Not What You See
A/N: Sorry about the long waits. Really, I'm horribly sorry. See, I have Stargate SG-1 and Inuyasha obsessions to get out of my system. But I AM continuing this story: it's my favourite story, not to mention the one with the most reviews! I'm hoping to get to 100 before the end of the story! . And my aim was to have this chapter ready to upload by Good Friday! And I missed it by a long shot! So, without further babbling: here's chapter 12! (Yikes, 12 chapters already???? O.O It's a record! And this story is far from over, let alone the sequel that's planned!)
NOTE: I just felt like I HAD to get this chapter done very soon, as a sort of tribute to the resilient spirit of David Pishke. This was one of the men who co-wrote the real-life experiences book Where Children Run. He was one of the two boys in that book, whose life is loosely the inspiration for this story. He died a few days ago of a heart attack at age 57.
DISCLAIMER: I own nobody but whom I own.
Chapter 12: The Ties of Family
"Rei!" Marina shrieked, jumping up from her chair and flinging her arms around his legs.
"Hey, Marina," Rei greeted the little girl cheerfully.
"Are you coming back to stay?" Griff asked hopefully.
"Apparently." Rei answered, sitting down in the chair Kai had pulled out for him. "I'm not questioning when my sisters drag me out of bed in the middle of the night to go take three different flights just to get to Tokyo."
"I couldn't stand the look on his face anymore," the younger woman muttered, eyes downcast. "I would've brought him back even if Lian hadn't..."
"That's quite enough out of you, Neko," the other said shortly.
"Oh, what did she do now?" Regine groaned.
"We'll let Rei tell you," the woman answered vaguely. "We've got to be going now."
"Right," the younger one said distractedly.
"Bye!" Rei said as they quickly left.
"Rei?" Kirk asked expectantly.
"It's... a long story," Rei said, breaking to yawn. "I couldn't have some dinner, could I?"
"Of course, Rei, dear," Regine fussed, dispatching Kai to get another place setting.
"So?" Kai prompted later that night, as the two teens were in their room. He had been finishing up some summer school homework while Rei finished remaking his bed and putting away his clothes.
"So what?" Rei responded.
"So what happened?" Kai returned. "I notice you never did tell Kirk and Regine."
"I was arguing with Lian and she got a little violent." Rei said nonchalantly.
"Exactly how violent?" Kai inquired, looking up from his notebook.
"A little too violent," Rei answered ambiguously.
"Did she break a bone, crush your head, slash your arm?" Kai prodded.
Rei took this opportunity to look over Kai's shoulder. "That's not homework," he said accusingly.
Kai flipped his sketchbook shut quickly and returned to the notebook hidden underneath. "Now it is. So, how violent?"
"Gave me a few bruises," Rei muttered.
"That's all?" Kai asked, unimpressed.
"Whaddaya mean, that's all??" Rei demanded.
"Just remember you're talking to the guy with the violent past here." Kai said calmly, slamming his notebook closed. "Okay, screw Geography. Who cares whether they're sedimentary or metamorphical? They're rocks."
"This is also true," Rei conceded, flopping down on his bed and scratching Driger on the head.
"Kai!" Regine's voice came from downstairs. " You've got a phone call!"
"Who is it?" Kai called back, catching the cordless that Rei tossed to him.
"Blanche." Regine responded.
Kai stopped dead with his finger on the Talk button. "I don't want to talk to her."
Regine sighed from the foot of the stairs. "Kai, pick up the phone. You can't go forever ignoring her."
"Watch me," Kai muttered, even as he hit the button. "You've got five minutes. What do you want?" He listened uninterestedly for a while before replying, "No, she's not here. They sent her back to Nagasaki." He paused and then yelled indistinctly. Rei jumped and looked questioningly at his foster brother, who was swearing blue murder. "All right, fine. Where did you want to meet?" He listened a moment longer then hung up the phone, tossing it back over to Rei.
"What's going on?" Rei inquired.
"Saadii's missing." Kai replied, standing up abruptly. "My sister said she'd meet me at Taizo Mall in an hour to go to Nagasaki to help look for her."
"She's missing?" Rei repeated in disbelief.
"Yes," Kai sighed. "And I have a feeling I know where she is. Don't let Kirk and Regine worry too much. Just tell them I'm with Blanche."
"All right," Rei said doubtfully. "Hey, just out of curiosity," he added as Kai tossed on a sweater and started to head out the window, "How many siblings do you have?"
"Full, half, dead, foster?" Kai asked quickly.
"All." Rei responded.
"Five full living, one full dead, five half, currently seven foster, don't even ask me to count in all the homes I've been in." Kai said after a moment of brief calculation.
"Ye-ouch." Rei muttered. "How can you keep track of them all?"
"Easily." Kai answered. "I haven't seen most of them in years." He shrugged again and jumped silently out the window, landing with barely a sound on the grass below.
"Dang, that's a lot of siblings." Rei muttered to himself again as Kai disappeared down the streets into the dark of night. "And I thought Kirk and Regine had numerous kids. That's just downright insane."
"Where's Kai, Rei?" Kirk asked, pushing open the bedroom door. "He was here a second ago."
"Um," Rei faltered. "He went somewhere with his sister."
"At 11 at night?" Kirk said sarcastically.
"Yeah." Rei nodded, eyes wide.
"Mmm-hmm." Kirk said unbelievingly. "And I suppose he was accompanied by Kermit the Frog singing Zippity-Doo-Da."
Rei grinned, despite himself. "Of course."
Kai disembarked from the bus in front of Taizo Mall to find not only Blanche standing there, but three other adults as well. Groaning internally, Kai gave them an irritated glare.
"Kai, can we just drop the troubled-teen act and find Saadii?" Blanche asked tiredly.
"I ain't doing this for you," Kai snapped. "I'm just helping you because you would have no clue where she would be. On the condition that after we find her, you leave me alone!"
"Kai…" Blanche sighed. "We'll discuss this later. Now, where do you figure she would be?"
Kai closed his eyes a moment. "Probably down in the Nagasaki Industrial area."
"That's half the city!" the younger man cried out.
"You asked, I answered." Kai answered curtly.
"You can't argue there, Cam." The other woman commented. The man fell silent and looked sheepish.
"All right, so we can split up and search in two sections each. Gemma, you go with Camden. Roarke, you come with Kai and me." Blanche directed.
Kai rolled his eyes. "Oh, you are so cut out to be a social worker. Great at giving orders, horrible at actually doing anything useful."
Blanche looked ready to say something when Roarke appeared at her side. "So we're going now, I take it?"
"Yeah," Blanche answered. "Kai, your foster parents do know you're with us, right?"
Kai didn't even bother responding, but simply shrugged.
"Kai?" Blanche repeated.
"What?" Kai asked peevishly.
"Did you even ask them if you could leave?"
"Does it matter?" Kai asked logically. "I got along fine for 16 years without asking permission for anything. Why start now?"
"Kai!" Blanche exclaimed. "That's it, you're going back and you are not coming out with us."
Kai's face betrayed an expression of indignity for only a moment before he reverted back to his calm facade. "Fine." he said grouchily. "Good luck trying to find her without me."
Blanche pulled up to the Toshiro's house to find two police cars parked outside, lights flashing, and what looked like every light in the house on. "Get going. I'll call later."
Kai glared at the retreating car and then ambled up the walk and opened the front door to find Kirk pacing the living room floor while Regine and Rei were answering questions being posed by the police officers.
Kirk, of course, was the first one to notice Kai enter the house. "Where have you been, Kai?!"
Kai paused, taken aback. In all his time at the Toshiro household, he had never heard Kirk speak in that tone of voice to anybody. It was rather unnerving.
"Out."
"Well, you can kiss any more 'outings' for the next month goodbye," Kirk snapped. "I don't care how good the reason was, you had no permission to leave."
Kai opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it when he saw the look on Kirk's face. He knew he was in for it the moment the officers left. 'Oh well. He has no control over me and what I do, any way.'
The officers closed their notebooks and stood up. "I think that's sufficient for tonight," one said.
"He can't tell us anything the other one hasn't already," the other commented. "We'll drop by as soon as we need more information or have news."
"Thank you," Regine said softly, standing up as well. Closing the door behind them, a minute had barely passed before Kai and Kirk were engaged in verbal combat and Rei had retreated to his bedroom.
"Kai! Kirk!" Regine reprimanded. "Calm yourselves!" she added, an indistinguishable sound coming from her throat as Kirk's fist made contact with Kai's face and Kai's fist made contact with Kirk's face. There was an unpleasant crack on Kirk's side, a snap from Kai's side and then there was a stunned silence as Kirk and Kai both stared, speechless, at each other.
"Why are Daddy and Kai beating each other up?" came Griff's timid voice from the top of the staircase.
Breathing hard, Kai took off again out the door and Kirk dropped, shaking, onto the couch.
Sighing, Regine sat down on the couch and put a comforting arm around her husband's shoulder, who was muttering to himself, "I can't believe I just did that…" and promptly biting his lip to keep from screaming in pain.
"Mommy, what's going on?" Griff's scared voice came from behind them.
Regine just shook her head, wondering how badly they had just messed up.
Tala awoke with a start to the familiar sound of pebbles rattling against his window. 'Kai?' he thought blearily. Rolling out of bed, he crossed to the window to, indeed, find his friend standing below, looking shaken. Opening it and tossing down the rope ladder, he fell back into bed and waited while Kai made his way up.
Kai jumped inside the room easily, pulled the ladder up behind him and closed the window. "Tala, I'm dead. I'm so screwed it's not even funny."
"Is that a bruise on your face?" Tala asked suspiciously.
Kai touched his cheek gently. "Yeah, I guess so. He didn't even hit me as hard as I hit him. Tala, I'm so completely and utterly headed back to jail."
"What'd you do?" Tala asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Kai didn't bother responding but continued to pace back and forth, muttering to himself. His friend watched this agitated state in confusion. He'd never seen Kai this upset before. Something must have gone seriously wrong. And it looked like this was the worst injury he'd seen on Kai in their whole friendship. It looked as though it was nearly killing Kai to talk. "Kai, what happened?"
Kai said something unintelligible.
Tala sighed. "Kai, slow down and calm down. One thing at a time."
Kai took a couple of deep breaths and sat down on the ground. "All right, I think I'm good."
"Now, what happened?" Tala asked softly.
Kai opened his mouth several times in attempt to answer, but the only thing that got out of his mouth was "… everything." Then he promptly lost consciousness.
"Mommy, where's Kai?" Marina whined the next morning.
"Yeah, where is Kai?" Rei asked. "He was already gone when I woke up this morning."
"He left last night," Regine answered brusquely, her back still turned from the kids at the kitchen table. "Marina, Griffith, are your school bags packed?"
Both the youngsters nodded.
"Marina! Griffith! Answer me!" Regine snapped, still never turning around.
"Yes!" the two yelped, eyes wide.
"What's going on in here?" Kirk mumbled, walking into the kitchen blearily with a colourful array of bruises on his swollen jaw.
"Ouch. What happened to you?" Rei asked.
"Don't ask." Kirk answered, barely moving his mouth to talk. This was most likely aided by the fact he had his jaw wired shut.
"Daddy and Kai were beating each other up last night," Griff informed Rei, who promptly looked extremely shocked. "Daddy had to drive himself to hospital in the middle of the night."
"What?!" Rei asked in disbelief.
"What?!" Marina echoed, staring at her father.
"Griffith, you're exaggerating," Regine sighed, setting a plate of eggs in front of Rei. "To get the record straight, Rei, neither one was 'beating up' the other. Their argument got a little out of hand and both of them got one blow on the face. Nothing will happen. Kai'll be back soon enough."
As if to defy her declaration, the phone and the doorbell rang simultaneously. Kirk took off for the door while Regine got on the phone. Rei watched in frightened curiosity as Regine's face blanched. He could hear a faint voice screeching at Regine from the other end of the line.
"Oh, no." Regine said. "How is he?" The screeching restarted as Kirk entered the kitchen with a worried look on his face, followed by a stony-faced Mr. Dickinson. Rei's stomach dropped to his feet like a rock.
"Oh, no." Regine repeated. "Listen, thank you so much for calling. We're going to get this sorted out soon." She groaned as she hung up. "Oh, hello Stanley," she greeted him wearily.
"You know I hate to do this, Regine, but law's the law." Dickinson said softly. "A minor in your custody has been injured by Kirk. I am required to take all the children away from the home until this is resolved."
There was a sad, defeated look in both Kirk and Regine's eyes. It scared the heck out of Rei: it was almost as if they had given up.
Stanley said quietly, "Rei, Marina, Griff, Brietta, Brylee, go pack your things. Rei, can you grab the babies' and Kai's things as well?"
Rei nodded silently. Though it was stupid to think, he thought it anyway:
This is all Kai's fault.