Title: Obsession

Author: PandaPjays

Chapter Title: Party

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: Hello again! I'm proud to announce that my New Years Resolution of One page a day is going well! We shall see how well it goes when school starts again, yes? I have high hopes though.

This chapter was written while my new writing buddy was watching me. Panda-chan the Panda plushie. My friend gave her to me as a late Christmas present and she has been my constant companion ever since. She's very soft and pattable. I love her to pieces.

This chapter is dedicated to wolf-of-the-moonlight who is abandoning me to go and live in a city that's a whole six hours away. Yet, I still love her to pieces.

And that's enough rambling from me and the team! Enjoy!

-Panda, Panda-chan and Brick

Two Months Later

Rei sat up as soon as he felt consciousness begin to invade his body. He blinked, trying to get rid of the instant headache that began to throb behind his eyes.

He quickly glanced at his clock. Yes! Five minutes before the alarm! He celebrated silently before his body actually realised what time it was.

It didn't take his body long to catch up with his head and Rei felt his limbs become heavy and slow. He flopped back down on to the bed, struggling to keep his eyes open. No. Must stay awake. He chanted to himself as he urged his protesting body to roll off his bed and on to the waiting pillows. He refused to be late today.

Lee, his tormentor, had sadistically been teasing him relentlessly about always being late. Especially since he had been constantly late for the past two months.

If Rei had realised just how early he would have to get up in order to run the Gatling he swore he would have let the cobwebs eat the little building. This was just cruel. It was a Saturday. It was hard enough waking up at an ungodly time on weekdays.

He crawled out of his pillowed haven and began to make his way to the bathroom.

It's a Saturday. I'm meant to be sleeping in! Not struggling to stay alert because of some stupid bet.

Lee had started up a competition between Tala, Bryan and himself to see who could guess exactly how late Rei would be today. What they didn't know was that Rei had heard them while they were 'secretly' placing money on various times. He was rather disgruntled to find out that the smallest time was Bryan's. And he had said half an hour.

Obviously they didn't have too much faith in their beloved employer.

Rei always felt guilty when he came into the courtyard of the café, still damp and miserable from his too short morning shower to be greeted by three faces looking at him expectantly.

He had offered to cut them all keys but Lee had refused them, saying that Rei just had to be on time so they wouldn't freeze their arses off in the morning chill.

Sadistic bastard Rei thought as he crawled into the shower and reached up to blast himself with a freezing cold jet of water.

Rei yelped and quickly turned on the hot tap as well, crawling out of the stream of ice and into the furthest corner of the shower as the water began to heat up.

Why do I do this to myself? He asked himself plaintively as he checked the water with one hand until he was satisfied that he could get underneath it without becoming a Rei-sized ice block.

He sighed and leant his head against the wall of the shower, letting the hot water massage his throat. Maybe Lee's right He thought reluctantly.

Ugh! I never want to hear those words in my head ever again. That's just wrong.

-o-

Rei walked into the courtyard of the café with a small smile of triumph on his lips. He may not be able to see straight because he was so tired but he was five minutes early.

He unlocked the doors of the building and sat down at on of the tables inside, waiting for the others to arrive so he could gloat.

He leant as far forward on the table as he could and rested his head on his arms, staring at the clock on the wall. I'm going to kill them all if they're late, he decided and closed his eyes, finding that if he kept them closed they didn't burn too much. Hypocrites.

Rei was woken up by Lee poking him in the ribs. "Wake up. Your tormentor is here. You don't was to miss out on the fun of me laughing at you, do you?"

"Mrgh." Rei replied, blinking as he looked up at Lee with his eyes half lidded. "When did you get here?" he asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

Lee considered the question. "A few hours ago, give or take."

Rei blinked. "What? You're not serious are you?"

"I'm very serious. We decided that since you were asleep it didn't really count as you being here at work. So you're a grand total of…" Lee looked back around at the clock, "Two hours late." He raised his voice at that last sentence and looked over at Tala and Bryan triumphantly.

Both Russians groaned and began digging trough their wallets to find the money they owed Lee.

The suddenly moneyed-up man looked over at Rei and winked at him. "I wouldn't let either of them come near you until two hours were up. You just helped me earn enough for a new… something…" He stopped to consider it for a second. "What should I buy?" he questioned.

"A life might be a good start." Rei told him grumpily as he stood up unsteadily. That comment earned him a whap upside the head.

Rei grimaced and rubbed his head. "I only speak the truth."

"Speak it where I can't hear you."

"Fine. Leave the room."

Lee glared at Rei, trying and failing to come up with a comeback. He blew out a frustrated breath of air and huffed. "Don't bite the hand that feeds you!" Before flouncing into the kitchen.

Rei grinned and leant on the table he had been sleeping on. Lee would probably go into a marathon of cooking. It seemed to be the way that he coped with most things.

A lone person clapping brought Rei's attention back to Tala. He glared at the redhead before sitting down on the chair again and sighing. "I really need to work on this sleeping pattern thing." He told the general population of the restaurant.

"I don't know. You looked very cute sleeping over there." An unknown woman's voice chimed in.

Rei looked up in shock when he realised that they weren't alone in the café. He turned to Tala and Bryan. "You let me sleep while people were here?" He asked disbelievingly.

Bryan shrugged. "We just told them you'd had a hard night."

"After mentioning, of course, that you were the person who ran this joint." Tala continued for Bryan, grinning.

"GAH!" Rei said, throwing his arms up into the air and walking into the kitchen.

"I knew you'd be back." Lee said offhandedly as he glared at a pan as it began to heat up, willing it to heat up faster. "You can't get enough of me can you?"

Rei made a frustrated noise and retreated through the kitchen to his small office. It was his only hideaway from the insanity that surrounded his life.

His office was trashed. Rei had managed to cleave a pile through the random boxes that ended up at the chair that sat in front of his desk. Rei sat on the chair and sighed, leaning his elbows on the desk and burying his head in his hands.

Bad day. He decided. Bad. Day.

Rei noticed a small pile of paper on his desk and frowned at them, trying to read upside down. Deciding that his Japanese wasn't quite that good yet he sighed and spun the page around, recognising the printouts as the takings of the week from the cash registers. He would have to put that in the computer at some point. But not yet.

Rei grinned as he heard Lee begin to sing a song to himself in his native tongue. It was possible that the song was meant to be sung in a constant Z double flat. Rei doubted it though.

Still, he continued to smile as Lee sang the song tunelessly. It was weird how he had ended up hiring a fellow Chinese man in Japan. That, and that he had managed to hire two Russians. Of all the nationalities that resided in Japan, Rei would have thought that at least one of his staff would have been Japanese.

Apparently not.

Not that Rei was complaining. Far from it. He couldn't have found a group of people more suited to each other and to their job if he had trawled through the best restaurants and cafés in the world.

Sure, they were all insane and had a scary affinity for teasing their boss, but Rei could deal with that.

What he couldn't deal with, however, was the pounding headache that began to attack his skull. He bent down to look in on of his desks drawers until he found a packet of painkillers. He popped a tablet out of the packet and popped in into his mouth, dry-swallowing it.

Rei made a face at the bitter taste but sighed and continued to rest his head in his hands until the pounding began to subside.

"Rei?" He heard Lee call from the kitchen.

"Yes?"

"Tala just came in here complaining about how busy it is. I think that means that you have to stop moping around in there, doing nothing and go and be nice and smiling to the public."

Rei walked to the door of his office and poked his head out of it. "What made you think I wasn't doing something extremely important?"

Lee turned around to look at him seriously. "Since when do you do anything important in that stuffy room? You go there to mope and to feel sorry for yourself."

"Hey! I don't mope!" Rei said defensively, stepping out of his office and closing the door behind him.

"But you do feel sorry for yourself." Lee said flatly before turning around to flip a pancake. "Now go and help Tala and Bryan. The breakfast menu closes in another hour. Then you can feel sorry for yourself."

Rei frowned at the chef's back before beginning to make his way out to the main body of the café. Anyone would think that Lee was the one who was meant to be giving the orders. Rei sighed in frustration, missing Lee's 'I wish I knew why' as he walked out to join Tala and Bryan.

"What are you doing out here?" Bryan asked as he leant on the counter, idly toying with a pen.

Rei frowned. "Lee just sent me. He said that you two needed help."

Tala gestured to the café, which only had a few patrons. "Does it look like we need help? Everyone's too busy either getting over Friday night parties or preparing for Saturday night ones to come here and have breakfast." Tala grinned and reached for the cup of coffee he had poured himself earlier. "That's where I'd be anyway if I wasn't in your fine company."

'What about mine?" Bryan asked as he continued to play with the pen, staring at it bleakly like it was the last pen on Earth and he had to keep it moving or it would disappear in a poof of smoke.

"You know I love your company, Bry." Tala told him, taking another sip of his coffee. "But I'm not trying to flatter you. Now keep playing with that sorry pen while I try to get an advance in my pay." He looked at Rei, hopefully. "What do you say?" He asked.

"Hm." Rei replied thoughtfully. "I'll have to think about it." He paused for a few seconds before clicking his fingers and exclaiming. "Wait! I have it!"

Tala leant toward Rei, nodding hopefully.

"-No!" Rei said enthusiastically before allowing his features to return to their normal expression. "I need to get some coffee."

"But Reeeeei." Tala complained. "I need the money!"

"Why? It's the second month this café's been open. I can't afford to pay you in advance."

"I need to go partying tonight!"

Rei almost fell over. "That's your reason."

Tala nodded earnestly. "My entire reputation depends on me going out tonight." He said seriously before turning around and beginning to make Rei's coffee.

"I guess your reputation's shot then." Rei told him seriously, folding his arms. "Why don't you spend your night doing something more interesting than getting drunk and rubbing yourself up against a bunch of strangers?"

Tala poured Rei his coffee and turned to the Chinese man, handing him the mug. "I resent that!" He said indignantly. Tala briefly looked at Bryan who was serving someone at the counter. "I don't rub myself up against strangers!"

"But you do get drunk." Rei observed.

"Obviously. It's a lot more fun than it sounds. You should try that fun thing sometime. It could be good for you."

Rei took a sip of his coffee and grimaced before setting it down and adding a lot of sugar to it. He sipped it again and nodded in satisfaction to himself. "Fun is too new-fangled." He said seriously. "I'd much rather stay at home and learn to play bridge with my small army of cats."

Tala gasped in shock and horror. "That's it! Rei, I'm stopping you from your premature demise into a male old cat lady right now! You, my dear Rei, are coming clubbing with your benevolent instructors of fun, otherwise known as the Gods of all things good, the almighty Tala and Bryan." Tala said, gesturing expansively toward himself and the lavender haired man beside him.

Rei snorted in laughter. "Bryan? Fun? He'd probably glare at it until it ran away screaming for its mother."

"He's also standing right behind you with a cup of extremely hot coffee ready to pour it on you at Red's command" Bryan said tartly.

Rei rolled his eyes before he caught sight of Tala's face, smirking at him calculatingly.

"Whatever you're thinking. Stop now." Rei said nervously.

That only made Tala's smirk become wider. "I think it's high time for an opening party." He told Rei seriously.

Rei blinked. "What? What do you mean by that?"

Tala grinned and set his coffee mug down on the bench before draping his arm around Rei's shoulders in a gesture of conspiracy-laden comradery "We never got to celebrate the birthday of this wondrous place." He gestured expansively at the interior of the café. "I think it's high time we did."

Rei blinked again, still trying to comprehend what the hell Tala was going on about. Sometimes he swore that the redhead was quite a lot of beans short of a burrito.

"What do you think Bryan?" Tala asked the other.

For his part, Bryan gave a non-committal shrug. "I would pay to see Rei trying to have any type of fun."

Rei turned his head to glare at Bryan but couldn't say anything because Tala had begun speaking again. Rei tuned out of the redhead's spiel. I'm going to kill Lee. He probably knew that something like this would happen. Rei settled for devising new and inventive ways he could kill his chef while Tala finished babbling.

"Are you done?" He cut in, having decided that a steamroller driven by a maniacal axe-murdering clown would be a fitting way for the evil one to die. "I don't have any clothes to go out partying. You've seen the extent of my wardrobe. It's not huge."

Tala smirked, "Easily fixed, my friend. Easily fixed"

"What's easily fixed?" Lee asked as he came out of the kitchen, balancing a plate of pancakes in his hands. "Last time I checked it wasn't my job to serve people." He glared pointedly at Tala and Bryan. The former of who stuck his tongue out at Lee childishly.

Lee gave the plate to Bryan. "Number 11." He said briefly before turning to Rei and Tala. "What have I missed?"

"We're having a party!" Tala said enthusiastically.

"Tala wants a party." Rei said at the same time wearily.

Lee blinked. "A party as in…?" He ventured.

"We're taking Rei to a night club and showing him how fun it is to get drunk and rub yourself up against a total stranger." Tala told him with a straight face.

One of Lee's eyebrows rose. "Really?" He asked, looking at Rei in a new light.

Tala nodded. "Uh-huh. He tried to get out of it by claiming no clothes so I'm taking him shopping!"

Lee's second eyebrow rose to join the first. "I think I should take him shopping."

Rei blinked. Now everyone was against him? Today had to be some sort of 'pick on Rei' day. "How about no one take me shopping?" He ventured.

"Shut up Rei." Lee told him curtly. "We're deciding your demise. You don't have any say in it."

Rei pouted. "Control freak."

"God has to be." Lee told him frankly. "You don't think the world was created by itself do you?"

Rei rolled his eyes. "Whatever you think."

"Blasphemer."

Tala clapped his hands. "Spiritual debate aside, what the hell do you mean by you're taking Rei shopping? I came up with this idea- I get first dibs on Rei's outfit!"

"Hell no!" Lee told him, laughing. "I've seen the poor excuses for outfits you wear to clubs. One day you're going to be arrested for indecent exposure"

Tala winked. "But until then I'm going to make everyone ogle."

Lee pointed to a table of girls who were talking amongst each other and occasionally glancing at his boss. "I don't think Rei needs help in that department."

Rei blushed and waved nervously at the table. This sent the girls into fits of giggles as they waved back. "Are you really going to make me do this?"

"Yes." Tala and Lee replied unanimously.

"Great." He said unenthusiastically. "I have to go and do some work." He looked at the three men around him. "So do all of you."

Lee saluted. "What ever you say. We're going shopping on Wednesday." He told Rei as he herded him back through the kitchen doors.

"What Lee means to say is that we'll be going shopping on Wednesday." Tala called after them.

Kai sat in his regular chair and drank his regular coffee, relishing in both the taste and in the news that he had just overheard. Wednesday? Interesting.

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