Chapter title: Interrogation
Disclaimer: I don't own Beyblade.
Notes: Good lord, this is my third update today. I'm on such a roll; using my day off from exams very well, I think. I never liked revising anyway. This chapter was only half written already, I had to write the second half just now. So if the style changed in the middle, that's why. Uh…I think that's it. Enjoy.
The journey had been relatively uneventful. Ray had led Kai through the crowds to the hotel, looking behind him every now and then just to make sure Kai was still following. Once they arrived, Kai had a bit of an episode with his reservation (the attendant tried to argue that there was no reservation, resulting in a colourful exchange of words between the two until the reservation suspiciously reappeared) while Ray stood feeling awkward. They had then made their way to the hotel room, and once they were both inside Kai dumped his rucksack on the floor and closed the door.
Ray, noticing that Kai wasn't making any attempt to move away from the door, looked around at the room. It was quite basic; Kai must not have been planning to stay for very long. It had a bed, a bedside table, some drawers and a window, out of which Ray could see London, and it had a little bathroom just inside the door. The room also had a horrible green motif. After glancing back at Kai, who still hadn't moved, Ray sat on the edge of the bed. He was understandably nervous. Was it really necessary to lock the door? Was what Kai wanted to ask him so terrible or embarrassing that he might make a run for it? Or perhaps Kai wasn't going to ask him anything at all, but was instead going to beat him up, or even rape him? Ray fidgeted. He hated the things he came up with when he had time to just think.
Kai, on the other hand, couldn't seem to bring himself to turn around and interrogate his old companion. Leaning his head on the door, he began to mentally scold himself in an effort to face Ray. 'Come on Kai, you bastard. This shouldn't be this difficult. Ray used to be your only friend. You've brought him here; now at least have the decency to tell him why.' With this in mind, Kai turned and saw Ray sitting on the bed, hands in his lap, feet together, big eyes looking up at him with a mixture of confusion and curiosity. He took a deep breath, and went to sit next to Ray on the bed; he may have looked similar to the Ray from four years ago, but that was definitely not the boy he used to know. Kai scooted back on the bed to lean against the headboard and stretch his legs out. He might as well get comfortable.
"Well, Ray…I have several things I want to ask you. You might not want to answer some of them, but I would appreciate it if you did. However, before I ask you anything potentially important, first things first. Why are you wearing a hoodie? It's the middle of summer."
Ray was a little taken aback by this question, to say the least. Of all the things Kai could've asked, he had to pick that, and now Ray had two options: tell the truth, or lie. Lying was by far the more preferable option, but his skills at improvising weren't exactly the best in the world. Besides which, however convincing his lie might be, Kai would see right through it. Tyson had always tried to lie to him in the old days, and not once had Kai believed him. So that left Ray with telling the truth, which he really didn't want to do. It'd lead to far more questions that he would rather not have to deal with.
He decided to lie. "I was cold."
Ray mentally slapped himself before he'd even finished speaking. There was no way in hell that Kai would fall for that.
"Alright."
His eyebrows lowered while his eyes widened. That, he did not expect at all.
"Question two – why are you really wearing a hoodie?"
Kai didn't miss the sad look that crossed Ray's face while he said that. He eyed him suspiciously; how had Ray expected him to believe such a blatantly obvious lie? Maybe he hadn't expected him to believe it, but wanted to avoid telling Kai the real reason? Either way, it was something that clearly had more to it than Kai had originally suspected, and now he wasn't going to let Ray go anywhere without telling him the truth.
Hunching over, Ray began to chew his sleeve again. Now there wasn't the option of lying, and the only option left was telling the truth. Would it really be so bad if he told him? It wasn't likely that Kai was going to be sticking around for very long anyway, so maybe he could get away with telling him the better half of the truth and leaving it at that. That way, Kai wasn't likely to interfere and nothing would be able to get back to anybody else he knew. He decided it was worth a shot, and reluctantly rolled his sleeves.
To say that Kai was shocked at what he saw would have been an understatement. He stared at the damage done to Ray's arms and wondered how on earth he'd managed to do it all. There were a lot of cuts; some tidy and neat, others serrated and seemingly done haphazardly. The bruises were all shapes, sizes and colours. Most were prominent and a grubby purple colour, but a few were the yellowy-green colour that bruises went when they were nearly gone. Many of the marks and scars on his arms were also old and fading. Kai even distinguished a couple of burns from the rest of the flaws.
"Ray…what have you done?"
Looking into his eyes, Ray had difficulty suppressing the urge to just blurt out the entire story. "It's not all me. I mean," he mentally cursed himself for slipping up already, and tried to cover his tracks quickly, "it is me, but a lot of it is just accidents. You know, like falling down the stairs and stuff like that."
Kai didn't look convinced. "I see. You must have fallen down the stairs quite a lot in the last week or so to have so many recent cuts and bruises."
"It's not just falling down the stairs!" Ray shook his head fiercely, eager to deny anything that Kai might have been implying. "I'm really accident prone, that's all."
"You never used to be accident prone. In fact, I can't remember you ever having accidents."
"Well, you know…" Ray began timidly, twisting his sleeves together, "you've changed too. Why shouldn't I have?"
"I've changed?" Kai raised an eyebrow, and Ray nodded.
"Yeah. Before, you'd never have asked me anything like this. I'd have been lucky if you asked me anything at all, actually. If I'd walked into you in the street, you'd have ignored me. But this time, you didn't."
Now it was Kai's turn to feel a little uncomfortable. He himself didn't entirely understand why he was acting so differently; he knew as well as Ray did that when they knew each other before he'd never have bothered asking people about their lives or issues. They'd never been worth his time or attention. He guessed that four years could really change a person.
"I suppose…" he mused, more to himself than to Ray, "I am a bit different. But so far it hasn't done either of us any harm, has it?"
Ray fidgeted, pulling his feet up to sit cross-legged on the bed. "Still, it's weird. It makes me feel kind of uncomfortable."
"The way you're acting is making me feel both uncomfortable and agitated. Ray, what's happened to you? And don't lie, because I'll know."
Despite Kai's words, a quiet 'nothing' was what came out of Ray's mouth.
The former Bladebreakers leader sighed, and shifted so that he was sitting upright against the headboard. "Why won't you tell me?"
"Why do you care?" Ray retorted, a sudden burst of pent up anger spilling past his carefully placed façade, revealing the tiny part of himself that always had been irritated by Kai's bluntness. "As long as we were winning tournaments, you never cared about a single thing. Not about me, not about any of us. You can't just waltz in here after four years and demand to know everything. That's not the way things work."
Silence followed this small outburst, and Ray began to feel very tiny indeed. Kai was really only trying to help and he'd just thrown it back in his face. Now he was bound to kick him out. He squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself for the worst.
Fortunately, Kai always had been pretty composed and this particular aspect of his personality didn't seem to have changed much over the years. He simply pinched the bridge of his nose, looked down at the covers of the stiff hotel bed and sighed. "Ray, why are you so hung up on what I used to be like? I'm trying to help you, but I can't do anything if you refuse to accept it." He stopped, and appeared to be awaiting a reply. When Ray didn't give him one, he continued. "If you don't want my help, then just leave. I won't stop you."
If Kai had been capable of looking defeated, he would have looked it as he stood up from the bed and wandered across the room to stare out of the window. However, because he didn't have a defeated look in him, he just appeared vacant instead.
A few moments passed before he heard the hotel room door open and click shut again.
