It's here at last! A massive thank you to Chibi Fye, rikku001, Katsutoshi96, Platinum Rei, a-devoted-life, Evan AtumnBlue, Kai's kitty, spookpook1, kris the ninja pirate, Kaei Kon, chibirei1227, not the usual baka, Nienna Angel, Apple Senorita, hieinkurama, zekesbabe, Mrs. Foxx, WhisperingNights, Dark Phoenix for reviewing!!

I know this update is unbelievably, disgustingly late, please forgive me and pay homage to the girl who has nagged me constantly into attempting another chapter of a fic that I thought was dead; massive glomps go to zekesbabe for her (eventually) greatly appreciated efforts.

Please enjoy this chapter.


Ray opened the door and struggled to keep his eyes from widening in shock.

"Mum?" he said, a question in his voice. Go away! he screamed mentally. An older, wearier version of his own eyes looked past him and his mother swept past, ignoring him until she was inside with her shoes off and coat hung neatly over the wicker chair that stood in the hallway. "What are you doing here?" Ray asked, trying to keep his tone marginally polite. "I have coursework to do, you know."

"I won't stay long, Ray. I just thought I'd come round and check on you. Is a mother not allowed to worry about her child for once?"

"You only worry about me when it suits you." Ray muttered under his breath.

"What did you say, Ray?"

"Nothing. Could you hurry up? I'm busy."

He didn't mean to be so rude to her, he never did, but her patronising reaction to his sexuality and current situation was harder to stand than his father's complete disgust. At least his father didn't come over and interfere every few weeks. Grinding his teeth, he followed his mother into the kitchen.

"Ah, hello Kai!" Ray let loose a mental barrage of obscenities. There was a pause.

"Mrs Kon." Kai's tone was so curt that even Ray winced.

"Why must you always be so impolite to me?" Mrs Kon lamented. "I came over, concerned for you boys' well-being, and this is what I get!" She threw her hands up in the air. "My own son looks at me as though I'm the Grim Reaper, and his boyfriend treats me like I'm something he scraped off the bottom of his-"

"Yes mum, sorry mum," Ray gabbled quickly. Peering past his mother's considerable bulk, he could see Kai doing the washing-up, his eyes narrow with irritation. "You caught us at a bad time, that's all."

"Why? Were you and Kai doing something that I'm not allowed to see?" Her thin, short eyelashes batted in what she clearly imagined was a coy manner. Ray went hot all over with embarrassment, and, although he would never admit it to anyone; longing for exactly the kind of activities that were no doubt going through his mother's mind.

"No!" he hissed.

"I've been doing this for the past half an hour. As far as I'm aware, washing up has never been something that you're not allowed to see," Kai said tartly.

"No, of course not, forgive me. I'm glad to see you two aren't hopeless in domestic matters!"

Ray wanted to die. He wanted to curl up in a ball and die. Or failing that, grab this … this person who called herself his mother and physically throw her out of the house. She was enjoying tormenting him, he could tell. There was a hint of laughter in her voice as she spoke that he knew Kai could hear as well. As he watched, the older teen's knuckles whitened briefly.

"Did you have a reason for invading our privacy?" Kai demanded.

"As a matter of fact, yes, I do. I wanted to check with the two of you how you are doing for money. Remind me what means you have of bringing in a satisfactory income?" This question was directed specifically at Kai, as the sudden hardening of her voice showed.

"Mum, is this really necessary-"

"As I've told you plenty of times, Mrs Kon, my late grandmother's money is more than enough to keep us. And if it was ever necessary, I'm sure that Mr Dickenson wouldn't mind lending us some cash to tide us over for a while."

"You should get a job, though. Even if it was just to supplement this little inheritance. What happens if Ray wants to go to university, hm? You'll need to have a lot of extra cash all of a sudden." Colour slowly spread across Kai's face.

"You know full that I don't work." he growled eventually.

"And I don't want to go to uni, and that's years away, anyway." Ray said hurriedly.

"You should always plan ahead for these things, angel." Her tone softened.

"Don't call me angel!" Ray protested, his face a deep scarlet.

"After all, what happens if this inheritance runs out before you've finished your studies? What will you do then; living with a boy who's mentally unsuitable for standard employment?" Her eyes flashed scorn.

Ray's temper snapped. No one insulted Kai in front of him and got away unscathed, not even his mother.

"Mum, I want you to leave. Right now." She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Don't you think that you're over-reacting somewhat? I was just stating a -"

"He wanted you to leave," Kai repeated tonelessly. Putting down the dishcloth, he wiped his hands on his black jeans and walked slowly over to the middle-aged woman until they were only a few inches apart. "I suggest you do as he said."

As he watched his mother hurry down the path, Ray felt a momentary twinge of jealousy that people listened so much more to Kai than they did to him. Of course they did, he rationalised. Who would you listen to, a tall, muscled, dangerous-looking seventeen year-old, or a sixteen year-old long-haired neko-jin?

God, his mother… He covered his face with both hands and groaned softly. He knew that it was wrong to hate your own kin, but somehow, knowing that really didn't help.

A cool hand brushed lightly against his cheek.

"You're hot," Kai commented flatly. "Shaking, too."

"Two hundred points for observation." Ray mumbled, choosing to keep his hands over his face. "She's just so awful. I'm so sorry you had to put up with her."

"As you should be." Temper flared again in Ray, and he jerked his head up.

"Well, sor-ry!"

"Why didn't you tell me she was coming?" Kai demanded.

"I didn't know!" Ray shot back, his voice rising.

"Well next time, keep her away from me, all right?" Kai's voice rose to match his. "I've got a headache, there's a temporary problem with Grandmother's money, and the last thing I need right now is your cow of a mother telling me I'm mentally incapable of looking after her precious son!" Silence echoed the words back at him.

"I look after you more than you look after me!" Ray snarled back at last, his eyes glittering with fury.

"Don't you start!" Kai yelled at the top of his voice. Ray bolted forward and grabbed hold of Kai as he turned, wanting to hurt him, needing to let out the monster that raged inside him. He tightened his grip on Kai's wrists, digging his fingers in mercilessly. Kai cried out and pulled away so violently that they both overbalanced. With a final, enraged glare at Ray, Kai stalked to their room and slammed the door viciously.

Ray watched with a kind of wild recklessness.

"You deserved everything you got!" he shouted suddenly, before slamming both hands over his mouth, reality washing over him in an icy wave. "Shit. Kai, I'm so, so sorry, that wasn't meant to come out-"

"Oh, so you were thinking it?" was the venomous reply. "Stay the fuck away from me!"

"Kai, I'm sorry-"

"Go away!" Kai yelled. The dying sparks of Ray's vicious temper flared back up again.

"Fine! See how you cope!" he screamed. Trembling all over, he turned and walked out of the door, slamming it behind him.

----------

Ray looked a little to the side of Tyson's head, unable to met his friend's innocently curious gaze.

"Mind if I come over for a bit?" he asked at last.

"Sure." A puzzled expression on his face, Tyson moved aside.

Not feeling his feet touch the floor, Ray walked through the door. He clung to the last, fading shreds of his anger desperately, unwilling to come to terms with what had just happened. Vaguely, he heard Tyson speaking to him, but nothing sank in until Tyson took hold of his arm.

"Ray, pal? You wanna sit down?" Not waiting for a reply, Tyson pulled him along and pushed him gently down onto what felt like a comfortable sofa.

"What's up with Ray?" he heard Max ask softly.

"Dunno. He just turned up like this. Ray, you okay?" Drawing in a shaky breath, Ray managed a weak, forced smile.

"Been better, Ty." His voice caught in his throat and he swallowed.

"What's up? Something happen with Kai?" At the mention of his boyfriend's name, Ray nearly crumpled there and then. Putting his face firmly in his hands, he shook his head from side to side and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, watching the colours flash.

"I don't want to talk about it," he muttered at last. Despite Max's whispered pleading to leave it, Tyson's concern for his friend overrode his common sense.

"Was it Kai? Did he hurt you?" Ray shook his head again, so violently this time that his neck clicked painfully. Kai would never hurt mehe explained mentally, too cowardly to say it out loud. I hurt him, he thought miserably. I took everything that I knew, all his weaknesses, and threw them at him, all because he was stressed-out and probably tired, and dared to raise his voice to me.

"I'm a fucking idiot." he muttered out loud. He could practically hear both boys' surprise; he didn't swear. Not normally.

"Do you want us to go away?" Max asked at last. Ray shrugged.

"Yeah." he said at last. He couldn't handle questions right now; he needed time to give himself a thorough mental beating. Slowly, reluctantly, the younger boys stood and walked away, left him sitting there, staring numbly at the floor.

----------

Ray swung backwards and forwards, head tipped back, eyes shut. His coat flapped in the wind created by the movement of the swing, and he quickly refastened it around his thin frame and telling school jumper - not that a coat would help if his dad saw him skipping school.

He hated school; there were no two ways around it. There wasn't even one way around it, it just sat there and threw big words at him like "dyslexia", "attitude problems", "disciplinary action". Some teachers scared him, some were scared of him because his dad was a governor of the school and notoriously bad-tempered.

So, he skipped school, faked notes and lied through his teeth to persuade everyone that nothing was wrong. But then; what was wrong?

He didn't know. There was just this big bundle of feelings inside him that couldn't find an outlet, swirling around and making him sulky and bad-tempered. More than anything else in the world, he just wanted everything to go back to how it had been when he was little.

It seemed that everyone else he met here felt the same; why else would they frequent a play area, kidding themselves that cultivating a silent, moody exterior, spreading cigarette ash on the soft ground and scribbling graffiti on the slides would somehow show their maturity and angst to the world? All it did, Ray thought, was show that same world a group of children who couldn't handle change.

The swing next to him creaked loudly as someone sat on it and started swinging very slowly, little more than the distance gained by dragging both feet backwards and forwards. Ray opened his eyes and looked at his fellow truant as he swung past; a quick, fleeting, careless look that took in two-shaded hair, dark eyes and pale skin without registering.

"Ray?" Hearing his name, Ray slammed both feet on the ground to bring the swing to an abrupt stop and swung his tight braid over his shoulder as he turned in response.

"Yeah?" His eyes widened. "Kai?" The boy nodded and abruptly put all his strength into swinging. Within seconds of Ray's shocked question, Kai was soaring almost level with the bar, his body bending horizontally to push himself even higher. Positions reserved, Ray sat, stirring the dust with his foot and making the swing move slightly from side to side. His foot slid unexpectedly and the swing was jerked violently sideways, only just moving in time to avoid Kai as he zoomed backwards. Both boys gasped softly, adrenalin flashing through their veins, but the troublemaker in Ray, the part that had made him taste his first cigarette just yesterday and truant every day that week and several preceding it, sat up and shouted with delight.

He started to swing from side to side, timing it perfectly each time through a combination of sheer luck and a good eye for angles. He grinned at Kai, who turned his head, hair in complete disarray, and grinned back.

They swung companionably for what felt like a long time, risking being thrown off with every swing, every possible, thudding connection. Gradually, the swings slowed; the stamina of the two newly teenage boys unaccustomed to exercising unfamiliar muscles for hours on end.

"Wish we'd talked more last time." Ray said at last, looking at the black, spongy floor rather than Kai. "You know. When we were talking on the phone and your grandfather came along and-"

"Yeah, yeah, I remember. Shut up already." Kai was twitching uneasily, his eyes beginning the paranoid circuit of his surroundings that Ray still remembered clearly from their first face-to-face meeting. The urge to ask Kai why he was so nervous all the time swelled in Ray's throat like a physical lump, but he swallowed it down and said nothing, hoping that the atmosphere would return to the silent yet friendly, understanding one from before he had so stupidly opened his mouth.

----------

Ray rolled his eyes and sank his head even further into his hands, tugging at the hair that had somehow come loose from his bandana and now lay in sweaty strings that were pressed tightly between his face and palms. It was funny, in that nostalgic kind of way that all childhood incidents seemed funny years afterwards; the way that he had accepted that Kai was different without a fuss. That kind of easy acceptance was supposed to stop once a child hit puberty, not to reappear when said child, or teen, was going through a "phase" of being disobedient, wasn't it? That acceptance, along with gaining Kai's initial, tentative friendship, had been so easy. It had given him false impressions, really.

Not everything was that easy, where Kai was concerned. Most things were, to be frank, hard. This was by no means their first argument.

So why, then, did it feel like their worst?


Well, there we go, people!! Please, please review, I need all the support I can get for this fic! Bye for now! hopefully I'll be back a little sooner than before ...

xIlbx