Ugh, I have a bad cough again… the only good thing about it is that I'm off school, which means I have more time to write this! And I'm really happy about how many views I got this month for this story! 371 views in the first half of January! Thank you to all those who read this, because even views make me extremely happy! Of course I love everyone who reviews even more! From now on I'm going to put 'thank you' in a different language every chapter, starting with English!
THANK YOU! XD
Disclaimer – .edalbyeB nwo ton od I READ BACKWARDS!
Blading Brings People Together
Chapter 19: Conflicts
Dinner that night was unbearable. Everyone seated around the table was scowling at the person opposite them, and even Mitsuki was staring at Lily. Kyoya was leaning against the kitchen counter, rapidly chewing on a chicken leg, while Nile was sitting atop the counter, swinging his legs and humming quietly. Of course, Alex was resting on the sofa with his food, but only because Tazmin had insisted. This continued for another few agonising minutes, nobody wanting to break the tense silence. Miku's eye twitched as Crystalline cocked her head slightly, still unblinking. Raven and Charice were glaring daggers at each other, their food completely untouched and forgotten in the heat of their second staring contest. Even the two support members were glowering at each other.
Finally Nile said, "Can you stop staring at each other? It's really weirding me and Kyoya out…" To which Kyoya snorted, "You mean it's weirding you out. I don't care what they do." He ripped some more meat off of the bone.
As soon as they'd heard Nile's voice, all heads turned towards the kitchen counter to stare at Nile so fast that the boy was surprised they didn't get whiplash, "Don't start…" He breathed out heavily, "Seriously guys. I know you're all tense about the battles, but honestly? There's no need to glare at each other like that, even if you are stressed."
"We're not stressed!" They all snapped, before glowering at each other again.
"At least I tried." Nile sighed, turning to the plate of food beside him, "Want another chicken leg?" He asked Kyoya, who grunted in response after throwing the now-bare chicken bone into the bin. If he hadn't seen Kyoya picking the bone clean, he would've sworn it never had anything on it before. Once the boy had another chicken leg, he was tearing the meat off in no time flat.
Normally, Charice would snort and say something about Kyoya's fangs actually being useful for something, but she was too engrossed in her third staring contest with Raven. All she could focus on were the purple eyes opposite her which, Charice noted, were ever-so-slightly darker than her own.
Nile rolled his eyes at Kyoya's behaviour, causing the teal-haired boy to say, "What? It's good chicken," between mouthfuls.
Silence took hold for a few more minutes, and Nile was the one to break it again, "No, really guys. This is just stupid, so stop staring at each other." When he was ignored, he walked up to the table and banged his fist on it, making everybody jump and lose their focus.
"Nile?! What did you do that for?!" Charice yelled.
"It's annoying! Stop it already! I don't care if you're worried about the battles; just stop glaring at each other! Anyway, what's the point of staring contests if you're concerned?! They have nothing to do with Beyblade, and that seems to be the reason why you're doing them!" Nile lost it, shouting at the girl. Abruptly, Charice stood up, knocking her chair over in the process, and stormed over to the green-eyed boy.
"Well, I'm sorry! We're not as incredible as you two! We can't just defeat our opponents in no time flat, yeah?! We actually have to fight hard for our wins! So of course we're worried about the battles! I'm sorry that you," Charice jabbed a finger in his chest as she said the words, "don't understand our anxiety because you think you're 'so high and mighty' in blading, unlike us!"
"I don't think I'm 'high and mighty' in blading! And I never said anything about being better than you! I'm just telling you to stop your stupid staring contests!" Nile retorted, "And anyway, if you're really that worried, then you should be practising, not having staring contests!"
"Shut up! I don't care! Just… just leave me alone!" Charice screamed, running out of the room with tears in her eyes.
"Fine! Be that way!" Nile shouted after her, before stalking out into the garden. By that time, everyone had stopped glaring and was watching their argument with wide eyes. Once the two were gone, they let out the breath they hadn't realised they'd been holding.
"… That went well." Miku sniggered, which made Mitsuki hit her arm and hiss, "This isn't a joke, Miku!"
"Ok, ok! Jeez!" Miku held up her hands in defence.
"I'll go talk to Nile." Kyoya said, and followed Nile out, chicken leg still in hand.
"I'll find Charice." Mitsuki offered, leaving when everyone else nodded their approval.
"I never thought I'd ever hear Charice that angry…" The Lynx user commented, replaying Charice and Nile's conflict in her mind.
"She's not usually like this, then?" Lily wrote in her notebook.
"Nope. She does get angry quite often – mainly at me – but she's never sounded this furious. Maybe that's because we only fight over the last slice of pizza, but that's not the point!" Tazmin shook her head in exasperation.
/X-X/
"Charice? Are you in here?" Mitsuki knocked on the door of Charice's room and listened for a reply, but none came. Instead, she heard a small sob, which she took to be from Charice, "Are you ok?"
"Of course I'm ok! That's why I'm crying!" Charice growled sarcastically, burying her head in her arms. She was currently sitting on her bed, legs pulled up to her chest, crying softly. She knew the argument was partly Nile's fault, yet it was mostly her fault for snapping at him in the first place. She felt terrible about what she'd said to Nile, although she was too scared to go and apologize, just in case Nile chose to yell at her again. Deep inside, she knew that he only got angry because they were annoying him, but she ignored this so she could avoid having to face Nile again.
"Can I come in?"
"No! Go away!" Even though Charice said this, Mitsuki opened the door and slipped in, closing it behind her, "I thought I told you to go away!"
"And you actually thought I'd listen?" Mitsuki reminded her gently. She didn't get a response to that, so she decided to change the subject, "Charice, it's ok. People argue all the time, but they get over it eventually."
"I know that!" The brunette hissed, not even looking up.
"Ok…" Mitsuki decided to take another approach, "I'm sure Nile didn't want to shout at you. He just-"
"He just lost his temper, blah blah blah. It was a stupid thing to fight over, yeah yeah. I know all this, Mitsuki. And there's no point in trying to get me to come out to apologize, because I won't." Finally, Charice looked up at Mitsuki, and the hazel-eyed girl flinched under the intensity of those bloodshot, violet eyes.
"Why not? Neither of you really wanted to argue, so nobody's to blame. I admit you were exaggerating slightly, but that doesn't matter."
"Really helping, Mitsuki."
"Look, why don't-"
"Why don't you just leave and let me sort this out myself?! I'm not a child! I'm probably older than you, anyway! I can do this myself, so just get out!" Charice snapped, purple eyes flashing angrily.
"But-"
"No buts! Just get out! Leave! Go!"
"Charice-"
"LEAVE!" Mitsuki winced at the volume of her voice, and quickly darted out of the room. When she was gone, Charice let out a sob.
All I'm doing is pushing my friends away when they're trying to help me…
\X-X\
"Nile?" Kyoya called out, scanning the darkness for any sign of Nile. Even with his better-than-average night-vision, he couldn't see anything that looked even remotely like his teammate, "Where are you?" Nile, if he was out there, didn't respond. Growling, Kyoya began to walk around the garden, searching for his green-eyed friend. He hadn't wanted to hunt for Nile, so he was slightly displeased for having to do it.
After a few minutes of pointless searching, Kyoya stopped in the middle of the garden, extremely irritated. He couldn't find Nile anywhere, and he'd finished his chicken leg long ago, which did not help his temper. What he didn't notice was the dark shape perched on the roof, staring up at the night sky.
"Nile! If you don't give me some indication of where you are, I'll kick you off the team!" Of course, they both knew it was an empty threat, since Kyoya would never get rid of Nile. Even so, Nile shouted, "I'm up here!" Kyoya's head snapped upwards, towards the roof. All he could see was a black figure, but he assumed that was his teammate.
"How did you get up there?!"
"There's a ladder over there! Don't know why, but there is!" He pointed to his right, and Kyoya could roughly make out the shape of a ladder. Kyoya walked over to it, grabbing hold of the nearest rung. Quickly, he made his way up the ladder, and was sitting next to Nile before long.
"You ok?" Kyoya asked, not really sure what else to say.
"Yeah… I don't really know what came over me. I just got angry and lost it over something pretty stupid, I know! I swear I didn't mean to get so frustrated! You know I would never hurt anybody on purpose… without good reasons." Kyoya had to suppress a small chuckle at those last few words, "I know what you mean. Even I have to admit, they were starting to annoy me as well with those staring contests of theirs. I don't understand why they were doing them, but whatever." They sat in silence for a few moments, gazing up at the full moon.
"Hey Nile?"
"What?"
"… What do you think of Charice?" If Kyoya had been looking at his friend and it had been even slightly brighter, he might've noticed the faint blush making its way across the boy's face.
"W-well, I think she's n-nice." Kyoya arched an eyebrow. Since when did Nile stutter?
"Nice? In what way?" Yep, the Leone-user was definitely making things awkward for the Egyptian boy.
"You know, sh-she's nice…" Nile could feel blood dripping down his chin from how hard he was biting his lip.
"In what way?" Kyoya pressed.
"Oh look, is that Pegasus up there?" Changing the subject. Nice try, Nile, but it wouldn't work on Kyoya.
"Answer. The. Damn. Question. Nile." He growled, narrowing his eyes. No matter what, you did not want to get Kyoya angry. Ever.
"… I-I like her. A l-lot…" Now the boy's blush was visible even in the dim light. If he was blushing this much now, Kyoya wondered how red he would be when confessing to Charice… that was, if he ever got round to it.
"… You didn't answer the question."
"Kyoya!" Nile cried, playfully elbowing the teal-haired boy in the ribs.
"You didn't though." He shrugged, accidently hitting Nile in the face with a stray hand. This led to a small scuffle, which in turn led to the two of them tumbling backwards off the roof after a miscalculated slap from Nile. Kyoya had grabbed onto the other's arm to stop himself from falling, but he had clearly chosen the wrong thing to rely on, since his 'rescuer' soon fell backwards with him, and they landed in a heap in the garden. How Nile ended up underneath Kyoya he would never understand.
"My… back… KYOYA, GET OFF OF ME! YOU'RE CRUSHING ME!" Leisurely, Kyoya stood up and stretched, "Thanks for breaking my fall, Nile."
"Me and my spine think you should lay off the chicken wings for the next ten years or so…" Nile groaned, wincing as he rubbed his back. Kyoya growled at this, but was stopped from attacking the poor thing when Tazmin, Miku and Mitsuki rushed out.
"What happened? We heard Nile screaming so we rushed out!" Tazmin said. Miku took one glance at the two boys and immediately worked out a way to incorporate aliens into the situation, "Alright, I know what happened! When Nile came out here, he was ambushed by aliens and was taken hostage because they wanted Kyoya for some weird reason, so when Kyoya came out, he was told to hand himself over to them or else Nile would be abducted and of course, Kyoya let himself be taken, but you can never trust aliens, and they kept Nile as well so Kyoya had to fight off all of the attacking aliens with his bey, then he freed Nile and the two escaped from the fleeing UFO, landed in the garden with Kyoya crushing poor Nile with his immense weight and that's the end!" She managed to say it all in one breath, which was quite impressive.
"'Crushing poor Nile with his immense weight'…?" Tazmin and Mitsuki had to seize Kyoya's arms to stop him from strangling Miku, "I'M NOT THAT HEAVY!" He settled for baring his fangs at the frightened girl, but still continued to glare daggers at her.
"For some reason, I doubt your theory would be true in any world, parallel or not." Mitsuki massaged her temples, as if trying to rid herself of Miku's (stupid) theory. "What happened, guys?"
"Kyoya crushed my spine!"
"Tell us something we don't know."
"We were up on the roof, and we started fighting. We fell, and Nile claims that I've crushed his spine, if you haven't worked that out."
"What were you doing up on the roof?"
"Doesn't matter. Come on, you need to go talk to Charice." Kyoya held out a hand to Nile, who took it gingerly and pulled himself up, "Do I have to?"
"She's pretty upset, Nile, so be careful. She wouldn't really talk to me…" Mitsuki sighed.
"Go on. It's not like we'll eavesdrop or anything, will we Miku?" Tazmin stared at the black-haired girl as she said this.
"Why d'ya look at me when you say that?!"
"No reason."
"Just go." Kyoya pushed him towards the house. "It'll be fine, don't worry."
"Alright then…" The boy walked into the kitchen, pointedly ignoring the whispering Himalayan as he passed them. As Nile went up the stairs, he couldn't shake off the dread that was creeping up his spine with every step closer he got to Charice's room. Maybe he should just turn around and leave her alone, like she wanted? When he finally stood in front of her door, the foreboding feeling wouldn't leave him. He shook his head, as if trying to get rid of that feeling. Slowly, he put his hand on the door handle, and turned it. There was no turning back now. "Charice?"
"N-Nile…?" Charice looked up at the Egyptian, and he inwardly shivered once he saw her red eyes.
"Y-yeah… hi."
"… Go away." She hissed, hiding her face in her hands.
"I want to talk to you-"
"What part of 'go away' don't you understand?!"
"But-"
"No buts! Just go!"
"Charice-"
"Go away!"
"Ch-Charice-"
"JUST GO AWAY!" Nile 'eep'ed pathetically and ducked as an alarm clock came flying at his head. He slipped out of the door, shutting it behind him. There was a dull 'thud', which probably meant that Charice had tried to throw something else at him, but the door had taken the hit for him. Staring at the alarm clock lying on its slide, Nile slumped against the door, sighing heavily.
"Well, that went well."
So Nile has feelings for Charice, but she's just thrown an alarm clock at him, yeah? Maybe that will put him off? … Nah, I doubt something like that will stop Nile. When Nile wants something, Nile gets it. ^w^
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