Not In Love

I started writing this 'cos I was bored so I'm not sure how it's going to turn out. I'm hoping it'll have a bit more action than our other stuff. But we'll just have to see.

Disclaimer: Obviously, I do not own Beyblade 'cos if I did Mariah would be DEAD!

" " = speaking

' ' = thinking

Chapter One

Rei ran out into the darkness just as the alarms started. Tonight had not gone as planned. Nevertheless, he had never let that stop him before and he wasn't going to tonight. He turned a corner and ran as fast as he could. Eventually, he came to a small dark alley.

'Perfect,' he thought to himself.

He ran to the dumpster at the end and, with extreme grace, jumped onto it. Quickly, he leapt up the wall as high as he could and stuck both his legs out to hold himself up in a split jump. Silently, he waited for his pursuers.

"He can't have gone far. We'll split up. You two, check the alleys. I'll carry on down here," came a deep voice. And, soon enough, a tall figure cautiously approached the alley where Rei was waiting.

"You can't hide forever you know," the figure shouted, stopping just underneath him.

"I don't intend to," Rei smirked. He dropped onto the man and knocked him out with his elbow, before he'd even had a chance to look up, and landed noiselessly next to the body. He'd always preferred knocking out his victims to killing them. One, it kept his conscience clear and two it was quieter, and, in this job, silence was a necessity.

He hid the body under the dumpster and crept to the end of the alley. From what he'd heard, there were only two more guards searching these streets and one of them was probably down another alleyway. He thought for a while then went back to the dumpster. On the ground lay an empty can. He picked it up then quietly walked back to the end of the alley.

'If he's as stupid as his friend, then this should work.' He threw the can into the main street and waited. As he'd predicted, the guard came running out of a side street and slowly approached Rei who was up against the wall using a small dagger to see behind him. The slightly smaller man walked straight past Rei. As he put the dagger back in the pouch on his ankle he slowly crept up behind him. He quickly put his arm around the guard's neck and held his hand over his mouth.

"Keep quiet and I'll go easy on you," Rei whispered. "Now, give me your gun." As he handed it over, Rei knocked him out as he'd done before and took the body to the dumpster.

'Two down, one to go.' He carefully carried on down the main street, keeping his eyes open for the final guard. At that moment, he heard a gun shot from behind him. There the guard stood, his gun aimed directly at Rei. However, after a second he fell, face first, revealing a blood stained back. At the end of the street stood a figure, his gun still aimed. He blew the end and began walking towards Rei.

"Kai, where the hell have you been?"

"Is that any way to talk to the guy who just saved your ass?"

"You're two hours late!" They ran towards a black motorbike, parked at the end of the alley.

"I know I was…busy," he smirked, "and besides, you're alive aren't you?"

"Only just." Rei grabbed his helmet and went to get on the front of the bike.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" Kai stopped him.

"I was gonna drive."

"No way. You're too slow." He picked up his own helmet and got on. Rei sighed and jumped on the back.

"You ready?" Kai shouted.

"Did you need to ask?"

***

Kai unlocked the door and stepped into their temporary flat. They were currently being hired by an English millionaire to retrieve some files from Pier Le Bian, a French business man, therefore had been staying in a small flat in the centre of Paris.

He put his keys on the sideboard and took off his jacket. Thankfully, tonight it wasn't blood stained. Last week he'd gotten through three. Rei, however, was not so lucky. He had a small gash on his cheek, a few on his chest and a deep cut on the back of his hand running up his right arm.

"I think I'd better get cleaned up," he said walking towards his room.

"There's some bandages in the bag in my room if you need anymore," Kai added, nodding at the cut on his arm.

"Thanks. Oh! I almost forgot. Here's the disk." Rei threw him a black floppy disk and turned to leave. "You did get the other one didn't you?"

"Of course," Kai said, taking out his laptop.

"Just checking." Rei smirked and went to his room. Kai carried on taking things out of his bag. He plugged in a small video camera into the back of his computer and logged in. After checking the file for himself, he got in touch with Kenny.

"Hey Kai! How's it going?" He asked. The picture was a little distorted, but Kai could still see him and Tyson and Max standing in the background.

"Not bad actually. I've got the next file. Do you want me to send it?"

"Yeah, whenever you're ready." Kai clicked the send button and sat back in his chair. He watched as Tyson jumped off Kenny's bed, closely followed by Max, and pushed the Chief off his chair and looked into the camera.

"HEY KAI!"

"Hello Tyson," he said raising his eyebrow, "I see you're making an excellent job of trashing my house." Tyson laughed nervously.

"Don't worry Kai; we'll have it looking spotless for when you get back," Max put in. "Anyway, how's Paris?"

"We haven't had time to look around properly yet, but it seems okay."

"You mean you haven't tried out any of the French restaurants yet!" Tyson cried.

"No. Unlike you slackers, we've been working." Kai thought for a moment. "We might have tomorrow off though. Rei's in a pretty bad state."

"What's up?"

"I've just got a few cuts that's all," Rei said coming into the lounge. He handed Kai a bandage. "You couldn't do my arm for me could you? It's my right."        

"Let me see." Kai took Rei's arm and began wrapping it carefully.

"So have we missed anything?" Rei's attention went to the computer screen.

"Well," Max smirked, "let's just say it isn't only the house Tyson's trashed."

"Max!" Tyson sent him a glare.

"He's gonna find out eventually. There's no way you'll get it repaired by the time he gets back."

"What's going on?" Kai looked up from bandaging Rei's arm.

"Well, I kinda… tooktheAudiTToutandreverseditintoapost."

"I hope I heard that wrong because it sounded like…"

"He took the Audi TT out and reversed it into a post," Max confirmed.

"Good god Tyson you're in for it," Rei said looking at Kai.

"YOU IDIOT!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"When I get home you better run like hell, 'cause if I catch up with you, you're dead!"

"I'm gonna get it sorted as soon as I can," promised Tyson.

"You better or I'll…" he was stopped as Rei bravely put his hand over Kai's mouth.

"So Kenny, was there anything interesting on the disk?" he asked as Kai sat back in defeat.

"Well, I think a lot of it was in code but there was a note attached to it for Mr. A. Patrovskey. Ring any bells?"

"He's a Russian hit man," Kai said suddenly, sitting back up. "Why? What does it say?"

"He's got to meet Le Bian tonight at Esprit* at 11:00."

"What does Esprit mean?" Rei asked.

"Soul." As Kai said this there was an outburst of hysterics from Tyson and Max.

"What's so funny?" Rei looked puzzled.

"I had no idea Soul went international!" Max cried.

"You guys are gonna have fun following them," Tyson smirked. "Esprit's a gay bar."

"What?" Kai and Rei jumped out of their seats.

"Oh man! I can't believe I'm gonna miss this!" Tyson seemed to be over the moon.

"You're gonna have to go you guys. Le Bian must be up to something if he's meeting a hit man," Kenny said trying to hold back his own laughter.

"This is gonna be so embarrassing," Kai mumbled as he remembered the last time they'd had to 'blend in' at a gay bar. They we're following an Italian fraudster and they both had men hitting on them all night. Kai, however, seemed to end up with all the mad ones who didn't seem to understand the meaning of the words 'piss off '.

"Well, we'd better leave you guys now. I'm sure you need your beauty sleep for tonight!" Tyson said a big grin still plastered on his face.

"Yeah piss off," Kai sulked.

"Ooooooooooo!"

"I'll send the directions through this afternoon," Kenny added, bursting out laughing as he cut them off a little too late.

***

Kai lay on his bed and slowly looked out of the window. It was 10:00am and, seeing as they were going out until later that night, he had no reason to get up, especially as he'd been up talking to Rei 'till 4:00 earlier that morning. This wasn't uncommon. If they weren't working the next day; and normally they weren't because most of their jobs were done at night for obvious reasons; they'd be up almost all night merely talking. He found that Rei was the only person he could really talk to. That might have been because they'd spent the last four years of their lives working together but there was definitely something about Rei that he seemed to warm to. As far as he knew, he had told him everything about himself, which may not seem much at first but Kai's life was more complex than most people (apart from Rei) thought.

Just as he'd got comfortable again, there was a loud crash from the kitchen. Out of habit, he was up and stood outside the kitchen door in an instant. He opened it slighly and stepped in. Unbeknown to him, Rei was hid behind the door, knowing his accident must have woken him up and ready to have a little fun with him. He watched as Kai stopped less than a meter in front of him.

"BOO!"

"ARGHHHHHHHH!" Kai spun round, screaming to see his friend lying on the floor in hysterics. "Rei, you prat! I thought we were being robbed or something!"

"Sorry! I couldn't let an opportunity like that pass mate! Oh, and by the way, you scream like a girl," he said defending himself but failing as he started laughing again.

"What do you mean 'an opportunity like that'? And I DO NOT scream like a girl." He sat down at the table and picked up one of the many newspapers there.

"I dropped the frying pan and I knew it'd wake you up and come running in to see what was up. However, I had no idea you'd start screaming like that."

"Well, you obviously don't know me as much you'd like to think," Kai said, not looking up from his paper. Rei smiled at this.

"Though I do happen to know you like fried egg sandwiches and, oh, what's this?" he nodded towards the plate in his hand. As he'd said this, Kai had quickly looked up.

"Brown sauce?" He asked.

"Of course," Rei smirked.

"Just checking."

***

After having a quick shower, Rei dried his hair and went to pick out an outfit. Kai had always teased him about how long he took doing this. He smiled to himself. Kai was probably stood outside the door, leaning against the doorframe getting impatient, as usual.

"Rei, will you PLEASE hurry up?" He laughed as he pulled on a white shirt and a pair of black trousers. After one last check in the mirror he picked up his keys and opened the door. Kai was stood exactly as he'd guessed.

"I'm done."

"It's about time too." They began to walk towards the door. "Wait who's car are we going in?"

"We're not going in anyone's car. We're walking." Rei said as he opened the door and pushed Kai through.

"Oh, do we have to?"

"Yes, you lazy bugger. We haven't got to be out until 11 tonight so we've got all day." They walked out onto the busy street and started to walk towards the town centre.

"Look the Blackbird's still parked there from last night. We could go…"

"No. We're walking."

"Damn you Kon."

Despite all his moaning, Kai actually enjoyed their walk into town. Paris was a lot nicer than he'd expected.

"We're here," Rei said as they stopped in front of a very expensive looking restaurant.

"Who suggested this?" Kai asked, a suspicious look crossing his face.

"Who do you think?"

"The bastard. This was the place I got that huge bill from last month. I knew he'd nicked my card."

"Never mind. It's one more reason to kill him when we get back."

"Good point."

I think I'm gonna leave it there. The next chapter's going to have more action in I hope and I will try to get it posted soon! Please review.

*I made this up on the spot. I have no idea if it actually exists.