Time for Us Chapter 1, a beyblade fanfic

Tai: So, I sat, typed, thought, typed some more and finally realised that I will not be able to cover this story in the space of one single entry without making somewhere near 10,000 words, at which point I'll get bored of it as one single file. So this is the first chaptered story I will have uploaded in a while; most of my recent new stories have been simple one-shots with the possibilities of sequels.

This story is a request from Oragne Spartans, and may be fairly long. I've spent some time debating the title of it; hopefully it's fitting. If anyone has better suggestions for a title just let me know. Characters may be a little OOC, but there's very few ways to write this story without making them OOC.

Disclaimer: Don't own beyblade, the characters or anything else you might recognise.

Sparkling blue eyes focused on a pair of teens facing each other, their ruby and amber eyes focused on two spinning tops between them. In truth that's where the blonde's attention should've been focused; on the blue and grey beyblades, but their owners were far more….interesting. Their movements so precise and although it was only practice, both males seemed so serious.

To his left stood the ruby eyed male, his eyes focused on his deep blue blade, his dual toned slate hair waving slightly in the wind. The stoic male had his usual black shirt and pants on, but the jacket was discarded several hours ago in the heat; sweat causing the light fabric to stick tightly to his form.

'Focus Max, you're playing the winner.' The blonde told himself, shaking his head sharply. Only the three of them were at the Granger dojo practicing; Daichi had gone home to see his family, Kenny was out on a date with his new girlfriend and Tyson…

Well that was an interesting story. Tyson had been oblivious to Hilary's feelings for the last two years, and the brunette was getting cagey about it. It'd reached breaking point a week ago, when the girl snapped at him loudly and stormed off. Tyson had remained oblivious and asked the typical 'what's her problem?', which resulted in him getting a thorough, snappy and hard to ignore explanation from their team captain.

Needless to say Tyson made himself scarce and tracked down the girl to apologise for his stupidity before asking her out on a date. The pair had since been going out to dinner or lunch at least once every couple of days, which was thankfully calming the fierce brunette's temper. Unfortunately the sum total of these events left only three of them to practice their blading.

Max's attention returned to the two males, and he glanced over the amber eyed blader. His long black hair was bound tightly in his normal ponytail, and his white shirt was slightly damp, sticking close to his tanned skin. The sapphire eyed male was finding his attention wandering again; it wasn't difficult with the two well-toned males covered in sweat and their clothes clinging tightly to their chests and….

"Max! Come on it's your turn." Ray laughed, snapping the blonde from his thoughts, which was probably just as well. He and the neko-jin switched places while the ruby eyed male looked on, cocking an eyebrow at the blonde's apparent lack of response.

"Once we're finished we'll have lunch." The slate haired male stated, clipping his blade back into his launcher. Max followed suit and the pair waited for Ray to count down for them, before their battle finally commenced.

The ebony haired male took over observation duty; his teammate's attention now focused on their blades, the neko-jin was free to pay attention to whatever he deemed necessary about the battle. 'Kai must be sweltering in this heat; hell I'm baking and I'm not even wearing black.' The dark haired male thought, watching the pair. 'No wonder he's sweating. Max has the right idea; light coloured clothing, but he's still sweating a little…'

Ray shook his head; he'd spent far too much of his observation time staring at both males rather than watching their beyblading moves, luckily it hadn't bitten him in the backside yet. The battle concluded sooner than expected with the blue blade receiving a hard knock sideways, stopping the blade. The slate haired teen wiped the sweat from his forehead and let out a sigh, clearly exhausted already. It was understandable; they'd been practicing for a couple of hours and the slate haired male hadn't had much of a break from the sun.

"Come on, let's head inside out of the sun and have some lunch." The amber eyed male stated, earning a grunt of agreement from the slate haired male. Max was still as bubbly as ever, bounding along ahead of the darkly clothed duo.

"Where the hell does he get all that energy from?" Ray wondered aloud, earning a smirk from Kai.

"The sun; he absorbs the energy through his hair." The slate haired male stated, earning laughs from both of his teammates.

It was strange; with the loud blunette absent most of the time, Kai spent less of his time barking orders and the stoic male had opened up somewhat. At the very least he'd begun to relax around the pair, though his ice cold exterior returned when the world champion did; something Max and Ray had come to call 'The Tyson Effect'.

"Kai, why don't you sit and have a bit of a rest, Ray and I can sort lunch." Max's cherry voice sang out from the kitchen, and neither of the older two males felt like arguing with the blonde. The dark haired male disappeared into the kitchen, while the ruby eyed male dropped onto the couch, letting out a sigh as he did so.

'I'm getting far too used to having these guys take care of me. I'm sure Tala and Spencer would take the piss out of me for going soft.' He thought with a wry grin, resting his head back against the furniture. 'Hell it's too bloody hot to be worrying about that; not that you'd know it looking at Max.'

Brushing a hand through his hair he let out another sigh. 'Maybe we should give up on training for the afternoon and just stay inside.' He pondered, a smile working its way to his lips as he listened to the two males clatter around the kitchen. 'Tala was wrong; who needs a girlfriend when I have these two.'

Kai mentally cursed at himself, realizing how Bryan would likely interpret the comment if he ever said it aloud. While it was true he had no interest in women, the only thing between him, Ray and Max was a friendship. The ebony haired male darted out of the kitchen briefly to place some plates on the table, grinning his catlike smile at the Russian before disappearing again.

'Hell Ray's soaked…not that I'm much better.' Tugging at the collar of his shirt, he realised just how damp it was and moved it without another thought, closing his eyes as he dabbed his forehead dry with the cloth.

Ray and Max had chosen that particular point in time to exit the kitchen, the sapphire and amber eyes slowly going over the pale skin that clearly defined the slate haired male's muscular form. As the ruby eyes snapped open both bladers looked away quickly, identical dark red blushes covering their cheeks. A familiar smirk resumed its place on the Russian's lips, curving the edges of the blue shark fins up slightly. 'Maybe Bryan's interpretation wouldn't be so bad.'

"Lunch ready?" he asked casually, coaxing the gazes of both males back.

"Ah…almost; it's just finishing cooking now." Max stated quickly, Ray nodding in agreement behind him. "I was thinking you might want go and get changed into something cooler or something if we're going to be training more this afternoon."

"Yea, considering how hot it is any everything…" the ebony haired male trailed off, unable to keep his gaze with their ruby eyed captain.

"I was thinking we should cancel training for the afternoon and just relax, unless you're both keen to stay outside in the sun?" He smirked as the pair seemed to trip over themselves to agree to a break, and the slate haired male stood, stretching. "Cancelled training it is then. So, lunch?"

Max's eyes went wide and he turned to head back into the kitchen, bumping into Ray briefly before getting into the kitchen to grab their lunch.

"Kai…are you going to put a shirt on for lunch?" Ray asked curiously, frowning at the male.

"Hm? Wasn't planning to." The slate haired male shrugged, settling himself at the table. "More comfortable without it."

Ray's blush returned faintly, earning a smirk from the Russian teen, and the Chinese teen joined him at the table. It didn't take long for Max to return with their lunch; a mixture of pasta, vegetables and some chicken that had been in the fridge. The trio ate in relative silence, occasionally asking questions to keep some form of conversation alive.

Kai leant forward against the table somewhat as he sipped his drink, enjoying the company of the other two males, glad he'd removed his shirt. They'd come inside just as the day had started getting hotter; both Ray and Max appeared to still be sweating somewhat even indoors, making the slate haired teen even gladder he'd actually removed his shirt.

"May as well get changed, or at least take your shirts off." Kai stated, eyes slipping shut as he sipped from his cup. "It's only going to get hotter from now, and I doubt changing into shorts will help much."

Ray and Max stared at Kai for a moment before glancing at each other, each clearly debating the merits of what their captain had said and whether or not it was actually an instruction they had to follow. The dark haired male seemed to agree with the idea and promptly stood, undoing his shirt and sliding it off onto the back of his chair.

If he realised both his teammates were staring somewhat he didn't show it, settling back into his seat as though nothing was different. Max soon found both amber and ruby eyes trained on him, watching curiously to see whether he'd follow suit or simply go and change.

The blonde gave in with a heavy sigh and quickly flicked off his shirt, not leaving his seat to do so which seemed to somewhat disappoint both of his teammates. A sudden thud somewhere near the entryway indicated Tyson was home, and the giggling indicated he'd brought Hilary with him. "Guys!"

"We're in the kitchen Tyson!" Max yelled back, he and Ray grinning like a pair of Cheshire cats as the Tyson Effect took hold, and their smirking captain returned to sourpuss mode.

"Hilary and I are going out tonight so I won't be home for dinner."

"How you stay world champion when you don't practice at all is beyond me, Tyson." Kai stated in his usual cold tone back in place.

The blue haired male laughed, stopping suddenly when a voice spoke from behind him. "Why are you three shirtless?"

All three males shared a brief glance before Ray spoke. "We've been training all morning out in the sun; shirts got soaked in sweat so we took them off." The neko-jin explained, focusing his gaze on the wall behind Tyson rather than anything else.

The brunette was staring wide eyed at the trio while Tyson mulled over the explanation, clearly finding it plausible given the weather. "Gramps isn't due home from his vacation until next month, so it'll just be the three of you and Kenny for dinner."

As if on cue Kai's phone rang, the captain answering within moments as he always did. "Hello?"

"Kai, sorry to interrupt training but I thought I should let you know I won't be back tonight. Ming Ming and I are going out to a movie and she's offered to let me stay with her and the rest of the BEGA bladers so I don't wake you guys up when I get back. If that's okay I mean; I don't want to interrupt training anymore."

"It's fine; we were just having lunch. We'll see you tomorrow Kenny."

"Thanks Kai!"

Hanging up the phone, Kai let out a brief grunt. "Kenny won't be back tonight either."

"Aww, so you can have a boy's night in bonding!" Hilary cooed, earning a snort from Tyson and a laugh from Max. "Well we need to get going Tyson, come on!"

"Right; later guys!"

Hilary was still grinning as she dragged Tyson from the house, the world champion still clearly surprised his girlfriend's suggestion wasn't met with more hostility from any of the trio. The door soon slammed shut and there was a moment's pause before Kai grinned, causing the blonde and black haired male to laugh.

"So boy's night in?" Kai questioned as the laughter died down, earning himself a pair of blank stares.

"Sounds fun." Ray grinned, Max blinking between the two of them.

"So what are we going to do?" Max asked, still confused as to what the two of them were grinning about.

"Well we could get to know each other a bit more." Ray stated, earning an almost terrifying grin from Kai.

"We could do that. I could also introduce you two to a lovely substance called vodka." The slate haired male stated. "You're both old enough to drink, and I have a lovely bottle Tala sent me last Christmas."

"Drinking and getting to know each other, sounds like fun." The blonde grinned, the ebony haired male letting out a sigh of defeat.

"Fine, but no phones."

Tai: Short, sweet and hopefully to the point. Review if you have any opinions thus far; there is more to come