Witch-Bitch
Disclaimer: Only the strangers herein are mine.
1st Warning: this is complete AU.
Author's 1st Note: I am using the first Beyblade Kai for this story (first series), not G-Force or Evolution, although I may use outfits, emotions and other things from my glimpses of the other series.
Author's 2nd Note: for the stories sake, I have made Kai, Rei, Mariah , Becky, Louise and Tessa (the last 3 are MINE) all seniors. Any other characters that eventually show up in the story, I will let you know their age and grade pertaining to the storyline.
Acknowledgements: I thank the following for their help, even though they may never come across this: Fierce-A Shrine to Kai Hiwatari, at fiercekai()cjb()net (pretend that the brackets are dots), for helping me with the odds & ends of Kai; Spirit, for giving me these gifts & allowing me to share them.
Concise Oxford Dictionary Ninth Edition – Pentimento : the phenomenon of earlier painting showing through a layer or layers of paint on a canvas.
Chapter 5 : Finding the Pentimento
Her POV
"Mom, you're going to be late! Hurry up!" I yelled from the garage. I waited a minute; when she didn't appear, I groaned under my breath and ran into the house, feeling the sweat pop up between my shoulder blades despite the approaching rain clouds and the definite chill in the air. I wrenched open the door and there stood my mother, still in her pyjamas and looking even worse than a sick dog.
"honey, I can't take you, I can barely even see. I can't get dad on his mobile. Can't you phone one of your friends to pick you up?" she asked in a raw voice. I groaned inwardly. Why now? I smiled at her in reassurance.
"sure, I'll try and see if I can get Rei." I walked over and gave her a quick hug. "you go back to bed, I'll wait outside for him." she grinned sickly at me then went off to her bedroom. I swung my backpack onto my shoulder again and closed the door behind me, locking it for her. I pulled my mobile from my pants' pocket and dialled Rei. It rang and rang and rang… angrily I hung up and sifted through my phone-book for anyone else who could try and pick me up. I growled at the worthless names that popped up. Tessa got a ride from her brother and Louise walked to school. Other than that, I was out of options. I felt a droplet of water land on my head and looked up. My glasses were soon speckled with light raindrops. I glared at the grey sky, then made for cover under the sparse garage-door frame. I wrapped myself more tightly in my blazer and sweater, trying to make myself as small as possible. I reached into my pocket and tried Rei on his cell again. There was still no answer. That's when I heard a loud honk from the street in front of me. I looked up and saw a low-slung, black sports car that had driven and parked partway on my driveway. I couldn't see who it was through the tinted windows but then the driver's window slid down and Kai's emotionless face craned awkwardly out of it to peer at me.
"get in," he ordered me before sliding back into his seat. I sucked in breath at his rudeness while I hurried to the passenger's side. I slammed it behind me unintentionally, wincing at the ferocity of the noise. Kai either ignored it or didn't notice it as he reversed back into the road. I buckled myself in and then sat there in uncomfortable silence. Now what?
His POV
"is there any particular reason as to why you're giving me a lift instead of letting me get soaking wet and be tardy for homeroom?" she asked me, in a voice that was treading the thin line between cutting and sardonic. I winced inside at her tone, my eyes never leaving the road ahead of me. for some reason, I couldn't block out my emotional reactions to her. It was something that worried me, but I pushed it aside because it was something little, needing no attention.
"it won't help me if my English tutor isn't at school," I replied. A small "oh" escaped her lips and then she went silent, the rain the only sound in the car. We reached a four-way traffic-light stop and sat idling. out of the corner of my eye I could see her patting her tangled wet hair and then, sighing, she pulled her bag onto her lap and dug out a brush. She pulled her barrette out of the knot at the back of her head, letting her thick mass of long hair glide down across her shoulders. My heart began beating wildly, thumping against my rib-cage, so loud in my ears that I didn't notice at first the hooting behind me. she twisted her head to look at me while still brushing.
"Kai, the light's green," she stated, a crinkle of concentration between her eyes. I snapped back to some sort of reality and grinded the gears as I sped off. I caught her look of annoyance before I glued my eyes again to the tar. The silence was becoming unbearable, there was an electricity in the Porsche that seemed to be only affecting me. my hand shook as I turned on the CD player, the machine instantly clicking in the classic remix CD I had made two weeks ago. 'Phantom of the Opera' began playing and I felt myself sliding into the world where that song just existed. I wasn't thinking as I pressed play, I just needed something familiar to listen to.
I tried to keep quiet about liking classical music at school: they wouldn't understand, they would only mock me, think that I was a fucking nerd. They would only classify me as one of them and I would be thrown out, alone, the history that I had with them non-existent from that point. When I was younger, when my parents were still alive, they would listen all the time to classical music: mother would bring home new CDs every week, either from the store, or the compositions that her students had worked on. It reminded me of them. My throat began to tighten and I choked it off before it could go any further, before I could dredge up more memories...
"…And do I dream again
For now I find
The Phantom of the Opera
Is there
Inside my mind…"
I caught Becky sneak a glance at me, her eyes wide with curiosity, but thankfully she kept quiet, instead leaning back into the seat and closing her eyes, mouthing the words. I felt relief of an intensity that shouldn't have been that strong at all. God damnit, what's wrong with me? I had to stop at another red light and this time I couldn't stop my eyes from being drawn to her. She hadn't tied her hair up, just left it down, presumably to dry. It draped across her shoulders, reaching just below where her collarbones would be; it was straight until the natural kink at the nape of her neck where it began to be wavy, flaring out at the tips. In the stark light of the car's interior, it still shone brightly, unable to look ugly. The colour of her hair was like a translucent scarlet-amber, sometimes the vivid honey-red like the stone and sometimes a tarnished bronze. The operetta track ended and her eyes opened lazily, slightly fuzzy with the darkness behind her lids. I hurriedly looked away, putting my attention back onto the road. For some unexplainable reason, I felt stupidly happy.
Her POV
He was looking at me again. I didn't have to see his eyes focussing on me to know that they were. They were like insistent little nibs trailing my spine. I had thought that his lift would have ended in a practical joke, or some sort of bullying from which I would burst out of the car in tears, but instead the entire ride had been silent and awkward up until he suddenly turned on the sound system and 'Phantom of the Opera' had started playing, the exact song that I had recently downloaded off the web.
That was probably the strangest thing to happen to me in my short life, but I couldn't be sure that his short peeks at me weren't that either. And especially when I had closed my eyes, I don't know why I had to do that, that was something that I didn't do in front of others and here I had done it in front of the guy that had been bullying me from my eighth year; there, his gaze settled on me and it felt like I was undergoing a surgeon's scrutiny: nagging, analytical, naked, but then I became lost in the emotions of the music and it lost its hold on me.
I snapped out of my thoughts as Kai began to slow down at the corner just around the school building. I sighed, knowing he would want me out before his mob saw us. I picked up my bag, settling it on my lap, waiting. he didn't slow down. He drove right round to the covered student parking-lot, right through the gates, and parked in his marked lot. He shut off the ignition and just sat there, suddenly looking… I don't know, vulnerable, maybe. I cleared my abruptly dry throat.
"thanks. You do know that - if you want - you can drop me off at the corner so you won't get into trouble with your friends," I said , knowing that what he had did would probably now be talked about for weeks. He said nothing, just opened the door and climbed out, dragging behind a tattered leather satchel that he pulled from the back seat. I scrambled out after him, clumsily dropping my barrette and watching it roll outside my reach. Shit. I knelt down and reached to pick it up but Kai's hand was already there, holding it in one hand and offering his other to help me up. I looked at it in shock, and he, impatient, grabbed my hand and hauled me up. He looked down at me, only half a head taller than my 1.7 metre tall frame. He gently shoved the hair-slide into the opened pocket of my bad, zipping it closed.
"don't put your hair up. You look better without it," he said softly, then suddenly turned and walked into the school. I stared after him, completely overthrown. What just happened?
His POV
What the fuck?! my head screamed out as I walked away from Becky. My head and body were confused, signals running haphazardly across my nerves. My fingers burned where they had gripped Becky's, my heart still thudded; it felt like I had been shocked. One part of my mind was all giddy and the other was shouting at me to regain my senses. I bowed my head and shook it feebly as I continued walking, trying to shake it from the chaos.
Suddenly a pair of hands grabbed me roughly by my blazer and slammed me against the wall. I exhaled involuntarily, sparks of pain shooting up my spine. They shoved me hard against the wall, pushing me up the brick-face. I raised my head and I met the glimmering golden rage of Rei's eyes. his pupils were dilated and his knuckles were white where he gripped my blazer. He slammed me against the wall again.
"if you ever hurt her, I'll make sure that the Fates smile kindly at what I plan on doing to you!" he snarled. He then let go of me and I slid the few inches down the wall until my feet landed on the floor. He unclenched his fists, his expression softening. "we were friends once, Kai. I don't want to hurt you, but if you hurt Becky, you'll regret that we aren't anymore." He turned and walked off, his long braid swinging behind him. I bent over, gripping my knees, trying to catch my breath. I never imagined that he was that strong; that he could lift me was a testament to the time that we had lost since that day.
I straightened shakily, pulling the strap of my bag over my shoulder. I started walking again in the direction of the group's hang-out before I suddenly remembered: it was Friday and I had a tutoring session with Becky that afternoon. I groaned loudly. Things couldn't get worse…
To be continued…
Songs used : 'Phantom of the Opera Techno Remix' – ERA
PerennialOutlander: I really don't want to end it there, but if I tried to continue, I know that the chapter would turn into a story by itself. It does feel very incomplete, doesn't it? sigh…
Rei: ((hugs PerennialOutlander)) she's feeling down, guys. Review please! Or else this story is going into the cast-offs' box…
Last Comment
I'd just like people to know that the use of numerous songs in this story does not mean that it is a song fic. I use these particular songs to give you, the reader, clues into what these people feel like at that particular moment, and to also give clues as to where the story is going.
GB