Warning: this story will contain descriptions of mental illness, in particular eating disorders and panic disorder. I do not mean to offend anyone, so if I get anything wrong, I do apologise, and please let me know so I can fix it. Also, if you find these or similar things triggering, please be cautious in continuing.
Ivan Braginski. The tall youth seemed to fill any room he was in, an assembly of large limbs and wide bones. His size contrasted painfully with his personality, his soul quivering beneath layers of flesh and clothing and the threatening aura most people felt rolling off the boy. Ivan was not a bully; was not a fighter. He was simply too messed up to know how to turn round and back out of the contract of being the community freak. He was like a small child thrown into the middle of a swimming pool, flailing in panic as the water wrapped around his throat and arms and legs and squeezed squeezed squeezed…
Any time he thought about how trapped he was, he had to fight for breath and turn his back on the world. A now familiar drill.
Perhaps his face was a better reflection of his character. It was round and chubby, youth-like and innocent, and playing on his lips was an almost ever-present smile at every triviality of life. Every colour was soft and pastel: beige hair and white skin unused to seeing sunlight, pale, violet eyes that were violently peaceful. People didn't know how to respond to those eyes, so they felt threatened. And when the eyes saw their fear, the violet darkened until they were almost navy, in anger, and in hurt. Why did people had such contradiction? Why were the silly playthings of life so afraid of fear? These were questions Ivan had asked long ago and, receiving no answer, had been filed away with the rest of everything that hurt him.
Under the harsh light of the public bathroom, the Russian's skin glowed like a ghost. It was almost translucent in its brightness, and the sight filled Ivan with such numbness that he turned his eyes away from the accusing mirrors, squeezing tight shut as large hands cupped handfuls of cold water and doused his face in the metallic liquid. Taking a deep breath, finally able to relax, he leaned back on the sink, facing the row of fancy cubicles along the wall. His barely-present parents had returned from a two month long business trip back in Russia, though Ivan had a small inkling that it was more to escape their children and responsibilities rather than to make more money that the family really did not need. The meal out was a peace offering. While his sisters were obliviously pleased, he would really have preferred they remain away. Forever. Somewhere during growing up, the boy had started to blame his parents for keeping him cooped up in the mansion grounds for thirteen years of his childhood, then loosing him into the terrifying world of school unable to cope with the pressures of normal life.
Now, at seventeen, Ivan had still not learned enough to call himself 'okay', but that was fine, because no one was asking.
Cowering away from the thoughts, he turned his attention onto the line of closed doors. He nudged the nearest one lazily with a foot, and it opened, halted in the journey before closing with a soft slam. Ivan wasn't sure what drew his attention to the furthest stall, perhaps a slight intake of breath, maybe just the sense that another person was there. None-the-less, the burley youth pushed up and sidled towards the uniform door, nudging each one he passed open so that a trail of slams followed his slow footsteps. He pressed that last one. It didn't open.
He tilted his head like a dog, and perked his ears to boot. How strange, he thought, that a door would be locked with no one in there. Finally, he came to the conclusion that some person must have been listening to him, and the Russian was immediately alert. He hated the idea of someone poking their nose into his business, especially when he had let weakness show. It was likely that whoever was there was a weasel from school, who'd followed him into his private life in order to gain the upper hand over the school exile. It would make sense, considering they were hiding in a toilet, for heaven's sake. It wouldn't be the first time someone committed a crime of such nature, but it would be the first Ivan would catch and confront them in the act.
"You are very quite, da," Ivan started, "I am wondering whether you are alright in there." His tone was cheerful, but the undertone held a bleak warning. At receiving no answer, Ivan began to feel a little silly. What if there was nobody in there? What if this was an even more intricate plan to humiliate him further by getting him to attack an empty cubicle? It wasn't fair. It was never fair; what had Ivan ever done? All he wanted was to be left alone, but people insisted on making things complicated.
"Open it!" He burst, surprising even himself. He pounded on the door, rattling it on its hinges, "Open the door or I'll knock it down myself!"
"P-please don't," a voice squeaked from inside, rasping slightly. Ivan assumed it was in panic. While the tone was high, higher in fear, it was distinctly male, Ivan decided, since his tormenters were mostly other guys, and this was the mens bathroom. It sounded young – his age – and the Russian was further infuriated when he believed his cruel suspicions confirmed.
"Open the door!" He yelled as loud as he dared, and hit it as hard as he could so that even the floor seemed to shudder.
Silence.
Then, the sound of the lock being tentatively drawn with a shacking hand. Ivan swung the door open and did a double take. There was indeed a boy his age sat with his knees drawn up to his chest on the closed toilet lid. That wasn't what surprised Ivan.
Most of the children who took pleasure in bullying the Russian was either muscle and no brain or brain and no muscle. The boy in the cubicle would fit into the latter, considering his slight, feminine build, if not for everything else about him. After Ivan's years of experience of being a victim, he had seen may cruel faces, and none of them had been as beautiful as this one. He struggled to see the details through the curtain of long black hair that hid the expression of fear on the stranger's face, but he could make out dark, almond shaped eyes and smooth skin. The hair itself was as black as ebony and cascaded down like a midnight waterfall. The hands bunched in the material of his trousers were slender like a pianist's, in fact, everything about the boy was slender and he held the same refined elegance as a woman. The clothes were fine and fitted, and Ivan could see immediately that, unless the boy's family were in on Ivan's exploitment, the Russian had made a grave, grave mistake.
The boy peaked up at Ivan, a thick, looming figure at the doorway, silhouetted against the harsh lighting. "I-I'm sorry," he pleaded, though he did not know what for. Ivan cocked his head in the way similar to a dog yet again, a clear signal of puzzlement. He would be in so, so much trouble if this boy told of the abuse, especially since this was a restaurant for only the highest class. A single meal cost more that a family would pay for rent for a month; in places like this there was a certain level of etiquette you were expected to follow. Ivan was pretty sure he had just stained his family's name, and his parents would be more than furious. He wondered what it would be like living on the streets.
Normally, he decided, the best call would to be to intimidate the stranger. Through experience, he had found this particularly effective and all it required was a raised voice and threat of violence. He very rarely followed the threats through, only when his own safety was in question, and after that not one person had ever crossed him twice. In this instance, there was two problems. One: this boy was very rich and predictably very powerful. Two: he was… Ivan didn't know what was different about him, but there was something and he ignored the alien feeling seeding in his gut.
Indecision was not Ivan's strong point, and he wasn't used to dealing with such feelings. He had to say something, but it was too much, all too overwhelming. He wanted to go home, but he couldn't. He wanted to curl up into a ball and cry, but he couldn't. He was trapped, he was trapped and there was no where to go…
"U-uh, are you okay?" Ivan squinted through tear filled eyes at the boy who was now standing up and looking both apprehensive and pitying.
"I didn't mean… I thought… You were not you. You were someone else. You…" Ivan couldn't form comprehensive thoughts, let alone control his sentences. "Please don't… hurt me." The Russian broke down, sobbing into his arm like a small child. He turned to excuse himself (where to he had no idea) but a gentle hand grabbed his arm. At first, he tensed forebodingly, but the hand didn't tighten or show any sign of malice, so he allowed the stranger to lead him to a sink and hand him a handkerchief to blot his tears. The sobbing fit had come on like a rain shower: quick and unexpected, but leaving as quickly as it came, the only difference being that rain left a feeling of satisfaction, while Ivan felt drained.
As the clouds of his panic attack cleared, he finally realised that the other boy was speaking to him. "Are you okay? Please, I don't think I did anything, but if it did then I'm sorry for upsetting you. Aiyah, what do I do? I don't know how to deal with this." At his words, Ivan found himself laughing at their scattered nature, and the caring yet overwhelmed tone they possessed. At his laughs, the stranger smiled too, albeit a little nervously. For a few moments, whatever tension that had arose between the two dissolved as they shared an odd moment of mirth, and it was only when Ivan remembered his family probably questioning why he was taking so long that he finally returned to reality.
A look of horror stripped his face of colour, and he wanted to say something to his unlikely acquaintance, but couldn't think of the words. Thankfully, the other boy, despite his mutual lack of grips on the situation, appeared to think more quickly than he. "You should probably get back to whoever you were eating with. They will probably be worried." A look of sudden occurrence passed his own features. "My own family will be wondering where I've got to."
For the first time, Ivan spoke rationally, "aren't you going to ask about earlier?"
"Which bit?" The stranger asked, "It was all kind of weird. But it's over now. No harm done."
"You'll really let me off after scaring you?" Ivan said with a look of surprise. After a pause he said rather abashed, "I'm sorry for that, by the way. I – I'm not good with people." He was unsure of why he was pushing the topic instead of embracing the merciful pardon. There was a feel to the other boy that made him instantly trust him, which was saying a lot; Ivan trusted nobody but his own sisters, and even then he had his limits. The boy lived by the mantra: 'Trust myself and myself only. People let me down again and again, but I know that I can't betray myself.'
"Please please, don't mention it. You were upset. Oh, I'm Wang Yao by the way."
"Your name is Wang?"
The other boy laughed. "That's my family name; it's said first in China and I have found it hard to drop the habit. No, you can call me Yao."
"Interesting," Ivan pondered.
"And you..?" Yao questioned with a raised brow.
"Me? Oh right, da, I am Ivan."
"Nice to meet you!" Yao beamed sincerely. After a moment though, "aiyah, we really should get back to our companions. My mother will be getting worried. It was nice to meet you Ivan." With that, the Chinese boy turned tail and walked swiftly to the door, exiting with minimal sound and the shadow of a smile.
Left behind, Ivan put a hand to his face. "I can't remember anyone ever being pleased to meet me." He pondered aloud to himself. The shifting of the water pipes and flickering lights filled the room with a hollow presence, filled the space that had been created when Yao left. Ivan followed in the boy's footsteps a few minuets later, after ensuring his face to be free from signs of his breakdown, and the only sound left was the continuous drip, drip drip of a leaky tap.
Yao couldn't remember the first time he looked in the mirror and felt revolted at what he saw, but he estimated that it had been a gradual process that had crept up on him rather than a sudden flick of a switch. Of course, there were moments that stood out to him in particular, like that time he had ate until fit to burst, then been so upset with himself that he had promptly hurried to the nearest bathroom and threw up.
The first time it hurt. As his addiction continued and grew, he gained mastery of his stomach and gullet workings. The ring of muscle around his stomach loosened allowing him to force food back out as easily as it went in.
Throughout the process of his growing ailment, never once had he told his mother, or anyone else. Yao was a naturally outward person, but when it came to his own troubles he kept them locked up inside and threw away the key. He acknowledged them – accepted them – but refused to place the burden on someone else's shoulders when they were his problems in the first place. Yes, his problems and his life. The routine was hard to break, and Yao, if in a rare moment of admittance, knew that a deep part of him relied upon the habits; if he changed now, what dire consequences would come out of his actions?
It was truly best to treat them as the norm.
After moving from China several years back, the boy had found himself tossed round various locations in East Asia before finally settling into their current home in England- settling, he hoped, to stay. Along the journey, what had started out as just himself and his half brother Kiku had expanded into a large, multicultural and adopted family: five children cared for by a single Mother, though Yao had spent the vast majority of his teenage years caring for his brothers and sister alongside his Mum. Kiku tried to help from time to time, but mostly the boy kept to himself.
Yao's mother had divorced her husband – Yao's father - before Yao could remember. Shortly afterwards, Kiku appeared, and Yao, in the blissful innocence of youth, had remained unquestioning. It was about this time that his father had started sending threatening emails, texts and letters. Once, the man had come to their house and Yao had spent a terrifying evening huddled with his hands over baby Kiku's ears to block out the shouting and eventual cries of pain from his mother, though for that, he had to sacrifice his own self to hearing those sounds. When the noise finally died down, and Yao had nursed the babe in his arms to sleep, he had crept into the kitchen where he found his mother lying softly sobbing into the ground, too weak to look up at his footsteps. Only eight at the time, he had froze to the spot.
"Walk away from that woman, Yao. You are better off with me, she still has her wōkòu (1) bastard child." Swivelling at the sound, the boy flinched at the insane slur in his father's voice. He dared to shake his head slightly, and took a small step back from the looming figure at the door. From the bedroom down the hall of their apartment, the plaintive cries of Kiku echoed the screaming in Yao's own head.
His father snarled at the noise, and jerked like a puppet with cut strings. Lip curled showing his teeth the man wordlessly left Yao and strode ahead to where the baby despaired. Yao didn't know what to do, but when the young boy thought about the glint in his father's eyes, he knew that man was no longer his father. Superstitious by nature, Yao was convinced that an evil spirit had possessed his father's soul, and in reality he wasn't far off. He had looked for a weapon, and in the midst of panic, grabbed an old heavy wok his mother kept for a reason beyond his grasp.
The hallway was dark, but he saw the darker shadow of his father disappearing through the door. The baby's cries stopped, and Yao sobbed in confusion. Every part of him urged him to shun any belief that the events that were happening right before his eyes were true, but the boy was logical and could simply not refuse reality. Before he could control his actions, he had swung the heavy object at his father's head, and the large man's knees buckled beneath his mass. Yao saw blood. Yao saw the still figure of his own father lying there, right in front of him, on the ground. Yao ran out of tears.
In a daze, he moved around the man, and gathered Kiku in his arms. The baby was unharmed; like his brother, the babe had forgotten how to cry in his fright, and made do with pathetic snuffles, curling into Yao's chest in an act of affection Yao had never received from his baby brother before. The eight year old seemed to have aged years. His father at his feet was not dead, but he most certainly was not well, and Yao's mother was in the kitchen, bruised and broken, lying on the floor like a discarded toy. The darkening sun was more than half way beneath the horizon, the houses and apartments and smog air of the city dimming the light further.
In the unnatural silence of the house, Yao's socked footsteps could be heard making their way down the wooden hallway, kneeling down beside the woman who had once been so strong. From that day, Yao knew just how breakable humans were, seeing his mother physically helpless, and his father's mental state like a ghost. He lost the naïvety of childhood too soon and his mother, stumbling dazed from the building that had once been their home - penniless and possessionless, only having each other - wondered how her son could be so strong.
The woman now, almost ten years later, was glowing in her skin. For years they had lived a hard life, and Wang Weici supposed that some of it was her own fault, showing charity even in the toughest of times, but for her it had payed of. For the first time in her life, she had a stable family and a job she adored. She could afford to buy her children small luxuries and all necessities, and could enjoy bringing them up without fear for her, or their, safety.
Weici was an author. It was one of the only things she excelled at, and had at first barely scraped by a living working two jobs and publishing under appreciated stories, but had gained popularity, slowly but surely. And now here she was, praised and humble, eating with her children in a restaurant she would not even been able to work in before, an invited guest now.
Yao returned to the table fifteen minuets after he'd left. Though Weici trusted her son and rationalised that there was only so much danger to be found in a restaurant toilets, she had been beginning to worry about his extended absence. Eventually, even the children had become shifty; they had viewed their older brother as a near parental figure for years, and the habit was tough to break. The innocent banter had increased until Mei and Yong Soo had started to get pushy. Jia Long had retreated to his music, resting his chin on his hands as he emotionlessly observed his squabbling siblings, while Kiku, sitting next to their mother, continued to cut tiny portions of his food and eat slowly.
Weici didn't know whether she was pleased at the bond that had been formed between her eldest and the others, or saddened by the bizarre and complicated emotional web that interconnected the family. It at least kept life interesting.
"I'm sorry to have kept you all waiting so long," Yao bowed before humbly taking his seat, "I met someone who was upset and had to make sure he was alright."
"It's no problem, Yao, did you get it sorted in the end?"
"Yes, he-"
"Yao, tell Yong Soo to take what he said about about Taiwan back. It's not true!" Mae pouted, sneakily elbowing the Korean at an angle she though Yao would miss. Ever observant, her older brother turned a blind eye.
Crossing his arms, he turned to Yong Soo. "What have you been saying? You know we don't behave like that in this family. We respect each other."
"She was sitting too close and taking all the space." Yong Soo glowered. "It's not her fault; it's just her culture." That rekindled the young girl's anger, and she turned on him again with fresh force.
"Stop this now!" Yao hissed, and despite the quietness of his words, the commotion caused by their squabbles ceased almost immediately. At times, their older brother possessed quite a talent at controlling his siblings which was helped by the fact that – although they were not hasty to show it – each child respected and loved their brother like the father none had had. "Good, we were disturbing people.
"I don't want to hear any more use of these stereotypes. Believe it or not, we are a family, and we treat each other with love, not hate. You shouldn't sink that low, Yong Soo. And Mei," his eyes regarded her, unlucky to not have gone unnoticed, "respecting each other also means making sure we don't upset each other. Although what your brother said was wrong, you also upset him as well. Am I understood?"
Both children nodded solemnly, eyes pointed towards their laps. "Look at me," Yao ordered. Two pairs of teary eyes glanced at their brother. "Am I understood?" He repeated, this time with a smile, and spice in his voice; a treaty of peace in the way his eyes barely crinkled in mirth.
"Yes, brother," they chorused, their moods perking up immediately, like it was only their brother's disapproval that had dampened the atmosphere.
The eldest son, pleased that the issue was resolved, leaned back in his chair, eyes darting around the room in search of the odd boy he had encountered earlier. Through herds of stiff, unnaturally formal families and stiff, naturally formal business commutes, he finally pinpointed the table at the other side of the restaurant, and had to consciously suppress a laugh. It was like Ivan's own family was the opposite to his, both to look at and collectively behold. Contrasting to the dark heads of hair his own family possessed, Ivan's had hair like ice, like it had become victim to the early morning frosts that took place in winter. This seemed backed up by the way they acted: two tight shouldered adults sat at one side of the table while their offspring flared around the other. It was like the smartly-dressed couple were making an effort to separate themselves from the youths. Despite this, they appeared to sport six children, including Ivan, whose backs were strait and hair neat. Cold seemed a fitting way to describe the family; frosty? Perfect.
Ivan was teetering on the edge of conversation, apparently content with keeping to himself. Yao noted how the large teenager had pushed his chair back, distancing himself from social expectation, and was sitting apart from the frosty haired girls. Between them, like a barrier, were three teenagers who were unlike their beige-haired counterparts, and it only occurred to Yao now that they did not look like part of the family. Pursing his lips, he considered this for a few moments, before back-handedly shrugging the issue away. That wasn't of matter in the present.
What was bothering Yao was the inexplicable sense that he was drawn to one Russian in particular. He had only interacted with Ivan for a few minuets, five at most, yet such raw emotion had been exchanged between the two in rather odd circumstances. Ivan confused Yao. He wasn't like the people at school. He didn't comply with society's rules and the pages to his soul were locked tightly, secured for nobody to see. This still didn't answer why Yao urged to know more.
Finally, the one-sided tension grew too much for Yao to bear. His mother and siblings had finished the meal, and Yong Soo was a clammer for dessert, while Mei nodded her support. A plate of half-finished delicacy sat in front of Yao, but he dismissed his mother's fussing comments, claiming that he was full, that he was fine. Yao wished he could be stronger, but once already that night had he been forced to eat and solve that problem. The boy didn't know whether he could bear to go through that again.
As the evening grew old, the teen's thoughts were preoccupied by the nagging sense that he should be doing something, though what exactly he wasn't sure. Dazedly, he still managed to interact as expected, though his mother noticed the slight change in her son's attitude; the small gaps in his barrier. In the hour it took for the younger ones to complete dessert, the woman had followed the gaze of Yao to one place in particular. She was sure she must be mistaken, but the woman would swear that his eye was caught by one person in particular. Sighing, she placed down her fork. Yao's eyes never left the Russian boy with icy hair and breath that condensed even in the warmth of the room.
(1) wōkòu: According to my research, this is a derogatory term used against Japanese people in China. It originally referred to Japanese pirated who raided Chinese coastlines. The term was adopted during the second Sino-Japanese war to refer to the invading Japanese forces. It is now used when referring to Japanese people in a very negative context. It is a slur and probably offensive, so don't go round saying it. (Source: Wikipedia)