time to talk about kaiiii :3
when ben meets kai he develops as crush throughout the benwolf shenanigans, as per usual. he's a lot more awkward and hesitant about it however because self esteem issues and self image issues. gwen encourages him to go for it and gives him a whole pep talk though, so he does.
kai rejects him as she does in the show (saying shes only interested in blitzwolfer and not ben himself, train and tame shit- you all remember) and that sets ben off. ben knew she wouldn't like him, and his internal dehumanization of himself gets validated by someone he admires. so he has a breakdown right in front of her and gwen. gwen snaps at kai and makes her realize yeah wow that was really mean of me. she apologizes as best she can, and tells ben she understands if she doesn't forgive her at all. he does end up forgiving her, but gwen is still very much side eyeing the shit out of her.
anyways ben and kai talk a lot (he doesn't like to talk about the forever knights situation in detail, but he drops random bits and pieces while either coping with humor or just talking about something, so kai has some idea of what he went through) and they are friends! the hurt from kai's rejection doesn't go away (and later affects how he handles his feelings for rook) but she's changed and he aknowledges this. she later figures out she likes girls and ben goes to her with talks about his sexuality and such.
so yeah! i wanted to rewrite her a bit because the benwolf episode was YEESH and she couldve been written so much better. also i joked about kai and gwen enemies to lovers with a friend of mine and it kinda stuck with me- possibly more info on that later (and kevin of course)!