Title: Odd 2 Chapter 3
Rating: T
Pairing: KaixMax
Summary: The new couple have been found out, but they don't want any one on the team to know, not yet. But considering tensions are running high, Kai doesn't help the situation.
"Oh my god!" A male voice said in surprise.
Max looked down, feeling his face going red, while Kai just glared at the boy, whose mouth was open wide like a fish.
Of all the people to learn about us, why did it have to be him? Max thought to himself, his blue eyes glancing over to Kai and then to the other boy, although it was his friend in the doorway, his best friend, it didn't mean he wanted him to be the first one to learn about his new relationship with the captain of their tea.
"What's going on?" Tyson finally managed to ask, not sure if he had seen what he thought he did, surely there was some kind of simple explanation to it all?
"Tyson..." Max looked up at him, trying to figure out what he could tell his friend, without feeling uncomfortable, or making Kai angry.
"We were talking and fell asleep, is that a problem? You do it all the time," Kai snapped at Tyson, thinking on his feet; he didn't want Tyson to be the first one to learn of their relationship, not when the relationship was still in the first stages.
"Well... Yea, but..." Tyson was about to defend himself of his sleeping habits.
"We were a lot sleepier than we thought," Max said with a small shrug and grinned at his friend.
"All right, fine, see you two at breakfast," Tyson said, not willing to stick around for much longer with the way Kai was glaring at him.
Man, what is up with him? Tyson thought to himself as he left, but there was still a niggling doubt as to what Max had told him, did they really just fall asleep; This is Kai, he would never allow himself to just fall sleep like that, would he?
Tyson just tried to push the thoughts from his mind, trying to ignore the hurt that came up when he saw Max sleeping peacefully next to the bluenette.
Kai closed the door after Tyson left and sighed; "That was too close," He sat down and Max rested his head against his shoulder.
"Yea, but why would Tyson barge in like that?" Max wondered out loud, his friend was normally rather loud before he came into a room, so you were well aware that he was coming.
"Who knows, whatever happens inside Tyson's head should just stay there," He commented and pulled Max close enough to kiss him, before they got up for breakfast.
"I'll go down the back way," He told the blonde who just nodded.
"All right, so that they think you've been training?" Max asked and he nodded; "But… Won't Tyson just tell the others?"
"Doubt it, chances of the other's believing him are slim,"
XXX
Tyson was eating faster than usual, choking a bit more often when he spotted Kai and Max; although the former came from the training room side. Tyson might have been slow at times, but he didn't believe for a second that once he had left the room that Kai went down to train; and for such a short period of time?
Something didn't add up, he was sure the two had been making out when he came into the room, and it also got under his skin that it was Max who got to see Kai's gentler side; although he wasn't sure why he was feeling like though.
Once the two sat down with the team, getting their own breakfast before doing so, Kai casually glanced over to Tyson, noticing that the loud-mouth was being his usually, overly annoying and obviously loud self. He wasn't surprised that the other's hadn't noticed, it was something rather minor considering that Tyson was eating so much, everyone else would think he was okay; Kai wasn't fooled, Tyson might be eating a lot, but the fact he was choking on it showed that he wasn't all right, added to that was the looks he sent to Max, who never noticed.
What is up with him? Kai thought as he quietly sipped his tea, not sure what was wrong with the other boy to have him glare at his best friend; Is it because of me? Does he feel that Max has betrayed him because he was with me? Or has he seen through our lie? He also wondered if it could be both, Tyson wasn't the quickest off the mark, but he was smart at times; I guess we need to talk… He dreaded it, Tyson was his rival, and to have a 'talk' of any kind wasn't going to be easy. On the other side, he was Max's friend, a good one, despite what he thought about him personally. It wouldn't be fair on Max if his best friend was distant because of him, it was something that would need to be done anyway, but Kai got the feeling that he might have some kind of problem with Tyson.
Then again, he always got the feeling that Tyson would be a problem in some way.
"Tyson, once you've finished choking on that…" Kai said with an eyebrow raised in the other's direction, the other three looked over at them in surprise that Kai had started to speak; "We're going to train," He glanced at Max, who nodded slightly, Rei noticed and smiled slightly.
"Wha…?" Tyson began after he swallowed the last of his food.
"It'll be good for you Tyson, Kai is more of a challenge to you than I am," Rei pointed out with a nod; "Besides I need to get my blade looked at by Kenny and I bet Max needs to fix up Dracile,"
"Fine then," Tyson looked at him and stood up; "Let's go,"
Kai got up and followed, not at all put off by Tyson being brash, it was part of his personality and perhaps a beybattle would let him lose some steam.
Max watched the two go and wondered, with a hint of worry; what is Kai thinking?
XXX
The two came into the training room, there were several bey-dishes around the room, but right now it was still rather quiet, most people would be doing other things before they came back down, although there was some kids about, it wasn't too many that would annoy Kai.
Tyson looked over at him, wondering why Kai would decide to train him now, he had never trained with him before, not really; aside from making sarcastic comments when Chief was check out his stats to see how much he had improved when he trained with Rei or Max.
"Ready?" Kai asked, that mask, that cold, unfeeling mask on, the one he had seen removed, if only for a second, when he was with Max.
"Yea," Tyson said, readying his blade for battle, his head couldn't shake off the picture of Kai not being grumpy when he was around Max, it just seemed so unreal.
With those thoughts in his mind, he couldn't focus on the battle that was happening before him, allowing Kai to defeat him for the first time; although the other boy didn't seem surprised by his win, but Tyson was.
"I knew this would happen one day, you need to stay focused," Kai berated him who just stared defiantly at him.
"I am focused!" He protested.
"Really? I defeated you without too much hassle," Kai stated, which wasn't strictly true, but he needed Tyson to wake up and realise that he couldn't goof off like he always did.
"I train just as much as you do Kai!" Tyson snapped at him, forgetting the image of this morning; "Besides it's a best out of three match,"
"Do you?" Kai questioned him; "Because I always find you hanging about Kenny and Dizzi,"
"Well maybe I wouldn't if someone wasn't always acting like a cold-heart bastard," Tyson threw back.
"May I wouldn't act like that if someone knew how to train properly," Kai said, trying not to get riled up by this, which was rather minor and had nothing to do with the reason why he brought Tyson down to begin with.
"I do know how to train! You just don't seem to believe that people need a break that people need to have fun! The rest of the team got into this sport because it was a hobby, it was for fun!" Tyson yelled, feeling the frustration take over, making him shaky and wanting to hit something, anything, namely Kai.
"Humph, maybe you shouldn't be here then, if you just think this is a game," Kai never finished his sentence, since Tyson interrupted him.
"You know something Kai? You're not worthy to be the captain of our team, you don't even know how to act like one," He snipped, he never thought of Kai as a worthy captain, sure he was a great blader, but captain? No.
"Oh really?" Kai moved away from the dish and slowly walked towards him, his beyblade back in his pocket.
"Yea, Rei would do a better job than you, at least he knows when to stop pushing people,"
"So why not tell Mr Dickinson? I only joined this team because he asked," Kai said, stopping a few feet before him.
"Maybe I will…" Tyson trailed off, feeling the frustration flee, he was bluffing, he'd never go and ask Mr Dickinson to have Kai put down and put Rei in as Captain, Kai was essentially the ace card, he was a strong blader and knew a lot more about the sport than the rest of them. All he wanted was to see some kind of emotion from the other boy.
"You weren't focused on the match Tyson, if you are so easily distracted then it will become a problem for the whole team," Kai disregarded his commented, going straight to the point; "We barely won the Asian Tournament, now that we are here we need to be focused," Tyson said nothing, just looking at him; "If you have a problem with me say so now, cos I'm guessing that the lack of focus is to do with this morning,"
"Wha…" Tyson felt a blush creep up his face, was he that obvious?
Kai just nodded slowly, as if catching him off guard was another part of his plan; "Yea, figured as much,"
"You two were making out right?"
Kai just looked at him blankly, making it hard for Tyson to figure out if it was true or not.
"I saw you two, why lie about it?"
"Lie? I'm not, we were sleeping, even so, perhaps we don't want to talk about it," Kai stated, making it clear to Tyson that he was now on thin ice; "What is going on between myself and Max has nothing to do with you,"
With that said Kai walked away from him, leaving Tyson completely confused.
XXX
The team went on the bus, taking them to the first match of the tournament, Max looked over at Kai, who was in his 'usual' seat at the back, away from the rest of them; his eyes shifted to the bluenette and to Tyson, then back again.
What happened when they were training? He wondered, it was unusual for Tyson to be quiet, he had never actually seen it happen before, so something must have happened. Did they fight? But, what would they fight about? He tried to figure it out, but got nothing; Maybe I should ask Kai later.
Tyson looked out the window, trying to figure out Kai. He was right of course, it wasn't his business what he and Max got up to, if anything, but he had seen them kissing! He tried to push it all out of his head; he had a match to win after all. That is if Kai was going to let him battle.
Kai had his eyes closed, not wanting anyone to speak to him, and would be happy to ignore anyone, with the pretence that he was sleeping being used as his excuse, not that any of them would bother to speak to him, but he liked to make sure anyway.
His mind wandered away from the impending match to Max. He was playing with fire and he knew it, if his Grandfather was to learn of his closeness to the blonde there would be hell to pay. He hadn't been far to Tyson though, he didn't care if the team knew about him and Max, but it was still new and fresh for the two of them, it was better to keep it quiet. No one in the team would judge them, Rei himself was bi, having gone out on a date with Mariah and then Lee, although he never told any of his team mates, Kai had heard him getting ready and talking on the phone to the two. Kenny wouldn't care either, so long as it didn't affect their game it was fine, at least that was what Kai figured he would be like, the young tech didn't really seem to be interested in too much aside from beyblades and technology.
As it was when they arrived Kai never changed the rota that Kenny had planned out carefully the night before, he kept Tyson on for the match, carefully making comments during the match to make him focus more.
After the match was over they were brought back to the hotel where they went there seprate ways for a few hours.
Kai lay on his bed, looking up at the ceiling, not really thinking of anything when someone knocked on his door. Quickly moving off the bed he walked over to the door, opening it saw Max ready to knock again.
"Eh, hi," Max said with a slight blush, putting his arm down.
"What's wrong Max?" Kai asked, slightly more gruff than he ment.
"I…" Max was slightly surprised but brushed it off; "I was wanting to know what happened between you and Tyson? He was acting off…"
"Just a home truth," Kai said, but Max wasn't one to drop something when his best friend was involved.
"But what kind? Come on Kai, we all know you don't like Tyson, for various reasons, what did you talk to him about?"
"That he needs to focus in battle," Kai said, but Max gestured for him to continue and he sighed; "He asked about this morning,"
"What did you say?" Max smiled and shook his head; "You left it vague didn't you?"
"Yes, it's nothing to do with him…"
"And nothing has happened," Max added; "They can wait. Is that why he was so quiet? It sounds like something he would bounce back from,"
"Tch, there was a bit more to it, but that was the …"
"What else was said Kai?" Max asked in a serious tone, so serious that Kai didn't believe it could have come from him.
A moment of being dumbfounded and he replied; "Nothing important, just how he didn't like my being the captain of the team that he should speak to Mr Dickinson about replacing me with Rei"
"You're kidding!" Max was now the one dumbfounded at hearing that.
"No," Kai shook his head and then shrugged his shoulders, not worried about it; "He won't,"
"How do you know that Kai?"
"Because I doubt Rei would take my place…" He noticed the look Max sent him and shook his head; "I wouldn't care if I was replaced by Rei, but Rei himself wouldn't take up the position, it's too much for him, he knows that. Why else didn't he just try to replace Lee in the White Tiger teams?"
Max slowly nodded, understanding and relaxed a bit more; "I thought something might have happened…"
"Tch, like having him declare his love for me?" Kai teased with a small smile; "It's nothing, you have nothing to worry about," He reassured the other, gently kissing him before thinking of something; "How's your mum? She's out here working right?"
Max looked away and frowned; "Yea, but… She's part of the All Stars, one of the trainers,"
Kai remained silent, realising that the All Stars were the champions of America, he had read a lot about them, but they didn't seem like much.
"I see, loyalties are split then?" Kai asked him and those blue eyes looked at him in surprise; "She has her team, but you're her son,"
"The same could be said the other way though," Max countered.
"No, because you're friends rely on you, you would want to prove that you were worth some praise for your skills,"
"I guess… I was hoping for some time with her while I was out here, but instead it's just been quick glances, I noticed that she was in the audience. But she had a scientist next to her,"
"Gathering data, like Kenny," Kai said with a small nod; "Not surprising, they'll want to know our moves,"
"How do we defeat…"
Kai put his hand over his mouth and smiled; "Right now we need to win every match we have, train harder than before, come up with new moves and perfect old ones. Trust me Max, we'll beat them,"
"Yea, course," Max said, but it was half hearted and it was obvious to see.
"Max," Kai said and he looked at him; "Let's train," Before the blonde could protest, Kai dragged him to the training room and took him through his paces.
While training Max began to feel more like himself, no longer did he have the dread of disappointing his mother, or letting his friends down, instead he was focused on the battle with Kai. The perfect distract that he needed.
XXX
It was later on, when they all meet back up for dinner that Rei noticed a bit of tension in the group, and most of it appear to come from Tyson. He didn't know what was wrong, although he could guess it was due to the training from that morning with Kai, though the loud teen never actually said what happened.
Probably nothing, Kai just likes to train hard, and why shouldn't he? He's been doing this for far longer than most. Rei thought to himself, but decided to keep an eye on Tyson anyway, just in case.
Throughout the tournament Kai kept his distance to them, although Rei did notice that what Kai did and what he said were two different things, after all he had seen the captain lower his guard when Max was around, of course it wasn't by much, since Kai spotted Rei out of the corner of his eye and his cold exterior went right back up again.
Although the teen was surprised to see Kai showing any other emotion aside from what he showed daily, he was glad Kai was opening up to someone. It couldn't be healthy to be so enclosed and private.
It did come to a point when Rei needed to speak to Kai about Tyson, although the tension wasn't suffocating, it was always there when the team was together, but at least when they had the match on they could focus on something else, but it wasn't something that could stay around. He walked up to his room and knocked the door, not really expecting him to answer the first time, he gave it another few seconds before he would knock again, when the door opened with Kai and Max in the room.
"Hey Rei!" Max said cheerfully, his face slightly flushed, his lips swollen.
"Hey guys," He knew he had interrupted something, but to his surprise he found that Kai wasn't glaring at him; Maybe I haven't interrupted anything?
"Something wrong?" Kai asked, crossing his arms and leaned against the wall as Rei came into the room and closed the door.
"Sort of," Rei had only prepared to speak to Kai, not Max, not at the same time; but it should be that difficult, Max was always easier to speak to; "You guys have noticed the tension right?"
The two nodded, with Max asking; "Yea, but it's not that bad, we just need to clear the air,"
"Yea but we need to remain focused on our upcoming battles," Rei looked at Kai, since it was his responsibility to do something; "Whatever this is coming from, you two being together…" He gathered that was what was happening, and neither denied it, in fact Max sighed in relief.
"Well, at least someone knows," Max smiled at him and Rei blinked, causing the blonde to giggle and Kai to smile slightly.
"Wait, what?"
"Well, we are together," Max looked over at the bluenette who nodded; "It's just… Well, Tyson found out about us first but, we weren't ready and you know what Tyson is like,"
"A blabber mouth," Rei nodded in sympathy; "I know, but, well that's great for you guys," He smirked at Kai; "It's good to know you can be human too,"
"Oh ha ha," Kai snipped back, but it was all in good humour that Rei could see, there was no warning in Kai's eyes; "I'll speak to Tyson about it…"
"Maybe I should." Max suggested and they looked at him, unsure what he meant; "You already tried that, but you guys are rivals right?" Kai nodded, everyone knew, apart from being on the same team, they were rivals; "So you'll get distracted, at least I'm Tyson's friend, I get right to the point without being distracted,"
"Sounds good," Rei said with a slight nod and both he and Max looked at Kai, to see if he approved of the idea to.
"Do what you want," Kai said, dismissing it, Rei looked back at Max who just smiled.
"I should probably just go now, the sooner the better right?" Max said and waved at them as he left the room, closing the door behind him.
Kai just looked at Rei, moving away from the wall and towards the bed, retrieving a book and Rei felt akward.
"Er, Kai?"
"Huh?"
"I'm glad for you guy's," Rei smiled and left the room as well, there was no reason to stay.
"Thanks Rei," Kai said softly as the door closed with a soft click, he opened the book that Max had been reading and settled down, the back of his mind wondering how long the blonde would be gone for.
Max stood outside Tyson's room, hearing the boy talk to Chief as he knocked the door.
"Just a minute please!" Chief called out, then cried; "Tyson no!" The door was opened a crack for him and he pushed it open to see Tyson fiddling around with one of Chief's prototypes.
"Hey guy's, having fun?" Max joked with a smile.
"Ah Max, help me would you?" Chief pointed to Tyson; "Please get him to stop touching my things, I am trying to get some bugs out of it and I can't do that if he keeps on touching them!"
"Ah that's cool, I needed to talk to Tyson anyway,"
"Hey! Could you guy's please not talk about me like I'm not here?" Tyson said, putting the invention down.
"Who said that?" Max joked looking around the room as if he was trying to find the voice.
"Haha, very funny Max," Tyson said and gestured for him to sit down on the bed; "What's up?"
"Well, we're going to be open," Max said, he didn't have a clue what to do, but the whole problem stemmed from Tyson finding him and Kai kissing, perhaps if they declared it to the team the tension would simmer down.
"Open about what?" Chief asked, interested in what was going on within the team.
Is he going to? Tyson wondered, then he saw the nervous look in Max's eyes and knew it; Yup, it's an announcement.
"Well, er," Max rubbed the back of his neck; "Myself and Kai… We're dating,"
For a moment there was nothing but silence as Chief took in that piece of information and processed it.
"What? When did this happen?" He exclaimed, although neither boy knew if he was glad about the news or not and he seemed to realise that fact, he took a deep breath before he spoke again. More calmly; "Oh, sorry, it's just… Well, it's Kai. But when did it happen?"
"When we came home from the Asian tournament," Max told them; "But, well at the time we weren't sure about it, if we could even call it a relationship. But we wanted to tell you guys about it now,"
"You wanted to tell us," Tyson corrected him; "Because we all know that Kai wouldn't tell us, even if he was next to you,"
Max knew he shouldn't be surprised by Tyson's reaction, but he was; "That doesn't mean he doesn't want you guys to know about it, we all know he just likes to be private,"
"Yes Tyson, Kai is just ridiculously private, we should be slightly used to it by now," Chief told him, wondering what had gotten into his friend, sure he wasn't a friend of Kai's but they were on the same team, so they should still be civil to each other.
"I know we asked you not to tell anyone, but…" Max began to say, thinking that might be the reason as to why Tyson was so upset by the news.
"That's not it Max, but how can you trust that guy?" Tyson asked and Max just looked at him, startled, unsure what he was getting at; "What do we actually know about him?"
"He's part of the team…" Chief began to say for Max.
"Yea, but that doesn't mean anything, he has said before that he doesn't want to be here, remember?" Tyson reminded them; "So what do you know about him? Who are his parents…"
"Look, we are still getting close, I don't know lots about him, but that's just what he's like, I will learn about them gradually, Kai just takes his time to trust…"
"Yea, but we are his team, if he doesn't trust us how can we trust him?"
Max sighed loudly and glared at him, Chief felt it might have been picked up from Kai, since it did have that Kai-like intensity to it.
"We just wanted to tell the team what was going on, that's all," Max stated and turned to leave the room.
"We are happy for you Max," Chief said, hoping that this would be resolved without any hindrance to the team.
"But it's Kai Chief!" Tyson stated and Max left the room, slamming the door shut as he went.
"What's the deal Tyson? So Max is in a relationship with Kai, maybe it'll be good for both of them,"
"Good for them both? Please, Kai hasn't changed from when we first met him Chief, he's the same selfish guy," Tyson said loudly, unaware that Max could hear him down the hallway.
Just keep walking, just keep walking. The blonde repeated like a mantra, going back to Kai's room, he never bothered to knock, just quietly walked in to see Kai reading his book.
"Max?" Kai dropped the book and sprung off the bed, walking towards him and pulling him into his chest; "What happened?"
Max hadn't been aware that he had tears falling from his eyes, until the buried his face into Kai's shirt; "I think I made it worse,"
"What?" Kai looked down at him, wondering what he meant.
"I told them about us, figured if Rei knew they might as well know too, to let Tyson know it wasn't a secret any more…" Max paused, wiping his cheeks; "It just annoyed him, he said I had no reason to trust you… that we knew nothing about you,"
"That's true," Kai said, agreeing with Tyson, which surprised them both, although what he had said was true, he had no reason to be trusted.
"You're part of this team, we all have to trust each other, to rely on each other…" Max looked at him and the penny dropped; "I…"
Kai stepped back, holding Max's hands; "I can't,"
"Not even me?"
"I…" He looked away and Max moved to sit on the bed as Kai had released his hands from his grasp. He sighed in frustration; "It's not because of you, or anyone on the team. It's me,"
"What?"
"I can't tell people my past, my childhood…" Kai looked at Max intently; "I can't remember my childhood. I can't compare things that happened in my childhood and relate it to something that happened in yours,"
"But…"
"For trust to work, to fully work, you need to give out information about yourself, things that would help people relate to you," Kai said and smiled as Max was surprise; "I might be cold hearted but I do know a bit about people,"
"I never…"
"I know," He sat next to him; "Those memories might never come back, I don't know why they are gone, but it doesn't matter,"
"But trust can be built on other things," Max touched his hand and Kai looked at him, going towards a kiss.
When they broke off he nodded in agreement; "Yea, they can, but…"
"No 'buts' Kai, I'm here for you," Max said softly as he rested his head onto his shoulder, feeling rather sleepy; "I'll always be there for you,"
