It Takes Kai’s Friends The Entire First Season To Break Through His Walls And Allow Him To Trust Them.

It takes Kai’s friends the entire first season to break through his walls and allow him to trust them. It takes the entire season for him to be able to call them his friends and let his guard down. Even in the first few episodes of season three he seems to have a semi normal relationship with them. He spends time with them, they do normal teenager shit together even if Kai’s version of that is chewing on a piece of straw while Tyson teaches kids how to beybattle. In his own way, he’s developed that bond. It isn’t until Max and Ray decide to leave that he starts getting into old habits again.

While its true that Kai left because he wanted the ability to battle Tyson and couldn’t do so if they were going to be a part of the same team, it’s definitely hard not to question whether or not there was more to it than that. Season one in particular goes out of its way to show that Kai has significant trauma and possibly PTSD, meaning it’s very possible he left for reasons other than wanting to prove something. People with trauma tend to latch strongly to the ones they’ve bonded to but also have a tendency to really struggle with trust depending on what’s caused their trauma in the first place. It really seems like Ray and Max leaving had a significant impact on his progress, tapping into his trust issues and basically ‘proving’ that he was right not to let people in. He felt abandoned and retaliated, putting his walls back up once again. Even Hiro states that Yuri was using him in order to get himself into the finals (don’t even get my started on Hiro, I’m not entirely convinced that he didn’t go out of his way to brainwash Kai into leaving, but that’s neither here nor there).

Honestly, I’m not even really trying to prove any sort of point in saying any of this other than to acknowledge that Kai is trauma baby who must be protected at all costs and that there’s a reason he’s the fan favorite for those of us who are also trauma babies.