Playing Too Close To Fire
He knows he's going to pay for this later.
There's no way Kai is going to let him talk to him like that in public, in front of the other Blitzkriegs and walk away scot free.
But Tyson doesn't. Fucking. Care.
He holds Kai's stare firmly, making it very clear that he has no intention of backing down and letting Kai leave without helping him pick up those goddamn sketch pens.
Some are them are still rolling.
Kai makes his decision. A tiny lift of his head. The subtle curl of contempt on his mouth. Tyson's eyes dart to the miniscule movement he notices in his periphery. Kai's wrist flicking the sunglasses closed before he brings it up to tuck it into the first buttoned button of his shirt. The one level with his chest. At the bottom of the V-shaped stretch of skin showing from his collarbone to the top of his pecs.
Tyson forces his gaze back up to his thoroughly pissed off face.
Kai nods at Ian who is on his left, before shooting Tyson one more dark glare that promises vengeance and lowering to one knee, his attention diverting to the objects lying around on the floor.
Tyson stands there stupidly for one stunned second, then quickly kneels as well, to join him.
Ian and Sergei fetch the nasty pens that had run far away while Tyson and Kai clean up the bulk of the mess that lies between them.
Tala and Bryan stand and judge quietly from a distance.
Kai hands him pens he'd collected, their fingers accidentally brushing and Tyson puts them in a plastic holder.
The chart papers are folded again and Kai tucks them in the crook of Tyson's arm, next to the tubes, the sketch pens arranged in a holder in his hand.
They stand up.
Tyson's eyes find Kai's as the latter places the third and last tube on top of the other two, obscuring his face from nose-down, and says to him, "Be careful."
Without a touch of warmth in those words.
He blinks once.
Kai turns, along with the other Blitzkriegs and walks away.
They're headed towards the elevators. Luggage in tow.
Tyson climbs down the steps carefully. On his way to his friends. Slight paranoia starting to creep up his spine.
The hotel they're staying at is not five-star. It's not even a hotel really. They just call it one and advertise it as one. It's made of wood and like three storeys high. There are identical ones scattered all around Roppogi, but this one is one of the most in-demand because it is located on a beach. College students from all over the country compete with each other as well as tourists to get a room here. So it's pretty expensive, despite the lackluster rating.
The number of staff is low (about 4-5) and the place is low maintenance overall. Rules are lax to nonexistent. Guests can do whatever but this also means they have to clean up after themselves and do their own laundry.
The staff's main purpose is to help arrange events and make organization easier overall. The hotel does not provide room service or have an indoor restaurant, but there are multiple eateries, restaurants and shacks offering all kinds of different cuisines both on site as well as nearby.
The pool party is on full blast.
Tyson loiters around with a bottle of beer, not really feeling it.
He finds the float that he helped create earlier discarded offensively on the side of the large pool in the center teeming with people. It was supposed to be a duck. Artfully made out of tubes, chart paper, sketch pens and duct tape. It's been reduced to a sad soggy chunk of paper and red ink. Destroyed by Eddie's ass when he drunkenly jumped with it into the pool earlier. The float had caught on the edge and the paper had torn. It should have been swimming in the pool but some good soul had fished it out of the water it seemed.
He feels a touch of warm skin on his wrist. Tyson whirls around to see his short friend.
"Hey"
"Hi" Kenny beams at him. He is probably the only person in the area who is completely sober. Dressed in a neat button-down and trousers, he looks fresh and peppy. "Can we go sit somewhere?"
"Yeah" Tyson nods.
They find a spot near the pool, out of splashing distance.
Tyson wrings the bottle in his hands, his mind on Kai. He is nowhere to be seen. He'd spotted Ian crossing into the parking lot earlier, but there had been no signs of the Blitzkriegs at the party.
His absence is making him nervous.
"Are you okay?" asks Kenny. "You seem restless."
Tyson's leg jangles back and forth in the air as they sit on a table with their feet dangling off the side.
He's in an outfit similar to Kenny's, except his shirt is a solid red. His light brown hair lifts in the breeze as he scans the area once more.
"I did something dumb."
"I sort of guessed," Kenny mutters under his breath. "What did you do?"
"Kai is staying here," he informs him.
"Oh?" he exclaims, surprised.
Tyson nods. "I bumped into him in the lobby earlier while I was carrying stuff for the float and he made me drop everything. I reacted kind of," he scratches the back of his head, "badly."
"Jesus"
Tyson tenses for a moment, thinking about what Kai might have in store for him. He exhales heavily. "He's coming for me, Kenny. I know he is. It's always tit for tat with him. I did it in public so he'd probably do it in public too."
"Do what? What do you mean he's coming for you?" Kenny looks at him like he's gone crazy. "Tyson, the guy likes you."
"Liked" he corrects him. "He liked me. We broke up, remember?"
"You broke up with him. Feelings don't die overnight."
"They do if they're shallow and only skin-deep. I slapped him. There's no way he feels the same."
"You think," Kenny speaks, a laugh lodged in his throat, "Kai liked you for your beauty?" He snorts. "Tyson, you're good-looking but you're not that good-looking."
"Excuse me?"
"He has better options if that's what he was going for is all I'm saying."
Tyson's eyes narrow. "What was he attracted to then? Mine and my friends' airheadedness?" He huffs, looking away. At Michael somersaulting off a surfboard into the pool (what the hell is he doing?) "You know there was never a question of whether it was okay for him to tell his friends. All the Blitzkriegs knows about us. The minute I told him I told my friends he started popping a vein. Because all my friends are untrustworthy for some reason. You people are stupid and pea-brained. His gang is intelligent and wise. Puh-lease, the only reason half of them aren't failing is because other people do their work for them."
Tyson takes a swig of his beer.
Kenny stares at the water contemplatively.
A brief lull falls in their conversation.
A couple of minutes pass by.
"Feelings cannot die that quickly," Kenny starts again, in a mellower tone this time. "Can you honestly say you don't feel anything for him?"
"No" Tyson shakes his head. "Obviously I still..." he lifts a shoulder, "have feelings, but they're feeble and easily ignorable."
"Right" Kenny deadpans. Not believing him.
"I'm not going to act upon them," Tyson swears, completely serious, and this time Kenny doesn't refute it, because he knows that when Tyson makes up his mind about something, it cannot be changed without difficulty. Mountains could be moved with lesser effort. Until and unless Kai found a way to hang literal stars in his night sky, found a way to make actual miracles happen, he would never get Tyson back.
He doubted if he'd even try.
Tyson pops open his club soda reverently.
"Glass" he requests, holding out a hand.
Michael bestows him with one.
He places it on the wooden table in the outdoors eatery they're all sitting around, having their lunch. The finished plates lie around.
Tyson pours the contents of the can into the tumbler with his eyes barely open.
There is complete and utter silence around the table (they ignore the bullshit coming from the nearby tables) as Tyson squeezes the last of the drops out of the can, crushing it between his fingers.
"Phenomenal grip strength," Eddie praises. In awe.
Kenny puts his hands together like he's praying as Tyson fills each of their glasses one by one.
Michael collects the empty cans he throws away for recycling.
When he's done, and they all have a drink in front of them, Tyson looks around and claps his hands once.
"Begin!" Eddie shouts, before lifting the glass off the table and trying to drink as much of the soda as he can in one go. The other two do the same. First to finish his drink wins the game.
They watch their own tall glasses as well as their neighbours' as they go.
Tyson nearly chokes on his towards the end, but he makes it through.
Eddie slams the glass down first. "Done!" he roars.
Tyson second, with a profound "fuck".
Michael third with a hiss and Kenny last with a whimper. "My oesophagus. It hurts." He curls in on himself, wrapping his arms around his tummy.
"He probs took a big gulp," comments Eddie as Tyson orders a water for him. Michael massages his shoulder.
"Try burping"
Kenny shakes his head.
"Goddamn it" Tyson gets up to go place an order at the counter himself since the waiter is taking too long.
"It's like enlargening his oesophagus," Eddie's saying with helpful hand gestures.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Michael asks confused.
Tyson comes back with a bottle of water and offers it to his friend. Kenny screws up his face as the pain crests for a moment and then sighs emphatically when it passes.
"Gone?"
"Gone" Kenny accepts the water from him. "Thank you" he whispers.
Tyson straightens, relieved.
The night arrives quickly, darkness unfurling across the sky like a heavenly awning.
Tyson looks for stars. Doesn't find any. Which is a shame because the night feels almost magical. The entire area is lit up with fairy lights and colourful LEDs. The pool shimmers.
Tyson's finally in the mood. He puts his hands up in the air and dances slowly near his friends who are chatting with people from other parts of the world.
He closes his eyes. Swaying to the beat.
His friends join him after a while. Even Kenny.
He wishes he could go on dancing forever. Like this. Just like this.
They're in a circle, executing complex steps from a choreography they made up two minutes ago, laughing and arguing playfully over who should go next, when Tyson notices a disturbance near the hotel's side entrance.
There's a gathering forming there.
A group of people help bring something out of the hotel.
Something huge and towering.
From afar, it looks like a giant birthday cake. Tyson walks closer to the pool, squinting across the breadth of the water and the several feet of distance between him and the 'thing' to see what it is.
His friends notice and turn to stare too.
"What is that?"
"I have no idea. It looks like a cake. Is it someone's birthday?"
The 'thing' is on wheels and five to six guys help move it towards the pool. Now, the pool is pretty big and it does a good job preventing Tyson from getting a good look at the cake, but he is still able to make some things out.
One, it is not a cake. He sees cylinders wrapped in rainbow-coloured stripes grouped together, arranged in tiers. The bottom tier being the fattest and widest, and the top being a single cylindrical shaped object whose tip ends in a cone. A rocket. It sort of reminds him of a rocket. But he's not sure if that's what it is.
Tyson senses rather than sees when Kai enters the place. There's a literal shift in the air, the atmosphere, when he crosses the hotel's entryway and the Blitzkriegs trickle in.
It seems they're well known here.
They're talking and greeting people they probably met here during their stay in the past years. People who are few in number but who look posh and sophisticated just like them.
Kai's in all black as he talks to some guy who has a ridiculously bright smile. A slender blonde comes up to hug him. And Tyson catches Kai smile as he embraces her with one arm.
How warm.
The side entrance is decorated quite extensively and Tyson feels something ugly crawl up his chest as all the glittery people glitter in the glittery entryway.
The giant tower of rockets is pushed to the centre of the pool on an inflated tube. The thing floats merrily. Somebody turns on some switch and the water begins to move.
Parting
"What the fuck is happening?" Tyson asks.
"Hell if I know" answers Eddie.
A platform rises out of the water, setting up a path from either side of the pool breadthwise to the floaty rocket thingy in the middle.
"Cool"
"Fancy"
"What's up, motherfuckers?" he hears someone scream and Tyson spots Tala, who has recently broken away from the posh gang to address the gathering near the pool. He plucks up a grape off a nearby refreshments table and takes a bite. Sergei comes to his side and hands him a mic.
Oh god, no.
Tyson bristles as he shouts again. This time with the help of the mic. "Are you ready to part-ay?"
A cheer goes up. It seems his wild energy is catching onto the crowd. Spreading like an epidemic.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" Tala tilts his head to the side, baring his ear. "I don't think I heard you right."
"Jesus, here we go," Eddie mutters. "The nutters have finally joined us."
"Roppongi!" Tala's voice booms through the speakers. "Are you ready to party?" he screams.
The crowd comes alive.
Tyson searches for Kai. He seems to be done catching up. He moves away from the entrance and walks along the pool, hands in his pockets.
"What are those things?" Tyson asks a girl next to him. Pointing towards the giant spectacle in the middle of the pool.
"Fireworks" she tells him. "Peonies tied together. You know aerial repeaters?" Tyson nods. "It's like a bigger version of it."
"Oh"
"There's a giant one in the middle. Smaller ones all around it. It's going to be amazing."
"Is it safe?" asks Tyson. "Don't you need like a huge flat area without a lot of people around?" He measures the distance from the pool to where he's standing. "I don't think this is enough."
"They fly up into the sky. And there's water all around it. It's totally safe to stand here. It's the one who lights it that's in some trouble."
"What do you mean? It's not by remote? You light it by hand?"
She nods.
"Who?"
The girls casts him a look, then glances pointedly towards the opposite side of the pool, where the platform starts, where Kai is standing, lighting up a cigarette, one hand cupped around the flame to keep it safe from the breeze.
"No" Tyson feels his breath get punched out of him. They can't be serious. He sways on his feet once. Out of sheer shock.
This is fucking crazy.
His friends overhear the conversation and start freaking.
"Kai Hiwatari," Tala calls through the mic. "Sir Kai Hiwatari. Will you please do the damn honours?"
Tyson forces his feet to move. But they don't. He's frozen. Watching the events unfold helplessly. Horrified.
Kai pulls the cigarette away from his lips and looks out at the fireworks. Not an ounce of fear in his gaze. He might as well be appraising a skyscraper.
"He does this every year and it still scares the shit out of me," the girl beside him says, arms folded, fidgeting on her feet.
"What if it goes wrong?" Eddie asks. "What if it goes wrong, Tyson?" He shakes Tyson's shoulder. He's going to be blown to bits, he thinks. "They're murdering a man."
"The man's murdering himself," Michael corrects. "I don't think anybody could make him go out there against his will. He wants to do it. It was probably his idea."
"I don't dig your guts!" Eddie shouts at Kai whose gaze flicks to him. A dangerous light in them. "Do you have a death wish?" he shouts again and Tyson realizes that he's trying to stop him. Eddie who doesn't like Kai the least bit is trying to stop him.
Kenny clutches Tyson's hand.
"Death wish?" Tala responds as Kai looks away with a bemused smirk. "He does this every year. Keep it together, Wheeler. We did the math okay?"
"Who did the math? You? If it's you we're all doomed," Eddie mutters under his breath.
Tyson's pulse quickens when Kai steps on to the platform.
"Oh shit Jesus Christ, why are we allowing this to happen?"
Kai walks down the path, the lighter flicking on and off in his hand. He inspects the tower, touching it, looking around its sides. He even climbs onto the inflatable tube, the flame from the lighter dancing along his fingers. Eddie nearly faints. Kai crosses over to the side that's facing Tyson, jumping off the tube onto the path again.
The bundle of fireworks rocks sideways.
Tyson feels his soul leave him.
He gets it. That this is for the thrill. To give everyone a scare and kick the night off dramatically. But what if...what if.
Kai takes his hand off the explosives. Standing still and staring at something near his feet before crouching down. At the foot of the arrangement.
"How are the wires set up?" he hears Michael ask someone nearby. "Do you know? No? Oh, that's alright."
Tyson's hand is clammy in Kenny's. His heart begs him to do something. To go stop him. But his body cannot fucking move.
The crowd backs away from the pool when Kai brings the flame close to the tower.
The entire attendance holds their breaths as a wick catches fire slowly. Kai makes sure the flame holds before rising to his feet and turning away. Walking down the path. Not in any hurry.
Tyson prays. His eyes on Kai as he makes his way over.
Please don't explode. Please don't explode. Not yet. Not yet.
The tiny flame travels around the tiers of rocket-shaped fireworks, passing dangerously close to exposed wicks. Each wick it passes without touching steals a year of life from Tyson.
Walk a bit faster. For fuck's sake. He's about to lose his shit.
Kai's only a foot away from reaching their side when one of the crackers suddenly explode with a loud boom. People scream. Tyson's heart stops for a moment. The image before him blurring in shock. When it clears, he sees Kai is fine. Unperturbed. There's smoke around him.
He steps away from the pool.
A rocket takes off high into the air, way above the hotel, and explodes. In a flurry of colours. In the shape of a chrysanthemum.
Another joins it. Another. And another. Bursting in red and blue and white and green. A willow, a comet, a flying fish.
They glitter like the most beautiful stars in the night.
Kai comes to stand in front of Tyson, making his sky shimmer and glow.
His eyes find Kai's and he releases the breath he'd been holding since Kai stepped onto that platform, a small smile blooming on his features.
"Tyson" he calls his name and he raises his chin to show him he's listening. Happy. Simply happy to see him in one piece. Perfectly alright and breathing.
Kai almost returns his smile, his eyes glinting softly, as he says, "You'll light the rest."
A small frown of confusion mars his brow as he tilts his head at him. "The..?"
Kai moves out of the way so he can see.
Tyson's eyes fall upon the remaining set of fireworks waiting to be launched into the air.
Horror settles in when he realizes what Kai is asking him to do.
Tyson stares into Kai's eyes in shock.
You would make me do...that?
It's a challenge, he realizes. For what happened in the lobby earlier.
Challenging him in public, just as he did to him.
Tyson's friends get ready to go up in arms as soon as Kai steps into his vicinity. They want to know what he wants with him.
Tala and Sergei come around the pool, curious to know what is happening.
Tyson's eyes stay on Kai's. Rebellious. Outraged. He gasps when Kai leans toward him, his lips almost brushing his as he moves his head around to speak into his ear. Softly. His voice a deep rumble. "If you're brave enough to challenge me," his hot breath grazes his skin, "then you should be brave enough to face the consequences."
Tyson inhales sharply. Steeling himself as he steps back. His gaze dark. Menacing.
"What is going on?" inquires Tala.
"Tyson will light the rest," Kai tells him without missing a beat. The people around them hear.
His friends react immediately.
"No!" They shout, coming forward to crowd around him. Protectively.
Eddie bodily blocks Tyson from Kai.
"You are not sending my guy out there," he warns.
Sergei drops the mandarin he had been eating. It rolls off and rests against the edge of the pool.
Tala switches off the mic. "Kai, you can't. He doesn't know how. He'll put all of us in danger."
They all protest. His friends. Kai's friends. Even Tala.
"He'll lose an arm. Or a leg." Eddie pushes Tyson back without turning around. Moving him away from Kai. "Don't do it," he twists his head to say to Tyson. "Say you won't do it."
Tyson's gaze remains firmly on Kai's, whose words and eyes poke and prod at him. Daring him. Taunting him. Mercilessly.
"I'll do it," he says before he even fully thinks it through.
There's a stunned silence around him.
Kai holds out a hand. "Give him a torch." He beckons him forward.
Tyson goes. Gulping.
Ian spurs into action. He fetches a thick stick of wood wrapped with a cloth from someone nearby and hands it to Tyson, saying, "We always have one ready. Just in case."
He holds the safe end of the stick with one arm as he stands next to the pool with Kai.
"There's a long wire," Kai instructs, "that goes around the middle. Stay at arm's length and light it." He looks at Tyson to see if he understood.
The stick shakes in his hand so he holds it with both.
There's a cacophony of outraged protests from his friends behind him. "Tyson, take that back. Don't be insane."
"Tyson, don't do it," urges Kenny's pleading voice.
Kai flicks the cap of the lighter off. A flame bursts into life. Tyson's breath stutters out of him as he brings the flame close to the oiled cloth. The torch catches fire immediately.
He jerks it away from his face. The heat warms him.
"Kai, it's Bambi," he hears Sergei tell him, his voice the weakest he'd ever heard it. "Please stop."
"He can say no if he wants to," Kai drawls, his gaze sliding up the side of his face. "Do you want to say no, Tyson?"
Tyson clenches his teeth. He's scared. He is dead scared. But he'd seen Kai do it. And if Kai can do it, then he can too. He shakes his head. In stuttered motions.
Kai nods. "There" He puts his hands in his pockets and urges the people away from the pool.
Tyson takes in a deep breath, then he steps onto the platform. Walking up to the tower slowly.
His legs tremble and threaten to give out in fear.
"Stop this madness," Tala hisses to Kai as soon as he's out of ear-shot. "He's a kid, Kai. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's going to blow himself up. Make him stop." He glares at Kai when he disregards him, standing facing the pool, staring at Tyson's back, who is almost halfway there.
Eddie and Michael yell at Tyson to come back. His heart beats so hard in his chest he can barely hear them over the blood rushing in his ears.
He's there.
It's only three feet away.
From up close, the assortment of fireworks of different sizes all tied together looks even more terrifying. Like a clown. A terrifying, terrifying clown.
The rainbow wrappers and twisted, exposed cords. Towering one over the other.
His entire body shakes with fear, cold creeping into his bones from the garishly glowing blue water around him.
He notices the cords running around the set up. There are so many. There isn't just one long wire that is distinguishable from all the others.
There are many long wires.
The ends of two of them peek over one side.
What the hell? Which one is he supposed to light?
He notices another wire towards the bottom, whose end tapers off in a weird manner, pointing upward, towards him.
He remembers Kai kneeling.
Is this the one?
He doesn't understand.
Tyson hovers unsurely. Should he turn back and ask?
His mind is starting to go numb.
He sees that the couple wires around the side are kind of glowing. Like a dying matchstick.
They look like they were recently lit.
Tyson moves the torch toward those wires. He hopes his arm doesn't blow up.
A moment before the flames lick the wick, a hand grips his wrist and pulls the torch away.
Tyson yelps and drops it, out of sudden surprise. The torch falls. At the base of the arrangement, where there are crackers placed.
The wicks catch fire immediately.
He hears someone say "shit" behind him.
Tyson only has time to say, "Kai" before arms wrap around his waist and he gets thrown into the pool.
The water muffles the sound of the explosions but they are still loud and reverberate across the water.
He's drowning. No. Someone's making him drown.
Tyson kicks away when he realizes it's Kai.
He fights to go to the surface. Fingers clamp around his leg and draw him down.
He wants to scream for help.
He tries to swim up again and Kai pulls him down three times before he realizes what's happening.
There's fire. At the surface. The crackers are exploding outward. If he swims up to the surface he'll get fried.
He changes direction. Swimming lengthwise. Toward the farthest edge of the pool. Farthest from the fireworks.
He's running out of air. He's not going to make it.
Terror seizes him for a wild moment before he breaks out of the water and inhales cool night air. He takes big gulps, his hands braced along the cemented edge of the pool. He raises himself out of the water and scrambles to his feet.
Kai breaks through the surface moments later. When Tyson looks back and sees him he shoots him one look full of utter betrayal and hurt before running into the hotel.
Kai takes a long breath, combing his hair back from his forehead. He stays like that for a while, head down, his hands at his nape, elbows braced against the edge as fireworks explode into chrysanthemums above him.
