"Well, here we are," Kai chuckles. "Back to the place we first met. Brings back memories, doesn't it?"
You grit your teeth and swallow the venomous words you so badly want to voice. This situation is so fucking absurd that, if not for the fact that you're basically being held hostage right now, you might have even laughed.
Kai brought the two of you back to the arcade, and as you glance in Caleb's direction, you can tell that this is triggering some dark, unpleasant feelings. Although, you suppose that's exactly what Kai intended.
God, he's such a piece of shit.
"Let's head inside," Kai beams, keeping one arm wrapped around your shoulder, and the other around Caleb's. At first glance, some could even assume that the three of you are on friendly terms, but your terrified expression is a dead giveaway that you're not having a good time.
Kai continues pulling both of you along, and some of the arcade customers instinctively gulp at the sight of him. You already knew from last time that he's made a name for himself, and regardless of what ends up happening here, you doubt anyone will come to your rescue. They're all scared out of their goddamn minds.
Caleb keeps stealing glances at you whenever he can, most likely to make sure that you're doing alright (you're not), and you can also see that his eyes are tinged with shame. Even without him saying it, you know that he must be blaming himself for this situation. He must feel responsible somehow, because he wasn't able to deter Kai and protect you.
You don't have the guts to tell him that this is all your fault.
"Look alive, people." Kai lightly slaps you on the cheek, just hard enough to make you squeeze your eyes shut. He grins shamelessly, fangs on full display. "We're here to have a good time, aren't we? Go ahead, [Name]. You can pick out what we play first."
You resist the urge to spit in his face-that would undoubtedly get you killed-and instead, you cast a wary look towards the collection of arcade machines.
"I don't know," you admit with a resigned shrug. "I'm not good at games. I'm gonna suck either way, so they're all the same to me."
Kai frowns. "That's a loser's mindset. And how can you suck at games? They're literally meant to be played for fun."
"Different people have different things they're good at, I guess."
Like how you're especially good at being a prick.
No matter how many vicious insults you want to direct his way, you bite your tongue and do your best to retain your composure. The most you can hope for right now is that if you wait it out, Kai will get bored soon enough and leave you two alone.
"Man. Is it just me, or is she kind of uptight?" Kai chuckles, playfully elbowing Caleb in the ribs.
"She's not," Caleb glares. "And we had plans to hang out alone before you showed up and threatened us. Aren't you embarrassed to be acting like this at your age? You're clearly an adult."
"[Name]," Kai fake-whines, and much to your disgust, he proceeds to cling to you and press his cheek against yours. "Tell your boyfriend to stop being so moody. He's kind of hurting my feelings, you know."
Anger flashes through Caleb's eyes. "Let go of-"
"Seriously, this shit again? I thought I already told you to watch your mouth and back off." Kai keeps you locked in his grip, but his smile momentarily disappears, and his expression darkens. "Don't tell me what to fucking do. I'm trying to play nice, so unless you're a total moron, don't give me a reason to ruin your girlfriend's pretty face."
Whatever words Caleb planned to say next quickly die out in the back of his throat, and he lowers his gaze to the ground, utterly defeated.
Yet again, he looks guilty, and yet again, you hate yourself for dragging him into this.
"I guess he's pretty possessive," Kai muses, squeezing your waist. "He gets really pissed off whenever I touch you. Well, I guess no boyfriend would want to watch his girlfriend being all close to another dude."
"For the last time, he's not my boyfriend," you scowl. "It's bad enough you forced us to go along with your antics. We're just friends. At least get that part right."
You don't notice it, since you're too busy recoiling from Kai's touch, but Caleb looks even more upset after you utter those words.
"Wait, seriously? You're not even dating?" Kai glances between the two of you, and after a moment's pause, he grins shamelessly. "That just makes it even better. You're just friends, and he's getting all upset because I barely touched you? I think he might have other intentions."
You bite down on your lip to keep from screaming.
He's getting upset because he's worried about me, because you keep threatening to beat the shit out of both of us!
"Anyways." Kai turns towards the air hockey table. "Let's play that one first. You and me, bro. If you win, maybe you'll get a prize. Who knows."
Caleb mutters something under his breath, most likely about how goddamn insufferable this guy is. Still, he must realize by now that there's no point in trying to argue. Kai will just take whatever he wants by force.
They load coins into the machine and dispense the first puck, then take up their positions on opposite sides of the table. There's nothing for you to do besides stand around awkwardly and watch. At least Kai can't touch you anymore while he's playing, so there's that. Also, Caleb is really good at games. There's a good chance he'll end up winning, and you pray you get to see Kai suffer a pathetic defeat.
But of course, nothing ever goes the way you want it to.
Even though Caleb is a master when it comes to most games, playing air hockey against a vampire is basically rigged. Kai can hit the pucks with such overwhelming speed and force that you're surprised they haven't completely shattered yet. It's a game that favors those with excellent reflexes, and good arm strength. It doesn't matter if Caleb is much better than the average person.
Kai utterly destroys him.
"Haha! I win, bitch!"
To no one's surprise, the bastard is a sore winner. He cheers loudly and obnoxiously, occasionally drawing the attention of some of the other customers. The ones that recognize who Kai is immediately look away, though.
Caleb blinks robotically. "Yeah," he mutters. "Well played."
Your heart aches for him. It's bad enough that he's being threatened to spend his time with some absolute asshole, but he has the memory of being brutally attacked still fresh in his mind. And on top of that, he's clearly worried about you, too. God. Whenever you're involved... the people around you always end up suffering, one way or another. Your only two friends have both had to endure horrible situations because of you, and it feels like absolute shit.
Kai leans over your shoulder and grins. "What about you, [Name]? Do you feel like giving it a try?"
"I'll lose," you state flatly.
"Well, how about I go easy on you? I have to at least give you a chance, after all."
You purse your lips, then think back to all the games you played against Caleb. He never went easy on you, and even though losing so many times got pretty frustrating after a while, it might have been even more frustrating if you knew he was letting you win.
Besides, you don't want to give Kai the satisfaction of playing into the palm of his hand. You'll accept your losses with grace, rather than begging for a free pass.
"I don't need a handicap," you say. "If I'm going to win, I'll do it on my own terms."
You turn away, hoping to make your disinterest clear. Even though you're technically trapped, you refuse to let him feel like he has control over everything you say or do. His enormous ego needs to be knocked down a few pegs.
And even though Kai doesn't let it show, it works.
He narrows his eyes, watching as you hover near Caleb, who keeps fussing over you and asking if you're feeling alright. The prick is acting like he's committed some sort of crime by bringing both of you to an arcade, of all things. Seriously, an arcade. Where people come to play games and have fun. Yet here you are, acting like it's the end of the world.
"Stupid goddamn humans," Kai mutters.
You really ought to show him some more respect. But it's okay. You'll learn.
He'll make sure of it.
...
"Tough break, huh? I thought you'd at least win one of the games we played."
Kai chuckles and pats Caleb's back, which is clearly intended as some kind of mock consolation, and the latter reacts by clenching his fists and refusing to make eye contact.
You've been at the arcade for a while now, and as expected, you lost every one of the games that you participated in. But that much isn't surprising, and since you didn't have high hopes to begin with, you don't really care.
Caleb, on the other hand, isn't too happy about it.
He can't possibly have been imagining such a crushing defeat, but Kai made sure to pick games where he would have the obvious advantage, like the punching machine, or other games that rely on pure reflex rather than skill. He didn't even entertain any of the games that Caleb suggested, and even though the setup was rigged from the start, the frustration your friend feels is surely unimaginable.
Not only did he get dragged out here against his will, but he also suffered a total defeat in one of his favorite pastimes.
He must be on the verge of exploding.
"Alright, time to redeem all these tickets I won," Kai brags shamelessly. You can tell that Caleb is itching to punch him in his stupid, pretentious face, but you both know that wouldn't go over well.
At the very least, it looks like this hellish torture is about to come to an end. You're honestly not sure how much more of this you would have been able to take.
You follow Kai towards the arcade's prize center, eager to hurry up and leave already, but of course, the bastard has to take his sweet time.
He crosses his arms and frowns. "Hm. What should I get?"
"That one," you say, pointing to one of the items at random. You really couldn't give less of a shit. You just want to get the hell out of here.
"Nah," he dismisses. "I'm not feeling it."
Then why did you even ask me? Fucking bitch.
You grit your teeth, growing increasingly irritated. Freedom is so close, yet so far away.
Kai must be deliberately taking a long time to pick out his prize, because at the rate he's going, you swear you're going to shrivel up and die of old age. As opposed to you, who keeps on rolling their eyes, Caleb wears a much more solemn expression, but he too is on the verge of absolutely losing it.
Finally, Kai makes up his mind.
"Here," he says, and out of nowhere, a teddy bear is shoved into your arms. It's needlessly big, although you suppose that's because he had a bunch of tickets to redeem.
You stare into the teddy's empty glass eyes. "Why are you giving this to me?" you ask.
"Because it's a gift," Kai smiles. He leans closer and playfully flicks the tip of your nose. "It's cute, like you, so I figured you should have it."
It takes a great deal of effort to mask your disgust.
"You don't have to do that," you protest.
Like, seriously. Don't give me this shit.
The last thing you want is a reminder of how this asshole threatened you into going along with him, but that's probably exactly what he has in mind by handing you this so-called 'gift'. He wants to make sure that you don't forget how easy it was for him to get his way. He wants you to remember this day and all the frustration that came along with it.
"I insist," Kai says, and he flashes you a grin before roughly patting your head, as if you're a dog or something.
You suppose you have no choice but to begrudgingly accept, because if not, he'll throw another fit again. The day is finally about to be over anyways. You can just throw the stupid teddy bear away when you get home. It's cute, but you refuse to hold onto anything that Kai gave you.
"Alright, then. Thanks," you reply, voice dripping with insincerity.
It takes both your arms to wrap around the big teddy bear and hold it snug against your chest, but thankfully, Kai is now heading for the front door. You're finally about to leave this shithole. God, if you didn't already dislike video games enough before, this experience sure as hell solidified it.
The three of you step outside, and you take a moment to adjust to the change of scenery. Coming from the bright, flashing fluorescent lights inside the arcade, you need a few seconds for your vision to focus.
Kai fiddles with one of his piercings and chuckles. "See? That wasn't so bad. We all had a lot of fun, didn't we?"
Neither you nor Caleb responds. That should be an answer in itself.
"Hey, [Name]," Kai then says. "Give me your number."
You would literally rather shove needles in your ass cheeks, but do you even have a choice? He already knows where you work, so even if you refuse, he'll probably ambush you again, like he did today. And if you quit and look for work someplace else, he might just threaten your coworkers into giving him your information.
It doesn't look like there's any way out of this. Not yet, at least. Not until he gets bored of you and decides to move onto his next target.
You seriously picked the wrong son-of-a-bitch to make an enemy out of.
"Okay," you concede. It's not worth picking a fight over. You've gotten this far without Caleb getting hurt, and now that Kai's finally about to leave, you don't want to take any chances.
Caleb watches, completely pale, as you and Kai exchange numbers. You're plenty horrified as well, but you don't know what to do without pissing him off. His dad's authority gives him way too much power, and it's terrifying. He lives with no fear of any consequences.
You just really, really hope he'll lose interest in this farce sooner rather than later.
"Cool," Kai grins. "We'll keep in touch. You like the gift, yeah? Make sure to send me pictures of the teddy bear every now and then. I want to make sure you don't get any funny ideas like throwing it away."
Balls. There goes that plan.
"It's cute," you mumble tiredly. "I'll be sure to take care of it."
First thing I'll do when I get home is hide this thing in the back of my goddamn closet.
"Glad you like it. I guess I did a pretty good job picking it out. Anyways, I'm starting to get pretty tired, so we'll leave it here for today."
Those are the words you've been waiting to hear ever since he showed up out of nowhere, and it's no exaggeration to say that you're about to cry tears of relief.
But of course, he can't just leave it at that. No, he feels the need to drop one last bomb on you.
You blink, and before you can even process what's happening, Kai has already kissed you on the cheek.
Right in front of Caleb.
You're too shocked and horrified to even say anything, and Kai seems to delight in your dumbstruck expression, if the crude grin on his lips is any indication.
"What?" Kai muses, taunting Caleb with his eyes. "I thought the two of you were just friends. So, this is no big deal, right?"
You can't even count the number of times you've been disgusted by this fuckface today, but it's whatever. You can stomach a kiss on the cheek. Considering you regularly sell your blood for a living, and you're in debt to a shady loan shark, it's going to take more than something like this to break you.
You're definitely going to disinfect that cheek when you get home, though.
"Well, see ya," Kai grins, and he walks away while laughing obnoxiously, as always.
God. You hate his fucking guts.
The hellish torment is finally over, but the mood is gloomy, to say the very least. Hoping to salvage what's left of the day, you turn towards Caleb and offer him a strained smile.
"Let's head back to your place, like we were going to earlier," you suggest. "I think it's safe to say that games are off the menu... but we can still watch a movie or something, right? And we can rant about that douchebag together. It'll probably help to get some things off your chest."
Normally, Caleb is the optimistic one of the two of you, but right now, it looks like his spirit has been completely crushed.
He slowly shakes his head ."Sorry," he mumbles. "I'm... not really in the mood right now. I feel like a massive fucking loser. I got dragged along and let that asshole do whatever he wanted to you. I kind of just want to be alone."
He doesn't even wait for you to respond before waving goodbye and leaving you in the dust.
So, you just stand there, with the stupidly oversized teddy bear in your arms, looking up at the sky in disbelief.
Why is it so hard for you to be happy?