Flower_on_thewind: Wheeeeeee!!!! I have time for myself!!^_____^; And I
have the next chappie up!!! Yeppers, as you can see, I'm in a good mood!
Forget-me-not: ^___^; Yeah, I'm not too fond of Rei/Mariah parings as well.
Mikadonk: Okay, I won't make you curse any longer, cuz here's the next chapter! And if you're going to revenge Kevin, let me come too! *takes out frying pan* ^_^;
Okay, enough with my yapping and on with the fic...
Warnings: contains yaoi, and suggestions of abuse
Disclaimer: I don't own beyblades in any way.
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***From last chapter...***
Rei was about to call out his friend's name until he saw Kevin's figure flatter and collapse against the wall of the building. Rei ran as fast as he could to aid his friend, only to see that Kevin was unconscious and breathing heavily with sweat pouring down his face.
****
Chapter 3: While You Were Sleeping...
"Kevin! Wake up!!" Rei shook Kevin until he moaned in protest.
"Whad'ya want you big tub of lard!?!?!?" Kevin yelled while his eyes were still closed.
Rei blew a breath of relief. An insulting Kevin was much better than a quiet one.
"Are you okay? What happened?" Kevin's eyes suddenly snapped open, but he still held a bit of fatigue in his features.
"Rei?" Kevin suddenly groaned and clutched his head in pain. "I-I'm not feeling so hot..."
Rei began to panic. What if Kevin was really sick and was going to die!??!?! What was he supposed to do? He took a deep breath to calm down his irrational thoughts. His house was closer than Kevin's house so it made more sense to bring Kevin there. Rei managed to get Kevin on his back and made his way home hurriedly. He randomly thought of how light Kevin was and wondered if that were normal...
Once he came home, he quickly placed Kevin on the couch. Kevin had fallen asleep sometime during the trek home. Rei didn't mind though. Sleep is a good thing. He checked Kevin's forehead and found it burning with a fever, so he went off to get a cool cloth. On his way, he found a note by his mom that she's at his aunt's house and won't be back until late.
Juuuust great. How was he supposed to know how to help Kevin now? His mom usually knew what to do in these situations, not him! Why aren't parents around when you need them?
When Rei came back with a cool cloth, Kevin was in a restless state, tossing and turning. He placed the cloth on Kevin's forehead and sat beside him with a worried look. Kevin's restless state calmed down with the help of the cool compress, but his eyebrows were still knitted together in pain.
Suddenly the same protective feeling Rei felt last night came back full force. At the moment, Kevin looked so vulnerable and helpless and over all, innocent. Rei suddenly had this strange urge to hold on to Kevin and somehow make the pain go away. It was weird. Rei never felt this strong, caring feeling for anyone before... ANYONE.
Rei tried shake the feeling off, but it wouldn't go away... maybe it was there because Kevin needed help badly and Rei didn't know how to help him. Yeah, that's got to be it. That has to be it... right?
Kevin suddenly moaned in pain and shifted his position on the sofa. In doing so he almost rolled off the couch. If it weren't for Rei, he would have been on the floor. Now Rei was in a predicament of sorts. He now had a sleeping Kevin in his arms on the floor of his living room. Well, that sure cured his sudden urge to hold him.
The problem was that now Rei didn't want to let go of Kevin. Nope, he just sat there in the middle of his living room with Kevin in his arms and he wasn't going to let go for a while. The funny thing is, Kevin's behavior went from troubled to practically peaceful. He even seemed to have somehow curled upon Rei's lap like... a cat.
The two boys stayed like that for some time. Rei would often smile a bit even though the rational part of his brain screamed at him to put Kevin back on to the couch and leave things as that. Sometimes he would brush Kevin's bangs away from his face to see the painful bruises. Rei's eyes would narrow when he inspected them closely. No punishment should have an outcome such as this.
During the time spent together in the embrace, Kevin's fever miraculously came down. Rei smiled when he discovered this, but he also froze in his tracks.
'What am I doing?' Rei finally seemed to notice his currently ranting rational side and suddenly saw how odd he was acting. He would never sit in the middle of a room holding a FRIEND in his arms before. What could have possessed him to do such a thing?
Oh right. That odd feeling that wouldn't go away. What the heck was that feeling anyways?
Kevin stirred in his sleep, and began to wake up. Rei began to panic. They were still on the floor in HIS living room and he was holding on to Kevin!!!
"Ugh... Where am I?" Kevin mumbled sleepily.
Rei took a deep breath to calm his stupid nerves that weren't helping him at the moment.
"Hey, feeling better Kevin?" Kevin looked around confusedly before realizing where he was, who was with him, and whom he was sitting on...
"Rei???" Kevin scrambled off of Rei and sat beside him. His good eye showed the fogginess of sleep still clouding his judgment. "What the heck am I doing at your house?"
"You collapsed, remember?" Rei answered truthfully. "I brought you to my place because it was closer than yours. I hope you don't mind..." Rei blushed as he silently went over what happened while Kevin was sleeping.
"Oh...Um... thanks Rei." Kevin blushed a bit in his embarrassment. "I should have known that I wasn't going to make it home. If it weren't for you, someone like Mr. Leung would have found me and maybe he'd eaten me for dinner!" Kevin joked while feeling foolish for fainting in broad daylight. This reaction was quite understandable to Rei. I mean, he wouldn't have liked it if he fainted in front of his friends, but there was one major aspect in this whole ordeal that irked Rei's curiosity.
"Um...Kevin, why DID you collapse all of the sudden? You were fine at school...or is there something you're not telling me?" Rei eyed Kevin suspiciously as Kevin squirmed uncomfortably under Rei's intense gaze.
"NOTHING'S wrong Rei!!! Nothing but those screwed up teachers at the school. Do you know what Mr. Tao made me do!?!?! He made me do 50 laps around the village!! Then he made me clean the boy's washrooms in the school. Then he made me do 40 push ups with a bag of rice on my back!!! Then he made me do 40 MORE push-ups because the bag of rice fell!!! And then He made me pick up every single grain of rice from the ground. All because I was late for school! The teachers are evil I tell you!!!!!! EEEEEVIL!!!!!"
Rei couldn't help but grin at the smaller boy's complaining. He knew he should play sympathetic, which he was from hearing the ghastly retelling of the story, but for some reason, Rei couldn't help it.
"Now I can see why you collapsed. And you didn't have a very appetizing lunch."
Kevin nodded in agreement, but his eyes (or eye rather) had a far away glazed to it. He subconsciously fingered the jacket that he kept on him all day... Wait a minute... ... ... all day?
Rei eyed the jacket like some unpredictable animal. Was the jacket an indication that Kevin had been sick with the fever all day?
"Were you sick the entire day?" Rei asked, thus startling Kevin out of his reverie.
"No." Kevin said automatically and gave his trademark, careless smirk. But something was wrong with this particular smirk. It was covering something...something that made both Rei and Kevin uneasy.
"Okay, Kevin. I have to ask you this." Rei watched as Kevin's smile slowly melted off his face. "Why were you wearing you jacket for the whole day?"
"Because I was cold."
"Even during your 50 laps and 80 pushups?" Rei knew he didn't see Kevin while being punished, but he was going to take a chance and assume that Kevin really did have his jacket on all day. If his assumption were correct, it would explain the fever.
"Yeah..."
"Kevin, what exactly are you hiding?"
"What do you mean, hiding? I'm not hiding anything." Kevin snapped. Rei sighed in frustration.
"I'm your FRIEND Kevin. You can trust me." Kevin's face flattered. He knew that Rei was going to freak and jump to conclusions if he showed him... but if he showed him, it would get him off his back.
Kevin took off his jacket and revealed his right arm. His arm was wrapped in bandage that looked like it was hastily put on. He slowly unwrapped the cloth to expose red burn marks that was etched onto his skin. He silently waited for Rei's reaction and tried to decide how to explain it.
"How did you get those?" Rei asked demandingly but stayed as calm and rational as he possibly could. It was a good thing the rest of the team wasn't there with them. Otherwise, Rei was sure that Mariah would be hysterically demanding Kevin answers to worried questions, and Lee would be in a fit of anger and yell at Kevin for not being careful.
"IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK!! You, see, I accidentally spilled the pot of boiling water on me this morning and got burned. It was my fault I was rushing! SO IT WASN'T MY DAD!!!!" Kevin explained all of that in one breath and now was nervously fingering the hem of his shirt for Rei's reaction.
"Don't worry, Kevin!! I'm not accusing your dad of anything. I'm just worried about you. I mean, you DID have a harsh beating, got your self burnt-er- boiled, and had a harsh detention. When you collapsed today, I thought something was really wrong with you! It's not everyday one of your friends faint on the street out of the blue." Rei did his best to reassure his little friend but still felt that Kevin was hiding something.
Kevin smiled as he slowly relaxed.
"Yeah...I guess you're right."
"There. Now that's settled, my mom's coming home in a few minutes, so do you wanna stay for dinner?" Rei grinned easily while pushing all his uneasy feelings that still remained in the corner of his mind.
"Um...I don't know. My mom might wonder where I am and stuff... maybe I should call her..."
"Sure." Rei said before going into the kitchen to cook the rice.
************
"Thank you very much for dinner, Mrs. Kon." Kevin said politely to Rei's mother after dinner.
"You're very welcome. Kevin. If only you were this well behaved two days ago..." She teased good-naturedly. Kevin blushed and Rei inwardly groaned because of his mother's odd comments.
"Well, I think I have to go now. Before my parents get angry." Kevin said just as the phone rang. Rei's mother went to pick it up.
"It's for you, Kevin." She sounded a little surprised and cheerful at the same time.
Kevin took the phone slowly, unsure of what the call was about. Rei studied Kevin's face that went from surprise, to blank, to almost scared, back to blank, and then sad. He then covered the bottom half of the phone and spoke to Rei's mother.
"Umm...is it okay if I sleep over?" Kevin asked shyly. "My mom and my dad found a rat in the house and they're currently hunting it down. My mom doesn't want me in the house because she thinks I might find it and keep it for a pet."
"Sure! Of course you can." Rei's mother responded automatically. "But I hope you don't mind sleeping in the same room as Rei."
"I don't mind." Kevin mumbled timidly. Rei stared at Kevin suspiciously. All those uneasy feelings he had pushed aside earlier was coming back practically screaming 'I told you so!!! Why don't you ever listen to me!?!?!' Rei almost snorted out loud when he replied to that weird voice in his head, 'because you're making me look like an idiot.'
"Come on, Kevin. Let's have a battle before we do our homework." Rei suggested hoping that voice in his head wouldn't say something else.
"Yeah, okay." Kevin jumped eagerly out of his chair and followed closely behind Rei out of the room.
"Kevin looks like a little puppy when he follows Rei like that." Mrs. Kon commented laughingly to herself while washing the dishes. Unfortunately, the two boys heard her in the other room and gave each other uneasy glances...
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Flower_on_thewind: Er... that's all the time I have to type. -____-; Sorry about that ppl. Well, please review this chapter, because I want to know what you think about it!! Until next time then!
Forget-me-not: ^___^; Yeah, I'm not too fond of Rei/Mariah parings as well.
Mikadonk: Okay, I won't make you curse any longer, cuz here's the next chapter! And if you're going to revenge Kevin, let me come too! *takes out frying pan* ^_^;
Okay, enough with my yapping and on with the fic...
Warnings: contains yaoi, and suggestions of abuse
Disclaimer: I don't own beyblades in any way.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
***From last chapter...***
Rei was about to call out his friend's name until he saw Kevin's figure flatter and collapse against the wall of the building. Rei ran as fast as he could to aid his friend, only to see that Kevin was unconscious and breathing heavily with sweat pouring down his face.
****
Chapter 3: While You Were Sleeping...
"Kevin! Wake up!!" Rei shook Kevin until he moaned in protest.
"Whad'ya want you big tub of lard!?!?!?" Kevin yelled while his eyes were still closed.
Rei blew a breath of relief. An insulting Kevin was much better than a quiet one.
"Are you okay? What happened?" Kevin's eyes suddenly snapped open, but he still held a bit of fatigue in his features.
"Rei?" Kevin suddenly groaned and clutched his head in pain. "I-I'm not feeling so hot..."
Rei began to panic. What if Kevin was really sick and was going to die!??!?! What was he supposed to do? He took a deep breath to calm down his irrational thoughts. His house was closer than Kevin's house so it made more sense to bring Kevin there. Rei managed to get Kevin on his back and made his way home hurriedly. He randomly thought of how light Kevin was and wondered if that were normal...
Once he came home, he quickly placed Kevin on the couch. Kevin had fallen asleep sometime during the trek home. Rei didn't mind though. Sleep is a good thing. He checked Kevin's forehead and found it burning with a fever, so he went off to get a cool cloth. On his way, he found a note by his mom that she's at his aunt's house and won't be back until late.
Juuuust great. How was he supposed to know how to help Kevin now? His mom usually knew what to do in these situations, not him! Why aren't parents around when you need them?
When Rei came back with a cool cloth, Kevin was in a restless state, tossing and turning. He placed the cloth on Kevin's forehead and sat beside him with a worried look. Kevin's restless state calmed down with the help of the cool compress, but his eyebrows were still knitted together in pain.
Suddenly the same protective feeling Rei felt last night came back full force. At the moment, Kevin looked so vulnerable and helpless and over all, innocent. Rei suddenly had this strange urge to hold on to Kevin and somehow make the pain go away. It was weird. Rei never felt this strong, caring feeling for anyone before... ANYONE.
Rei tried shake the feeling off, but it wouldn't go away... maybe it was there because Kevin needed help badly and Rei didn't know how to help him. Yeah, that's got to be it. That has to be it... right?
Kevin suddenly moaned in pain and shifted his position on the sofa. In doing so he almost rolled off the couch. If it weren't for Rei, he would have been on the floor. Now Rei was in a predicament of sorts. He now had a sleeping Kevin in his arms on the floor of his living room. Well, that sure cured his sudden urge to hold him.
The problem was that now Rei didn't want to let go of Kevin. Nope, he just sat there in the middle of his living room with Kevin in his arms and he wasn't going to let go for a while. The funny thing is, Kevin's behavior went from troubled to practically peaceful. He even seemed to have somehow curled upon Rei's lap like... a cat.
The two boys stayed like that for some time. Rei would often smile a bit even though the rational part of his brain screamed at him to put Kevin back on to the couch and leave things as that. Sometimes he would brush Kevin's bangs away from his face to see the painful bruises. Rei's eyes would narrow when he inspected them closely. No punishment should have an outcome such as this.
During the time spent together in the embrace, Kevin's fever miraculously came down. Rei smiled when he discovered this, but he also froze in his tracks.
'What am I doing?' Rei finally seemed to notice his currently ranting rational side and suddenly saw how odd he was acting. He would never sit in the middle of a room holding a FRIEND in his arms before. What could have possessed him to do such a thing?
Oh right. That odd feeling that wouldn't go away. What the heck was that feeling anyways?
Kevin stirred in his sleep, and began to wake up. Rei began to panic. They were still on the floor in HIS living room and he was holding on to Kevin!!!
"Ugh... Where am I?" Kevin mumbled sleepily.
Rei took a deep breath to calm his stupid nerves that weren't helping him at the moment.
"Hey, feeling better Kevin?" Kevin looked around confusedly before realizing where he was, who was with him, and whom he was sitting on...
"Rei???" Kevin scrambled off of Rei and sat beside him. His good eye showed the fogginess of sleep still clouding his judgment. "What the heck am I doing at your house?"
"You collapsed, remember?" Rei answered truthfully. "I brought you to my place because it was closer than yours. I hope you don't mind..." Rei blushed as he silently went over what happened while Kevin was sleeping.
"Oh...Um... thanks Rei." Kevin blushed a bit in his embarrassment. "I should have known that I wasn't going to make it home. If it weren't for you, someone like Mr. Leung would have found me and maybe he'd eaten me for dinner!" Kevin joked while feeling foolish for fainting in broad daylight. This reaction was quite understandable to Rei. I mean, he wouldn't have liked it if he fainted in front of his friends, but there was one major aspect in this whole ordeal that irked Rei's curiosity.
"Um...Kevin, why DID you collapse all of the sudden? You were fine at school...or is there something you're not telling me?" Rei eyed Kevin suspiciously as Kevin squirmed uncomfortably under Rei's intense gaze.
"NOTHING'S wrong Rei!!! Nothing but those screwed up teachers at the school. Do you know what Mr. Tao made me do!?!?! He made me do 50 laps around the village!! Then he made me clean the boy's washrooms in the school. Then he made me do 40 push ups with a bag of rice on my back!!! Then he made me do 40 MORE push-ups because the bag of rice fell!!! And then He made me pick up every single grain of rice from the ground. All because I was late for school! The teachers are evil I tell you!!!!!! EEEEEVIL!!!!!"
Rei couldn't help but grin at the smaller boy's complaining. He knew he should play sympathetic, which he was from hearing the ghastly retelling of the story, but for some reason, Rei couldn't help it.
"Now I can see why you collapsed. And you didn't have a very appetizing lunch."
Kevin nodded in agreement, but his eyes (or eye rather) had a far away glazed to it. He subconsciously fingered the jacket that he kept on him all day... Wait a minute... ... ... all day?
Rei eyed the jacket like some unpredictable animal. Was the jacket an indication that Kevin had been sick with the fever all day?
"Were you sick the entire day?" Rei asked, thus startling Kevin out of his reverie.
"No." Kevin said automatically and gave his trademark, careless smirk. But something was wrong with this particular smirk. It was covering something...something that made both Rei and Kevin uneasy.
"Okay, Kevin. I have to ask you this." Rei watched as Kevin's smile slowly melted off his face. "Why were you wearing you jacket for the whole day?"
"Because I was cold."
"Even during your 50 laps and 80 pushups?" Rei knew he didn't see Kevin while being punished, but he was going to take a chance and assume that Kevin really did have his jacket on all day. If his assumption were correct, it would explain the fever.
"Yeah..."
"Kevin, what exactly are you hiding?"
"What do you mean, hiding? I'm not hiding anything." Kevin snapped. Rei sighed in frustration.
"I'm your FRIEND Kevin. You can trust me." Kevin's face flattered. He knew that Rei was going to freak and jump to conclusions if he showed him... but if he showed him, it would get him off his back.
Kevin took off his jacket and revealed his right arm. His arm was wrapped in bandage that looked like it was hastily put on. He slowly unwrapped the cloth to expose red burn marks that was etched onto his skin. He silently waited for Rei's reaction and tried to decide how to explain it.
"How did you get those?" Rei asked demandingly but stayed as calm and rational as he possibly could. It was a good thing the rest of the team wasn't there with them. Otherwise, Rei was sure that Mariah would be hysterically demanding Kevin answers to worried questions, and Lee would be in a fit of anger and yell at Kevin for not being careful.
"IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK!! You, see, I accidentally spilled the pot of boiling water on me this morning and got burned. It was my fault I was rushing! SO IT WASN'T MY DAD!!!!" Kevin explained all of that in one breath and now was nervously fingering the hem of his shirt for Rei's reaction.
"Don't worry, Kevin!! I'm not accusing your dad of anything. I'm just worried about you. I mean, you DID have a harsh beating, got your self burnt-er- boiled, and had a harsh detention. When you collapsed today, I thought something was really wrong with you! It's not everyday one of your friends faint on the street out of the blue." Rei did his best to reassure his little friend but still felt that Kevin was hiding something.
Kevin smiled as he slowly relaxed.
"Yeah...I guess you're right."
"There. Now that's settled, my mom's coming home in a few minutes, so do you wanna stay for dinner?" Rei grinned easily while pushing all his uneasy feelings that still remained in the corner of his mind.
"Um...I don't know. My mom might wonder where I am and stuff... maybe I should call her..."
"Sure." Rei said before going into the kitchen to cook the rice.
************
"Thank you very much for dinner, Mrs. Kon." Kevin said politely to Rei's mother after dinner.
"You're very welcome. Kevin. If only you were this well behaved two days ago..." She teased good-naturedly. Kevin blushed and Rei inwardly groaned because of his mother's odd comments.
"Well, I think I have to go now. Before my parents get angry." Kevin said just as the phone rang. Rei's mother went to pick it up.
"It's for you, Kevin." She sounded a little surprised and cheerful at the same time.
Kevin took the phone slowly, unsure of what the call was about. Rei studied Kevin's face that went from surprise, to blank, to almost scared, back to blank, and then sad. He then covered the bottom half of the phone and spoke to Rei's mother.
"Umm...is it okay if I sleep over?" Kevin asked shyly. "My mom and my dad found a rat in the house and they're currently hunting it down. My mom doesn't want me in the house because she thinks I might find it and keep it for a pet."
"Sure! Of course you can." Rei's mother responded automatically. "But I hope you don't mind sleeping in the same room as Rei."
"I don't mind." Kevin mumbled timidly. Rei stared at Kevin suspiciously. All those uneasy feelings he had pushed aside earlier was coming back practically screaming 'I told you so!!! Why don't you ever listen to me!?!?!' Rei almost snorted out loud when he replied to that weird voice in his head, 'because you're making me look like an idiot.'
"Come on, Kevin. Let's have a battle before we do our homework." Rei suggested hoping that voice in his head wouldn't say something else.
"Yeah, okay." Kevin jumped eagerly out of his chair and followed closely behind Rei out of the room.
"Kevin looks like a little puppy when he follows Rei like that." Mrs. Kon commented laughingly to herself while washing the dishes. Unfortunately, the two boys heard her in the other room and gave each other uneasy glances...
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Flower_on_thewind: Er... that's all the time I have to type. -____-; Sorry about that ppl. Well, please review this chapter, because I want to know what you think about it!! Until next time then!