"Ignorance is bliss," 

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Kai

For a moment Kai's heart stopped.

Before it skyrocketed.

A few minutes ago, everything was okay.

Everything was fine.

Hell, he was happy. Happy. He hadn't flinched when she grabbed his hand, he let her guide him, he let him feel the joy of seeing a thousand lanterns floating aimlessly in the sky illuminating it like a near view of the galaxy.

He had let himself look at her, look at the ways her eyes twinkled when they stared at the lanterns, the way her features relaxed and brows softened. He had memorized the way she tilted her head, had felt his heart skip a beat when she stepped forward at the cliff to push his lantern up, to give it the last boost it needed to fly.

He had felt something in his heart unfurl, when he saw her standing near the cliff, her back to him. The light blue yukata of hers swaying with the gentle breeze, a few strands of her ebony hair freed them from her bun flowing along with the lapels of her yukata. While in the sky above a thousand stars and lanterns glowed alike.

She looked beautiful at that moment.

Not that she didn't look beautiful before.

But here, for the first time, since he had seen her he could feel as if she truly was relaxed. Her shoulders weren't tense, nor were her hands. It looked like she was just standing there– feeling.

He had something along the lines of stepping back or she would fall.

She had said something back.

It all seemed distant at the moment.

At the moment, the sudden beyblades had vanished back and the ground was cracked.

At the moment, he could see the flashes of pain in her eyes before they widened with something akin to desperation and panic, and her body was hurling downwards.

Time seemed to go faster at that moment.

Everything was a blur.

Kai didn't remember his body moving.

Neither catching her.

He had only come to his senses when he was supporting her back on a tree nearby, one hand interlaced with hers while the other held her by waist. And at that moment, he could feel the sickening rhythm of his heartbeat and the shaking of his own legs.

Her eyes were wide as she blinked her hand curling on his yukata.

She was here.

She was safe.

She was safe.

She was safe.

God damn it.

"Hey, hey, Ahana, are you listening?! Are you okay?" He was surprised when his voice didn't broke.

His heart was racing.

He couldn't breathe.

His hands were shaking.

He didn't know what was wrong with him.

All he knew was the feeling that engulfed him, of course he does, he had known the feeling intimately after all. The dread of watching something important, someone important slipping through your fingers, the familiar feeling of losing a piece of yourself.

The only difference was the fact that she was here, alive.
And that she wasn't supposed to be a piece of his.

"Your heartbeat is racing," she murmured, though her voice cracked halfway.

His hand tightened on her waist for a second– to ground her or him, he didn't knew– before he softened his grip, "So, you are alive and good,"

"Slim chances, remember?"

Slim chances?
There weren't any slim chances here, one second of delay and he would have to watch her falling to her death.

One second of delay would have cost him her death.

One second of delay and he wouldn't be here holding her but down there looking for her body.

"Don't downplay it," his jaw clenched, "don't you dare downplay it,"

"Kai," he couldn't look at her eyes but her voice had softened a notch though it still trembled, "I didn't meant t-"

A hiss of pain cut her words.

"What happened?" his worried gaze found hers again, grip tightening on her waist. Her eyes were half closed in pain, eyebrows furrowed up and body tensed, he felt his throat go dry when he saw the pain swimming in her ocean eyes.

God, he hated this.
Why did he hate seeing her in pain?

"It's just... the wound from the bey,"

Right, that beyblade had cut through her ankle.

"Lean back on the tree," he murmured, lightly pushing her shoulder back on the tree so she was supporting her way through it, even though she didn't say it he could feel the way her knees still trembled from the near fall. He dropped on his knees, one hand lifting the bloodied piece of her yukata just enough to see the gash.

Kai grimaced after seeing the cut, it looked deep and blood was actively dripping down, he stuffed his hand on the pocket of his haori pulling out a handkerchief before opening it up and tying it around the wound.

It wasn't an optimal option.
But this would need to do.

"Ouch, Kai, what are you doing?" she said, her voice tight as he gently touch the skin around her ankle. It was already beginning to swell, flushed a angry red.

"Look like you strained your ankle during that fall too," he looked up at her, "can you walk?"

He watched as she glanced down, swallowing and tilting her head as she shifted her weight on her injured leg. Before her eyes widened in pain and she leaned back against the tree, a small tremor ran through her leg, "...probably?"

"Right," he said with a huff while standing up, "you would rather break your leg than ask for help. Typical. Hold still,"

"Kai, what are yo–"

Before she could finish, he crouched slightly and swept her off the ground in one smooth motion, one arm hooked beneath her knees, the other behind her back.

"You– you can't just pick people up like this!"

"I just did," he said simply, not looking at her as he adjusted his grip, "don't squirm. You'll make it worse,"

He can see her eyes widen while her arms instinctively looped around his neck for balance. His expression remained unreadable, save for the faintest tick of his jaw.

"You didn't have to," she mumbled.

"I didn't have to save your ass from dying," he shot back, his voice low, "but here we are,"

"Kai," he could see her struggling to get words out, she was probably thinking of ways to make him put her on the ground, "you all have unofficial matches tomorrow, you will tire out your arms if you will carry me all the way down. Put me down, I will manage,"

She was insane.

Or she had a fatal allergy to people helping her.

These were the only two options Kai could think of for the absurd request she was making. It was her own body she knew better, but even Kai could tell just by a look at her ankle that it would take probably weeks to heal and right now putting any pressure on it would make it worse. Far worse.

Probably a muscle tear even.

"Ahana, don't test my patience," Kai found his voice more annoyed than he was feeling, "you are wounded, your ankle is strained and wounded and bleeding, so stop spewing shit otherwise I will really drop you here to stumble and crawl your way back to the hotel,"

"I am not testing your patience," she murmured, before he felt her hair brush against his shoulders and her body relax in his arms, he glanced at her briefly; she was now looking at the passing trees before he glanced up back focusing on the mountain terrain rather than her, "I just hate that–..."

"That?"

Kai wasn't someone who urged someone to talk.

But anything was better than the roaring thoughts in his mind right now.

"That I...like this,"

"...Falling to death?"

"No, you dumbass! Not falling to death," she sighed, her warm breath tickling his neck, "this, this all... your company,"

"Sidorov, there are probably better and easier ways to get my company or in my arms rather than falling from a cliff," he rolled his eyes, tightening his grip a bit as he walked through the rocky portion of the mountain.

"You know that's not what I mean,"

Silence.

God knows, he knows exactly what she meant.

For a beat.

Then two.

Before he spoke.

"Yeah," his voice was quieter than usual, "I know that, why are you getting sentimental now though? It doesn't suit your persona let me tell you,"

She huffed a laugh and Kai felt his shoulders relaxing. Good, he didn't like to see her sad or troubled, "Well, I suppose, near death experience does that to you,"

"Maybe they do,"

"Kai?"

"Hn,"

She let her head rest against his shoulders, her arms tightening around his neck for a second before she sighed, "Don't you feel the same too? Like we know each other? Like we knew each other? Because I do, it's like... you are a puzzle piece of my memory that I don't know where to put, but also without it everything seems... blank. Like something important but not yet discovered. I feel safe with you, safe, and I don't know why because I shouldn't, I really really should not but I do.

"My body relaxes with you even without me doing so, I let my guard drop and my alertness dwindles when I am with you. It's not good, not at all, look where it got me today. And yet, even now when I should be feeling alert and unsafe and probably losing my head over what happened, this all feels safe. Your presence feels safe, why? Kai, why? Am I the only one? Or do you also look at me and wonder if I have a place in your memories?"

Kai steps faltered for a moment.

He never thought he would hear these words from her mouth. She never seemed to be the person who shares something this vulnerable with others.

She always had her walls up, always.

And yet, she had confessed all things in such clear words that it seemed to him she had put even his feelings, this feeling he had been having since he met her into words.

Because god he did.

He did feel like that.

He has felt like that from the very moment his eyes had met hers that she was someone. Someone who once was very important to him. Like a piece of life snatched away by someone's cruel hands.

He also felt safe in her presence.

She was the first person in years whose sudden touch hadn't made him flinch or pull away or get his heart beating fast and adrenaline pumping through his body.

So, yes he did. He did feel everything she mentioned.

He did.

He did.

He did.

He felt all that to a terrifying extent.

"...Yeah... yeah I do, it feels like that,"

There was so much he wanted to say and yet like everytime words evaded him.

She leaned a bit more on his shoulder one of her hand resting above his chest now, eyes half closed in thoughts, "I see, then-"

"We will talk about this later,"

***

The cab ride they had taken to the hotel was spent silently.

Kai looked outside his face on his palm while his thoughts waged war in his mind. If she also felt the same like him– the same feeling of not knowing just which part of life did they belong in each other's memories– then he had a vague idea of where they could belong in his memories at least.

But he hated that idea.

Just the thought of the possibility of it being true made him sick.

He doesn't remember much from that time.

When he was a kid.

Expect some memories that had kept him up at nights at the end.

But he knew that her being there, in that Abbey under Voltaire's hand would mean one thing and that would be– torture of her soul. If she had been there– God, don't let it be true– then in some twisted way it all would make sense, he supposed.

Her paranoia of strangers.

Her concern about safety.

Why when Max beyblade had nicked her her hand was trembling afterwards like her body remembered something her mind doesn't.

How she had mentioned that she should not feel safe with him.

How at the first few weeks she had looked at him like she was gauging him out, now thinking back it was probably to determine if he was still with Abbey or not.

He felt a shudder go through his body.

No, he wasn't gonna think about all that.

This was why he was here, back in this team. To forget all that, to forget that place, the things it had done to him, to forget the things he had done for him, to forget how he had betrayed this team, his team once for them.

It was to leave the chains of the past behind and finally spread his wings.

Though sometimes he wondered if they were shattered beyond use.

And if she was there, if she had spent time in that Abbey. No, no, he couldn't think so, he didn't want to think so. He doesn't know yet who she was once to him and then also he doesn't like it when she get injured or look sad or troubled.

So, to think that his bloodline might be the one that had ever given her pain, he doesn't think he could forgive himself.

You had nothing to do with that. With them. You were just a kid. You were a victim there.

Some part of her brain whispered those words to him, but he brushed them off like always. Whether he was involved or not, it couldn't be denied that the veins in his blood were the same in the veins of that monster.

All the monstrous things committed by the Abbey somehow always connected back to him anyway.

It always had.

And they had made sure he knew that, they had shown him the blood of others made him hear the screams of others to make sure he knew that it was due to him.

Because Voltaire wants him to become the strongest.

And he would go to any length to accomplish that.

So, if she was hurt due to them, it would also ultimately tie back to him.

And so, he stayed silent.
He didn't ask the questions that were on the tip of his tongue.
He didn't ask 'were you in that hell too?'
He didn't ask because he couldn't bear if the answer was 'yes'.

Ignorance was bliss.

So, as long as he doesn't know that, it won't hurt him. As long as he doesn't know that, he could still think about her and feel his feelings could be valid. As long as it's not true, he could let himself feel something for her.

God knew that mere words like pain or hurt don't begin to cover what they had done to her.