As soon as he left the confines of the restroom, Kai knew there was no way he'd be able to go back to the banquet. What Tala said was more or less true, at the time they were in the Abbey at least, but since then, Kai had mellowed out a lot. He no longer thought of himself in the way that Tala accused him of, but he still tended to rub people that way. He hated the way that alcohol loosened him up so much.

He couldn't leave, but with the way his legs felt like rubber and how his mind felt detached from his body, he had to. That whiskey was… wow. There were tears in Kai's eyes from having coughed so much in the bathroom, and his vision was swimming in front of him. He stuck out a hand and looked back and forth down the hall. There was a door that he knew led to the ball room, and another, in the other direction, that he hadn't passed through before.

He found his footing and stumbled as quickly as he could towards the door. With all his weight on the knob, he pushed the heavy door open, and was met with a rush of cool air.

Oh. Outside, then.

Kai stepped through the exit and closed the door, hearing it lock faintly. He jiggled the knob from the outside. Seemed pretty locked to him. There were a few steps to the ground that Kai was careful walking down. There was nothing in the lot ahead of him, but it was almost completely dark now. Kai shrugged, drunk but not vulnerable. He would just walk around to the front, find their car, and figure out what to do then.

So, he walked, trying not to trip and failing four times out of five. Eventually, he came around to a side of the building that appeared to be the main entrance, with a parking lot in the front. He couldn't really remember exactly where they parked, but an even more pressing issue was the drunkenness that was making his head spin and his thoughts swirl. He settled on walking down each of the aisles clicking the key fob until the car's horn went off.

It was a tedious process, but Kai succeeded after a good many try. He slipped into the backseat, lowering the windows and locking the car doors. In less than three minutes, he fell into a drunken sleep.

Kai snapped awake. He had been suffocating, clutching at his chest where it felt like the suit was constricting him. He gasped, air coming in and out of his lungs like normal. There was someone pounding on the door, yelling his name through the open window. He was ready to fight for his life when he snapped his head and realized it was Ray.

"Kai! Open the door! Kai!" Ray shouted.

"SHUT UP!" Kai growled, reaching across him to unlock the door. Ray yanked it open, dropped himself inside, and slammed it shut. He rolled up the window on his side, and Kai took the cue and fumbled with the window on his own side. When he finished, he met Ray's burning glare. He looked ready to murder.

"Explain. Explain why you're not at the banquet right now and why you reek of alcohol, Kai," he huffed, "please."

Kai had the sense to not open his mouth right away. He had the sense to look straight ahead as he finally said, "You wouldn't understand."

Ray put his head in his hands, messing up the hairstyle he'd done just for the banquet. He looked distraught. Kai wanted to make it go away but, like with Tala, he had no idea how to approach it. He gathered his thoughts as best he could and gave explaining a try. "It was right there. I couldn't… I couldn't stop it."

Ray groaned. "Kai, you have an addiction. I understand that! But it seems like you don't even tryto stop yourself. You never come to me or anyone, as far as I'm aware, whenever you're about to drink. Why?"

Kai snorted. "I came to Tala."

"Max found Tala in the restroom, trashed and alone. That's how I knew to come looking for you."

There was a longer moment of silence that stretched between them at the mention of Tala. Tala and Kai were inexplicably connected, always had been, ever since they first met each other at Balkov Abbey. They could argue, they could fight tooth and nail and threaten to kill each other but neither of them would do it knowing they would once again have no one. It wasn't like they confidedin one another, per se, but on occasion, they would drink and converse to celebrate little milestones like when Boris was arrested, or the BBA was reinstated. Things like that. Kai almost wished for a better relationship with someone else, so that he could just leave the trauma of his youth behind him, but Tala always found a way to worm his way back into Kai's life. He tried to find his words.

"Drinking… makes me forget. It makes all the shit that's happened, the weight of it, just disappear. It used to be that I could remember things if I really tried when I drank or if I smoked pot, and it would just go away after, or it wouldn't seem that bad. Now, when I drink, I can forget everything," he whispered numbly, then added with a grumble, "if my tolerance weren't so damn high."

Ray crossed the distance that the middle seat afforded them and leaned into Kai. He wrapped his arms around the other's midsection, but Kai stiffened up slightly. After a few seconds, he forced himself to relax into the touch. Ray's voice was muffled into the back of Kai's neck when he spoke. "You doknow you can come to me, right? When you want to drink, come to me. When you want to use drugs, come to me, and I'll do them with you. But you have gotto stop drinking, if nothing else than for your health. I've had a lot of family die from alcoholism."

A tremendous lump formed in the back of Kai's throat. He had no idea the effect his drinking had on anyone else, and he had no idea Ray had any experience with it. "I'm sorry."

On Kai's left, Ray pulled away a bit and curled up on his own seat, body quaking with stifled tears. Kai knew – oh, he knew – how so much pressure could build up in one person's body and how it had to come out some time, but he'd never seen it happen to anyone else in such a private manner, aside from Tala. It was awkward, but Kai was luckily still intoxicated. He did kind of want to disappear into his seat. Still.

Ray mopped himself up after a few minutes of silent sobbing, then climbed over into the front seat. He took a shuddering breath before saying, "I'm going to take you and Tala and Max to the nearest pancake house, and we're going to eat pancakes and guzzle syrup and talk about our stupid feelings until you guys sober up, and by then the banquet will be over and we'll all go home with the rest of the kids. Deal? You can't turn it down," he mentioned before Kai could begin to disagree. Instead, he grunted in assent. Just then, Max dragged a barely conscious Tala into the backseat, where Ray had been previously sitting, and buckled him in to the best of his ability. He jogged around to the passenger seat, and slid in. Kai was sure it would be more of a visual gag if he were not so inebriated and subdued after his conversation with Ray.

He felt like there must have been some backstory behind what just went on, something behind the scenes, but his mind was too slippery to make it to the end of a thought. He gaped as Ray expertly clutch-shift-gas-clutch-ed them out of their parking spot. He's such a good driver.

The van lurched, and they were off.

OK ANYWAY so I feel like that was so boring, kinda sucked, I was going to add more to it but as I was going back to it today, I realized it was long enough to be a chapter on its own and its better to have a shorter chapter up than wait indefinitely for a longer one, so I hope it was fine anyway. Sorry it's taking so long between updates, school's been... real.