What happens when you're in love with your best friends' worst enemy?

Who do you pick? The friends that have been loyal and supportive of you ever since you could speak, or the boy that makes you think and behave and experience on a whole new level? Is it possible to have them both?

Well, as you may have realized, these are the things that keep me from sleep at night.

And you are about to learn why.

You see, ever since just after the first World Championships I've had the smallest (well, actually it's pretty damn big) crush on Bryan of the Demolition Boys (or now known as the Blitzkrieg Boys).

The Blitzkrieg Boys and the White Tigers have had a feud between them ever since the first World Championships and I, as well as everyone else on my team, had sworn to never think kindly of one of them ever again.

Bryan Kuznetsov especially for what he did to my might-as-well-be-brother-and-at-that-point-in-time-crush, Ray Kon.

And as you also may have noticed, I Kind of broke my promise.

I really did hate him for what he did to Ray, truly, if you had asked me on whose arm I'd be on three years from then it would have been Ray's name on my lips… but, as I said, that was three years ago.

And as I also said, I broke my promise.

Things changed after the Abbey fell and some of the horror stories started to leak out, I found that I could understand why the then Demolition Boys did what they did. In all honesty, I probably would have done the same in their position.

Now, I bet you're all wondering how my understanding, my, perhaps, sympathy, at the most, turned into one of the biggest, most scandalous, most carefully, painfully, hidden affairs in the sports world?

Don't deny it, I know you are.

Well then, I guess you're just lucky that I'm willing to talk.

It isn't hard to figure out why I started to crush on Bryan, it's really kind of easy, actually. First of all, he's one of the best looking boys in the league.

Yes, that's right. There was no moment of sudden understanding, no "connection of the souls" crap.

I was an overprotected small town girl who, growing up, had only seen the same black-haired, amber-eyed, buff-as-hell and honest-to-all men before. Of course this tall, pale, broad shouldered Russian with those steely grey eyes and soft-looking lilac hair intrigued me. The way he smirked when everyone around me always smiled drew me in further and the secretive, feral look in his eyes reminded me nothing of the wild playfulness in the eyes of my friends, he was a secret and I was curious.

I wanted to know more.

Curiosity killed the cat, I knew that, but I also knew satisfaction brought it back.

And at this point, I still had no idea he was curious about me, too.

That was how it started, I guess. The stolen glances we shared across the room, the wicked smiles he would give me that would light up his eyes, making them shine silver, and make my heart stutter.

It's hard to pinpoint when it really progressed passed that. When the smiles became words and the glances became touches. Honestly it's all just blurs into one dangerous game to me now, back when I was still telling myself I was being stupid and trying to ignore him. When I was still scared.

The fear didn't last long though, by the time we had had our first real, un-witnessed meeting it had be replaced by something else, something I couldn't put a name to yet.

I can still remember it clearly, even though it was close to three years ago. Our teams had been passing each other in the locker room hallway and Bryan had bumped into me. I hadn't even realized he'd slipped me a note until it fell out of my pocket latter that night.

It hadn't been a love note, no stupid rhymes or gushy hearts or anything like that. This is still the real world remember, people? We were still just a couple of curious kids playing with something new and fun. It wasn't real yet. And besides, it was still Bryan, a man of few words but more actions than anyone knew.

The note had simply told me that he'd pick me up at seven two weeks from tomorrow and that he hoped I liked loud music and bright lights.

See what I mean? Nothing like the fairy tails and yet… I had treasured that note more than I had anything else in my life, except for maybe my beyblade.

Of course it had also made me curious. At the time we had been on a worldwide tour battling at different charity competitions and signing autographs, we were in new city ever three or four days. I didn't really know how he could schedule something so far in the future when we were all so unsure of where we'd be heading next.

Now I know you should never underestimate a Blitzkrieg Boy.

The weeks leading up to my mystery date I had spent covertly working on my appearance and wardrobe, something I had been longing to do but too gutless to put into action.

I started by getting my nails done, nothing fancy, you can't be overly fancy when one is a beyblader, but they looked miles better then they had before.

Next was my ribbon, which I traded for a black elastic, and then finally I started cutting about 85% of the pink out of my outfits and making what was left darker.

Thinking back now I can't help but wonder why I didn't do it before, the backlash of good energy I got both from the public and my fellow bladers will never stop amazing me, but I guess I just didn't have a good enough reason before.

And then, finally, the weeks were up and I found myself in Melbourne, Australia sneaking out of my expensive five star hotel room wearing an outfit made up of so much shiny black leather and hot pink silk I never would have ever considered wearing it before my little rendezvous-es with my secret Romeo began.

I had walked out to the back of the building where another note (this one hidden in a bouquet of tiger lilies sent to me by "a fan" left outside me door) I had received earlier that day had told me where to go to find my tall brutish Russian.

And boy did I find him. He was seated casually on a pitch black Yamaha R1 motorbike, which I would latter learn to recognize as my fairytale prince's noble steed, wearing black jeans and a beaten up leather jacket over a white T, a sexy-as-hell smirk curving his pale lips.

The events that fallowed left my head spinning for days in a swirl of bright, flashing lights and loud, loud music. The scent of Bryan's worn leather jacket would cling to my nose for the next three weeks and I'd walk around with the world's goofiest grin on my face for the same amount of time. And at night, I'd gently touch my lips and let my self be hit by his searing kiss all over again.

Thinking back, I can't believe no one found out. We were so daring after that night, it only would have taken one look to long, one touch to many and our cover would have been blown wide open.

But as you can see, that didn't happen.

And that leads me to where I am now, that being New York! And as to why I'm in New York, you ask? That would be because the teams of the world have been sent here for vacation, courtesy of the BBA.

Lovely right? Seeing as a big-ass, busy-as-the-day-is-long city would be the perfect place to disappear with one's secret lover, correct?

Surprisingly, not so.

Especially when one has a group of team mates who have noticed her "depressed" behaviour and think she is in need of "team quality time" in order to cheer her up.

But, just a few hours ago something rather jaw dropping happened that threw a bit of a kink into my team's plans.

Something that made me fall flat on my ass from the treadmill I had been running on and, in a stroke of desperate genius, caused me to conveniently "twist my ankle."

Or at least that's why Ray believes I turned him down in front of the entire collection of Beybladers from nearly every team sans F Dynasty (Julia was out), a few Saint Shields members and (thankfully) the Blitzkrieg Boys.

Yeah, you heard right. It seams "Ray-Ray" has finally either figured out on his own that I am indeed a girl and that no, I am not actually related to him by blood or that someone has told him so.

Of course you can imagine the lot of clapping, cat calls, woof whistles and yells that went on during this, you can also probably imagine the silence that met me after I told him no.

And you can also bet that as soon as I was a hearing distance away from the training room, I fucking kicked my ass into high gear and dialled Bryan's number A.S.A.P.

Now don't get me wrong, I do love Ray, really, I do. But I do not love him as a lover.I love Ray as an older brother, that's it. Nothing more. I am no longer the girl from three years ago who had been waiting for something like this since she had first laid eyes on the-boy-next-door.

And seriously, why the hell would I want to be? I have my own life now (even though it is secret) and I have no desire to have Ray by my side as more than a friend.

And that is why I'm currently hurrying myself out of the shower and into something I find more appropriate to meet Bryan in than sweaty gym clothes.

I moved quickly as I zipped up my dark blue skinny jeans before pulling a tight-fitting black band T-shirt I had gotten with Bryan in Alberta after we saw a Simple Plan concert there during one of our many secret outings over my head.

Moving fast and bare foot I grabbed black socks, my bag (a sweet little over-the-shoulder, paten leather thing) and my hairbrush from the dresser before ducking into the bathroom and throwing my hair up into messy bun via a black banana clip and throwing on some makeup.

Leaving the bathroom I garbed my black hoody and set on my way to central park where Bryan said he meet me, making sure to keep a look out for anyone I'd know as I walked. We both agreed that it was the best place to meet seeing as barely a handful of people knew about us and the park provided the most cover, plus it was just a short walk from the hotel.

Kai, Hilary, Emily, Julia, Mathilda and the Blitzkrieg Boys. That was it. Eight people outside of us knew about our relationship and honestly, that was great by me. The less people that knew the better.

Of course the fact that they were all in not-so-public relationships of their own made things a little nicer, too.

Shaking my head at how complicated my life had gotten over the years, I quickly walked to central park to see Bryan leaning back on his precious black Yamaha. His body was casual with his whole weight resting on the bike and his black jean clad legs were crossed at the ankles.

His hands were shoved rather carelessly into the pockets of his soft black leather jacket, which had been thrown over a black muscle shirt. Black boots, much like the macho version of the ones I had on now, covered his feet and a pair of white ear buds coming up from his left jacket pocket completed his "careless bad-ass" look.

I smirked slightly.

I walked over and hugged him, feeling him tense in my arms for a moment before his own arms snaked around my waist. That small, one second tensing always made me sad, it was like he was expecting to be hit, and with his childhood, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it came from experience.

"Hey there, Kitten." he said in his smooth, still-lightly-Russian-accented voice. I sighed and rested my head on his shoulder, god how I missed this.

"I missed you," I said back, my voice muffled by the leather. I felt his smile rather than saw it.

"Glad to here it, Kitten." He smirked at me and I returned it. I loved it when he called me that, it made my heart flutter.

Breathing in deeply a took my seat on Bryan's left, leaning against the bike, and clasped his hand.

"What're we going to do, Bry?" I asked, leaning my body against his side, he let go of my hand and wrapped an arm around my waist before blowing out a sigh.

"I don't know 'Riah, but I know we'll need to do something quick. There's no way in hell I'm going to loose you." There was a growl in his voice that made me shiver in a very nice kind of way.

I laughed a little and smiled up at him; his eyes were glowing silver in the low light and his face was set in a determined mask.

"Hey, no worries," I said, pulling his chin gently towards me before pushing myself up on the bike and giving him a little kiss which he quickly took control of. I moaned a little and wound my hands in his soft lilac hair, arching my back to better meet his lip.

His hands, larger and stronger from more years of battle training with a beyblade and weapons alike than I liked to think about, easily pulled out my hair clip, letting my now waist length dark pink hair tumble down.

I grinned up at him, my breathing hard. "Do you always have to mess up my hair?" I asked, amusement clear in my voice, he smirked at me.

"But of course, love," he said, brushing a lock behind my ear with a loving look on his face.

Or at least he did before it morphed into a teasing smirk once again.

"Besides," he said, reaching down the other side of the bike and bringing up a pair of full facial black helmets, one with silver swirling designs and feathers and the other with hot pink splatters and flowers. "With your hair up like that you can't ride." He finished with a smirk.

I raised an eyebrow. This wasn't part of the plan.

I was just supposed to meet Bryan, discuss what we were going to do (which admittedly didn't last very long), come up with a plan (which didn't really happen) and then, as much as I loathed doing so, go back to the hotel and by extension my team. A nighttime bike ride was (regrettably) not on that list.

"Oh, and just were are we going?" I asked, with genuine curiosity. There weren't many places we (as world renowned bladers) could go in America with out being stalked at the best and mobbed at the worst. It came with being a big star.

"I know a place." He said nonchalantly. I kept my eyebrow raised.

Bryan sighed. "Okay, Kai knows a place. Or rather, he owns the building said place is situated in. Happy?" He said, mimicking my raised eyebrow with his own.

I just grinned at him and slipped the helmet with the pink décor over my head before swinging my legs over the back of the bike, raising my chin at Bryan because he wouldn't be able to see a raised eyebrow or smirk through the tinted face cover.

I smiled behind my cover as Bryan snorted and jumped on, slipping on his helmet with one hand and turning the engine on with the other, his leg kicked up the bike stand before we started off.

The colours of New York whizzed by me as Bryan took off down the street, it was early still, by New York standards at least, and the streets were still busy with people and cars but it was luckily late enough that there were no major traffic jams anywhere.

I clung closer to Bryan, content to stay here in my little world with my arms around his waist and the wind in my hair, far away from all my problems.

That's one of the things I love about this city; the amazing ability it has to make all your problems go away, even if for just a few minutes.

That's actually something I love about allbig cities, and it's also why I prefer them to the White Tiger Hills which is, literally, in the middle of nowhere China and has the irksome ability of making you focus on your problems, not forget them.

This was annoying for me because if you haven't figured it out, I liked to forget things.

The rest of the ride passed the way most of our bike trips did: Bryan navigating and pointing out interesting facts about the places we were seeing through the little radios in the helmets and me clinging to him and watching the world around me in a bit of a dazed way, the only difference this time around was that the trip only lasted about fifteen minutes.

After parking a block or two away we locked up the bike and then locked the helmets away under the seat before walking up to the restaurant and heading in.

The place wasn't empty but not crowded either; we were seated in the back in a half circle booth with candles on the table and a single red rose in the centre. It was one of those non-descript yet high-end places that were scattered all around the city, you know, the ones with the leather seats and glass tables and all that.

We sent the order off and got right back to our discussion about the different places we had been to before the conversation moved to Beyblading in general, and then to the latest prank Ian had pulled, and then, eventually, to how Tala wound up with pink hair for a week. A story that left me with tears of laughter in my eyes and Bryan with a victorious smirk on his face.

Of course, you now realize that something had to happen at this point in time. It was just our bad luck that that something had to do with the untimely discovery of our relationship.

As it turned out, The Bladebreakers and The White Tigers had walked in sometime during our discussion, completely without our knowledge, and had been watching us in disbelieving silence right up until something tipped us off to their presence.

That something happened to be the sound of Lee's glass shattering on the black tile floor when I leaned in to peck Bryan's cheek after he finished teasing me about something I barely remember.

Bryan and I swore in Russian at the same time (he had begun teaching me the league during one of are four-hour-long talks we had one morning. He had said he was tired of his teammate's teasing me in Russian so he had to teach me the langue so I could retort back. It scared Tala shitless the first time I called him a "prissy ginger bastard" in Russian.)

I looked around and bit my lip, the only ones that didn't have their jaw on the ground were Hillary and Kai, and both of them were instead giving us sympathetic looks that I was desperately trying to ignore.

You know it's bad when Kai looks sympathetic.

"What are you doing?" It was a quiet whisper but I could hear the stirrings of anger in my brother's voice. I fought the flinch that tried to escape and narrowed my eyes.

All my life I have listen to my older brother, and all my life he has always listened to the Elders who run our village, especially with my parent's dead as they are. But I will not doing it any longer. Not so long as I have something worth fighting for.

"Well, Lee, I'm on a date." I said, keeping my voice as even as I could, my hand instinctively going for Bryan's.

"With Bryan?" Ray, of all people, stuttered.

I raised my chin, there wasn't the usual note in his voice that I got when the Elders or Lee caught me doing something "wrong," there was just shock and I guess a little hurt.

I didn't know where that was from.

"Yes, Ray." My voice was surprisingly strong. "And what's wrong with that?" I asked, I could feel Galux heating in my pocket; I guess she could feel the tension in the air as much as I could.

"It's Bryan, Mariah! There has to be something wrong!" Kevin yelled, throwing his hands in the air. I barely repressed a growl. I could see the hurt in Bryan's eye's, the guilt. It made me mad. It wasn't his fault for what happened to Ray, he already told me the whole story.

Boris had been mucking with the emotions of his "soldiers" from the very beginning; he had a sort of trigger beaten into each one. A trigger that would turn them just a feral as any animal when pulled. It just so happened that Bryan's trigger had to do with the drugs that had been injected into him just moments before the battle.

My eyes flashed, I could feel my Neko Jin blood rushing in my veins. It had been a while since I had become this upset.

"Shut up Kevin," His face flashed with shock for a second, I tired to hide my glee. "You shouldn't speak about what you know nothing about!"

"Speaking about what you don't know about! Oh please, Mariah do you know anything about him!" Lee took a challenging step foreword and I felt Bryan tense beside me, getting ready for an attack. I bit my lip harder; I couldn't let it come to that, Lee wouldn't stand a chance against a fully trained, elite Bio-Volt solider, especially one with as much raw power as Bryan.

I splayed my hand against Bryan's chest, more a move to tell him it was okay than it was to actually stop him; I wasn't strong or skilled enough for that.

Bryan didn't relax but he didn't move anymore either, I took that as a good thing.

"-So you're going to give all that up? Just to be some Russian monster's whore!" I had to put my whole body in front of Bryan to keep him from attacking Lee, though a small part of me wanted to let him attack him, but this was my fight. I wasn't going to be backing down this time.

"What the hell are you on, Lee? I'm not giving anything up! If you haven't noticed I haven't had much of a life outside of beyblade!" I felt it best not to let him know about the meetings Bryan and I had. Just because I wasn't backing down didn't mean I was going to try and stir up trouble.

Lee snorted. "You've had more of a "life" than a lot of people in our village, you know that Mariah."

"Yeah, I do Lee and I've decided that I like it! I've decided that I like traveling and wearing leather and meeting people that I don't know! I've decided that I don't want to live in a village anymore!"

This was, of course, met by a decidedly shocked silence. Mariah, the only female representative of the White Tiger Village, doesn't like it in her village? The scandal!

"What. Are. You. Talking. About?" Lee ground out, his fists clenched and eyes wild with furry. Ray stood beside him, his face pale and shocked but understanding. I nodded a little to Ray and he nodded back. This was one of the things I liked about Ray that had originally led me to feel more for him than a sister should. He got stuff, and if he didn't get it, he worked at it until he did.

Unlike Lee who just blew up if he didn't understand.

"Lee, just calm down, okay? No need to cause an scène-

"Oh just shut up Ray! Honestly, you're no better than her!" Lee snapped, turning on Ray.

Ray flinched back. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Like you don't know," Lee sneered, "that's why you abandoned the village isn't it? Not because you wanted to learn new blading styles but because you didn't want to take responsibility and fallow our customs anymore!"

"Those "customs" are sick and twisted and you know it!" Ray hissed, his eyes silted with anger and his hands fisted and shaking with rage, I could see the tips of his fangs poking over his bottom lip.

Subconsciously I took a step back, I had never seen Ray looked so furious before, not even in that Chinese back alley where we attacked him and his team. He reminded me of Bryan during the first World Championships.

Lee snarled again and launched himself at Ray, his leg kicking out and hitting Ray under the chin, his own Neko Jin blood flaring and making his well-practiced kick just that much stronger. Ray's head snapped back as he staggered away from Lee before tripping up and falling back against the wall, his face dazed and blank.

Some people screamed, mostly the other customers of the restaurant who'd been looking on curiously and snapping pictures before Lee attacked. I was frozen. My mind stuck between attacking Lee myself and checking on Ray even though the other Bladebreakers had already former a semi-circle around him. Kenny had his phone out, I supposed dialling 9-1-1.

"I can't believe I ever thought you'd be a good match for her!" Lee spat in disgust from his pace in front of Gary, restrained by the bigger teen's arms.

"A good match? What the hell are you talking about, Lee!" I shouted, by mind had snapped from its shock and anger now coursing through my veins. Bryan's arms slipped around my waist as he pulled me in close, trying to keep me from doing something I'd regret.

"He's talking about the marriage contract he and the Elders set up for us back at the Village." Ray's sluggish voice said, slipping through the loud cheers that had erupted from the other Bladebreakers when he'd regained consciousness.

It took about a second for what he'd said to register in everyone's brains.

"What!" I snapped, pushing my way past Tyson and Max before bending down in front of my best friend's bloodied form. I hid my wince well as I looked at his face. His Neko blood had calmed down while he was blacked out and his face was pale beneath his tan. Blood fell lazily from his lip and his lower jaw was slowly shifting from red to a sickly purple-blue.

Ray nodded slightly before wincing and spitting a glob of blood and saliva onto the black tiled floor of the restaurant.

"That's why I asked you out, so I could give you a warning before they tried to drag us back to the village." He said, his voice was tired and his eyes were drooping closed again.

"How do we know you weren't in on it?" Bryan asked, speaking for the first time during this whole little escapade. His voice was just as cold as the lands he'd come from, his obvious anger frozen into a calm, explosive mask.

I swallowed, knowing this was when he was at his most dangerous. I could see Ray knew it too, what with after facing him and everything.

I didn't miss how Kai repositioned himself closer to the group, or how he pushed Hilary behind him. It Bryan did lose it, Kai would be the only one who could knock him out, seeing as he was also a Bio-Volt Elite Soldier and all.

Ray cracked his eyes open and smirked a bit. "Because I've been dating Mariam Shīrudo of the Saint Shields since a few months after BEGA. Give her a call if you don't believe me." He said it with such a flippant, I-don't-give-a-fuck, careless attitude that I couldn't find a reason to doubt him and by the subtle nod Bryan directed at Kai I knew he didn't think it either.

"Fucking bastard!" Lee's roars of anger made us all turn our attention towards him.

"You're no better than my fucking slut of a sister! I'll make sure none of you ever step foot back in the White Tiger Mountains! I-"

Even though I've seen Bryan fight before (mostly in practice spares against the other Blitzkrieg Boys) I would have never, never, have guessed that someone with his build (6 foot 4 and made of solid muscle) could move so frickin fast.

One minute Lee had been trash talking us and struggling to get out Gary's iron hold and the next Bryan had turned, cleared the space between them and punched my brother in the face.

"Don't you ever say that about her again." His voice was low, calm and completely deadly. It made a shiver creep up my back and I can assure you, it was by far one of the most pleasurable feelings of my life.

Lee babbled something incoherently, blood spillage from his nose making it hard to understand him though I distinctly thought I heard something close to the Chinese words for "murderous monster," "you don't know what's coming" and "you and the bitch will pay for this" in there somewhere, though honestly I could have cared less at that point.

I cast a disgusted look at my brother. My brother. How could I be related to that? I wondered. My mind was foggy as I watched the New York paramedics come in, the group of four men accompanied by a group of five armed policemen.

It idly occurred to me that, sometime during the point where the paramedics strapped Ray onto a stretcher and the police started taking witness accounts, someone must have rung the cops.

It was during our escape from the restaurant that I realized what the media circus for the next few months was going to look like.

And it was when Bryan wrapped his muscled arms around my shoulders and the scent of old leather washed over my nose, blocking out the flashing lights of the police cars and the shouted questions and snapped pictures of the reporters that I realized it didn't matter.

I had my friends, I had my life in my own hands and I had my Romeo at my side, protecting me from the things I couldn't fight my self. And yes it had all been at the price of my brother and my village but I couldn't care. Not when I had so much to live for, and definitely not now that I had someone to live it with.

I smiled in the leather; I guess not all star-crossed romances have to turn out tragic after all.

And here's the rewrite of the once titled onc-shot New Age Romeo! I hope you all liked it; I certainly do, and are waiting eagerly for the other two taken down one-shots plus the new chapters I'm going to be posting as part of this story!

Please Review if you like!

Sincerely,

BlackRoseGirl666