Title: Battlefield of Love
Authoress: foxfire flamequeen
Rating: T (for no reason whatsoever)
Categories: Romance/Angst
Summary: This is the difference. This is love, pure and true. [ReiKai Onesided TyKai.
Disclaimer: You see Kai with Rei in Beyblade? No? Then I don't think I own it. Of course you're free to think otherwise.
Warning: None at all.
I just wanted to try KaiRei from another point of view. I don't believe in KaiTyson, unless it's onesided from Tyson's part. KaiRei is the one meant to be.
Dedicated to my late friend.
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There are two kinds of love:
One which lasts; another which doesn't.
One is true; the other is merely fictitious.
One never lies; another is deception to its own self . . .
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Tyson was in love.
He had fallen, to the point of madly, in love with his team captain. When he didn't know; their relationship in public was unheeded to; for love does not care for boundaries, and Kai never cared for boundaries.
It wasn't as though Kai didn't love him, too.
He could see it, in the way the phoenix responded to every move he made, to every word he spoke, albeit with anger, yet Tyson was sure the annoyance was superficial.
Kai never cared for anyone. His face was always impassive, the phoenix always contained, never showing any visible signs of emotion. Only for Tyson he allowed his face to be contorted in irritation.
Kai always noticed him.
Tyson was blindly in love. He couldn't see: he wasn't the only one in Kai's world.
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When Kai announced to his team he was with Rei, Tyson's heart stopped beating.
Then, it began to race so fast, Tyson thought it would burst out of his chest. He wished it would. Maybe then the pain would stop. The pain, nearly reeling him down, toppling him forward.
But it stayed for just a second.
After that, Tyson was confident that it was a hoax. He would never have believed it of Kai, but it must have been a plea for attention.
It could not be true.
So he would play along. He would stand and watch, and wait, for something which he knew had to come.
Who would have known, that one second of pain was what had been the truth.
For as he watched, he understood.
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They were always together now. One was never seen without the other.
Kai opened to his team more each day, and Rei was never surprised, like he had known this side of his captain for a long time. After training, instead of planting himself in his and Rei's shared room like usual, the phoenix would wait for Rei to pick a book like always and curl onto the couch with it. Then Kai would flop down on the sofa, rest his head on the neko-jin's lap, and drift into a tired doze while Rei read.
Tyson couldn't understand how Rei kept his eyes off that figure for even a second, how the white pages of the book could be more attractive than the sleeping form of the ever-vigilant phoenix.
Though, even as Rei's eyes remained on the book, one hand would always be entwined in the slate bangs that fell over the other's eyes.
And Tyson knew, it was no act.
Nowadays Tyson hated everything about Rei. The flashing gold eyes, the sharp fangs, the darkest locks of hair, the tanned skin, the pointed ears. His smile, his laugh, his voice, the way he walked, talked, ate, slept, breathed, everything.
The way he spoke to Kai, the way he smiled at Kai, the way he touched Kai…
Last Rei had tried to talk to him, Tyson told him to piss off. He couldn't take that voice anymore. The hated gold orbs had widened a fraction, before narrowing, observing the other carefully.
Rei had lowered his eyes quickly, finding the answer. He turned and left. But Tyson had not missed the pain in the piercing pools of gold. He hadn't followed.
The tiger was not seen for the rest of the day, or night.
Tyson knew Kai would realize something was wrong, and Rei would tell him just the bare minimum. Even before their relationship, the two never kept anything from each other. Tyson expected a serious bashing from his captain, and he braced himself for it.
It never came.
Kai would never put Tyson before Rei. The phoenix went up to their room, and he stayed there, neither coming down for dinner.
There had been no guilt in Rei's eyes.
On movie nights now, Rei would sit on the carpeted floor and lean back against the foot of the couch, and Kai would be by his side, snuggled to the tiger, arms draped loosely around him, head on Rei's shoulder, both twin rubies and identical citrine gems fixed on the screen, straying only to glance at each other. There would be a satisfied air around them, glad to not have to stay away from each other anymore for the sake of prying eyes and ears. Max and Kenny felt thankful, aware of the faith being put into them as they watched the pair. Tyson just felt envy.
There was no need for anything else. Everyone felt the peace radiate off the couple, a love never seen before.
Tyson knew he couldn't give Kai that feeling. He wanted more from the phoenix, while Rei didn't want anything but the phoenix himself.
At one time, he had punched Rei, venting all his anger in a single blinding blow to the stomach, making the neko-jin see white, double over and cough blood. Yet as he managed to catch his breath and control the pain, Rei had looked at him, just looked, and panted out in a voice devoid of even nothingness.
"You can't win."
Tyson had vowed to show him.
He had prepared for another blow from Kai, but the phoenix blatantly ignored him, and Tyson knew Rei made Kai swear not to hurt him. Rei fought his own battles; the tiger was not to be underestimated.
Kai knew of Tyson's love for him, but he couldn't care less.
Tyson felt betrayed. Rei had been the first to know of his feelings for Kai. He figured them out and asked the dragon to confirm it. Tyson had complied, and Rei had been silent for a long time before smiling that comforting smile of his, and actually advised Tyson to tell Kai.
That smile was no lie.
Now that Tyson looked back on it, he could see what he had not seen before. The melancholy in the slight upturn of lips, the half-lidded orbs. Rei had loved, yes, loved, Kai, since long before that.
Yet for some reason, Rei had not believed that Kai would want to be with him. He had wanted Kai to be the happiest, even if not with him.
Tyson couldn't accept that kind of a sacrifice. He saw Kai happy, and all he felt was a deep pang of jealousy, for it wasn't him who lit the phoenix's fire.
He realized his failure soon enough. He couldn't put Kai before himself. Not like that.
Suddenly Rei found his way back to the dragon's heart, to that one spot reserved for a great friend.
Often, Tyson would find the two sitting by a tree in an isolated place in the park, or by the stream, or just in their room. They would sit there for hours on end, just… talking. It didn't need a subject, they could go on and on about random things, enjoying each other's company.
He had once overheard them at a precious private moment, peering through a crack in the door. They stood near the window, Kai staring out at the skies beyond, Rei watching him, an unknown light dancing in striking gold orbs.
They remained like that for a long time until Kai wound an arm around the neko-jin. "When you're here, I feel like I belong." The phoenix let out a content sigh, and in a split second Rei stole that breath from him.
"I'll always be here," Rei promised, leaning against the bluenette, who, Tyson saw (hands clasped over his mouth to stop himself from crying out), was slightly flushed, a bit of extra color adorning pale cheeks.
Kai smiled then, not a superior smirk, or the lazy half-smile he granted Rei in front of others, but a real, honest, genuine smile, which Rei didn't even see.
Somehow Tyson understood: the tiger didn't need to see to know.
That was purity.
At one point, Tyson locked eyes with Rei. What he saw electrocuted his entire being. The gold orbs gazed back, unwavering even as Tyson poured all his thoughts into his sight. They had a wordless conversation, the first exchange.
"Don't keep believing in what isn't there. Move on, Ty."
"Could you?" Tyson shot back, as though certain of the answer. But the reply startled him.
"Yes…"
Was that love? To be able to swallow everything whole and still live, satisfied knowing the one you loved was happy?
All he learned, from watching them, was that he didn't know. Tyson wouldn't know.
He noted how Kai willingly submitted to Rei, though the bluenette would seem the stronger of the two. And it occurred to him that he didn't know Kai.
It wasn't that Kai was changing. He was still the Ice Prince, but now his eyes were not cold. They burned. They burned with the fierce fire of life. All Rei had done was teach Kai to live.
Could he have done that?
No.
He didn't know Kai.
Kai enjoyed teasing Rei, and vise versa, and they often had… as Max termed it… a few disagreements. But it would blow over before a leaf could fall from a tree.
Tyson found himself distancing, and pulling back, knowing not where to go. The more he watched, the more he knew why he and Kai would never be. Neither of them knew where to stop.
They would never have lasted.
Tyson would go back to his memories, and try to find out when Kai had started loving Rei.
To his dismay, the answer seemed to be: since the very beginning.
He remembered the disappointment in Kai's eyes when Tyson had first stepped up to battle him, years back. Kai had wanted Rei. Whenever Rei spoke, Kai listened, and even said a few words back. Kai always noticed Rei, there was always something there. Tyson hadn't thought it could morph into love.
The breakthrough came when Lee died. Rei's best friend for all his life, the closest he had to a family. The neko-jin didn't shed a single tear at the funeral.
It was coincidence that Kai was also away at that time, having gone to Russia to visit the Blitzkrieg Boys.
Rei almost came to the point of breaking. The tiger pulled away from everyone and everything, enclosing himself in a defensive shell for weeks, one which none of the 'Breakers could pierce. None of them knew what to do.
When Kai came back, he just held the neko-jin. Rei still didn't cry, and tried to push him away too, but Kai wouldn't leave, and a day later, the tiger was back training with his team, smiling and laughing like nothing had ever gone wrong. Kai watched him with his crimson orbs, smiling at his own success.
Tyson had known it was futile. All hopes shattered, as the crimson depths, for once, were full of something unknown and (to Tyson) unwanted.
One night, when they all fell asleep in the living room, Tyson had awoken to a midnight craving for chocolate. Peeking one eye open, he had seen Kai and Rei both still awake, Kai playing with Rei's unbound hair. A slight sound rumbled around the room. Rei was purring, something Tyson had never heard.
Kai had ended it all with four simple words.
"I love you Rei."
After that, Tyson and Rei came back. After that, they went back to what they were. There was no more jealousy, and no more confusion. Tyson let go, understanding the deception.
Kai and Rei, their names rolled off the tongue in unison.
Tyson had been fighting a losing battle. And he had lost.
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Turned out very different from what I expected. Oh well. Turned into more of a Rei vs. Tyson thing. Tyson was certain Rei wouldn't have been able to move on, just in case you were wondering.
Don't forget to review.
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