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Happy Birthday, Rei-chan

"Kai?"

The blue-haired boy growled softly in his throat, not wishing to be interrupted while he was studying the defence gear on his Dranzer.

"Kai?"

The voice, belonging to Max, came more insistent, even worried slightly.

"What now?" The captain ground out from between clenched teeth, tightening his hold on his beyblade as if fearing that it would be taken away from him.

"I-it's nothing," Max stuttered, fidgeting under Kai's intense scrutiny. "I-it's just that... have you seen Rei?"

The bluenette paused in his mental assault of the smaller boy, his breath catching in his throat annoyingly. Steeling his composure, he replied coolly, "Why should I know where he has got himself into. He's a big boy, the last time I checked."

The blonde looked away, as if in shame, but continued nonetheless, "Well, the guys and myself can't find him anywhere and he has been gone for a rather long time."

"So?" He shrugged dismissively, though if you truly knew Kai (and not many did) you'd see that his shoulders were oddly tense. "He's old enough to wander off by himself, isn't he? Why should it matter to me?"

"Get your head out of whatever hole you crawled into, Mr. Impenetrable," retorted Takao, appearing as if by magic beside his fair-haired friend, sneering at his leader. "If you just stopped for a moment to think of your teammates instead of yourself, you'd see that Rei l —"

"It's Rei's birthday today, Kai," Max said hastily, elbowing his friend none-too-gently.

"Nonsense!" The blue-haired boy hissed at the two. "If it was his birthday, he'd have told you, you're practically joined at the hip," he said the last part almost bitterly. He knew too well that Rei had a strong bond with the rest of the team, himself excluded. All he was to the other boy was a fearless leader and a thorn in the side.

"But it is," stated Max, his cerulean eyes large and wide. Looking into them, Kai was almost certain that he was telling the truth. "Mr. Dickinson phoned the hotel to congratulate Rei on his sweet sixteenth, but we knew nothing of it and he wasn't there. And now we can't find him anywhere."

"That's not like him at all, oh Brave Captain," Takao piped in, sounding sarcastic but the worry clearly evident by the knitting of his brows. "That's why we're looking for him."

"So what do you expect me to do?" Kai asked, scowling.

"Why – I dunno – help us search for him," the Dragon said, irritated. "He's a member of your team, after all. Or are you just too selfish to care for another human being?"

That did it and with a low grunt, Kai shoved his Dranzer into his pant pocket and stalked away, clenching and unclenching his fists while doing so. Some murderous thoughts flew around in his head, but he ignored them for the task ahead. If he was truthful with himself, he'd admit that he, too, was worried about the neko-jin. But Kai couldn't recall a moment in his life when truth was his highest priority, so he lied and told himself that the nervous twitch in his stomach was just hunger or anticipation over the match that was coming up.

When Kai left, Max turned to Takao pouting. "Why did you do that for? You almost told him that Rei —"

"Hey, hey, hey, relax, Maxie," he swatted at the air dismissively. "He didn't hear anything, so that should be enough. Besides, is it my fault that he's so blind he won't see what's so clearly in front of his face?"

The blonde sweat-dropped. "Takao, you're not exactly Mr. Insightful here."

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The sun was beginning to set and still Kai kept up the search. He didn't know why, perhaps because he was too thick headed to give up, but he simply knew that he couldn't – wouldn't – quit. Rei was his friend, his only one, he reasoned, so of course he had to look for him. The anxiety nibbling on his stomach muscles did not abate but got steadier and stronger as time progressed. He racked his hand through his hair, wanting to scream in frustration.

The team was staying in Marseillaise this time; a beautiful city in the coastal France. Kai wandered down the docks not too far from the hotel, his darting eyes hidden by his long fringe. He tightened his grasp of Dranzer in his pocket, his fingers brushing against a small box beside the 'blade. Guilt and maybe affection (though he called it 'the feelings that were evoked in a camaraderie') gnawed on his conscious and he, although reluctantly, bought a small present for his friend.

He came to stand at the end of a pier, looking over the expanse of scarlet-painted sea. He remembered when not too long ago he comforted Rei by a small brook, how the neko-jin liked water. Impulsively, Kai jumped off the pier and into the sun-warmed sands. He trotted though the sand, irritated at how the small grains managed to get inside his shoes. There was a sizable boulder ahead of him, and, despite himself, Kai rolled his eyes at what appeared to be an obvious cliché.

He walked up to the bulky rock, careful that the sand muffled his steps. Almost as if on cue, he heard the catch of the other's breath and a stifled sob. The other boy's crying was nothing new to Kai; he had been woken up several times by Rei's soft crying during their travels. The sound has always made him bite his lip, hard, and his heart take on a painful rhythm. But he never said anything, pretending to be asleep. And this time was no different; he felt a painful knot form in his stomach and the tightening of his throat. He wanted to escape, he didn't know how to handle such situations, but he also knew that he couldn't.

"So that is where you decided to hide yourself, Rei," he said loudly enough to be heard over the swish of waves.

"K-Kai! I didn't hear you coming," he said, looking up at his leader from where he was almost curled on the sand.

The bluenette just snorted softly and plopped down beside his friend.

"Why haven't you told anyone it's your birthday today?" Kai asked after a while, looking out to the sea. The sun had sunk halfway into the water, the reflection touching the original to make a full circle. This way, the sun was made whole, complete, like a joining of two beautiful bodies. (Kai cringed mentally at the poetic reference; he was no poet.) The water was gold where the sun touched, streaks of brilliant orange and vermilion touching the horizon. Kai just realized how beautiful it looked, maybe because the sunset was at its full glory at the moment, or maybe because of the person whose company he held.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Rei stated defiantly, drawing shapes in the sand with a stick.

Kai snorted. "You don't expect me to believe that, do you? I've known you long enough to know when you're lying." It was true, he did know. Rei's voice would always hitched up a notch and he'd always look away guiltily. "Besides which, Mr. Dickinson called to wish you a happy birthday."

"So I lied, what difference does that make?"

"Plenty," Kai said looking at Rei's profile. The wind was picking at his hair, playfully, tugging the silken strands around his cherub-like face. On that same sun-kissed face he saw dried streaks, painfully obvious, but he ignored them to save Rei some dignity. "Aren't we supposed to be your teammates and friends? And shouldn't friends know something as important about each other?"

"Yeah, but I didn't —" he began only to be interrupted by the captain.

"Takao, Max and Kenny were really worried," Kai said quietly, leaving out one crucial person. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Rei glared at the sand, a furious red staining his cheeks. "It's stupid."

"Ha! Takao's jokes are stupid," Kai retorted. "Now come on; tell me what could be so 'stupid,' as you put it, to ignore your birthday."

The tone in the blue-haired boy's voice left no room for compromise, and so with a sigh, the red hue on his cheeks deepening, Rei stuttered to say, "I-I don't want to grow up."

Laugher was bubbling up in Kai's throat but he suppressed it; that would be very un-Kai-like thing to do, indeed. "That's it?" He asked, his face softening unwittingly.

"Don't laugh," Rei retorted, pouting. "Yes, that's it, I don't want to grow old."

"Why?"

"Because then the dream would end and I'll no longer have you," the Chinese boy answered softly, scratching out the picture he drew in the sand.

"That's ridiculous," Kai said dubiously. "You'll always have us –" here Rei exhaled sharply, noting the mistake in Kai's assumption "– we're a team. Teams don't just break up because one member is older or younger than the rest."

"Maybe you're right," Rei replied with a sigh. "It's just that sometimes I don't feel real, you know? I never knew my parents and that makes me feel like I've never truly been born. Like I just magically appeared, a fragment of somebody's imagination. Everything that has happened to us – everything that is happening right now – how can you tell that its real? How can you tell that you're real?"

Suddenly, a warm hand was placed on Rei's chest, right above his heart. Startled, he looked up to Kai's perpetually frowning face. The warm hand, palm down, sent an electric-like thrill up his spine. He could feel the calluses from various battles and the steady beat of Kai's heart transmitted through the hand and through the thin fabric of his shirt. Much to his embarrassment, crimson, like fire, spread along his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

"W-what are —"

Kai harrumphed, spreading his fingers on the other boy's chest, completely ignoring the panic in the other's voice. (Rei thought he might as well croak over and die.) After a while in such position, he removed his hand, and, when Rei was about to breathe out a sigh of relief, placed the side of his face to the same spot.

"Kai! What in the world —" Rei exclaimed, squirming in his position.

"Shhh," the boy in question murmured against the neko-jin's chest. The Chinese boy felt his heart hammer painfully into his side, as if wanting to escape. He felt Kai's warm breath through the shirt, and for a moment he thought he did die. 'Oh, Gawd!' he thought to himself, frantically, dreamily, 'I can feel his heat so close, it's almost as if it has become my own.'

"Hm... I don't understand..." the bluenette said softly once he removed his head from Rei's chest.

"What? What?"

"Hn... your heart... " Kai touched the spot again, with tentative, uncertain almost, fingers.

"Yes? Yes, what about my heart?" Rei fought down the anxiousness in his voice, long since forgetting about his tomato-like face.

"It's... It's beating... "

Rei wanted to tug at his hair and scream or cry at the same time. "So? Everybody's heart has a beat, doesn't it?"

"Yes, but if you're not real," Kai began slowly, like to a child, "you're not supposed to have a heart. You do, and it beats strongly. Doesn't that mean that you're real?"

Rei's eyes softened, the gold of them resembling that of the dying sunset. Now he understood what Kai was trying to do, though sloppily. He appreciated the effort anyway, especially since it came form Kai. "Hai, I suppose," he replied with a small smile. "Thank you."

"Does that mean that I don't have to give you this then?" Kai asked with the beginning of a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips, taking a hold on the box in his pocket but not taking it out and rising up from is position.

The pointed ends of Rei's ears twitched in what Kai thought was a very cat-like gesture. He almost smiled. "What's that?" The Chinese boy asked curiously, pointing to Kai's hand.

"This? Oh, it's the present I got for you – in case you needed persuasion," Kai said, turning and starting to walk at a leisurely pace. "But since you don't, I might as well take it back."

"B-but Kai!" The dark-haired boy called, hastily reaching for his shoes, which he had previously discarded and jogged up to catch up with his friend. "Can I still have it?"

He saw the taller boy shrug nonchalantly. "Maybe; if I feel like it."

Rei stalled and pouted at Kai's retreating back. "You're a meany and a tease, you know that Kai?" He called out, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I know," the other boy called back. "Here, catch!"

Rei reached out in time to catch the small projectile in his hand. His breath lodged in his throat for a moment. It was a pristine box. 'The exact same shape as a ring box,' he thought dazedly. 'But no, Kai isn't the type to... '

Inside the box, cushioned by velvet the colour of midnight, was a small, crystalline bell. It was the same type as the one that belonged to his stuffed tiger, which he always hid under his pillow and only took out when he was certain that there wasn't a person in a five-mile radius. Kai must have caught him holding it once. Rei smiled at the tiny accessory, and after closer inspection saw the tiny inscription on the side. Koneko, it read.

"Thank you, Kai!" He called to his friend through the distance.

In mere moments, he had caught up with his leader. The other boy looked down at him for a moment, glad to see the smile on the neko-jin's face. "Happy birthday, Rei-chan," he whispered softly, quietly like the breeze that came from the sea. It was so quiet; Rei almost didn't hear him.

(tbc)

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*cough*corn*cough* Gawd! That was too much!!