Sorry for the short chapter! You could probably just think of it as 45 ½ haha.
I've still been in a bit of a funk with writing but I'm hoping to gradually come out of it, maybe it's that I'm running low on ideas, maybe it's that I'm not yet ready to admit that I need to wrap this story up pretty soon… either way I'll always come back for more. I'm even thinking about potentially making a sequel set in the future depending on how I end up ending this one (I have a few different ideas but haven't set anything in stone yet regarding an ending).
Thank you for those who are continuing to follow and thank you to those who have been reviewing! It always makes my day when I get a new notification for this fic and I love reading your reviews, both positive and negative. You guys help me be a better writer.
Alas, enjoy Chapter 46!
Ruffling Riku's hair, I pulled myself to my feet fast enough to make myself lightheaded as I wondered to myself why Wyatt hadn't called or texted me in order to say he was coming over. Either way, I didn't care. I had missed him too much to care.
Walking quickly into the living room, I was suddenly caught off guard, now stopping in my tracks as I attempted to come up with some sort of coherent sentence whatsoever, or even so much as a single word of explanation, as, instead of Wyatt, Tyson stood in front of me with a raised eyebrow, face attempting rather unsuccessfully to hide his currant annoyance with me.
After all, I had been ignoring him all week.
Now looking like a little kid with my hand caught in the cookie jar, I averted all eye contact, crossing my arms to my chest and keeping my gaze down as much as I could. I couldn't hide anymore.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"I asked Wyatt for your address… seeing as no one has heard from you in a week I needed some sort of proof that you're still alive, don't you think?"
His voice sounded hurt, offended that I had spent so long avoiding reaching out. My shame stopped me from responding to the statement as I stood in some sort of mute trance, childhood shyness coming back to me as though I was being stared down by my grandfather once more.
"I'm fine." I mumbled. "I don't need a babysitter."
"I'll leave you two alone." My father managed to say with a sigh, clearly unsure as of what to do with the strange teenage drama that seemed to follow me around. Touching a hand to my shoulder, he gave a small squeeze before walking away, leaving my fate undecided.
"You can't hide from the world forever." Tyson said.
I think he expected me to give some sort of sardonic answer, waiting impatiently for me to speak up. He was right, though… eventually I would need to face the media attention, not that I cared much about that anymore, it didn't matter.
Eventually I would need to face everyone I had wronged…
"You talked to Wyatt?" I eventually let out, unsure if I was saying it in the form of a question or a statement. "What did he say?"
I felt like a school girl asking about a boy she had a crush on… I didn't have a crush on him, though. I loved him.
"I just asked if he knew how to get a hold of you." Tyson shrugged. He took in his surroundings with caution, suddenly seeming to realize that he was in the home I was now being forced to live in; seeing a part of my life that not even Wyatt had a front door view to. "It's weird to think that I've never actually met your family before."
"Yeah, well… up until six months ago, neither had I."
"I never really saw you as someone to live in a suburb."
"I didn't really get a say in the matter."
"You would have complained no matter what they gave you, you're kind of a brat that way."
I glared at him, expecting to once again find the cheeky little grin that filled his face when he went out of his way to smack talk me. Instead he simply continued to look around, face blank and unsure.
"You shouldn't have come here..." I sighed. The awkwardness of this entire situation had made itself known and even Tyson seemed unable to ignore the current tension that surrounded us, thick enough to be cut with a knife.
"What happened to you?" He asked. "You aren't the person you were last year."
"Tyson-"
"Are you on something? Should I be giving you an intervention? A drug test? I feel like you're either drunk or high half the time I see you and you smell like an ash tray. I can't even tell you when the last time I actually saw you able to focus on anything." He put his head down slightly. "I feel like I don't even know you anymore."
Stepping back slightly, I still refused to look at him and unable to come up with any form of coherent sentence that could explain exactly what it was I wanted to say. I wanted him to leave, to forget me, to hate me the same way everyone else I had wronged did. I wasn't deserving of anyone's time, friendship or patience. I was broken and I couldn't be fixed.
"You can come in." I said after a brief silence, ignoring the part where he was already technically in the house. It didn't seem to matter, he followed me either way without a sarcastic comment thrown in my direction.
Leading him into my bedroom I was caught slightly off guard by Riku still sitting on my bed, eyes wide in confusion and childlike wonder.
"I'm gonna need some privacy for a little bit, Riku." I stated calmly, "Can you go play somewhere else?"
He was looking at Tyson with a clear interest, likely recognizing him from last years tournament.
"What's your name again?" He asked him.
"Tyson. I'm Kai's teammate, I don't believe we've met."
He smiled at him, lowering himself to Riku's height and speaking to him in a childish manner that one would normally reserve for a toddler.
"Riku." He answered in what sounded like mild annoyance.
"He's my brother." I chimed in. "Half brother, he's my dad's son."
"I can tell." Tyson smirked. "He resembles you."
"Are you gay?" Riku asked, clearly not even remotely understanding what was and wasn't considered a socially acceptable question.
Tyson and I both blushed, now looking at one another before I brought the palm of my hand to my face in utter humiliation.
"Riku, you can't just ask people that."
His eyes didn't leave Tyson's as he continued sitting while ignoring anything I said to him at the current moment.
"Kai-Nii is gay. That means he kisses boys."
"Please stop talking..."
"Also, sex isn't really a bad word."
I picked him up like a sack of potatoes, carrying him under my arm and quickly removing him from my bedroom and into the hallway.
"Go watch TV." I said before closing the door behind me.
I turned back around to Tyson smirking at me for the first time since he got here, causing me to hope that maybe some of the tension had been lifted and that he would forget about everything that was currently happening in my life. I didn't want to talk about it with him.
"He's actually your sibling, right?" He joked. "You didn't knock someone up too, did you?"
"I wouldn't have even been ten when Riku was born." I informed him, the sullen reminder that my father hadn't even waited two years to replace me now rearing it's ugly head.
"I was joking."
I sat down next to him, curling up into myself once again and hoping that maybe he would just take the hint and leave. I couldn't do this right now.
"Why are you here?" I asked quietly.
"Because you seem to be the only person who doesn't realize that you need help."
"I don't need anyone."
"You're depressed. It's not hard to see it."
I thought back to the paper that my psychiatrist had given me the last time I spoke to her, right around the time we decided that therapy was not beneficial to my needs. I had agreed to allow her to diagnose me for my medical records, even if the labels didn't mean anything.
"Things would be easier if I were depressed." I mumbled.
"Meaning?"
"My official diagnosis isn't depression."
"I honestly didn't know you had an official diagnosis."
I wasn't sure why I was allowing myself to open up to him like this… I didn't even really believe in psychology. How hard could it be to throw some terminology onto a sheet of paper and then receive your paycheck? There was no reason for me to believe anything that I had been told.
"Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." I stated. "And general anxiety."
My medical forms explained it in greater detail, going into my history of dissociative amnesia and panic attacks, but at the end of the day it was no more than some dumb medical name used to describe kids like me… the ones who the system had failed a long time ago. Who my father had failed.
"PTSD?" Tyson asked.
"A form of it, I guess. I don't really understand what it means."
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"I'm not required to tell you everything."
"What happened to you?"
My mind went back to Wyatt, laying with him in my dorm room bed where he had asked me the same question, back when I was too closed off to answer it. Was I still like that?
"You already know what happened to me." I reminded him. He had seen The Abbey first hand, he knew what had happened to us under Boris' watch. He knew my grandfather had played a role in my mothers disappearance and murder, even if I had never outright said it.
"There's more to it, though." He continued. "Right? You've changed a lot in the past year… you've gotten worse."
"It's just hormones."
"You've been getting drunk."
"It's boarding school, everyone is always drunk."
"And the drugs?"
"Just pot." I looked at him, his eyebrow raised in a way that made it clear he didn't believe me. "Taking Molly was a one time thing. I don't plan on doing it again."
"But you did do it."
"I was stupid. I shouldn't have done it, if I hadn't I wouldn't be in this situation." I wasn't entirely sure that was true… being sober didn't stop me from wanting to suck his dick, but it may have prevented me from doing it in a club bathroom. "I'm a fucking idiot. I ruined my reputation and I ruined my relationship."
"What are you going on about?"
"Wyatt hates me."
An eerie silence filled the room, only covered by the noises my family made from within the house, no more than white noise to my over analyzing mind.
"I'm gonna be honest, Kai… I highly doubt that."
"He isn't speaking to me right now. He's been ignoring me."
"Gee, I can't even imagine what that feels like."
Tyson's sarcasm wasn't lost to me, but it didn't change the fact that he didn't truly understand.
"It's not the same. He's not my teammate."
"He's your friend, which apparently isn't what you see the rest of us as."
"He's my boyfriend."
"It's kinda funny that you think I'm the one who doesn't understand right now when you're the one who's missing the point entirely." He frowned at me, appearing as though he was struggling to hold himself back. "Do you really not get that we care about you?"
"I'm not saying you guys aren't my friends, it's just-"
"Kai, will you just shut up?"
His tone caught me off guard, no longer attempting to hide the anger he currently had for me. It was rare to see Tyson angry, he was a naturally emotional person and he didn't hide that, but anger was not commonly found in the center of that.
"I-"
"Do you ever just take a moment to think about others? Do any of our feelings mean jack shit to you?" He was glaring at me harshly, fists balled up and shaking. "How can you possibly be this selfish? Would I be here right now if I didn't care? Would I be trying to call you three times a day if I didn't give a shit about you? You act like you have no friends and no one who cares when you're the one who doesn't give a shit about any of us."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it? You claim that Wyatt must hate you based on the fact that he needs a damn break from you, a break that I don't fucking blame him for taking, yet when you do the exact same thing to the rest of us we're just supposed to sit back and not take it personally? I understand that you've been through a lot with him, but what about us? Did nothing that happened last year mean anything to you? Do we mean anything to you?"
He was crying, something that wasn't unusual to see once his emotions got the better of him, not that the fact made me feel less guilty.
I wasn't sure how I was supposed to respond to his outburst, currently wishing that I could shrink myself down and hide like I did when I was a kid, shoved in between the tight walls of near joined buildings and cathedrals.
He was right… I had always known it, but no one had ever had the balls to actually say it to my face. Now that he had I was no longer sure I could handle hearing it out loud.
I was a terrible friend…
Hiding my face in my knees, I began to sob uncontrollably, gasping for air that I struggled to take in.
What was it about Tyson that made me feel comfortable crying in front of him? What was it about the past year that made me suddenly able to cry? It was something I never used to do.
Until them.
Until I made my first real friends…
They were the ones who broke down the wall that I had built, they were the reason I had been able to allow Wyatt into my life in the first place. They had broken through to the real me, even if I spent the last year in complete denial of it.
After everything I had done to hurt them, from betraying their trust to making my way back to my abuser, it never stopped them from taking me back in. I had done everything in my power to push them away and yet they always came back, able to see who I was underneath all of the anger. Even now as I sat here unable to stop crying, I still had someone who cared.
Tyson wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into him tightly and not letting go. He didn't mock me for crying, or yell at me for all of the pain I had caused him as I sat here and continued to allow myself to play the victim card that I didn't deserve. Instead he let me get the emotions out, head rested on his chest the way I had always done with Wyatt.
My feelings regarding Tyson might not have been romantic, but none the less, they existed. I found comfort in his presence and safe in his grasp, like an older brother who I never had.
"I'm sorry..." I mumbled.
He didn't respond, and I hadn't expected him to. To immediately forgive me for everything I had done would have been foolish on his part, but he didn't need to forgive me in order to show me that he was there.
Pulling myself off of him, I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my shirt, breaths coming in short gasps as I attempted to pull myself together and stop crying.
"Sometimes it still surprises me that we managed to melt the ice from your heart." He smirked, elbowing my playfully in the side. His eyes were still red from his own tears, but something about his demeanor now seemed calm.
"I blame global warming." I smiled.
"You know you still have a place on the team if you want it, right?"
I nodded. It was true that my priorities had not recently been on Beyblading, instead taking the time to discover who I was and what I wanted in life. It was true that I didn't see myself competing for the rest of my life, but as of right now I had a place.
I was wanted.
