Running out of days
Chapter four- Shopping and old friends
Kai woke up the next morning to a banging on his door. He slowly opened one eye and determined that it was way past his usually wakeup time at six a clock, since the sun was shining bright through the window. When the knocking ceased, he closed his eye and buried his head deeper into the pillow.
"Kai? Are you up yet? We are just about ready to have breakfast, and then we're going shopping. Remember?"
At the voice of Michael Kai forced himself to sit up in the bed. A low hiss left his lips, when the wound on his stomach protested at the quick movement, but it was really that big a deal. After all he'd had much worse.
"Kai, are you up?"
"Just give me a sec" Kai growled, getting out of bed and picking some clothes out of his bag. He quickly threw on a dark blood red t-shirt that said 'Friends help you move' on the front and 'Real friends help you move bodies' on the back and his other pairs of black pants, just before the door was slowly opened.
"I just wanted to make sure that you were actually getting up" Michael smiled, then he frowned a bit. "How come the fins on your cheeks didn't smear up when you slept?"
"Because it's not paint" Kai had put on his sneakers, and since he didn't take of his leather and silver bracelets last night, he was all set for breakfast and left his room.
"But if it's not paint then what is it?" Michael followed Kai into the kitchen and sat own next to him.
The other which were already seated at the table indulged in their pancakes, turned to look at Kai. They all looked at the four blue shark fins which indeed were in perfect place as they were last night.
"Yeah Kai, what is it?" Bruce joined Michael in the small interrogation.
"Tattoos" was all Kai said as he started eating his pancakes.
"But you not old enough to get a tattoo. Where did you get it? And why?" Judy was looking something between concerned and angered.
"These weren't my wish. They were my grandfathers."
At that statement they all fell quiet and went back to eating after a few moments of awkward silence. With the mention of Kai's grandfather successfully killing the mood, the breakfast was soon finished, and the table was cleared and they got ready to leave. Mr. Granger chose to stay at home and prepare for their lesson in material arts for when they got back.
At the mall Judy insisted that they needed to go buy Kai some more clothes. He protested a few times, but neither Judy or Bruce were giving into his request, so he just settled for the whole ordeal. Hell, if they wanted to pay he would let them. But he really didn't need that much more clothes, if he did he would have bought it himself with the money he made on fighting.
They decided to split up. Judy went with Tyson and Max to buy some cartoons and the other teens went with Bruce to buy Kai some clothes. He reluctantly went with them into a shop called 'New Yorker' and was told by Bruce to pick out a couple of pants, shirts and so on, and then go try them on. After spending almost an hour, Bruce finally decided that Kai had enough clothes for now, being the total of 3 new pair of pants, 9 t-shirts, 4 shirts, 2 sweaters, 5 muscle shirts, lots of socks and several pairs of black silk boxers. Kai had chosen all of his new clothes in either black, dark red or dark blue, leaving no room for discussion, and he had been careful when he was trying the clothes on, so that no one saw his bandage around the cut. The t-shirts were rather simple, but most of them had something on it. Fire, wings or just feathers were the symbols Kai seemed to like. Then on a few of them there were text such as 'I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it'. Then came the matter of shoes. Kai insisted on his trusty old sneakers being enough, but they kept annoying him, so at last he picked out a pair of black army boots, mentally noting to himself that they could come in handy in a fight.
Bruce asked Kai which colour he would like the room to be in, what colour the bed linen should in and stuff like that before he left the teens alone to go and find Judy. They would then go shopping for the more boring stuff and Kai, Lee, Rei and Michael was told to meet them at the van in an hour.
"Hey Michael! Out on a little family trip?"
Kai jerked his head up at the familiar voice. No, it couldn't be him. He wouldn't know people like Michael, or maybe Michael wasn't what Kai had first thought. The smirking redhead and his lilac haired friend made their way across the crowd of shoppers to Michael and the rest of them.
"So Michael. Think we can pry you away from this, whatever it is?"
"Maybe later guys. Remember I told you we were getting a new boy? This is Kai. We're showing him around and getting some stuff for his room and so on. Kai. The red head is Tala and his partner in crime would be Bryan. They are in my class at school."
"Kai! Long time no see." Tala and Bryan were practically beaming at Kai, as much as they allowed themselves to beam, it was more of a smirk, but it was clear that they were happy to see the teen.
"Wait! You know him?" Lee was looking from Tala to Kai to Bryan and then back at Tala.
"Yeah, we've know this little menace for a couple of years now." Tala's sapphire blue eyes were fixed on Kai, as if he was silently asking the boys something.
"Hi Bry. Hi Tal. Nice to see you two again. How long has it been?"
"About a year I would say, little one." Bryan's smirk grew wider at the death glare he received from that comment, though one could see where he was coming from. Both Tala and Bryan were a head taller than Kai, and they took their time reminding him of that fact.
"I may be shorter than you, but I can still kick your ass, just name the time and place."
"Oh no, Bryan." Tala interrupted the big teen up as he was about to take the challenge. "We don't need you to spend another two weeks at the hospital."
"Kai send Bryan to the hospital? But he's like twice as big as Kai." Michael, Lee and Rei suddenly got back into the conversation.
"Hn... It wasn't my fault. The jerk attacked me and I just defended myself."
"Yeah, but if you hadn't picket my pocket, I wouldn't have had a reason to do so."
"Come on Bry, that was like 3 years ago. I said I was sorry." Kai tried hard to look innocent, but the small smirk on his face and the spark in his eyes led your thoughts towards deep water and triangular fins.
"So Kai, anything new up? Still kicking ass and hanging out with Matt?" Bryan's eyes were shining with amusement, like he played along with Kai innocent act, but at the same time letting everyone know that he wasn't buying it.
"Yes"
"Okay, okay. I get where you're going at. But anything new besides you're now living with these weirdoes?" Tala changed the subject away from the fighting subject.
"Yeah, you could say that. Got of the street and through 4 adopted homes and one foster, but I did spend a couple of weeks at Matt's around Christmas." after that Kai suddenly stuck out his tongue at Tala, who merely laughed in return.
"I never thought you were seriously about getting it"
"Obviously you were wrong Tala" Bryan looked weighenly at Kai before continuing "I always believed it would be another tattoo."
"Instead of what?" Michael was looking really lost, as were Lee and Rei.
Kai turned to them and stuck out his tongue so that they could see the silver stud piercing it. "It's on my back, Bry."
"But how could you get a piercing through your tongue or a tattoo? Doesn't it require the permission of an adult?" Lee narrowed his eyes at Kai, who just ignored it.
"Yeah, and I did get that." Kai smirked and then added "For the piercing."
"But from who?"
"A friend of mine, Matt."
"What was that about a tattoo, Kai? You have another one besides the fins?" Lee asked still a little daze by the whole Kai-knowing-Tala-and-Bryan-and-having-piercings-and-tattoos-thing.
"I got one on my back. Took forever to get it done."
"Can we see it Kai?" Bryan made a fast movement with his hand to try and lift up Kai's shirt, but said teen just as quickly moved out of reach.
"Not here."
"Why?" Tala was looking with narrowed eyes at Kai.
"Because you can't." Kai glared back so hard that it was a miracle Tala didn't turn into a icicle.
"Uhm. It's not that I want to interrupt your precious little staring contest here but we should be meeting out by the van right now." Rei waved his hand nervously between Kai and Tala.
"Okay, I'll let the little one go this time..."
"Hn...as if you would have won."
"...but do you mind us coming over later tonight, Michael? We'd love to catch up with Kai."
"Sure thing. We have practice when we get home, so if you just stop by in 2-3 hours, it'll be fine."
Uhhh, just love black silk boxers, hi hi hi.