2. SECRET THOUGHTS OF THE NIGHT

Kai's scream was dampened by the howling wind outside. Panting and shrugging out of fright, he turned to the left to Rei's bed. Rei was not there. Shaking his head he remembered that since the day they won the Championships he had taken a room for himself. A strange feeling surged him as he realized he missed Rei's company. He wasn't afraid of being alone, on the contrary, he was used to sleeping in the dark damp Abbey all his life. It was only the last months he had gotten used to Rei's silent company. It completed him somehow.

To a stranger this young man might seem cold and restricted, to keep and increase the distance between him and his team-mates, by not meeting or talking with them. They had been given a well earned full paid week in Moscow, all expenses included. Yet Kai did not meet up with any of them ever since the day they won the Championships.

What no one could imagine was Kai's loneliness. He had learned long ago to suppress such feelings, in order to keep his sanity that is. He thought it was better not to have friends and make bonds, with false hopes and anticipations, only to be betrayed again and again.

That was the reason Kai blocked any fragments of potential friendship with Rei. Their distance was getting too close. He grew to like Rei's company and that rang an alarm inside him. Time to detach and move on. This was his life. A life of a lone wolf. A life of emptiness.

Would he realize, he would be shocked, of how great the deposit of need to reach out was within him. In fact would he ever establish a friendship, the other person would drown in the amount of emotion Kai had bottled up for years.

If it were not for the weather keeping all means of transportation at a halt, he would already have gone back to Japan. He feared that staying in Moscow any longer, would leave him confronted with hidden feelings.

"I do NOT have hidden feelings!" he tried to convince himself. His trail of thoughts was broken as the wind grew stronger . Sight outside the window was now impossible.

"What power! What force !" he marvelled at the storm outside. This energy was so familiar to the emitted power of a very advanced stage of battle between Bitbeasts. Like the one he witnessed in his battle with an Ancient Bitbeast and the battle of Rei against Bryan.

"Ah" Kai thought "Rei was a worthy opponent that time, he was glowing in his power! How proud I was !"

The last thought had just come to his mind leaving Kai breathless and embarrassed of himself.

Out of habit he turned towards were Rei would be sleeping, seeing him not there.

Inside that empty room, of an immense Hotel, in a vast city, Kai felt the darkness closing up on him. There where nobody could see him, he crawled up and let himself go to another restless slumber, relying on his deepest thoughts to keep him from insanity.

Images of Rei sleeping, bringing Tea in the morning with a huge grin on his face and of the long afternoons playing chess with him, silent for hours, each thriving on the serenity of the other.

Were things different!

Were he not bred and raised to become what he was!

Were he a normal person with a family, with a meaning to live!

Yes, then he would have reached out to a friendship, to Rei.

Not quite awake, not quite asleep Kai placed a hand upon the wall as if he could reach out to Rei this way.

"Nekoko"…

In the very next room, another young man lay not sleeping. It was not the storm that kept him awake. No, it was desire. He was past having a mere crush, past being simply in love. His yearning for the man in the neighbouring room tore his insides with each passing day.

Hiwatari Kai. Kai the mysterious, the grim, the silent, yet the noble, strong and handsome Kai….

The raven-haired young man knew better not to fall for mysterious almost unknown people. Off course he knew about the aspects of Kai's life everybody else was informed about, bits and pieces of the past, events of the present. But what about the man inside, the man behind the masks, behind the barriers?

If Kai would reach out to him only once, Rei would be content!

Rei put his hand on the wall, the only way he could be nearer to Kai, unknowing that at the other side of that very wall; Kai was subconsciously reaching out for him ...