A/N: Revised, rewritten and re-mastered.
Disclaimer: I don't own Beyblade.
Chapter 8: A Plague of Ants
(Still inside the hospital, the hall near the reception, late evening)
-----------
"What is he doing here?" Kai asked Rei, who shrugged, dumbfounded.
(How had Lee known?! How?!) Rei thought frantically, and clenched his hands into fists. He glanced at Kai, and then pulled the older boy with him onto some stairs that led down to the first floor.
"What's your problem?!" Kai was wondering what had possessed Rei. He guessed there were more than a few things that his friend had not told him about his relationship with Gaia. (Nothing is as it seems,) Kai thought, feeling the irony of that statement. Nothing was as it seemed with him, either. There was Mai, for starters. He smiled slightly; only a corner of his mouth curled up, and then he resumed his serious expression.
"How did Lee know that Gaia is here?" Rei said, apparently talking to himself. Kai glanced around the corner, and saw that Lee and Co. had moved on.
"Uh, Ray…?"
"Someone must have told him somehow…" Rei was still muttering to himself. "I can't let him find her! But I mustn't let him see me, either. How, though…?"
"He's gone."
"Huh?"
Kai sighed, exasperated. "Lee has vamoosed. I think you should hurry and get to her before he does."
Rei looked blank for a second, and then suddenly sprang into action and flew round the corner and down the hall like a cat on fire. Kai stared after him, and wondered if he should go and intervene.
Then he shrugged.
This was Rei's battle, not his. He had no right to fight for him. Besides, he reasoned, I've got my own problems. How serious could his be? Rei just probably doesn't want Lee to steal Gaia from him; it can't really be anything more serious than that.
Having completely justified the fact that he would rather go and spend time with Mai than help Rei out, Kai walked off towards her room, a silly smile on his face.
But as he walked away, Kai couldn't help but feel a sudden foreboding about leaving Rei alone. Shouldn't he stay and help, in case things got real ugly? But heart (as always in moments like these) overrode head, and Kai instantly forgot about his bad feeling, and went off in search for Mai's room.
Rei got to Gaia's room too late; Lee had already arrived.
In fact, as he stood behind the door and spied on them, he realized that he must have been here for a while now.
"…So have you decided?" Lee asked her, and Rei frowned. Decided what?
"What's there to decide? You have not given me much choice," she answered bitterly, and Rei smiled, glad that she was standing up for herself.
"Well, it's either that, or death."
"I'd rather die than spend the rest of my life with you!"
Lee shook his head, and tut-tutted. "Gaia, Gaia, Gaia. When will you see that there is no option? You must live, and you must marry me in order to pay off your grandpa's debt, and receive the best health care to cure your disease. Do you want to die with your name and the name of your family disgraced?"
Rei watched her lower her head, her white hair falling down to cover her eyes and face. She looked vulnerable now, weak. But Gaia was not the kind to give up so easily.
"The answer is still no, Lee. I'll figure something out, some way for me to clear the debt, or to prove that it was not taken out in the first place. I just…" she shook her head; "I can't believe that grandpa took out so much money, and then did not pay it back! It doesn't make sense to me at all!"
"What if you don't find a way? What will you do, then? I don't think Kon will marry you when you have a debt worth over 25,000 Yuan. Who would want a wife with so much baggage?"
She looked up, eyes blazing. "Who said I was going to run to him, anyway? I can't beg for his help every time I am in trouble. No, I will find my own way. Besides, I'm not going to live for long. Why leave him a widower at his age and ruin his chances at a decent life when I can keep him as a… friend? He has already done so much for me… I owe him my life. I can't ask him for more. It is rude, and silly to expect so much from him. Besides… I don't think he will marry me at all, after-" she stopped, and glared at Lee.
"After what?" he asked, smirking.
(After the way I acted the other day,) she thought, feeling withering shame at how they'd fought with each other. The things she'd said.
(That must never happen again!) Gaia decided, nodding to herself. What she said to Lee was:
"That's none of your business, Hitoru. Go on, scram! Get out of here. I don't want to see you." Gaia turned away from him.
Lee was still smirking. "We'll see if you're still saying that two weeks from now. By then, you'll probably have felt the pain, and will be begging me for a cure. Just you watch."
"Not happening."
"Hmph."
"Don't hold your breath, Hitoru."
"I'll be waiting."
"Waiting for what, Lee?" Rei came into the room, acting like he hadn't heard a bit.
Lee looked taken aback. "Rei! Um… hello. What brings you here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Rei stated, showing that Mr. Lee was not wanted here.
"Just saying hi to old friends, condolences, etcetera, you know."
Rei smiled threateningly. "Do I ever."
"Well, gotta go, hope you get better Gaia, come on, boys!" Lee cried, and all three disappeared sharpish. He watched them go, amused.
Gaia just hung her head. What was she going to do, now? She was certain Rei had heard what they were saying.
And indeed he had.
"What's this I hear about a 25,000 debt?" he asked her, taking a seat.
"Lee says that my gramps borrowed 30,000 and didn't pay the people back. A debt-collector showed up at my house, claiming that my grandpa owed him some money, and showed me a paper with his signature on it. Unless I can prove that the signature was faked or that the loan is bogus, I'm stuck having to pay for it." She sighed, and stared at her hands, lying in her lap. "Where am I going to get such money?"
Rei looked at her, sitting in the white bed with the blanket wrapped around her, and he was uncomfortably reminded of a shroud. He felt a stab of fear in his stomach, but he shook it off. She was here, right this minute, alive. What more could he ask? The girl would die when she did. There was no point in making her feel bad about it.
"We'll figure out something, you'll see. Just when things get real down, we'll find a way through."
Gaia gave him a tired glance, and nodded. "Yeah," she said in an extremely depressed tone, "Sure we will, sunshine."
Rei laughed. He did sound a bit like one of them cheery children's programs! "Do you want me to be depressed too? If both of us slouch around and moan all day, we will never get anything done!"
Gaia got up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed - and as she did, several strands of her hair fell onto the floor. "Rei…" she said in a frightened tone, picking up the hairs. He saw how wide her eyes were.
"I really AM dying, aren't I?"
He just looked at the strands of her white hair, lying delicately in her palms. She really was dying.
With each passing second, these three words, 'she is dying', dug themselves deeper into each of their minds, like a splinter that would not go away. It was intolerable.
"Gaia…" Rei took her hands, squeezing them tightly, too afraid to let them go. "I'm sorry."
"Rei… oh, it's not FAIR! I don't want to die, I don't want to!" she cried, and hugged Rei, feeling like she was going to choke any second. He held her close, and closed his eyes tightly.
(Why did this have to happen to her, of all people?!)
Suddenly, Gaia began to shake a little. Then, a racking cough made her whole body spasm and twist in his arms.
"Gaia?! What's-" he was interrupted by doctors bursting into the room, and shoving him away from her. "HEY!"
"She's experiencing an attack, she needs to be taken to a sterile isolation chamber. Don't you worry a bit, son, she'll make it," one of the doctors barked at him, but Rei insisted on saying goodbye. He went over to the bed where they were setting up the equipment, and looked at her lying there. One corner of her mouth went up in a smile, and she reached up, looking terribly weak. Rei took her fevered hand in his, and was about to say something with a reassuring smile –
- when suddenly the bed was yanked forward and the doctors practically sprinted up the hall towards the lift-area. He watched them disappear from view, and wondered if she would make it.
"She has to… she's got to…" he mumbled to himself, feeling his stomach aching with worry and fear. "She's Gaia. She's always been here before, and she'll be here now."
(Oh, really?) said the sceptical Voice of Truth in his mind.
(And what makes her more special than her grandpa? Her parents? Face it, kid, the Mori's have always been cursed. You chose the wrong girl to fall in love with, if you wanted an immortal one.)
Rei went and sat down in one of the waiting chairs lined outside her room, and sighed, running his hands through his already messed-up black hair. There was nothing else for it but to sit here and wait for a doctor to show up with the news, whether good OR bad.
Nothing for it but to wait and watch the clock ticking every second, minute and hour, counting down to either her survival, or her end.
Nothing for it but to wait.
(A few days later…)
-----------
"Thanks for putting us up, Keira, we appreciate it."
"Oh, no, you're welcome Rei."
"Thanks."
"Sure," Keira stole a glance at Kai. He was not bad-looking at all.
Kai and Rei had come to stay for a while at her place, because the hospital had almost kicked them out for loitering in the halls too much. Gaia had survived the attack, but Rei was only allowed to go in the visiting hours. As a result, time dragged immensely for both of them while they were apart.
As for Mai Li, the doctor was removing the bandages from her eyes today. Kai couldn't wait to go and see her. Besides, this Keira girl was definitely giving him some weird looks. Since he had become 'involved' with Mai, he didn't have any time for other girls and stuff like that. It was all Mai, Mai, Mai, with him.
Keira gave them the couch to sleep on, as Gaia's room was still messed up, containing God-knows-what and all of her old clothes bundled up in the middle of the room. Keira had thought she might take them to the Laundr-O-Mat downstairs, but somehow had forgotten to go. It didn't help that her boss at Yang's Tea House threatened to fire her for not appearing for the last few days. She had tried to explain to him that her friend was lying critically ill in hospital, but Yang wouldn't have it. Said she was destroying the workers' respect for the rules of the place. Keira flicked a strand of her red hair out of her face, annoyed. She had to keep that job, or she was shot. She'd have to go home and (she winced) much groveling and smirking and 'I told you so' would ensue between her and her dad.
Her mother had left their house years ago, and Keira (being an only child) had said that she would go to the big city to work and possibly see her mother again. She and Gaia had met a few years ago, when they had attended the same Middle school for two years and dropped out. There were too many kids with issues in that place, and basically if you hadn't money or looks (they were both eleven at the time, and not very female in form) you were pretty much dead meat. They didn't live in the same villages, but kept in contact by constantly writing letters, and visiting each other.
It was when they were both twelve that Keira had finally gotten to meet Rei. Gaia had been boasting about him to her all the time, saying that he was her 'bestest, bestest ever best friend' and 'would you like to meet him?' When she had met him, Keira knew that he and Gaia were perfect for each other. She did, admittedly, have a little thing for him, but knew that trying to get him to be her boyfriend was as futile as getting a tiger to go veggie.
A year later, he had disappeared, and Gaia had been inconsolable. She had gone without food for so long that she was losing weight and getting more and more depressed. It was only when he sent her a letter, a year or so later, that she suddenly bounced back into her former self, all happy and content. Keira didn't know WHAT was written in it, but she knew that it must have been special, to make Gaia jump right back into life again.
Keira wished that there was someone like that for her, too. She didn't feel jealous of her friend, just envious. Boys like Rei were as hard to find as a diamond in the Arctic.
So, they got to share the couch. It was one of them couches that could be folded into a bed, so they each could sleep on one side. As it was daytime, though, Kai doubted that any of them would get to sleep.
Rei couldn't take it anymore. It was just too much; like an itch that just HAD to be scratched.
"Kai; why are you still here?"
"Does it concern you?" Kai answered coldly.
"No, but I'd like to know."
Silence.
"Fine. There's someone I know in the hospital. They, uh…"
Rei had a feeling he knew who 'they' were… but to interrupt now would be fatal. This one just had to be waited out. Kai would spill, no doubt about it… it looked like he had wanted to for ages. While Rei was pondering this, Kai wondered whether he really should tell him.
(Smug git probably knows already,) he reasoned, (Else he wouldn't have that smirk on his face. But if I tell him, I'll get no peace from him. And if I don't, then it's the same story. Oh, what's the use? Might as well stop all his questions.)
"They're in pretty bad shape, and I've got to go see her-"
"-Whoa! HER?" Ray was surprised. Kai was actually admitting something! (Today ought to be made into a national holiday!)
"Don't act like you don't know, cat-boy." Kai was getting annoyed. "Yes, it's a girl, and yes, it's just possible that I, the great social pariah, CAN care about a girl, and yes, it is also unbelievable but true that she just might love me too, okay?!"
Kai had stood up when he got angry, and now glared down at Rei, who was sitting on the carpet, his mouth slightly open. He had to admit, it did come as a shock to him that Kai was actually telling him about this; he thought that his captain would rant a little and scramble out the door, not practically shout at him that he really did love her.
"It's Mai, isn't it?" Ray said quietly, picking at a circular hole in the carpet. He looked up at Kai, who stood there, red-faced and angry.
Kai kicked the couch, and said, in a grumbling tone, "Yeah; it's her."
"Okay. Alright, sorry for being on your back all the time, but you did turn a little schizo on me and the guys in Tokyo."
Kai smiled ironically. "Falling to pieces like that… yeah, it was pretty uncool." He shuddered. "Not a nice feeling at all."
Rei looked at the clock on the wall. "Nearly visiting hours, you know," he commented, sounding a little too nonchalant. Kai immediately saw through it, because he'd been doing the same thing for the last hour.
"Come off it, Rei; you've been staring at that clock for ages now." Kai smirked at the guilty look on his face.
"God, we're sad." Rei said, and sighed.
"Yep. Suckers for women."
"How much longer?"
"2 hours, 23 minutes and 15 seconds. Make that 14."
"13…"
"12…"
"Rei?"
"Yeah?"
Kai felt a little awkward about asking him, but curiosity won out in the end. "Why… what's Gaia still doing in the hospital? You never told me what was wrong with her."
Rei sighed, and tore at the carpet, a feeling of helplessness clouding his head. No matter how he tried to forget it and go on like normal, Gaia's impending death always came back to haunt him.
"She's got cancer. Something's up with her liver, and… well, I asked the doctor, but he said that there was nothing they could do."
Kai was horrified. No wonder she hadn't wanted to tell him! Something like that… and Rei was sitting there looking as calm as always.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Kai asked, trying to fit into his head the image of Gaia slowly dying. Last time he'd seen her was at the bus-stop, all cheerful and sunny, and in the train… she hadn't looked sick then.
"What could you have done? Besides, I didn't want to worry you when you had so much on your mind." Rei glanced at the hole he was making in the carpet. He grimaced. It was practically fist-sized; Keira would kill him when she found out.
"Rei, you shouldn't keep stuff like that to yourself," Kai argued, but Rei shot him a glare.
"Now where have I heard that one before?"
"This is different. You're not me, Rei, I can't help being like that; you seriously shouldn't hide things, it's not good for you." Kai was really feeling the irony of that one.
"Why not?" Rei stared at the carpet, his voice heavy with resignation; "There's nothing you or anyone else can do about it. Gaia's dying, Kai."
He glanced at Kai, his amber eyes looking lost, tired and despairing.
"She's dying. She could be gone at any minute, at any second whether I'm there with her or not. And there's nothing I can do about it, either."
Heavy silence followed this last statement, and Kai wished there was something he could do to at least make his suffering easier.
But he knew that Rei was right.
It was up to fate now.
"I'm sorry." Kai said, seeing the utter uselessness of his words.
Rei nodded, hiding his face from Kai so the older boy wouldn't see his wet eyes.
One lone tear trickled down his left cheek, around the corner of his mouth and down his chin, and silently dripped onto his shirt.
(The same day, at the hospital…)
-----------
Gaia wandered around the hospital, having absolutely nothing to do for the whole evening. She wished the visiting hours would just hurry up and come already, bringing Rei along with them.
Gaia had just turned the corner into the casualty ward when she heard a familiar voice shouting for help. She tip-toed closer to where she heard the shouts come from, and wondered why no doctors heard what was going on.
As she got closer, Gaia could make out a few words.
"…NO! GET… YOU BASTARDS!"
"…WILL PAY FOR YOUR CRIME… NO CHOICE…!"
"…HELP! Somebody get these people off of ME!"
She crept closer to the wooden door, and peeked through the window. She gasped, almost crying out, but clapped her hands over her mouth just in time. She stared through the window, her eyes wide.
(I can't believe it! What the hell is Mai Li doing here?!)
There were two men standing around the bed, and a third one was sitting ON it… or on something IN it! He was sitting on Mai! Only now could Gaia see her flailing arms and legs, weakly pounding at the man on top of her. Gaia could stand it no longer. She slammed the door open, and bellowed at the top of her voice:
"GET OFF HER YOU BASTARD! JUST WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!?!"
Gaia had hoped to surprise them, and it worked. The three men, all dressed in identical black worker-suits, quickly moved away from Mai, and somehow moved out of the door before Gaia could get a good look at their faces, leaping three feet forwards in the blink of an eye and disappearing round the corner.
Gaia stared after them, too shocked for words; then remembered where she was and walked as fast as she could towards Mai, who lay in the bed, all her blankets cast aside. The bed was ruffled, and her hospital gown had been ripped in several places. The older girl was wide-eyed, sweating and gasping for air, and Gaia bent to check her pulse. She was surprised at how fast Min's heart was hammering, and how hot her forehead was.
Just what had they been doing to her?
"Mai! MAI! It's me, Gaia," she said loudly, but Mai's eyes remained fixed on some invisible point in the air. Gaia slapped her cheeks, hoping to wake her from whatever horrible nightmare she was seeing, but Mai wasn't responding. Who were those men? And what had they wanted from her?
It was then that Gaia noticed the blackening burn on Mai's arm. She narrowed her eyes, and bent forwards to examine it. And gasped, astonished. It looked like a snake coiled around a flower and a knife, a pretty basic design… and Gaia could have SWORN that the snake had just moved! But – that wasn't possible! It was just a tattoo, wasn't it?
(Gaia, you're going nuts. Painted snakes don't move,) she scolded herself, embarrassed at her absurdity. Though the last time she had seen Min, her arm had been tattoo-free. When had she gotten it? And why was it drying now? Gaia slowly moved her hand towards it, and touched the tattoo with her finger. It felt crusty, like it was made of dried blood. Or some sort of herbal body paint. Had those men done it to her?
"-AAAAHH!!!"
"WHA-?!"
Mai quickly sat up, her eyes wild with fear, and Gaia fell off the bed, almost getting a heart-attack.
"STOP! STOP IT! NO!" Mai screamed, and Gaia got up, trying to calm her down. "It's alright! They're gone now. Calm down, there's nothing to be scared of," Gaia said in a quiet, sing-song voice, and managed to keep her from bolting out the door in hysteria.
Suddenly it was like Mai had gotten back her sanity and her famous calm, and she gave Gaia a perplexed look.
"What… oh. Thanks… I guess. For your help."
Gaia blinked a few times, surprised that this was the girl that was having screaming fits just a few seconds ago.
"Are you okay?" she asked, just to make sure Mai wasn't actually crazy.
"I'm fine, really. And thank you."
"Who were they? And where'd you get that tattoo?"
Mai gave her a sharp look, wondering since when Gaia had become so nosy. Gaia flinched, noticing she'd hit a nerve.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to!" she added quickly, hands up in the air. Mai sighed, and shook her head.
"No, you have a right to know, since you saved me and all that."
She unconsciously scratched the tattoo, and Gaia saw the snake mockingly wriggle it's tail at her. She shuddered, and focused on Mai's face instead of her arm. She couldn't help stealing glances at it, to see if it would move again.
"Those people were my family. I suppose you've heard that a Li can't have anyone in the house with her except for another Li?" Gaia nodded.
"Well, I had someone in my house a few years ago. He was…" Mai swallowed, "…A friend. The elders of my clan decided I had committed a very grave crime by letting him in my house and hanging around with him, so… I think they killed him. I was on probation for a year." Mai wondered if she should go on, if she could go on and tell Gaia about the dishonorable actions of her clan. But somebody ought to know the truth.
(Oh god, Han, I wish things hadn't turned out that way…)
Mai was surprised to find that the usual pang of guilt she felt was somewhat weaker than before… was it possible that she was getting over him?
"Anyway, while on probation, I met someone else. They were… special to me, and I didn't care about what the elders might say if they found out that I had committed the same crime twice in a row."
Her hands went under her pillow and tightened around the soft cloth of Kai's long, white scarf. Gaia didn't notice this.
"I was happy. And then a few weeks ago I was attacked in my home. The elders had found out, and decided that breaking a few ribs would teach me a lesson."
Gaia winced – Mai's family had been brutal beyond belief. The other girl went on in a cold, detached voice:
"Breaking a few ribs and… and… you know."
Mai shrugged, finding something hard to say, and Gaia stared at her. It wasn't possible – it shouldn't BE possible – no family treated their own daughter like that!
"Oh, they're no family. They don't even know the meaning of the word," she said, almost reading Gaia's mind. Her voice was filled with poisonous hate.
"You're not telling me they sent men to…" Gaia felt anger building up inside her, but also a sense of helplessness. Mai Li nodded, a look of resigned sadness on her face.
"…To rape you?! Oh, my God, that's sick!"
"Sick, but true. I mean, what does a girl value more than anything?" she shrugged, and the injustice of it all, the sheer wrongness just made Gaia so angry, SO enraged that… if there was some way she could hurt them right now, she would kill each and every one of them.
"They came today to finish off their punishment. This," she indicated the mark, "Was burnt on today, before you came. It's a symbol for other Li's to stay away from me. I'm an exile. They burnt it on with some herbal potion thing, and used some sort of trick to paralyze me, stop me from moving but letting me feel everything… feeling the pain is part of the punishment, you see. It all means I'm a traitor to the Li clan, an outsider. It means that I am in disgrace, and should never set foot on Li land, or practice my healing ever again. I'm going to get my clothes tomorrow, or whenever I'm let out of this bloody hospital."
Gaia saw that there were tears in Mai's eyes, and put a hand on her shoulder. This was really, really unfair of them. Gaia had a hard time believing that someone could be treated like that by their own family. Mai looked up at her, and gave her a wobbly smile.
"I'm sorry, I… I've been so busy feeling sorry for myself that I haven't asked you what you're doing here."
"Oh, nothing much, I just felt a little ill."
Mai stared hard at her, and Gaia felt her face heating up. Thank heaven her skin was dark, or Mai might have noticed her blushing!
"Come now, Gaia. You think you can fool me, a healer? I can feel that something's seriously wrong with you. Tell me."
Gaia shrugged; it was her turn to put on the 'cool' act.
"Cancer, 's all. Nothing to freak out about."
"Oh! Gaia, I'm so sorry," Mai said, her own problems diminishing when compared to Gaia's issues.
(Ray must be totally beside himself,) Mai thought, (I wish I could do something!)
"Don't sweat it. I'm gonna be fine." Gaia turned away, and stared at the wall, feeling awkward. Mai was left staring at Gaia's back. She sighed.
"I know you probably don't want me to feel sorry for you. I don't really want to insult your intelligence by lying and saying that it's alright. But… I mean, I never thought that YOU of all people would have such… bad luck. I really hope there's some way to cure you – if only I still had my equipment…"
All of this was really jarring on Gaia's nerves; she hated it when people became so mushy and pitying.
"Look, forget it, okay? I don't want to talk about it," she snapped, and Mai was surprised and a little hurt. Gaia turned around to look at her, then smiled. It was a painful, brittle smile.
"We're both survivors, Mai; we've both lost a lot. You've lost 'family' and I've lost family too. And no matter what happens, we always survive. You will get by, even though you're an exile, and I'll get by, even though I'm dying. And the world will keep turning long after we're gone."
(Late evening, the same day…)
-----------
Gaia and Mai had stayed together in Mai's room, quietly talking about their village, digging up fond memories from their childhood. Knowing the Li clan, someone would already be stationed in her house as the new healer. People would wonder why Mai had disappeared. Gaia was, as ever, wondering just where the hell she would come up with the money to pay off the debt, and when she would be let out of this hellish prison they called a hospital.
"Are you waiting for someone, Mai?" Gaia asked as she saw her checking the clock for the fiftieth time and nervously glancing at the door.
"Er, not-"
"Hey, Mai. Got you some ice-cream, strawberry flavor."
Gaia gave Mai a startled look, and Mai gawked at the door, just as Kai came through carrying a tub of strawberry Haagen-Dazs.
"Kai?!" Gaia gasped, totally off-guard. She stared at Mai. "It was Kai?!"
"What was Kai?" Kai asked, suspicion creeping into his voice.
"Err… I-I can explain!" Mai cried, having no idea HOW she would do that.
"(Tell him!)" Gaia whispered, and Mai shook her head hard.
"(Are you CRAZY?!)" she hissed, looking horrified.
"(Why the hell not?! You'll have to tell him sooner or later!)"
Kai felt his fingers slowly freezing on account of the ice-cream tub he held. What the hell was Gaia doing in here anyway? Wasn't she supposed to be in her room, waiting for Rei?
"Tell me what? What are you two talking about?"
The girls stared at Kai, a too-innocent-to-be-innocent look on their faces. He raised one eye-brow at them, and Gaia cracked.
"I'm sorry, Mai, but I have to tell him!"
Mai felt fear stabbing her stomach. "NO! Gaia, you promised!"
Gaia looked at her, regret shining in her brown eyes. "I have to…"
She turned to Kai with a grave look on her face.
"Kai, I have something to tell you…"
He wondered just what it was that Gaia had to say.
"Mai's family…"
(One week later, in Tokyo…)
-----------
"Okay, keep your eyes closed… don't look 'till I say so."
Kai had brought Mai Li to his mansion after Gaia had told him about what had happened to her home.
"Ants," she had said, "Everywhere. We get a plague of them in the autumn, and sometimes they eat entire crops! Mai's house was crawling, so her family is having specialists come in and fumigate the entire building. Too poisonous for her to live in. She needed somewhere to live, and because my house is being besieged by ants, too, she didn't want to ask you. Too embarrassed, you see."
He wasn't entirely sure he believed her tale – a plague of ants seemed a little crazy – but he went along with it all the same. The idea of it seemed VERY attractive.
Mai living with him in the house and only being a few rooms away… and with no Voltaire in sight! Heaven on earth, from his point of view.
Right now he was standing with her in his drive, her small bag of clothes slung around his shoulder, and with his hands hiding her eyes.
Mai couldn't stop herself smiling like a lunatic. For one minute there she had been about to die of a heart-attack, as she thought that Gaia was actually going to tell on her! Never again would she doubt her friend, never ever! She couldn't believe her luck when Kai actually swallowed her story, not once questioning what was quite obviously untrue.
Before she had left, though, Gaia had grabbed her arm and made her promise to tell Kai everything as soon as she could.
"You can't lie to someone like Kai, they'll take it really badly. Especially when he trusts you so much," she had said, squeezing her shoulders. Then she gave her a quick hug, and went up to her own room, giving them the privacy they needed to unwind.
As he slowly moved his hands away from her eyes, Mai gasped in surprise. A massive 6-storey house loomed over her, done in the late Victorian style with huge granite steps leading up to the entrance. There were many more glass-windows in this house than there were in the whole of Ray's village, and the whole building just gave off an air of cold majesty.
It was pretty daunting for a girl like Mai.
Kai nuzzled her neck, smiling to himself. It was going to be strange, living with her in that great big block of ice his grandfather called 'home'. He hoped she could bring some humanity into those long, cold corridors and the mostly unused rooms that filled the mansion. He gave her a hug, his arms around her stomach and his face buried in her warm, soft neck, and Mai leaned back and let him support her.
"It's so…" she struggled to find some word that suited the mansion; "…BIG."
Kai smiled. "That's one way to put it!"
He kissed her cheek, savoring the feeling of being close to her without her judging him, how she let him share her body-heat when he himself was so cold… He shuddered. Voltaire had a way of making people into heartless beasts like himself.
But Mai made him feel like there was a human somewhere inside him, that he wasn't entirely hopeless.
"Come on!" he took her hand, and pulled her with him up to the mansion, where the door was opened by his butler.
"Greetings, Master Hiwatari."
Kai nodded at him, impatient to show her his room. As he ascended the stairs to the 1st floor, towing Mai along, the butler called out to him.
"I thought you might like to know… your grandfather arrived today – I believe he has been let out on probation. He has been waiting in his office for you all day; he requested you be sent to him as soon as you arrived."
Kai turned away, feeling pangs of fear in his gut. How was this possible?! Voltaire should have been out of action for at least ten more years! What was he going to do with Mai?!
She noticed him going pale, and wondered if coming here was a good idea.
"Kai, I can find myself a hotel. If it's too much trouble, you don't have to put me up-"
"No. I won't just send you off like that." His grip on her hand tightened ever so slightly. "Let him do what he wants, I'm not sending you home."
And with that, he strode up the stairs, leaving the butler to deal with Mai and take her to his room. He turned the corner and headed for his grandfather's office, feeling much like a condemned man walking towards the gallows: he felt fear numbing him, making his heart thump wildly, but he knew there was no point in putting off the inevitable. He knocked on the heavy wooden doors that led to the room in which Kai had lived through some of his worst experiences. It fell open after the third knock, and Kai watched the man in the chair behind the desk swivel around to meet his eyes.
"Ah, my dearest grandson," Voltaire purred, oozing cruel sarcasm;
"Do come in."
A/N: What will happen next?!
ACK, it's a cliffhanger!!!
Thanks to all those people who reviewed this story for me, among them Sora Himura, Dolphi1, Kai/Ray and Sammy. Thanks for reading my stuff!!! Promise I'll try to have a chapter up by next week!