How Things Changed Forever.. PART - II

CH 16: Your Skeletons are Safe in the Closet, for Now...

Their table was probably the quietest for the first fifteen minutes of the lunch break, thought Max as he took his seat beside Tyson, who was busy gobbling up his food. None of them wanted to either hear or see Tyson talking with food in his mouth, which he did with very little encouragement. Kenny usually busied himself by talking with Dizzy about one or the other thing and Kai being Kai could probably go on for days without talking. 

Ray and he didn't really have much to talk about these days since their official beyblade practice sessions were yet to start. None of them wanted to rush Kai out of his resting phase. They wanted Kai to be the one to bring it up, choose the time and location, when he was feeling upto the task.

It was the buzz Dizzy was creating that broke Max out of his usual routine. Apparently, Kenny wasn't paying attention to whatever they the two had been discussing about. He was staring at something, looking shocked. "What's wrong, chief?" he asked, following his gaze. "Is that Hilary?" Ray commented, grabbing everyone's attention around their table. 

Hillary was sitting at on of the 'love' tables with a guy! "Yeah, it is." Max confirmed, immediately  looking worriedly at Tyson. "Who's she with?" Kenny enquired with curiosity, completely ignoring Tyson's feelings on the matter.  "Luke Ashton Morales. Parents divorced when he was eight. Custody's with the mother. She owns a cafe. Lives with his mother and step-father. Has two half-sisters, twins. Won a scholarship to this school through a short story writing competition. He's in the same class as her. A new friend of hers." answered Kai, in his usual monotonous voice. He hadn't even bothered to lift his head out of the small handbook he was reading through!

Tyson suddenly bursted out, "How do you know so much about him? Did you somehow know of this before?" he demanded, discreetly waving in their general direction. "He sits next to me during AP biology classes. You can't possibly not expect me to not dig up a bit of general information about him, can you?" said Kai, lifting an eyebrow at them all. 

Max suddenly felt very vulnerable. He was pretty sure that others at the table felt it too. If this was the amount of 'digging up' Kai did for someone he just sat next to, did anyone around this table have any secrets 'only to themselves' anymore? 

******

Kai could practically feel the tension rising around their table without even looking up. He scoffed internally, really, he was  doing the Morales guy a favour by not giving up the darker, more juicer, gossip-worthy details about his home life. Abusive father. Wife beater. A typical domestic violence case. Father's been in and out of rehabilitation centre twice for excessive alcohol consumption. In jail currently for drug dealings two years ago.

But that was none of Kai's business. He would never judge people by their families, at lest not by the blood related ones. He just felt safer in knowing everything about everyone. To be honest, Luke did seem like an alright guy, even if he did have a slightly loose grasp on his temper.

 His teammates had to be fools if they didn't think that he would dig up each and every skeleton in each and every closet of their family. He didn't think of outing them all to the whole world or something. He just planned to bury them back in their respective closets after thoroughly  inspecting them.

He was about to come up with something creepy to tell them, just to make them more uncomfortable. Something like "Don't worry. All your secrets are safe with me. For now." Or "None of the skeletons in your closet are gonna come out anytime soon. Hopefully." when they were interrupted by someone clearing their throat. 

Kai knew the sound all too well. His suspicions were confirmed when a well-manicured hand with perfectly-shaped nails painted black were places on his shoulder. "Hey boys, how are you? I hope I'm not interrupting you guys..." she said, taking a seat beside him for granted, sitting so close to him that their legs were practically pressed together at the side.