If Kai’s reaction to Mik and Al’s dalliance seems a bit strange, you have to look back at what was happening in their various lives to understand. So, for the benefit of readers who might not have been around in 2012 when all this happened, here’s the story.

Kai was attacked and raped by a guy who, as things turned out, was a friend of Al’s when he was a state trooper in Arizona. Al was able to get the guy behind bars but in the process pretty well lost everything. Kai in particular felt beholden to Al for this and was actually glad that, if Mik was going to have an affair, it was with Al. That led to the three of them becoming a “throuple”, even though both Kai and Al are very much aware that Mik sometimes gets in dangerous, spur-of-the-moment situations like this one.

I’ve often noted that Mik is a pretty complicated guy; he’s the one character in the strip whose motives sometimes elude me. But then, I guess we all have friends like that, right?