AS:…………..
I don't really think you want to even hear the reason for my lateness so I'm not going to bother.
But enjoy!
"Think fast!"
The corner of a maths book hit him square in the forehead
"Oo,"
The class sniggered.
Rei stared confused at the exercise book.
"Sorry Rei," the maths teacher said, "Pick it up and pass it to Kai behind you would you? Maybe if you were awake though, Kon, you might not have been hit,"
The bell went shortly after Rei being whacked on the head, and Rei swiped up all of his books and dropped them into his bag. He followed Kai and Max out of the maths room, the crowds around him blurring into one big mess.
Max managed to get himself tangled up in his gym and school bag. Somehow he had got them knotted at a really awkward position on his shoulder and one arm was all jammed up because of the bags pinning it to his side. Rei leant against his locker and stared unseeingly at the other side of the corridor. Kai, who had been allowed to come back to school, had become bored with Rei's quiet and constant look of thought. He slammed his hand into the locker beside Rei's head, making the poor boy jump.
"Whoa! Kai!"
Kai had his hand on the locker by Rei's
head, his arm extended so it barred Rei from running off on one side,
and was looking down at Rei. Rei looked up into the husky lilac eyes
of his friend.
"Yes Kai?"
"Why are you spending your whole day walking around like a space
cadet?"
"Oh…sorry, I didn't know I was,"
"Is
something wrong?" Kai asked, tersely, a strand of grey/blue hair
falling to bar his left eye.
"No,"
Kai retreated his hand and dug his hands into his pockets.
"Then don't mope around," he snapped, although not as viciously as Kai had sometimes spoken.
"Sure Kai. Sorry,"
"Oi. Rei," Lee's voice. He was on this own this time, without his usual bunch of lackeys. Max was still wary though, and glared at Lee, despite knowing he looked ridiculous with a gym bag wrapped around his forehead.
"Trying to make a new fashion statement Max?" Lee smirked (he couldn't help himself).
"Oh, Lee!"
"Can we talk?" Lee asked Rei
quickly, digging his hands inside his pockets and scratching at the
torn lining inside them.
"Yeah, sure,"
Kai frowned. Max leapt up, and suddenly the catches on his bags broke so that the straps fell away from him and the whole mess hit the floor.
"Phew. Anyway: Rei do you think you should. I mean…"
"No
Max, it's fine,"
Max raised an eyebrow, "Really Rei? I
mean…"
"Trust me Max, it's good. I'll see in
gym,"
"Oh…OK,"
Rei and Lee disappeared around the corner, and Kai and Max were left alone by their lockers.
"What the fook?" Max said, staring after the pair, "Didn't
Lee like, try to suffocate Rei in his locker only last week,"
"Come
on, we need to get to gym,"
"Oh but…."
"Now,"
"Hey Max, pass me the wooden spoon,"
Max pulled out the
spoon and handed it to his brother, inhaling the smell of lasagne.
"Mm…smells brilliant! When's it ready?"
"Not
long,"
Max clapped his hands and scooted over to the fridge
to get himself a drink. He dug around in there for a while as Kai
stirred the bolognaise at the stove.
"AH! AH!"
Max
leapt away from the fridge yelling, and slammed the fridge door shut.
"What is it?" Kai sighed.
"There is something living in our fridge!"
"Living?"
"Yes, living! It's all
furry!"
"Are you sure it's not just cheese or
something?"
"I don't think so….its got bubbles all
over it,"
Kai opened up the fridge and leant inside. At the
very back corner, was a little mountain of fur with an attractive
pus-green hue.
"Careful Kai it moves,"
"It does not move Max,"
Kai grumbled, reaching a hand in. He stopped though before actually
touching it. He didn't believe Max for a minute but he had no idea
what the hell it was.
"What is it?"
"I don't know,"
Kai flicked it with his finger and it fell forward, showing a gaping
hole with more fur and inside, although there were some slicks of
sticky, running stuff up the sides of the hole.
"Whoa, its
like Alien or something," Max cooed, staring at the intruder at
the back of their fridge. He grabbed a spatula from the same place he
had got the spoon earlier and slid the mass of rotten…mass, onto
it. He pulled it out carefully, balancing it in a slightly wobbly
fashion on the spatula.
"It's yoghurt,"
"What!"
"It's
yoghurt. Look, on the side. 'Farmers Best Yoghurt'. Cell by date….a
year ago,"
"We've had yoghurt mutating in our fridge for
a year and we never knew,"
Kai sighed and took the
spatula from Max. He dropped the infested yoghurt into the bin.
"I feel sick now. I mean, how come all of the most disgusting things I have ever seen, always seem to come from our fridge,"
Kai washed his hands and went back to the meal.
"Mum should clean the fridge more. But she's never here,"
"She's
working,"
"Yeah, but she could try and keep piles of
mutating bacteria out of the fridge from time to time,"
Max sat down at the kitchen table to sulk.
"But she's never
at home,"
Kai turned down the ring and turned to look at Max.
He was half sprawled on the kitchen table, platinum blonde hair
sagging over his eyes. His lips were slightly pouting as he sulked,
and he poked with one finger at a splinter in the table his Dad had
made years ago. It needed sanding. He sat down opposite him.
"I
know she loves us and everything, its just that the house is kinda
falling apart, and she never notices. She's never here. She hasn't
been to a parent teacher conference of ours since…well, since you
arrived. That was my last one. And yoru first and last,"
Kai didn't really care Judy didn't listen to his teachers often
enough but Max made a point.
"You know, that was one of the
reasons Dad left her. She was always too busy. And then when Dad
left…to stop thinking about it, she got even more involved in
work,"
Max had talked to Kai about his Mum and Dad divorcing
not long after Kai had arrived at the family's home. But never in too
much detail. And it wasn't as if Judy used Kai as an agony aunt.
"Have you told her?"
"What, Mum? Yeah, I told her I
want her to stay home more. But she just looked upset and went into
the whole; I'm doing this to keep you in this house, and stuff like
that. And I know that. But it doesn't help,"
"Your
Mum's been around more than mine has Max,"
Max stared up at his brother, through the shafts of the sunset that slanted in through the slats in the blind. The whole kitchen was bathed in a warm light.
"I suppose,"
A tanker on the nearby freeway made the
house rumble.
"Have you heard where she is now?"
"Last time I
heard from her was last year. She was in Croatia,"
"Same
time one of us opened that yoghurt," Max smiled. He couldn't
stand to see his brother mopey, and going down the road of parents
was certainly going to do that to him.
"Kai?"
"Yeah?"
"Can
I have my lasagne now?"
Kai shook his head and went back to
the sauce.
"When I get older and become stinking rich, I'll get a cook,"
Max consented, sitting up, "And maids. And I'll move to the posh
part of New York, and you'll have to come and visit me,"
"I
will?"
"Yeah. Every week. And every single Christmas.
That's what you get with family Kai, you're stuck with them for
life," Max beamed, "And you can be an uncle, when I have a
kid,"
"Do you really want to inflict that upon a
young child?"
"You'd be a good Uncle, Kai!"
"Set out the stuff
for dinner Max,"
Max rolled his eyes and began to set the
table. They sat down to eat not long after.
"Seriously Kai, do you ever want to have a family?"
"No
idea," Kai grunted, flicking through the morning newspaper.
"You must have some idea! I mean, you like kids,
don't you?"
"No idea,"
"Are you evening listening to me?"
"Hn,"
"Kai! You are so…nevermind,"
Max rammed a layer of lasagne in his mouth. They ate in silence for a few more minutes, the sounds of the freeway and the leafy suburb they lived in falling around them. The phone beeped quietly on the charger and the two boy's PE kits in the hallway were being attacked by the cat.
"Max?"
"Yeah?"
"Read that,"
Max
picked up the paper Kai was handing him.
"Which bit?"
"The notice about a missing person,"
"Yeah,"
Max
read the print out loud, "This sixteen year old boy, pictured
above on the left, has been missing for three weeks. He was last seen
at his family's summer house in Connecticut. The boy has a tendency
to run away and has run away for almost a year before. Last seen
wearing black baggy pants, a plain green t-shirt and bare feet. Name:
Morgan Demsey,"
"Look at the picture,"
Max peered at the picture. On the left, was a boy with black hair and
electric green highlights. His face was on the slightly gaunt side,
but his smile was full, and screwed slightly into a smirk. The
picture was focused on his face but Max could see the crackling
orange of a fire. Sat next to him was a boy with long raven hair,
amber eyes, and a soft smile.
"It's Rei! Wow. I wonder if he
knows where his Morgan guy is. Maybe not, he would have told someone.
Shall we show it to him?"
"Do what you like,"
Kai went back to his meal, only temporarily unfixed about Rei knowing
this missing person. Max carried on studying the pair in the picture
a little more though.
"You won't runaway again, will you
Kai?"
Kai didn't look up from his meal, despite the intense
stare Max was sending him across the table.
"Kai? You
won't…you wouldn't run off again would you? It's just…looking at
this, I remember having to do the same for you-"
Kai got up,
his chair scraping across the kitchen floor. He left the room.
"Kai! Kai, I-"
Max ran after him, dropping the paper to
the floor.
Kai was sat in the lounge on the armchair, probably purposefully for
Max couldn't get near him.
"Kai? I'm sorry,"
"I
was only gone for two weeks Max,"
"I know. It
just worried me that's all. I know you didn't want to hang around and
you had only jus got here. Sorry, I shouldn't have been stupid,"
There was a moment's tepid silence.
"It's fine,"
Max beamed and did the only thing he could knew he could do to break the sullen mood. Kai 'oofed' as the bouncing blonde male landed on his lap and wrapped his arms around his neck. Max was too goddamn innocent sometimes, did he realise how much taunting that would get if he ever tried that in public?
Kai slung his arms around the boy's waist just to keep Max happy.
"You'd be a great Uncle Kai. And you could help us when we
get mutating furry things at the back of our many fridges,"
"You're
pathetic,"
REI's POV
Do you ever get the feeling maybe you just should have gone back to bed that morning, and not bothered? Or is it just me? Surely since there's a something-billion population there must be more than a few of us to band together and have a few drinks and talk about our problems.
See what lack of sleep does to me?
I'm making myself over-caffeinated so that I don't have to think too much. Downstairs, my Mum's entertaining more guests. People from next door. I think they drove.
I've been thinking a lot though, despite the amount of coffee I've been guzzling, and I've made a list of things I need to do: One, find out what the hell Morgan is doing with Mariah. I wouldn't trust that guy with my pencil case, nevermind Mariah. I don't think he would actually kill Mariah but…I know that guy, and I still don't trust him with her…if that is the case…I've got that to figure out too. Two, work out what Morgan is going full stop. As mentioned above, I don't trust him. Three, find out who my 'protector' is. The guy who warned me about Morgan wanting to pay a little visit. Four, get Max a birthday present. Five, bury those photographs in the garden. Six, I'm going to go for a walk. I might go down to the warehouses, there's supposed to be people building clubs down there. Although I also did hear about Fighting Rings being built but I'll stay away from them, I'm not getting involved. Last time I went down there, when I first moved here, there was just a pile of dead rats and fish-smelling ropes so I need to go and see what's going on. Bet the rats don't appreciate the intrusions.
AS: I tried to be subtle there but it may not have worked….think about a certain rat whose been situated in a warehouse recently….
