The reporters aren't interested in him anymore — haven't been for years — which isn't as much of a relief as he thought it would be. He sort of wishes someone would ask him about what it felt to win against the world-renowned American team, or how many pies Tyson could pack down in a single sitting, or whatever, because the fact is the Bladebreakers are still the best thing that's happened to him.
He slips in through the side entrance of his apartment, the one that lies flush against the garbage bins and always smells like rotting pears. Sometimes there are stray cats hanging around, but he doesn't feed them. They can eat from the bins if they want, and anyway he never remembers to bring meat with him.
Cats need taurine, they can't make it in their bodies, you can't feed them carrots or celery or low quality brands. He has a manual. The humane society gave it to him. He reads it over every so often, just to make sure he's getting everything right.
There's a guy hanging around the hallway, smoking a cigarette just inside the entrance. He's skinny, a jittery bony kind of skinny, and he has black makeup smeared around his eyes. Kai knows him, sort of. He's seen him dragging trashcan furniture into room 408, down the hall — the things people leave for collection by the garbage bins.
The guy waves at him, and Kai ducks his head as he passes by. Thinks, that asshole owns my lamp.
It's not until he's actually inside his apartment, his own cat Ragamuffin swatting at his legs for food, that he remembers he's supposed to wave back.
He cuts his own hair in his bathroom, sitting on the edge of the sink with a pair of ordinary scissors and a hand mirror. Ragamuffin paces the floor, stopping every now and then to leap at stray strands.
It's blond now, back to its natural colour. He hasn't dyed it for a couple years now, but he's thinking maybe he'll buy something cheap from the supermarket. He's pretty good at dying hair. He has a good sense for how long it takes for the dye to set, the bleach to sink in.
Maybe after Grandfather dies.
He frowns, tilting his head to try and cut the back into interesting chunks.
He feels sad for some reason, and he doesn't know why.
###
He checks his phone for missed messages, compulsively. He reads the newspaper at the kitchen table every single day, even though he can't remember the contents when he's done. Time seems to be moving sideways.
He's waiting.
He's always waiting.
It's his job, now. Keep the phone on. Feed the cat. Show up during visiting hours on Wednesdays and pretend not to notice the way the nurses look at him when he sits on the chair beside Grandfather's bed, screwing around with Candy Crush until he needs to adjust a pillow or fetch a glass of water — he's a bad kid, the last family member left, and he doesn't care about this dying old man who isn't going to see next year's snowfall.
On the first Wednesday of December, he brings flowers, just to make them think he's making an effort. They're yellow as police tape. Grandfather grunts when he sees them. "Cut the stems."
They were already cut in a vase when Kai bought them in the gift shop. He takes them out, pulls the jackknife out of his pocket, and cuts them again anyway. A sharper angle. Who knows — maybe they'll collect water better this way.
"Better."
There's something in the way grandfather is looking at him — an edge that makes all the muscles in his shoulders tense.
"The boy is in the paper. Your old friend."
Grandfather's voice is thinner than it used to be.
"Listen to me."
Kai looks up. Grandfather's head is sunk into the pillow. He points with his eyes — there's a paper lying on the little table beside him, the one Kai read but barely remembers.
"Came to something," Grandfather says, and coughs.
They all did. Kai knows this. He sees Ray on TV sometimes, talking in his clear serious voice about how they have to save the wilderness — he sees the Beyblade shop Max and Kenny own together. Tyson, who knows what happened to Tyson, he probably inherited the dojo from his grandpa. Kai stayed there for a while once and Tyson never made him explain why.
And then there's him. Never done anything since. Couldn't find a single leftover skill.
Used it all up in a children's game.
He looks at the clock. He watches the hands tick. Grandfather stares at nothing in the distance. When the hands hit nine, Kai gets up and leaves.
#
At home, he looks through the newspaper for the article. It's buried way in the back. Ray's coming here, it says — he's doing a talk about environmentalism at the local high school. There's a picture of him holding a tame hawk on his fist in a school's gymnasium, and then a little blurb about him having once been in a nationally recognized team from this very town — as if Ray belonged to them, somehow.
He folds the paper up and puts it carefully in the recycling bin.
He checks his phone. He cooks chicken hearts on the stove, oil spitting at his arms, pours hald into Ragamuffin's bowl and then eats the other half with disposable chopsticks he's washed until they're bone dry.
It's a life.
It's a life.
Noe everyone gets to be something twice. He already used up all the parts of himself that matter. It's okay. It's fine. He's fine.
#
At ten, his phone rings.
He doesn't know the number, but when he picks it up, there's Ray's voice coming out of the speaker.