Ray leafed absentmindedly through the paper, crunching his marmalade-covered toast. It was eight o'clock and the family was eating breakfast. Kai still hadn't surfaced, and Ray, although he hid it well, was starting to get worried.
"Lynnie?" His oldest daughter looked up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Yes, Daddy?"
"Could you go and get my visitor up for me? He's in the spare room." A flash of confusion crossed the seven year-old's face. Ray knew what she was thinking and cringed inwardly. Guests slept in the guest room, not the spare room. No one ever slept in there, not when there were so many other luxurious rooms to use. The little girl shrugged, dismissing it, and got up.
"Okay. Is he going to eat breakfast?" she asked.
"I don't know, darling. Ask him." Whistling happily to herself, Lynette left the room, to Rosa's wails of:
"I want to see the man!"
"You can see him once he's up." Ray reassured,hugged the sulking child to him.
"Hey, mister, Daddy says you should be up by now!" Kai swore softly and looked around for the piercing voice that had roused him from his doze. Rubbing his eyes, he blinked a few times, finally succeeding in clearing his vision enough to see the child standing in the doorway. Wait, was that a child, or Ray? Nope, had to be a child, Ray was about three times that height. That was much more than your ordinary family resemblance, though. "C'mon, hurry up!"
"What's your name?" he asked thickly.
"I'm Lynnette. Who're you?" Kai smiled despite himself at the challenging tone.
"My name's Kai. Has anyone ever told you look like your dad?" Lynette's face broke into a grin and she bounded over to the bed. Kai blinked again as the little girl's face that was still unsettlingly like Ray's, even at this distance, appeared next to him.
"Yeah, all the time." she said proudly. "Dad's cool!" Kai smiled again.
"I'll agree with that." Lynette took hold of his arm and started tugging.
"C'mon! Up!" she ordered. Kai gently pulled his arm from her grip.
"All right, all right, I'm up!" He yawned and pulled the covers off. Almost instantly, he remembered and wished that he hadn't. Casting a quick look at the little girl, he saw her eyes widen with shock, then narrow with suspicion. He swore silently. He might've got away with it with Rosa, but Lynette was old enough to know when something was out of the ordinary. And this certainly was.
Ray walked towards the spare bedroom, Mariah's outraged shrieks echoing in his ears. You left our daughter with him? Blah, blah, blah…like he cared… He pushed the door open silently and stared in something close to horror. Kai was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in nothing but boxer shorts, locked in what looked like a mental battle with Lynette and losing, his eyes wide and apprehensive
His upper body was pitifully thin, and covered in mutilations. His wrists were criss-crossed with scars. Over where one rib should be, there was a long, jagged hole, the scar tissue purple where it hadn't fully healed. The horrendous sight that both pairs of amber eyes were drawn to was higher up, however. Ray swallowed convulsively at the sickening sight, realising why Kai had chosen to wear a jumper last night.
Half his throat was gone, the delicate larynx protected by the thinnest layer of skin Ray had ever seen. As Kai swallowed, the whole gristly entity moved up and down. Slowly, breaking the eye contact between him and Lynette, Kai raised a hand and cupped it round his damaged neck, protecting the ravaged tissue from Ray's gaze. He stared at the ground, a faint flush spreading rapidly across his pale face. Lynette took a trembling step towards him. Part of Ray wanted to call Lynette to him, protect her from the horrors she had just seen, but the other, larger part told him to trust Kai.
All right, Kai. I trust you. But screw this up and I'll rip you in two.
Kai watched numbly as the little girl approached him. Carefully, her face screwed up in concentration, she reached out and placed the tip of her index finger in the dip where Kai's rib had once been. Her finger trailed across Kai's damaged body, investigating the old wounds with childish perfectionism. All the time, her gaze never left Kai's face. Gradually, guiltily, Kai raised his head until their gazes met again. Lynette took a step backwards, frowning in perplexion.
"You're not well?" she inquired, seeking the only rational explanation she knew for the sight before her. Kai hesitated, wondering what to say, knowing that he could never explain fully, not to such a young child.
"I've…been better." he said finally, his voice barely audible. Nodding her head in acceptance, the seven year-old stepped forwards again and wrapped her arms around Kai's chest, hugging tightly.
"Poor Kai." she murmured softly. Kai let her hug him for a few minutes, fighting the urge to hug her back, not wanting to give Mariah any more ammunition than she would already have. He put his arms around the frail little body for a few seconds, then gently pushed her away.
"Don't you have school or something like that?" he asked, forcing a faint smile onto his lips. He laughed inwardly as Lynette's face went into the universal "Oh my god, I forgot…" expression. "Off you go, then." He swore silently, feeling the familiar tightness in his chest yet again. Lynette gave him one last look, then ran downstairs. Kai watched as Ray caught her round her waist and whispered something into her ears, probably something along the lines of "Don't tell Mummy." He didn't see if Lynette replied, because he was doubled over as hacking, retching coughs forced their way along his throat. Suppressing the urge to throw up, he clapped a hand over his mouth and straightened up, taking deep breaths through his nose. When he opened his eyes again, he met Ray's probing gaze.
"Tell me, Kai." His voice was fierce, shaking slightly. Kai looked his old team mate and one-time best friend square in the eye.
"Why? Mariah doesn't want me in the house because I'm gay, and she's hated me since I stole Galux from her. Knowing everything would just get me out on the streets in about three seconds flat." His voice was hoarse and rasping. "Why do you want to know now?" Ray started to talk, but Kai silenced him with a glare. "Why not two, three years ago? How about four or five? It's been eight years, Ray. Eight." Now it was Ray's turn to flush.
"Please, Kai. Tell me." he persisted. Kai sighed and lay back down, rolling over to the wall.
"Tell you what?" Ray got up and left the room, coming back in with a sheet from an English newspaper. He held it out to Kai, who sat up and took it reluctantly, already knowing what he would see. He turned it over.
The headline screamed at him, large, bold type:
A FALLEN PHOENIX!
Unwillingly, Kai began to read the lengthy article. Ray's eyes were on him, hard and pleading at the same time.
Everyone's always known that there was something slightly askew with ex-Bladebreaker and Blitzkrieg Boy, Kai Hitwarti, but no one really knew, not either set of former team mates, just how fragile this young man was.
After G-Revolution, consisting of the Bladebreakers and the spunky red-head, Daichi, beat the Justice 5 team, sending the now-imprisoned Boris down where he belonged, no one seemed to know what the team was going to do, themselves included. Sure, they were back together, but they had discovered new loyalties to other teams, and didn't know where those loyalties now lay. There was no doubt, though, that these six boys, although some think that Kenny and Daichi should be excluded from this, were the greatest beybladers ever seen. They trusted friendship and loyalty over brute power, and it was rare for an opponent to come out of the stadium after a battle and not know that he had played his best, and seen it far exceeded.
The last time that the team were all in the spotlight together, three-time World Champion Tyson Granger challenged his greatest rival to a match, which apparently they had arranged as Kai left the stadium after his battle with Brooklyn. The battle which some say he won at too great a cost.
The match ended in a draw, and soon afterwards, Kai left, with no word of explanation or apology. That was the fourth time that Kai had done something like this, including the fiasco with Black Dranzer back before the Bladebreakers became World Champions. The team greeted his disappearance with emotions ranging from stoic silence (Ray Kon) to furious ranting (Tyson Granger). Months went by, Kai didn't return. G-Revolution broke up soon afterwards, the members each going their own way. No one had heard anything of Kai Hitwarti, and nobody would have if it hadn't been for an astonishing coincidence.
The Daily Mail had just finished interviewing a police officer about a recent outbreak of rapes when the alarm went off, summoning every police officer within hearing to "18 Harvest Street", which was a shack on the very edge of that notorious street, infamous for its population of both male and female street workers, subject to a hundred and fifteen drug raids the year before. Drawn by the prospect of an exclusive scoop, we hurried after the police cars. On the way, we saw an ambulance following the same route. The words emblazoned on it were ones guaranteed to send a shiver up any self-respecting reporter's spine.
"West Side Mental Institution"
We finally arrived at number 18, and watched as the police spread out, eyes watchful, hands deep in their pockets. The sound of clashing metal on metal came from the old wooden shack, and we all tensed, expecting a knife-wielding maniac to come running out at any given second. With grim expressions on their faces, looking as though they knew something that we didn't, the staff from West Side entered the building. The clashing stopped. Everyone strained their ears, struggling to hear what was being said. The gentle voices of the West Side people were interrupted before we could make sense of any of it by a hoarse, rasping voice.
"No! Let me go!" The sound of a scuffle echoed in the close, confined shack. A man stuck his head round the door and yelled for help. The remaining ambulance/mental staff ran inside, bearing a large amount of medical equipment.
Moments later, they came out again. They were crowded so tightly round the young man that no one could see anything of him. But no one in their right minds couldn't recognise the beyblade that was spinning along beside them.
Kai tossed the article aside and lay back on the bed, closing his eyes briefly, fighting back a tide of dark memories.
"Kai?" Ray's uncertain voice brought him back to the present.
"What?" He didn't open his eyes.
"Why were you put in there? What was wrong with you?" Kai shuddered. He hated that phrase. It made him feel as though it was his fault that he'd ended up in a mental institution, something that the psychologists had spent nearly three years drumming out of him. "Kai?" He sighed again, dredging up what he could remember.
"I eventually got diagnosed as a paranoid OC with PTS disorder and anorexia and bulimia nervosa." he said tonelessly. "After a few misdiagnoses."
"With less capital letters?" Ray asked hopefully.
"A paranoid obsessive-compulsive with post traumatic stress disorder. You know the rest." Ray pulled a confused face.
"Anorexia and bulimia? How is that even possible?"
"Easy. You starve yourself, then give up and binge-eat, throw it all up again, then don't eat for another couple of weeks or so." Kai saif flippantly.
"Is that why you're so…so… I dunno…thin?"
"I'll have you know I've put on nearly five years stone in the past few years!" Kai made an effort to sound indignant. Ray fell silent again, and when Kai looked at him, he knew that the time for making light of it was over.
"Why?" Kai closed his eyes. When he next spoke, his voice was flat and emotionless.
"That first time that Brooklyn defeated me, it destroyed me. For the next month, I wandered around in a fog of shame and disgust. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep unless I had to. What started off as simple self-blame, hide-away-in-disgust-from-the-world and so on, eventually morphed into something much nastier, much more damaging. I thought that I had all my memories back from the Abbey, but it soon became obvious that I hadn't. I started to remember truly disturbing things about what had happened to me back then. I remembered being raped, being beaten to within an inch of my life, training until I collapsed unconscious on the floor.
"Thankfully, just as I began to remember properly, I saw Max's battle on TV and snapped myself out of it. Up until then, I had watched the battles without seeing, but I think that I was subconsciously looking for a way out of the hole I had dug myself into. So I fought Brooklyn again, needing to prove myself as the powerful beyblader I knew myself to be, and nearly killed myself in the process." He paused, running his hand through his tangled hair. "I always said afterwards that the only two people who could ever understand what it was like, to risk everything, to go through that amount of pain based on a battle between two bits of spinning metal, were Tyson and you. Max understands the theory maybe better than I do, the reasons why we did it, but he's never had to fight for his life like we have."
"If you want to get picky, Tyson doesn't really understand either." Ray said softly. "The whole world was behind him in that match. I've never seen him so confident, so powerful. He was in complete control of that match, no matter what anyone says." Kai nodded once, hoping to be forgotten about. "Carry on." No such luck.
"After Tyson's match with Brooklyn, I lost my distraction against the new, more sinister memories. Up until then, they had featured only shadowy figures, silhouettes. Now, they gained faces, and I found out that the man who I had joined up with in a pathetic attempt to conserve my self-esteem had been my main torturer all those years ago. That fucked me up really well. Every time I remembered, I would get hopelessly guilty over what I had given up. My friends, my team. I had forsaken them for a psychopathic rapist. Sick with guilt, I would constantly invite the memories back, reminding me of what I was, what I had done. It got to the point where I hated the very thought of what had happened, just thinking about it made me physically sick, but I could no longer stop them from coming. All I saw were the pictures. Playing over them like a soundtrack, was the knowledge that my grandfather had given me. The desire to be the best, no matter what the cost. I discovered that beyblading was the only way that I could keep the recollections at bay. Remembering my grandfather's lessons, I started something that I can't even call training, because it was far more brutal, more punishing then anything I had ever done before, even in the Abbey.
"I became utterly obsessed with using every drop of Dranzer's power to the maximum. I beybladed day and night, moving country, going for a seedy place where no one would look twice at you if you looked slightly strange, only stopping for brief periods until the terrible images forced me back to the dish. I started…dieting, no, that's wrong…not eating, convinced that I needed to lose weight. Every now and then, some inner part of me would make me eat again, but I would just throw it up afterwards. Sometimes I had barely swallowed the food before it came straight back up again. Soon, I didn't even need to make myself throw up, just the thought of what the food was doing to my fictional "weight" was enough to make me vomit. I was also drinking heavily to try and help blur the memories. On average, I was going through about two or three bottles of vodka a day. By the time that anyone noticed my state and was sober enough to care, I was almost beyond help. The memories were flashing before my eyes on an unstoppable cycle, bringing fresh waves of guilt and remorse with each replay. My launcher never left my hand. Dranzer was worn down from the constant grind against the hard stone dip that I was using as a dish, having broken the other one with over-use.
"My hands were a complete mess because I refused to wear gloves. The palms were bleeding non-stop as I constantly tore open old blisters and made new ones, the flesh torn to ribbons because I wouldn't let Dranzer decrease its speed before slamming into my hand. The gaping wounds were infected and oozing pus, the remaining skin blotching with the onset of gangrene. I weighed a skeletal six stone and was launching Dranzer from the floor because if I stood up for too long, I passed out. I had become convinced that the people in my memories, mainly Boris and my grandfather, were after me, and jumped out of my skin at every change in the light. If one of the hookers walking past hadn't stepped inside for a break from the rain, I'd be dead by now."
Ray swallowed, a vicious, hollow feeling spreading through his body as he realised what Kai had been going through.
"Kai…I'm so sorry…" he whispered knowing that no amount of apologising could ever make up for the ordeal that Kai had suffered.
"It's fine. It wasn't your fault." Kai answered shortly. He forced a faint smile. "Did you know they still use straightjackets if you're considered a SR?"
"SR?"
"Suicide Risk. I did that," He pointed to the hole in his chest. "And…that," He ran his fingers lightly over his ruined throat. "while I was inside. Straightjackets aren't particularly nice, nor can you get out of them with a magic trick." Ray took a deep breath, knowing that what he was about to say might tip Kai over the edge of his self-control.
"Have you still got Dranzer?" Just as he had feared, Kai turned away and shook his head stiffly, his shoulders trembling.
"They said that she was a…a…trigger to the memories…I tried to tell them that she wasn't, but you can't argue with a shrink. They just label you as "argumentative, possibly violent" and shove you in solitary confinement for a month or two." Slowly, he lay down on the bed, curling into a tight ball, soft whimpers coming from him. Ray stood up.
"I'll see you later, Kai." he whispered, leaving the room silently.
Well? Opinions? I especially would like opinions on Kai's little re-telling of what happened to him. I thought it was good when I wrote it, but...I don't know...what do you all think? If anybody has any ideas about how they think this story should progress, please tell me them in your review, because I'm running out of them!
