RAIN RAIN GO AWAY
/Rain, rain, go away/
"Oh c'mon, guys! Can't we just settle this over tea??" Max pleaded, his patience wearing off. It's hard stopping the inevitable.
"Darn it!" Tyson scowled from a corner of the hall. "You guys are so childish!"
The echoes of the Blade Breakers' voices would not suffice the fuming heat that surrounded their two best players.
The cunning tiger and the fearless phoenix.
Rei and Kai.There have been countless fights (read: BRAWLS) between these two boys for the past few weeks. Childish brawls if anyone would ask their other teammates, resulting from pranks, teasing and all that childish crap. All of them "went well"—that is, they would stop. But heck, anyone could tell that their fighting spirits are still there and it showed up again and again occasionally. Well, no stopping now—because now they really put up a fight. Fight--as in I'll-smack-you-off-your-face fight.
Uh-oh.
"You all shut up. This is between him and me."
"Now if ya wanna get in between, fine." Rei smirked. "That's if you won' mind gettin' your shirts all bloody." He said, not removing his blazing golden-amber eyes off their captain.
The three smaller boys froze, not in fear of the previous statement but because of fear of what will be left of these two if they would really pull this off. For real.
/Come again another day/
"Ok so we won't, but you could do it some other time?" Max asked worriedly as a threatening flash of lightning pierced the black sky, followed by an equally threatening roar of thunder.
Crimson locked on gold, both beautifully glazed with glistening anger and loathing. Nothing matters now but going outside and settling this once and for all. To see who is the better man. For name and honor. Sheesh.
"No use, Maxie. They won't listen." Tyson said plainly, his arms crossed on his chest as he leaned on a wall.
"Heh. Your brain is not that useless afterall." Kai smirked.
So the three just watched as the two marched out of the hall, praying that both would return in one piece.
"Don't dare follow, lowlifes." Kai left the tension hanging in the air inside the room they just vacated.
/Little children want to play/
The two bladers stood a distance from each other on a clearing in the middle of the forest. It is a man-to-man face-off. Fist on fist.
"So, Rei, you ready to bow down?" Kai smirked.
"Fuck you."
And with the words trailing off, both simultaneously darted at other, hoping to launch the first blow. As expected, Kai was the first one to seize Rei by the collars and initiated a punch on the face, but Rei, armed with his neko-jin instincts, half-blocked the blow, and sprung up with a reversed flying-kick as payback.
Lightning flashed on the murky skies as the two continued to inflict pain on each other. Rapid succession, no mercy.
Kai was half kneeling on the ground, a line of blood tracing from the corner of his lips down to his chin, using his hand as support. On the other side, Rei was clutching his arm, blood trickling from his forehead, his legs apart with one knee half-bended.
The other was a strength-fighter while the other one was a speed-fighter.
Who would be left standing?
Drops of rain finally fell from the soaked black sky the same time Rei did.
/Rain, rain go away/
Rei's thick lashes fluttered open to a hazy obscurity. He just let his catlike eyes adjust to the dark, and realized that he was inside some sort of cavern. He shivered. He scouted his eyes around the place, and saw Kai on the other side, sleeping. The small boy shivered again. Where the hell were his clothes?
The other boy, being the sentient fighter he is, stirred immediately as he heard the reverberation.
"Oh. So you're awake, finally." The taller boy muttered, his voice clear as if he hasn't been sleeping at all.
"Where are we?"
"Obviously we're in a cave. You see, you passed out." Kai said arrogantly, one eyebrow raised.
"And…you brought me here?" The Chinese boy asked almost innocently.
"No. You sleepwalked." The Russian remarked sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
"So, where are my clothes?"
The Russian boy nodded to where their clothes lay dripping.
Rei bit his lower lip. "You…took them off me?" He said, his fang teasing at the corner of his feeble smile, one delicate eyebrow raised above golden eyes that peered behind thick curved lashes.
"For Christ's sake, Rei!" Kai shouted, his face stained the same color of his eyes.
"No, no, I was just joking." Rei chuckled.
That seemed to calm the other boy down.
"Thanks anyway." The Chinese boy said gently, smiling.
"Tch." Kai rolled his eyes again, seeing Rei like that. So charming. Woohoo.
/Rain, rain go away/
Minutes passed by and of course, without any watch or any clock of some sort, the two boys had no idea how long it has been raining. And having been all tired and beaten, they just decided to wait until the rain stops.
"K-Kai…"
Kai raised an eyebrow and turned his attention to Rei from the rain outside of the cavern. "Kai what? Would you cut it out?" He said, annoyance in his voice. He turned back to his observation on the rain. Or whatever he found so interesting in those drops of water.
Somehow he expected a chuckle or another retort of some sort. One, two three…nothing. So Kai approached the Chinese boy. Rei remained curled on the ground, his arms around himself.
"Shit! Rei!" The Russian boy shouted as he heard the other boy's awfully ragged breathing and felt the burning heat on his skin. "Rei! You okay?!" He asked worriedly.
The Chinese boy smiled weakly, his vision blurred and whirling. "Yeah…a bit cold…" He said, his voice groggy. The he just fell limp on Kai's arms.
/Come again another day/
Rei's thick lashes fluttered open for the second time around.
Rain.
Warm.
Warm?
He alighted slightly from where he lay, and realized that he had been sleeping near Kai. Near—his head lay on the curve of Kai's neck, his body huddled safely inside Kai's frame, the Russian's arms locked around him.
Interestingly warm.
His skin flushed with a warmer shade of pink the more he stirred.
"Rei…?"
"Hm?"
"How are you feeling?"
"Fine, I guess." The younger one muttered, realizing his double meaning on the statement.
Kai breathed deeply. "Oh good…you were delirious a while ago."
"Oh."
Both spoke. But did not move. Not an inch. Not even a shudder.
The Russian boy must've got the meaning of the uneasy silence. Yeah, Rei was thinking…weird already.
"I didn't want to cover you with cold clothes." He said, his eyes looking away as if avoiding something, half-defensively.
Rei half-motioned to get off Kai, but Kai's arms were locked. And he knows how strong this boy is.
Locked.
"You don't want me to get off?" The smaller boy muttered, not having been able to hold his teasing. He just loves teasing his piss-off captain. And that's exactly why they were fighting.
Uh-oh.
Kai blushed furiously and almost immediately, pushed the smaller boy away from him. "You wish, you screaming faggot!" He snapped.
Not again.
"UH—excuse me, but who acted like a fag in the first place?!"
"Fuck you! I just tried to save your life, you asshole!"
A push and a punch here and there, brawl everywhere. Darn these two.
Both could only hear each other's heavy breathing as they lay very close like that, Kai posed inches above a Rei sprawled on the ground.
Breathing.
Heartbeats.
Kai's crumpled eyebrows mellowed as his breathing relaxed, seeing Rei's golden orbs widen at his crimson ones like that, half in shock and half in amazement.
"Kai?"
Gold on crimson. Glued.
"Thanks." Rei whispered plainly, as if out of breath. Or out of words.
As if the words had no meaning at all, neither initiated any reaction or any movement for that matter. Even their expressions stayed.
There was something different. Something new.
Eyes remained wide open as skin met with skin, not closing until the feel of the touch crept to the senses. A few warm seconds, eyes opened wide again.
"Rei…" Kai asked, his once-pale-now-flushed face as blank as the tone of his voice.
"…This is real…and we're doin' this…I think…" Lei continued, answering the unasked question that had trailed off in Kai's words, his face as empty as the other one's.
Uh.
Oh.
/Little children want to play/
In the blackness of the cavern's shadows, two figures lay silhouetted, their hands clasped together as their bodies tangled in warm stillness.
"Darn it, Rei…"
"Yeah, darn it so damn much."
"I wish we're already in our bed right now…" Kai muttered as he tightened his hold around the smaller boy.
"Yeah, me too. No way we're gonna scratch me' back in here. Guess we'll have to wait…" He sighed.
"Fuckin' rain."
/Rain, rain go away/