Sorting It Out
"Why are we here again?" Tori almost whined, following Kai up the steep flight of stairs to the mansion door.
Kai sighed, placing a hand out to her and helping her up the last few steps, "Because I want to put some stuff in a safe place and some stuff in the nearest skip."
"And you couldn't have done this by yourself? You're usually so independent when it comes to this stuff and your past is something you still keep a secret, what changed your mind this time?"
Kai paused on the last step, turning back to her, holding her hands firmly in his own, "Please listen," he began desperately, "I can't go through some stuff on my own and I just thought that it'd be okay to ask you for help."
Tori smiled sweetly and stood up, kissing him gently, "Then let's go and do this." She took the house keys from his hand and moved to open the door and letting him step inside first. She could feel him watching her face for that surprised look and she had to admit, she really was surprised by the inside of the house. It was as grand looking as the outside of it did.
"The stuff is in the attic." She heard Kai whisper.
"Hey Kai," She started, following him up more flights of stairs, "If you had such a lovely place then why were you living at Tyson's when I first met you?"
"Because as much as Tyson and the lot of them bugged me I wasn't about to come back here until I knew I was ready for it and that my grandfather was dead and buried because I knew this would be the first place he'd come."
The auburn-haired girl caught his hand and held onto it tightly, "So you're ready to be in here?" he nodded determinedly and he continued to walk up the second flight of stairs before she squeezed his hand excessively tight and stopped him, "Your…grandfather is dead? You said that you didn't know what was going on with him…"
"I didn't." Kai replied honestly. "But last night his lawyer called and told me that my grandfather had a heart attack in the prison and he quite literally dropped dead."
"Well what did you say?"
Kai shrug and turned away from her to keep walking, "What I've always wanted to say. Put the guy in a box, shove him under the ground and to have priests bless the damn land he's buried under. I had the right mind to tell them to attach a blade to the roof of the box so that if he happens to awake from the dead it'd chop his head off like they used to do for potential vampires but I decided against it."
Tori pouted and reached out in front of her quickly, grabbing Kai's arm and pulling him back, "Kai, I'm… I'm sorry."
"I'm not."
"Kai," She brought his attention back before he walked away again, "Are you alright?"
Kai smirked and leaned down to give her a peck on the lips, "Of course I am."
Once he parted from her again she shrugged at the indifference in the boy; he was strong but he didn't let this affect him at all so she just assumed he didn't care that it happened. She followed him up the last few steps to the attic and then took around the box-filled room. "How on earth did you not end up a packrat like the rest of your family?" She gasped, peering over boxes and noticing the rows of them went back for what almost looked like a dark dusty mile!
"No clue; I'm pretty sure there's stuff from a few witch trials here too." Kai chuckled.
"Did Japan even have witch trials?"
"I don't think so; hence why I'd be further alarmed if we did find things from the witch trials." Kai turned around and watched as Tori wandered to the other side of the room and began pushing around some boxes. "Ah, don't go through those."
She looked back hurriedly, pouting, "Why not?"
"I haven't had the chance to sift through them." Kai replied honestly.
"Well I can do that, you know?"
Kai shook his head, walking over to her and wrapping his arms around her from behind, pressing his lips to her temple and shutting his eyes, "I'm almost scared you'll find some of my grandfather's twisted plans in one of these." He confessed softly.
"I promise not to scream and run." She joked quietly, tilting her head to meet his lips with her own.
So the sifting through further boxes began. Tori on one side of the room tending to some random sealed off boxes, and Kai on the other trying to contemplate on things that are important enough to keep and which he could easily discard. Appropriately, he'd named three boxes, 'Burn', 'Keep' and 'Donate.'
It was countless hours of going through some uninteresting things until Tori came across one box in particular. She kept quiet about what she'd come across, occasionally looking over her shoulder and finding Kai sitting on the ground across the room and sorting through some neatly preserved items. Quite unsurprisingly, Kai had gotten his perfectionism from whoever packed half the stuff in the attic; everything was still neat and clean, and luckily for both of them, not all that much dust aside from what was actually on to top of the boxes.
The box she'd opened contained albums, all of them dated to just prior Kai's birth and only one that was labeled the involvement of the first few years of Kai's life. She went through the oldest ones first, finding sweet romantic pictures of a beautiful young dark-haired woman and man that looked so much like Kai, though it could quite easily be said that Kai got his smile and eyes from his mother.
"Your mom was so beautiful." Before she knew it Kai was walking up to her from behind, Tori almost expecting a huge telling off for going through such personal things. Instead he just crouched down behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder for support and peering over it, "Yeah, she really was."
Tori continued to idly go through some of the prettily decorated pages that spanned the teenage years of Kai's parents, all the way up until their wedding pictures at the far end. "You had such a beautiful mother. Clearly your dad had really good taste in women, and then you went and settled with me."
"I'm not even going to argue this time." Kai smiled, kissing her neck lightly.
She smiled moved onto the next album which supposedly went from the first year of their marriage to some time when Kai was nine by the year written on the cover. Looking through the first few pages the cuteness factor from the last album remained. Then they finally got to the best picture of all; Kai in the arms of his mother.
"Man I was an ugly baby." Kai mumbled; ruining Tori's moment of silent glee.
"You were adorable!" She retorted loudly, looking back at him with disbelief. "Your parents really adored each other, and you." Turning the next page it ended up being a blank; no more decorations, no more pictures, no more neat script at the bottom of the page. She was hoping that they'd just missed a page by mistake, turning the next page and the next; all empty. She glanced up at Kai who was apathetic as always, "I'm sorry, Kai."
"Don't be." Kai just kissed her cheek and got back up, walking to the other end of the room to continue looking through boxes.
The brown-eyed girl saddened a bit, returning to stare at the page of Kai as a baby. "You were so cute as a baby." She whispered. She took a deep breath and put the two albums aside, "We can take these two back to the apartment, we don't need to leave them in boxes."
"Nah, just toss them into the 'burn' box."
She gaped, looking back at him, "Are you insane or something? I'll do no such thing! These are beautiful."
"They're useless reminders."
She ran over to him and hugged him from behind, "You can't just toss out great memories, Kai. They were great memories for your parents and they put a lot of hard work into preserving them. I want to make an album like that someday…something that'd preserve all our happy memories and…I'd like to know that someday some idiot won't come along and burn it all."
Kai exhaled heavily and defeated, "Fine, keep them."
"Someday you'll be glad you kept them."
"I hope so."
She smiled and moved to sit in his lap, pulling her arms around his neck, "Let's keep making happy memories. So that maybe someday we'll have an album as pretty as that." Tori leaned closer and pecked at his lips a few times but the boy was completely out of it. "I think that…" She was hesitant, moving her arms from around his neck to clutch his hands, "I think that maybe being in this house and your grandfather's death is getting to you. Maybe it's too soon for you to be in here."
"I'm fine being here. Just not up here."
Tori nodded and pecked at his cheek, "Let's take what we're keeping so far; we'll go down the street, have a cup of coffee, drop the stuff off at home and come back if you want."
"That sounds like a really good idea."
She smiled and got off him, putting her hands out and helping him off the wooden ground. She ran over to pick up the albums and Kai picked up a box and the two both ran down the stairs together. "You know…it's so funny how we're so modeled after our parents."
"What do you mean?"
"Like our sorts of 'opposites attract' relationship; my mom and dad were just like us."
"Well I'm hoping we don't end up like my parents." Kai chuckled.
Tori caught onto his arm and entwined them slowly, "How come? I think they were such a cute couple!"
"They're also dead." Kai reminded.
"Alright, so hopefully we won't end up entirely like them." She smiled warmly and took in the stern look still on his face; he really wasn't taking anything lightly today. She brought him to stop on the lawn of the mansion as they'd just gotten off the last step, "Kai," she waited until she had his attention entirely before stepping forward and kissing the corner of his mouth gently, "Try to relax. You can't look at everything negatively." Kai nodded, taking in a heavy breath and walking past her.
A/N: I needed to get Tori back for a bit. Kai needed some love in all the rough times and I missed writing Angst/Romance with this couple. Thanks for reviewing all my recent oneshots everyone! Thanks loads! Take care!