Disclaimer: I do not own Beyblade

Chapter 4: Beware of Dogs

"Did you think you could run forever? I've got you cornered now! Let's see you get out of this one!" Tyson laughs, sporting a smug look on his face and I cringe as he kicks the pants off his latest victim. Doesn't this ever get old?

I smile and cheer however, as the kids sustains his taunts, falters, and his blade comes to a halt on the ground a few feet away. Cheers erupt from the group of boys huddled around them and Tyson winks, laughing and going to help the poor kid up off the ground.

"Way to go Tyson!" I throw out my few words of praise and slink back out of the crowd, letting them take over. Kai is the only one with me here, since he had never bothered to even join in. He's been leaning against a tree a few feet away for the whole event. I half expected him to leave before that but he sends me a nod as he turns to do so now.

I sigh.

I had started operation "Get Kai Alone" but it was turning out to be even worse than my "Figure Out Your Feelings" plan that I had started this morning. In my attempt to do just that, I had begun by trying to hang around the enigma as much as possible. I had been trying to get a read on what triggered the feelings and how to control it. Which had just led me into some very awkward situations. Although it was my own fault for not having any common sense when he had wandered into the bathroom. I won't go into details but it was really complicated trying to convince him (and a few other random guys) that I wasn't there because breakfast had been poisoned and was making me go into anaphylactic shock.

It was the fifth day of camp and I was no closer to getting to the bottom of this than I was when I had made my resolution to do so. Ironic enough, I seemed to only being making it worse as well as distancing myself from him farther than I already had the past few months.

So I decided to take a different approach.

Which was…ignore him and act like I am having fun. At least that way the rest of the guys won't be concerned as well. Max had already been suspecting of something earlier and I didn't need to tip off Tyson too. Those two would never let me hear the end of it and would definitely ruin any chances of getting Kai alone.

"Okay kids! Break it up! What did I tell you boys about beyblading on the grounds?" a voice we've all come to recognize and (not) love tears down the huddle of boys around Tyson. Chris approaches him with a scowl that could put Kai down. Hmm, well maybe not THAT intense. Chris was still a nice guy, even if he was annoyed every now and then by Tyson's…exuberance. Kai can be a nice guy too, I think he has just had more training in being aloof and antisocial. It's a tough call.

"Don't do it inside?" Tyson plays stupid. Chris's scowls deepens. Okay, it's a REALLY tough call… I'm actually starting to get chills.

I fight the urge to shiver in the middle of the summer heat.

"No Tyson. Not during undesignated times, or in undesignated areas. This is volleyball time. Where's your ball?"

"Oh, uh…that…" Tyson rubs his head embarrassed and I try not to groan.

Our team sports had turned into another Tyson show off session when Chris had left us alone temporarily and I was beginning to hate Beyblade for being so popular. Wait, what am I saying? I could never hate Beyblade. Tyson maybe. Damn I hate Tyson for being annoying enough to make me think I hate Beyblade. I'm actually pretty good at volleyball too. It teaches coordination and power. I was looking forward to showing off my skills.

"How's Max?" Tyson changes the subject, hoping his concern is enough to make Chris drop his guard and the incident at hand.

Max was the reason we had been left unsupervised to begin with. He had tried to spike the ball and gotten a little too close to the net AND the ball. Poor Max. Not only did he get a bloody nose from smacking the ball with his face instead of his arm, he'd wrapped himself in the net so we couldn't get him out. While trying, he somehow managed to dislodge one of the poles, which smacked him in the head and knocked him unconscious.

Chris and the cabin supervisor of our opponent's (Kai and Max's) cabin had rushed him off to the nurse's cabin, leaving us here to pick up the pieces and fix the net. Tyson didn't waste any time mourning or helping before he immediately declared Beywar on everyone around. We had managed to salvage the net and set it back up but it wasn't nearly as stable as it had been, which wasn't very to start with.

"He'll be fine. The nurse said he should rest and Tyler (the other superviser) stayed with him. He'll be up and raging just like new in no time." I couldn't help but smile at the sarcasm in his voice that he was trying to hide. It hadn't taken long for him to realize how much trouble the crazy duo were.

Between Tyson and Max I think just about every councilor here was wishing they had gone to Florida for a vacation instead of volunteering here. One of them was probably enough to drive a person mad, but two of them? It was tiring just glancing at them.

Our little group consisted of 12 boys. The 6 from our cabin and the 6 from Max and Kai's cabin. I had been told their names but I couldn't remember any of them. The first 4 days we had been in competition with random people we didn't know but today it was Max and Kai's turn. Lucky them.

We hadn't seen much of them in the mornings otherwise, except for Max's daily wake up routine to get Tyson and me for breakfast. Yeah, that one hadn't made us many friends either at first but somehow Max always grows on you. The other boys in our cabin, and even Chris, had begun to enjoy it. They even made challenges with each other to see who could wake Tyson first. The things that people find interesting these days is mind baffling.

"Awe come on! You're no fun! Who wants to play stupid ol' volleyball anyway?" Tyson huffs and Chris regains control of the group, putting Tyson in a time out on the bench. He finds the ball and gets everyone reorganized.

I have to hand it to the guy, for not being much older than we are he sure knows how to keep authority.

"You don't have to worry about it because you're not. And don't let me see that beyblade again. One more outburst and it's mine until you go home," he warns Tyson with a stern look. Tyson quickly shuts up.

I take note of the presence at my side and look over as I realize that Kai has come back. It was strange to see him so cooperative but he had been a saint for most of the camp. Well, at least the parts that I saw him at.

He didn't disappear or fight with authority or say things were stupid or beneath him. He just floated along with the flow of things as if he belonged there. I wondered what that could mean since it was very uncharacteristic of him. Unless there was something in it for him. Maybe the camp leaders had made some kind of deal with him. Maybe I could ask him later.

"Hey good. I was waiting for him to come after you next," I smile at him. He 'Hn''s and crosses his arms. I send him a strange look. "Don't tell me you're gonna play with your arms crossed." I try to joke with him.

He disregards me completely and moves into his place in the row on the other side of the net, opposite me, as we all return to our positions, minus 2.

The joke is on me however as I am distracted by the sudden hurt feeling that washes over me from his snubbing. Well that's something I have never felt before… Do his remarks and attention really mean that much to me?

"Heads up!" His voice breaks through my thoughts before I have time to ponder this new development. My focus completely withdrawn for that moment, I barely dodge the ball as Kai casts it, full force, down on me over the net. "You awake in there, Ray?" a challenge, and not a nice one.

I have been here before. At our last match.

I look into those eyes and I am struck with something sharp in my heart.

I know it's just a game.

I know he's just doing what any good rival does, pushing, but something inside me wants to always believe that he belongs on my side and not opposing me.

"That's it!" The realization finally hits me and I know what it is that has been bothering me for so long. Unfortunately I don't have time to explore it as the ball once again is being brought down, full force, right at me.

This time I react in perfect timing and hit it back with my own full force.

Even more unfortunate, my full force is way too hard and the ball goes flying out of bounds and onto the other side of the grounds, the girl's side.

Now I know I have mentioned just how much is hurts to be a guy at this camp but I want you to realize the full meaning of this. As I had learned in the past few days (quickly, for sake of survival really) there was really only three girls that we had to worry about. They were like those "mean girls" from the movies. The ones that have to be worshipped by all peers and seem like nothing but perfect angels in front of authority.

Sarah (the girl who had the run-in with Tyson the first day) was their leader. And a good leader she was. If you so much as looked at her wrong she would mess you up (psychologically mostly since she refused to touch anything that even resembled a 'manly' part or anything attached to one). I'll give you three guesses as to why we had been picked as her group to torment.

Yeah.

Tyson.

Their meeting had not been forgotten or taken lightly. Whenever we were in free time and in the same vicinity really, she tried her best to make us as uncomfortable as possible. Ironically enough, nobody else seemed to notice her vendetta against. Either that or they pretended not to. They probably didn't want to get on her bad side themselves by being associated with us.

Kai managed to avoid the attention as he had a way with making himself invisible when he needed to be, but it hadn't taken her long to realize that Max and I were Tyson's friends. I had been lucky at avoiding her so far since becoming fully knowledgeable of her.

My luck might be continuing as I don't immediately see any of them in the general vicinity but because we (all the boys) had been educated in one way or another on just how terrible a run-in with these girls could be, everyone on my team is watching me expectantly.

"You hit it, you get it," Shawn says to give me a little push. I half smile, awkwardly. Thanks pal.

"Yeah…okay…" And I go off to find where it went. I pass the first group of girls and am relieved that none of them are Sarah or her posse.

I make it past the second group, so far so good.

There's the ball. Got it! See? My luck's not so bad!

I reach out to grab it and a foot stomps down on it, two seconds from crushing my hand if I had managed to actually grab the ball. I pull back in surprise.

"Looking for this?" Not Sarah, but one of her groupies. Nicole I think her name was.

I look around suspiciously.

She appears to be alone… That could be good. At least with just one I can defend myself somewhat. I hadn't had the pleasure of dealing with them first hand but Tyson's escapades involving them had all ended pretty badly. Let him tell you some of those stories. Or maybe if I have some time later I will. They are really quite…amusing.

"Um, yeah, sorry about that. I guess I hit it a little too hard…" I smile, hoping my award winning charm will crack her just a little. It hadn't worked on Sarah but groupies were always more likely to let their guard down, especially when their leader was not present. This groupie however seemed to be trained well as she picks up our ball and fixates on me with a hard stare, studying me closely as if looking for weaknesses.

"You almost hit my friend. You scared her to death." Her voice stays hard as if just her words could make me crack. Having dealt with similar experiences all my life, I wasn't that easy to break down.

"Tell her I'm sorry. I'll be more careful next time." I keep up the smile but add a little force of my own so that she knows I'm not a complete pushover. Her eyes narrow and I should have been more alert but she appeared to relax a bit seemingly letting me go as she starts tossing the ball back to me. Yet, I am so focused on her and what she might try to do to me that I miss the noise behind me as another ball is pegged right at me, even quicker (and meaner) than Kai's spikes had been.

Whoever thought a bunch of girls could be quicker (and slyer) than Kai?

That is my last thought after I catch my ball, go to let out a thanks and just as I am turning around, my world goes black.

Thinking about it now if almost felt like one of those slow motion videos. I knew what was happening but by the time I fully understood, it was too late to do anything about it. I would have to work on my game better.

"Awe man, two in one game! That has to be a record!" Tyson.

"Ray faints a lot during games. Maybe he should see a real doctor when we get home." Max.

"Hn." Kai.

"I don't think this could be considered fainting, Max, that girl is just a demon. I dunno how they even let her in here."

"Oh, come on Tyson, she can't be that bad. Sure she doesn't seem to like you very much but she can't be a demon. There has to be a rule against that or something. Right Kai?"

"Hn."

"No way Max, have you seen her! I ran into her in the lunch line once and I nearly took a whole table of girls out when she tripped me! She's an absolute demon. No question!"

"Tyson I think you have been watching too many movies. I never should have showed you how to use the TV." Laughter.

"Hn."

"W…What…?" I try my best to focus on what's happening around me.

"Oh he's waking up! He's still alive! Hide the mirrors though, that bruise is worse than the one Bryon gave him at the World Championships."

"Shut up Tyson, that's mean! He's doesn't look THAT bad."

"Are you two done?" Silence.

I try to blink my eyes open but they don't seem to want to work. I hear rustling but otherwise the voices stay strangely silent for what seems like a lifetime. I try to open my eyes again, managing a crack but it seems like too much of a struggle as a sliver of light breaks my head open into a more intense headache than the one I already had.

"He was just waking up, Kai! You must have scared him back to sleep!"

"I don't think Ray would be THAT afraid of Kai, Tyson…"

"Maybe he thought those girls were back. They could have disguised themselves as Kai just to get back at him more!"

"Tyson, get real. You watch too many movies." More laughter.

"Just shut up!" Silence.

"Can you boys just wait outside for me? Max should be okay to leave now and Ray just needs a bit of rest. They are probably serving dinner now." An unidentified female voice calmly intervenes.

"Awe man, but I wanna see if he's okay! Those girls will have something to say to me when I get ahold of them! Hurting my friend like that. He wasn't even the one who…" the voice is cut off as I hear a door close and the female voice lets out a sigh of relief.

"Oh!" Startled. "I didn't realize you were still here." A pause. "You seem less likely to cause him any more stress so I'll let you stay with him for a bit but please come get me if he wakes up fully. I have to check the rest of his injuries." I can almost hear the smile in her voice as she nods and leaves the room as well.

Then it really goes silent once again and I am unsure if I have been left completely alone or not. I feel something press on my forehead and that theory goes out the window.

The fingers moves from my forehead to the side of my face, gently pressing at certain points, then lingering for a moment, then they push my hair back behind my ear. I wince as the last movement brushes over (what I imagine is a really big bruise) where the ball had impacted my face.

I hear a snort and the hand is withdrawn.

Kai…

I still feel the tingles it has left behind. Who knew his touch could be so gentle? I had barely felt it at all as it had been exploring my wounds carefully.

"So you ARE awake." I imagine his smirk. I open the eye on the good side of my face. Lucky for me it's the side he happens to be standing on. I smile back at him weakly.

"Y…yeah…kinda. Ugh. My head feels like a blender ate it." My hand moves to the swollen bruise to feel just how serious it is and I close my eyes again at the sudden pricks of pain. "Why are you still here?" I stretch my jaw out to see how far the pain branches and find that it doesn't seem as bad as it could have been. I have totally been through worse during training, which is really only a portion of what I endure during championships. So this is nothing really.

"Checking you for a fever. I wanted to make sure you didn't have a concussion." I blink and adjust to the pain of the light, and try to sit up.

"Well I don't see any spots… But isn't there a nurse for that?" I look over at him as he takes a seat and tosses me an ice pack, his examination having come to a conclusion. His eyes still survey the rest of my body and my movements carefully. The intense look causes me blush but I am hoping the bruise and possibility of fever can cover it up.

In the movements I use to sit up straighter I realize that not only does my head and face hurt like I had been hit with a sledgehammer, my arm and right shoulder also give way to a bit of discomfort.

"You hit the concrete with your shoulder as you went down. It saved you from hitting your head twice. You were lucky you didn't break anything," Kai explains as if reading my thoughts from the look on my face. I nod in understanding, fidgeting with the ice pack in my lap as I watch him a minute. I let everything settle into my brain.

I go over the situation again in my head and wonder if there would have been a way to avoid this. No matter how I turned it over, it all ended the same.

Those girls were trouble.

Maybe Tyson, Max and I would have to team up to fight against them before all of us were sent home with broken bones and bruised egos.

"Is Max...?" I start, but he looks up from studying me and meets my eyes, catching me up in another moment where my heart skips a beat. I hoped he didn't notice that my breathing had suddenly become heavier or he might think something else was wrong.

Luckily, he doesn't seem to notice my heart speeding up or my breathing as he nods.

"Nothing's broken on him either." End of discussion. His eyes don't leave mine yet though and I can't help but feel as if he is searching for something in them.

As if I am risking him finding that something, I look down. I take that moment to realize that we are finally alone together and now might be my only chance to talk to him the way I had wanted to.

"Can I ask you something?" I start, not quite sure how I am going to finish. I half expect him to brush me off again or to have some other kind of distraction the way that we always do, but it doesn't happen that way at all.

"Sure." I continue to avoid his eyes but feel my face start to heat up again because I can feel his still fixated on my face, waiting for what I have to say.

The easiest way to get this over with is to just blurt it out, but thinking about it now, it was probably the worse time to initiate this particular conversation. I had no way of escaping if it took an awkward turn and it would put him in a position where he held all the power. Not that that was any different than normal, but in this situation, for me to go through with it, I would have to feel like I was in control. I wasn't even sure how I was going to go about it but his eyes on me, waiting, was starting to make me panic.

"I know...that the situation has changed a lot since the beginning…"I start out carefully, hoping to gain confidence by building it up. "But…" I pause again, considering my wording before jumping into something that I couldn't get out of. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I was just wasting his time or trying something tricky on him. I couldn't put him in a position where he felt threatened, and I couldn't put myself in a situation where I felt more vulnerable than I already did. "…do you ever think that…or maybe, have you ever thought about…" This wasn't good. I was losing my ground and his attentiveness. He had seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say before, now he looked as if he was losing his patience.

"Just spit it out, Ray," he coaxes me calmly. He is trying to hide his annoyance for the sake of me being injured but I can tell that that pass won't be available for much longer.

"Have you ever felt like a part of the team?" I burst it out quickly, but having it out has given me the momentum I had anticipated earlier in going further. "I mean, not just for the sake of winning. But for us. As friends?" The words stop with the question lingering in the air between us and his expression doesn't change, nor does he answer exactly on cue.

To me, the words sound like a cover-up for something else I had wanted to ask instead so even I am taken aback by where they had come from exactly. Although that isn't entirely true.

When he had challenged me earlier with that ball, I had felt it. The separation from us and him.

Sure he always seemed to tag along with us but it wasn't like it was out of loyalty. If it was something else, I wasn't sure. But it made me question our relationship. Not just the relationship that I shared with him personally, but his with Max and Tyson as well. He never seemed happy to be palling around with them. And he wasn't doing it for the spotlight because he had his own. Even after Tyson had taken it from him, he still got more praise than all of us combined.

His skill was unmatched by anyone.

When I first noticed that I had grown an attachment to him (that was more than just a shining friendship), it was that detachment from us that kept me from accepting it. I couldn't have feelings for Kai. He had no side, no team. To build a more personal relationship with him would be a mistake knowing that he would never chose to stay on one side.

So yes, I had to know if he ever felt like he was on our team, but it wasn't what I really wanted to know. It was only a small part of it.

If he realized this as well, he didn't let on that he did. He just crossed his arms and stood up.

"I'm here, aren't I?" Sarcastic, but not meant to be mean. I look up to meet his eyes again and not having been completely shut down, I surprise myself with my next step.

"Then, what do I mean to you? Am I…just a friend?"

Did I…just say that out loud?