Title: Obsession

Author: PandaPjays

Chapter Title: Hectic Days

Rating: T

Warnings: Yaoi. KaiRei TalaBryan if you don't like, don't read it. Fairly creepy themes and violence towards the end.

Disclaimer: If anyone has ever thought I owned Beyblades they were WRONG. I just like stealing the characters and using for my own amusement

Author Note: HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! How fun! A whole new year to play with! I'm excited! Are you?

Well meh. Even if you aren't excited I'm on a sugar high so I can see nothing wrong with the world at this moment in time. All is cute All is tiger.

For those of you who have no idea where that line came from you're not alone. I have no idea either. But I like it. Anyway I should stop rambling and get on with the chapter.

Rei sat up, gasping in fright. When he saw where he was he lay back down on his bed, trying to control his breathing and calm himself down.

It was just a dream. It was just a dream. It was just a dream. He began to repeat to himself as he relaxed against the pillows of his bed.

The weird thing was that he couldn't actually remember what he was dreaming about. He knew that it had been bad, though. On a scale of one to bad it had been off the charts on the bad side. But he couldn't remember what it had been about.

Rei pouted to himself as he rolled over to glance at his alarm clock. He frowned and rubbed his eyes when the numbers appeared blurry. This is why I hate mornings. Nothing works properly. He looked again at the clock. Goddamn it isn't even morning. This isn't even supposed to be a legitimate time. Who wakes up at this time?

His alarm clock began bleep really loudly in his ear making Rei jump a foot off the bed. "WAH!" He yelled as gravity began to take effect again. Ah. That's right. I wake up at this time.

He rolled out of bed and on to the pile of pillows he had carefully laid out the night before in preparation for his morning routine. He had learned at an early age that the best way for him to wake up in the morning was to shock himself in some way or another. Falling off his bed seemed like the easiest way to do that but he didn't particularly like the pain that went along with it. Hence, the pillows.

Rei struggled out of his pillow pile and stood up, using the wall as a support. I am so late. He thought as he worked on straightening up and looking around at his room without it spinning. I have to remember that I have to be ruthless with the alarm. Giving myself ten minutes to wake up and get to work is not being ruthless. That's pretending that I'm a morning person.

Rei sighed and began to shuffle to his bathroom. He splashed his face with a handful of water and looked at himself.

I look dead. He concluded as he searched around for his toothbrush. He knew that he had put it on the bench somewhe-there!

He loaded his newly acquired toothbrush with toothpaste and wet it, still trying to convince his tired body that yes, he was awake. It wasn't going so well. When he had finished brushing his teeth he sighed and began searching for a headband to wear to keep his hair out of his eyes. He found a black one and tied it around his forehead, running his fingers through the bangs of hair that fell over the bandanna.

He hadn't properly brushed his hair for at least a month. It was probably a foolish course of action, considering the length of his hair but he was really just too lazy to struggle with it. It was so much easier to wrap his hair into a seemingly-neat tail-thing. He wasn't even sure what his hairstyle of choice would be called. Frankly, he didn't care. Whatever worked.

He looked at the clock again and swore, running back to his bedroom to find some sort of clothing that looked presentable. Thankfully, he knew how he was in the mornings and ironed all of the clothes he would need on the weekend before his hectic week started.

He pulled a long white button up shirt from one of the hangers and quickly put it on his hand flying down the buttons doing them up quickly and miraculously buttoning each button up with the correct hole

"Pants…" He muttered, opening the chest of drawers that housed most of his clothing. "Here Pants." He called wheedlingly. He found them hiding beneath at least a dozen different garments that he was sure that he hadn't worn for years. Deciding not to question the inscrutable logic of his clothes drawers Rei pulled on his pants, hopping around the room as he pulled on the second leg and falling over for his trouble.

He cursed quietly as he pushed himself off the floor and stood up. I hate mornings. They are evil and should be destroyed by some big destroy-ey God, he thought maliciously as he stood up again. He surveyed his appearance in the full-length mirror that hid in the corner of his bedroom and, deciding that he wouldn't care if he were to look like rolling in the dump was his favourite pastime, sprinted out of his apartment. He paused only to snatch up his keys and wallet and to put on his shoes before he was out the door and running, trying to get to the café he owned fashionably late instead of horribly so.

-0-

"You're late." Lee told him flatly when Rei ran into the courtyard of The Gatling.

Rei made a face at the commander of Gatling's Kitchen. "I'm not late. I'm meant to own this joint, yes? I arrive when I mean to arrive."

Lee frowned and sighed. "I'm sure I've heard something like that before. Can't remember it though." He shrugged and leant against the front window of the café as Rei continued to struggle with the door. "You do know that you're using the safe key to try and open the door, don't you?" He asked mildly.

Rei looked down and cursed to see that the other was right. "I hate mornings." He said vehemently as he located the right key and inserted it into the lock.

"So you get into a business where you're guaranteed to have to get up early? You must like torturing yourself." He paused to think for a second. "I guess that makes you a masochist then…" He said, trailing off to consider that rather disturbing possibility.

Rei grumbled beneath his breath as he finally got through the Godforsaken door. He dashed to the burglar alarm system and quickly entered the code. "Why do I put up with you?" he asked Lee plaintively.

"Because you're a masochist. You like me wounding your manly pride."

Rei gave a bark of laughter at that. "Does that mean that you like wounding me? Sadistic bastard." He told the other matter-of-factly.

Lee sniffed. "I take offense to that. I am sadistic. Not a bastard."

Rei rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Oh Sadistic One. Go do what I pay you to do." He said pointing to the kitchen.

The effect of his command was less than he had hoped for but still acceptable.

Lee mock-saluted and turned to disappear into his domain. "You know that you'll be back for more." He called over his shoulder before the door of the kitchen shut behind him.

Rei sighed and sat down at one of the tables, rubbing his temples. The sad thing was that Lee was right. At some point in the day Rei would end up in the kitchen talking to Lee and basically avoiding the world. He liked his chef's dry view of the world and arrogant confidence in his abilities, especially in the kitchen. It made him feel comfortable and made him, for a short time at least, forget that outside their conversation Rei's world was being held together with cheap sticky tape. In a metaphoric way.

A loud string of colorful curses announced the arrival of one of the other people who worked at the café.

"Bryan?" Rei asked mildly. "Do you even know what half of those words mean? That had to be at least ten different languages."

"Twelve, actually." Bryan told him as he walked into the doors and saw where Rei was sitting. "Swearing is the most important thing to learn in any language."

Rei raised an eyebrow at the Russian but decided not to comment. "Where's Tala?" He asked, looking around for the redhead. As far as he could figure Tala and Bryan had been car pooling ever since he had employed them. They always arrived and left at the same time.

"Parking the car." Bryan said offhandedly as he began to take down one of the tables he had stacked in the back of the café the previous day and take it outside to the courtyard.

"You do know that you're about 20 minutes late." Rei told him.

Bryan considered the reprimand for a second then shrugged. "Tala's fault."

Rei took a breath to begin trying to explain why that really wasn't an excuse, taking care to ignore his own lateness, when a blur with red hair burst through the door.

"Rei! I'm so sorry!" Tala said, panting, coming to stop in front of the Chinese man. He then launched into a very longwinded explanation of why he had been late. As far as Rei could understand it had to do with lumpy milk, a possessed iron and coffee. Why Tala couldn't have had coffee at the café was beyond Rei but he didn't question the redhead, merely tried to survive the onslaught of words. Tala could talk the ears off an elephant if he wanted to.

Luckily for Rei's ears, Tala didn't want to test that theory just yet.

After Tala had finished his explanation he looked at Rei's expression of faint puzzlement and grinned. "I'm so glad that you understand!" He told the Chinese man before wandering away to go and help Bryan set up for the day.

Rei blinked as the redhead walked away from him. Every time he talked to Tala he ended up in the same weird state, knowing that he was supposed to have understood something but not having a clue what that something was. He swore that Tala did it on purpose.

In the back of the café a telephone began to ring, the annoying sound quickly followed by Lee's yell of, "REI! PHONE!"

Rei rolled his eyes before beginning to run for the phone. It was as if Lee couldn't comprehend that he wasn't the only one who could hear a ringing phone.

"Hello, The Gatling Café, Rei speaking" Rei said as he picked up the phone.

-Hello. This is Hiromi from Café Direct. I'm just calling to confirm the shipment of supplies that you ordered through our company.-

"Uh… yeah…" Rei said hesitatingly. They arrive today? What day is it anyway? Rei thought, panicking and trying to find where the calendar was. He found it under a box of paper clips. I really need to hang this thing up he thought as he scanned the calendar to a day marked in red.

'Extra Supplies arrive today! Don't forget'

Figures Rei thought sarcastically as he turned his attention back to the girl on the phone. "Yeah those supplies. I know them," He said before realising how stupid he sounded.

The sound of Hiromi laughing filtered through the phone to his ear. -That's good to know.- She told him.

"Uh… yeah…" Rei said, distracted as he searched for something to stick the calendar up on the wall with.

-Anyway, so there is no problem with that? They will be arriving around twelve o'clock.-

"No. No problem."

-Good. Thank you for using our service. We hope to hear from you soon.- the woman on the other end of the phone finished and hung up.

Rei sighed as he hung up the phone. He couldn't believe that he had forgotten about that. "Crap." He muttered to him self before turning around to almost run into Tala.

"What'cha swearin' about?" He asked innocently.

"Nothing." He told the redhead, trying to ignore the attack of cute being thrown in his direction.

"Good." Tala handed him a manky-looking knife and fork. "We found this in the garden around the courtyard. Can you take it into the grumpy one for me while I boot up the cash register?"

Rei raised an eyebrow. "The grumpy one? Why do you call him that?"

"Because he is." Tala insisted. "All he ever does is grumble at me."

"I'm not all that bad am I?" Lee asked as he opened the kitchen doors and snatched the cutlery from Rei's grip. "I'm perfectly friendly to people I like."

"Snappish" Tala told Lee, frowning.

"Too much Ally McBeal for you, Tala." Bryan told him, as he came inside to lean on the counter.

Lee flashed Tala a wicked smile before turning to Rei. "If you aren't too busy doing managerish things, do you want to come and help me make more sandwiches for lunch? Also, I was thinking about us maybe doing a breakfast menu."

"I'll be with you in a second." Rei told him. "Can you just let me kick myself for a while?"

Lee smirked. "I told you, you were masochistic. Can I pick the psycho or what?" He asked the two Russians as they looked at him confused.

"…Annnd everyone back to work!" Rei said brightly, pushing Lee back into the kitchen. "What was that about a breakfast menu?"

-o-

Rei finished helping Lee with the sandwiches and other assorted lunchtime foods in time to receive the delivery he had been called about.

"…" Tala was speechless for possibly the first time in his life.

"…" Bryan could possibly have been speechless but more likely wasn't talking to anyone for whatever reason.

"… I don't think I've ever seen so much coffee in my life" Tala said, regaining his voice.

"Gentlemen and… Gentlemen, feast your eyes upon the great coffee bonanza." Rei said proudly.

Tala recovered from his shock and rolled his eyes. "Please tell me that isn't what you're going to call this when we start selling it."

Rei looked indignant. "I'd like to see you come up with better."

"Challenge accepted."

-o-

Tala stood at the counter serving a middle-aged woman. "Would you like to try an exotic flavour of coffee from our Great Coffee Bonanza? We've just gotten it in. Beans from all around the world."

Rei stifled a laugh as he turned to serve the next customer. The café was even busier than it had been yesterday, if that were possible, and he had been needed to help serve. "How can I help you?" He asked, smiling at the man in front of him.

The man looked up at the billboard behind Rei, brushing his blue hair out of his eyes to see it clearly. He scanned it for a few seconds before looking back at Rei. "I'll have a cappuccino, thanks."

"Would you like to try an exotic coffee flavour from out new Great Coffee Bonanza?" Rei asked.

The man in front of Rei looked into his eyes. The man's red eyes seemingly searching for a trick or deception of some sort. "…Ok." He said eventually.

Rei smiled. "Great! What flavour would you like?"

The man smirked. "Whatever flavour you think I should have."

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