That night was not a good night. Rudy Forster dropped a large can of hominy on his foot and broke his big toe, which prompted Max rushing him off to the nearest emergency clinic to get it set and splinted; Hisa Akayu smashed her glasses accidentally and had to be driven to the optometrist all the way across the city by Ray; and Tala got into a fight at the nearby Beypark earlier that day, landing himself one night in the county jail. While Ray and Spencer were livid, Kai found that he could not care less about Tala. Instead, he spent the evening dazed between shots of vodka and surfing the web on his relatively new Acer Aspire. He felt slightly guilty each time he poured himself another shot (well, initially tremendously guilty, but that guilt quickly dissipated with each dose absorbed into his bloodstream), but the euphoric giddiness it always brought never failed to draw him back. Eventually, he was so out of it that he just had to log off (succeeding only in opening a new word document, disoriented as he was) and fall back onto his bed.

The room spun around him, weird shapes forming on the ceiling then disappearing. His whole body was warm and awake, but his head felt heavy and drowsy. He felt unusually sullen for the amount of liquor he'd consumed, and could pin it down to the one thing he refused to think about. He sat up slowly, the world tilting on its axis, and fumbled with the little glass sitting next to the large bottle on his nightstand. Through the blanket of alcohol-induced fog in his mind, he managed to spill only half as much as he got in the glass, and got most of that into his mouth and down his throat as well. It hardly burned anymore, not that he'd have noticed anyway. He poured another, this time spilling almost as much as got in. He downed it without blinking, as the previous shot began to kick in. Dropping the glass onto his mattress (where it bounced off and hit the hardwood floor without breaking), he attempted to stand up, feeling somewhat thirsty at this point. Stumbling towards the door, he managed to make it two meters before losing his footing and hitting his knee on the doorframe. He paid it no attention; he could hardly feel it anyway.

Once Kai was able to make it out of his room and into the hallway, he noticed that it was eerily quiet. It was a testament to his skills of observation that he was able to notice such a thing in his state, but he couldn't muster the power of concentration to figure out why the place seemed so deserted. He fumbled for the light switch along the wall and, unable to find it, groped his way towards the stair banister from the feeble light coming from his room.

It was a miracle he was able to make it down the stairs without taking a serious fall, what with the way everything seemed to be coming out of nowhere to him. Reaching the kitchen, he reached for the first cup he could find on the counter and filled it up with cold water from the sink. He choked down the sour water, not having noted the orange juice that previously occupied the bottom of the cup before he filled it up for his own purposes. The taste was enough to make him gag, but the presence of too much alcohol in his system was enough to make his stomach seize. He dashed, but before he could make it up to the bathroom, he collapsed on the stairs, hitting his knees to the point it hurt, and heaving his entire stomach contents onto the middle step. Bile burning the back of his throat, he coughed and retched until all that was coming from his mouth were strings of putrid saliva and alarming moans. Kai tried to move his body so he wasn't lying so awkwardly and uncomfortably close to his own sick, but the movement only made him coil over and gag again. His body was rejecting the alcohol now, the pungent sweat escaping from every pore and a warm liquid creeping down his pants. The desire to get up washed over him, but his shaky limbs could hardly move him an inch away from the pool of puke dripping down the steps. His vision grayed as his body relaxed, finally having rid itself of most of the poison. He wanted to wake up, but he could no longer move.

He was trapped.

His arms and legged pinned by an invisible force.

It wasn't dark, but he couldn't see.

The light coming from every direction blinded him, no matter where he looked.

His lungs were burning, no longer able to expand or take in air.

There was pain. Endless pain.

He tried to move, but couldn't, his body frozen.

He could hear a voice shouting something far away.

Something that sounded like 'sky.'

'Sky,' 'sky,' 'sky, -'

"Kai! Kai!"

Someone was shaking him. He lifted his arm unsteadily towards the source of the sound, swatting it away. He wasn't exactly comfortable, but he'd rather the voice leave him alone to sleep. "Kai! What happened to you?" Clearly, he had given himself away as being awake by raising his arm. The voice stopped shaking him. "Are you - are you drunk?" Oh. The voice was Ray. Kai decided to feign sleep again, desperate to escape his current situation. The voice - Ray, he remembered, started shaking him again. "Don't pretend, I need to make sure you're okay," after a slight moan came from Kai, Ray added, "I'm not mad."

Kai forced his eyelids to open a crack. His voice was hoarse when he spoke. "Go away."

Ray's expression was one Kai hated anywhere near him; it was one of pity. "I'll go away when you're not laying in a pile of your own puke." Okay, fair point.

Raising one eyebrow in defiance, Kai didn't resist when Ray helped his up by two of his sweaty palms, or when he put one hand on the taller boy's back to make sure he didn't fall down the stairs. He also didn't resist when Ray led him to the bathroom and tore his soiled clothes from his unhealthy frame, though he avoided thinking about his exposed midriff with the unsightly scars or his bare collarbone with the highly personal tattoo. He told Ray to leave though when he felt his eyes welling up, and pretended he was going into the shower. He didn't even know if his eyes overflowed, for he was under the stream of warm water by the time the emotion overwhelmed him, and out by the time he had centered himself. He avoided meeting his own gaze in the mirror, knowing he could only be ashamed by what he saw.

Not even bothering to dry himself off, Kai headed down the hallway towards his room. He felt immensely better after the shower and what he assumed was already several hours of detoxing, and was able to keep his own balance with his hand against the wall. Upon entering his room, he noticed one thing right away - it was clean. There was no trace of the spillage from earlier, nor the bottle of spirits itself. The souvenir shot glass he'd been using sat upright on top of his dresser, directly across from his bed where sat the individual who'd spent the last hour or so focused solely on Kai. His face felt hot as Ray's eyes grazed over him. "I need to change now," he said slowly, the embarrassment he'd been holding back now coming in full swing. The other boy (man, Kai reminded himself, they were both adults) simply turned around on the bed, sitting in a meditative position towards the closed window. Kai spent the next minute awkwardly dressing himself, checking over his shoulder every two seconds to make sure Ray hadn't peeked when he was slipping his briefs on. Fully dressed again and wearing the largest, baggiest clothing he could find, he cleared his throat to signal to Ray that he could turn back. He did, and after twenty seconds of staring at each other, opened his mouth.

"You need to see a doctor," he said quietly. Kai held his gaze, unblinking, and without saying a word. "You clearly have a drinking problem, and it's going to affect your liver before you know it. In fact, I'd lay off the acetaminophen for a while." Kai exhaled through his nose. "Oh, come on. Are you still trying to hold on to your pride? You should have thought of that before passing out in your own vomit and piss."

Now Kai relinquished his gaze and stared off to the left. "What makes you think I have pride?" Ray's hardened expression softened.

"Sorry, you know what I meant. I mean how you and Tala always- "

"Voltaire is dead."

Kai watched as Ray's face fell, and almost regretted opening his mouth at all. "I'm… My condolences?" he spoke, almost questioningly. The nature of their relationship had been quite clear to Ray from the moment he'd heard Kai talk about him (characteristically, in less than a sentence), but he wasn't sure if the news was to be interpreted as good or bad. But Kai just shrugged.

"He had a heart attack. Surprising, I always thought there was just empty air where that organ should have been." The older boy (man) cracked a sad smile at his own joke, his throat constricted. Ray suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable.

"So that's why… Are you upset?" he asked, looking anywhere but the other's eyes.

Kai too avoided his friend's line of sight. He felt like he couldn't breathe. Oh, Ray… I'm not upset. Now I'm nothing.

So this will pretty much be the end of that anyway. Should i go deeper and darker or lighten it up a bit? Obviously this one's gonna have some kind of happy ending or at least closure, but where to head now? Let me know.

I like slipping little references to the year into the story. It's supposed to be set in the early months of 2005 here. I like to think that Kai and Ray were both 14 at the beginning of Beyblade 2000, 15/16 during V-force, and 17/18 during G-Rev. I also like to think that Kai is a January baby.

Please review! I love reviews