Warning: Kai's slightly OOC. Personally, I don't think he is after what
he's been through. ^^
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BITTER SWEETNESS OF HOME
After having quietly rapped upon the Blade Breaker's hotel room door, Kai cautiously entered with Zeo close behind. Only a cluttered empty room and a breeze sidling through the curtains on the far side greeted them. Calling loudly throughout the room, Kai summoned the Blade Breakers to gather, but his beckons fell upon deaf ears. He sat down on the couch and sighed, slumping his shoulders dejectedly.
Zeo joined him and warily placed a comforting hand on Kai's shoulder. "Maybe your friends just went out for a little while. I'm sure they'll be back soon. It's past noon, isn't it? Maybe they're out having lunch or something."
Kai instinctively shrugged him off. "Maybe. I doubt it, though." His blue duffel bag lay at the side of the couch by his feet. He picked it up and took out another of his traditional black shirts. The cuts he had received from Raku's whips he had already washed off while at the fountain. Therefore, with no hesitation, he slipped the shirt over his head. As the fabric fit snugly around his torso, he felt comforted, as if he had lost a piece of himself and had found it again. The other piece of his self that he had nearly lost was in Zeo's possession. The boy had used Kai's scarf as a lead rope – or a lifeline – on their way to the hotel as they walked through the bustling sidewalk traffic.
As he leaned down to remove the scarf from the boy's grasp, he noticed a Beyblade stuck in the cushions. He plucked it and discovered it to be Max's Draciel blade. Holding it gently in his hands, he examined it as he made his way over to Max's side of the room. Halfway there he noticed something that caused him to halt in his tracks. The entire top of the beyblade had been cracked, sending a wickedly jagged fissure in the plastic. Thankfully, Draciel's bit was still intact. However, it made Kai wonder what had happened to make the Draciel blade, that never left Max's side, to break.
Suddenly, he was hit with a dreadful thought so terrifying that he had to brace himself against the bed. As he stared at the blade, he wondered if what the darkness had done in his dream had really happened. In that dream he had reached out and touched Rei. When he did so, he had felt flesh, warmed by life-giving blood. Rei had felt real, so what reason did he have to believe that everything that had happened wasn't as well?
Clutching the blade so tightly that blood dripped down his arm, he fell to his knees. Lost within a fear-inspiring haze of the death of his teammates, his eyes clouded over and he felt as close to tears as he ever thought he'd be. Zeo tried to comfort him, but he could not hear - could not feel - the boy's sympathy, as if he were immune to it.
While Kai was slowly drowning within an internal sea of sadness, a constant, familiar chattering pricked his memory. Soon, the conversations grew louder and louder as the keepers of the voices drew nearer and nearer to the hotel room. He never moved a muscle until the door swung open revealing the smiling faces of his team members.
"I was like, 'no way,' and he was like, 'yah huh.' After a half-hour, I still didn't believe him. Go figure, right?" Tyson's eyes fell on Kai and he smirked. "Well, this is a change. It's not every day Kai bows to me."
Quickly, Kai rose, towering over Tyson, who retorted, "Man, don't get so threatening. It's never worked before, so you might as well give up on it. Admit it, you're not imposing." Passing by him, Tyson flopped down on one of the beds.
Rei approached him cheerfully and said, "You missed a really great lunch, Kai. One of the best I've ever had. Mr. D sure knows how to treat us to a good meal." Rubbing his stomach, Rei grinned happily.
The shock paralyzing Kai finally released him and he was filled with such tremendous joy that he ran over to the closest team member and locked him into a suffocating embrace. As Kai relished in the Chinese boy's body heat and the sound of his beating heart, he took no notice of Rei's nor the other team members' surprised expressions; he was just happy that they were alive and well, and that they were real, not just a beautiful dream.
After a few minutes, Kai broke away from Rei, who, raising an eyebrow, managed only to utter a confused "huh?"
Max scratched his head, perplexed. "I don't get it, Kai. What's going on? Ah!" Max inquired before being trapped as well in one of Kai's hugs.
Snubbing his nose, Tyson chuckled. "I guess Kaiey-Waiey is just happy to be back safe and sound. I bet he was scared staying out on the streets all night long. Probably got mugged or something. I hope your Dranzer got stolen."
Kai let go of Max and cocked his head at Tyson, unsure if he had heard the cocky boy correctly. "What did you say, Tyson?"
"That I hope your blade got stolen. I was only kidding, though."
Kai shook his head. "No, before that. How long was I gone?"
"Only for the length of last night," Kenny replied for him. "You never came back after that fit you had. We were concerned terribly about your welfare, but decided that you needed time to calm yourself. Apparently, it seems your techniques have worked towards your benefit."
"Only last night?" Kai ran his fingers down his arms and down his cheek, feeling his cleaned wounds, to see if they were real. They remained deep in his skin. "I was gone for nearly a week." He turned to glance at Zeo, who had been standing by Max's bed, muttering to himself how Kai never hugged him, but found the boy no longer to be there.
"'A week'?" Tyson repeated. "Kai, you must have hit your head on something, because unless all of us were asleep the whole entire time and all of our calendars are wrong, you were not gone for a week."
Warm breath embraced his skin from behind and there was Zeo, hiding behind him, shivering with fear. Kai crossed his arms, glaring at him. "What's with this? Where's that exuberance you expressed when we first met?"
Zeo rubbed his shoulders, keeping his eyes downcast, never meeting Kai's gaze. "I think I lost it on the way here." Zeo mumbled. "There's just so many of them. I...I...I'm not..."
"It's okay. They won't hurt you," he whispered, reassuringly. "I'll make sure they don't."
"Hey, Kai!" Tyson thumbed over at the boy. "Who's the kid?"
"Oh, I know, she's a local amateur beyblader. Totally awesome. My name is Max." The blonde scrambled over and extended his hand to the boy, who fearfully moved away from it.
Kai stepped in between them. "No, he is not an amateur beyblader. His name is Zeo. I met him..." Kai was unsure whether he should tell his team the truth. In any case, it was very unlikely that they would believe that he had been gone for a week in a evil dimension that lied at the bottom of a well. He himself hardly believed it, if not for Zeo standing right there beside him, he would have thought it had all been a very bad dream. In the end, he decided he'd keep the truth to himself. Hopefully Zeo would do the same.
"I met him last night when I went out." The explanation was close to the truth, yet extremely far from it.
Max self-consciously scratched the back of his neck. "Uh, sorry about the girl thing."
"It's okay."
"Cool. As I said, I'm Max. This is Rei. That's Kenny a.k.a. the Chief. And over on the bed is Tyson. Together, with Kai, we're the Blade Breakers, a Championship team. We've gone all over the world winning tournaments." Max frowned at the confused look Zeo was giving him. "You do know what a beyblade is, right?"
"Kind of. I've seen Kai spin a little red and blue top. Is that a bay blade?"
Max laughed and nodded. "Yup. Right on the nose."
"Are you guys hungry? Since you didn't come with us to have lunch with Mr. Dickenson and since there's nothing to eat here, I bet you are."
"You bet right." Zeo agreed, slowly becoming his normal giddy self, thanks to Max's optimism. "I'm starving. I think I could eat a cow...no, wait...an elephant....even bigger, a whale!"
Rei's gold eyes widened in amusement. "Sounds like he has an appetite that could match Tyson's."
Tyson, upon hearing his name and the mention of food, came over and said, "I'll take that bet."
Zeo giggled. "You're on!"
Kai watched the five boys jabber on about an eating contest and smiled to himself, shaking his head. The Blade Breakers, as well as Zeo, truly thrived off social contact and conversations, with not a day going by without them saying something, usually directed towards him. However, now, after the recent events that had befallen him, though he still felt detached and stoic, a new emotion coursed slowly through his veins as if a small piece of fire in his chilled blood. That emotion was the newly realized and acknowledged one of friendship. He could feel a closely-knit bond between all of them, could see the release cords and the launchers that tied them together, but also felt something deeper than that.
In this motley group of young boys, their union could not be broken by any means, not even by Kai's impassiveness or Tyson's large mouth. They were a team with a new, supportive member. They were a team. Nothing Kai said or did could change that granite fact. In truth, that fact comforted him greatly. For if the darkness ever came searching for him again, he knew where and in whom his trust relied – not only his own strength, but also in the collective power of his team members and of their unbreakable friendship.
Being beckoned to join their eating contest, Kai once again put on his mask of distained distance, but that was all it truly was: a mask he would continue hiding behind until he was ready to face the new and improved Kai being created within himself. Behind that mask, he smiled and thought how good it was to be home.
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BITTER SWEETNESS OF HOME
After having quietly rapped upon the Blade Breaker's hotel room door, Kai cautiously entered with Zeo close behind. Only a cluttered empty room and a breeze sidling through the curtains on the far side greeted them. Calling loudly throughout the room, Kai summoned the Blade Breakers to gather, but his beckons fell upon deaf ears. He sat down on the couch and sighed, slumping his shoulders dejectedly.
Zeo joined him and warily placed a comforting hand on Kai's shoulder. "Maybe your friends just went out for a little while. I'm sure they'll be back soon. It's past noon, isn't it? Maybe they're out having lunch or something."
Kai instinctively shrugged him off. "Maybe. I doubt it, though." His blue duffel bag lay at the side of the couch by his feet. He picked it up and took out another of his traditional black shirts. The cuts he had received from Raku's whips he had already washed off while at the fountain. Therefore, with no hesitation, he slipped the shirt over his head. As the fabric fit snugly around his torso, he felt comforted, as if he had lost a piece of himself and had found it again. The other piece of his self that he had nearly lost was in Zeo's possession. The boy had used Kai's scarf as a lead rope – or a lifeline – on their way to the hotel as they walked through the bustling sidewalk traffic.
As he leaned down to remove the scarf from the boy's grasp, he noticed a Beyblade stuck in the cushions. He plucked it and discovered it to be Max's Draciel blade. Holding it gently in his hands, he examined it as he made his way over to Max's side of the room. Halfway there he noticed something that caused him to halt in his tracks. The entire top of the beyblade had been cracked, sending a wickedly jagged fissure in the plastic. Thankfully, Draciel's bit was still intact. However, it made Kai wonder what had happened to make the Draciel blade, that never left Max's side, to break.
Suddenly, he was hit with a dreadful thought so terrifying that he had to brace himself against the bed. As he stared at the blade, he wondered if what the darkness had done in his dream had really happened. In that dream he had reached out and touched Rei. When he did so, he had felt flesh, warmed by life-giving blood. Rei had felt real, so what reason did he have to believe that everything that had happened wasn't as well?
Clutching the blade so tightly that blood dripped down his arm, he fell to his knees. Lost within a fear-inspiring haze of the death of his teammates, his eyes clouded over and he felt as close to tears as he ever thought he'd be. Zeo tried to comfort him, but he could not hear - could not feel - the boy's sympathy, as if he were immune to it.
While Kai was slowly drowning within an internal sea of sadness, a constant, familiar chattering pricked his memory. Soon, the conversations grew louder and louder as the keepers of the voices drew nearer and nearer to the hotel room. He never moved a muscle until the door swung open revealing the smiling faces of his team members.
"I was like, 'no way,' and he was like, 'yah huh.' After a half-hour, I still didn't believe him. Go figure, right?" Tyson's eyes fell on Kai and he smirked. "Well, this is a change. It's not every day Kai bows to me."
Quickly, Kai rose, towering over Tyson, who retorted, "Man, don't get so threatening. It's never worked before, so you might as well give up on it. Admit it, you're not imposing." Passing by him, Tyson flopped down on one of the beds.
Rei approached him cheerfully and said, "You missed a really great lunch, Kai. One of the best I've ever had. Mr. D sure knows how to treat us to a good meal." Rubbing his stomach, Rei grinned happily.
The shock paralyzing Kai finally released him and he was filled with such tremendous joy that he ran over to the closest team member and locked him into a suffocating embrace. As Kai relished in the Chinese boy's body heat and the sound of his beating heart, he took no notice of Rei's nor the other team members' surprised expressions; he was just happy that they were alive and well, and that they were real, not just a beautiful dream.
After a few minutes, Kai broke away from Rei, who, raising an eyebrow, managed only to utter a confused "huh?"
Max scratched his head, perplexed. "I don't get it, Kai. What's going on? Ah!" Max inquired before being trapped as well in one of Kai's hugs.
Snubbing his nose, Tyson chuckled. "I guess Kaiey-Waiey is just happy to be back safe and sound. I bet he was scared staying out on the streets all night long. Probably got mugged or something. I hope your Dranzer got stolen."
Kai let go of Max and cocked his head at Tyson, unsure if he had heard the cocky boy correctly. "What did you say, Tyson?"
"That I hope your blade got stolen. I was only kidding, though."
Kai shook his head. "No, before that. How long was I gone?"
"Only for the length of last night," Kenny replied for him. "You never came back after that fit you had. We were concerned terribly about your welfare, but decided that you needed time to calm yourself. Apparently, it seems your techniques have worked towards your benefit."
"Only last night?" Kai ran his fingers down his arms and down his cheek, feeling his cleaned wounds, to see if they were real. They remained deep in his skin. "I was gone for nearly a week." He turned to glance at Zeo, who had been standing by Max's bed, muttering to himself how Kai never hugged him, but found the boy no longer to be there.
"'A week'?" Tyson repeated. "Kai, you must have hit your head on something, because unless all of us were asleep the whole entire time and all of our calendars are wrong, you were not gone for a week."
Warm breath embraced his skin from behind and there was Zeo, hiding behind him, shivering with fear. Kai crossed his arms, glaring at him. "What's with this? Where's that exuberance you expressed when we first met?"
Zeo rubbed his shoulders, keeping his eyes downcast, never meeting Kai's gaze. "I think I lost it on the way here." Zeo mumbled. "There's just so many of them. I...I...I'm not..."
"It's okay. They won't hurt you," he whispered, reassuringly. "I'll make sure they don't."
"Hey, Kai!" Tyson thumbed over at the boy. "Who's the kid?"
"Oh, I know, she's a local amateur beyblader. Totally awesome. My name is Max." The blonde scrambled over and extended his hand to the boy, who fearfully moved away from it.
Kai stepped in between them. "No, he is not an amateur beyblader. His name is Zeo. I met him..." Kai was unsure whether he should tell his team the truth. In any case, it was very unlikely that they would believe that he had been gone for a week in a evil dimension that lied at the bottom of a well. He himself hardly believed it, if not for Zeo standing right there beside him, he would have thought it had all been a very bad dream. In the end, he decided he'd keep the truth to himself. Hopefully Zeo would do the same.
"I met him last night when I went out." The explanation was close to the truth, yet extremely far from it.
Max self-consciously scratched the back of his neck. "Uh, sorry about the girl thing."
"It's okay."
"Cool. As I said, I'm Max. This is Rei. That's Kenny a.k.a. the Chief. And over on the bed is Tyson. Together, with Kai, we're the Blade Breakers, a Championship team. We've gone all over the world winning tournaments." Max frowned at the confused look Zeo was giving him. "You do know what a beyblade is, right?"
"Kind of. I've seen Kai spin a little red and blue top. Is that a bay blade?"
Max laughed and nodded. "Yup. Right on the nose."
"Are you guys hungry? Since you didn't come with us to have lunch with Mr. Dickenson and since there's nothing to eat here, I bet you are."
"You bet right." Zeo agreed, slowly becoming his normal giddy self, thanks to Max's optimism. "I'm starving. I think I could eat a cow...no, wait...an elephant....even bigger, a whale!"
Rei's gold eyes widened in amusement. "Sounds like he has an appetite that could match Tyson's."
Tyson, upon hearing his name and the mention of food, came over and said, "I'll take that bet."
Zeo giggled. "You're on!"
Kai watched the five boys jabber on about an eating contest and smiled to himself, shaking his head. The Blade Breakers, as well as Zeo, truly thrived off social contact and conversations, with not a day going by without them saying something, usually directed towards him. However, now, after the recent events that had befallen him, though he still felt detached and stoic, a new emotion coursed slowly through his veins as if a small piece of fire in his chilled blood. That emotion was the newly realized and acknowledged one of friendship. He could feel a closely-knit bond between all of them, could see the release cords and the launchers that tied them together, but also felt something deeper than that.
In this motley group of young boys, their union could not be broken by any means, not even by Kai's impassiveness or Tyson's large mouth. They were a team with a new, supportive member. They were a team. Nothing Kai said or did could change that granite fact. In truth, that fact comforted him greatly. For if the darkness ever came searching for him again, he knew where and in whom his trust relied – not only his own strength, but also in the collective power of his team members and of their unbreakable friendship.
Being beckoned to join their eating contest, Kai once again put on his mask of distained distance, but that was all it truly was: a mask he would continue hiding behind until he was ready to face the new and improved Kai being created within himself. Behind that mask, he smiled and thought how good it was to be home.