Wow! 6 reviews for a chapter! Greatest record ever! Thank you, you wonderful people! #^^#

RJ: You'll see quite soon enough. Thanks! So here's the update!

asdfghjkl: Okaaaay. Just calm down and... Hey, I know how to sing the alphabet too!

TheAmberShadow: Yep, I just had to put Jay and Cole in the story. They weren't there in the original story, but I prefer that they would be there. I just hope that GLACIER3 won't mind.

KillerWhale: Yep! Lloyd is coming out somewhere near in the future.

Guest: You'll see in this chapter! The first thing that you'll discover, by the way.

GLACIER3: No, not really, but yeah, you could say so. XP

BedazzleDewdrops: Haha, yeah. I don't even know where I got that from. OOH, and by the way, I've been reading your story "The Case of The Missing Sausages". I haven't exactly caught up to the last chapter, because I don't have much time, but anyone who hasn't read it go to read it now!


Chapter 7: Your explanation is incomplete

The two of them just stared at each other. Kai stared. No. It can't be. Kai took her features in carefully. She hadn't changed, except maybe she looked a little more grown-up...

"K... Kai?" The young girl chocked, recognizing her brother.

"...Nya?" Kai's voice was merely a whisper.

A step forward. Then another. And another again, until they were at hand's reach. Kai took out a shaky hand that he placed on his younger sister's soft cheek, wiping her tears away with his thumb.

"Where have you been, all this time...?"

Nya didn't answer. She buried her small face into Kai's chest, her shoulders shaking. She clutched onto his shirt with all her might, planning never to let go. The three others just stared uneasily, not knowing what to do.

"I'm... I'm so, so sorry, Kai... I'm sorry..."

Kai inhaled, trying to hide away his tears. Why was he crying? Was it because he had found his long lost sister, or was it because he was angry at her for leaving him without a word?

As Jay brought mugs of coffee, and Zane mugs of warm milk for him and Kai, everyone sat around the table. The air was tense: nobody wanted to start. Nya stared down into her mug as if there was a plant growing inside, and Kai stared at her as to burn holes. Cole cleared his throat, only getting attention from Zane and Jay:

"Uh... We're going to leave you two alone, so that you two can... Well, speak freely."

"I'm not the one who's going to do the speaking. The girl here better have a good excuse." Kai said, making Nya cringe when he spat the word "girl".

Cole took Jay and Zane by the shoulders, and led them away to the door where Nya had come from. Zane took a several glances over his shoulder, in the hope that Kai looked at him.

The three left, and the metallic door shut with a gentle click. After a whole minute of silence that seemed like hell to the young girl, Kai spoke softly.

"Nya, tell me. Why did you leave?"

Another minute of silence. After a few gasps, his sister spoke up. The voice coming out was familiar to Kai, yet it seemed so different. So...weak, not like the strong, confident Nya he used to know.

"It all started on that day. That day when Mom and Dad came back home, when it was snowing awfully. They told us to go straight to sleep, and shouted at us like they never had done before. You remember?" She made a pause.

"Yes, I remember. Go on," Kai encouraged patiently.

"You were angry, and I was scared. But I found this all wrong: I wanted to know what had happened to them. So I pretended to go to my room, but instead, I hid under the kitchen sink to listen. And... And they said," she gulped, "they said that there was going to be something terrible. They said that something terrible was going to happen to us if we stayed with them, Kai! And that they had to do something to make us go away. To avoid us the danger. So I ran away."

"I know, I owe you a better explanation. But this is it: I couldn't bear to see this coming. I had to leave before. I... I'm so sorry I didn't tell you. But I knew that you wouldn't ever listen to me. That you wouldn't want to leave. You love your family so much. You loved us so much..."

Nya sniffed, squeezing the mug of coffee in her hands as if she wanted to shatter it into pieces. She didn't dare to look up at her brother, who was just sitting across her. She couldn't look into his eyes who reflected all the pain he'd been through. The pain that SHE had caused him.

Kai looked at his sister and sighed. He knew that she was telling him less than she knew, but he didn't want to push her too much. Yet. He wanted to ask her where she had got all these cuts, bruises, what kind of pain she'd been through. She seemed so fragile: she had lost the beautiful smile she had, and her muscled shoulders showed that she have had a hard time. He wanted to take her into his arms, but at the same time, he didn't. She owed him so much. And she didn't even want to give him a proper explanation.

She was so near, yet out of reach.

"Nya. Look at me." Nya lifted her head, and her teary eyes locked with his amber eyes, who were not filled with anger anymore, but with tenderness. "You know that I won't hurt you. What are you so scared of?"

Despite her efforts, her voice came out trembling.

"I... I'm scared that... That you'll hate me."

Kai smiled.

"No. Never. I'll never hate you, no matter what you did. You're my sister. And that's that." He stood up, and the wall that all these years of separation made between them came crumbling down with the warm hug that he gave her. "Welcome back."

"Ooh, so you're siblings!" Jay exclaimed as he leant against another weird machine, while Nya explained a few things to him. "I thought that you were lovers!"

"Jay..." Cole moaned as he squeezed a tube of whipped cream into his second mug of coffee. "I told you that they weren't!"

"But how could I have known that they were siblings?!" Jay exclaimed, putting his mug onto the desk with a expression revealing his unbelief. "They don't look alike AT ALL!"

"I think they do," Zane cut before Kai could throw a bunch of curse words to Jay, "their features overall are alike, the shape of their face, and especially their eyes give the same expressions."

"But their eye colors aren't the same!"

"The eye colors have nothing to do with expressions!" Cole shouted out, exasperated. "Listen a little to the muffin head, won't you?"

"...Who told you of my nickname?" The icy-blued eyes boy blushed.

"He did," Jay pointed with a nod of his head to Kai, who winked to his childhood friend. Zane tried to make a threatening face, which resulted into a funny face from an attempt to not to smile. They laughed, and Zane couldn't keep his face straight. Kai was happy that his friend was there to lighten up the atmosphere in his own awkward ways. He wondered what he would have been now if it wasn't for him.

Jay propelled himself up, and asked everyone:

"I'm going out to buy us somethin' to eat. Who want what?"

"Noodles!" Cole looked up from his book, eyes shining.

"Okay. And you, Kai? Nya? Zane?"

"Anything, really. Just something I can eat," Kai answered, and resumed to talk with Nya.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Nya asked.

"Nah, don't bother." Jay smiled. "So I guess you are craving for a ham sandwich, as usual?"

"You bet I am," Nya pushed her jet-black hair backward, laughing.

"And you, Zane?"

"Uh... I should be going back home to eat. My parents don't..."

"No! Stay with us, Zane!"

"Why do you wanna leave?! Come on, just a little longer!" Kai and Jay pleaded. Zane blinked, surprised that his presence was so significant to them.

"Well then I guess that you don't leave me a choice," their friend shrugged, smiling. The others cheered, and Cole gave a pat on the smart boy's back as he came to sit next to him.

"Hey guys, what about going to the noodle shop tomorrow? You'll see, it's heaven! You've all gotta taste it!" Cole exclaimed all of a sudden.

"Yeah! And the girl that's working there is my friend!" Nya added.

"I'll go wherever you go, sis."

"Then I shall go too, if everyone is going."

"Great!" Cole clasped his hands. "I can't wait for the noodles!"


"Kai? I'm leaving, my parents are going to worry." Zane whispered from the doorway, half-stepping into the tunnel that led out of the secret hide-out. Litter was scattered everywhere, and Cole's cup noodle came rolling to his feet. Someone should really start thinking of cleaning up this place. Jay had went back home quite a while ago, Cole was still reading his book, slouched in a tern green beanbag, and Nya was fast asleep on the couch, and her head rested on her older brother's laps.

"I'll go with you," Kai proposed, already getting up.

"No thank you, I'll be fine." Seeing that his friend was about to protest, he said: "Besides, you've at last found your sister. You should be spending more time with her."

"Alright," Kai chuckled, all while placing his sister's head delicately on a cushion. "But that doesn't mean I should spend less time with you either."

"I didn't say that. Anyway, see you tomorrow, then?"

"Yeah. See you tomorrow, Zane!" Kai waved as Zane plunged into the cold darkness of the tunnel. Zane smiled. Even though he didn't want to admit, he was a little scared that Kai would forget about him with his sister's sudden apparition. And hearing Kai say the opposite made him feel even happier than anything.

Zane tapped a few times on the brick wall, giving a sign to Cole, who took care of the control panels as there was no one else. And Kai would probably blow up the whole thing. After a few seconds, the mechanisms started to click and whirr, then the brick wall slid open. The noise was quite awful, Zane had to admit. He wondered how come people hadn't noticed their secret hideout with all this noise. Then again, it was extremely well hidden. And only the creators knew how to open it. He watched the brick walls close behind him, and he started walking back home, his mind elsewhere. Zane shivered as he noticed how dark it was getting. He regretted not to have brought a torch with him. The dirty walls matched with the color of the ground, which was rather grey, and stained with black at several places. A pile of dust and junk piled along the walls, and it seemed to Zane that they could almost climb up the walls. The chilly air pricked his nose, along with a smell of...mold.

Suddenly, the platinum haired teen was snapped out of his trance as he heard quick, light footsteps nearby. He started to ran, and spotted once more the mysterious person that was spying on him and Kai earlier today.

"Please, stop!" He called out to the person. But the individual didn't hear. Or maybe pretended not to hear.

Zane was determined to find out who was this person. And tons of questions to ask. But first, he had to catch the person. Zane's footsteps resonated on the cold ground, but the other seemed to be flying. When his victim was about to turn into a street corner to disappear, Zane did a tremendous leap, kicking the wall on his right to propel himself, and hurled into the person who gave a scream. He felt a throbbing pain in his stomach as the person gave a kick, making him wince. They struggled for a moment before Zane managed to pin the other to the ground.

"Stop moving! I don't want to hurt you!" He shouted. He grabbed the person's wrists so that he could make eye contact. And the reaction was immediate: his victim stopped moving as they gazed into each other's stares. And the sight made Zane's heart do flip-backs and somersaults in his chest.

The young girl that he had cornered had fascinating green eyes, and the silver curls surrounding her face gave her a angel's look. She must be a few years younger than him; yet she erred in the streets like this. It made him sad just to think about it. Her starry eyes were furious; she looked at him with wide eyes and Zane thought that he saw fire burning inside. All of a sudden, the girl pushed him away. He was slammed into the rough wall behind, knocking the breath out of him. The young girl backed away, her back against the wall. Her chest heaved in rhythm as she tried to catch her breath.

"Hey, look, I'm... I'm sorry." Zane apologized, feeling bad for hurting her.

"No, I'm the one who's sorry." The young girl replied, her voice was sweet, yet cold and had something sad to it at the same time.

"What? Could you please explain?"

She smiled sadly.

"I'm sorry that we couldn't have met in a different way."

Zane didn't have the time to process what she had said that she was already running away.

"Your explanation is incomplete," he murmured as he watched her disappear into the darkness.