Three Saves and One Shove

Perhaps the thing he hates the most about Kai is the fact that he studies archaeology for fun. Along with a bunch of other courses he takes that aren't too closely related to his major, he's also taking the one subject that sent both Tyson's father and his brother far away him and all the way to… Where are they right now? India? China?

He feels irritation climbing through his veins as he carefully navigates the perilous steps spiralling up to the top of the fort. No handles. No railings. Just a bunch of slippery stones.

It's not surprising that his first enemy is in cahoots with his worst one. An expected turn of events really. Now he's about to fall and break his neck as according to their plans.

He'd just had that thought when he accidentally catches a glimpse of the gaping 50 foot drop beside him and panic grips his throat. He misplaces his boot on the next step and slips off the stone.

Here he goes. To that daunting black hole waiting for him, a demon if you think about it, with its mouth wide open. He's about to hit cold hard stone and crack his skull on it when a hand grabs hold of his arm and yanks him back, towards the wall, towards safety.

Tyson looks up at Kai, heart hammering in his chest with fear and adrenaline. Angry dark eyes meet his and Tyson feels chastised, because this isn't his first time tripping on the stairs. In fact it happened just three minutes ago and Kai had warned him to watch his step.

"You're not the daredevil you think you are, Granger," he says, taking his fingers off Tyson before Tyson can push them away. "Put your hand on the wall and stick close to it."

"Or what?" he shoots back.

"Or you'll fall to your death," Kai sneers.

"Like you wouldn't enjoy that?" asks Tyson.

"I would. But I wouldn't enjoy being interrogated about it."

"Thought you were above the law?"

"I'm not above being questioned."

"Um guys?" A girl calls from a few steps above them. She's a classmate of Kai's. A guy waits a few feet above her, looking at them expectantly. Another student taking that cursed course. The three of them had decided to check out the fort together and take some pictures for their class while simultaneously enjoying a day in the sun.

Kai had dragged Tyson along to snap pictures for him. A camera hangs around his sweaty neck, heavy and uncomfortable.

"Let's not waste time arguing okay?" she says placatingly. "This climb is dangerous enough as it is without all the back and forth. The bickering isn't helping."

Kai turns around with a sigh after sending one more withering glare in Tyson's direction. Tyson puts his hand on the wall and treks upward, cursing every step of the way.

"Wow, it's beautiful," says the girl. He forgot her name.

"Yeah, it's gorgeous up here," agrees the dude.

It is. The bright afternoon sunlight glints on the surface of the water below that stretches in all directions around the fort at his back. Seagull's caws fill the air as they swoop and dive for prey nearby. The wind is strong, whipping Tyson's jacket and making his hair fly around his face. He raises the camera and snaps a pic of the ocean.

They're standing on a cliff, leading out from the side of the fort, an arched stone doorway behind them. Listening to the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks below.

He can hear the guy they came with talking about the history of this place a few feet away. "One of the oldest and rarest stone structures in the country, built over 700 years ago by lord Amawari, the great Aji of Katsuren… "

Tyson walks around, taking more pictures, enjoying the taste of the salt on his lips.

"He was abandoned as a child in the mountains wasn't he?" the girls asks.

"Yes, only to go on to become one of the most admired rulers of Okinawa.."

He's at the very edge, capturing a perfect shot of the water slamming against the rocky wall in an upward arc, confident of his footing, and focused on the picture as the earth under his boot comes loose and the ground completely gives away.

He careens. Flailing wildly for purchase.

Fear grips his heart, shock numbing his veins as he tips over.

He's dead for sure this time.

Third time he's slipping today and there's no way he's cheating death a third time.

He scrunches his eyes shut and prepares to meet his maker. A strong arm cinches around his waist and pulls him away, tugging him against a solid chest. The scent of pine and wood surrounds him.

He risks opening his eyes, unable to believe that he's still breathing. Still unharmed and not a pile of crushed bones on the boulders below. His gaze finds a thin white shirt covering hard muscles and crimson red eyes. Third time.

He looks at Kai and blinks. Speechless.

"May be bringing you along was a bad idea," says Kai softly.

Tyson's too overwhelmed with the fact that he'd almost just split his head that he fails to come up with any witty retorts. He slowly becomes aware of his own fingers clutching tightly onto Kai's arms and loosens them with some effort, his body naturally reluctant to let go of safety, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.

Kai steps away. "Don't stand near the edges," he says.

Tyson nods. Again, too stunned to tell him off. He wrenches his gaze off of Kai and puts some distance between himself and the cliff edge. Then he checks his camera.

He got the shot.

The tape had been missing since the kiss ended. Kai must have taken it when Tyson dropped it in the desire to hold his face in his hands for a moment instead. It was obvious that Tyson was more distracted by the kiss. And if so, did Kai kiss him to get the tape from him in the first place?

No.

He'd already had him trapped. He had the tape anyway. He didn't need to kiss him in order to distract him. He'd kissed him because he wanted to. That was the only reason for it.

Tyson being distracted was just a bonus.

Then why doesn't he act like it?

There's not even the slightest of clue that he remembers the kiss or was affected by it in any way. Neither does he show any awkwardness. There's nothing even in his eyes. Nothing. He acts just the same as before. While Tyson has trouble stopping himself from thinking about the kiss whenever he looks at him for longer than two minutes.

Why? Why does Kai act completely normal?

Did it not happen? Had Tyson dreamed up the whole thing?

There's a concert being held at their university tonight. Multiple acts performing, both local and overseas. Tyson's helping out the lights and sound team as they prepare the stage for the evening.

His friends are lending their hands too.

He's drilling a screw into place as Rei talks to them about his situation with Mariah.

"She's stubborn. She doesn't want to see it my way. I keep telling her that I just want us to slow down a little, for the good of the both of us, but she thinks I'm pushing her away."

Eddie brings a box of decorative lights and sets it beside Rei for him to untangle so Tyson can hang them along the curtains. "Did you tell her you love her?"

"Er- yes" He says with a firm incline of his head.

"Did you tell her you don't want to leave her?"

"Yes, but she doesn't believe me."

"Then there's nothing you can do," says Eddie. Shrugging. "Women"

Tyson sighs, rolling his eyes, picking up one end of the string of yellow fairy lights and stepping up on a stool to hang them.

"If I may," Michael holds up a finger, interjecting. "Mariah probably feels that way because she doesn't find your actions and your behaviour towards her reassuring enough. Take her on a date. Spoil her. Shower her with affection."

Rei mildly colours, deflating. "I'm not a very affectionate guy. I suck at it."

"We know," says Eddie, before jumping up onto a ladder beside him to assist Tyson. "Are we doing just the side curtains or are we doing the top ones as well?" he asks him.

"All around" answers Tyson, gesturing towards the frame of the stage.

"Got it" He gets to work.

Michael puts a foot up on one of the bottom rungs of the ladder to stop it from shaking a lot under Eddie's weight and uncaring movements.

"Just…try to be a little less you for a day."

"Then she'll suspect I'm up to something. Cheating on her or whatever."

"Oh boy" mutters Michael. "Don't be too weird. Just…be a little more considerate and thoughtful."

"Yeah, girls love it when you're thoughtful," pitches in Eddie enthusiastically. "When you think of the little things. They're all about that shit."

Tyson refrains from giving his two cents, seeing as both of his past relationships had failed. He decides it's best to stay quiet and not talk about stuff he doesn't know about. Especially when it comes to his own exes.

He tries to remember if they'd allowed alcohol at this concert last year because he has a mind to get drunk and absolutely shit-faced.

They don't allow alcohol for the safety of the artists performing as college crowds can get quite rowdy, but Tyson does manage to get drunk soon. Not on alcohol and not that evening, but something more powerful in the morning that followed.

It's been a week. A week and a day since the kiss. A week of Kai pretending it didn't happen. A week of Tyson waiting for Kai to come talk to him about it, at least to agree on erasing the memory of it. Of him questioning if it was real.

He's starting to believe it wasn't.

Frustrated out of his mind by the whole thing, Tyson barges into the Blitkrieg house on Saturday morning ready to confront Kai.

He finds that there's a party going on. Students laughing and talking and dancing in the foyer, the living room, the cafeteria, the patio. Red cups littering the place. Pool table occupied. Beer bottles on the kitchen counter.

Tyson looks around for Kai wading through the crowd. He spots Kristina, on a couch with a glass of alcohol in hand, Julia next to her, both immersed in an animated conversation and laughter.

He spies Bryan and Tala doing shots. Bryan does an impressive back flip that briefly distracts Tyson before he resumes searching for a familiar head of black hair.

A girl clad in a denim top and a tennis skirt finally tells him he's in the gaming room. Tyson makes a beeline for it.

The room is filled with a haze of smoke. Cream curtains are drawn over the windows to restrict the amount of light flowing in. A pool table sits in the middle of the room, and on the couches beyond it sit Kai, Sergei and two other guys Tyson doesn't recognize.

Kai isn't smoking. Sergei and another dude is.

Dark red eyes, inscrutable, fixate on Tyson as soon as he enters the room. Along with half a dozen others.

"Clear the room," Tyson says to Kai, at his wit's end.

A smooth eyebrow lifts in condescension. "You want me to clear the room…for you?" he asks coolly. Dangerous amusement dancing in his eyes and his voice.

"Yes" Tyson folds his arms. "Unless you want me to say what I'm about to say in front of everyone."

It's a threat and he makes damn sure it sounds like one because he's sick and tired of not talking about it. Of pretending, of avoiding the subject. Acting like it never fucking happened when it did.

If he has to go through another day of questioning his reality he might scream.

There. At last. A flicker of something. A flicker of anger at being threatened by it, at having being forced to acknowledge it, enters his gaze. Glints in it like steel.

A second passes, another. Another.

Then he says, "Clear the room", voice as cold as ice.

The other guys slowly rise to their feet and exit the area as Kai glares daggers into Tyson.

Once they leave he stands up, rounds the pool table.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" asks Kai, stalking towards him.

It's there now. The awareness of the kiss hangs in the air between them. Loud in the silence. Screaming in the silence.

How has he been ignoring it?

How did they ever manage to ignore it?

"What am I doing? Tell me what the fuck it is that you have been doing. You know, it is one thing to pretend like something never happened." He backs a step. "But it is something completely different to do it to the point you make the other person question it ever happened. You know I wouldn't have minded pretending like it never happened if we'd agreed to do it. If you'd asked me to. But instead you're fucking gaslighting me."

His back hits the wall and Kai stops inches away from him.

"It's not my fault that you have a weak mind," Kai hisses into his face.

"Weak?" Tyson sputters, a laugh punching out of him. "I'm not the one refusing to acknowledge it. Even once. You still aren't-"

"Why would I acknowledge something that meant nothing to me?" asks Kai, cutting him off. Addressing it directly for the first time.

"Refusing to talk about it only makes it look like it does mean something to you," fires back Tyson.

Kai scoffs, a silent laugh tilting his mouth viciously. "Even you don't believe that."

"If it meant nothing to you then prove it," says Tyson. "Prove that it meant-."

The rest of his words are swallowed up by Kai, his mouth. He grabs his hips and slams him against the wall kissing his complaints out of him. Tyson, surprised and relishing in the feel of having him this close again, kisses him back just as fervently and runs his hands into his hair because he's been itching to do that again. He feels a moan being torn out of his throat as Kai holds his face between his calloused palms and caresses the roof of his mouth with his tongue, nipping and biting at his lips till his whole body is buzzing like its high and he's feeling lightheaded. Then Kai drops his lips to the side of Tyson's neck and sucks at a spot that has his heart flipping in his chest. He's spreading his fingers along Kai's shoulders and giving into the sensation of his lips moving along his throat when there are two loud raps against the door.

They spring apart.

A guy with a purple-coloured buzz cut sticks his head in, looking around the room before he spots them. "Wyatt's here," he says to Kai. "You asked to be told when he got here?"

"Yeah" Kai nods, slightly breathless, running the back of his hand over his mouth. "I'll be right out."

The guy ducks out and shuts the door behind him.

Tyson looks at Kai, not having processed the last five minutes and reeling from it and the scare of almost being caught in the act right after.

Kai, much more put together than him, and handling it completely differently from the last time, gives Tyson a searing scrolling look, taking in his rumpled appearance with what looks like light satisfaction before following the guy out.