Disclaimer: I don't own Beyblade.

Note: My first fic! Enjoy!

Rating: R, because of violence and swearing.

Of Leaving And Being Left

By Travis Quia

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

Chapter One

The fear and the fearless went hand in hand that afternoon, all blaming me for not doing my homework. The fearless was my dear leader Kai Hiwatari, ever present like a black hawk, glaring at me whether I knew I was doing something wrong or did it without knowledge. He was persistent when it came to my grades. He wanted only the best, not even considering that I wasn't the mind wonder he seemed to be. His own grades perfect, he kept on terrorising us – namely Max, me and Ray – into good work. If we didn't work hard, he stared. Oh and boy did he stare.

His eyes are a red shade that looked like dried blood, if dried blood were red (dried blood is black). His hair is freaky, considering that I never even once saw him dying it and so concluded that it was natural the duel colored way it was. However, there is an undeniable bright side to all of this – Kai's small. He's almost as small as I am. It came as a shock, the last summer after vacation. Ray and Max had both been away to beaches, beneath a sunny sunny sun – as I could easily see when I looked at their dark skin – and the sunny sunny sun had made them grow to tall tall man. Whereas me and Kai had stayed the way we were, goggling disbelievingly at the other two, feeling miserable, small, childish: unmanly. At least I did. Kai probably didn't… or he hid it very well,that sly bastard.

Anyway, they were both taller than Kai, which shocked us all immensely. Nobody would have believed that Kai'd be second smallest in our group, before then. We had been sincere believers in the dark powers of bastards like him. He should have at least been taller than Max. Max, little happy cheerful smiling Max had turned awfully man-like. Once there had been a time in which I was the one who had to go get everyone tickets for the horror movie and Kai had been the one to assist me if things went wrong saying his line 'Oh, he's just small for his age'. However, things went dramatically wrong within just one vacation and so the two of us had to look up to our friends. It was disconcerting to say the least.

However, he still made us do our homework, even if he was smaller than two of the team. He had a way to reason everyone off their shoes. Ray and Max certainly didn't complain once and practically ran to do everything he said, or rather muttered in his special case. Maybe they were just nice to him because of his height. If he had known my thoughts went along that lines he would have certainly thrown me off a cliff, or something even nicer. The man was revengeful. Sadly, that very man also knew that I was the only one who resisted his muttering and didn't do what he wanted me to.

"Tyson, I've been talking to your teachers-"

"You what! How did you do that? I mean, are you even authorized to talk to my teachers? You aren't my dad or something!" I started and might as well continued till I hit a spot that made Kai wince. So he didn't like to be called dad? Oh well…

"I'm not your dad, no. Ask Ray over there, he might be a good dad." He snapped at me and I leaned back because I was scared he might bite my head off. Thankfully Kai's too cool to bite. He would never do that. "He certainly looks like a dad." Kai growled. "He certainly seems to look like my dad, or am I mistaken Kon?" He asked dangerously silent, glaring over at Ray, which made the poor guy wince.

"What?" I asked.

"Well…Ray over there makes people think that he's my freaking father!"

"Uh, I'm sure he doesn't want to do that Kai…" Max tried to reason. However, it was Kai's choice whether there was reason or not. If he didn't saw reason, reason might be standing there in yellow big capital letters, but nobody would be able to see it. Kai could influence people.

"Yeah, just tell the people that!" Kai continued bellowing.

"Man, he's not the one to blame for your lack of height." Max continued to reason, rudely overstepping the rule that had been burned into our skulls after the first month of training with him. Do Not Argue If He Can't See Reason. Probably an effect of him getting so tall and strong. It certainly didn't seem dangerous to them anymore to talk back, not now that they weren't getting scared just by Kai's appearance. It had always held all of us at bay. And now that it was gone hell broke lose.

"Anyway, you could go through as my dad too. I mean, look at us, I've even got your hair!" I tried to get him to cool off but it only seemed to make everything worse. "You're taller than me." I added, but it was useless. He stopped glaring at us and suddenly the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees because his eyes turned icy. Within one single moment our connection seemed to cut off, like a ray of light, all the friendship was gone. It was replaced by the cold indifference that had been there when we first met by the river. Kai and me battling. I had lost. That was what warmed his eyes. Victory had always been the reasons why he warmed up to us, more and more the better he was or rather; the more distance he had put between himself and us.

As long as he was best everything was peachy. Sometimes later he had realized that he could even lose because our strong team would as a whole still win. But it was the same as before, Kai was just choosing the better side. And now he had lost. Twice, once to Ray and once, which was even more horrible, to Max, the weakest member of the Bladebreakers. And the team he had lost for earlier had taunted him for his other weakness. It was too much. Unacceptable.

"I'm in my room." He said coldly. He'd shut himself off again. Pushed all of his thoughts out of himself and switched into defensive mode. He wasn't capable of talking anymore. There wouldn't be anymore arguing – he had been hurt and he had been hurt so deeply that he couldn't afford getting hurt more than he already was. It was self defence, because if Kai wouldn't shut off every now and then the force of his feelings would cut through his soul and leave him dead.

Kai was sensitive, but only to the bad side of people. He never took any notice if someone told him how good he had done something. He only saw his faults. His faults, and even if they weren't many, they were there. Sometimes it seemed to me as though he was searching for another fault that he could get hurt over. His grandfather had beaten it into him. The old man practically made him believe that there was nothing worse than being imperfect. Nothing, absolutely nothing came close to failing…

He closed the door behind himself, almost as careful as a scientist might handle a dangerous liquid, and left us standing there in silence.

He's thought himself dead again.

The silence seemed dark, like a black hole, trying to suck us in, trying to get us. But I believed in moving, like I still do, so I acted before thought could cross my way and ran after him. He hadn't locked the door and so I opened it and saw him sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall behind him, staring straight ahead. He was shivering. I could tell, the door was close to his bed and so was I.

"You're shuddering like a leave in the storm!" I cried out in shock. "Are you alright?" I asked, because I knew he wasn't.

"Get out."

"And you're as white as a sheet, come on Kai, we've got to get you to the hospital or you might faint on me!" I continued, in hysterics not listening to his mad talk.

"Shut up and get the hell out."

"I've never before seen you so…sick!" I declared.

"Fuck off." That jerked me out of my concern. Kai looked almost aggressively weak, but when I saw his eyes I stepped back. They were glimmering with an intensity that scared me. "When I feel like shit, I look like shit. It's always been that way, so leave me the hell alone."

But I couldn't. Pain radiated from Kai like waves. I couldn't. He looked like as though someone had pushed him into icy water and not let him get out for days. I couldn't leave him. That's just it. Kai needed privacy, like I needed company. There would always be one left broken in that game. Usually it was me.

But…I couldn't go.

Not after I had seen the scars of cuts on his right wrist. Not after I had seen the blood on the knife in his left hand. Not after I had seen the tears in his eyes.

I couldn't leave, because he hated me.