You'll witness a premiere. Tyson's point of view! Not sure if you noticed but I do actually have some sort of pattern in this. It's always: Max POV –someone else's POV- Max POV –someone else's POV- etc.

It took me ages and a couple of drafts to decide on a POV for this chapter. I had written a few pages in Hiro's but figured that it was a bit to rushed and didn't fit the mood yet/anymore. So here's Tyson's.

x-x

I'll tell you something. Growing up sucks big time! Big-Time! Not necessarily because you yourself change (to be honest, I don't think that I personally changed that much) but because the people around you do, and it sucks. Let's take my friend Maxie for example. He used to cling to me and wanted to spend every single day with me, but suddenly, whenever I invite him over, he declines and claims that he has plans. Seriously, there is no need for him to go to the dentist that often. And also, he started chatting with that weird Russian fella during Polynomics. Back a year ago, we both would avoid these kind of people. Those that are obviously druggies and up to no good! And Kai is one of those. Rei figured it out from beginning on, and Rei is smart, so I'll follow him blindly on that one (which is what Max should do as well, if he would want to continue to stay out of trouble). Actually, come to think of it, it is Kai that is messing up my private life. Hiro has been different ever since he's been hanging out with him. Gramps says he's more confident but I'd rather call it cocky. They met during detention! Like seriously, that's ground to failure! Like, -their relationship is built on failure!
Rei has changed as well, actually. He's more quiet and reserved, and somewhat tense. I think the fact that his Visa is running out soon is really stressing him out. Hell, it is stressing me out! Rei is personified wisdom and one of my best friends (the other one being Maxie). Without his guidance, Maxie and I will be lost and probably get stupid ideas (I'm especially worried about Maxie! Ever since he's been chatting with that rookie Kai, he's more prone to 'drop-out-of-school-and-become-a-junkie Syndrome'). Max is actually the oldest one of our little group, but he doesn't look it or act it. He's this innocent little angel that is being corrupted by the 'king of the street gangs' Kai. It's pretty obvious that Kai is a bad guy. You only need to look at the way he dresses. It is beyond eccentric. -And he dies his hair. I don't want to be superficial, but what proper young adult would purposely dress in that attire when he knows that people are going to be judgemental.
Another reason why I don't like him is that he never seems intimidated when I stare at him with my 'death glare'.
Arrogant bastard! My death glare has gotten really good over the years. He could at least pretend to be affected by it!
'Hey kiddo, I'm going out!' that's Hiro speaking.
Lot's of people my age would hate to be called 'kiddo', but I like it. Reminds me of back when things were good and enjoyable.
'Where to?' I ask him.
And like so often lately, his answer is: 'to meet up with Kai'. How typical! Well, I ought to say, one good thing on Kai's part is that he appears to have an interest in meeting up with my brother. Unlike my friends. Rei can only come over for an hour max since he needs to study. And Maxie hasn't met with me (or Rei for that matter) since the time two weeks ago when we watched Spongebob together. The day after he started wearing armguards to school (yes I did notice). He pretends to pass it on as a fashion statement but it seems somewhat strange to me, as if he's trying to hide something. But I don't mention it and simply continue to act like Tyson the happy-chappy dork everyday. I'm afraid, that if my friends were to notice that I might as well have changed, our trio might split up for good. Also, it would make it all more real. All those ways in which we've changed. I hate change! I truly hate it. Why can't everything just stay the same. That's why I pretend it is. Out of sight out of mind! I just wish that my friends would put the same amount of effort into pretending as I do.
There is an extended weekend. For the first time in my life (apart from when I was an infant of course), I end up doing nothing. Well, I do hang in front of the TV watching the 'Malcolm in the middle' marathon eating take-away but I no longer count that as doing something since it doesn't require personality or passion, or in general, any effort on my side. I don't learn from it, I don't profit from it, I'm actually not even that entertained by it. The highlight of the days pretty much include watching Hiro enter and leave the house to meet with Kai. It used to be the other way around. Hiro would watch me leave (to meet up with Max and Rei of course, not with Kai). Gramps says that Hiro appears to be happier lately. I considered it to have something to do with drug abuse and suggested that Gramps should get Hiro's urine tested for weed, however Gramps just laughed it off and started telling a story about that scary flower power time in connection with his youth. I couldn't get out of it if Gramps truly encouraged drug use or if he simply didn't want to get in contact with Hiro's pee.
I know this sounds crazy, but on the Tuesday I was damn happy for school to start again. At least I could go on with my pretending and get that nostalgic feeling of happiness back.
I saw Maxie sitting on his chair, the arms crossed on the table and the head sunken on them. He had a slightly spaced out look in his eyes, not seeming to pay attention to anything surrounding him.
'Hello Max, how was your weekend, what did you do?' I asked with a high pitch overly excited voice.
That question used to be redundant since we would always spend every minute of our weekends together. And even if not, we would have discussed every single detail of what the other would do beforehand.
Maxie scratched his head and gave me a wide grin. I noticed that he was once again wearing his armguards, they would peak out when the sleeves of his hoodie would slide down. However I once again didn't address the matter. I needed to continue to pretend.
'I didn't really do much on my weekend, it was quite boring actually. How about you?'

'Yea, me neither.' I told him.
'We should have called each other up and met. Sorry, I didn't think of it earlier. You know, my memory is a bit silly sometimes.'
Of course he was lying, I knew he would have called me if he would have had any interest in doing so, but I didn't get into it anymore. Instead I grinned at him and started to re-enact an episode of 'Malcolm in the Middle' that I had seen.
And he pretended to listen.
Soon, Rei walked into the classroom and called me immature, as always. The three of us were laughing together. It was like back in the good old days.
Of course, that feeling didn't last forever, during lunchtime, Maxie announced that he had detention for some reason and left. I figured that he was lying. We were pretty much in all the same classes, if he would've gotten detention, I would have known. Rei realized as well, he started discussing some idea that Maxie had gone to detention voluntarily just to see Kai. I figured he had gone there, just to avoid us, instead. I contemplated if I should discuss the matter that Max had changed lately with Rei. He was wise. But I figured that Rei hadn't quite realized. Rei was the type that would announce such a thing as soon as he got the thought, and he wouldn't hold back in Maxie's presence either. For the same reason I didn't either mention the armguards. I was afraid that Rei would immediately jump into action, causing Maxie to reveal whatever he was hiding and hence destroying that pretended balance between us. I know this was a very selfish reason, but as a matter of fact, I'm just a human. I do possess a quite healthy ego that keeps things working the way I like them. I know it's not the proper thing to do, but it was necessary for my happiness to prevail.

xxx

My ego controlled me for another week, until one afternoon I got quite a revolutionary drive and in the passion of the moment decided to go to Max place and to address him concerning his armguards, which, no doubt, concealed some sort of self injury. I was wondering what had caused him to hurt himself in the first place and then I realised that the reasoning behind him cutting himself might cause him to do even more outrageous things. And in that moment, I was scared shitless about my friend. I was running up the road to his place. He certainly didn't live far from me, only a couple of minutes away, which in some ironic symbolism dramatised the fact that we were physically so close but mentally so far apart. The door to his house was open. I rang the doorbell out of politeness but nobody appeared. In that moment I felt my blood freezing. He wouldn't leave the door open if no one was home would he? Which meant that he a) didn't want to open the door or b) was unable to. The second option was what caused me to panic and storm into his house, right into the living room.
And there he was.
But not motionless in a pool of blood. No instead he was lying on the Sofa in Kai's arms. And yes, they were kissing. Like, not just, discrete on the cheek or something like that. No, full frontal with loads of moaning and groping and tongue and saliva and oh-my-gosh, Max wasn't wearing a shirt!
It was like watching some old seventies porno.
It didn't seem like they had noticed me, so I, feeling suddenly very bad for intruding on Max' privacy, quietly made some backwards steps and then stormed out of the house.
Holy crap!
Maxie was gay?
What the hell?
Maxie was gay… with Kai?
What the fuck?
I collapsed on a street corner, angling my knees and placing my arms on top of them. This was so surreal. There were always those friends of a friend who knew someone who was gay. In the same way friends of a friend knew someone with lupus or friends of a friend knew someone who had won in the lottery.
But Maxie being gay. That was just… strange.
I didn't know how to react to it. Like, if I was supposed to be grossed out or not mind. Hell, I have never thought about that kind of stuff, it just didn't seem like something to worry about. Like a terrorist attack. You don't tend to worry about being blown up by a terrorist bomb randomly because it's so unlikely to happen. In the same way I found it unlikely that either one of my best friends would be gay. Gahh, what should I do about it? I contemplated if I should ask Hiro for advice but then I figures that Hiro probably would have even less of a clue about what to do. And Rei would immediately confront Max concerning the matter. So instead I did the typical teenage thing that seemed the most productive to me: I googled it.
It came up with some weird sites for parents. How to accept that your son is gay. Hmm, that might be useful for me too, I thought. However it didn't turn out to be that useful. Instead it was a paragraph on 'he is your flesh', 'he has your DNA', 'your child is the most valuable gift you possess'. I decided to try out the next link, which however turned out to be gay porn. Gay porn with a very loud soundtrack!
'Eww!' I squeaked and moved the mouse towards the backwards arrow to exit the page. Unluckily for me, in that moment the door opened.
'Hey Tyson, dinner's read... oh wow!'
That was Hiro. Yes Hiro had popped his head into the room during the exact moment that my computer monitor was filled with the graphic images of a gay porn movie.
'Ahhh!' I screamed, and quickly closed the tab. Not like it made any difference, he had already seen enough to make an educated assumption.
'Wow, Tyson, I would have never guessed, not like I mind...'
'Ahhh!' I yelled to stop him from continuing to talk. 'It's not like that.'
That however, didn't stop him. He walked up to me and gave me a solid hug.
'Don't worry Tyson, I won't shun you. I'll support whatever lifestyle you'll chose. It's okay to be gay.' he ensured me.
'No, no, no this is a misunderstanding.'
'Don't be afraid to confess it, I myself have been a bit experimental in that direction as well...'
Excuse me, what?
'Hiro, you're gay?'
'I wouldn't say that I am entirely gay, but I sure am curious. So how about you Ty, is there a specific guy you have set sight on?
I ripped free from his hug. 'I'm not gay.' I stated in a confident voice.
'What do you mean?' Hiro asked in surprise.
'I was looking up porn and suddenly that site popped up. I didn't mean to look at gay porn. There was no intention. I am not gay.'
Hiro suddenly got all pale. 'Oh, well in that case, just ignore whatever I just said.'
Then he rushed out of the room.
Oh great, so in the passage of one hour, I found out that my best friend is gay, dating the school rebel and that my brother is somewhat bi-curious.
The following fifteen minutes at the dinner table composed the most awkward dinner of my life.

xxx

After dinner, Hiro quickly left, claiming he wanted to meet up with Kai. I decided that I needed to clear my mind of all the strangeness going on at the moment and ended up watching an episode of 'Ally McBeal -single female lawyer' with my grandfather (yes, he watches that kind of stuff) until suddenly the door bell started ringing.
'I'll take it.' I announced.
Happy to be relieved of the self-inflicted punishment of watching a soap about a single female lawyer I jerked up and slowly walked to the door (you need to savour the time when not watching!). Once I opened the door I came face to face with one of the last people in this world that I wanted to be confronted with in that very moment.
'Good evening Tyson.'
'Hrmph, hello Kai.' I mumbled.
'Is your brother there?'
'He actually went off to meet you about fifteen minutes ago.'
However, unlike me, Kai wasn't confused about that. I figured that Hiro probably didn't intend to meet him in the first place, or else they would have encountered each other. Hiro had probably used Kai as an excuse to go somewhere else, and judging from Kai's smirk, that guy knew exactly what was going on.
'Oh hello there K-man, come on in old chap!' my grandpa yelled. Apparently the ads where on so he had focused his attention off the screen and realised that Kai was standing at the door.
Kai declined the invitation with surprising politeness:
'Good evening sir, thank you for your invitation, it is very kind of you, but I'm fine.'
'Oh, don't make such a big deal out of it, you just walked here didn't you? At least have a drink!'
Kai thanked him once again and then walked inside.
Oh great! He was one of the last people I wanted to see at the moment, and certainly one of the last people I wanted to have standing in the house. Whenever I looked at him, I had that disturbing mental image of him and Max in my mind. I couldn't help but wonder why gramps appeared to be on such good terms with some random street punk. Actually, come to think of it, he didn't look that much like a social reject in that moment. I studied his outfit with my eyes. He actually looked quite normal. Blue Jeans, with a dress shirt under a brown jumper and neatly brushed hair. He wasn't wearing that war paint or weird scarf of his. He looked normal, simple as that.
'So Kai, any change of plans or do you still plan to do that nursery class in community college next year?' Gramps asked him while handing him a glass of coke (damn, Gramps, never allowed me to drink coke after dinner).
Wait, nursery class? Kai and nursery class, that ought to be a joke. I could so not imagine him helping sick people.
'I still plan on doing it.'
Okay, this was so strange. Kai as a nurse, that was quite a funny mental image.
'And you really want to work in that mental asylum?'
'Yes. I got some connections, so I am likely to get a job there once I'm done with community college.'
So he wanted to work in a mental institution. Okay, that was slightly less gay.
'Too bad that you cannot become a proper psychiatrist, if that's really what you want to do.' Gramps mumbled. 'It's a pity.'
'It is, but Universities are too expensive in this country, I cannot afford it. And I won't ask my grandfather for money. I suppose I will just have to hold back my personal aspirations now that I'm not just responsible for myself.'
'Why can't you ask your grandpa?' I wanted to know. I didn't mean to get involved in the discussion between him and my gramps but that statement had made me curious.
'He would not give me any.' Kai stated. 'He is very different to your grandfather, Tyson. Besides, I wouldn't want to get any further involved with him.
'Does he have money problems?' I know that was a very personal question, but it somehow slipped my tongue.
'Yes.' Kai replied. 'He's a millionaire.'
I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. Being a millionaire certainly wouldn't give you money problems, however Kai had said it with such sincerity. Seeing that I didn't really understand what he meant, he turned back to me and explained.
'Money destroys people's minds. Makes them corrupt. Too much money, gives you power and power can drive you insane.'
Wait, that meant that Kai was rich. Or at least his family was. I had always thought him to be from poor circumstances but his grandfather was a millionaire! Suddenly my perception of the youth delinquent street punk Kai changed by 180 degrees. Suddenly, he had gone from being a fixed stereotype to being some sort of enigmatic character.
Gramps continued the conversation.
'You said you expected him to have a mental disorder.'
Kai nodded. 'It is likely, I'm not a doctor, but judging from the history of paranoid schizophrenia in my family, it is certainly very plausible.'
Once again, I intruded in the conversation. 'You have a history of schizophrenia in your family?'
Kai sunk his head and avoided my look for a second.
'Yes, on both sides of my family. A cousin, an uncle, and both my parents.'
'Oh wow, are they like, in a mental hospital or something?'
'Everyone is, apart from my mother. She couldn't handle it anymore.'
'What do you mean by that?' Once I had formed the question I could see my grandfather violently shaking his head behind Kai. Oh crap, did that mean I was intruding on a touchy topic. However, Kai explained the case to me either way.
'She killed herself. Ran in front of a car, her doctor suggested that she might have thought that she was being chased. I don't think so.'
Oh, this was a bit intimate. I'm amazed he told me. He was usually very reserved and didn't actually speak much, not with anyone.
'I'm sorry.'
'Don't worry about it. The medication for schizophrenia numbs emotions and feelings. It is hard to get close to someone if there is no interest or care being reflected from the other. And it is hard to truly miss that kind of person, too.'
His voice was bitter, but once again sincere. I still didn't understand why he would confide in me. I was known to be noisy and loud mouthed. Why would he entrust me all that personal information? I noticed how he was shifting his weight from one leg to another, as if he were nervous about something.
'It's time, I need to go.' he informed us.
We spoke our good byes, Gramps opened the door for him and he wandered off, outside. He didn't even reach the end of our front yard when I announced that I would walk him home, which was met with great astonishment from Gramps and a nonchalant nod from Kai.

xxx

We walked next to each other for about five minutes, when to my surprise, Kai was the one to break the silence.
'So what did you want to talk to me about?'
So he figured out that I had a reason to follow him.
'Why did you confine in me? Figures that all you said was quite personal, so why would you trust me with it?'
His still expression turned into a faint but honest smile.
'Your Grandfather is a very wise man. He wouldn't have addressed those topics in your presence if he would have expected you to spoil them to the entire school tomorrow. I think your Grandfather intended to do me a favour. He knows you're not fond of me and probably figured that you would change your perception of me if you were to know more. I have to confess, I did act out of self profit by telling you.'
He did succeed by doing so, dammit! The way I viewed Kai had changed. I knew his story was quite dramatic, he had gone through a lot, but what struck me was his sincerity. It was like a direct contrast to my lifestyle of pretence.
'Do you have any other questions?'
I nodded. 'Where's Hiro? You know, don't you?'
'I do.'
'And...' I let it hang in the air like a question.
'I won't tell you.'
What? Why not? Judging from Kai's reply, I couldn't help but guessing that Hiro was up to something bad.
'It's nothing to worry about.' he ensured me. 'It's just something he doesn't want you to know about. Your brother is one of the only people I feel a loyalty towards, so you don't need to bother begging me for information, I won't tell.'
His voice was very calm and genuine. He had turned out to be so different from what I had expected him to be like. I wanted to ask him why he put on a mask at school, obviously displaying himself in a very fake way, but there was an answer to another question that I was burning to know.
'Do you love Maxie?'
He stopped walking and looked straight at me with a perplexed expression.
'I saw you two today. I wanted to go see Maxie, the door was open, I was worried. Then I saw you together.' I confessed.
He didn't reply for a while, instead he just stared at me as if he were trying to study my face.
'No.' he then said.
'No?' I asked in surprise.
'I don't love him.'
I was in rage. Was he just using Max?
'Max knows, he feels the same.' Kai stated bluntly.
But then... 'Why would you be a couple?'
'We're not, we're just together, in a sense. Love is neither the base nor a requirement for a relationship, and it is more enjoyable without it. Sometime you'll understand Tyson.'
I did understand that 'love' wasn't necessarily needed, take High School Couples, it was obvious that not all feelings were sincere, but I didn't understand why it would be more enjoyable without. Didn't they always say that a relationship was the best when in love? -At least in movies they did.
We had continued walking, and kept mostly quiet, until we reached a large apartment building.
'This is where I live. Thanks for the company.'
I laughed. 'Nuh, it was fine, I don't mind walking.'
But Kai didn't laugh or smile for that matter, his expression was serious again. 'I have a favour to ask you. Don't tell anyone about Max and I. Especially not Hiro.'
Seems like I found out about a topic he wouldn't want to trust me about after all.
'Okay. I'll keep it a secret. But Kai, I have one more question.'
He made a 'hm' sound for which I took the freedom of translating it into 'go ahead'.
'You mentioned that Paranoid Schizophrenia is a genetic disease. Does that mean that you are likely to get it?'
'Yes, I am very much at risk.'
'Are you scared about getting it?'
He sunk his head and avoided my stare. 'I am. Very.'

xxx

'Toot...-toot...-toot...-Hello, Kon residence, this is Rei on the phone.'
-'Hello Rei, this is Tyson. I wanted to talk to you about something quite serious.'
'Serious? Ty, 'serious' doesn't really fit your personality.'
-'It's about Maxie, I don't think you've noticed, but for the last couple of weeks he's been wearing those armguards, as if he's hiding something. I'm worried. I think we should confront him about it.'