Kai Hiwatari - Years of Turbulence (I)

Part Two - Early Teens

Kai wasn't the first among them to lose his virginity. It was Tala. Fourteen and full of spirit, he crept into Kai's bed late one night and told him all about his first time.

"It was hot. And wet."

Kai who was busy coming with a plan to free himself from his grandfather's clutches amidst classes, extra curricular activities, training and events, didn't have much time or interest for things the rest of the kids of his age group were crazy about. When the other boys he grew up with began indulging in illicit dorm parties and sneaking in alcohol, Kai stayed in his room reading and researching. It took him longer than he expected from himself to come up with a solid, viable plan of action. "What was wet?" he asked, wrinkling his nose, disgusted by the details his friend was offering him. He didn't want to hear any of this, but Tala had gotten weirdly attached to Kai ever since his father left his mother the year prior. Dr Valkova had been devastated by the divorce, though her daughter, Tala's elder sister, took it surprisingly well, having seen it coming from a mile away. Tala hadn't however, he shattered like glass and curled up in his grandmother's arms for months after. And when his grandmother wasn't near, he clung to Kai.

Kai wasn't a particularly warm person for Tala to have sought him out for comfort, yet Kai was the one Tala knew like the back of his palm. He'd seen his worst moments and held him through it, so he expected him to do the same for him in return. Hold him. Let him curl up in his lap and shed angry tears for hours while Kai lost himself in a thick tome.

"The- Her. Alaina. Her, you know...," he nudged Kai's shoulder till he grunted in confirmation that he got it. "She was wet."

"And it felt good?" He couldn't fathom how that could feel good, though he knew it would. He wasn't an ignorant idiot after all, yet none of the books had made sex sound this...filthy.

"It felt amazing!" Tala practically bounced on the mattress next to him. Kai considered kicking him out. He needed to sleep if he was to ace the exam tomorrow.

"It's like touching yourself but better," Tala was whispering to him. "Way better."

"You touch yourself?" Kai twisted his neck to look at him in the dark to see if he'd gone insane.

"You don't?" Tala asked him with equal horror.

"What?" Kai mouthed, unable to find his voice. "Yuriy, you're weird."

"No, I'm normal! You're the weird one. Everyone in our class does it. Even the girls, I hear."

"You're all fucking disgusting," he said. "Get off my bed." And shoved him off.

He didn't party, didn't drink or do drugs. He set standards for himself and strived to meet them. Prim and proper. Never a hair out of place or a wrinkle on his shirt. He spoke calmly and used his crisply enunciated words carefully. He socialized when it was necessary, carried out his duties and responsibilities well. The very picture of poise and perfection. The girls adored him, and the boys envied.

Until they learned to fear him.

Until he turned sixteen and became an entirely different person.


"Heard your grandfather crowing from the rooftops, something about you clearing the Mensa test?" Tala was knotting his tie, standing in front of the mirror.

Kai straightened his cuffs, examining his own reflection. "That would be right."

Bryan glanced over with a sharp inhale. "Oh Jesus, he's going to be insufferable at the dinner. And our mothers?" He patted at his pockets in search of something. "I'm going to need my flask."

"Imagine being Kai right now," said Sergei, languishing with his phone on an armchair in the corner.

Yes. Imagine. Having to sit through a dinner where Voltaire waxed poetic about his accomplishments to jealous guests in a tone that made it seem as though they were his own. He called him 'son' now. Not grandson anymore. He'd been elevated to a higher status. His father erased from existence as far as Voltaire was concerned.

He was awfully proud. He made him sit on his right, directly next to him at the head of the table now. His father pushed several seats down beside his mother. As if Kai's accomplishments had anything to do with him. As if one day he would be reaping the benefits of Kai's excellence. His labour.

At that dreaded birthday dinner, in front of the Prime Minister of Japan, Soichiro Hiwatari laid a hand on a fourteen year old Kai's shoulder and declared loud enough for everyone present in the room to hear, "Our family has come a long way. We are here now because of great men in our past and present who went above and beyond for the welfare of their loved ones. I, myself, have done a great deal of good to the Hiwatari name and when I look at my grandson, I see the same fire in his eyes that once used to blaze in mine. He will take this family to even further heights and do a great honour to the names of all of his ancestors. I am sure. I believe in you, son." He tipped his wine glass toward him in a toast, smile proud and greedy underneath his bushy grey moustache.

Kai returned his toast with his orange juice and a practised smile, and swore to himself that he would rather die than be his grandfather's puppet. Talk a certain way, walk a certain way, tremble in fear for positions granted to him out of nepotism, and act like his grandfather was god and his word was the gospel. And have everything stripped away from him at a moment's notice if he so much as stepped out of line. He couldn't imagine living like that till his grandfather finally died some twenty years later and the family's fortune fell into his hands.

He couldn't imagine a worse fate.

The trust fund babies all around him may have been more than happy to live like that, but he was not. He could not. He hadn't started rebelling against his grandfather yet at that time, but Kai and his mother had hour-long arguments over the matter in hushed voices and furious whispers every summer he returned home.

"I refuse to live according to someone else's rules."

"I get that you're young and you value you your freedom, but there are more important things in life, Kai. Things like family and taking care of your loved ones," said his mother as she sat on her bed and folded their laundry, something she did not out of necessity but simply to keep herself busy.

Kai watched her, standing a few paces away and breathing heavily. He curled his fists as the meaning of her words sunk in. "Mama, I will never let anyone cast you or dad out to the streets," he promised. "I will not. Not for as long as I live. I give you my word!"

"Kai, you cannot give up your birthright! It is foolish and reckless to throw safety and security that is being granted to you willingly by your grandfather-"

"At the price of my freedom!" he shouted.

"Dear god, child." She touched a hand to her temple. "I cannot argue with you. We're going in circles."

He pulled in a deep breath and calmed himself. He padded forward till he stood right next to his mother. "All I'm asking you to do is trust me," he said quietly, with more composure, using his reasoning voice. "You and papa, just trust me."

She put down a shirt she was handling to give him her full attention and cradled his cheek. "I do trust you. We all do, Kai. We believe you can do this." She was talking about being the heir again.

"Oh" He turned away exasperatedly. His mother was never going to see reason.

He was going to have to do it behind her back, till it was too late for any of them to stop him.


Days after he returned to school that year, Kai deliberately picked a fight with the most notorious bully in his class. Putting step one of his plan into action. He was good with his fists. Punching things was his specialty and so he aimed a punch right into Minato Fukuhara's face, earning Minato a month-long detention for attacking first and himself a spotlight. The school was unaware of his fighting prowess, but Minato was furious. Kai had not only been the one to land the worst hit, but he had also talked himself out of any blame while Minato had to sit in detention for a full month. He came back for his revenge with a couple of his minions a week later, ganging up on Kai in the dorms, brazenly in front of their peers, hoping to take his ego down a notch. Kai stopped his friends from intervening by telling them that he'd been expecting this and was ready for it. Minato's plan failed and Kai's succeeded when he ended up taking out all three of them. They couldn't fathom it. How had he done it? Half the dorm had borne witness to the fight too. No one in the school knew about his training and so it came as a shock to them. News spread like wildfire and before his knuckles scabbed over, someone was already placing a bet with him. Challenging him to a friendly fight.

Bryan wanted a piece of the action and he loudly bragged about his strengths all around the dorm till he had a match of his own too.

It started with as small a sum as ten thousand yen.

Kai shook on it. Won it. The money was his. And so was the fame.


What started as a dick measuring contest soon turned into something more, something bigger, something truly exciting as boys placed wagers amongst themselves and made a sport out of it. A secret afterschool club was set up unbeknownst to the teachers and before long, students were attending, placing bets and paying to watch matches everyday.

An underground fight club had been started at their boarding school, thought up by Kai, but run by him and his four most trusted allies. They divided the profits amongst themselves, though not equally as two of them had their bodies bruised and bloodied almost on the daily while the others did not.

Kai did not win every fight. Neither did Bryan. But they won more than they lost, and Kai lost very rarely. The division A wrestling team at their school decided to participate close to Kai's fifteenth birthday and their star player lost to Kai 3-1 and his name began circulating in spaces not just inside their school, but outside as well.

Things seemed to be going great for a while, till his name reached the ears of a gang one of the boys in their school was connected to, and the inmates of hell came looking for Kai.


Kai stuck to the school rule of halting all club activities a month before the school closed so his family would never catch wind of his secret affairs. He made sure to take off his shirt before a fight and so they remained spotless, but some of the shorts had to be discarded and replaced. His body healed well before he went back home and stepped under the scrutiny of his mother's eyes that missed nothing.

"The jacket looks a little tight on your shoulders, doesn't it?" Kai held his breath slightly as his mother brushed lint from his suit and made sure her son looked perfect for her dinner.

"Yes, it does. May be I should sit this one out?"

"We had this suit fitted for you two weeks ago, did you grow a foot in a fortnight?"

"Mother, I don't think anyone will mind my absence."

She met his eyes then, a touch of sadness in her gaze. "'Mother', is it, Kai? Too old for 'mama' now?"

Kai didn't answer, pressing his lips together and tiling his chin away, an apology in the set of his jaw.

His mother caressed his nape with a comforting, loving hand, already forgiving him for it. "You can do whatever you want tonight," she spoke to his reflection, "but you'll have to attend the next one and talk to whoever I want you to. Alright?"

Kai nodded. Gaze on his shoes. Hands folded behind his back. "Thank you"

They didn't argue as much as they used to anymore.

His mother sighed heavily as he brushed a kiss to her cheek and walked out of the room, his footsteps loud and echoing.


The gang was none other than the yakuza. One of the smallest rings of their organization set up in the area, mostly surviving by selling drugs to teenagers that went to their school through one guy nicknamed as Goki.

Goki, apparently talked about Kai to his dealer Ozuma without giving much thought to it. Ozuma, who was running illegal fights of his own as a side business and even had a champion under his management, was intrigued to hear the news.

Kai knew about the presence of the yakuza outside their school's borders, and was expecting a confrontation sooner or later, but what he had not foreseen was that they would approach him in his hometown, while he was on a late night stroll during his summer vacation.

"Kai, was it?" he heard someone say behind him before he was grabbed by the neck and slammed against the side of the bridge.

He was taken off guard for a wild moment, but his instincts kicked in soon enough. "Get your fucking hands off me," he shoved the guy's hand away from his neck and when he reached for him again, struck him right across his jaw, throwing him to the ground.

The guy was on his feet again in mere moments and they wrestled in the dark for a few tense, brutal minutes before his attacker gave up and called for a truce. "Stop! Stop!" he said, thrusting an arm out to keep Kai away as he sat and panted on the ground. A cut on his temple bleeding hard. "I only came to challenge you to a fight."

"This one?" he asked, sneering, the back of his head throbbing.

"No" It was difficult to see his face, but his voice scraped like stones in Kai's ear. "Tomorrow evening, four thirty, behind the Ozone."

"I will be fighting nowhere near your turf."

"Alright. Alright. Here. Our man will wait for you here, and if you win, you get to take home thirty grand."

Kai paused. That wasn't a lot of money. He could make as much in four fights back at school but something about the offer tempted him. May be it was the prospect of fighting a veteran, a champion. Someone merciless and ruthless. The better part of his mind told him to turn it down, that getting himself involved with the yakuza in any form was dangerous. Yet he had a plan. One he'd worked on for years. He couldn't throw it away at the first sign of actual risk.

He accepted the invitation, despite the alarm bells ringing in his head.


The man was unhinged. Positively deranged. Drug abuse and unhealthy life choices had eaten away at him. Ozuma's champion, Viktor, was a thin, malnourished, ravenous beast. His techniques were good, Kai had to give him that. But he also looked as though he might chew off Kai's arm if he managed to tackle him for longer than two seconds.

The other boys knew of the fight. Tala and Sergei had warned him away from it while Ian and Bryan were all for it. They came to watch. Two of the members of the yakuza, other than the demon in the match, were also in attendance. Masks on to protect their identities.

Viktor had no mask and Kai wished he did. His teeth snapped at him every chance he got. In the end, Kai suffered three scratches and one rough kick to his abdomen, while Ozuma's champion was left nearly unconscious.

"He fainted out of exhaustion," Bryan jabbed as they made their way back to Kai's home. The estate. He inspected his shirt for stains and was exasperated with himself when he found dirt tracks.

He dived straight into the pool when he got back, entering through one of the side gates to avoid his parents' or grandfather's eyes, and handed the wet clothes, along with the dirty white shirt to one of the maids.

"I don't get it. It's just mud, Kai. Why would your mother care?" asked Tala, lounging against the side of the pool, arms spread along the edge and water up to his waist.

"Because she knows me and what I wouldn't do," Kai said as he raised himself out of the water.

"Just tell her you were playing football."

Kai paused toweling his hair to throw Tala a look. "That would never fly with mother. She already knows I'm keeping secrets."

Tala barked a laugh. "Keeping secrets. You hear that, boys? The worst thing he's ever done in his life."

Yes, the worst thing ever, till that summer ended.


Two weeks later, his life was a completely different story.

There was a party raging downstairs. The bass echoing off the bathroom walls. Kai's hands shook as he lowered himself into the bathtub in a daze.

One minute he had been there. And the next he was not. He'd simply ceased to exist. The thing that made him human, that gave him life, leaving him, slipping away from right underneath Kai's fingers, which had been wrapped tightly around his throat.

He'd gone cold and still the moment it happened, knowing all too well what he'd done. What he was now. Viktor had snuck into their dorm, high on krokodil and wanting Kai dead. He'd pounced on him when he was alone in his room and tried to strangle him right there. And it was completely by luck that Sergei happened to need some peace and quiet and decided to seek out Kai. He'd barged in and ripped Viktor off Kai as soon as he saw them.

The rest had joined soon after, and it had taken all five of them to subdue a bloodthirsty Viktor.

"We need to get him out of here," Tala rasped, lighting a cigarette. "They're probably starting to notice our absence downstairs."

"The fence. We just have to throw him over the fence." Ian vibrated with energy, his eyes bloodshot. "Kai?"

"Help me get him out of the dorm," Kai said, standing up, refusing to take his eyes off Viktor's unconscious body for a moment. "I'll take care of the rest."

"You sure?" asked Sergei.

Kai nodded. "You can't be gone for too long. They'll come looking. Come on."

The threat of the yakuza loomed over their heads and weighed on their shoulders as they carried Viktor to the backyard without anyone catching them in the act.

"Bloody bastard's heavier than he looks," Bryan bitched as he and Kai set the guy down on the grass in the backyard, in a spot where the cameras didn't reach. "You'll need help throwing him over the fence. Here, take Ian," he dragged Ian over and thrust him forward, "He's the least popular one among us. He won't be missed."

Kai didn't want any of them to be gone from the dorm for too long, but he did need another hand to lift Viktor.

"What's the hold up?" Tala hissed, coming around the corner. His gaze fell to the body propped up against the wall and he gaped. "He's sitting?"

"Ian's staying with Kai," said Bryan. "Fucker's heavy."

"Hmm" He pulled on the cigarette, appraising Viktor's mottled skin and shriveled frame. "Remind me to never try krokodil."

Kai's eyes flashed towards him. "How do you know it's krokodil?"

Tala gestured toward the guy's yellowed hands. "The spots"

"That happened to him in two weeks? Jesus, dude smells too." Ian pinched his nose.

"What the fuck are you guys doing?" Sergei abandoned watch to scold them. "Let's go before a teacher gets here."

"Ian" Kai stooped, getting down to business. "Grab his feet. I'll take his head."

"Alright"

They'd gotten him over the fence, grunting and heaving but managing it in the end. Kai had sent Ian away and jumped over to the other side to make sure Viktor didn't wake up and come right back for round two.

Except it hadn't gone the way he'd planned. Viktor had already been conscious, woken by the fall, when Kai dropped to the other side on his feet.

He'd lain still till Kai had gotten close enough and then he clamped down on his leg like a vice and dragged him down. Kai barely avoided hitting his head on a rock as he landed hard on his shoulder. The ensuing struggle had been on the ground. Viktor attempting to get a knee over Kai before Kai flipped them over and punched him.

He'd screamed then. Viktor. Letting out an animalistic snarl and biting Kai's hand, drawing blood.

Kai hissed. They rolled down a short hill and landed a few feet away from the guardrail of the famed waterfall near their school, where the water plunged onto rocks and then disappeared into the earth.

Viktor managed to get a death grip around Kai's neck, cutting off his air. He threw a hook and missed, Ozuma's champion cackled out loud. "You're no match for me, Hiwatari boy. What do spoiled brats know about real fighting?"

His vision was blurring. His head growing foggy. Kai felt around the ground blindly in search of something, anything. His fingers closed around a rock, big enough to fit the size of his palm. He slammed the thing against the side of Viktor's head.

He was thrown off for a moment, but that was all Kai needed. He grabbed the freak's neck and wrung it in between his hands. Squeezing his throat with every bit of strength he had in his arms. He hadn't been thinking. His mind a blank slate. His body acting on instinct alone to eliminate the threat in front of him.

One moment he was there, thrashing, flailing, choking and sputtering. His face inflating like a balloon, growing purple under the moonlight as blood rushed to the surface, as though he were about to pop. And then suddenly he was not. He stopped struggling. Stopped clawing at Kai's hands, where scratches were blooming with blood. He went lax under him. Kai's veins froze over.

His heart screeching to a halt.

He was dead. Dead. His life taken from him by Kai. With his own bare hands. There was dirt in his nails and he scrubbed them in a haze of panic and numbness.

The water was hot as he soaked in it. Washed the grime and evidence of his crime from his body. He saw the reflection of his shirt in the mirror, hanging on a hook, white and spotless. Spotless as though the universe was mocking him.

He'd acted on auto pilot afterwards, heaving the limp body to the railing and letting it fall over it. He'd watched as Viktor dropped, merging with the water and crashing sickeningly onto the rocks. White foam darkening as blood seeped and bone cracked. The rushing waves carried him away to the gaping hole between the rocks, where all the water ultimately spiraled into. And then Viktor was gone.

Just gone.

He sat in the tub once he was clean, frozen and motionless for hours. He sat there, as a murderer, as the rest of his class laughed and danced downstairs, happy and oblivious. And innocent.


The knock came many hours later. Kai felt barely human as he climbed out of the tub, wrapped a towel around his body and answered the door.

Yuriy.

His ice-blue eyes were familiar and alien at once.

There was concern in his gaze. "What are you doing?"

"Taking a bath," his voice came out levelled, but sounding hollow to his own ears.

"Bryan's doing a keg stand. That party won't last long. It's getting out of hand." He stepped to the side so Kai could walk into the room.

It didn't take him long to figure out something had gone wrong out there.


Chamomile tea. Tala brought him chamomile tea because Kai drank it on nights he felt restless, and he'd guessed this was one of those nights.

"You were gone a while after Ian returned," said Tala, sitting beside him on the bed as Kai nursed his tea. The cup was warm in his hands. His hands. They seemed all too big and disproportionate all of a sudden.

The cup rattled as his fingers began trembling again.

The party was dying down. The music growing muted and hard to hear.

"Did something happen?"

A bud floated in his tea. He'd taken only a single sip so far. "He woke up."

"Oh" was all Tala said for a minute, then he asked, "What did you do?"

His words were quiet, a mere whisper as he told him what he'd done. "He's dead"

He heard Tala's breath halt for a fraction of a second. A slight hitch. His shoulders stiffening. Before he absorbed the news and let it slide off of himself. "The body?"

"Dumped in the waterfall." He stared at the golden curtains on the windows. The pale moon beyond. "No one will find him."

Tala exhaled quietly. Watched the quiver in Kai's hands. The cup and the tea vibrating in his hold.

"He deserved it," he said softly after a while. "He was a rapist and a murderer. The world is better off without him." He raised his hand like he was going to pat Kai's shoulder, and then dropped it, thinking better of it.

Silence stretched taut between them for a moment.

"You did what you had to do. There was no other way around it." He stood up with that and went to retrieve something from his room.

A rapist and a murderer. The world had gained and lost nothing from Kai getting rid of him. How could he kill a murderer without becoming one himself?

"Here" Tala held out a glass filled with dark liquor in front of him. "Fuck the chamomile tea. You need something stronger."

Kai stared at it wordlessly.

"It helps" Tala whispered, nudging the glass towards him.

He wanted the images in his brain to stop. And chamomile wasn't going to do that for him. Kai sighed. Set the tea on the table and accepted the drink, gulping it all down in one go.


"Kai's growing up into quite a looker, isn't he?" his mother was saying. "I heard he's got a great number of admirers at his school."

"And who said that?"

"Kai, do not use that tone with your mother," Susumu reprimanded, never missing a chance to belittle his son.

Kai drew in a deep breath and focused back on his breakfast.

"Your classmates' mothers, in fact," his mother continued. "Apparently, you're quite popular with the girls."

Voltaire cleared his throat loudly then. His mother quieted and his father straightened in his chair. "Have you been seeing anyone, son?" he asked.

"No" Kai gripped his fork a little tighter.

"Well, it's time you started dating."

He kept the annoyance from showing on his face, but knew he couldn't trust himself to speak without venom at the moment, so he didn't. His mother gladly filled in the silence for him.

"The Fernandezes are sending their daughter here from Spain. She will be enrolling at your school next semester, Kai. She's of your age, very beautiful, and an only daughter of a Grand. She will inherit the Marchioness title in the future and you will be the head of the Hiwatari empire. You two would make an excellent couple."

Kai chewed savagely.

Soichiro's interest was piqued. He stopped eating and wiped his mouth to address the situation. "Mira, where did you hear of this?"

"Dr Valkova was talking about the girl's arrival the other day. The Fernandezes are close friends of hers and they were initially planning to have their daughter stay at the Valkov residence."

"Where will she be staying now?" asked Susumu.

"At the Four Seasons during her holidays and in the dorm when classes begin."

Dr Valkova was wise enough to not sic this type of shit on her son so Tala must have been blissfully ignorant about the future Marchioness' arrival. Or Kai would have heard about it by now.

He set his fork down, feeling petty. "Why are the Fernandezes sending their daughter here?" he asked. "Are there no good schools in Spain, mother?"

"The Japanese education system is one of the best in the world," answered Voltaire. "The Fernandezes are obviously serious about their daughter's education." Kai bit his tongue. "What's the girl's name, Mira?"

"Julia Fernandez"


When the next semester began, Kai was restless and sleepless almost every night. He lay in bed with his eyes closed, his thoughts circling around his head without mercy.

Without a moment's respite.

He tasted iron on his tongue one night and was transported straight back to the hill next to the waterfall. Viktor's fluttering pulse dying under his palm.

When he slept, he slept fitfully, plagued by dreams. Dreams that played the same scene over and over in his head in excruciating detail till he woke with a single word buzzing maniacally in his skull. Murderer.

Murderer.

He spent early mornings heaving into the toilet, trying to get rid of the sickly feeling in his gut and chest.

He was lethargic and tired during the day, walking from class to class, barely able to hold his head up straight. He floated around dreamlike, his grade dropped below a 100% in one of his classes, and the other boys cast worrying looks at him whenever they thought he couldn't see them.

In truth, he didn't. His eyes were glazed over more than they were focused, and he was mostly in his head, picking apart his own actions, examining them under a microscope than he was present in a situation.

He stopped fighting for a while. Sapped of energy and nauseous when near blood.

He half expected Viktor to pop out whenever he rounded a corner and come for his revenge. He'd killed him. And if he deserved it because he was a monster, then didn't Kai deserve it too? He'd wrung the life out of someone as well. What set him apart from the other monsters that walked the earth?

"Yo, bebé," he heard a voice call him from behind one day, while he was walking down the hall after uncharacteristically skipping a class. "[in Spanish] If I have to look at your sorry face for one more moment I will die."

Bold. Brazen. That voice gave exactly zero fucks and for that reason alone it broke through his thoughts. Kai turned around to face her.

There she stood. In a pocket of sunlight slanting from the windows. Blonde and suave. A marchioness in every right. "I know you speak Spanish, my lord," Julia continued speaking as she walked forward. "Your reputation precedes you. Seven languages, was it?" she asked when she finally stood before him.

"Five" He smirked. "Seven's a myth."

"A myth at only sixteen years of age? I'm sure there are plenty others floating around as well."

He stuck his tongue in his cheek.

"Hmm" Julia tilted her head at him, giving him a head to toe scan. She looked like a Barbie doll. A whirlwind of a Barbie doll. "Misery is unbecoming of you. What do you say we go for a smoke?" She held out a hand.

Kai glanced at the hand dismissively. "I don't smoke."

"Alright, something else, then. I have just the thing for you. Come on?" Julia offered an elbow this time. Kai rolled his eyes, slipping his hands into his pockets and walking ahead. She fell in step beside him with a snort.


Pink pills. She had a small plastic bag full of them.

"You could get addicted to that."

"Not if you know your chemicals. I trust you know your chemicals?" She stuck a pinky in and scooped one out with a nail. "Math?"

Kai felt a smug smile twist his mouth.

"It's safe. Or as safe as us teenagers can be." She placed the pill on her tongue and wrapped a hand around Kai's nape. Her nails scraped against his skin as she applied a small pressure to pull him forward.

He leaned in and his world burst into colour once more.


A/N: HIIIIIIIIIII! Oh my god, HASN'T IT BEEN FOREVER?! URGH, I MISSED THIS FIC SO MUCH. *GROANS LOUDLY* I hope you had fun reading this chapter. More stuff to come in the upcoming chapters.

Should be fun.

I hope you're all doing well. I can't really say when the next chapter will come out but I hope the length makes up for it.

Anyway, thank you for reading and reviewing. I MISSED YOU ALL. TAKE CARE. Bye-bye!