Work Text:
Kai is the first to notice it.
He is the first one to notice the way Max suddenly falls silent while the group is walking to the BBA. It happened while Hilary started talking about her parent’s wedding anniversary, Kai thinks. Max slowed down and Kai, who was matching his pace, took a second to realize his boyfriend wasn’t okay. When he turned around, Max was starting to shake. And Kai knew.
Max was crying. Except this time it was in public. On the side of the road. In front of their friends. And Kai was terrified of letting those walls down again.
As soon as Kai noticed, the others stopped too. And Tyson was moving to comfort Max but before he could take a step, Kai had already cupped Max’s cheeks. The Russian was wiping the tears away while also having an internal crisis. The more Max cried, the more his walls fell to rubble. And Tyson tries to move again but Kai glared at him. Because he can handle this. He’s done it before.
Ray pulled Hilary and Tyson to the side. “Let Kai handle this, guys. Max needs him to.”
Kai pulls Max flush against him so they can be wrapped around each other. The younger male buries his face into Kai’s neck. And he starts petting Max’s hair while rubbing his back. And Kai doesn’t know why his Golden Retriever puppy of a boyfriend was crying, but he would figure it out.
“Max, baby, what’s wrong?”
“My parents are getting divorced!” Max sobs into Kai’s shoulder.
Ouch.
It does not come as a surprise to Kai. Judy lives in America full time and Taro lives in Japan full time. They were bound to break up. But it still hurt Max. His parents were his first introduction to romance, and Kai had a feeling why Max was having this crisis. (Besides the fact that Max was only sixteen years old and his parents are divorcing at such a difficult age).
“They were supposed to be together forever! They weren’t supposed to break up! Kai, what does this mean?”
Kai knows what it means, but he can’t tell Max that. He wants to protect Max from these things. He wants Max to live in a fantasy world where nothing goes wrong, somewhere he belongs. But that isn’t real life. And Max is sixteen years old. So Kai forces himself to tell the truth.
“Some people fall out of love, Max. Nothing lasts forever.”
Max moves so he can look up at Kai with red eyes, “Is that going to happen to us?”
And Kai has no idea what to say. He can’t say yes and he can’t say no. He wants to keep Max’s fantasy going. But he knows that he’ll shatter it at some point. There’s a small (tiny) part of him that wants to leave Max and never look back. But there is a bigger (huge) part of him that wants to stay with Max for as long as he lets him. So he tells him the truth.
“I don’t know. But I do know that I will do whatever I can to make sure we stay together.”
Max nods again before burying his face into Kai’s chest. And he maneuvers them so that they can sit on the ground against the wall of a shop. Max, still crying, crawls into his lap and starts to calm down. And Kai thinks that Max doesn’t know what love exists anymore. But it does. If love didn’t exist, then Kai wouldn’t be here in the first place. Love brought him Max. Love brought him six teammates that he was grateful for everyday. One teammate looked proud (Hilary), one was still conscious (Ray), and one was obviously torn (Tyson) but he still wanted them around.
Eventually, Max calmed down enough to start breathing normally. He pushes himself off of Kai’s chest to rub his eyes. And Kai thinks, love exists because of you Max. The American groans as he drops his hands.
“Sorry, Kai. I just really needed to be held for a moment.”
And Kai shakes his head. Because Max has nothing to be sorry for. Kai would hold him for as long as Max needed him to. He stretches out his right hand, palm up and open. Max grabs it like a lifeline, and his fingers run along Kai’s pulse. It grounds them.
“You’re okay, Max. I don’t mind caring for you. Just don’t....don’t stop believing in love, okay?”
Because if Max stops believe in love, in Kai. Kai just might leave him if he does. And he doesn’t want to. If Kai can be live in love, then Max could too. Kai remembered being fourteen years old and never thinking he would feel love, but then he met Max. And his life changed. But Kai had no idea what would happen and that scared him.
Kai squeezes Max’s hand three times, ‘I love you’. He doesn’t know if and when he’ll be able to say those words aloud, but he cannot way for that day. Luckily, Max is more observant than Kai thinks. And he loudly (and easily) exclaims something that Kai only thinks of saying.
“I love you too!” And Kai smiles. “Sorry if I scared you guys,” Max turns to look at their friends that Kai (kind of) forgot were there. “I’m alright now.”
Hilary nods, “Uh, okay, then let’s get going.”
Max pulls Kai up and the group starts walking towards the BBA again. The rest of the way there and the whole time that they are there, Max never lets go of Kai’s hand. And Kai lets him. When they finally catch up with Kenny and Daichi, Daichi spends his time trying to show them a trick that doesn’t work. Their group has fun and Kai is content.
At the end of the day, Max is smiling and that’s all that matters. He’s back to being his little Golden Retriever self and Kai is happy that he can put his claws away. Max presses up against his side. And Kai decides to say something he never thought he would say.
“Thank you for loving me.”
“Thank you for letting me.
And Kai falls in love. He brings his walls down for the final time. And finally feels that love does exist.