Chapter 18

"Has somebody seen Kai?" Hilary cried from the kitchen.

Ray who had just woken up and was walking purposefully to the Christmas Tree turned to Hilary, surprised, "Woah! What are you doing, so early in the morning?"

Hialry smiled, good naturedly, "Making the turkey, of course. And its not that early. Its," glancing at her watch, "8 already."

Ray gulped. When was Hilary going to lose her Cooking mania? Hilary waved a hand in front of his face, "Penny for your thoughts. Have you seen Kai? He's usually awake by now. I wonder where he went."

"I wouldn't worry if I were you. Kai doesn't need a mother, Hilary," Ray replied, tenderly. He thought before Hilary further stalled him from opening his gifts he had better run for it.

The Christmas Tree stood magnificently as well as awkwardly in their living room with a hoard of gifts resting invitingly beneath it. He hunted around till he got a present labelled, Merry Christmas Rei! It was from Lee. Lee was an engineer so Ray did expect something connected with nuts, bolts and wires from him. He jiggled it, something was ticking inside. He wondered if Lee had given him a clock, or. .. When he opened it, somethings jumped out as if exploding from a time bomb. They were mini-Ray and mariah figurines who kept repeating I-Love-You till the words began to irritate Ray. Now, way more interested, he started opening the other gifts with great fervour. He got a book on The Different Ways To Braid Your Hair from Tyson, a hair care kit from Max, a HelloKitty Tee shirt with Dizzyly In Love written in loud colours at the back from Kenny and Dizzy and a mysterious holed box with 'handle with care' written over it from Kai. As he opened it a brown tabby jumped with a "meow" and nuzzled against him. Ray gave a shriek of delight which woke nearly everyone and made them come rushing over to him.

"What's it?" moaned Tyson rubbing his eyes. Ray showed him the kitten. But by now everybody was busy opening their presents that is until Hilary came and shouted at the lot of them, "Do you people even know where Kai is? I am worried."

Tyson heard his lady love and walked over to hear wearing his newly owned Red Indian headdress, "Don't worry, he must be 'being Kai' in some corner of the house. Wait I'll go and find him."

Tyson wandered around the house looking for Kai inside the fridge, behind the photoframes, under the carpet until he finally came to Kai's and Ray's room and there he got the shock of his life. Kai was still sleeping!

Yes, Mr. Always Early to Rise was still sleeping. Tyson was going to shake him awake when he suddenly remembered all of the times when Kai had woken him up for beyblade training. He tiptoed to the bathroom, filled a bucket of water and "Aaaargh! Tyson! You are dead," Kai shouted, bright awake after being drenched with cold water. Tyson laughed and danced all across the house while Kai chased him and the others egged them on. "Typical Bladebreakers morning," murmured Dizzy to Mariam.

For the first time in his life, Kai had slept peacefully. For the first time Kai had dreams instead of nightmares. For the first time Kai overslept. And apart from Tyson(the stupid oaf) the first thing Kai thought about was last night.

At breakfast everybody was figuring out how to not to eat Hilary's marvellous cooking. "Ta-da," Hilary called attention to her marvellous turkey. She smiled encouragingly at Tyson saying, "Don't be shy." Tyson nodded with a crooked smile-grimace and slowly popped his first mouthful in. He gave a surprised look and exclaimed, "That is delicious, Hilary" and gobbled more.

Max whispered to Kenny, "Tyson must really love Hilary to eat her food with such happiness." Kenny nodded, "Or he is terribly scared of her." Ray said intelligently, "I bet its the latter possibility."

But, wonders of wonders, it turned out that Hilary's cooking was indeed delicious. Looked like a few days of cooking had really helped make her a good enough cook. This time she got real compliments and was she happy? Hilary was currently on seventh heaven of delight. Of course, the fact that Tyson had forgetten to give her anything for Christmas was a daunting thought, she decided to forget it for the time being.

Kai was busy thinking about Diana. See, for Kai Diana was a puzzle. He couldn't understand how someone could be so made so happy and so concerned and he couldn't understand why he was so infatuated by her. After all what were the chances that they would ever meet again? A tiny voice in his head reminded him that he lived in Russia and she was going to Russia too. He quietened the voice by wryly reminding it that Russia was a huge place.

"Kai? Kai?" Kai sighed and looked at Mariah who seemed to be calling him from some time. He was going to give her one of his classic scowls when he remembered his promise to behave better and tried tovgive a small smile in turn.

Mariah smiled slyly, "What's her name?"

"Diana-I mean-who-what?" Kai suddenly realised that the whole table had been quiet for some time and they were now giving him the strangest looks ever. It was cold but Kai was sweating. He tried to compose himself, "I am sorry, Mariah, I have no idea what you are talking about."

The table was now alive with everybody asking and telling him something or the other. Mariah made a clucking noise, "Kai, don't try to act dumb." Mariam who was sitting onhis other side was smiling broadly, "The cat's outta the bag." But it was tyson who asked the hundred dollar question, "Who is Diana?" while Max and Ray made cooing noises and yelled "Kai likes someone. Kai's in luuuurrrvvv."

"If that's how all of you are going to behave I am not telling you," said Kai, as if the matter was closed.

Immediately there was a roar of disapproval after which Tyson said, "See till you don't tell us I for one will go on bothering you, right?"

Kai nodded uncertainly. "Well," Ty continued, "how about having a game of rock, paper, scissors? If i win you tell us the whole story, if you win we won't speak of it again, ever."

"Okay," said Kai knowing he didn't have much of a choice.

"Rock, paper, scissors!"

Ray cried, "Wait for me."

Ray won. His scissors won against the papers of Kai and Tyson. He breathed triumphantly, "So what's the story?"

And, so Kai told them, from the start. Mariah wanted to know how Diana looked like. Kai replied, "She's not exactly beautiful but she's got some sort of magic about her and even though she acts madly she's got irresistable charm."

The teasing Kai had to endure was enormous but he didn't care. He knew that he loved Diana but whether she loved him or not, that was the question. Of course, the fact that he didn't know a thing about her and the chances of them meeting ever again were minimal, didn't occur to him for a moment.

My exams are over so finally I have time for fanfiction! Yay! As soon as my room is cleaned up...believe me it needs a cleaning!

Oh! REVIEW PLEASE!

Z-A-K