Mind Your Business 8

He shouldn't be sulking. He really, really shouldn't. He had no right. But the more Kairos thought about going back to the way things were, the more he just HATED it, and that was saying something.

He'd think about his single, small berth at home, and then the time he and Ballast fell asleep on the floor, and every time he opted for the latter. He’d not realized until now, until he was faced with the threat of going away, that he . . . he just didn't want to leave this place.

No, he didn't want to leave Ballast's side like that. It'd go back to occasional stops at the shop, or maybe even rarer visits to the boxing ring. Not enough time, he thought. Those things couldn't possibly give enough time for him.

Getting stressed at the continuous loop he was putting himself through, Kairos unclipped his visor and thoughtlessly tossed it on the berth of his guest room's bed, and scrubbed his face with his hands.

It had been two days since Kairos had gotten his optics back, and quite frankly, Ballast was constantly in a sour mood.

She couldn't be sure why, even though she realized the most obvious reason would be Kairos. She told herself it'd be fine. She'd still see him at the tea shop, and if he came to a match, she'd see him then, too. And it wasn't as if they were saying goodbye forever. They could see each other whenever they wanted around work hours. It'd be fine. And he finally wouldn't be trying to get her to drink tea in her own house.

But still . . . Sometimes the house just seemed to echo with loneliness it was so large. Ballast flopped on her back on her berth, staring at the ceiling.

It was a very big house for two.

The third in the house placed his visor back on. Kairos thought maybe he could control this rampant thought processing with some tea. Tea could fix anything, he always said.

Guiding himself out of the room, his peds forced him to stop in the hallway. Glancing down it, he thought of going to Ballast's room and knocking, just to see what she was doing. But she probably didn't want to be bothered if she was still staying in there.

With a resigned sigh, he walked carefully down the stairs and into the kitchen. When he started making the tea, he realized he wasn't feeling that certain glee as he prepared himself a cup of the same tea he'd been drinking every morning and any chance he could get since coming here.

He lifted his head a little, making a motion of rolling non-existent optics. Frag this. Snatching the half finished tea pot, and cup he plopped himself at the table, not bothering to pour himself anything. He'd usually feel bad about wasting a flower pod, but he couldn't bring himself to care for it this time.

His shop's window was still busted. Ballast sighed and rolled over restlessly. The shop was cleaned up and ready for business again, save for the window. She thought of the little tea shop owner and his budding business, and pressed her lips together. He'd have to restock soon and fix the window, which was sure to cost a penny for someone who hadn't earned that much yet. She resolved to call someone and get the window put in for him.

Setting the pot and cup in the sink to be cleaned later, Kairos left the kitchen and went back upstairs. He grabbed the knob of his door, opened it and paused. He turned his head back down the hall where Ballast's room was. It wouldn't hurt to pop in. He could just say he was checking up on her.

With good enough reason, Kairos closed his door and went to Ballast's. He knocked on it three times before calling out through the barrier. "Ballast? Are you awake?"

She looked up, thankful that she had already hung up and conspired to get his window replaced. Last thing she needed was him busting her trying to do something . . . NICE for someone.

"I'm up," she hollered, forcing herself to sit up. "Come in!"

Kairos opened the door, steadily walking in. "Hi," he greeted. "I just, uh . . . wanted to see if you were okay." Primus he sounded like a broken record. "It's kinda late in the morning, so . . . yeah."

Ballast shrugged. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just . . . being lazy, I guess."

Kairos laughed, airy and empty. "Well, it's not the worst day to be lounging around on your bed all day."

She nodded. Then, she said, "Yeah," since he was blind. She didn't really know exactly what to say. It wasn't like she wanted him to go, but she didn't want him to stay either. Well, maybe a little bit . . . Primus, feelings were confusing. Why did she have them?

"So, um. Your shop's opening up again tomorrow, right?"

Kairos perked, nodding quickly. "Yeah. I still need to restock, but I think I can last out with what I still have." Chuffing out a useless laugh, he shrugged, "Maybe I'll make it some grand reopening to get the customers back in. Have to make up all of that lost time."

Ballast nodded. "Yeah, I bet your regulars miss you."

Kairos clicked a little, feeling comfortable enough to step to her bedside. "Well, I wouldn't know about any regulars. There are so many voices, I can't tell which is which some of the time."

"Trust me, they're there," Ballast said. She looked up at the mech in her room and then back to her knees. "So . . . You headed out for good?"

Kairos reeled back the frown that wanted to show. He forced out a "Yes," then stiffened. He didn't mean for the single word to sound so . . . well, sad and final. "Yeah," he said quickly to cover it up, nodding.

She shrugged a shoulder again. "We'll still see each other around, no need to be so glum."

"Well, yes, but . . ." he forced his mouth shut.  “But," he shrugged, feeling his words getting mixed as he tried to get out what he wanted to say. "Well, I've been thinking that we should—I don't know . . . set up dates when we could meet? Besides the tea shop and boxing."

Heat flushed into Ballast's face before she could stop it. Dates? As in dating? Oh Primus. She'd never actually been on a date in her entire lifetime. Flings were one thing, but that was skip the dinner and go straight for home base. And even during the war when she actually DID get involved with someone, their time didn't consist of dates.

Ballast cleared her vocalizer. "I've . . . I mean, I've never . . ." She bit her glossia against the old-fashioned word courtship, saying, "Never actually dated anyone before."

Kairos wanted to slap himself for how he had phrased it, and now only realized what he said. "O-Oh, um, I mean . . . I mean, well, I didn't mean dating dating . . . um . . . Unless you want to try . . . ?" Looking at anywhere but her outlines, he said more sheepishly, "It's kinda been a while for me anyway . . ."

Her pulse hammered in her throat. Date. It seemed to be an alien concept, to date someone when she'd spent her entire life never dating. But she couldn't deny that she'd kissed the daylights out of the mech in front of her earlier in the week, so why the hell wouldn't they court one another?

And more importantly, was she ready for that?

Kairos bit his lip, each second passing in silence making his spark beat harder. Oh Primus, he had been stupid to even ask. He should have just stuck with the original plan of tea shop and boxing visits, and dealt with it. "U-Um, like I said . . . we don't have to," Fidgeting, he finally murmured. "Um, never mind. It was stupid."

"Wait, Kairos—" Ballast sighed and rubbed her face. Swindle was always trying to get her to find a mech and forget the last one. And clearly, Swindled like him even though he was blind—that might change when he got his surgery though. And clearly, SOMETHING in her really did like the mech, as much as she fought it . . .

Was she just holding back because she couldn't let go?

"I—well, I just was trying to sort myself out," she said, trying and failing to sound intelligent. "It's the next step, isn't it? Courtship, I mean."

Kairos would have blinked. Courtship? He hadn't heard anyone use that word to describe dating since . . . well, EVER.

He nodded, playing with his fingers. "Yeah. Er, well, that's how everyone says it should go anyway."

Ballast nodded. "All right. So we'll do that." She paused. "How do we do that?"

Kairos almost laughed, but that would have been rude. Legs getting tired of standing, he sat at the edge of the berth.

"Well, usually it's really simple stuff like . . . going out to eat, or watching a movie together." The latter possibly consisting of making out in the dark. Heat flushing his face, he tried to shake it off as he continued. "Some people just like spending time together, doing whatever. As long as they’re doing it together, I guess."

She glanced sideways at him as he spoke, and a small smile played at the edge of her lips. She poked his cheek, asking, "So, what's THIS particular blush about?"

Kairos inhaled. Pressing a hand to his cheek, he found that it indeed was still hot. Damn it. "Well, um . . . I just had a quick thought that . . . sometimes people like to—you know—do stuff like . . . kissing, during dates and stuff."

Ballast paused, and she pressed her lips together, trying to fight a goofy smile. Good Primus, this was going to be really corny, but she had to do it now that she'd thought of it.

She took a breath and said casually, "Well, seeing as we're currently spending time together . . ." Leaning over, she planted another kiss on him, just to see his reaction, and finished, "And since we're kissing, does this count as a date?"

Kairos gave a noise that sounded like a beep when her lips pressed into his for a quick kiss, his face sky rocketing in red color. Laughing shakily, he shifted himself a bit. "When you put it that way, I guess it is. Not your normal type of date, but . . . I like it."

Ballast lied back on the bed and crossed her arms behind her head. "Well, we'll figure it out one day."

Kairos chuckled. "Course we will." They lapsed into silence, with the occasional click from Kairos.

Primus, he was going to ask before he lost his nerve. "Hey, um, Ballast. Can I . . . Can I lay with you?" He started speaking quickly, "I mean, since, well, there's nothing else going on or anything, I thought maybe . . . you know . . ."

Ballast rolled her optics at his stuttering. "Get down here," she said, and she took his arm and yanked him down next to her.

Kairos yelped, the sound getting cut off when he was suddenly laying beside her. He situated himself at first, feeling the warmth radiating off her frame and being surprisingly comfortable. He turned up on his side, molding his frame well next to her.

He sighed contentedly. Now this was MUCH better than what he was doing a few minutes ago.

Lying on her back with Kairos curled up next to her, Ballast closed her optics in thought. She'd have to visit his tea shop more often than she did. It might be a hassle to get her fat aft moving, but maybe it would be for the better. Swindle always did tell her to get out more often.

It was going to be weird. A part of her said she was far too old to be in a courtship, but another part of her said, why the hell not? She definitely didn't know how to handle it. She could practically hear Swindle cackling in her mind about how right he had been.

*

In a few weeks it seemed like the shop was at his normal pace again. The window had been fixed—which was strange because Kairos didn't remember calling in someone to repair it—the shop's inside was all swept up, glass and withered flowers and all.

The tables and seats were replaced, as well as the stock he needed. Slowly as the days went by, people began to trickle in again, and eventually it was as if nothing had ever occurred to make him close up shop.

But Kairos pushed himself to work harder now, so he could make up for lost time and earn what little more money he could so he could have enough for his surgery by the time he was called in. He still had hopes it would be sooner rather than later.

The day even ended the same. Granted, Ballast came in a lot more than she had before, but she would sit in the same table in the corner of the shop, and Kairos would refill her cup with the bitter tea he managed to get her to drink.

And, just as before, after closing the shop and cleaning up after the customers that had stayed for a drink, he went to Ballast with his replaced pot and poured some tea into her cup.

Ballast shook her head a little as he sat down. "I still say you're a little too avid a tea-lover."

Kairos grinned, sitting down opposite of her. "I could say the same of you and your addiction to coffee. How'd you even come to love it so much?"

"Caste," she said easily. "Coffee was rather cheap back in the day, and since it had so much caffeine, it allowed us in the low caste to keep working real hard. You learned to acquire a taste for it. And it helped you get up in the mornings. A jump-start, if you will."

Kairos hummed thoughtfully. He didn't know much about the low caste or how life was lived there, other than you needed to work HARD to get your pay.

"What kind of work was there? I mean, you being a train I can understand what your job might be, but were there any other bots with different jobs you worked alongside with?"

Ballast hummed in her chassis. "I mean, sure. All sorts of miners, gladiators, dockworkers, construction workers . . ." She shrugged. "I wouldn't say I worked alongside any of them. They were just there while I did my job."

"Huh." Kairos sounded interested. "I've heard about the gladiators. Wasn't allowed to watch them when they aired the fights on television when I was growing up though. I had always wanted to go watch one in person, but it wasn't really—FITTING to have as an interest. Or so I was told."

She snickered at his answer. "You? Watch a gladiator game?" Ballast shook her head and took another sip of her tea. "I somehow feel that you would have passed out before it was over with."

Kairos chuckled. "Well, I was young and stupid then. Bound to try some crazy things once in a while, I suppose. Who knows, maybe I could have stomached it then, though Primus knows I would throw up and faint now if I tried." He shrugged, nonchalant, "But then I was introduced to tea and my interests changed dramatically."

Ballast grunted and shook her head. "It wasn't all it was cracked up to be," Ballast said thoughtfully, thinking of the ones she had gone to in order to kill time. "Tea suits you anyways."

"I think so too," he replied, smiling. He looked in the direction of the window he knew was there, even though he couldn't see through it. "I'm glad I got my shop back, Ballast. Means a lot to me to be working again. Everything is fixed up; I got my stocks of tea back . . . Besides the obvious, I think this is the best my life has been so far."

Ballast nodded in agreement. "It's been a good couple weeks. Even if I AM drinking tea."

"Admit it, you like that tea. I know you enough by now that if you REALLY didn't like it, you would have told me to quit giving it to you a long time ago," Kairos said.

She studied him for a moment, and then admitted, "Fine. While I don't dislike tea, I am rather impartial to it. But being around you for so long had made me acquire a taste for it."

He didn't know why that made him blush a little, but he tried to ignore it by smiling, "In the name of all tea-lovers, I'd call that a victory."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, and that reminded him that, yeah, he actually WAS pretty comfortable around this big, boxer femme. But then he thought back to what had happened in the exercise room, and he cursed the heat that forced its way to his face in reminder.

Ballast lifted a brow in his direction. "You're blushing again," she observed, sipping on her tea.

Kairos nodded absently. "Y-Yeah . . . Um, Ballast? Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"Well . . ." he sighed out, beginning to mess with his fingers. “I was just thinking about. . ." Just get it. "Ballast, what would you call—um, what's going on between us? Like . . . this type of relationship we have right now . . . ?" Licking his lips anxiously, he continued, "I mean, I didn’t want to assume anything yet, so . . . just wanted to ask first."

She frowned. "What do you mean? It's a courtship. Or—dating. Whatever the new term is. Boyfriend and girlfriend, right?" Did she really just say that?

Kairos immediately felt relief, but he didn't show it yet. "Well, yeah, but . . . I just—don’t want you to feel like you NEED to do anything. You don't want to do. Like . .  . I don't know." Honestly, when he remembered what Swindle had said about he-who-shall-not-be-named, and how Ballast reacted when he asked, he had this budding instinct NOT to even remotely be like this person. "Just want to make sure you're comfortable in all of this."

Ballast leaned forward, and she lifted a brow at him. "Kairos. If I wasn't comfortable with this, I wouldn't be doing this. You know I don't ever do slag I don't wanna do."

Kairos nodded, now looking relieved. "You're right, you're right. Sorry, I just didn't want to seem anything like the other . . ." He stopped himself, feeling a coil of anxiety. "Um. Yeah. Never mind."

She stared for a moment, and her lips twitched as she shook her head. "Kairos, I don't think you have much to worry about in that regard." Unless he dumped her for his tea. Or if she was even invested that deep yet.

The stupidity he felt didn't completely wash away, but Kairos smiled shyly. "Not much . . . Well, what DO I have to worry about?"

Ballast felt her gears grind inwardly. Immediately, upon thinking of her ex, she couldn't find any faults. He was . . . perfect. And then, the more she thought about him, the more she thought about the breakup, the more natural issues she found.

"I hate diplomacy," she finally said. "Just say what you mean, and mean what you say. Don't be apologetic. Don't beat around the bush. I can't stand a workaholic." She paused. "And for Primus' sake, if you're going to break it off with a femme for someone else, I bloody expect you to stay with her instead of breaking up with her too."

Kairos would have blinked. He . . . didn't expect that. Not really. From what he got, he felt this other mech WAS a workaholic, someone who dumped another femme for another one, and liked to bend the truth. Primus, he'd have left that guy too.

He nodded, leaning in a little and his hand on the table. "I think I can handle that," he said hopefully. "Well, maybe all expect the apologetic thing," he chuckled. "Can't help but fret over things sometimes."

Ballast rolled her optics, letting go of her anger. "You're fine most of the time. I'm talking about being apologetic for stupid things." Like saying you're sorry for breaking up, and breaking up anyways.

He patted the table softly, leaving his palm up, wanting her hand. "In that case, yeah, I'm pretty confident I can avoid all of those things for you," he replied sincerely.

She rolled her optics again. She reached out to put her hand in his since he beckoned. "It's not about avoiding things that make me mad," she said. "Because, in all seriousness, a LOT of things make me mad. It's about working through and being able to live with each other's slag."

Kairos nodded, smiling. His fingers enclosed around her hand once he felt the weight of it within his palm. "Yeah, I get it. Because I know I make you mad sometimes, especially with the whole tea thing, but somehow we always managed to get over it, don't we? I've realized that everything always turns out okay for us."

She grunted a laugh. "It won't always turn out okay. That's the reality of life. But if a person's got the will, they can make it through things." She made a face. "Great, now I sound like I'm getting philosophical."

He felt they had the will. They could make it through the rougher days. Resting his other hand under his chin, he gave a close-mouthed laugh, "Oh, don't stop now, Ballast, I like hearing you talk. You can talk philosophical; you're smart like that."

Her optics were going to get stuck in the back of her head at this rate. "Careful, Kairos. You're going to ruin my reputation as a brainless bruiser."

This time, Kairos laughed out loud. "Oh no, I wouldn't want to do that. Especially not after the media catching us that night."

Ballast briefly entertained the thought of making the media right before she shook it off, heat flushing to her face.

Thank Primus Kairos was blind.