September

Ooh! Reviews! Lol… it’s just exciting that people are reading this. Haha.. I feel happy…

kenz: I updated! Lol, now to make it surprisingly better…

Blackrose: It wasn’t my idea though! All credit goes to Racoona… but thanks for the review!

silverfox: I’m glad you liked it. I will be continuing, though don’t expect my updates to be regular or often or anything because I tend to get sidetracked easily...

Sharon: There’s going to be more than just a part 2! I think it’ll end up being around 14 chapters, if all goes well…

Racoona (…and Nora): I was so glad that you liked. Lol, I was scared no one was going to read it… so, uh, who’s Nora?
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September

~Piano Lessons~


Dinner had consisted of some traditional Japanese cuisine that Tyson made, and I have to admit that his culinary prowess often makes it quite difficult to believe that he’s only 14. I don’t think my own mother had been able to cook that good before her heart condition claimed her, though I’m not quite sure because I hardly remember my entire family being together, especially for meals. It was much too long ago, I affirmed silently, shelving any thoughts that could have me searching within my tired memories of the past for recollections of my family. For the most part, I didn’t ~ want ~ to remember….

Actually, there’s quite a lot about Tyson that makes me question his age. He has a sort of quiet confidence hidden in those perceptive eyes of his, as though he knows exactly what he is capable of, like he’s completely aware of exactly how everything and everyone reacts to him – and he wasn’t about to deny it.


But he wasn’t about to admit it either.


Just two weeks before he had told me that he loved me, and I never doubted his words at all, though he seemed so young. Then again, I wasn’t much older. I only turned seventeen in three months and… eight – no… nine days.

Silently, I glanced in his direction, taking a sip of the vanilla laté that Kai had made me, and watched his reflection in the gleaming kitchen window he was looking at, watching the glistening raindrops slither down the glass in tiny, glittering rivulets. The curve of his mouth was soft, rosy lips parted enough to reveal the smooth, gleaming tips of two of his teeth. He has nice teeth, in my opinion. All white, straight and with the little shiny glint that all celebrities have.

He is a celebrity, after all, despite his youth, being the world champion Beyblader and all. Not that age really has that much to do with anything. People are always mistaking youth for immaturity and naivety. Much in the same way that people – certain people, I may add, *cough* Hilary *cough*, - mistake my silence for arrogance and aloof obstinacy.



Jaggedly cast shadows stretched across the walls, seeping in between the furniture and vanishing in the bright, milky glow of the several lanterns that hung from the high-set ceiling. They almost seemed to dance, as though each silhouette was some sort of dark spirit, flickering with an aqueous quality, as the flames in the fireplace wavered, crackling placidly in a sapid rhythm.

I breathed softly, inhaling through my nostrils. The scent of sugary coffee and vanilla was strong to my senses but not enough to block out the heady fragrance of aged timber and spices, and the seasoned, rusty scent of hot earth. Of our house that I loved so much.

Soft, slender fingers sifted through my hair as though it were silk, causing a tingle to shiver through my bones and for my hair to sweep along my bare neck. It reached my shoulders when it was wet, but now it just fell limply to about an inch above them. I didn’t style it anymore; I just brushed it in the mornings and let it fall naturally. Whatever had possessed me to style it the way I used to, in those hell-bent wings, sure as hell didn’t anymore. I think Boris and the chip lodged in my brain might have had something to do with it. Smiling to myself, I decided that I’d just use that of my excuse from now on, in case anyone asked, regardless of whether it was true or not. Apparently ‘the hair’ was intimidating or something… I think that’s what Boris told me, although I swear my uncle Nicky said that power could be measured by the size of a man’s eyebrows. But, I supposed, as the image of him came to mind, that had probably just been him defending his ego…

The hands left my hair, my scalp tingling a little at their absence, as two wiry arms slid down past my neck to cross over my chest, and I felt Tyson’s soft lips brush against my temple. A tendril of dusky indigo fell past my right eye, obscuring its view, as I felt the warmth of his cheek against my right one. I offered him some of my coffee but he politely declined, tightening his arms around me in an affectionate squeeze.

I’d noticed he had a dislike for coffee, and all of my attempts to get him to start drinking it had failed miserably. My poor little deprived Tyson, I thought absently, gently blowing the lock of his hair so that it swayed in my vision. Not liking coffee? What on Earth had Japan done to you, my little Ty-koi? Ty-koi and Ta-koi, we call each other, though I’m not exactly sure what koi means. I think it means darling or something. Tyson and I usually just speak in English; we’d been speaking it fluently since the age of four,
after all. My Japanese was as bad as his Russian, if you catch my drift…

Tyson withdrew his arms from me and dropped into the chair beside me, his mouth drawn into a tight, dispassionate line as he slid some sheets of paper and a maths textbook in towards him. Homework. I laughed, and his eyes snapped up in my direction. He pouted, and I decided it looked cute on him, though I preferred his smile any day.

His flowing, silken hue was loose, waist length blue hair pooling around him as he studied quietly. I watched him write, turning tiny strokes of black ink into numbers and symbols with such delicate ease, occasionally sipping my latté until I had finished it. I frowned, my lips in a fraught line. I was torn between my laziness and my penchant for another coffee. I could get up and make myself another one, or I could sit here and look longingly at the espresso machine in the kitchen for another few minutes… Hmmm… which to choose?

A lingering chime sang above the low hum that vibrated in the still air, followed by the melodic tinkle of feminine laughter. Turning my head interestedly, I shot a turquoise slash of curiosity across the lounge room to find Kai seated at the piano with Sarah on his lap. He was holding her hands, their fingers aligned so that he controlled their movement over the keys. Both Kai and I played the piano, there had been one at the Abbey, and we didn’t have much else for entertainment other than a few books, a Beydish
and Bryan whenever he had vodka. I smiled inwardly, ~that~ brought back some of the better memories of Abbey life…

A few mismatched chords rang out, and Sarah’s crystal voice sang out again in fresh laughter. She was wearing a pair of ¾ satin pants that shimmered a caramel bronze in the fire lit room and one of Kai’s blazers, her hair pulled back into a long, brown ponytail that whispered against Kai’s bare shoulder. How he managed to ignore the cold so adamantly was beyond me. He was dressed in a pair of thin track pants and a black singlet with a pale blue tank top over the top of it, his shoulders bare. No scarf even, my eyes were wide with awe and I wondered if he was only trying to look tough around Sarah.


Scratch that thought… in case he learns to read minds and punches me for thinking it.

“Ok, now play an A,” he instructed Sarah, nuzzling her neck as he spoke, “C sharp, F and E flat,” he continued, their fingers dancing along the ivory keys. A very wrong, out of place note attacked my hearing, and my face tightened into an involuntary wince.

Sarah giggled, grinning shamelessly, “Oops.” She looked back over her shoulder at me, grinning apologetically.

“That was an F sharp,” Kai told Sarah warmly, kissing her cheek fondly as she tried again, her soft features bright with a semblance of amusement. “Foot down on the pedal,” I heard Kai call out again.


She missed it, and they both burst into peals of laughter, Kai’s arms drawing Sarah’s small body more firmly against him, his chin resting on her shoulder. A flicker of a smile, but a smile nonetheless, parted my lips as I stood, leaving Tyson and the golden couple in the corner alone in the lounge room. It was good to see Kai so happy, and I was incredibly grateful that Sarah was keeping his misery at bay.


Honestly, unhappy people just piss me off.


Hehe… oops… ~I~ am an unhappy person a lot of the time…


Let’s just scrap that earlier thought…


~~~~~~~*~*~~~~~~~

Small mouth drawn into a frown, Sarah fixed the piano with an annoyed scowl, her pale green eyes shadowing belligerently. She stood, smoothing out her pants and top with her hands, frustration etched into the slender lines of her body. That piano had it in for her, she swore by it. Indulging in another arctic leer at the piano she hugged Kai’s blazer tighter around herself, shivering as it shifted over her skin. Smiling to herself, she inhaled a little more deeply than was needed, her eyes fluttering closed for a brief moment. The black item of clothing smelt of Kai – of smooth molten darkness and rich coffee. He’d just gone upstairs to talk to Tala about something, though he hadn’t said what.

Casting a snapping glance at the calendar, her neat brows drew together as she made a quick calculation. August 26th.

Shit! That meant she only had another six days to do that maths assignment. Silently, she cursed whoever it was that was moronic enough to invent matrices. Didn’t they realise they were just creating hell for the next several hundred generations of students?

Ignoring the biting cold, she went outside and sat on one of the steps leading off the sheltered veranda, listening to the rain as it was swallowed by the thick foliage of the old trees in the garden. Time was lost on her. Shimmering puddles pooled in front of the steps, and she watched as light streamed from the house and caused the rain to glitter. It was pretty, she thought, absently raking her tanned fingers through her ponytail. She could almost pass as a descendant of an African-American; with the tan she had from years of surfing. It was annoying for her to live in this part of Japan with her single father because there weren’t any surf beaches. Hell, she didn’t even know if Japan had surf. That was probably the only thing she really missed about California and Australia, having lived at both when her parents were still together.

They’d divorced only three years ago, and her mother had remarried almost instantly to an Indonesian millionaire. Now she had an eight-year-old stepsister and a two-year-old half brother. She loved Dewi to bits, and David had made a weird bubbling sound the last time he saw her… that was… good… she hoped. Sarah couldn’t wait to see them both again in a few months when she went to Bali for a visit.


And go for a surf, of course.


Her vision suddenly went white and blue, the cool, soft feeling of material rubbed against her cheek as someone dropped a patchwork quilt over her head.

“Thanks Kai, darling,” even though the white and blue blanket muffled her voice, the sarcasm dripping from every syllable was very apparent. “Ooh!” she exclaimed delightedly when she swept the blanked over her shoulders, “You brought cookies.”

He sat beside her, setting a tray on the step below them. “And coffee,” he added softly, “Thought you might want a bit of a pick-me-up considering you’ve been out here for nearly an hour.”

“An hour?” she hadn’t realised. “Shit,” she exclaimed with a laugh, her eyes sparkling.

He reached over to her with a pale hand, his fingers cold against the skin of her jaw as he drew her head up, resting his forehead against hers for a stagnant moment.

“You all right?” she asked him in a concerned tone, her arms pulling the edges of the quilt to cocoon them together.

Kai looked away, staring into the glimmering puddles that were ruining his garden. His dark eyes seemed to almost freeze over; his handsome features hardening as though something really bothered him.

He just couldn’t believe it. After so long…


It just didn’t seem fair.


Hell, it *wasn’t* fair. He felt a painful jolt of sadness in his stomach, his sorrow and disbelief enough to ward away his anger.


It seemed Boris had had the last laugh after all, he thought with a bitter grimace.

Sarah’s fingers combing through his hair snapped his attention back to her, and she lent forward and kissed him tenderly, her tan-pink lips sealing over his softly and broke away.


His crimson eyes smiled then, pale mouth soon to follow. Curling an arm around her waist, he pulled her closer and reached up to pull the tie from her hair. Her soft, brown masses cascaded over her shoulders, enshrouding the two of them in what seemed like metres of silkily cool hair.


“So,” began Kai, trailing a finger down her neckline, “What have you been doing out here?”


Sarah shrugged, “Not much, really. Just watching the rain. I think it’s pretty,” she admitted as Kai’s lips pressed against her temple, and she snuggled up against him, suddenly feeling a hell of a lot warmer than she had moments before.


“It is,” Kai agreed softly, closing his eyes as he felt Sarah’s lips slide over his like silken fire, her tongue tracing over his bottom lip in a way that completely shattered the foundations of his earlier grief. He smirked against her lips, kissing her back so firmly he thought he might have bruised her lips.


The cookies lay forgotten on the step.

~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~

Bare-chested, I was lying on my bed, trying to discern whether my room was warm or cold or somewhere in between. It wasn’t exactly cold, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been wearing only a pair of beige pyjama pants, but there seemed to be a lingering coolness in the still air. It was temperate, nice and refreshing, I decided finally. Lazily, I let out a sharp breath of air, trying to get my bangs off
my face.

I held a neatly folded letter between my fingers, waving it above my face, thinking about what I had just read. The crisp paper was a nuance between pale beige and brown, and carried the faintest scent of my angel of a best friend. I was glad to hear from her, despite the bad news, glad to know that at least *she* was alive. I hadn’t seen any of the girls since they escaped the Abbey. For some reason or another, it dawned on me then that all the girls from my past were pretty much gone. Only Dom, Taya - Tatiana- and Veronika were left, and they were hidden somewhere in Europe. I missed them all, and it hurt. God ~how~ it hurt…

“Are you okay?” Kai’s voice seemed to come from nowhere, but when I looked up he was sitting on the corner of my bed, facing me. He seemed a little apprehensive, but other than that his features were as mercurial as ever.

I nodded in reply, red hair swaying in my vision.

“You miss her a lot, don’t you,” he said in muted tones, referring to September, though it wasn’t a question. Not really.

I didn’t answer. The silence hovered over us like my annoying maths teacher did whenever I hadn’t done my homework. I did miss her. More than anything. And not knowing where the fucking hell my brother was – my last living relative – didn’t really help. I wonder if he’d remembered that it was September’s birthday and if he was doing anything with his wife for her. Francesca, I think her name was. “I wonder what Dimitri’s doing right now,” I whispered hoarsely, voicing my thoughts. My eyes were burning, stinging… Damn this, I thought, trying to blink away the sharp pain in them but to no effect. I wanted my brother back. But my last link to him had been shattered by the seventh thrust of a knife years ago. “Fuck!” I swore in reflex as a crystal tear spilled over my cheek, splashing onto my chest. I was crying like a pissy girl, I thought sourly.

Kai just watched my lone tear fall, hard-muscled arms crossed over his chest in trademark fashion.

I was glad, though, that he didn’t do or say anything because the last thing I wanted was pity. I just wanted my baby sister and my big brother back, and for all of the girls to be happy, which I knew they weren’t, wherever they were.

“Rista’s dead,” I informed Kai, my throat hurting from all the effort it took to not convey my emotion, and tossed him the letter.

He reeled back then as though he’d been hit in the face, and I saw his world crumble away beneath him, and his body froze like he’d been turned to stone.

“Rista? Kristan?” he whispered shakily, unfolding the letter and reading through it with suddenly tearful eyes. They’d been very close, Rista and Kai.

His eyes froze over, his face hardening with both sick fury and grief. “The bastard,” he growled, his voice breaking as he wiped tears from his eyes with the back of his hand.

“The letter’s a few months late, though, so she died in about May,” I said with a hoarse voice, not really to anyone. There was no point in trying to pretend it had no effect on me. Kai has always seen straight through me. “I can’t believe it. Poor Tatiana,” my voice was dull as I named Kristan’s younger sister.

“We killed Boris,” whispered Kai softly, the tone of his voice bitter, “And he still ended up winning.”

“Shh!” I glared at Kai. If anyone found out that we’d poisoned the bastard we’d be in for it for sure.

Ignoring me, Kai continued, “I didn’t even know he’d raped her, let alone that she was fucking pregnant.”

Silence fell about us again, long minutes passing before either of us spoke again.

“Do you think it hurt her? The miscarriage?”

I just looked at Kai with eyes that said it all. It had killed her… The knowledge of her death seemed so distant, so foreign. It felt like it had when September died. It was like losing her all over again.

Neither of us said anything, Kai just kept shaking his head like it all was a simple bad dream before he slid off the bed and left without a word, slipping the letter into his pocket.


~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~


I was hungry.


Or think I was. Either that or I was bored. It’s a miracle I managed to keep the figure I had with amount of times I had eaten just because there was nothing else to do.


Not bothering to put a shirt or jacket on, I decided to brave the cold and stepped out into the hallway. The polished wood beneath my bare feet was cold even, I thought, irritated. I thought wood wasn’t supposed to conduct heat or something? What was this? The world had been so against me lately. First the rain, now this?

I was about a quarter of the way down the stairs when Tyson walked past me. We exchanged weighty glances, and kept walking.

For about a second anyway. I froze in my tracks when I felt Tyson’s little hand in my hair, forcing me to turn back and look at him. He was only one step above me, and, I realised with a smug grin to myself, I was still taller. I liked being tall, though in a few years, if he ended up anything like Hiro, he would be taller than me quite easily.

Eyeing him warily, I hardly had time to wonder what he was up to when he urged my lips down to his in a riveting action that completely took me by surprise. My eyes slammed shut as he kissed me so hard that my head spun, fragments of colours flashing behind my eyelids. Shit, where’d he learn to do that?

Damn, kisses like that should be illegal, I thought as I stumbled back giddily, my eyes flying open as I nearly fell down the stairs. Catching me around the waist, my Ty-koi grinned at me, shaking his head at my clumsiness.

I’d show him, I thought as I brought my lips crashing onto his, pressing them more firmly against his tender mouth. I felt his tongue dart out to play with my bottom lip, trying to persuade me into letting it enter my mouth.

Like ~hell~. This was my turn to make his knees weak.

We’ll see who stumbles down the stairs first. I smirked against his lips, but he was so sidetracked that I don’t think he realised.

“Oi!” a voice from downstairs broke through our ardent moment, “Bedroom. You know the rules,” Breaking my lips away from Tyson’s, I turned my head to find Sarah standing in the kitchen making more coffee, with her mouth drawn into a firm line. Her eyes sparkled with green laughter though, and I knew the firm expression was only her playing around.

Hold on a sec… “Hey! This is my house!” I cried out in protestation, but Tyson was already dragging me off to my bedroom.

Sarah just laughed as she watched Tyson pull me away, sticking her tongue out at me, “Have fun,” she giggled at me, and I grinned. I swear that girl has the most infectious smile in the world. It’s even worse than my Ty-koi’s. I shot a glance at him. Well, *sometimes*…

He pushed me against the door and I felt his lips brush over mine again as I turned the door handle and fell inside my room. I took his hand and led him in, pushing him up against the closed door, and sealed my lips over his again. My tongue softly caressed his mouth, branding him with my touch. He was mine and I liked to… remind... him. Reaching my hands up under that blasted shirt he was wearing, I traced over the well-defined grooves of his abdominals, feeling him shudder against me in reaction.
Smirking against his open mouth, I let instinct take over, loosing myself in his lips, not so hungry anymore…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Studio: And that\'s the end of that chapter... I think I disappointed myself. Not even 4000 words.. (insert sad face here)

Ah well... there\'s always the next chapter to make better... I hope you enjoyed it! Reviews are *very* welcome!

~Studio~

ooh.. question.. does html work on this thing?