy."
The boy who had decided to interrupt his pondering was his beloved teammate, friend and nemesis, Tyson Granger. The boy was in his house, watching his TV and still telling him what to do. Oh, the nerve...
"I've been getting a lot of those looks from you for the last few days. What's your problem?" Tyson asked, eyebrows raised. Kai just glared.
"Knock it off, Tyson. Leave Kai alone, and we won't have to start worrying about funerals", Hilary said teasingly and poked Tyson's nose.
"Now now, don't worry, I wouldn't kill him", Tyson said and smiled to Kai.
"I think she might have meant your funeral, Ty", Max said without taking his eyes off the screen.
"Whose side are you on, Max?" Tyson asked, looking annoyed.
"I'm only being realistic".
Kai shook his head and sighed. Hiro had warned him about the dangers of spending multiple days consecutively with his friends after getting used to live mostly alone, and still he had accepted the idea of spending an early Christmas together with them. Kai could only thank the world from the fact that Daichi had been occupied for the time and couldn't have joined them.
"This movie is boring. I think we should do something fun", Tyson interrupted Kai's thoughts again.
"But it's a movie you picked", Kenny reminded. Tyson just waved it off.
The reason why all of them were there was the deal they had made early in December. Because everyone had agreed that they needed to spend the actual Christmas with their families, they had decided to celebrate Christmas earlier
together. They would decorate the tree, eat festive foods and do other things which belonged to traditional Christmas. It had been Max's idea in the beginning; the American way of spending the Christmas was tight in the boy. Tyson, Kenny and Hilary had agreed to the plan right away. Ray had looked at all of them and though better to agree to it too. Kai, on the other hand, had not been as exited. He liked to celebrate his Christmas in traditional Russian way in January 7th and he didn't care that much about the western type of Christmas. He had said that the others could spend their little Christmas together, but he wasn't going to join them.
In the end, after Tyson and Max had tried their everything, Hilary and Ray had been sent to turn Kai's head around. It was probably needless to say that he had been made to agree and even promise his own house to their use. Kai hated Ray's and Hilary's pleading voices and hopeful smiles. He always found himself doing something what he didn't really wanted to after seeing them.
"I feel like doing something useful. Let's bake something!" Tyson suggested and jumped off the couch. He received an annoyed glare and lazy stares from the others.
"Come on guys, don't be like that! It's a lovey-dovey movie, baking must be funnier than that! Max, you'd want to bake gingerbread-cookies with me, right?"
Max gave him a slightly amused smile.
"If we can make chocolate-chip-cookies too."
Tyson grinned.
"You bet. Hilary, Kenny, you'll come and help us too, right?"
Kenny looked a bit uncertain, but nodded under the peer-pressure. Hilary looked extremely doubtful.
"Shouldn't we go and get Ray to help us? He's the one who usually does the cooking", she asked while the others moved to the kitchen.
"Bah, we can make cookies without him, it can't be that hard", Tyson said belittlingly while looking for the recipes from an old cookbook he had found. Kai was about to go and take the book away from him, but stopped himself. Doing something like that might have raised questions Kai didn't wish to answer. He could only hope that the boy wouldn't destroy the book. It had belonged to her grandmother and Kai was rather fond of it.
"And Ray must be still tired. We've been here for days, he just flew here. It's many hours taking flight and the time difference can get to your head", Kenny said reasonably, checking for the "best before"-dates on supplies Max had been lifting to the table.
"Yeah. And besides... He'll be surprised and possibly cry with joy when we'll present him our perfect and delicious cookies and he can have one."
Max chuckled at Tyson's words but then got more serious.
"But seriously, Ray's been in his room for hours now. Maybe someone should go and check that he's still alive?"
"I'll go. You just go ahead and destroy my kitchen, it only costed more than you'll earn in several years", Kai said and gave others a loving smile. He secretly enjoyed the frightened looks on three faces. The fourth one was completely oblivious and climbing to reach the top shelf.
"Hey Kai? How much is this tasteless, mincing blue vase over here?" Tyson shouted.
"The light blue or the dark blue one? The light is two years of dishes and the dark is a year of taking the garbage out", Kai shouted back while slowly making his escape from the dining room-living room-area. The last thing he heard before closing the door was Kenny shouting Tyson not to drop something and a smash of porcelain.
Maybe it would start feeling like a genuine Christmas after all.
In one of the many guestrooms of the Hiwatari mansion, Ray Kon was laying on bed and listening music with his headphones. He didn't even notice that Kai was there until the blue-haired teen shook his hand in front of the golden eyes.
"Oh, Kai, sorry, I didn't even notice you", he said hastily and removed the headphones. Kai raised his eyebrows at the obvious statement, but decided to let it slip.
"What were you listening to so intensely?"
Ray seemed to be startled by this sudden interest, but nevertheless he shoved the CD-cover to Kai's hand, blushing slightly. Kai stared at the name of the album.
"Romantic love songs, volume 4?"
Ray coughed and tried to grin carelessly.
"You don't need to use your brains while listening to it".
"No wonder, this stuff melts your brains away before you have the time to use them. Are there any honestly good songs?" Kai asked, browsing through the song-list critically. Ray seemed to be surprised that no one had started laughing at him yet. He thought about the question for a while.
"Some of the old classics are nice. And I love the "If I thought you'd ever change your mind"-song. No matter what people think, I think it's beautiful."
Kai was certain he had heard that song before. He realized that this might be the proper time to activate the "make your crush fall for you too"-plan. He searched through his memory, finally remembering the words he had been looking for.
"I will bring you happiness?"
Ray looked both astonished and happy. Kai felt pleased with himself.
"Wrapped up in a box and tied with a yellow bow, yeah, that's the one! Do you like it?"
'No' wasn't the right answer, but 'yes' would be just lying.
"I'm not sure. I haven't heard it in a while. I just remember the words."
It wasn't a lie, it was diplomatic and it told Ray that he had a good memory too. Could you get any better than that?
"Well, you can listen to it someday, if you have time. You can borrow my mp3 if you like", Ray suggested, waving a little black object in his hand. Kai just nodded a 'maybe', even though his inner self clapped his hands together and smiled.
Already on the stuff-borrowing level... This is going better than I expected.
"Oh, hey, before I forget. Have you bought the presents to others yet?"
Kai frowned a bit.
Presents? What presents? Oh, right, the Christmas pres – umh.
He had forgot to get the presents. They were supposed to give them to each other the day after tomorrow.
It wasn't that bad, Kai told himself. He could always return Tyson and Max the sleigh, which he had secretly confiscated when they had arrived to his house, and claim that he had bought it. Kenny would most likely be satisfied with Kai's old laptop. For Hilary, it would probably be enough if he would agree to go shopping with the girl. Somehow, she seemed to love the special kind of attention she received whenever Kai was with her. She also snickered every time that Kai rejected some poorly planned seduction-attempt. She just did so, Kai didn't know why. There was always it's own dangers in being alone with Hilary, though. The girl seemed way too curious at times, and asked a bit too many questions about Kai and Ray's friendship. Kai was beginning to be worried that he wasn't the only one who knew exactly what he felt for Ray.
And talking about the lovely neko-jin... Kai didn't have any present for Ray either. Maybe he could just promise him to be his lover for undefined amount of time and then Ray would be happy and very satisfied, at least as soon as their path would lead to the master-bedroom? Or maybe Kai needed to get a life, and he would just have to find something that he owned and which Ray hadn't seen yet. He'd figure something out. He might feel a bit guilty when others would give him their gifts, but that's just life for you.
"I was wondering whether you'd like to come and buy the presents with me tomorrow? I remember the last time in Moscow and it wasn't that charming. I'll get lost in three minutes."
Kai fought back the desire to scream "YES!".
"My other choice seems to be to stay here and watch those calamities destroy my house, so why not."
Ray smiled in a thankful way, and for a moment they just both looked at each other in the eyes. Then they heard a distant clash and a yell. Ray turned to look at the closed door and Kai rolled his eyes.
"What are the so-called calamities doing at the moment?"
"Baking cookies", Kai answered, covering his face with his hand. Ray looked at him deploringly.
"I pity your kitchen".
"And I really liked those vases too", Kai muttered more to himself than to Ray. The other boy still heard it and grinned.
"Pricey ones too?"
"Extremely valuable. Not that it matters, it's just that they also belonged to my mother."
Ray's grin turned into a elegiac smile and he patted Kai on the back. When the Bladebreakers had first came together, Kai had made it clear to everyone that he wasn't exactly a touchy-feely person. After first year, Ray had seemed to stop doing so much what Kai said they should do and more what he suspected that the older boy really wanted them to do. Kai couldn't really complain about that. Even if he didn't say it out loud, Kai appreciated those little signs of caring. They made him feel more comfortable inside.
Their moment was spoiled by Tyson, who ran inside the room looking upset. Kai was about to yell to Tyson whether he didn't know what knocking meant, but he realized that it might have sounded a bit questionable. After all, he and Ray weren't exactly doing anything forbidden from others to see.
Now Max ran inside the room too. Kai gave in, the moment was lost, and he glared at the the younger boys.
"You'd better not tell me that my kitchen is on fire."
"No no, nothing like that. Ray, we need your help", Tyson said, trying to even his breath. Ray raised his eyebrows in questioning matter.
"It's the dough, Ray, it's swelling way too much to be normal! Remember Tyson's belly the one time in the buffet-restaurant when he tried to eat as much as he could and the owner started crying because he feared that he would go into bankrupt? I'm talking about that kind of swelling!"
"Hey, that only happened once and it was years ago!" Tyson cried out and jogged Max to stop the boy embarrassing him more. Ray just sighed.
"Okay, I'm coming..."
After hearing that, both boys nodded gratefully and stormed off, leaving Ray and Kai behind. Both were standing still for a moment. Ray snapped out of it first.
"Well, I guess I'd better go. If the dough explodes on your walls, we'll spend the rest of the day cleaning it", Ray said, smiling and shaking his head. Kai gave him a slightly worried look.
"Will you be okay with them?"
Ray seemed to be a bit puzzled by the question.
"Who, me? Sure. I've been okay with them for the last three years, ignoring some of the not so wonderful times. So yeah, I'm just fine. Tired, but fine."
Kai nodded. If he had asked or said more, it might have sounded suspicious to Ray's ears, and he didn't want to reveal his feelings just yet.
"Seriously Kai. I'm just fine", Ray assured and gave the other one a warm smile, which soon turned into a grin, "... well, as long as I don't have to eat their cookies, that is."
Suddenly they heard Kenny screaming something along the line "It's gonna blow!" and Ray left the room in a hurry, leaving Kai there alone. Kai stared at the still closed suitcase, wanting to open it and see what Ray carried along, see what was valuable to him. However, he wanted also to honor Ray's privacy and decided to leave the suitcase alone for now. He slowly walked away from the room, then headed towards the kitchen and prepared to rage a bit.
It only took them half of the day to clean up the kitchen. Kai made Tyson promise never to touch yeast again.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
The next morning was a chaos. Kai had gone jogging early so he never really found out exactly what had happened while he had been gone, but when he got back around 10 AM, his house had turned into real estate of screaming, tears and smashing things. During the last few days, Kai had never felt more christmassy than then.
After four mugs of coffee, Ray had told him that Hilary and Tyson had had a fight. Ray wasn't too sure why, he had only woken up when Hilary had started yelling, but apparently Tyson had done something he shouldn't have. Tyson and Hilary had yelled to each other about 20 minutes; Kenny, Max and Ray had all been hiding in the bathroom and thus not hearing clearly what those two had said. Max had looked as though he knew the reason for the fight, but Ray had got the feeling that it would be better not to ask. After the agonizing twenty minutes, yelling had stopped and the three of them thought that they should go and check the damage. Max said that he should probably speak to Tyson, Kenny agreed to find Hilary and Ray was ordered to estimate the damage made to the house.
When Kai finally arrived, Kenny had been – as far as Ray knew – sitting with sobbing and crying Hilary in one of the many bathrooms for about half an hour. Tyson and Max had been first quietly in their bedroom, but after fifteen minutes they had started also yelling to each other about something. Later on, Ray had heard Max storming off to the laundry room. From time to time the blonde boy would be heard frustratedly screaming out loud. Tyson was, by the sounds of it, throwing stuff at the bedroom wall. Ray was drinking lots of coffee. He had looked almost ready to kiss Kai when the blue-haired teen had told him that they should go to the shopping-trip right at that moment or they might never be able to go. They had yelled 'bye' and 'we'll be back in few hours' from the outside door and then ran for their lives. They felt a bit sorry for Kenny, but neither of them were interested in staying there and trying to solve problems that were clearly private matters between Hilary, Tyson and Max.
The gift-shopping turned out to be harder than Kai had expected. Now that he really tried to buy some decent presents, he couldn't come up with any. Neither did Ray. And to make things worse, there was also this issue of fans...
"How come they keep giggling whenever I say something?" Ray asked and his question was followed by lightheaded bursts of laughter.
"Another kind of reaction would require brain activity", Kai said mildly while glaring at the giggling people. He had never enjoyed competition over something he really wanted, and he felt as every one of those gigglers where trying to attract Ray's attention.
"Maybe we should change the shop? I know a better one, usually less crowded than this. The car is outside and waiting for us anyway."
Ray agreed and sidiously they smiled to the swarm of fans and made a sudden run to the car. They only left loud screams behind them. 'Ray, don't go, I love you, I'll change my name to Rayna and we'll have dozen of little babies!' was the one Kai would probably never forget. Judging by the pale look on Ray's face, neither would he. In the future, Kai would ensure that by every now and then asking how were Rayna and the babies doing. He just loved that embarrassed look on Ray's face.
The next shopping center did turn out to be less crowded. Also, the people shopping there seemed to be a bit less intruding. For Kai, that meant that he was back in his problem with the gifts. He took a glance at Ray and decided to try his luck.
"Ray? What are you planning on buying?"
"Beats me. Everything I can think of is way too expensive."
"Maybe we could buy the gifts together? If we do, it's cheaper to both of us and we won't have to be here all day."
And also, even if Kai would never admit it to Ray or to anyone else for that matter, he really thought that "with love, from Kai & Ray" would sound nice in the Christmas-cards.
Ray smiled, unaware of his friend's thoughts.
"Sounds like a plan. I thought that Hilary would love a perfume, she's been talking about this one particular brand, the one which had the big commercial campaign on TV, over a month now. I think she's trying to get to Tyson buy her a bottle."
"Will Tyson buy her one?"
"I kinda doubt that."
"What brand did you say it was?"
They ended up buying a small yet expensive bottle and Ray even managed to make the storekeeper wrap it for them by smiling nicely. Kai paid more than half of the prize. Ray naturally protested against it, but Kai said that without Ray's idea Hilary would have received an electric blender, so Ray had actually done more than needed.
Then it was time to get Kenny a present.
"Why can't we just give him a gift voucher to some computer shop?" Kai asked while following Ray on the aisle which lead to a small gift shop.
"Because that would be so typical", Ray answered evadingly. Kai just said nothing. He had learned that eventually people would find the silence too oppressive and tell what they weren't supposed to.
Ray abided almost 15 seconds.
"Fine then, I heard Tyson and Max talking about getting a voucher to a computer shop. I find it hard to believe that it would be a gift for Hilary, you know how she's like with computers."
Kai did know. Sadly, so did his old laptop. Hilary was the main reason for it's non-current use. The event had included a glass of soda, sudden movement and the question 'what does this button do?'.
"In that case, what do you suggest he give him?"
"A chessboard."
Kai just gave Ray a questioning look.
"I've seen him playing chess against Dizzi a lot lately, he once tried to challenge us all to a chess-tournament and I've actually seen him reading chess-books and muttering about some "killer"-moves. My guess is that he's trying to learn to play chess really well to impress someone", Ray explained.
"I don't even want to know more. Should it be wooden or glass?"
Kenny would receive a chessboard made of glass as a present and wonder how on earth they knew that he liked chess.
"Now than that's settled... What to buy for Max? Or for Tyson, for that matter?" Ray wondered out loud. Before Kai had the time to answer anything, he continued, "Maybe we should just buy a gift they could both use?"
"Aren't they arguing with each other at the moment?" Kai asked, but only because the situation seemed to demand it. He knew exactly what Ray would answer.
"Oh, they'll be friends again tomorrow. I think that a joint present would be nice. You have any ideas what to buy them?"
"We could give them a 3-pound-bag of sugar and watch them eat it. Then we might witness them running in the snow, screaming and laughing, only in their underwears.
I bet magazines would pay a lot for those kind of pictures."
Thanks to Ray, they bought a CD-player.
Then Kai realized that he still didn't have any gift for Ray. That was probably a gift he needed to buy alone.
"I think we need to split up. I still have to buy something for your present", Ray said. Kai blinked.
"You already have a present for me?"
"A part of it", Ray answered smiling. Kai just stood there, regretting now that he hadn't opened the suitcase.
"Do you know where to get it?" he asked after a while.
"Yeah, I saw a shop that probably sells what I need just a minute ago. Do you still need to get any presents?"
Kai could only smile to this. Both of them knew that Ray had meant 'have you got a present for me yet?', but neither said anything about it.
"Maybe."
"How long will it take to buy them?"
"I'd say that about 15 minutes", Kai said and thus determined how much he had time to figure out a proper gift for Ray.
"Okay then. We'll meet here in 15 minutes", Ray said and left fast to the direction in which they had came from. Kai decided to try his luck in the department store in front of him.
While walking down the aisles full of different kinds of products, Kai pondered what he should get. He needed to buy something which said 'I care about you and I want to be with you' and in the same time it had to be something which said absolutely nothing special. Something romantic and not romantic at all. He didn't want Tyson and the others to realize what the gift meant, only Ray needed to know.
What to buy for the boy of your dreams? Now that was the question, a one in which Kai did not hold the answer.
Then he saw an old lady walking towards the cashier, holding something which caught his interest.
Then he had an idea.
So ends the chapter one.
And if anyone wishes to know what was it that Kai saw that lady carrying, I'll tell it to you in the end of the next chapter.
There will be probably two more chapters, and I hope that I would be able to put them both here before the new year begins. We'll see about that...
Please leave a Christmas-present by reviewing the story.