Thank you to Kiyomiko, Black Magician Girl3, Duelistgirl11, alysei, BlOoDy JoKeR, darksaphire, crimsonbloodvampire, MikaMiko, Lady-Nikki, zekesbabe, Angel pen, Little-Purple-Pigeon, Kiniko, tntiggris, Holly (), Aralie Panda and Mentallymoo.
Phew! So many reviews! Thank you so much, everyone!! (hugs all reviwers and hands them chibi-Ray plushies)
Credit for this chapter goes not to me and my not-working imagination and the most severe case of writer's block I've ever had in my life, but to a very persistent friend and reviewer: zekesbabe, who has the unenviable job of MAKING me write (ie, getting me the hell off MSN!). She has made me annoyed, grateful and downright pissed off by turns, but it was all worth it! Thank you very much!! (many many many hugs)
Also, many hugs to my beta, Shin Rigel (dies of awe, then remembers she's not supposed to be fangirling someone she talks to regularly.)
At last, here is the next chapter! (cheers) I'm so so so sorry for the wait! (grovels)
Enjoy!
"How was school, Ray?" Rachael called up the stairs.
"Boring, hard, all the normal stuff!" Ray called down, a faint tinge of sarcasm in his voice.
"Homework?"
"Yeah, Science and Maths. You'd think they'd let us off, wouldn't you?"
"That's school for you, kiddo. When are you going to start it?"
"After tea. Can you or Jonathon help me?"
"Will do."
"Thanks!" Ray went into his room and flung himself full length onto his bed. There was only a week of the school year left to go until the summer holidays. A week 'til I'm not a Year Seven anymore… he thought pensively. Not a Year Seven, not a Year Eight…limbo. I'll be in limbo. Like Kai. He sighed, thinking of his still unconscious foster brother. Rolling over, he reached under his bed and pulled out a small rectangle of paper: his birth certificate. The one remnant of his life in China with his real parents. Staring at the ceiling, he remembered another time when he had taken this out and looked at it, a year ago.
"Ray! Let me in!" Putting down his birth certificate, Ray went over to his door and unlocked it. Kai stormed in, scowling.
"What's up?" Ray asked cautiously.
"They get paid!" Kai flung himself onto Ray's bed and bounced there for a few seconds, his face dark with anger. Ray blinked a few times, bewildered.
"Huh?" he asked intelligently, sitting next to the older boy gingerly.
"Rachael and Jonathon get paid to look after us. On top of their jobs." Kai said bitterly. "We're just another job to them. Oh, let's get a couple of kids, we need the money!" He snorted loudly and kicked the bed bad-temperedly.
Ray started laughing uncontrollably. Kai coloured. "What are you laughing at?" he demanded.
"You." Ray choked out. "You mean you didn't know?" Kai stayed silent. "The money's for us. They use it to take us places, and buy us birthday presents and things, like the PlayStation! If they just put it straight into their pockets, they wouldn't be allowed to be foster parents!" He dissolved into fits of laughter.
"How do you know?" Kai mumbled sullenly, his face on fire with embarrassment. Ray calmed down and lay back on the bed.
"Naomi told me once. She was complaining about how looking after me was a strain on their finances, even with the extra money." Kai grunted.
"Yeah, more like her drinking was draining the finances dry!" Ray laughed softly and nodded. He sighed. "She could be all right sometimes, Naomi could. When she wasn't drunk." He thought. "Which wasn't often."
"How did you ever end up with them in the first place?" Ray shrugged.
"I was a weird-looking six year-old kid who couldn't speak a word of English. They were the only ones who were prepared to take me in. It wasn't so bad at first."
"Really?"
"Really!" Ray confirmed enthusiastically. "Naomi only started drinking after about seven or eight months in. She was going through a stressful time at work, or something like that." Kai sorted again, this time in disbelief.
"Shane?" Ray flinched.
"He kept away from me for nearly a year. And I really mean kept away, he used to come in at the back door if I came through the front, and if we ever met he'd just act like I wasn't there." Kai frowned.
"Weird." he pronounced finally.
"Very." Ray agreed.
"Why did you go into foster care, anyway?" Ray shrugged again.
"My dad legged it when I was four, and then when we moved to this country, my mum apparently couldn't cope with me. She got arrested for child neglect."
"What did she do?"
"I can't remember much. I vaguely remember being left alone a lot, and it was really cold, and she…I don't really remember what she looked like anymore. So, she got sent to prison for a few months and I got put into temporary foster care. But then, she tried to kill herself in prison. Starved herself until she had to be force-fed, according to what I found out afterwards. They reckoned that if she couldn't cope with prison, there was no way she could cope with me. So, that was me doing this for the rest of my childhood." Ray gestured to the room. There was a familiar tight ball in his chest that came up whenever he was talking about his parents. Which was rare enough. "What about you? I know why you ended up here, but what about your parents?" A shadow passed over Kai's face for a moment, and he looked sad.
"Dead." he said briefly. "Mother died having me, and then Father died when I was five. Then Grandfather took me in, and the rest you know." He fiddled unconsciously with his T-shirt. "If I hadn't been born, they might still be alive. That's what Grandfather always told me."
"And you believed him?" Kai coloured.
"Well, if I hadn't been born then Mother wouldn't have died, would she?" Ray found himself unable to argue with the obvious statement. Kai looked so unhappy all of a sudden, and he wanted to cheer him up.
"I'm glad you were born." he ventured uncertainly. Kai gave him a half smile.
"Are you?" Ray grinned back.
"Yeah! Where would I be without you, huh?" Kai blinked in surprise as Ray leant forward and hugged him tightly.
"Thanks, Ray." he murmured, smiling.
Letting a long, shaky sigh, Ray replaced the birth certificate under his bed and, rolling onto his back, resumed his pointless contemplation of the ceiling.
"Hey, Ray, how was choir?" Oliver asked, backtracking his steps rapidly until he drew level with his friend. Ray shrugged.
"It was okay." he said mournfully. Oliver groaned loudly.
"Come on then, what's up?"
"I can't sing as high anymore!" Ray complained. "My voice keeps cracking, and then all the tenors and counter-tenors make fun of me!" Oliver gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.
"Cheer up, Ray! I bet you're a better singer than all of them put together!" Ray coloured and shuffled his feet, embarrassed.
"Yeah…well…maybe." he mumbled at last. "At least the girls stick up for me."
"Especially Mariah?" Oliver raised both eyebrows suggestively. Ray grumbled under his breath.
"She's not even in it." he mumbled. "Nah, Salima and Julia are being really nice to me, and Emily's not too bad either. Mariam's cool, too." he added, almost as an afterthought. His face fell again. "Of course, that's probably just 'cause everyone knows about Kai now…"
"How long has it been again?"
"Two months, give or take a few days." Oliver nodded slowly. "Where's everyone else?"
"Mystel has detention, Raul's staying behind in class for some unknown reason, Miguel's off in a student council meeting, and… I haven't seen Tyson or Max all day, have you?" Ray shook his head and started chewing his lip, perplexed.
"I wonder where they could be…" he muttered, almost to himself. "Tyson usually phones me if he's having a day off for some reason… and Max doesn't miss much school at all…" Suddenly, he realised that the few days of school Max had missed had all been after he had supposedly fallen down the stairs. A nasty suspicion formed in his mind. Frowning, he dismissed it. He was being stupid, being influenced by what had happened to him years ago. "Come on, Oli, let's get to lunch."
"Read my mind." the older boy said amiably. "I forgot breakfast this morning." Ray whacked him playfully on the arm.
"Idiot! Why?"
"Slept in." Oliver shrugged, smiling a little guiltily.
"Idiot." Ray repeated. The two boys walked to lunch, teasing each other mischievously.
Ray's face flushed deep scarlet and he made a grab for the piece of paper. Lee grinned maliciously and jerked it up, holding it just out of the smaller boy's reach as he continued to read.
"Catholics believe in the sanctity of fife, because it says in the bilbe that God created att things-" Ray made a last, desperate leap, and grabbed hold of the sheet of paper.
"Quit it, Lee!"
"Quit it, Lee!" Lee mimicked, laughing nastily. "You're such a spac, Ray! You can't even write!"
"That's not my fault!" Ray yelled, his face going even redder if that was possible.
"Yeah, like your spelling's any better, Lee?" Lee whirled, an angry, cornered expression on his face. Miguel smiled coldly, an icy flame dancing in his blue eyes.
"Remind me whose work got held up in class as example of what not to do again?" Oliver demanded softly, eyes strangely vibrant with anger, the heat of his rage contrasting sharply with Miguel's frozen, simmering temper.
Despite himself, Ray backed away from his two friends, and felt no scorn for Lee as he did the same, golden eyes narrow and defensive. With a final, wordless snarl in Ray's direction, the black-haired boy walked away with what little dignity he had left. Seconds later, Mystel, Raul, Tyson and Max ran up.
"What did we miss?" Mystel asked instantly, sounding disappointed. Ray laughed, the sound only slightly forced.
"Remind me never to get on your bad side, guys." he said, turning to the two older boys with a look of mock-fear.
"Will do." Oliver replied, the sunny smile on his face a startling change from the look of mere seconds ago.
"Aaaah! He's a schizophrenic!" Tyson yelled jokingly, obviously thinking along the same lines. The boys scuffled playfully, ending, surprisingly, with Tyson getting Oliver in an arm lock and tightening his grip threateningly.
"I surrender!" Oliver cried, laughing and gasping for breath simultaneously.
"Really?" Tyson asked, loosening his grip slightly.
"Nope!" Oliver let out a strangled sound as his head was jerked backwards again. While Mystel and Raul laughed out loud and Miguel grinned widely, Ray watched Max.
The young boy was twisting his T-shirt nervously in his hands, revealing the edge of what looked like yet another bruise on his lower abdomen.
"You okay, Max?" Max jumped visibly and gave Ray a tiny smile. Instead of replying, he nodded. "You sure?" A flicker of annoyance tightened the blond's lips and he nodded again. Before Ray could probe further, or tell the others - who were now openly cheering Tyson on, even Miguel - to shut up for a second, the bell rang. The second bell; the one that you were supposed to be in class for. As in; in class, not still standing in the dinner hall.
"Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite…" Mystel grabbed Ray and Raul, one wrist each, and steamrollered off.
"Bye, guys!" the three boys yelled
"… Bye?" Miguel called, eliciting a laugh from Tyson and Oliver.. "Sometimes I think Mystel's got a screw loose…" he sighed.
"Sometimes? One screw? You're underestimating him!" Tyson declared. Oliver grinned, using the moment of distraction to shove the younger boy into the wall.
"Very funny, haha, I win! Now, you're going to get detention if you don't hurry up."
"So are you." the navy-haired boy pointed out.
"Shut up."
"Excuse me? Is Raymond Kon in this class?" The teacher nodded curtly. Ray stood and nervously took the purple slip of paper from the messenger. Sitting back down, he screwed his eyes up and tried to read the message. Mouthing the words to himself, his eyes widened.
Go to Reception immediately.
Tentatively, he raised his hand.
"Miss? Mi-iss!" The teacher ignored him. Ray gritted his teeth in anger. Damn English teacher! Just because he was dyslexic! He'd been improving too! That's why he was in here instead of Success Maker, because he was working more, and the teacher had promised to help him! Ha! Fat chance of that! "Miss!" Giving up, he grabbed his bag and stood up. Shoving his equipment into his bag and his chair under the table with a clatter, he marched out of the room. Delighted whoops from his classmates and angry calls from the teacher followed the fuming Chinese boy down the corridor until he was out of ear-shot.
"Rachael should be coming to pick you up soon." Ray frowned. Why was nobody telling him why Rachael was picking him up, why he had been pulled out of class?
"What's going on?" he complained. Rachael's hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel, but she said nothing. "Rachaeeeeeel!" he wailed, more than prepared to sulk like a ten year-old if it would get him his way.
"You'll find out soon, Ray."
Ten minutes later, they turned into the hospital car park. Ray sat bolt upright, eyes wide, adrenalin suddenly flooding his veins.
"Kai?" he whispered. "Is he all right? Is he awake?" A horrible thought struck him with all the force of a sledgehammer. "Is he … okay?" His mind shied away from "the d-word", as he had mentally classed it a while back.
Rachael looked at him, and he could see the faint glimmer of a smile hovering round her mouth.
Well, I think most people will get what's happened! (grins)
I loathe and detest this chapter with a vengeance; it's short, it's badly written and nothing happens. But it is pretty much just a filler.
I promise you all, the next chapter is the one I've been waiting to write pretty much since I first thought of the idea of Kai falling into a coma. I don't know when it'll be up or how long it'll be, but it'll be good.
If anyone wants any pairings that doesn't include Kai, Ray, Miguel or Oliver, just ask. The Demo. Boys'll be coming in next chap, hopefully, and I can bring anyone else in you like. And I mean anyone. So, ask away, the weirder they are, the more fun to write!
I apologise again for the unbelievable wait - don't kill me! (hides)
Review!