Chapter 16
Next morning Kai woke up later than he'd liked, to a perfectly silent house in which he assumed that everyone had gone out and Kyoshi was probably hiding from the sun in the dingy basement of his. With the thought in mind that no one was home he hadn't expected to enter the kitchen to Sakura sitting there with her work. "Good Morning sunshine." She said cheerily, standing up quickly and moving to the counter to make him coffee, before his mind was even able to calculate that she'd gotten up to do anything. While he rubbed his eyes and sat down at table, before he knew it there was a hot mug of coffee sitting in front of him. He mumbled a thank you but the girl seemed to have just grunted and gone back to her work. While shuffling through pages, not looking up at the boy she spoke up to him, "Slept well?" was her question.
It took Kai another moment to take in the question but replied smartly, "Before or after you tried to give me a heart attack?" he asked her.
"I already apologized for that. Do I need to apologize again?" Sakura asked him a little skeptically.
Kai glared a bit at her for coming close to over reacting, "No but either way, my answer remains the same, I slept fine."
"You sure? 'Cause in all honesty you look like crap." Sakura wasn't one to be careful of what she said, or whether she hurt anyone's feelings or not with her words and it was her greatest flaw, naturally amongst other things. She wasn't about to argue with herself about being rude to people. She just wasn't the sort to act that way.
"Thanks." Kai said sarcastically, nodding almost uncontrollably from exhaustion.
Saku smirked, putting the papers back down onto the table, "You know I don't mean it like that." Resting her arms on the table and resting her head on them.
"I slept fine."
"Then tell me, why do you look like you just came out of a zombie movie, any other reason aside from not sleeping well?"
"How many times must I repeat myself?"
Sakura placed her hands firmly on his shoulders, gripping them tightly, "Till you break down and tell the truth." She replied, letting go and standing up. "So tell your dear screamer, why do you look like the undead?" she asked again.
"Because I've already gone through a whole cup of coffee and I can't enjoy it!" Kai spat rudely, glaring up at her just as she'd turned round at the sound of his cruel tone.
She sighed, prying his mug out of his hands to refill it, "No need to be so rude. That's the reason I got up, to make you more coffee." Now she knew that he felt bad about his sudden outburst but she made no attempt at comforting him on the subject. Instead she just dropped the mug in front of him again and went back to sitting down at table. "There's no need to lash out like that. You should try start out your days as relaxed as you possibly can."
"Thank you, doctor." Kai mumbled coldly, then washing out his own bitterness with a sip of hot coffee.
Sakura laughed at the sound of that, "Hardly a doctor, that'd be Kyoshi rather. But I do mean it, over the years I've found out that if you wake up in a good mood and try to prolong that good mood till at least 2pm you've got a better chance of ending the day not suicidal." She nodded at her own thoughts, "Yeah, that was it. Being in a good mood till 2pm kept me out of suicidal moods."
"I never would have guessed you were ever suicidal." Came Kai's sarcastic remark, supposedly thinking he knew better after watching her fight so recklessly.
"Were you never taught not to tease the suicidal girl?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at him. She got a shake of the boy's head in reply to her question and she grunted at that, "That figures. So…why so grumpy?"
"Still tired." Kai mumbled angrily to himself.
"Now was that so hard for you to say?" Sakura asked, a playful smirk on her face that she knew irritated him.
"If I didn't say it you wouldn't leave me in peace for the rest of the day."
"You got that right…then again I only do it for your own good." She shifted in her seat, her elbow on the table to support her head while she read over her work but still allowed room for conversation. "Why don't you go back to bed? There's no reason for you to be awake, you've got nothing to do, Tala's downstairs with Kyoshi and it's not like I need company."
Kai shook his head, then brushing a strand of hair out of his face, sitting up and staring at the ceiling, almost seeming upset, "Once I'm this awake its hard to go back to sleep."
Sakura nodded, "I suppose that's plausible." She murmured, "Well I've got some errands to run today. I need to get the rest of my gauge done again, then I need to go look for someone. You're welcome to join me if you don't want to stay here doing nothing and if you think your stomach is strong enough."
Despite Kai's high tolerance for pain, looking at the size two gauges on Sakura's ears made him wince slightly, "That's got to hurt." He commented.
His words had supposedly struck something in Saku, making the raven-haired girl laugh quietly, "I didn't think you were one with that much of a weak stomach."
"That's not it…It's just that even here in Japan, you don't see many girls ready to gauge their ears or pierce every part of themselves."
"I hope you're not implying that girl's are too weak to get piercings are you?" Her eyes depicted her seriousness suddenly, a seriousness that wasn't much to compare to her usual seriousness, but seriousness nonetheless.
The Russian laughed softly, shaking his head, "Not at all."
"Good…" She relaxed, smirking, "And just to let you know, I haven't got that many piercings."
Kai tilted his head to the side a little, looking at her for a moment before blankly saying, "I count at least twelve."
Sakura winced jokingly, "Ah so close, yet so far away." She said in a humorous tone, "I've got six on my left ear, including one gauge, five on my right ear, including one gauge. Three in my lip, one on the right side and two on the left side. My tongue is pierced too and two for my navel." She could see it was taking Kai a moment to take it in and used it to her advantage at another witty remark, "In case you can't count, that makes it seventeen."
"And…" Kai started, possibly a little breathlessly, "Kyoshi is okay with all that? He seems like the type that would count that as self-mutilation or something."
"Kyoshi? Hardly." She laughed, sitting back, crossing her arms, "I grew up knowing Kyoshi, I idolized him, and same with the piercings. I loved all of his and then did some of my own. He just chooses not to wear his so often anymore. In all honesty, he was the one that did my navel piercings and my third lip one, he's hardly against it." She watched him intently, smiling at the bit of reaction, "You're not much of a fan of piercings are you?"
Kai smiled at the intonation in which her words had been said, "I've got three, all on my ears but that's just it. I'm not much of a fan of them on women though, not many at least. Although, it would be great having a girlfriend who didn't think of them as stupid or something."
"I know that. My dad is completely against them, everyone one around them was completely against them and while Kyoshi just told me I should be careful what I do, it was great having him be so supportive of what I wanted."
"I just think…no matter what happens, it's always good to have at least one person on your side." That was something Kai had just said randomly. Something that had just seemed to roll off his tongue, rather than him thinking about it before he said it.
It made Sakura smile a little more, just a faint honest smile that had graced her lips as the conversation grew, "I think if everyone was completely against me, I don't think I'd survive it." She shrugged, speaking honestly in hopes it'd bring some honesty out of him.
"I think it's the same for me…though I think I'm lucky enough to not have felt that for the past year or so."
"Not remembering feelings like those is a great thing, better than it sounds actually, because it means that you're over it and that you haven't been thinking about it."
"You're talking as though it's all your own experience."
"Well it is after all, I've lived nineteen years but I've done a lot in those nineteen years but the best part is that I can laugh about it now and that I've got a backpack full of experience for myself, and those around me."
"My father believed experience was the key to everything, though he never lived long enough to pass it on to me. All I can say is just that if you have kids, live long enough to pass on your knowledge to them, one way or another. Otherwise they just feel lost." Though as knowledgeable as all that sounded, Kai didn't know what exactly it was that he was saying anymore.
"You're good. Though you won't have to worry about that happening, I'm not having kids."
"Really?" Kai asked in a disbelieving tone, rather confused at the same time, suddenly covering up his interest, "I think you'd make a great mom, and Kyoshi a great dad, I guess he would since he already sometimes treats us like kids."
"As sweet as that sounds that you said I'd be a great mom, it really isn't true. I'm not good with kids, at all. The only practice I have with taking care of kids is with some orphans and some half-siblings and that's it. Also, I'm hardly mother material."
"That's what my mom said, though of what I've heard she was proved very wrong."
That was the one indication that the girl had that Kai's immediate family was no longer alive but on topic, she wasn't about to comment on a subject that was that sensitive just yet. Clearly he'd said something that was for her ears only and just for some advice and sharing, she wasn't about to turn it into an attack on him. "Maybe…but still, I can't have kids, so what I want or what Kyoshi wants doesn't matter."
A very faint tint of pink filled the younger boy's cheeks, a hand going to the back of his head as he thought stupidly of himself, "Now I feel stupid." He mumbled.
Sakura laughed, "Don't. I didn't tell you sooner so you wouldn't have known and besides, it was my fault. I wasn't careful…I was reckless as I always am and I got shot…pretty badly. Doctors said I was 'lucky' to have come out of it alive and that it was a tough job putting my body back together. Although doctors are always too negative, you noticed they always tell you what your body can't do but never what it can do?" she shrugged a bit, crossing her arms, "Though looking back I guess I see why Kyoshi worries so much." She stood up, sliding an ashtray and her cigarettes off the counter before sitting back down, smoking she stared up at the ceiling, "Though lately he seems to worry about every little thing. Its annoying and excessive."
In Kai's mind he just wanted to blurt it out so that she wouldn't be so clueless but it wasn't in his place to say anything, just like Kyoshi probably hadn't told her anything yet for the same reason. "Maybe he just knows something that you don't." his eyes had been drawn to her cigarette though, just when she'd tapped the ashes into the tray and he saw the six cigarette buds sitting there burnt out, "Though either way you shouldn't be smoking so much." He added.
Sakura groaned, rolling her eyes at that comment, "I think you and Kyoshi think the same way because these days every time he sees me light one of these he looks at me like he's upset and going to say something but then he just shuts up."
"Then talk to him. For all you know there might be a lot of things he wants to tell you."
"I'll probably talk to him tonight…although for now I'd like to enjoy my afternoon. So…you coming with me or not?"
"Might as well." Kai shrugged a little, standing up and putting his mug in the sink. "As long as I don't have to hold your hand while you have you're ear pulled open." He added jokingly.
She laughed, honestly, "You won't have to. It doesn't hurt all that much, for me at least."
"Good, last thing I want to hear is screaming."
"You won't be hearing that…from me at least." The raven-haired girl reassured with a smirk.
Kai, feeling something heavy taking a slight toll on his body, sat back down at table, exhaling quietly, then looking up at the girl with blankness in his eyes, "Can I ask you a personal question?"
The smile on her face just grew a little bigger, "The whole conversation we've had within the last hour has been personal, go ahead and ask."
He stared down at his hands intently, like they held the most interesting thing in the world up until he had calculated that he had to bring himself to speak, "You said you were shot really badly, right?"
"I believe I did."
"Why aren't you scared now? What I'm trying to say is…after such a bad experience like that, wouldn't you be scared of guns and stuff? But the sound of guns being set off all around you doesn't bother in the slightest, why?"
Sakura stood up, apparently startling Kai at first until she sat down in front of him on the table. She looked down at him with a blankness of her own on her features, though a faint something sparkling in her eyes, she looked away, "My dad…he's some big politician, has a lot of money so he sent me to the best shrink in the country for a whole year." She looked at him again, strength and somewhat support in her eyes, "There's no amount of money in the world that can erase what happened, from time and from my mind but I'm living for the present…I'll think about how much I screwed up in that gun fight when I'm thirty and I can't walk anymore." She shook her head a bit, she hadn't been getting through to him so she grabbed his hand, "I've got plenty of time to regret what I've done but this isn't the time, far from it. I have a lot of things to do and I can't let stupid mistakes of the past distract me, otherwise I could just make bigger mistakes."
"How do you know when it's the right time then?"
"You just know. And the time to be regretting things is when you're on your deathbed which isn't now." She jumped off the table and turned to him, she lifted her shirt slightly, perfect scar less pale skin was all he could see just before she put her shirt back down and put his hand on his own shoulder, "If your body can heal all the physical wounds, what's stopping you from letting yourself heal your mental and emotional wounds?"
He wasn't quite sure what to do about what she said, still embracing all she'd said but doing it in his own monotonous and cold way, just before smirking, "I just wanted an answer…not a lecture." Obviously saying it in a joking manner, as actually he had been grateful for her words.
Saku smirked and shook her head, abate all seriousness as she stared off somewhere else in the room, "I thought I'd try help you out. Sorry for wasting your time." She apologized.
"It wasn't a waste." He stood up, making her take a step back to leave him room to step up.
"I'm glad. Go take a shower, relax for an hour and we'll leave here at two, okay?" She got a nod of reply from him and she watched him walk out of the room. She sat back down, rubbing at her stomach for some warmth as it stung rather painfully. She distracted herself, just staring up at a point on the ceiling till she could feel bothered enough to get up and do something. Though something in particular did pray on her mind quite a bit. The fact that Kyoshi and Kai knew something that she didn't.
---A Week Later---
The week had passed by uneventfully to a degree. Tala had become rather terrified of every move he'd made after seeing Hana appear in the bathroom sink, and again when he was making coffee, and again on the floor after he'd dropped a glass of water. After that Kai had begun to stay closer to him to make sure Hana didn't even touch him, more than ready to defend his best friend if it came to that. Kyoshi wasn't too far off but at the time he also had his own responsibilities to tend to. Sakura had had that important talk with Kyoshi and her 'greatest fear' had been confirmed, almost giving her the fright of her life at the same time.
Apparently Kai had known from the bit he'd heard from Kyoshi. And Kyoshi had found out because of his knowledge of women and his degree in biology. Although the fact that the woman was his own fiancé, already helped a lot. Then again his vampire skills just did enough for him as they were. Needless to say he'd had plenty of confirmation on the subject yet he could never bring himself to tell Sakura. Thinking that it was her privacy that she deserved and he thought he'd just let her figure it out by herself.
Then Kai had apparently found out from a chat they'd had that fine day when they were alone and the Russian couldn't help but hint at the subject. Supposedly he couldn't just watch the girl walk around in circles of a matter that was really hard on her and that she should know about. Sakura really was appreciative for that but she didn't show it, at the time she just had a hard time dealing with everything. She was getting heavily frustrated with every little thing that happened and she'd refuse to sit down for more than an hour. Kyoshi had insisted she sit down and relax and that he'd cook dinner for her but she refused heavily, stating that if she couldn't cook she'd really have nothing to do.
She'd denied the news for the first hour or so since Kyoshi had told her but having gone out to buy a test the next morning things were confirmed and it was undeniable any longer. She was a person that wouldn't deny things if she had proof of them and after that no one heard her mention the mere word of the subject. She just stayed quiet. Amazingly quiet. It wasn't that she was disappointed with the news. Just worried that things wouldn't work out well, that things would go wrong and history could repeat itself or she wouldn't do anything right. Of all of them she had the hardest time dealing with the news while the others didn't quite mind.
Kai was passive as always and didn't really take part of the whole situation in any way. He just sat back and watched as the week flew by and he took care of his friend. Tala was of most help to Sakura since she'd occasionally shut Kyoshi out when she was acting moody on the particular subject. After about three days Sakura had given herself a few hours to calm down and relax to adjust to all the news and feelings. Giving herself a few hours to console herself for the first time in a while. Kyo was always obviously there to help her and that care never faltered, no matter what happened between them but he accepted that she was occasionally in a mood with him. The two had come to disagree quite a lot since she was rather fussy and Kyo just wanted to look after her.
The main occasion was this one. A whole week since the news had struck the girl like the sharpest cold-hearted bullet that had ever sliced through her body. Kyoshi had tried his hardest to convince her to go to a doctor, to make sure that the test was correct and to find out where they went from there. The girl, being the stubborn and stoic girl she was naturally refused, then agreed but to go by herself, but Kyoshi, being the over-caring vampire he was, obviously disagreed with her but was left unable to do anything. Except convince one of his only other options to.
"You called me?" Kai asked from by the bedroom door.
"Yeah, I need to ask you a favor." Straight to the point.
Kai hadn't been up to doing many favors lately, since he'd been spending an extra few hours awake to keep an eye on Tala, tiredness was beginning to get to him, "I'll try."
"I need you to go with Sakura to the doctor tomorrow morning." Another straight to the point statement.
"No way, she'll kill me if I go with her, besides she deserves her privacy."
"She won't kill you. She needs someone to go with her tomorrow and I evidently can't go."
"She carries a gun with her everywhere." Kai pointed out matter-of-factly.
"It doesn't mean she'll kill you with it." He said through gritted teeth, failing at remaining calm.
Kai sat down on the bed, "She might." He commented quickly, "But either way, she doesn't want me with her and I should respect that and you should too."
Kyoshi almost took that as a personal offence but thankfully hadn't, otherwise it would have been a bigger argument, "I do respect her. And I respect her enough to even know she can't go there alone."
"Fine…I'll go but when she's furious and throwing a tantrum you're the one dealing with it."
"Definitely."
"Aren't you just Mr-State-The-Obvious? I get it…I have to take care of her, I'll manage, don't worry." As if on queue Sakura walked past the bedroom and into the living room and with that Kyoshi and Kai followed her, "Where are you going now?" he was a little on the alert with her lately, careful she didn't go overboard.
"Out to look for that girl, I haven't seen her in almost a week and I'm worried." Saku adjusted the collar of her denim jacket in front of the mirror, then turning to look at him as she buttoned the jacket all the way to her chest. She'd begun feeling cold a lot lately, even though it was only mild rain and wind nowadays. "I'll be back within an hour, I promise."
"Can't you wait till it get's dark? At least then I can come with you."
"I think she hides…when it starts to get dark. Don't worry, I'll be back soon." Her hand went to his cheek in a hurry as she gave him a peck on the cheek, then walked hurriedly out the front door.
Kyoshi heard Kai laughing quietly from behind him and the vampire shot a death glare at him. Although Kai was quick to defend himself with a sarcastic comment, "You keep her under so much control, the precautions are amazing."
"Oh bite me." Kyo shot back at him.
Tala stepped into the living room, looking around at the two males, "What's the matter?" he asked curiously.
Kyo exhaled and shook his head, "Nothing, it's nothing." He turned to Tala, giving him a solid supportive grip onto his shoulder as he walked past and back into his bedroom, sitting abruptly onto his bed. "Don't just stand there looking at me like that." Kyoshi mumbled unhappily to the red-head standing in his doorway again.
"You've even got Kai worried."
The vampire lay back comfortably against his pillows, staring up at his ceiling in thought, a hand to his forehead, "I can't believe I resorted to asking him to do me a favor. It's not like I have something against asking the guy for favors, it's just that I hate asking favors from someone who generally doesn't like doing favors and who really doesn't have anything to do with the situation."
Now Tala wasn't best at comforting people, it was far from being his forte but at least he tried and lately, he wouldn't just give up on something because he thought he couldn't do it. Lately Kyoshi had been teaching him a lot, a lot of things that Kyoshi had to go through as a former-mortal and current vampire that Tala could use after leaving the Abbey. Over the days, the more exhausted Tala had become from fear of Hana, the more sensitive he grew to everything and everyone around him. It just seemed that this was one of those moments where he felt at his most sensitive, "Well you and Saku," also over the days he'd gotten close enough to Sakura to start feeling comfortable shortening her name, "took us in so you could protect us. Kai knows that now too so he wouldn't mind doing you a favor." He'd walked over to the bed by now, sitting at the foot of it and staring in his new friend's direction.
"Even if she will try to blow my head clear off my shoulders." Kai joined in just a moment later. He watched Kyo sit up on the bed and look at him with a sort of blankness in his eyes as he was unsure on how to feel at the time, "Now I don't know much about the situation you're in, I've never been in that kind of position but if things turn out well at the doctor tomorrow and he approves everything you already know, then you're going to be a dad so for just a minute stop thinking about how it effect her and how it effects you. You're so caught up in worrying about her and your relationship with her that you don't even know how you feel about it yet."
"That's not true, I know exactly how I feel about it." Kyoshi retorted angrily, pouting a little childishly once Kai glared at him. While he did in fact know how he felt regarding the situation, he didn't press any further and didn't react when he ended up having both teenagers sitting at the foot of his bed.
"Don't you have anyone that helps you and Sakura out since you're…indisposed for most of the day?" Kai asked interestedly. "If she's always working outside of the house and you're always stuck in here…how do you ever know for sure if she's safe when she's away from you?"
Kyoshi sat up and sat cross-legged and looking in Kai's direction, looking past Tala's rather curious look, "The other band members don't know about me, they just know I hate going out during the day and they accept it."
"Sounds like the typical Japanese band these days." Kai murmured to himself, flashes of different and strange JRock band members crossing his mind.
Kyo just glared very lightly, "We have two friends, Nin and Ren. Nin is like a childish little girl who sticks to Saku a lot and looks after me more than she does Sakura, she's too easily intimidated by Saku's strength for me to have sent her. As for Ren…Ren and Sakura are really good friends and while Sakura wouldn't dare say no, Ren is far too innocent and scared of people to be put in that kind of line of fire. You were the only other option I had left." Sincerity really was something that had become part of Kyoshi's DNA over the past years. On the inside, he'd assumed it came from the idea that if he wanted to get anywhere in his afterlife or whatever you wanted to call it, then he had to be honest about everything.
"I don't mind going with her, but the thing is that she will."
Tala raised his head from where he'd been staring at a crease in the black leather of the bed, looking slowly from Kai to Kyoshi as they fired continuous glares at each other. "Can I say something?" he asked, looking at both again as their eyes suddenly coaxed him to talk. "I think that…Sakura is dealing with a lot but even though it's a lot…I still think she's strong enough to handle things however she wants. Someone should go with her to the doctor tomorrow, but if she puts up a fight and it looks like it'll make her feel worse then just accept what she wants and don't go." He went and made eye contact again with his two friends, seeing a rather confused expression in their eyes, they probably didn't know he could make so much sense or understood so much. "I'm just saying that the last thing she wants is to be treated like a little kid when she clearly isn't."
Kyoshi smiled and nodded, looking away, "If you don't mind me saying…whatever it was in your past that you think messed you up, did you a lot more good than you think it did because through it all, you think a lot more clearly than I do."
A vague tint of red could be seen on the redhead's cheeks if you looked close enough, "It's just something that I thought about." He passed off, shrugging slightly as he stood up and walked over to the door way to stand there where he'd feel a little less intimidated.
"Tal…why don't you go downstairs and wait for me, we could do some more practice?" Kyoshi smiled at him as he did almost everyone else that knew him well enough. He received a nod of reply and he watched him disappear from the corridor and hearing him walk down the hall to the basement door and down the steps.
"Practice what?" Kai asked, trying not to sound too curious.
The blonde vampire smiled softly, "Guitar, he seemed so bored sitting around watching me play for so long, I thought I'd teach him a few things." He watched him nod in perfect understanding of the situation, "He's not trying to replace beyblading but…I guess he just needed a short break from it."
Kai smirked slightly, as if in his own little world finding it somewhat humorous, "No surprise there…we all do."
"He knows…for a fact that Hana had his blade taken from him and him buried alive because of the power in his beyblade. He doesn't want Hana to have that power, but at the same time he doesn't want to tap into it for himself, no one should force him to have power he doesn't want and I just tried to get his mind off things that were upsetting him. No matter how tough you think Tala became over the years, that's still a whole new level of abuse for his mind."
There was a dull throbbing pain in Kai's heart as he thought about what the vampire was saying to him and it all made sense to him, strangely enough, but of course he wasn't willing to admit that so easily, "I'm just glad he's open with you…he needs to be open with someone at least." He got up and made his way to the living room but Kyoshi had beat him there, avoiding the corridor that Kai had taken by passing through the curtain that separated the bedroom from the other room. The vampire almost instinctively grabbed Kai's forearm, his thumb pressing down harder than originally intended, the two then finally making eye contact.
"Give me a minute to talk okay? All I want to do is help." Those words seemed to have stopped the Russian, Kyoshi's hold on him loosening up so slightly it was barely even noticeable, "Kai…I know that to you it looks like Tala doesn't talk to you about what's going on but really, he doesn't want to talk about everything in his past because he's…he's just scared that he'll bring up a subject you won't like or he'll bring up unpleasant memories for you…" he finally let go of him after their eye contact had been broken, "If you don't want to talk about the abbey with him than that's fine with him, but he just wants you to know that it's not because he doesn't trust you."
Kai smirked, walking to the far end of the room and leaning back against the wall, "I don't care about that."
"That's not true and you know it." Kyoshi argued, a hint of disgust at Kai's bad lie in his voice, "You do care and I can tell that it bothers you a lot more than you let on." He sat down on the back of the armchair, feet firmly planted on each arm rest, "Believe it or not Kai, you are in fact human and like every other decent human on this earth, you want to take care of your friend…you just don't know how to do it and that's what you're scared of." He smirked softly, staring at the ground not too far in front of him, a nostalgic feeling in his heart as he tried to concentrate on the other's feelings and speak what he understood, "You don't know how to comfort a person because the opportunity hardly ever arose, when it did you did it your own tough-love way but you already know you can't do that for Tala, you know it'll break him."
Kai knew that Kyoshi was right in every possible way, and he hated it so much that Kyo was that sensitive to have been able to get Tala's trust in little time and single out his feelings when he barely could. His heart was beating too fast for him to even keep tabs on it any more, he just let it go as fast as it wanted to while he tried to listen to Kyoshi's words over it.
Kyo put his legs together and slid off the back of the armchair and into its seat, crossing his arms against his chest, "I'm not a very religious person…honestly after becoming a vampire you kinda learn to lose that kind of faith. Although, I strongly believe things happen for a reason and I think the reason Tala and you were both pushed into our care is so that you can learn from us. Obviously, Saku and I aren't the best examples in the world, we're probably the most flawed people to walk this planet but we can still teach you some things. I can teach you how to look out for Tala without entirely putting yourself through an emotional rollercoaster, and at the same time Saku can teach you a lot about taking care of yourself. Believe it or not, she's very reliable and a lot more cautious than we all give her credit for."
The throbbing pain had moved to the Russian's tense shoulders and neck, this making him feel even more stiff and uncomfortable beneath the other's words. He sat down on the sofa, staring in the direction of the closed window, "I trust her advice. I trust yours too." He stated slowly, a nod accompanying it as he turned to look at the blonde at the end of his statements.
Said blonde smiled back softly, getting up and abruptly setting himself back down beside the younger boy, crouching on the sofa rather than sitting, almost giving him a childish entity, "You just don't know how to ask for our help."
Kai bit down on the inside of his mouth, a bad habit he had when he was trying endlessly to think of ways to do things and being unsuccessful in finding an answer, "How do I tell Tala to get over things that not even I could get over?"
"You make him learn from your mistakes…luckily he's already started doing that without you needing to tell him. But just because he's recovering a bit faster than you ever did, that's no reason to beat yourself up, if it weren't for you taking the path you chose then he wouldn't have learnt for himself." He watched other make no reaction to his words at all, probably being deep in thought and after giving him a few more minutes as a chance to speak, Kyoshi smiled that he'd at least had a little breakthrough in Kai's character, "I don't want to leave Tala waiting any longer." He gripped the back of the sofa as he hauled himself up, walking past Kai while ruffling his hair like any father would do their child after a long talk.
The sole person in the room waited until Kyo was long down the hall and out of sight, then allowing himself to take a deep and well-needed breath to clear his lungs and stomach of its tightness of stress. After contemplating on it, he got off the sofa and walked down the hall, arriving to the basement door and opening it very slowly. He stepped inside, standing on the wooden landing of the stairs and staring down at the two that hadn't seemed to notice him as of yet. He settled down on the top step after closing the door softly behind him, sitting there and watching the other two engage in quiet conversation with smiles.
"What's the problem?" he heard the vampire ask his friend, tugging slightly on his jeans to be able to settle on the ground comfortably.
That was where Tala was, sitting on the ground, a small stack of papers in front of him and an acoustic guitar pressed against him, "That bits the worst." He groaned in silence, pointing to a particular line of notes on the page he was currently working on. He was a quick study, he'd learnt how to read some notes already and it'd only been about two or three days at the most that he'd actually been learning them.
"That part's easy, try it again." Kyoshi was always a sensitive person, a very helpful person at that but when he knew a person could do better he was hardly ever too easy on them.
Tala continued to eye the notes on the sheet, then watching his hands on the frets and strings of the guitar, hearing the sound that came out to be rather distorted and groaning louder this time, "I can't do this!" he complained in a quiet tone.
That took Kai aback a bit, in his eyes Tala was hardly ever the type to give up on himself but to some new things, he supposed even the redhead was entitled to being frustrated. At the same time, he couldn't help but laugh very vaguely upon seeing the rather irritated look on his friend's face, finding it a very…different thing to see in terms of the redhead.
Kyoshi laughed, stretching to his side to grab his own acoustic guitar from its case which had been lying abandoned in a corner, picking it up and playing over the note quickly and easily, barely even needing to take a glance at the notes, "There. Easy." He told him once it had been done.
"You wrote it! Of course you know how to play it." Tala complained, gently banging the palm of his hand against the wood that rested against him.
Kyo's smile never ceased as he moved his guitar aside, moving himself to kneel behind Tala, "If you relax a bit more and stop trying to do things so perfectly then you won't have such a hard time." he placed one hand over Tala's hand that had been grabbing at the neck of the guitar and doing the same with the other. He moved their fingers a little higher up the neck, adjusting the placing of Tala's fingertips and pressing down slightly against the frets. "Now try." Kyo instructed him softly, removing his hands from the other as he began playing the notes instructed, watching the boy's surprised face as the sound came out right.
Kai had seen just about enough as it was. It hadn't been that he didn't like what he saw, quite the opposite really. He got to watch, for the first time in a long time, Tala do something willingly that didn't have to do with training or beyblading. The first time they'd encountered Hana…that day was the day Kai had forced Tala to go swimming. Everything Tala did before that day was almost completely against his will, including the medication, the hospital visits and every other little thing. Now he saw his best friend do something he enjoyed and he did it out of his own free will. The reward for Kai's silence, he got to see his friend happy doing something he clearly wasn't all too bad at either.
He slowly got off the step, holding onto the wooden railing and making his way back up to the door when he was stopped once again, "Kai?" he looked back at the owner of that voice, the blonde who had just grilled him not too long before, "Are you going back upstairs?" he asked, receiving a nod, "Can you do me another favor? When Saku gets home, could you let me know?" Kai nodded in reply to that request, giving the friendly vampire a glimpse of a smile before walking out of the basement.
Tala's fingers continued to strum gently over some of the strings, his bright blue eyes gliding from the pages to his fingers, "Do you think I'm doing something wrong?"
Kyoshi turned away from the stairs, looking down at the notes, "No, that sounds just about right."
"I meant about Kai." Tala corrected, glancing at the other.
"Kai's fine...Like you, he's had a lot to adjust to." Kyoshi got off the ground and sat in the chair at his desk where he could continue the work he'd been slaving over for the past few days, "Stop thinking negatively." He mumbled, practically being able to feel the self-loath emitting from the other. "Three times…you've said it three times that things would've been better if you stayed in Russia but that would mean you would have died the first day Hana tried to come after you so what makes you think that you dieing would've been a lot less hurtful than what Kai feels now?"
Tala continued strumming at the acoustic in his arms, being at a loss for words as he stared for so long that his vision had lost focus and became aimless.
"What's done is done. You have to work with what you have now, rather than thinking about what you could've changed to make things better."
Tala's vision remained the same, but this time he had more of a reaction, nodding softly and mumbling, "I guess you're right." After that the two went back to locking themselves into their own little worlds where they were both at their safest, usually at least. Kyoshi had put his headphones on, resting his head in his hand as his pencil continued to adjust things on the page in front of him. Tala continued trying the work Kyo had left for him to practice, occasionally turning and looking back at the other when he could hear the music blasting from the headphones.
They'd been sitting like that for almost half an hour and after a while, Tala went to sit down on one of the steps and resting his head to the side against the wooden railings to rest for a few moments. He probably never realized how much pain you went through to play instruments, his neck was beginning to hurt so badly he was tempted to go lie down on a nice soft pillow. Unexpectedly, someone walked down and sat beside him for a moment. She smiled gratefully at him and he loved it when he watched her do that.
The first time he met Saku, he thought that she was one of the coldest human beings on earth and that even Kai didn't even come close to touching her attitude. He watched her be ready to leave Kyoshi in a battle field and she seemed like the most cruel person in the world. Then he understood why she did everything she did and found she wasn't as bad as everyone made her seem. Still, watching her smile was a beautiful sight to see.
Tala smiled back at her, finding no harm in the spare smile to her once in a while. She wrapped an arm over the boy's shoulders, giving him a quick kiss on his temple before patting his shoulder, "Would you mind going upstairs a bit? I need to talk to Kyo about some things." She saw the younger boy smile softly and nod, getting up and turning to leave.
Sakura got up at the same time, walking over to Kyoshi, smiling softly as the closer she got she could hear the music through the headphones, "Kyoshi." She called softly from behind him, crossing her arms, then repeating herself twice before uncrossing them again and placing both hands on his shoulders, feeling him jump from fright.
He looked back at her with a stone cold face, a bit of fright showing too. He turned face forward again, taking off his headphones while Saku moved beside him and sitting up on his desk, "Hell, you really know how to scare the dead to their graves." He breathed out quietly, putting down his headphones and pencil.
"Sorry, didn't mean it." Sakura smiled softly, her heavily ringed fingers moving forward and brushing a strand of blonde hair from the boy's face, "You look tired. Are you hungry?"
Kyoshi looked up at her a little strangely, a small pout forming on his lips, "You're in a strangely sweet mood, I take it something good happened?"
The smile on the other's pale face increased slightly as she shook her head, "Not particularly, no." she leaned a little closer to him, giving him a light peck on the lips, "If you're hungry, I've got a file upstairs for a very good candidate for your dinner."
The vampire smirked, standing up and returning the peck on the lips, his hot hand brushing lightly against her cooler cheek, then walking away to the other side of the room, "I'm not that hungry…I think I can hold it off for a few more days." He picked up the acoustic guitar and the tab pages, placing them on the desk and placing the guitar to the side of the room, "I'm not the one you should be concerned about though."
"The other two are fine, Tala looked a bit tired probably from some stress but as always, playing the guitar calms people down. Kai…I don't really know what he plans on accomplishing from three cups of coffee in ten minutes but I'll sort that out a little later but…"
"I'm not talking about them," Kyoshi looked up from the other end of the room, having been staring at his hands, "I'm talking about you."
The band's constantly screaming vocalist was strangely calm tonight, maybe it had been what possessed Kyoshi to come out and say what he had. She walked to him slowly, her heels sounding rhythmic against the wooden floorboards before she stood so close in front of him, her hot breath tickling his neck. Despite the physical calmness they both represented, Kyoshi almost felt fear that he'd upset her or that she was going to hit him. He shut his eyes tight when he saw her hand being raised but instead it just touched his cheek and when he opened his eyes to look at her he saw something entirely different in her eyes.
She seemed to be a bit…broken? If that was even the right way to describe it but at the same time she was holding it all together but holding it together in a way that it made her happy. Sometimes when he couldn't understand the way she really felt, he just became speechless how even after so many years of studying people, he was still able to find someone who kept his mind sharp. No matter how close they always were to each other, being truly affectionate with each other was rare. Kyoshi was always one who was more in touch with romance and love than Sakura was, almost every action towards her was out of love. Saku was a little less giving than that and wasn't always as loving to him, as almost everyone by now was fully aware so it was moments like these which were the moments that just made his heart beat faster.
As a vampire, you're hardly ever aware when your heart is beating. What's the difference? You're dead, are you not? Not entirely. Vampires in old fiction books feel dead because to everyone around them they are in fact dead so they stay hidden from them so they won't scare them. After that, they never meet anyone who can make them feel like their hearts are actually beating. Kyoshi was one of those fortunate ones… he knew there was only one person in the world that could make him feel like he was still a human being.
Now if only she fully understood what she meant to him and things would be perfect.
Sakura smiled rather softly, wrapping both arms around his neck and giving him a kiss on the corner of his mouth. Them embracing him tightly, her own cheek nuzzling against the other's neck, she could feel him wrapping his arms around her waist and rest on the small of her back.
To her, every little fight the two of them had in their lives, every moment they spent away from each other during the week because of her mood swings, it was all worth it when she felt this loved and cared for.
Kyoshi moved back to sit on the stairs, pulling the vocalist down with him. He sat back against one of the steps, Sakura resting in between his legs and against his chest, she loved being able to hear his heart beat when she could and most of all she just loved it when he held her like she was the only thing holding him to the earth. In a way, it was like that. She was the only reason that he was still alive…if he wanted to he could've given up on living a long time ago but he didn't, because he wanted to stay by her for as long as he could.
Saku kept an eye on her index finger as it traced along the lines of the other's arm muscles. She found it funny how at some points he moved his arm away, being reminded just how tickleish the boy actually was. She lifted her head from his chest after a while, the two sharing a long stare before she got off the step and placed a hand out for him to take. She helped him up, their smiles for the other never fading. There really was no point to their little moments like these but these little moments where they acted without a care in the world, were really moments that just helped their relationship grow. Their relationship wouldn't have survived if their little moments like these didn't exist.
"Are you going to come upstairs?" Saku asked in a whisper, turning to walk up the flight of stairs to the main floor. She looked back at him, seeing him stare at her as he shook his head, his soft smile still there. She continued to smile too, nodding, "Okay, try not to stay up too late." She ran up the stairs, out the door and into the well-lit hallway as opposed to Kyoshi's dark basement.
The dark vampire walked back to his desk after the door of upstairs closed and his room fell into darkness again. He sat back down comfortably, pulling his headphones back on and resting his head on his palm again. With his sweet content smile still on his face, he continued staring down at the romantic but partly heart-breaking lyrics he'd written out.
A/N: So I was finally able to find a way to get back part of the chapter I had lost so that was the basis for this re-writing this chapter and it being updated again. I don't know if this story is actually being taken off its hiatus but I thought I'd update to make the time seem a little less long, you know?
This chapter was a bit of a tough one to work out but I'm hoping I didn't butcher it too much. At least I think I got some of the feelings in there alright. Well…I hope people haven't completely forgotten about this fic as of yet so please review, let me know what you think. Take care everyone!