Fall Apart

By xannychan

Disclaimer: Characters don't belong to me.

Short A/N: I'm not sure why, but an old obsession of mine has recently revived inside of me again, and that would be Beyblade. I haven't even seen it in over three years! But here it is anyway.

Warnings: Angst-ridden Kai and one-sided shounen-ai.

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When Rei wakes up at six in the morning and notices that there is an empty bed, he wonders how the hell anyone in their right mind could chase the ideals that Kai so adamantly pursues: to be strong, to be smart, to be great, to be perfect. He trains through the day into the night. His mind focuses only on the speed, the strength, the defense, the power. He speaks as little as possible—to conserve a wasted breath, perhaps, or maybe just because he didn't like speaking to others besides the Dranzer that rested in his mind.

Sometimes, Rei sees him bandaging his fingers from pulling the ripcord again and again. He skin gets paler these days, and food is becoming a strange substance to him.

But every night, Kai shudders in his sleep.

Once, and only once, Rei saw him crying in his sleep.

The screams never left his mind.

And Rei worries about this. He is worried that his genetically perfect friend (could he really call him that?) is getting sick in the head. He worries that he is pushing too hard. He worries that Kai is doing something to himself that Rei can't stop.

Rei does not like feeling useless.

So when Rei wakes up in the morning, he does not smile and say hello. He touches Kai's shoulder—it gets bonier everyday, he thinks—and waits for him to turn around to face him.

At first Kai didn't even move. But now, he just gives a tired look, as if he is letting him see a weaker side that he would never show anyone else. As if Kai is trying to whisper in his ear something he will never understand. Sometimes, he sees something else in that look and he wonders what it was he wanted to say.

For a while, Rei wanted to know what it was. But from the look on Kai's face, he doesn't even want to think about it.

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When Kai wakes up at four in the morning, he wonders how he can sleep so peacefully, so easily, for so long. How is heart so strong, so smart, so great, so perfect to allow such a thing? How does Rei slip his hands around what Kai can't even touch? He can give a soft sigh and laugh while Kai doesn't even have the time to breathe. He smiles so easily, and his smile is pulled from his heart.

Kai can't even compare.

Kai trains, day and night, and forgets to eat. He has hardly seen the sun—always training, always perfecting what is just barely perfect. It must beautiful, he must be perfect! Black Dranzer tells him so.

Black Dranzer has haunted his mind since the years he thought he had forgotten. But Black Dranzer refuses to be forgotten, and she hushes his raging mind with sweet seductions of perfection if only he sacrifices everything he is, everything he has. Perfection tugs at his soul like a chain that leads a dog, and she holds the leash. When Kai sleeps, she is the sole mistress of his mind. Even in his subconscious nightmare, he barely bites back his tears.

Slowly, slowly, Kai is getting sick in the head with the monster that is slowly eating his soul away. He must be perfect, perfect!

Lately, Black Dranzer has been hissing another name in his ear, another person he must be perfect for.

Him.

It makes him shake and his empty stomach lurches when he thinks of him. He pushes harder, chases dreams that get farther every day. Soon, he can't stop himself. He moves mechanically, methodically, slashing and burning his soul and mind away.

Kai doesn't know what he's doing, and he hates it.

At first, Kai doesn't even take notice of the boy that touches his shoulders in the morning. But now, when he looks into the amber eyes he loves, he wishes he could touch him back. But Black Dranzer binds his hands the cord and blade and he fears touching the china face that is his.

So he shows him the part of him that he could never dare to show to another, the dying, cracking piece of him that Black Dranzer has not yet stolen from him. He prays that the wind would speak for him, whisper in Rei's mind that Kai is trying to be perfect for him and he's dying for him and deep, deep inside, he's screaming for someone to save him from what he can never be and what Rei has been all along.

From the look on his face, Rei doesn't understand. And when Kai sees that, another part of him falls apart.