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away-ward · 6 months

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I haven’t read Hideaway in a while, but is it ever told how Kai’s father felt about his arrest? If it’s possible (no pressure luv) can you expand on their relationship, I’m just in love with their dynamic 😔

I would love to talk about Kai’s relationship with his father! I’ll admit, it’s also been a while since I read Hideaway in its entirety and the last time that I read it, I only read Banks’ chapters. So, I’m mostly talking about my assumptions. As always, I’ll try to bring up references.

Early on, Kai reveals that he resents his father. It’s hard to understand why, at first. By all accounts, including Kai’s, his father is a patient man. He doesn’t yell or expect Kai to fall in line with his decisions. In fact, all he wants is for Kai (and his friends) to be better. It seems his only crime is wanting them to make good decisions. The horror, the burden.

As a teenager, Kai knows his father is aware of the things he and his friends get up to, especially on Devil’s Night. Yet, Katsu doesn’t prevent him from making this choice. Kai also knows that his decisions disappoint his father, but he has no intention of stopping.

If you’d ask Kai, he’d probably say that he doesn’t have much of anything in common with his father. Still, Kai has a tremendous amount of respect for Katsu. He speaks highly of him; he’s a young father in good shape, and nothing like the fathers of his friends, who he finds deplorable in nature.

After his release from prison, Kai feels the weight of Katsu’s disappointment more than ever. It’s compounded with his own. He really has problems processing what he went through; he came from a good home, with a solid upbringing. How did he end up in prison next to murderers? How did he end up nearly killing someone? How did his life get away from him?

The disappointment hounds him every waking moment. It builds in him, and by the start of Hideaway, all he wants is to prove himself; to prove that he’s not wasted what’s been handed to him. He still can’t look his father in the eye.

So he tries to make the right choices; to be the good son.

He has a college degree – it’s not enough.

He buys a home – it’s not enough.

He builds a dojo – it’s not enough.

Nothing is enough to please his father.

And then comes Banks. She gives him a place to direct that hunger. Suddenly, he can do anything… if it’s for her. Nothing is off limits. It doesn’t matter that the girl he wants wasn’t valedictorian, or class president, or a member of chess club (sorry, I don’t actually remember Chole all that well, but you get the point), or Gabriel Torrance's daughter. It doesn’t matter that Banks isn’t the girl his father would approve of.

Like how he was before prison, Kai wants to make his father happy, but not at the expense of himself. His father will be disappointed, but that matters less than him getting Banks.

However…Kai doesn’t see his father quite as clearly as he thinks he does.

That whole year of trying to be the son his father could be proud of; trying to erase the damage he'd done, so he could look his father in the eye. None of that was because of Katsu. It was his own self Kai couldn't face.

(I originally highlighted this because it's yet another way Kai makes sure to point out how he's less than his father, but now thinking about it, the piece of art that Rika says looks like him, is a figure without a face, strokes going outside the lines. Kai is a mystery to most people, and a rule breaker to those who do know him, which is probably what Rika was thinking. But in HA specifically, he's lost himself. He's faceless, not knowing where he's going, and I thought it was funny.)

But that doesn't answer your question. Your question was how did Katsu feel about Kai’s arrest? It’s never told in the narrative. But there is a letter floating about out there on the web, written by Katsu, to his wife Tori a little while after Madden was born. And through that, we get some insight into how Katsu really feels about his son.

He talks about how he and Tori met, how he stole her away from her life because he loved how strong and thoughtful she was. And in this, he admits that Kai is more like him than he thinks.

But it's not just in stealing the girl. They both blamed themselves for Kai's faults.

He compares the love between Kai and Nikova to his and his wife's - which, in the series, is the strongest marriage we're ever given insight into (the Grayson's have a good life, we never even meet Will's parents, so it's a moot point).

Kai thinks that Katsu is disappointed, and that he didn't live up to his father's expectations. He doesn't have the right kind of woman, or the right kind of friends. He didn't make the right choices.

The reality is that Katsu loves his son so much, Kai could never comprehend it. He's so proud of what Kai has accomplished.

I don't know if I've covered they're dynamic well enough. What I do know, is that these men do not open up to each other. They mainly talk to through Kai's mother, who seems to have a tap on both of their emotional and mental states. However, both Kai and his father are extremely proud of each other. Kai holds his father above all others, and Katsu thinks the world of Kai.

It didn't really fit in here, but I especially thought this was noteworthy:

When Damon burns the dojo down, Kai thinks about everything that's lost, but specifically about the weapon's his father donated. And I thought how sad that his father can put such faith in him, donate such important items, and Kai still doesn't see his approval.

Kai's always been blind to how deeply his father loves him.

Thanks for the ask! Hope this answered your question. As I mentioned, I'm not wholly familiar with Hideaway or Kai's character as I am with NF, so if any KaiBanks enthusiasts want to add to this, please feel free. All comments welcomed.

-KO

#devils night #devil's night series #kaibanks #kai mori #nikova banks #penelope douglas: hideaway #katsu mori

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urlocalrambler · 6 months

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DN fanfic: an exploration into Kai Mori's mind while he's in prison. Introspective piece. So get ready for self-loathing, the woes of the disgraced son and the Banks reminiscence and yearning that we deserved.

My first Devils Night fanfiction ever. Actually, it's my first writing piece in a long time in general, but fuck it, we balling. I've always struggled a little with understanding Kai, but I think this piece helped me get more of a grip on my characterisation of him <3.

Kai sits in jail, and he knows he's a scrouge on his family name. He’s the shameful blot in their lineage, the fuck up who keeps on giving even when all they want is for him to stop. Kai's the shadow in his family's illustrious life. A good boy gone wrong, the ungrateful child, responsible for his mother's tight smiles and fervent worry — he’s the parasite leeching away at his mother's kindness, carelessly ruining the happy life his father fought to give her. It took one blow of a hammer slamming against a gavel, and his parents have a sword of humiliation rammed into their guts. The pain is only dug in deeper with the indignity of a sentence of 28 months lost to the confines of walls crammed to the brim with prisoners, with his fitted suits for interviews traded in for a standardised orange jumpsuit, as a lifestyle befitting of an animal is thrust into the hands of their only son.

The worst part is that they still loved him despite his neverending failures.

"–Gave him three broken ribs. So he fractured his fucking spine."

"Who?"

"The rich brat. Mori. He didn't even hesitate."

"Shit, he might belong here, after all."

Yeah, maybe he does belong here.

From the start of it all, he's been the defining reason for the lines marring his father's forehead, those were wrinkles etched in from worrying about Kai's unfortunate tendencies, but he's still forgiven again and again for every indiscretion that they catch him in and he learns to forgive himself for the thousands that they don't know about as a default. Kai's allowed to follow his own path even if it means spitting at his father's feet and disparaging the legacy that Katsu built with his roughened hands. It's wrong, grievously so, but he takes the chances and the freedom, Kai proves he's a certified fuck up. Useless boy who's worth nothing much when compared to the father who tried to give him every head start in life no matter what it cost. Katsu's a man who pulled his family out of poverty, he gives his wife her old life back tenfold, and Kai’s the worthless son who ruins it by gorging himself on endless vices, amusing himself by toeing the lines, and eventually, he gets a crew and starts obliterating the lines. Never improving even as they ardently pray for him, Kai only gets worse as the years pass.

Everyone knows it in Thunder Bay. Kai Mori's a cautionary tale in the flesh.

The good boy who gets caught up in the wrong crowd and suffers for it. Prince amongst the heathens, gilded gold stained by their tar, a demon playing at being an angel. Kinder smiles and 'thank you's' on his tongue don’t get rid of the taste of sin, but they mask it well enough. Until it suddenly doesn't anymore, and they see that he's made of the same strokes as his friends. Demon, not an angel. Predator, not the prey. Villain, never a prince. Sins can't be hidden forever in a modern era of phones to the ear and the glimmer of cameras catching their every move. He should’ve known better than to have expected zero consequences – Kai hid his truths better than his friends ever managed to, but an unchained nature couldn't be hidden forever.

People were predisposed to making assumptions.

In Thunder Bay, they accepted and revered the version of him that they thought they knew, and they share their aggrieved regrets as his fall from grace occurs in the brightened spotlight. Analysed just like Icarus, with a tragic fate of his own making – Kai can't meet his father's eyes for the first couple of weeks after his wrongs are aired to the public. Kai Mori had potential in spades, the gossip somberly chastens, and he squandered it away on freedom ravelled within insanity, he wasted a guaranteed future on the kind of lust that made priests look away in discomfort, and he ruined himself due to a useless loyalty towards friends that should've never amounted to much more than a footnote in his life.

Outsiders never understood how the blood of the covenant could run thicker than the water of the womb. They didn't feel the allure of darkness in its fullest form. Nor could they understand the power that control gave him when it was cradled in his palms, and he had chaos biting at his neck. She had, though, that one girl who hides in his mind just like she'd veiled herself into that confession all those years ago– she understood it all, and she even fed into it back then.

He wonders what she felt when she saw him in cuffs.

Mystery Girl was among his worst mistakes, mostly because she quickly became his darkest daydream and a favourite nightmare.

Kai's quiet when he does it. In the showers, when heat spindles against the mirror, he washes off the heat of shame by engaging in more depravity. He thinks about her often. And he's not gentle, not even close to it. Whenever he thinks about girls wrapped up in men's clothes, in shirts that aren't his, he's harsh and angry because they should've been his clothes, she should've been his girl. He thinks of smart quips on the curve of her lips, and he wonders how sweet it would've been to have held her and shut her up in the way he'd desperately wanted to whenever she said the name of a man who wasn't him. Kai's got a hand on his cock and he jerks it hard to the thoughts of her.

Chocolate hair. Green eyes. Golden skin. Daydreams and nightmares.

She's the only thing he never got that he'd desperately wanted in his golden years; she's the thing he still wants so carnally even in his darkest hours. Wants her thighs wrapped around his torso, wants his name to be the only thing she's capable of saying by the time he's done with her, wants her marked and ruined by the touch of him and him only. Indulging in her, Kai knows, would've been his favourite sin. Back then, he got only a speck, got nothing more than a touch, and he'd still been hopelessly addicted, high on fumes when he had the wisp of her silhouetted in his arms, and he was in withdrawal whenever he lost her to a man he hated and loved in equal measure. Just a taste back then, just the thoughts now, and he's still maddeningly hooked on her. Pretty girl, harsh girl, but never his girl. Sweet like candy with a tangy kick to her. She's the only drug in his veins, inching in without warning, putting him in a trance and an unruly high.

In the dead of night, she visits him, and Kai welcomes her.

He is a fuck-up, Kai knows it well. Somehow, he's still so ready to engage in the betrayal of his brother in everything but blood. Damon's down in a living nightmare in solitary, and he dreams of stealing his girl. He dreams of using her up. He yearns to take her and have her feed the desires of his concupiscent flesh for as long as he wants, and he thinks he wants to keep her for months, for years, for as long as it takes until she feels more his than anything else.

Irreverent lust, onerous fingers, amatory desires, and all for what? A girl he had known all of a couple of weeks. And he thinks he'd sell the flesh on his back to go back to that time with her. For her, he thinks he'd do anything because if she's a reverie then he's a victim to the ghost of her. Kai thinks of her and that hotel room, and he wonders why he let his dream girl go.

She's the only person to ever make him feel alive, to make him feel desire on an impulse, the only one who could easily stoke his dangerous need for control, and she did it all without ever trying. No fight to take and no need to make his blood boil; there was no need to force himself into those conversations with her because he was already obsessed with her voice from the second he heard it. Everything came naturally when it was with her.

He thinks she could've been his if she hadn't been Damon's to keep.

Kai laughs when he grips the plexiglass, breathes harder, and strokes faster– she's certainly not either’s now, and she wasn't his back then, but she is all Kai’s in the darkness of his mind. Smooth skin pressed against his chest, lips to his neck, and she's begging for it, for his dirty criminal's hands to stay on her neck. Moaning, whining, crying for more. He's undone by the idea of her, air caught in the chasm of his lungs, knuckles tightened to a pale white, as he gives into his favourite nightmare. Kai's spent by the thought of her, the evidence washed away by water, as his back presses against the shower wall.

Suddenly, he's almost glad that he doesn't see Damon here at all. Kai tries to convince himself that he should be relieved that he'll likely never see her again either (it doesn't work but he tries). If he doesn't see her, then it means the fantasies, the output of those unreachable desires, can stay intact.

There's no Damon to stop him. No dancer in a hotel to distort what they could've had. No blood to mop away and no nights to hide away. It was just him and her again.

In his dreams, Banks is everything he still desires.

In his dreams, she belongs to no one else.

In his dreams, Banks is all his.

#nikova banks #kai mori #devil's night series #devils night #devils night series #damon torrance #emory scott #michael crist #winter ashby #rika fane #kill switch #devils night fanfiction #penelope douglas #kaibanks

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