Hey guys! I'm sorry for the really late update but I've really lost all motivation for this sotry and its once again become a chore. I think its mainly becuase I've been doing it for so long I want to start something completely new. I really want to delete it, but I've come so far now that would be worse than continuing. So if anyone still wants to read this I apologise for the increasingly crapness of the rest of it and I hope that it'll be finally concluded within ten chapters.

Disclaimer: Don't own

Realisations

Kai stood with his arms folded despite the warmth of the London sun beaming down on him. Hilary was supposed to be meeting him here but, probably through no fault of her own, she was late. Guiltily, he wasn't too bothered. In the shop window where he was standing there was a plasma television showing the sporting league tables in a glorious Technicolor. This store was apparently one of the major electronic retailers in the United Kingdom but in his opinion the name just sounded like something he would eat.

That was really what was on his mind now. As he watched the sporting news he felt a self satisfied smirk on his lips as he saw that his team were the bookies favourites to win. Tyson's team was a close second but in his opinion a miss was as good as a mile. Not only that, but they were joint top of the leader board with the Bladebreakers and soon they would be top after the Blitzkreig Boys beat them in two days. After that, the tournament and trophy would be theirs for the taking. The only other team that stood a real chance against them was Max's Allstarz but Kai doubted very much that the chance was very substantial. Then they could put this whole rivalry thing behind them and become…friends again, if that was even what they were to start with. For Kai, it felt that after living with some one for as long as Kai had, friends was the very least they would be called.

"Is that a smile a see on your face, Kai? This London air must you doing you more good than I thought," Hilary said.

Kai had no idea she was there but he figured it hadn't been very long. He would have picked up on her presence after a few minutes. "It's actually a smirk but you were close."

He leaned in to kiss her but she ducked out of the way looking a little perplexed. "Its risky enough for us to be meeting in public with the paparazzi and all but if the saw us kissing they'd have a field day and Tyson would stop talking to me for the remainder of this stupid tournament."

"I guess that means no physical contact of any kind, huh?"

"Nada."

"I think I can cope," Kai smirked playfully, "but we could always go somewhere private."

"We always could," Hilary agreed, "but I came here to see some sights other than your fine self and that's just what I'm going to do."

Kai grimaced. "You mean play the tourist? Sounds fun."

"Oh come on! It won't be that bad. I promise that I won't make you go everywhere but I want to at least see Madame Tussaud's."

"I think it'll be kind of creepy to see a wax imitation of me…" Kai said, grimacing further. He looked at Hilary's puppy dog ruby eyes and relented nonetheless. "I suppose if you really want to-"

"I really do!" Hilary squealed. "It'll be fun. And how often do you get a chance to pose beside yourself?"

Kai cocked his right eyebrow warily. "How often do you want to?" He sighed. "I guess we'd better get the subway. Do you have any idea where it is?"

"Nope," Hilary said, smiling, "but isn't that half the fun?"

Kai couldn't say he agreed. They began to walk along the sidewalk of the busy street when a thought occurred to him. "Where's the rest of your team today?"

Hilary tilted her head at him, expecting the question. It was in his nature to find out all the details and by now she was used to it. "Training, as usual. I think Tyson's forgotten what fun actually is."

"According to you, it's calling your competitors in the middle of the night for a 'just-because' chat. They've still not forgiven you for waking everyone up."

Hilary smiled sheepishly. "Now I'm in a better mood I'm kinda feeling bad about it. That was a little bit selfish and I know it was. I was just so Goddamn frustrated at having to spend so much of my holidays cooped up indoors because I need to support Tyson and Daichi and Kenny. It's sort of getting to me a little bit." She took a deep breath in and surveyed her surroundings as they approached the subway. "Not like this, this is great. I'm finally getting to see some things, do new things. That's what traveling's all about, right?"

"Depends on what you look for. I'm the same. There's no point in going to a country and sticking to your same old same old."

She smiled gloriously. "I knew there was a reason I was dating you."

Kai nodded. "Yeah, my good looks and sparkling personality."

Hilary chose not to dignify that with an answer and leave him hanging. She could tell he was probing for some Hilary-esque banter but she decided to give that a miss for just now. Despite not having seen Garnet Granger in some time, she remembered almost every bit of advice that she'd been given from her more experienced friend. In this case, the girl had said something along the lines of 'never giving a boy exactly what he wanted'. Personally, Hilary wasn't entirely sure Garnet followed even her own advice but it seemed good enough for some one who's experience with boy's equalled a social hermit, i.e. her.

Thinking of Garnet, Hilary recalled Kai had mentioned that she was having some problems. She inwardly wondered if they'd been sorted yet and was about to ask but her sense stopped her from doing so. It was better to leave it until Kai wanted to talk to her about it. There was no point in putting a damper onto one of the few times she was going to be with her boyfriend over the course of the summer and indeed, possibly even the next year if things didn't work out for him. Still, she was curious about it. She decided that she'd enquire when they were about to say goodbye. Besides, now she was with them they could have a girl help out with the situation and perhaps that's all Garnet really needed right now was a friend whose gender inducing parts weren't solely occupying the regions down below.

Kenny looked around him anxiously as Tyson and Daichi walked along the busy, populated London street, regardless that Kenny was acting as watch dog on Hilary's behalf. This had gone totally against his wishes to keep practising – more so for Hilary's benefit than anything else – and even the usual comparison to the Blitzkreig Boys strict regime didn't work. He could feel himself become increasingly more tense as he expected to see Hilary and Kai anytime now, holding hands or plain just being together. If he had asthma, he was pretty sure his inhaler would have to be paid overtime.

Tyson peered around at him, almost banging into an irritated woman on her mobile phone in the process, and grinned at him. "What's up, Chief?"

"Nothing," Kenny replied, looking as believable as a dog trying to be a cat.

"It doesn't look like nothing," Tyson speculated. "I know! You're worried about not practising for the big match, right?" Tyson grinned happily as he realised what the problem was, not knowing how far away from it he really was. "It's not like we've not been skipping it. This is our first real break since we started this whole tournament thing and I think it's about time we gave it a rest. It's just too bad we decided too late otherwise we could have gone with Hilary. It can't be much fun walking around here by yourself."

"Why don't you call her then, dummy?" Daichi asked, wondering why such a simple solution hadn't occurred to Tyson.

Narrowing his eyes at his younger counterpart, Tyson replied, "Do you have a cell I can use?"

Kenny, feeling more panicky by the second, decided to intervene. "Guys, do you really think Hilary's exploring London on her own? She's not stupid. She's probably met up with Tala and Garnet or something. We shouldn't intrude."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Tyson shrugged. "It's not like we won't see her tonight anyway."

Feeling relieved, Kenny took out his London street map and opened it up. "Where are we going first?"

"I don't know. Maybe Daichi wants to go to the zoo and see his family," Tyson cried out as Daichi picked up a pebble and launched it at his head. "Or we could go to that wax place."

"You mean Madame Tussuad's?"

"No it's no one's house. It's a place where you see all these wax works of celebrities and stuff. I've read about it."

"I didn't know you can read," Daichi remarked.

"That is Madame Tussaud's, Tyson. She was a -"

Tyson held up his hand and stopped Kenny from starting one of his history lessons. "Let's just go there then. I want to get a picture beside myself. How cool would that be?"

"That's assuming you're in it."

"Why wouldn't I be? I'm on one of the biggest celebrities in the sporting world!"

Kenny and Daichi exchanged glances but said nothing more.

"Oh my God, Kai!" Hilary gushed. "How cool is this?"

Kai couldn't say he was impressed. Sure, the figurines were really lifelike but there was something weird about wax creations of real people. It made his skin crawl. Maybe it was because he'd seen that Paris Hilton movie or something. He walked up to the wax model of Tony Blair and ran a finger along its face; his back felt like it had worms crawling underneath the skin from the touch of it.

Hilary couldn't help but laugh at his expression. "Don't tell me you're scared of them." Giggling, she walked up to Madonna and put her arms around her. "See? They're not going to hurt you. Come and get a picture with me and see." Reluctantly, Kai stood on the other side of the figure as one of the museum workers took a photograph of them using Hilary's camera. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"I just think its weird, that's all," he said. "I don't like it and I'm not going to. It doesn't mean I'm scared or whatever." Hilary smiled and rolled her eyes. "It doesn't!"

"Okay, I believe you," she said in a voice which told Kai she didn't believe her at all.

Kai shook his head and, on looking up, felt a brief wave of panic through him. "Hilary, please tell me that's not Tyson up there?"

Hilary looked at Kai and then up where his eyes were pointed in one smooth gesture.

"Crap," was all she could say.

Without saying anything, Kai grabbed Hilary's hand and dragged her into the next room. A small 'oh' of surprised escaped her mouth in the process. Once he'd made sure the door was closed, he let go of Hilary's wrist and looked around for an exit.

"To get out, you either have to go back the way we came or go through all the rooms," Hilary said, looking at her pamphlet, "so we'll need to see everything."

Kai ran a hand through his hair in frustration, more so because Hilary didn't seem to be taking the situation as seriously as she should be. In all honesty, it didn't really affect him wither or not Tyson found out that they were still seeing each other but he knew it could cause some serious dissonance between Tyson and Hilary at a time when Tyson didn't really need anything like that on his mind. As a competitor, Kai didn't wish it on him either. If he beat Tyson while he was distracted then it wouldn't really seem like a victory at all.

"Could you please take this as seriously as it is. What's Tyson going to say when he sees you and I together, especially since he thinks you hate me?"

Hilary glanced at him briefly from behind the floor plan and then sighed heavily. "I'm just not going to get myself worked up over it. Sure, it might cause a few riffs between us for the time being but he'll get over it."

"Before the tournament ends?"

Hilary was silent for a few moments as she thought this over. "If he can't cope with it why should I care?"

For a second Kai thought it was a total stranger he was talking too. "I shouldn't have to tell you that."

There was a feeling of awkwardness as Hilary realised what he was saying. On the same token, part of her did believe that Tyson should be able to put his pettiness aside long enough to see that no one is really in the wrong over this big mix up. However, as touched on by Kai, Tyson was her friend first and still her one true best friend. The law of never putting boyfriends before friends seemed to be clashing with her entire outlook on life. She wanted to be with Kai but she also didn't want to affect Tyson's game at this crucial point in his career. She supposed for today she'd have to put the latter first. It was too late for her and Kai to go back to being enemies completely but Tyson didn't need to find that out and so long as they kept being careful he wouldn't.

"Alright," she said to Kai, smiling again. "I see your point. Let's get the hell out of here."

A half hour later found Kai and Hilary back outside breathing in the car exhaust fumes which were a major part of fresh air in London. The streets, which in the early afternoon had been busy, were now so full that in order to accommodate them all comfortably the streets would have had to widen themselves. As it were, the mass of people seemed to crush into each other like a herd of wild beast. This would be to their benefit, Kai decided, because they were so crushed that the people had become as individual as flies. It didn't matter where Tyson and the others went next for the chances of being able to single out Kai and Hilary were minimal even to the most observant of people.

Hilary seemed to pick up on this too because she took a hold of Kai's hand and gave him a wide smile. "This is the closest we're going to get to being alone today and probably the safest too."

"That's sort of depressing when you think on it."

"Then let's not." They had barely walked two more steps when Hilary couldn't contain herself any longer and ask, "how's Garnet?"

As predicted, Kai's mood seemed to lower though his face didn't show it. "The same. It's so weird. It's like she's locked in her own little world where no one else lives. She doesn't offer any conversation and she's not even bothering to keep up her appearances which I'm sure you know is pretty damn strange. In fact, in all the years I've known Garnet, the one time she didn't wear make up was because she had conjunctivitis and it would get worse. Even then she's only lasted a day before giving in to vanity."

"So why don't you do something?" She asked.

Kai shrugged. "What can I do? She'll get over it in time whatever it is then she'll come to us."

Hilary was about to agree with him and then realised fully what he was saying. "You Goddamn hypocrite," she said angrily. Kai looked surprised at the sudden outburst but Hilary didn't notice. The injustice was too large for her to see past. "What was that you were just saying about Tyson and making me feel like a rotten person in the process when you're no better yourself. Garnet needs you right now and you're just going to sit by and watch her deteriorate? She's supposed to be your friend!"

Kai felt Hilary let go of his hand and it fell like a lead weight. "It's entirely different," he tried to reason.

"It's exactly the same!" Hilary insisted. "You said it yourself. You've never seen Garnet in this state before so obviously its something really major and you're just gonna wait it out to see if it gets any better? You really are a hypocrite."

"Jesus, Hils. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to hound her for an answer when she quite clearly doesn't want to give one?"

"Yes!"

Kai shook his head. "It's not that easy."

"If you were her friend you'd make it that easy." Hilary sighed and looked at her watch. "Look, I'm not going to lie but I want to go. I don't have to but I want to. If I'm being completely truthful, your attitude's really getting on my nerves. I'll see you later." She turned away from him and made her way down the street

Kai was in stunned momentarily at what she'd just said and then felt the brutal sting as she realised that it was all true.

"Hilary wait!" She didn't. "Let me see you back, okay?"

"No!"

"Well, let me know when you get in."

"I won't."

For the second time that day, Kai ran his hands through his hair in frustration. The worst thing about this misunderstanding with Hilary was that it was all true and now the realisation that his way of treating Garnet – a close friend of many years – was disgraceful. He shouldn't have taken no for an answer, especially when if the roles were reversed she wouldn't have. He now knew what he had to do to set things right.

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