"You want to do what?"

Kai rolled his eyes. "You heard me."

"No, I didn't, because I can't believe you just said that," Tala stared at him slack-jawed, an apple halfway to his mouth. "You want to go? To American? Now?"

"Do you want to come or not?"

"Hell yes! But what –"

"I'll take you if you keep your mouth shut, otherwise you're on your own," Kai ignored the look of astonishment his friend was giving him and swiped the apple from his hand, taking a bite and tossing it into the garbage when he was done. Satisfied that he had Tala on his side, he made his way towards his bedroom to begin packing.

Tala didn't get the hint that he wanted to be left alone and followed. "What has this girl done to you?" he demanded. "You're on the phone with her all the time, you make sure she eats and sleeps normally when she's an ocean away, and now you want to fly all the way to America for her parents' memorial service?"

"She hasn't done anything," Kai ignored his incredulous tone and grabbed his bag from under the bed. He began emptying drawers. "We'd go for anyone else."

"No, I'd go for anyone else," said Tala pointedly. "You'd bitch about it the whole way and disappear once we got to the hotel."

"I won't disappear this time."

"Oh, I bet you won't," his tone had gone from surprised to sly now, and Kai paused in his packing to turn back and raise an eyebrow at him. Tala looked smug. "You like her."

"You know I do."

"No, I mean you like her."

Kai didn't answer, and turned back to his bag. "Pack your shit, Tala. Flight's tonight."

Tala didn't move. He was chuckling. "Damn, I knew she had it bad, but I didn't know you did too. Does Anna know you have a major thing for her?"

"I do not have a thing for her," said Kai evenly.

"You totally have a thing for her. Major."

"Tala, I swear –"

"Shut up, Kai, you can't blame me for being surprised," Tala snickered. "Anna isn't your type. You actually like talking to her."

Kai sighed. "What do you want me to say?"

"Can I be godfather to your kids?"

"Get out. Now."

"Fine!" Tala held his hands up in surrender. "We'll talk about godfather later. Does Anna know we're coming?" at Kai's hesitation, his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "You didn't tell her? We don't even know if she'll want us there! Christ, Kai, are you a lunatic?"

"If I told her, she'd say we don't need to," said Kai firmly. "And we need to."

"How can you –"

"Because I buried Voltaire, Tala," snapped Kai finally. Immediately, Tala quietened. "Her parents didn't do shit to her compared to what Voltaire did to us, but they did shit. Who did I have at his service, when people were talking about how good he was and I wanted to punch someone?"

"No one," answered Tala reluctantly. "You wanted to go alone."

"Yeah, biggest fucking mistake of my life," Kai zipped up his bad and folded his arms across his chest. "I won't let her make a stupid decision like that."

Tala ran a hand through his hair. "I'll go pack."

"I'll leave without you if you don't hurry up."

Tala smirked. "You won't."

!

It was a really bad idea, but he knew he had to do it. A crush was one thing, but this incessant need to be around Anastasia, to make sure she was alright, was driving Kai insane. If he wasn't texting her, he was calling her, and if he wasn't talking to her in some way, he was thinking about her. It was stupid. Tala was right; she wasn't the kind of girl he wanted. He wasn't sure if he even wanted a girl right now, so what was he doing boarding a flight going halfway across the world to comfort a girl he wasn't even sure about?

He didn't have an answer. Ignoring Tala as much as possible, Kai opened his laptop as soon as they were on the plane and began the long process of going through the all the files Anastasia had given him before leaving. She had said she would be back soon and he didn't need all her data, but he had wanted it. He was breaking prototypes easily, but something was wrong. He knew it wasn't her; she frowned every time he destroyed one, and it took her longer every time to build something new from scratch. It was almost as if as soon as she had decided what the problem was, something else went wrong and she had to identify the cause all over again. He knew she hadn't been able to work since she had gone back home, and a small part of him wanted to make things easier for her, just so she would have one less thing to worry about.

"You've been glaring at the screen for an hour," said Tala dryly. He took his headphones out of his ears and craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the computer. "What is that?"

Kai resisted the urge to snap. "Stats," he said shortly.

Tala wasn't daunted. "About what? That's Anna's handwriting," he pointed to the current file open, which was a scanned copy of some of Anastasia's notes from the first prototype.

Kai turned to look at him, taken aback. "How the hell do you know what her handwriting looks like?"

Tala blinked. "She prints out stats reports from our battles every time and scribbles all over them to tell me what I'm doing wrong. What the –" he cut himself off abruptly, his eyes widening. "What did you think? She's been writing me love letters?"

Kai snorted, his sudden annoyance diffusing automatically. "As if."

"Yeah, I've been told redheads aren't her type," Tala rolled his eyes. "You're so whipped, man. Tell me this whole trip isn't some elaborate scheme for you to declare your love for her or some sappy shit like that."

Kai sneered. "Would I bring you along if it was?"

"Good point," Tala shuddered. "I do not want to be caught in the middle of that."

"You're an idiot, Tala."

"At least I'm not in love with my technician. Are those her love letters to you?"

Kai rolled his eyes. "They're stats reports as well, moron."

"She writes way more on yours than she does on mine," Tala squinted at the screen, angling it towards himself without invitation and reading through the notes quickly. Grunting, Kai gave up the device without argument. "Your defense moves are sloppy."

"No shit."

"No, I mean they're worse than they were before BEGA," Tala shook his head. "Your stats are crap too. What the hell, Kai? How have you been beating me?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out."

"Try harder," looking like a pouty child, Tala sat back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. "Anna says it's because you're better than me."

"I am better than you."

"My stats are better, and my beyblade is perfect," insisted Tala. "She can't edit the stats to make it look like you're better, right?"

Kai looked up from his screen and raised an eyebrow. "Why would she do that?"

"Because she likes you."

"Anna doesn't mess around about beyblading," Kai rolled his eyes. "If I sucked, she'd tell me. You do suck, so she tells you."

"I do not suck."

Kai shrugged. "Go to sleep."

"What are you, my mom?"

"Ouch," said Kai sarcastically.