I'm really not too sure about this chapter, it just seems a bit...repetitive. The next one should be better though, I have it planned! (In my head.) Well, as I have learnt over the months I have been on this site, I am the worst judge of my writing, so I'll leave that up to you guys!

A massive, huge, GIANT SIZED thank you to Lamanth, wolf's lament, Nedunque, hikari0205, El Conejo Morado and Jedi Lord -Author- for reviewing! (Yay! New reviewers!)I'm pleased (and surprised) that this fic is going down so well with everybody! I never expected it! All right, I'll stop babbling on now.

Enjoy!

Can't be bothered with an intro. Straight in.

It was...ooh, about three months after that little incident I mentioned earlier. I was still going round his flat quite regularly, about two or three times a week and trying to persuade him that a wheelchair was a useful, good idea and not some devil's contraption invented purely to make him feel inferior. So far; no luck. Never mind that he had passed out from the pain twice, he hadn't so much as touched it. You see, the doctors were wrong. (Ooh, I love saying that!) They had said limited mobility and that was correct, but they hadn't said that if he didn't use the wheelchair, the mobility would get even less.

Every day that he continued to hobble around stubbornly, his acetabelum (socket in the ball-and-socket joint) was...to be blunt, disintegrating. In only four months, walking had morphed from mildly painful if prolonged to an agonising test of willpower.

But of course, this is Kai I'm talking about When it came to willpower, there was no one on this earth better than him at gritting his teeth and pretending he was fine.

My life didn't revolve around the injured blader though, and I had found myself a boyfriend. Dean, his name was. He was a nice enough guy, brown eyes, curly brown hair, good sense of humour...not a bad catch overall. Or so I thought at the time.

So, we were going out to get lunch one day, down in the town centre. We went to a little local shop called Barrett's, a shop that stocked everything from music to books to soft toys to stationery, and had a café to top it all off. Dean put an arm round my waist.

"What do you want, Sali?" he asked, nuzzling my neck affectionately. I mentally winced. I hated being called Sali. Sally. It was a horrible name in my opinion. If people had to shorten my name, why not just Sal? Sally (however you spelt it) sounded so...common.

I hugged him back and we ordered our food. I had a tuna sandwich and a bottle of water, and Dean had a burger, a chocolate chip cookie and a bottle of orange Fanta. Contrasting meals, huh? We went into the main part of the tiny café and looked around for a table. Finding one, we sat down and began eating.

Two minutes later, I had finished and was waiting patiently for Dean. I leaned my head on one hand and gazed absentmindedly around the small room, glancing at a few other couples, one family of three generations, the usual mix of people.

"Salima." I jumped a mile at the sound of Kai's voice and looked around for his whereabouts. He was walking towards me, a strange look in his eyes. As he reached our table, he gave me a quick smile and stared at Dean calculatingly. "Hello, Dean," he said calmly. "It's been a while." Dean's eyes flew wide and he suddenly looked like nothing more than a trapped animal.

"Yeah…" he said warily. I looked at them, nonplussed.

"You two know each other?" I asked at last. Kai smiled in a way that I could only describe as flirtatiously, but that didn't do the air surrounding him any justice. It's quite funny really; one of the few times that I ever found him truly sexy (contrary to what I wrote a while back, there was a very few times,) was when he was directing just that quality at another man. He shifted position until he was as close as he could get to Dean without actually touching him. Their faces must have been millimetres apart. "You wanna tell her, kiddo, or shall I?" Kai whispered. Dean swallowed. His face was white, almost as white as Kai's. "No? Fine, I'll do it." He moved back. The sudden distance seemed to snap Dean out of his daze and he stood up and punched Kai round the face, fury and fear written all over his face.

I slapped both hands over my mouth to stifle a scream, my eyes so wide that they felt as though they really were about to drop out of my head. Kai had been knocked to the ground, and was having predictable difficulties to getting himself upright again, not helped by the tremendous blow that Dean had just dealt him. Speaking of Dean, my boyfriend was staring at Kai, a mixture of triumph and disgust on his face. Suddenly, a member of staff popped up and demanded to know what was going on. I opened my mouth to tell her, but was interrupted by Dean shoving past me and racing for the stairs. The whole café, staff and customers alike was watching us now.

"Are you all right?" the female staff member who had run over asked me anxiously. I nodded distractedly and crouched down, grabbing hold of Kai's arm and helping him pull himself upright.

There was a large reddish-purple blotch on his right cheek where a bruise was already forming, horribly visible against his pale skin. He was breathing shallowly, his face a cruel mask of rage and humiliation. Yanking his arm out of my grip and nearly causing himself to fall down again, he limped over to his table in the far corner of the room and grabbed his crutch. With the uncomfortable, almost hopping action that the one crutch gave him, he moved slowly for the stairs, his eyes dark. I hurried after him, catching him on the third step down.

"Kai, are you okay?" I asked, already knowing both the real answer and his answer.

"Fine."

"You're not! You were just practically knocked out!" He shot me a look that could have tamed a crocodile.

"Whatever," he muttered.

"At least let me walk with you?" He shrugged stiffly.

"Like I need you." he mumbled. My temper flared up.

"If you used the wheelchair, Kai, you wouldn't need me!" I snapped. He shrugged again. "Anyway, what just happened? That was just bizarre!" A ghost of a smirk flickered across Kai tight, angry face.

"Dean's a bastard," he said, very matter-of-factly. I stared at him. "He's too afraid to admit that he's gay, so he tries to go out with girls. When it comes to actual sex, he wimps out, ends the relationship and leaves the poor girl in tears."

"How do you know that?" I asked curiously. Kai smirked nastily.

"If the wine and the sex is good enough, men tell me anything." he explained casually. A shadow crossed his face. "Or they did." His voice was barely audible, but I heard it and my irritation at the way he was behaving melted away.

We were out of the shop by now, and I chanced a dangerous question.

"Do you want to sit down?" He glared at me for a few seconds and swung away, wordlessly heading for the bench a little way down the street. Shaking my head, I followed him quickly.

The way he walked with his crutch was peculiar, even if I do say so myself, and I found it unsurprising (if rude) that he was drawing stares. He would take a step with his good leg, put the crutch level with that leg and heave his bad leg forwards. Then the process would start all over again. It was a strange, lurching gait, there was no denying it, made worse by the fact that every time he moved his right leg a slight shudder of pain rippled down his body.

"Hey, Hop-along!" We both looked around. There was a little gang of three or four boys aged about thirteen on the other side of the road, pointing and jeering. Kai stared at them for a few seconds and turned away, heading for the bench. I glared at them furiously and turned decisively on my heel. Jeers rang out behind me.

"I wouldn't go out with a guy with a limp." a girl muttered to her friend as she passed Kai and I.

"Limp what?" the other girl whispered back. The two girls dissolved into fits of giggles. Even I felt my lips twitching slightly until I remembered our conversation just minutes ago. It's not funny! I thought, biting my lip furiously.

"Feel free to laugh." Kai said casually as I approached the bench where he was seated. "That was one of the better jokes about this that I've heard." We both laughed half-heartedly and I sat down next to him.

"Let me ring a taxi," I said quietly. He shook his head. "Kai, you're going to collapse if you try and walk back home." He shrugged.

"Whatever."

I often wonder just how long he was walking around town before he went into Barrett's and found me, because he was in absolute agony by then. He never told me. Once we were both out the taxi, neither of us ever mentioned what had happened again.

Except to repeat what those girls said whenever either of us got too down.

Well? What did you think? Hey, I've just noticed, I made Kai say "Whatever" twice. Is that bad?

I am talking far too much today, sorry! Please review!