After storing away all his groceries, Kai went to go check on his father before leaving. Kai's father, Gavin, was in his bed as usual. Gavin was the same thing Kai was, with the ears, teeth and tail... But looks like he has been starved for a year. There are pictures littered throughout the house that show otherwise, and it would seem odd for him to be like that now. Kai, however, knew why. It had to do with Ty. To be more precise, it had to do with somebody with powers like Ty.
“Hello Kai...” said the feeble figure in a distant voice.
“Father, I’ll be gone for an hour. I think I found a way to avenge you.”
“Don’t worry about me... Live your life...” Gavin’s voice became more forceful, or tried to.
“No!” Kai mightily refuted “A disgusting human took your pride away and left you helpless. I already exacted revenge, but there’s one more thing that needs to be done. Just you wait here and you’ll see.”
Gavin had nothing to say to his son, he turned himself over and faced the wall and let out a sigh. Kai normally would’ve asked what was wrong, but there was a meeting that he previously accepted. Without another word, he left the house and quickly made his way to Ty’s residence. It was but a ten minute’s walk away and an unknown force made Kai pound on Ty’s front door as if he were trying to break in. Maybe this was the same type of rush that Ty felt when confronting me – Kai thought. Ty answered the door and ushered the tiger man to his room, where Dustin couldn’t hear them.
“Okay so I got like, a bunch of stuff to ask you. I got some snacks so we c-”
“I don’t eat ‘snacks’, I eat meat.” Kai rudely cut off his host as he took a seat in Ty’s computer chair. Kai leaned back and crossed his arms, as if he were disgusted to be in Ty’s home.
“Oh well… Sorry. I should have noticed from when we were talking in the Shop Rite. Stupid.” Ty sat on his bed, across from the intimidating tiger.
“So, what do you want to know?” Kai asked, breaking the ice… As you could imagine, this particular phrase should be said like “breaking the iceberg”, rather than “breaking the ice”. That would better describe the tension in the air.
“Okay then. Pop quiz tiger face! What are you really? What am I? How old are you? Why are you so mean to me? Does your tail actually wag and stuff? How good is your sense of smell? C-”
“Ug calm down!” Kai pleaded, his head hurting from all of Ty’s questions. Most of which weren’t even important. “I’m a demi-human, a tiger demi-human to be more precise. You are a wizard of sorts, one that can bend reality and pre-existing things at your will. Yes, my tail works and my sense of smell is the same, if not better, than a real tiger’s.”
“Uh huh.” Ty nodded, soaking in all the details. “Why didn’t you answer the ‘why are you so mean to me’ question?”
“I’m saving that one till I know your true motives.”
“My motive, hmm? You know, you said demi-human which means half, but you barely look like a tiger at all. Sure you got the teeth, the ears and even the tail, but where’s all your fur! Or is it hair?”
Kai grunted and decided to show, rather than tell. Kai let out a growl and there was a bright flash. Once the light subsided, Ty was now looking at a very large black tiger. This tiger had the same eyes as Kai did. Unlike normal tigers, this one seemed to have bigger incisor teeth and his claws looked even more lethal than a normal tigers… They are pretty lethal to begin with.
“Whoa… COOL! It would’ve been cooler if you transformed like that Teen Wolf guy or American Wolf in London. But it’s still cool!”
There was another bright light and now Kai was back to normal. He took his seat back in the chair, but this time, had his elbow propped on his leg and his chin resting on his hand. Kai was staring intently at Ty for a few seconds before letting out a little laugh.
“You really are a peculiar person, Ty.”
“So says the guy who can turn into a tiger. You said something about knowing why I wanted to talk to you, right?”
“Yes. Tell the truth, because I know the smell of a lying humam...” Kai curly said as he leaned back in his chair, back to his standard intimidating look.
“R-really?" Ty seemed shocked by that fact. It was strange to think that someone would know about you just by your smell.
"Yes. I've learned the particular smell that a human seems to emmit when they are lying. Especially since I was surrounded by it for a long period of time."
"Well uh, it’s because we were in every class and you looked interesting... I’m totally not talking about the tail or anything! I didn’t even notice those until I was in the locker room. But when I did, of course I would be curious. It’s not every day that someone sees something like you, Kai. You even knew something about me. It also seemed like you were afraid of me for some reason, so I wanted to find out why too.”
Kai shifted uncomfortably at the last sentence and decided to be straight with him. “There was once a human much like you. He found out my secret and much like you, he was very kind for no reason. I thought he was actually my friend. My instincts were telling me otherwise, but I guess I was secluded for so long that I wanted a friend so much. My father knew otherwise and tried to help me before it was too late by attacking this human. The human retaliated by stealing my father’s prowess – stealing his pride. Instead of killing him, he let my father wallow in his own personal prison. His own body made weak and useless, which became his own cell. After that, he used his powers to make me his personal lap dog. He made me do things I didn’t want to all the time to fulfill his needs. And he had the upper hand with his powers, but also knowing my secret. If I was exposed, I would probably be carted away to some scientific facility and waste away there. He kept saying he would kill me if I tried anything to harm him – but that’s when I realized. I was already buried alive. So I took the chance and prevailed. However, my father is still... He’s still... My fault...”
“Nuh-uh!” Ty interjected, noticing that the frightening tiger looked more like a sad kitten at the moment. "It's not your fault!"
“It is... I was horrible to you too. And you haven't even said anything remotely terrible.”
“Pshaw, don't worry about it! I mean, you must love your dad, so it's probably natural for you to hate me. But we're friends now and stuff, right? And friends help each other. You just happen to have the best helper around. Yeaaaaah, just bask in my helpy-helpness glory."
Kai silently got up from the chair and made his way over to Ty. He picked him up, but this time with both arms. Ty was of course, scared shit less. That is until he realized Kai was hugging him – then he felt a bit better. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you...” Kai whispered over and over.