Title: Our First Noel
Authoress: Ladya C. Maxine
Rating: T
Summary: All Ray wants for Christmas is Kai. Unfortunately, he's has to deal with a persistent Mariah, friends, Christmas shopping and the fact that Kai isn't all that interested in him. Just how magical can this Christmas be?
Warning: yaoi, some strong language, alcohol, Mariah-bashing (Finally!)
Disclaimer: I do not own Beyblade or any of its characters. Any and all unrecognizable characters belong solely to me and are not to be touched. I am not making any money off of this and I write with the sole intention to entertain.
A/N: Well, this is a new territory for me. I'm starting to lean into the whole "Theme writing". Ya know; Christmas fics, 'Back to (high)school fics, 'Everyone's-been-turned-into-chibies!' fics, 'Everyone's-somehow-ended-up-on-an-island' fic. Alright, so maybe not the last one, but I've already come up with plots for the first three and have decided that, since December is coming up, I should work on a Christmas fic. Besides, I've been wanting to write a fic including Mariah-bashing for a looooooooooooooooong time!
Also a first is the fact that I will be writing in the first-person. This is basically Ray telling the story so all thoughts belong to him. Though I didn't put it in the warning Ray will be OOC compared to how he really is in the series, but it's a humour fic so I figured to change the way I usually write him this one time.
Takes place after season three and will features a lot of characters from that season as well as the first. Season 2 sucks!
Our First Noel
By Ladya C. Maxine
Ah, Christmas.
The season of gifts, candy cane, fat men in red suits, sending greeting cards to relatives you tend to forget for the rest of the year, avoiding those relatives by hiding behind furniture when they decide to randomly show up on your doorstep to celebrate the holiday and wondering if it is right to pig out on food when your last New Year's resolution was to start dieting. Currently, I am stuck on that last one. Oh well, I'll just resolve to start dieting again next year.
Christmas time is the time to be merry and gay. I have an advantage here since I'm usually merry and gay. Emphasis on gay. And I don't mean happy. Unlike Christmas though I don't open flaunt it because where I come from it isn't exactly the most accepted of preferences. And when you come from a village that is diminishing in people and in dire need of children you just know that coming out of the closet is the last thing anyone wants to hear. Not like: "Are you gay? Wonderful! Love is such a beautiful thing, regardless of sexual orientation!". More like: "You'd bring total extinction upon your own people just to lay with your fellow man! You have failed us! Devil's spawn!" Get my meaning?
But back to Christmas and all its gayness. Basically my most favourite time of the year. Wait, scratch that. Almost me most favourite time of the year. Don't get me wrong. I love Christmas, but for the past three years I have been left without the one thing I really want for Christmas. Either Santa is getting a wee bit too fat to do his job right, or I am just approaching this from the wrong angle.
What is this 'it' that I am referring to? Actually, I mean 'he'. To be honest, I prefer to refer to the object of my admiration as 'my walking wet dream', but he wouldn't be too pleased with that endearing nickname. So let's just call him Kai. Kai Hiwatari. Our residential captain/drill sergeant/sourpuss/iceberg/sex-god. He wouldn't like that last one either, but tough luck because I ain't withdrawing that. He is, whether he likes it or not, a sex god. A tall, red-eyed, arrogant sex-god who doesn't notice lowly mortals (a.k.a. me), unless the team is beyblading. Have I--
Oh! There he is! Oooooh, this way Kai! Over here! Look at me! Notice me! See me standing here, staring at you with wide-eyed wonder!
Aaaand there he goes.
Damn it.
Um, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, daydreaming about our Russian perfection who has disappeared once again. For now. He'll be back. He can only wander so far in the confines of a department store parking lot. Nonetheless, he's gone now, so I can go back to picturing the two of us walking on a beach hand-in-hand…Alright, so I prefer to picture me and him butt-naked in a hot room with him screwing me into the mattress. Did I mention that I'm an honest person? Too much information there, I know. But I'm just such an honest guy. I hate myself.
I want Kai. I want Kai badly. So you can understand that I'm more than a wee bit frustrated that he doesn't return my sentiments (or even my stares). Oh wait, I'm supposedly honest…Fine then, I'm damn right pissed off!
Sad.
Well, not anymore! Why? 'Cause it's Christmas. And Christmas is the time to be merry and gay, right? So I will be, and this year nothing is going to stop me. Ha!
Okay…I'm beginning to think that spending too much time around all these Christmas trees is starting to get to me. Can anyone explain as to why people associate fir trees with Christmas? I mean, these things are brutal! Ever been stabbed by a fir tree? It hurts! Why don't we celebrate it with ferns or something? You know? Nice, soft leaves that don't draw blood when you brush against them? The salesman tried to pull a fast one on us by saying that the sharper the pine needles the better quality the tree. Yeah? Well then give me the cheapest thing you've got because I am not going to spend my favourite holiday tippy-toeing around this thing once we've got it up in the living room. Damn firs. I think I'm allergic.
"Achoo!"
Oh wait. Kenny's allergic to them. Then I guess I just hate them.
"Maybe you should wait at the car," I suggest to our residential genius, who is standing beside me, wiping his nose with his scarf. Ew.
"I'm alright," he sniffs, glasses fogged even though he never has them on.
Random muse: What is up with that? He claims that he cannot see without his glasses, which doesn't make sense since they are also perched up on the top of his head on that mop of brown hair. As to why he doesn't just cut it off I don't have the foggiest idea. So this guy basically walks around blind? Some genius. And this is the guy I trust with updating my beyblade? Wonder if I can look up Emily's phone number. At least she can see through her glasses, as tacky as they are. Haven't these people heard of contact lenses?
"Achoooo!…sniff…snoooort."
Not allergies. Probably just a cold. Still…Eeeeew.
Normally, despite the unsanitary nose-cleaning method, I would pay more attention to the guy and try and make sure that he's alright, seeing as I am the designated mother hen of the group, but something else (alright, alright, someone else) has just so happened to walk by my line of sight again (limited wandering-space out here, remember?) and, being the doting mother that I am, I totally forget that Kenny is shivering beside me, abandoning my mothering duty to return to my favourite activity: Kai-watching.
Of course, it would be a lot nicer if I could do so openly, preferably while laying against his toned body on the sofa in front of a roaring fire (or just making out with him in a random bedroom, as aforementioned), but as fate would have it, Kai is about as romantic as a paper cut. So, being the desperate guy that I am, I have to resort to hiding behind random objects, buildings and even people (which has put me in some very interesting situations; the postman still winks at me every time he passes by). All of that just to get a glance at the enigma that is our team captain. Worst of all, Kai has a built in radar/detection-thingie; he always knows when people are watching him, which, as you can imagine, kinda sucks. Alright, it sucks big time. I've been around this guy for three years and I've only managed spy, er, keep an eye on him for a grand total of like four hours (excluding beybattles, during which I usually forget about the match and just watch my man in action).
You must be getting a bit confused right about now since I've done nothing but ramble on about Kai, fir trees and Kenny's vision, so here's the deal.
It's Christmas time and we're in Japan. By 'we' I mean the Bladebreakers, including Hillary since she's become a permanent hanger-on. See, Tyson had this neat-o (Lord, I hate that word) idea that we should all spend Christmas together at his place. Of course, Max loved the idea and agreed at once. Kenny and Hillary said yes, just to make sure that the those two don't hurt themselves, and the rest of Tokyo's population, too much while planning the whole thing. Not wanting to the party-pooper I said that it sounded cool and nodded (Yeah, I was so excited). Needless to say, Kai needed a bit more persuasion. It took us an entire week of begging to get him to finally shrug, which we interpreted as a "Whatever", which, in Kai-bonics means "Whatever".
Uh, typo? No. Erroneous repetition? No. For those of you out there who don't know Kai as well as we do, "Whatever" is his way of saying "Yes", without necessarily agreeing with us, 'cause we all know how much he hates agreeing with anyone. Especially us. Yes, feel the love here, people. Confusing? Stick around for as long as I have and it'll all make perfect sense. Anyways, we made a big fuss about it, promising him that he'd have a great time. He walked out half-way through our gushing, which is Kai's way of telling us that he doesn't give a damn, but I guess you could figure that one out by yourselves.
So now we have the entire team here and it was Hillary who suggested we decorate the dojo, starting with the purchasing of a Christmas tree. To be honest, I've never celebrated Christmas before. I first heard of it when I left my village three years ago (You know, during the whole 'Ray's a traitor' phase my former team was bugging me with) but I quickly caught on and now it's my (almost) favourite holiday. Lots of food, presents and funny-looking plants that provide a good enough excuse to lay a big ol' wet one on Kai for no particular reason other than that it's Christmas? I'm there!
Actually, I'm here. Here being outside some American department store; I don't know why Tyson's grandpa chose it. We're walking around a section of the parking lot that has been converted into a temporary sales lot, filled with Christmas trees. Evil Christmas trees. Tyson, Max and Daichi are currently checking out some gigantic specimens, never minding the fact that they'll never be able to afford it or get it to fit in the dojo. Besides, if they think that I'm going to be staying in a place with the goliath of all fir trees then they'll have one less name on their shopping list. Hillary, who is a lot more sensible, is browsing through shorter trees behind me, comparing prices and quality, interrogating the sales man on each one. Kenny had been with her for a while but he's not good with handling the cold very well so he has come over to where I am leaning against the heated surface of the pay booth. And Kai, like I said, is just walking around, not all that interested. I think it's because he must be used to these trees. Russia's overgrown with these things, right? Oh, what do I know? Didn't really study the flora during our stay there. The point remains that the few limited trees here that have all of us (well, not me really) excited aren't all that awe-inspiring to him. He never seemed like the nature loving type anyways. That title belonged to Brooklyn.
Despite us all having legal names, everyone has a title. Hell, the aforementioned Brooklyn even has two! Tree-hugger and King of Darkness. Pinch me here for seeing the irony in that. Kai has one (Sourpuss), plus the like hundreds nicknames I've secretly come up with for him. Wonder if I have a title? Gotta ask around. I'll get back to that when I find something. But back to Kai. Why did I ever stop worshipping him for some stupid titles? Guess it's just me. So why is he still here? You know, if I didn't know any better I'd say that he's just hanging around because…of us? Could it be that Kai is actually prolonging his obvious boredom just because he doesn't want to leave our little group and wander off somewhere else…?
"…"
Aw man! How sweet is that? Bless you, Kai!
"We got a big one!"
Giving where my thoughts have been straying at this exact moment the outcry has triggered some rather naughty images in my mind. For all the brainiacs out there, do the math: We (supposedly) use only 50 percent of our brain. 99.9 percent of my 50 percent of brain power is spent on Kai. The remaining 0.1 percent is spent on trivial stuff like breathing and the likes. 90 percent of that 99.9 percent is used on imagining Kai is many interesting situations, again to be divided in him being clothed (5 percent) and naked (85 percent). 9.9 percent is spent thinking up ways to get Kai for myself, hence why I spent 100 percent of my time drooling stupidly at a safe distance since my planning needs some work. Why the numbers? Can't remember right now because guess who's coming over?
"Kai, man, you're gonna love this!"
If Tyson is addressing Kai then why the hell does he keep shouting in my ear?
"This is too cool!" Max pipes up, even louder than Tyson. Why are these two standing next to me? I'm beginning to develop a ringing in one ear.
"We're getting the biggest tree we can get for the lowest price!"
Yes! That means that its cheap, and cheap means softer needles.
"How did you manage to do that?" Kenny asks.
Who cares? Stop talking; you're breaking my concentration! Now where was I…? Oh yeah, me waking up to find Kai sitting under our new tree with a big bow on and nothing else...
"Yo, dudes! Hang ten, homies! Word up, dawg!"
Nothing kills the moment like Tyson's grandfather's ghetto-surfer-wacko greeting. I know we're a multi-cultural group, but a simple 'Hello' would suffice if you ask me. What a strange childhood that man must have had…
"Grandpa here is actually getting us a free tree! He won it by eating 50 fruitcakes this morning."
Ah, so that's why we came here. 50 fruitcakes, huh? I can think up a dozen jokes that are related to the consumption of fruitcakes by a man who is already a little fruity (and nutty), but I'm staying with them so I guess I should be nice. Hey, it's Christmas and all that.
"We're getting that one!" Tyson, seemingly high on pine, points behind us.
Okay, he'd better not be pointing to that ten foot behemoth leaning against the fence with a big red bow with 1st prize emblazed on it with a smaller note with For Family Granger that Max is standing besides and presenting like one of those game show ladies...Yeah, I've just realized the futileness of my prayers. This tree could have might as well have a sign with To Ray Kon, you are so going down! on it. That has to be the biggest, vilest and scariest looking thing I have ever seen in my entire life and that includes the time the White Tigers and I volunteered to help Gary's dad shave his back. I swear that man could put a hundred sheep out of business. Hope it doesn't run in the family. Note to self: start investing in hair removal products for Gary's birthday next year. Assuming, of course, that I'm still be alive; did that branch just wave at me? Oh. My. God. I'm going to die a virgin.
"Let's call it Woody!" comes Max brilliant idea.
Now I'm torn between gagging on the idea of naming my assassin and the fact that the word 'wood' has once again produced images of Kai. And I am not talking about his stoic countenance, if you get my drift.
"How are we going to get it to the dojo?"
Have angels come to earth? Is that why I suddenly feel weak in the knees at the sound of a heavenly voice? Nope, even better than the heavenly choir of angels, Kai has just spoken! Quick, Ray, start a conversation so that he'll speak again! Come on! Where's that stupid 9.9 percent of brain power that supposed to be spouting ideas! Say something! Anything!
"Do you think that Drigger needs an update?"
Well…that does fall under the category of 'anything'.
Two reasons why that was the stupidest thing I have ever done (and considering the fact that I have been a love-sick fool for three years that is saying a lot). One, now Chief is rattling on about data and whatnot and won't be leaving me alone for the rest of the day, which is never a good thing no matter what the situation. But the worst is number two: I sound as if I don't care what Kai has to say!
This is so, so, so bad. Quick, plan B! New approach.
"Anyone watched Idols last night?"
I really needed to work on my plan B's, especially since my plan A's all suck big time. Suck…Kai…hmmm…
Now Hillary is rambling, trying to speak above Kenny, who is still talking about Drigger. According to her someone named Kimberly cheated because she wore a see-through dress and that one of the judges had actually slept with Jason…or was it Jasmine? What the hell do I care? Plan C! Unfortunately, I don't have a plan C. Considering how well my plan A's and B's work you'd think I'd have a freakin' plan C!
Two strikes, Kon. One more and your out of here. Score now!
"Lovely weather we're having."
Back to the pit, Kon. And stay there for the rest of the season picking the dirt clots off of everyone's cleats.
And what does Kai think of my random spurts of wisdom? Even if he wasn't an unreadable block of concrete I'd still wouldn't be able to know because he has disappeared. Either I have scared him off or he has been ignoring me the entire time or something else has caught his attention. Right now all three of them are very appealing because that would mean that he hasn't witnessed my rather undignified fall from logics.
"Yo, Ray! You coming?"
"Huh?"
Oh, there's Kai. But the person who just shouted was Tyson. Did you honestly think that Kai would have said 'Yo', or even raised his voice, or even called me? A guy can only hope for so much. Heck, there's everyone, a good thirty feet away since they had begun to walk back to the car during my little inner ranting and are now staring at me as if I had just confessed my undying love for Bryan.
"They're gonna deliver the tree later so we're going to get some lunch. You hungry?"
Now, that's actually a rhetorical question since we all know that we'll lose our appetites anyways once Tyson begins eating, but for now I decide to humour him and nod, catching up to them, leaving Woody looming behind me. Call me crazy, but I swear I can feel its eyes on me as I walk away. Yes, that tree has eyes. I told you it is satanic.
Inevitable Tyson hog-fest; a hell-bent tree six times my height; having totally blown a chance for a decent conversation with Kai; Kenny still bugging me about Drigger; Hillary now arguing with Daichi on whether or not Kimberly has breast implants; Max blabbering something about inviting other people over; Grandpa Granger doing his impersonation of a gangster's strut; and Kai walking as far away from us as possible. Despite the chaos, this is all pretty standard in our group.
Please let this year be different.
"Let's do something new this year! Let's go carolling for cookies!"
Not that different, Tyson.
sigh
11 days till Christmas.
Hopefully that stupid tree will have shed all its leaves by then and the rest of the world will be swallowed up, leaving me and Kai as the sole survivors. An honest enough wish, right? I hope Santa's in better shape this year because I am seriously counting on results this time around.
"Here's the bummer, little dogs, homie here kinda dropped the kicker in the barn."
When did we get an exchange-blader from Bulgaria? Oh wait, that's just Tyson's grandfather. Nonetheless, if you can figure out what he has just said than you should be awarded a Nobel prize on communication breakthrough. I swear, aside from Bruce and Hiro, this family is not normal.
"Gotta scat for a sec. Gonna ring a cool cat for some hot wheels."
He's buying toy cars from someone from the White Tigers?
"Chill till I pop back."
Chill? I'm freezing here! Why can't we just get in the car…?
Ah, he's lost the car keys. That's what all that gibberish was about. Wow, I've just earned myself a Nobel prize. Maybe while waiting for him to return I can try to decipher the rest…or I could use my blank stare as an excuse to look over my left shoulder, past Hillary's head at Kai, who is leaning against the wall. Make a scientific break-through or stare at Kai until he notices and catches me in the act, thus thoroughly putting myself in an awkward situation in which I will either continue my previous game of 20 questions or give away my desires to ride him from now till New Years and beyond…
This is going to be a looooong holiday.
Tbc…
Read & Review, please.