"I forgot to mention, Tala wants to have lunch," said Anastasia. She looked up from the beyblade she was fiddling with and gave him a sympathetic look. "I told him you wouldn't want to."
Kai groaned and leaned his head back, trying to ignore the dull throbbing in his temples. He had a bad feeling he was developing a cold, probably from the practice he had done for four hours in the pouring rain the night before. It had paid off, because the prototype was trashed and Anastasia was currently making another one – her fourth – but she had clicked her tongue as soon as she had seen his face, and had offered him her steaming mug of coffee without a word. Kai hadn't complained.
"I'll tell him I'm busy," said Anastasia finally, when Kai didn't speak. "But maybe you should head home."
"You need a ride," said Kai, wincing when he heard how hoarse his voice was. He felt like crap.
"And I can get a taxi."
"We've talked about this," damn, every word made his throat hurt. "You don't know the city well enough to take a taxi alone."
Anastasia sighed. She worked in silence for a few minutes, and Kai was just deciding on whether or not to sleep when he heard her get up from the floor, coming to stand in front of his slouched form with a look on her face that was a cross between annoyance and affection. "Go home and sleep off the cold, or cough, or fever. I'll call you when I'm done and if you feel better you can come get me. Deal?"
"No deal."
"Now you're just being stubborn."
"Maybe."
Anastasia sighed and picked up the blanket that was lying across the back of the sofa. She tossed it at Kai and jerked her head at his feet. "At least lie down. I don't have a lot of stuff to do today, I can do the rest from my room at home."
Kai gave her a look that said she needed to stop babying him, and she merely stuck out her tongue in response. Ignoring her childish expression, he kicked off his shoes and lay down on the sofa, tossing an arm over his eyes and leaving the blanket resting under his arm. He felt bad for being so short with her, but he couldn't help it. He felt like crap, his beyblade was still in less than prime condition – and he hated not being able to put Tyson in his place when he was being annoying – and now suddenly his obsession with Anastasia was interfering with everything he did.
Tala wouldn't stop asking about her and Ray always told him to say hi to her before he left the house in the mornings, and he hated that they spoke about her so casually. Only he could talk about her. Added to that, Hilary and Anastasia were talking all the time; he checked her phone more often than he checked his own, a habit that annoyed him because he shouldn't care but he did and he was still working on repressing the feeling that came over him every time he saw Tala's name above his own in her favourite contact list. It was a crush, and it was the kind of crush that he was almost one hundred percent sure he could get over if he could do something about it, but he couldn't. Dickinson had hired her, and she was apparently excellent at what she did, so she was his only hope of regaining the one thing that had never let him down. The very idea of jeopardizing that just because he drooled every time she wore shorts and her laugh made him want to smile was ridiculous.
He liked her, but he liked beyblading more.
Someone clicked their tongue, and the blanket was tugged out from under his arm. "Idiot," he heard her mutter, and then the blanket was thrown over him and that someone was pushing away a lock of his hair that was tickling his cheek, and then he fell asleep.
!
"-iana, I'm catching the next flight out and its none of your concern … Yeah, well, you should have thought of that before you told the lawyers you'd handle it … You're only in charge for another two years, sis, live it up while you – I am not treating this like a joke, you are! Okay, well, if that's how you want to – yeah, you too, sis. Bye."
Kai removed his arm from his eyes and blinked slowly. He hadn't slept for more than an hour, but he knew for a fact that whatever had woken him up, it was bad. Anastasia sounded as if she wanted to scream, and he could hear her footsteps as she paced the room sporadically. He sat up on the sofa, noting with some surprise that his headache was better and his throat wasn't as sore anymore. He was just about to open his mouth and grudgingly admit to Anastasia that she had been right about getting some rest when she turned around from where she had been facing the desk and caught his eye.
Her expression made him jump to his feet and come to stand in front of her immediately. "What?" he didn't waste time offering comfort. Clearly, something horrible had happened.
Anastasia wiped away at a single tear that had escaped from her hard eyes. "My parents are dead."
Kai blinked. Anastasia looked up at him for ten seconds, maybe more, and Kai could see the longing in her eyes, the desire for him to say or do something that could offer her comfort, but he couldn't do it. He was caught off guard, and he was confused, and he didn't know whether he wanted to kiss the girl senseless or hug her close and wipe her tears away.
Anastasia didn't give him any time to decide. She merely pushed past him and made for the door. "I need to get home," was all she said. Kai nodded automatically, grabbing his phone from the sofa on his way out. Her things were in her arms haphazardly. Gently, he extracted her laptop and its bag and, when he saw she wasn't protesting, he took two files as well, leaving her with some loose papers and the prototype she had been working on.
They didn't say a word until they reached the car. Kai paused before starting the engine. He glanced at her, unable to hide his clear discomfort and unease at being thrown into this situation. What was he supposed to say? "Do you want to-"
"Spare me your pity, Kai, I know it doesn't come naturally to you and I don't have the energy to applaud you for performing appropriate social niceties," Kai had never heard her speak to anyone that coldly, let alone himself. He doubted he could control the look of surprise that came over his face. He glanced at her, only to see her quickly typing on her phone. "I'll get Dickinson to send you another technician before tomorrow, my flight isn't for a few hours so I can probably get someone I know and give them most of my data and-"
"I'm not replacing you," said Kai firmly. Anastasia froze, her half-written email still blinking on the screen of her phone. "Your parents just died, Anna, you can take time off and come back when you're ready."
She blinked dumbly. "That could take weeks."
Kai shrugged. "It's not like I have a world championship to prepare for."
"You'd really do that?" the coldness was gone now. They stopped at a red light and Kai turned to face her. Ever since the call had come, she hadn't stopped moving. Her eyes had been hard and focused, but now they were dull and slightly glazed, as if her autopilot switch had been turned off and she had no idea what she was supposed to do.
"Yes, I would," telling himself he didn't know what made him do it, even though he did, Kai rested his left hand gently on her shoulder. "I know you need this job, and I've got time. Go home, and come back when you can."
"I can still meet the deadline," she clicked her phone shut and put it down, balancing it on her knee as she continued to speak. Her eyes were still lost, but her tone was slightly less gloomy. "I won't be gone for longer than a week anyway."
"You can stay for longer."
Anastasia shook her head. "You don't get it. I haven't seen my parents since I was eleven."
"What?" asked Kai incredulously. "Then why-" he quickly stopped himself before he could say what he had been thinking, but Anastasia seemed to have figured it out.
"-why do I care?" she finished his sentence for him and gave a grim smile when he didn't respond. "It's okay, Tatiana asked me the same thing. I don't think she'll even make it for the funeral, but I do have to go."
"What happened?"
Anastasia blinked it surprise. A talkative Kai was definitely something she wasn't used to. "Nothing happened, not really. They paid my expenses and sent me to boarding school, and I just preferred spending my holidays on campus instead of with them. When I was sixteen the money kept coming but the invitations to come home stopped, that's all," she shrugged. "Tatiana went to college and grad school and she stopped getting her share once she started earning. I haven't got mine in about two years, which is around the same time I started working for the BBA. I didn't care, I never have. My parents always felt like strangers. But Tatiana always cared. That doesn't mean I shouldn't go to their funeral though."
"You should go," he agreed quietly. I'd do the same thing.
"It's the right thing to do," was all she said. And then the car was moving and she was on the phone speaking very fast to someone who sounded like an airport official, and Kai kept quiet.
