Chapter 8

Thankfully that argument never came which saved Kai a lot of yelling to do. Apparently Tori had texted Ray, telling him that Kai was with her and not to worry and especially not to give Kai a hard time when he got back. The last thing he really wanted was to argue with the team and so he was actually grateful of what Tori had done.

---Next Morning---

As she sometimes did, Tori arrived at the Dojo early when no one except Kai was awake. Though this time, the fact that he was awake already surprised her. "Hey, what are you doing up already?" she asked. She really couldn't help but ask, they had been out till about midnight and by then it had already looked like he was getting tired. The idea that he was already awake and downstairs waiting came to her as a bit of a surprise.

"I'm always awake at this time." Kai replied, keeping his eyes closed as always.

"Yeah, but you were up late." Tori pointed out, sitting next to him on the porch.

"It doesn't change anything."

"Clearly." Tori whispered, so quiet that it was as if it were just to herself. She sat forward, resting her head in her hands as she stared at the ground with a rather depressing look on her young features.

"Don't sulk." Kai's voice cut in.

"Huh?" Tori looked up confusedly, "Oh…well I'm not sulking…" she spoke quietly.

"Yeah you are."

"Yeah I know I am, sorry."

"Don't be. Maybe it contagious and the others will stop being so hyper all the time." Kai said, a small smirk creeping onto his face.

Tori laughed at that and answered, "No such luck there. I don't stay depressed for very long either and besides, I think it'll take much more than me to get them to stop being so hyper."

"You got that right." Kai muttered.

"You're in a good mood." Tori pointed out to him.

"You're so observant." Kai told her.

"Yeah I know I am. Why can't you be in this kind of good mood when you're around the others?" Tori asked, moving closer to him, looking up at him as she urged him to answer.

"I don't see how that is any of your business." Kai told her rather coldly.

"Oh come on, just tell me already." Tori said, nudging him in the rib quite hard, "I don't think it'd kill you."

"It won't but if you hit me like that again I think you just might." Kai said in a scolding tone, running his hand against where she hit his rib cage.

"So tell me." Tori said.

"What's there to tell?"

"They can't be bad enough that they put you in a bad mood."

"No?" Kai asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Be reasonable." Tori told him.

"Well I am being reasonable but true they don't annoy me that much but how I act around people is really something I'm not in the mood to discuss."

"So what are you in the mood to discuss then?" Tori asked.

"Let's discuss your silence." Kai told her, looking at her with an honest smile.

"Oh ha-ha." Tori laughed sarcastically, "You can be really unfair sometimes, you know that right?"

"What do you think?" Kai asked her.

"I'm going to take that as a yes." Tori said nodding. After about a minute she stood up with a start, and if Kai weren't so strong even emotionally she may have just scared him at her speed and height advantage she had on him. She took his hands and pulled him up, "Come on."

"What?" Kai asked her, standing up but pulling his hands out of hers.

"The others clearly aren't going to be waking up for about another hour so let's go out." Tori took his hands again and pulled him in the direction of the exit.

Kai sighed heavily, walking behind her instead of her having to drag him, "There really is no point in arguing is there?"

Tori pouted, looking at Kai as she let go of his hands slowly, "I really don't want to force you, it's just that you have no fun and this would be good for you."

Kai smirked, walking straight past her and out the exit, "What an actress." He muttered.

Tori ran after him, "Hey no fair, I wasn't being an actress or anything. I was just saying the truth." She said, that same disappointed look and pout taking over her features again.

"Yeah. I'll bet."

Tori chased after him down the street, trying to catch up with him half the time as she didn't know where they were even going. Instead she just kept walking after him and let him lead the way for a while.

---A Little Later---

Tori was at the counter at an ice-cream stand, ready to order ice cream for the both of them. She got them both chocolate since apparently it was one of the rare things they could agree on and turned to go give it to Kai but strangely, found that she couldn't see him anywhere. She set the ice-creams onto the table, pulling out her phone she tried to text Kai, 'Where are you?'

---With Kai---

Without a glance back or even a word he walked out onto the bright street and down into an ally, feeling a little bad about ditching Tori but knowing that if he broke down around her then he would never forgive himself for it. He wouldn't allow himself to.

Once in the ally, far away and in the opposite direction from where he had left Tori he sat down with his back against the wall and quickly drew his knees up against his chest. The morning air was warm but a still gentle wind still brushed over his skin and the sky was clear and sunny, but heedless of all this he still started to shiver and shake. He closed his pained crimson eyes and put his head, which now felt too heavy for him, down into the nook between his legs and chest.

Trying hard he tried to make his body stop shaking and relax but the ringing and vibration from his phone startled him. He pulled out his phone and read the text he got from Tori, clearly she was worried already. Somehow he just knew that she was worried, as if she were there instead of that message, as if he could hear her voice wondering where he was and if he was ok.

Despite all his senses told him, he just deleted the text and decided not to answer her back. Tiredly he rested there for a few minutes, for a long time trying hard not to let himself fall asleep there in the ally. Thankfully he was wrong when he thought he was going to break down again. A shaking hand traced over onto his shoulder, feeling the tense muscles beneath it as he exhaustedly tried to push himself off the ground. For a minute he leaned against the wall, only till he felt he had enough energy to start walking back from the way he came.

Catching sight of Tori, sitting by herself at a table, finishing off her ice-cream, he walked over to her and sat down at the table with her. "Hey, where were you?" she asked, hurriedly sitting forward in her seat.

"Oh…bathroom, wasn't feeling too well." Kai replied, it being the quickest answer he could come up with.

"Oh well are you ok now?" Tori asked, relaxing as she sat back again.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Kai nodded.

"Have I ever told you that you worry me?"

"Yeah, I think you've mentioned that a couple of times."

"Yeah, I was almost sure I did." Tori sighed.

"I'm fine, I promise." Kai persisted, almost angry that she didn't believe him.

"Sometimes you make me wonder whether I should believe you or not."

"Let's not get into that subject."

"It's safest for me to stay out of an argument with you, isn't it?"

"Let's start heading back." Kai told her, getting up and starting to walk away, trying to ignore the subject she was trying to bring up.

Tori sighed, standing up she waited behind for a minute, just standing there as she watched him walk away. Where had that nice guy gone? There where times he made her so happy and he'd be so close to talking to her honestly about what was going on with him but then he just shut himself up again and that nice guy she had come to know with time disappeared as though he were never there in the first place. Well, nice wasn't exactly the correct word to use but what else could she say? But at least now they had descent conversations with each other without them yelling at each other all the time, which was definitely a plus since from the very first day they met there was already friction between the two of them.

She ran up to him and hooked her arm onto his as she smiled up at him. He looked down at her confusedly; a little frustration on his face but that sort of disappeared when he saw her smiling sweetly up at him. For some reason he didn't bother pushing her off, more over he just didn't have enough energy to push her off and besides, he knew she'd let go once they were nearer to the Dojo and that wasn't too far away.

Having her by him wasn't so bad. True he felt it as strange and rather awkward but in the end of it he didn't mind all too much. It just got annoying that if he suddenly shivered she would usually feel it and looked up at him with her dark eyes filled with worry as they almost always looked at him. He either passed it off and kept walking or else gave her a reassuring look or in the least a light smirk that made her smile.

Once they arrived at Tyson's place, Kai was right and she did let go, running inside the Dojo to see if the others had woken up yet. Ray was already in the kitchen making breakfast while Max was sitting at table already digging into the food that was ready and spread out onto the table. "Hey, where have you two been?" Max asked, while putting more food on his plate.

"We went for a walk and some ice-cream." Tori replied happily.

"Oh lucky! Why didn't you wait for us?"

"Because it was just a treat for us and you all have training soon." Tori said with a grin towards the youngest blader. "Now don't complain." She added when Max opened his mouth to speak again. Tori left the kitchen, to look for Kai again. She found him on the porch leaning against the door with his arms crossed as usual, she placed a hand on his forearm, looking into his crimson eyes which had just snapped open at her. "Go and get something to eat." She told him.

"Nah, not hungry."

The auburn-haired girl sighed, looking down at the ground, "You need to go eat."

"I'm fine."

"Maybe for now but I still want you to go eat." Tori continued persisting, pulling on his arm more and starting to pull him inside.

Anger built inside Kai quickly and he tried hard to pull out of Tori's hold but in the process he slammed his wrist right into the door. Tori turned and looked at him worriedly, looking down at his hand that was balled into a fist by his side. She took the hand and noted how his knuckles had gone pure white from the pressure he was putting on it. Kai pulled his hand out of hers, dropping it by his side as he gently opened his fist before the bruising got any worse.

"Come on." Tori said, letting him walk past her to the kitchen.

Kai sat down at table, slowly putting some food onto a plate and sat there trying to eat. In the mean time Tori rested against the door frame, waiting for Tyson but more interested in making sure that Kai ate something. He hardly did, instead he just kept playing with his food, his head resting on one hand as his fork moved food from one side of the plate to the other. She stood there worriedly, looking on as though she wanted to do something.

"Tori. Tori?" A voice cut through her thoughts. She opened her eyes and looked directly at Ray who was in front of her trying to get her attention.

"Yeah?"

"Aren't you having breakfast?" Max asked from the table.

"Ah no I had at home." Tori replied.

"Oh well can you please go try wake Tyson, he clearly isn't going to wake up by himself." Ray said, finally settling down at table to eat.

"He hasn't woken up by himself for the past four years, he obviously isn't going to wake up by himself now." Kai said, his eyes still cast on his plate, his fork still moving his food.

Tori smiled at the bit of humour in Kai's voice. She turned and ran up the stairs to go wake Tyson up for training, stepping into a room she saw it wasn't Tyson's as the room was neat. She took it as the room being Ray's. Checking another room the bed was messily undone and a surprisingly big bag of chocolate was sticking out of the nightstand so needless to say that that was Max's room. 'Well that explains a lot.' She thought with a laugh, referring to the bag of chocolate. She skipped past Kai's room, already knowing it was his and she just went into the next room, she raised an eyebrow at the sight of Tyson sprawled across his bed.

She grabbed the blankets from underneath Tyson and pulled them, tossing him right off the bed and onto the carpeted floor. She blinked confusedly, you'd think someone being tossed right out of their bed would wake them up but it clearly didn't. She picked up a bottle of cold water from the nightstand and sat on the bed, thinking for only a second before turning the bottle over onto Tyson's sleeping form.

Tyson shot up in bed, almost yelling as the freezing cold water seeped into his clothing and chills ran down his spine. "Good to see you're awake, sunshine." Tori greeted, an amused smile on her face.

"That was cold, Tori." Tyson said, frustrated.

"Yeah, what luck that the water seemed to have just got out of a freezer." Tori said, casually looking down at the emptied bottle in her hand. She stood up, walking to the door she threw the empty bottle over her shoulder, hitting Tyson right on the head. "Be downstairs for breakfast soon." She ordered.

She left the male blader there to curse angrily at the ways she chose to wake him up. She ran back down the stairs and was about to pass by the kitchen when she stopped in the doorway, Ray and Max looked at her, beckoning her to tell them what she was looking on so confused about. Ray caught on quickly and shook his head in a reply, gesturing over his shoulder where Kai's plate sat on the counter, he had barely touched a thing and very little had been eaten at all.

She sighed and turned to walk outside, she saw Kai blading by himself, more than anything he was perfecting his launches and as he didn't notice that anyone was watching, he let just a little bit of pain from his wrist show though he pretended so much that it didn't hurt and even if it did that he didn't care. Tori placed a strand of her hair behind her ear as she walked over to him and picked up his blade and put it in her jacket pocket.

Kai moved his hand up to take his blade back out of her pocket while Tori took the chance to take his hand in time. She kept it gently laying on her hand, his palm face up as she pulled a white neat cloth from her other pocket, the corner had the letter 'T' in pale pink and Tori used it wrap around Kai's wrist. As she worked on tightening it around his wrist she kept her eyes on the task at hand, a pale pink tainting her cheeks. Tori looked up at Kai for a second before walking back to the front porch and settling down there, the others quickly joined her there for training.

Yet Tori suddenly decided to leave training in Kai's hands and just sat there and watched everything from there like she usually did. She had given Kai his blade back once she told him to run the training, though she trusted him with training she still was trying to be careful. She constantly kept an eye on Kai, not liking the fact that he hadn't eaten but she really couldn't do anything about it, and that's probably the part that frustrated her the most.

Kai ordered the others to run down to the beach for the rest of their training but Tori planned on stopping him before Kai had the chance to follow the others. She placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back and turned him round to look at her, she jerked her head towards the Dojo. "Go back and get something to eat, I'm going to go keep an eye on the others."

"I'm not hungry, what part of that don't you understand?" Kai asked her angrily, walking past her.

"Hungry or not I want you to go and get something to eat before you pass out…again!"

"I'll be fine." Kai kept walking on, not turning back to even look at her, he just continued making his way down to the beach.

"I'm dead serious Kai." Tori said, walking up in front of him. "I swear, I'll make it known to the others and I'll get a doctor to check on you in a second and I really don't want to do that to you but you leave me no choice."

Kai paused for a second, shuddering ever so slightly before he kept walking on. Tori leaned against the wall, silently cursing at herself for not being convincing enough. She shook her head and continued walking down the street, not even bothering to try to catch up with Kai.

---Later That Night At Home---

Tori lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling still being a little upset about Kai. Like most times, things would go great between them but then things would turn for the worst but why couldn't he just see that she just cared about him and she couldn't help it. She didn't care about him because she was hired to care, she cared because he was her new team mate and he was there suffering right in front of her and he couldn't just expect her to sit there and do nothing to help him.

Turning on her stomach she rested her head on her crossed arms, the killing silence of her apartment getting to her, tears slipping from her brown eyes and down her pale cheeks while the tears racked her slender frame.

Unknown to her Denzelle and Mr Dickinson stood just outside the door way of her bedroom. Denzelle had opened up for him when she heard him coming up the flight of stairs and both took a peek at Tori's form as all her worries and pain from the past few weeks finally revealed itself.

---With Kai---

The Russian blader sat on the edge of his bed, doing nothing as he thought back to Tori's earlier threat. True after that he did eat a little, he took some fruit but that's about all he could actually take at the time. Though he couldn't help but wonder, if she was actually serious with that threat, if she would actually do it if he didn't keep his eating up. Its not that he didn't want to go eat but he just couldn't take it, eating before he went to bed only made his sleeping worse for him and even then his sleeping patterns where messing up since he hadn't slept in a while.

He took off his black gloves, seeing the white and pink cloth was still wrapped tightly around his wrist for support. He pulled it off, sighing at the sight of the large bruise on his pale wrist which he hadn't seen so bad until now. His wrist was the least of his worries though, he had promised Dranzer that he'd try to get some sleep that night and like most things going on around him, he really wasn't up for it. He placed the soft linen on his bedside table and got up and changed for bed. He tried to put off resting for as long as he could, doing little things like looking out the window but Dranzer's annoying voice cut through his thoughts more than half the time so he switched off the light and got into bed, his eyes sometimes focusing on the cloth that still sat on his bedside table, the sight of it taking him back to Tori's threat.

A/N: So what did you think of this chapter? I quite liked how some of it turned out, there where parts I enjoyed writing, some other parts I really wasn't sure of but thought I'd leave in there. I'm sorry if there are any mistakes but my USB was being an arse again and it was deleting half my work practically every time. Please tell me how I did on this chapter as I really would like an opinion on this one, I hope it was any good and please tell me if there was something in particular that you enjoyed. Thanks for reading!