These Arabs Are Stinking Rich

"I'm bored"

Tyson paces back and forth on the plane. It's a private jet. He has room to run around if he wants. The interior is posh and golden. Kai sits on a long cushioned chair on one side, working on something on his laptop. He's wearing glasses. Tyson's dying.

"Kai, did you hear me? I'm bored." It's a ten hour flight. Ten hours forty minutes to be precise.

He left Roppongo four hours ago. At 2 pm. His friends hadn't asked too many questions about his leaving because one, they were drunk and two, the Blitzkriegs had made a show of declaring the winner and Kai had handed the ticket to him in front of everybody. Eddie had been the one to push him forward to accept the damn thing. He'd called his dad to inform him about the trip but dad - as usual - hadn't answered. He told Grampa though and Grampa told him to take good care of himself. And enjoy. They all told him to enjoy.

Some enjoyment this was.

"Kai?" He's at his wit's end.

"Yes, Tyson, I can hear you."

"Will you please get off that thing and talk to me?"

He doesn't take his eyes off the screen. Tyson watches his lips move as he says, "Five minutes".

"Urgh" He resumes the pacing. The draft from the air conditioner is hitting his face.

He's standing and staring at the vents, thinking, oh god, I'm gonna die, when Kai finally sets the computer on the low table before him and gives him his attention.

Tyson turns when he hears the sound of him moving. No glasses. Kai's staring at him, leaning back in the chair. One ankle crossed over a knee. There's humour in his eyes.

"Oh good" Tyson says with an exhale, coming to sit next to him on the lounge. He sighs emphatically when his butt presses into the cushion. "I thought I was going to die of boredom."

He has his hands on his knees. Back straight but ass comfy. He's stiff and relaxed at the same time.

Kai asks him if he wants a drink.

"For the ninth time, no." He holds up a hand.

"Was that the ninth time?"

"Yes, why do you keep offering? I'm not going to drink on this entire trip."

"You won't be able to when you get to Dubai. You're not old enough."

"I don't mind that. I'm not much of a drinker anyway. Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Old enough?"

"No"

Tyson makes a thoughtful 'ah' sound. "What's the legal drinking age there?"

"21. Same as USA." He adjusts his ankle on his knee. Moving his boot in the air. His gaze is on it. "They have a lot of things in common with the US."

Tyson turns his head to look at him. He's wearing one of those shirts that have square, leather patches of colour sewn into them. There's red leather covering his shoulders between the white cotton collar and sleeves. His boots are tan and heavily laced. Tyson notices he pays an abnormal amount of attention to Kai's clothing. And he realizes it's because he's trying to piece together the person through his attire.

His jeans are dark. The blackest blue.

His hair is perfect.

Sleeves rolled halfway to his elbow. Folded neatly.

Kai likes order.

Tyson smooths a subconscious hand down his own jean-clad thigh. He's a messy person. "Have you visited Dubai before?"

"Yes. Once before. With Yuriy." He calls Tala 'Yuriy' sometimes. The other Blitzkriegs do too. It must be a pet name. Tala had glared at Tyson when he was walking past the booth earlier. Before Julia swept in to steal a kiss from him. Right in front of him and everyone else. Including Kai who was loitering nearby. Tyson had briefly wondered if he was dreaming when she pulled back and smiled at him. Before he saw her eyes drift from his to follow Tala as he stormed past them, a satisfied gleam in her gaze. Then the pieces had clicked together in his head. Like Lego bricks. Julia was trying to make Tala jealous by making him think she was sleeping with Tyson. He hates Tyson. She seems to have romantic interest in Tala. It made sense.

She wasn't trying to stir shit with Kai. May be she was, but only as an afterthought. The main goal was Tala.

Tyson had turned to glance at Tala as he walked back to the hotel. His hand was bleeding. He'd seen Kai take a look at the hand before giving him his handkerchief.

The little gesture had made something sting in Tyson's chest. Something close to jealousy.

Which is stupid. Kai and Tala have been close since childhood. They're practically brothers. And Tyson's supposed to be moving on. What Kai does is no business of his.

"I visited Egypt with my dad when I was ten. I had a severe fear of airplanes back then. I cried to and from Cairo."

Kai snorts.

"Ha" Tyson glances at him with a laugh. He's examining his shoelaces. "I had fun there. We went to many digs and got back before Hiro and I got bored. But I was so scared of flying I made my dad promise to never put me on a plane again. I haven't traveled outside the country since."

"How did you overcome it?" His eyes are on him. "Your fear of flying?"

Tyson shrugs one shoulder. Looking at the long creamy seat across from them. "I grew up." He reconsiders his answer. "I mean I did freak a bit when we were taking off," he adds sheepishly, sneaking a glance at Kai. "But it passed after a couple of deep breaths and a remainder that an aircraft carrying a rich man could never go down."

Kai outright laughs at it this time. His whole face changes when he does. It's a bark of a laugh, but its a rich sound, and grooves appear around his mouth. His eyes crinkle. Slight dimples curve in his cheeks. "You're a trip," he says after, brushing a finger under his nose. "But you should have told me."

"Why?" asks Tyson. "Would you have held my hand? Told me to calm down in that bossy, condescending way of yours?" He tries to imagine it. It's a ridiculous picture. "'Tyson, don't freak out,'" he says, dropping his voice to imitate Kai. "'I'm hot and expensive, you can't do this next to me on a plane.'"

Kai leers at him. "Hot and expensive?" He cocks an eyebrow.

"'My reputation demands you to be calm.'" He's on a roll. "'You're making me look bad.'"

Kai rolls his eyes. It's hot on him.

"You talk like that," Tyson reaches across to slap his thigh. Lightly. It's more like a tap.

"I do not talk like that."

"Like you have a stick up your butt. You would make it all about you."

Kai bites the inside of his cheek. Listening to him. Then he says, "In no universe would I make that about myself." In a light tone. Playful. But there's a touch of seriousness behind it.

Tyson shuts up. Sitting back to look at him. He feels warm. And it has nothing to do with the actual temperature of the plane. "This is my third time," he says. "Flying" he elaborates when Kai looks at him. "I'm doing pretty great." He's proud of himself.

He watches Kai pour a glass of whisky for himself in a tall flute. He fills it to the three-fourth mark and leans back in his chair with the glass. He takes a sip. Then lowers the drink, it hangs off his fingers near the arm of the seat.

"Do you ever go back...to Russia?" Tyson asks tentatively.

A brief flicker of something dark flashes in his eyes for a moment. It disappears too quickly for him to decipher. "Last time was when I was thirteen." His chin is tucked. His voice low.

"Oh"

"Mm" His face is grim.

The light mood flew out the window. It's on its merry way back to solid ground now. Unlike Tyson.

He regroups. "Why didn't Wyatt come to Roppongo?" 'Cause Wyatt's a safe topic.

"Wyatt's too young." The air clears just like that.

"You were wild in your freshmen year," Tyson teases, he thinks a bit before adding. "I've heard stories."

"About me?" Kai arches his eyebrows. Head titled back. Looking at him down his nose.

"Yeah" He thinks some more. His smile's growing impish as he thinks about the tape he saw. "There are some pretty incriminating videos."

Kai turns in his seat with interest, so that his entire body is facing Tyson. He rests one wrist on the back of the chair. The other holding the drink close to his side. He's giving him an assessing look. Scanning him from head to toe like he's seeing him in a new light. "You watched those tapes?" he asks him, eyes narrowing. Glinting.

"No...!" Tyson turns his face away. "I didn't" he denies. It's useless.

"You did" pronounces Kai.

He shakes his head. Cheeks colouring red. "No!"

"Tyson"

Shit

It was one thing in his head. But it's a completely different thing in reality. Kai sets the glass down and scoots closer to snatch Tyson's wrist in his hand. To pin it against the cushion next to his head so he cannot turn away and hide his face.

"It was just one, okay?" Tyson tells him, backed into a corner, meeting his eyes. "I watched one."

"Which one?"

He almost tells him. He bites his tongue at the last moment and shakes his head vigorously.

"Which one?"

"Kai, I can't." He wrenches his gaze away. Trying to escape. He looks at his pants instead. This is ridiculous.

He's moving around like he'd be able to hide his expression if it's fast enough when Kai grabs his face. His hand fitting around his jaw to keep him still.

Tyson freezes. His touch burns his skin.

"Which one?" Kai asks. Gaze inky black.

The words flow out of him easily. "The one with the fourth year."

Kai shakes his head once. He's been with many fourth years. It's not specific enough.

"The one with..." He tries to remember her name. The brunette. The one Eddie told him about. "Dani..Danielle?"

His thumb eases on his cheek as he recognizes it. The whole hand falls away after a moment. Tyson's face tingles when Kai moves back. His wrist is freed too a little later.

"Where'd you get it from?" he asks, picking up the glass again.

Tyson pulls in a tiny breath. "My friend found it. I don't know where he got it from."

Kai's silent for a minute as he thinks. "Eddie?" he asks after, surprising Tyson. He didn't know he knew his friends' names. Or their personalities enough to guess which of them would do such a thing.

"Yeah" He affirms with a small laugh. An impressed smile on his face. He watches as Kai nods and takes another sip of his drink. "You were wild."

"Appropriately"

Tyson snorts. "You keep Wyatt on a tight leash," he says, making an observation of his own from everything he's observed of them both so far.

Kai exhales audibly through his nose. His chest deflating. "Yes. He's surrounded by..." he trails off, his gaze on the drink. The corner of his mouth twitches. Tyson waits for him to continue his sentence but Kai doesn't. He frowns lightly for a moment before talking again like he's made a decision, "Wyatt has a bright future ahead of him. I don't want him to screw that up for himself."

"Why would he...?"

"He is easily distracted."

"Oh"

"He needs rigid rules and a plan. He's smart, but he's a visionary and cannot think in detail," he says, gesturing with his hand. "His mother put him in my charge."

Tyson observes Kai fascinatedly. He's talking to him. He's actually talking to him. He never talks to him like he talks to all his friends and third years. When they were dating, he got the outermost parts of Kai. A step beyond the rude persona he presented to the general populace of Toho. He got snarky Kai. One step behind the first real shade of him. The person he was with his batchmates and friends. And he doesn't understand why he got relegated to the former when they began dating. Kai was more interested in exploring Tyson's mouth than his thoughts and opinions. He let Tyson talk and listened quite well. But he wouldn't share about himself in return. He didn't care to. Like Tyson wasn't smart or mature enough for him to share his thoughts with him.

He is younger. To be fair, Kai doesn't talk to any other sophomore either. Or freshmen except Wyatt. And almost all seniors a year above act like their juniors are far beneath them in age and maturity when they are only a year younger.

Kai doesn't even date sophomores. He's slept with a few of them. Hilary being one. Tyson was the first. As far as he's aware, that is.

Tyson himself acts like freshmen are too small. He even thinks they are too small. He's not sure why he expects Kai to treat him like an equal. May be because they were dating.

He sits a little closer now to listen to Kai. Because he's fascinating. And he still craves to know him.


"I'm bored" Tyson trudges back and forth across the plane. There's five hours left. There's a bedroom at the back. He took a peek inside a while ago. There's a bed, a dresser, a coat rack and everything. It's outrageous.

He stomps around as Kai works again.

He's doing something. He took a peek at the screen too earlier. It looked like math. He was drawing shit with codes. Fuck math.

"Can we play music?"

Kai nods without lifting his gaze. He points him to the stereo.

Tyson messes around with the buttons and options on the screen on a chair's armrest. It's a screen with the length and width of an iPad. Old English music starts playing softly from the overhead speakers after a while. "Eww, who listens to this shit? Is it you?" He wrinkles his nose in disgust at 'Sarah with Love'.

"It's the captain," he tells him with a smirk.

"Eww. There's only nineties shit and it's not even Japanese." He scrolls through the list. "He has bad taste. Wait, hold on. There's 2000s pop." He presses something and Enrique Iglesias starts singing 'Dirty Dancer'. "Yas!" Tyson screams.

Kai puts his earbuds in to tune him out.

He's on his feet in seconds and grooving. Tyson shoots Kai a self-conscious look once, but his eyes seem to be glued to the computer so Tyson dances his soul out in the space between the two couch-like seats.

Enrique changes to Christina Aguilera changes to Black Eyed Peas. He's moved from party songs to sexy pole-dancing songs and taken his jacket off thirty minutes later.

Tyson's in his element. He has his eyes closed, his mind far away, his lips are parted, his hands are sliding up his own body. He's turning on his heel...

He's playing with the hem of his shirt, lifting it on one side with a flirty finger, till the aircon hits his toned stomach...

His eyes open a creak. Kai's staring at him.

Oh my god.

Tyson gasps, letting go of the shirt when he catches where his gaze is. He laughs in embarrassment, bending at the stomach.

Kai blinks, his eyes drop away then slide back to him. His mouth curves in one corner as he focuses back on the screen. "Why'd you stop? That was a good show." His voice is gritty. Stone on stone.

Tyson gulps. Cheeks on fire. "Shut up" he says, laughter bubbling up his throat again. "Asshole. I thought you weren't looking."

"How could I not?"

He walks back stiffly to the music player and changes the song. He needs something holy to cleanse his image. Good god, he was being shameless.


Tyson's so bored he's singing 'As Long As You Love Me' by Justin Bieber, word for word, hitting all the high notes and the low notes and the rap parts by the time Kai shuts off his computer and tells him he should go to sleep.

"I'm not sleepy."

"You should still sleep."

"What time is it right now?"

"Eight fifty-three in Tokyo," Kai says, unlocking his phone. He's on his feet.

"That's not even close to my bedtime," Tyson's sitting on a chair's arm. Shoulders hunched. Looking up at Kai. The lighting has been dimmed.

"You have a bedtime?" Kai's glances up to curl his lip in disdain. Son of a-

"That's not important." Tyson glowers.

"If you get some rest now you'll be in great shape when we land," he says, scrolling on his phone. Tyson watches him pop a cube of papaya on a toothpick in his mouth.

"What time will it be there when we land?"

"Seven thirty in the evening." His cheek dents as he chews.

"Ohh"

"You can have the bed. I'll take the couch," he says, turning, raising his phone to his ear.

"Don't" Tyson reaches out to grab his hand. The one with the cell.

"Tyson, don't be a brat. Just take the bed." He bites over his shoulder.

"Aiish" He pushes his arm away from him like he's deplorable. "Why do you have to be so rude?"

He gets shooed off to the bedroom. Tyson complains on his way out. When he glances back with his hand on the curtain to push it aside, Kai's already talking to someone else, in a foreign tongue. His back and shoulders turned to him.


He hears the announcement on the speakers. His eyes flutter open. He has his arms and legs stretched out over the bed. He's used to taking up all the space on a mattress when he sleeps.

He sits up, rubbing his eyes and wetting his mouth. There's a glass of water covered with a lid on the bedside table. He swings his legs to the side and takes a drink from it.

They're about to land.

Tyson pads out to the sitting area in the plane, shoving the curtain aside. Kai's still asleep on the long seat. Face tilted away. An arm thrown over his eyes. One of his knees is bent. The sleek sole of his boot pressing into the flawless cushion.

His mouth is slack.

Tyson lets him sleep for a few more minutes since the captain said they won't be landing for another ten.

He picks up a cube of papaya from a silver tray and eats it. The sky is dark outside. He can't see anything. Something foggy passes by the windows and the plane trembles.

Tyson feels his stomach swoop as he sways on his feet once.

This thing will not fall out of the sky, he reminds himself. That pilot is probably experienced as fuck. Kai must pay him fat rolls of moolah to make sure he keeps them safe and steady in the air.

He drops the toothpick in a holder. The captain instructs them to buckle up over the speakers.

Tyson goes to Kai to wake him up. He's never woken him up before. He touches his shoulder gingerly.

There's no startling or grunting. He comes awake like he was only resting with his eyes closed. Moving the arm away from his eyes to look at Tyson. They are slightly red. And he's sleep-warm.

Tyson takes his hand away. "We're landing soon."

Kai sits up with a deep inhale. The edges of his mouth hardening again. He looked younger while he was asleep.

"Strap in" he tells him, rasping, wiping his eyes once. He sees his throat working.

Tyson sinks into one of the chairs with an upright back and puts on his belt. Kai slides the nearby window's shutter up, buckling in next to him. Baring the sky outside.

The plane starts to descend. His chest thrums. The jet tilts and Tyson catches the first glimpse of Dubai. A constellation of bright yellow stars on land.

It's a map of lights.

"Wow" he breathes, leaning towards the window, his chin almost touching Kai's shoulder.


He has a Range Rover. Of course he has a Range Rover. Sleek black and shiny.

"We should stop at a Burger King," Tyson suggests. "I saw a Burger King on the way over."

"We can eat real food when we get there."

"I'm hungry" he pouts. He cannot sit still. There's so much to take in. The people. The buildings. He watches a couple dressed in black and white cross the road when they stop at a red light. The woman is wearing a dark full body garment. The man a similar one in white. He has a red and white patterned headdress while she has on a black scarf. "Burger King is real food."

"It's not my fault you didn't eat on the plane."

"On flight meals are nauseating." They start moving again. "Kai, don't be an ass. Just stop at a restaurant."

"Tyson, the hotel is five minutes away." He makes a turn. "Have patience."

"What's that?" Tyson faces to ask just to fuck with him. His stomach grumbles. "Fuck, Kai. I didn't know you brought me here to starve."

Kai exhales heavily. Biting back his words. Curses probably. They get off the highway and enter another five-lane road.

"God, these roads are large. Is that a fucking Lamborghini?" He stares after a beastly four-wheel flying past them. "These Arabs are bathing in riches."

They pull up to a grand flourishing hotel and Tyson's smile shrivels in astonishment as his gaze scans up the building. "Is this the Burj Khalifa?" he asks in trepidation.

"No" Kai answers, unbuckling the seatbelt. "It's better. Come on."

Tyson steps out of the car, knees jelly. Mouth agape.

The lobby is luxurious and glittery as a concierge leads them up to their room.

Tyson walks close to Kai. Slightly becoming overwhelmed.

The elevator slides smoothly up multiple floors. There's actual gold on the handles. Shaped in the form of a lion's head.

Kai pulls on his hand as they reach their level. They are led down a marble hallway, and into a corner of the building. The last set of doors at the end of the corridor.

The doors are grand.

Kai swipes their card and the concierge pushes the heavy double doors open.

It's a whole different world.

Tyson's breath arrests in his lungs.