~No I am not a KaixTala shipper. Yes, KaiRay is still my religion.

This is simply the product of a plot baby that refused to calm down after Katya92 (with her frankly scrumptious Tala headcanons) made Kai and Tala seem like one of the hottest things to ever happen to the Beyblade fandom and my Pinterest feed decided to help her plan along.

(ALSO, I lowkey love RayMariah?)

This a multi-chapter fic, so bear with me and do not forget to review.

Thanks~

PROLOGUE

"Would you like to walk to class with us today, Tala?"

The redhead didn't even turn to grace his Chinese roommate with a look, because he knew he would be smiling that smile of his, the one that made everyone's insides feel warm and happy, and Tala wasn't used to feelings like those.

"Leave him alone, Ray! He has never listened and he never will." That was Bryan. He couldn't ever be bothered with Tala, much like the third, silent occupant of their dorm room.

As all three boys proceeded to exit the room then, Tala's eyes found Kai's for a flitting glance and a blush warmed his pale cheeks. No, he corrected himself, three weeks into the start of middle school, three weeks into their consequent shift into the boarding and Kai had never once spoken to him, but he watched. He watched Tala just as Tala watched Kai, the only problem was his rich red eyes made the other shiver and blush while he, himself remained unaffected.

Tala slid off his bed and busied himself with putting on his shoes, wondering why he kept rejecting every single one of Ray's attempts at befriending him. Lord knew, he was the only one who tried to include the Russian, the rest of the school had taken one look at his red spiky hair and sky blue eyes before unanimously deeming him the poor freak of the year, to be bullied, ridiculed and generally secluded.

Except he was new and they had never before had the pleasure of knowing him, so they could do little more than gawp and disguise their terror as hostility when he openly fought back, verbally, physically, every other way he was then being challenged, and won. Slowly, for simply defending himself, he was branded as the mean bully and Tala would laugh at the ridiculousness of it all if he wasn't just so lonely.

The therapist had told him new beginnings meant happiness, he could start all over and not mess up. He had taken her word. He had hoped.

Snickering at his own folly, he picked up his bag and left for class.

—-

Tala was more than a match for one asshole, an equal opponent for two, but three was a crowd and seven seniors together were no less than trouble.

He wiped the blood off the corner of his mouth, prodding his teeth with his tongue for loose ones. Finding none, he stared straight ahead at the leering idiots. His back against the wall, and his petite frame well overshadowed by the years older giants. Apparently, one of the guys who had tried to trip him, and received a well-aimed punch for his efforts, had an elder brother studying in high school, who he had ratted Tala out to. The caring brother, in turn, had walked all across the campus to the middle school building and brought six other guys with him to avenge his brother's honor.

"Bullshit!", Tala had said, and that was that.

He cursed himself for taking the bait, for letting them lead him to a deserted hallway, for not backing down when he knew he couldn't deal with them, for letting himself be played for a fool.

Now his nose and mouth were bleeding and his ankle had been twisted so he could no longer run. He braced himself as he continued to glower at them. He had put up a fight, he hadn't gone down like a coward.

Glaring into the eyes of the ring leader, he stood completely still, waiting for their move and inwardly, completely terrified. That was when he heard the absolutely random shout from the opposite end of the hallway, where it bifurcated into two others.

"Hola look at that maroon pigeon dancing naked on Mother Teresa's baby blankets!"

Each of the seven guys turned to look for the speaker of that frankly insane statement and even Tala craned his neck only to see the giants in front of him be blasted in the face with… fire-extinguishing foam?

Before he could move a muscle he felt arms shield him from the onslaught. Looking up, he found such intense red eyes that they almost made his heart stop before they ran over him once and the figure stepped back. Crouching down in front of him, Kai said, "Quick, Ivanov!"

Collecting his scattered wits about him he hopped on to Kai's back, latching on to his neck and painfully wrapping his legs around the slim, uniform-clad waist. The moment Tala was secure, Kai took off, breaking through the foam attack and racing right down the hall.

Looking back, he saw a familiar boy with a delicately done French five-strand braid of raven hair sweating under the weight of the fire extinguishing cylinder, he kept swinging around like a possessed maniac. The redhead didn't even realize when he called out to him in a blind panic. "Ray, hurry up!"

Just as Kai was about to round the corner, Ray 'dropped' the cylinder on the foot of one of the bullies and turned. Within seconds though he was beside Kai, sprinting faster than Tala had ever seen anyone run. Still pretty dazed he looked ahead to see Bryan holding open the huge mahogany gates that led into the strictly forbidden basement storage of the wing. Quickly realizing that weird-ass sentence was a product of the glowering boy's imagination, Tala gave out a breath of disbelief. He couldn't wrap his head around any of this.

Ray shot through the doors like a bolt of lightning, followed by Kai and Tala, then Bryan before he let them fall shut behind him. To Tala's surprise they didn't stop, and climbing down the staircase proceeded to streak across the dirty, littered and cluttered mess of what appeared to be a hall that they found themselves in. Seemingly not bothered by the dark at all, his roommates soon found themselves at the opposite end of the basement and up another staircase. This time Ray held the doors open for them as they emerged into a more familiar hallway close to the dormitories.

Registering the sense of safety before anything else, Tala sighed softly as he unconsciously buried his nose into the cream skinned neck in front of him. It smelled good and felt nice and he closed his eyes, too.

Before a loud thud right behind him jolted him out of his reverie and he looked up to find they had reached their dorm room and Bryan had slammed the door shut before bolting it closed, something that existed as an emergency measure. They were never supposed to lock their doors.

The four boys stood panting in a sort of a circle, or three stood and one remained attached to the back of the third, and stared at each other before Tala, who was still transfixed by the bolted door, blurted out, "That is against the rules."

For two seconds nobody said anything before Ray and Bryan burst out laughing and Kai gave him a snickering side glance. Tala couldn't help the sheepish, thankful, amazed and mostly dazed smile blossoming on his face. The slate-haired boy carried the redhead to his bed and set his down awkwardly, taking care not to mess his ankle.

immediately, he felt someone grab the back of his neck and turn his face around. Meeting worried yellow eyes, Tala remained still and let Ray inspect the damage done.

"We need to report this.", Kai said but Tala didn't turn to him because it had finally dawned upon him that he had been nuzzling the Russian's neck just five minutes ago.

"No.", he calmly replied instead.

"Shut the fuck up Tal, really.", Bryan muttered.

"Listen to him. All your opinions will be rejected as bullshit from now on." Was Ray's input. "And you're walking to and from class with us starting tomorrow. We will have our meals together and generally hang out as a group."

Tala was surprised to feel no irritation at all, but he didn't let that show. "I don't need bodyguards! You aren't my bodyguards!", he snapped with little venom and too much energy, so that it came out as a scream, rather than a warning.

He felt a hand fist his locks and roughly turn his head around. Having those garnet eyes staring into his again from such close proximity did funny things to his stomach cause he couldn't close his mouth, and he couldn't protest either when in his toughest voice Kai declared,

"No, we are your friends."