This chapter feels a little bit all over the place, but it was a lot of fun to write, so I do apologize if the pacing is a bit off. Thanks again to those who are reading and an extra thank you to my reviewers! You guys really do keep me going.

As the last week of school came to a close, there still seemed to be no sign of Wyatt, something that I was well aware to be my fault. Tyson had said it himself, he wouldn't blame him for needing a break from me.

Even so, most of our typical group had come together for lunch once more, even though Henri and Emile in particular now appeared awkward around me. Avery didn't seem to notice, instead telling a clearly fake story about getting his dick sucked when we were in the city.

"Her mouth was amazing." He gloated, "I could only imagine what her pussy would have felt like, she was so fucking tight when I was finger banging her."

"You've absolutely never seen or touched a pussy in your entire life." Emile stated, rolling his eyes in an obvious fashion.

"Have so! I even offered to eat her out but she was shy."

"That's because she doesn't exist."

"You believe me, right Kai?" He asked, pointing a pair of noodle coated chopsticks in my direction. "You don't really think that you're the only one who got sucked off on that trip, do you?" He paused. "Well, I guess you blew Wyatt too, right? I can only imagine how disappointing a blow job must be when he's the only one who knows what he's doing."

"Avery, fuck off." Henri grunted in annoyance.

Although neither of them appeared to forgive me for the way I had treated Wyatt, he and Emile seemed to at least understand that Avery had gone far enough in his goal to embarrass me, even if I was becoming accustomed to the unwanted attention.

I looked at them sadly, hoping that they could see through my humiliation and know that I appreciated their help.

"How are you handling the break up?" Henri asked, a weight dropping in the pit of my stomach.

We hadn't technically broke up… then again, we had never technically made our relationship official. Had Wyatt told them that we broke up?

"Is Wyatt okay?" I asked, ignoring the question. Although Emile rolled his eyes at me, Henri touched a hand to my shoulder, pity plastered all over his face. He felt bad for me… I didn't like it when people felt bad for me.

"How about you take a walk with me?" He asked. "You guys don't need any more of your dirty laundry sprinkled throughout the cafeteria."

I wanted to tell him no, to say that I was fine on my own and didn't need anyone, but Tyson's words still rang through me… I ignored everyone around me, yet I struggled to handle it when they did the same.

Pulling my chair out, I nodded, shoving my hands in my pockets while he put his dishes away.

I hadn't eaten anything.

"Wyatt won't tell me what happened." He admitted as we left the cafeteria, meeting my eyes sadly. "He's not in any better shape than you are, though. I'm worried about him."

"I can't apologize if he won't tell me where he is." I said. "He isn't answering me."

"He has a lot on his plate right now. His home life isn't great and now he has to deal with his parents barking at each other in the same hotel room while complaining about minorities when they're the current random white people who only speak English."

"His parents are married, though, aren't they?"

"Legally." He laughed. "Don't tell his dads mistresses that, though. Given, I'm sure they already know. I think they're drawn to the money, not to his charm and good looks."

He had never told me any of this, but then again, I had never asked.

"He deserves way better than me."

"I know."

My heart sunk slightly when he said it, even though I knew it to be true.

"How do you and Emile manage?" I asked as we continued walking, now out of the school and moving down one of the concrete trails. I had lit a cigarette, offering him one of which he denied.

"We aren't perfect." He shrugged. "We fight, we're as immature as anyone else, but we communicate well. I'm not sure why."

"Do you love him?"

"As much as I can at our age. Right now we're just seeing where life takes us. Admittedly our relationship started out as horny teenagers who wanted to know what sex felt like, but for some reason everything ended up working for us. So far, at least."

"Emile doesn't want much to do with me right now."

"Emile and Wyatt are closer than Wyatt and I are. It's expected."

We sat on a bench now, away from everyone else. I had never been close with the group I had become apart of at school, I had never confided in them about anything. If anything, I was more open to Dmitri, we at least had something in common. We felt the same pain.

"We've never had sex, you know." I said, blushing slightly as he looked at me. "I asked him to… he didn't think I was ready."

"Can you blame him?"

"He's right… I would just end up freaking out again."

"It's unfortunate that you're openly gay and yet still disgusted by that part of yourself."

I looked at him curiously, unsure what he meant.

"Huh?"
"You're out of the closet, but you hate that you're queer."

"I've accepted it."

"Have you, though? You want Wyatt, I can read the way you look at him, even before you were out you were picturing him naked, right?"

I averted my gaze, hiding my face as much as I could.

"I don't know."

"You were terrified to get too close to him, you didn't want to admit your feelings were real, you kept your distance while pretending you weren't in your dorm touching yourself to the idea of sex with another guy, yet when that opportunity comes for you, you're reduced to an absolute panic. You can't stand the idea of the world seeing you as gay because you still can't stand the idea yourself. You avoided him because you disgusted yourself."

"Stop."

"Emile isn't protective of Wyatt because he just doesn't like you. He just doesn't want to see him hurt again. He's our friend and we will not let him go through with you what he went through with Haru last year, if that means cutting you out completely, then so be it."

"Haru is an asshole."

"And what are you, exactly?"

I didn't respond, allowing myself time to process my thoughts. The entire time I had been in school I had believed myself to be the character I played, believed that no one saw through to the real me.

Was I wrong?

Did everyone see who I was underneath it all?

I clutched my fists tightly. Henri didn't understand, Emile didn't understand. The only one who understood what I had truly been through was Wyatt. I had been abused, abandoned, tortured… but Wyatt had helped me overcome all of the obstacles I once thought defined who I was. He had taught me that I was more than just my past.

"You aren't any better a friend than I am." I said. "None of you are."

"Kai, this isn't a fight you wanna pick, we've been friends with him a lot longer than you have."

"You used him for your own gain. If you cared about him you wouldn't have pimped him out like that in the city."

"What happened that night was his choice, we didn't ask him to do it." He paused. "If I knew him then like I know him now I wouldn't have allowed it."

"Meaning?"

"Wyatt cares more about making others happy than he cares about himself. He would do anything to fit in… to feel like he was a part of something. We had joked about trying harder drugs, we didn't exactly have an excuse to ask our parents for money, at least not the amount we would need." He paused. "Emile is here on an exchange program and I have a scholarship. Avery claims his family has money but I don't believe most of what he says." He grinned slightly, shaking his head. "He's harmless, he just has the social skills of a hamster in the middle of eating its own young."

I let out a small laugh, putting out my cigarette and lighting another one.

"So what happened that night?" I asked.

"Exactly what he said. He offered. He used to like playing that character he created, acting like he was a slut because he loved it. I think he was still fucking Haru and blowing half of our dorm hall at that point, I'm not going to pretend I shouldn't have seen through the act… but we were new to all of this."

I didn't say anything for a moment, scooting away from him so that we didn't sit quite as close. I didn't want him to get the wrong idea about what I was going to ask next.

"What's it like?" I mumbled, the shade of pink that had filled my face now darkening.

"What's what like?"

"Sex."

He exhaled a small laugh, almost as if he pitied me for asking. I didn't want to be afraid of who I was, though. I wasn't someone who joined in on the dirty conversations in the lunch room or bragged about how far I had gone. I didn't talk about that side of me.

"You're a bottom, right?" He asked.

"I'm not really sure."

"Well, your boyfriend- or ex boyfriend, whatever the hell you two are, is a people pleaser. He might look the role of a little twink-" He looked me over as he spoke, "Given, you do too… but from what I know about Wyatt, he gets off on making people feel good."

"You have to be a top to do that?"

"There's nothing wrong with not liking the idea of taking it, to each there own, but..." He closed his eyes and shuttered slightly. Was he getting turned on? "My god, straight guys have absolutely no idea what they're missing."

"Doesn't it hurt?"

"Your first time can be a little uncomfortable, but if you take it slow and let your body adjust it shouldn't, unless he's huge or something, and I've seen Wyatt in the shower, you'll be fine."

Hang on, was he claiming that Wyatt had a small dick? He was bigger than I was, should I be taking this personally?

"He's above average."

"By maybe a centimeter." He giggled. "If you want to test the limits, just get a dildo or something. Stretch yourself out, find your sweet spot."

I did have a dildo, but it was supposed to be for practicing sucking. If I used it for that I wasn't putting it back in my mouth no matter how well I cleaned it.

"I can't believe I just asked you for sex advice." I smiled shyly.

"Who the fuck else were you gonna ask? Avery?" Henri laughed.

Sighing slightly, I looked up and at my surroundings, wondering where I was even supposed to go from here. I had made the decision that I wanted Wyatt to take my virginity, but asking during a fight felt a bit… well… slutty. Besides, he wasn't talking to me right now; it wasn't his fault that my hormones were starting to take over ever sense he took me in his mouth at the hotel. Now I couldn't even figure out if he had drastically changed something inside of me or if what I was feeling was simply a normal part of puberty.

I sure as fuck wasn't asking.

"You've talked to him..." I stated. "Do you know where he's staying?"

"Kai, I really don't want to be a part of this."

"Please… I need help right now."

He sighed slightly, shaking his head.

"You need to give him space."

"I need to apologize."

He didn't argue with that, appearing to at least slightly agree with what I was saying.

"He's at a hotel a few blocks down with his parents. The larger one in the area, expensive looking, you need to tread lightly, though. He's under a lot of stress; his mom and dad aren't good people."

I nodded, fairly confident that I knew what place he was referring to.

"They don't like that he's gay..." I said. "Right?"

"That would be an understatement. It tends to be an issue in upper class families no matter where you're from."

I nodded, my grandfather would never accept the person I was now, likely believing that I was going through a phase and sending me off to some specialty school meant to make me straight, which in hindsight was exactly what my father had done. At the time I likely would have believed it to work, still naively thinking it could be beaten out of me, and Wyatt had mentioned how Oliver's family had written him out entirely once he had admitted his truth.

I'm still not sure how I didn't see that one coming.

Xxx

Taking to heart what Henri had told me, I reminded myself to tread lightly around the hotel, hoping Wyatt wouldn't be hard to find. As much as I loved him and as attractive as I found him, I couldn't deny that he was a rather generic looking white kid, meaning that his parents likely wouldn't stand out much either.

Currently the lobby was more or less clear outside of a small amount of tourists coming in and out, none of which bore him any resemblance. Besides, it was unlikely that they would be exploring the area much, from what I knew about them they were more likely to lay low and not draw attention on the situation. Reluctantly, I texted him.

I'm at your hotel. Can you come down?

Although I wasn't expecting him to respond (he hadn't spoken to me in days now), after a few moments my phone vibrated in my pocket, startling me slightly as I had continued to look around my surroundings.

Where are you?

Lobby.

I tried to keep the conversation simple while pretending that I wasn't nervous to see him. I felt like I was being a stalker by randomly showing up here, but I needed to know he was okay. Now attempting to control my anxiety, I sat down on one of the empty couches, twiddling my thumbs as I waited.

After a few moments of silence, the elevator pinged, causing me to turn my head quickly in the appropriate direction and watch.

Going out of his way not to look at me, Wyatt stepped out onto the stone flooring, head down and bangs covering his face. He looked like a mere shell of himself, stepping cautiously toward me in a tee shirt and pajama pants. Had he not been at school today? Was that why he wasn't at lunch?

Clutching his arms to his chest, he sat next to me, still refusing to look me in the eye.

"You shouldn't have come here." He mumbled. "I'm gonna be in a lot of trouble if my parents find you."

Although he was trying to hide his face, it was easy to make out that his eyes were deeply red and puffy, either from crying, from lack of sleep, or from both.

"I didn't want to hurt you." I said.

Looking up and down his body, I quickly took notice of the cluster of bruising that took up a section of his arm, shaped in a way you would normally see if a hand had grabbed you with force. Taking notice to where my eyes had settled, he moved his own hands down slightly, attempting rather unsuccessfully to cover them.

"I'm fine." He said. "Just an argument that got out of hand."

Unable to control the temptation to hold him, I moved my body close to his, wrapping my arms around his neck and torso and pulling him into me. Although I had expected him to pull back, to tell me to get the fuck out of here and forget him… he didn't, instead allowing himself to fall into my body. A feeling of intense comfort that I didn't deserve.

"Everyone is worried about you." I said as I held him, his head pulled into my shoulder and my hands gently running through his hair.

"They've been texting me, they know I'm okay."

"You've been ignoring me."

"I needed space."

I thought back to what Tyson had said, that he wouldn't blame him from needing a break from me.

"I'm sorry." I said. "I can do better, I will do better."

"Kai, will you just stop?" He pulled himself away from me. "You do this every time, you can't just apologize every time you make a mistake and expect everything to go back to normal, you say that you want to change but you don't, you want me to change for you, you want me to just accept that this is the way you are. I understand that you have extreme trauma but I just… I can't do the drama anymore, I can't carry around both my baggage and yours."

"I couldn't live with myself if you got hurt because of me."

"What the hell do you call this then?"

My stomach dropped at the statement, at my lack of realization of what I had done. He was hurt… maybe not physically, but everything that he was right now, from the emptiness of his eyes to the tears that had already dried, was all on me. I had done this to him.

"I could talk to my team." I said quietly, not bothering to hide the shame in my voice. "I could reconsider."

"That moment has passed, Kai." He said. "I've already been accepted into a different program."

I cocked an eyebrow at him slightly.

"Huh?" I began, "What do you mean?"

"I got a scholarship for a summer exchanged program in a different town, closer to the city."

"A Beyblading scholarship?"

"Yeah. My parents are relieved… I don't think they're ready for me to come home yet." He paused. "That or they're just excited that I'll be away from you. I'm not really going to have time to socialize until the start of the next school year…" More silence. "I'm going home after the summer."

Even as he grew more comfortable speaking to me, his eyes refused to meet mine; refused to tell me without his verbal words what it was that he was saying.

"You're breaking up with me." I said it for him. "Aren't you?"

The sound of the elevator going off once more startled him, causing him to pull both of us down and out of view. He sighed with relief at the sight of an elderly woman walking into the lobby with a small dog.

"We can't talk here." He said. "It's too risky."

Taking me by the hand, he pulled me to my feet and into the maze of hallways that lined the hotel, the eerie silence causing discomfort through my body.

"Where are we going?" I asked, quickening my pace as to not be pulled right off of my feel. The feeling took me back to the first month of school, when he had pulled us into shrubbery while running through the woods, afraid that we were about to be caught out of our rooms at night. I would have given anything to go back to that day, to the beginning of our friendship. If I could start over I could treat him the way he deserved to be treated, love him the way he deserved to be loved.

"Somewhere my parents wont find us." He said. "They think I'm just walking around the hotel, they installed a tracker onto my phone and they make sure I always have it on me, but all it can tell them is that I'm in the hotel, not in the exact hallway I'm walking down."

We continued down the hallway until hitting the end of it, blocked now by a window and the entryway to the stairwell.

"We could hide under the stairs or something." I said.

"With my reputation? That's the first place they'd look." He gave an embarrassed smirk for the first time since I saw him, the slight upturn of his lips causing my stomach to flutter the way it used to when my feelings had first developed, when he had been no more than my first crush.

"Do you have any ideas?" I asked, unable to stop myself from staring at him.

"Hang on." He mumbled. "I'm thinking."

Just as he spoke, a young couple exited one of the rooms, arms wrapped around one another in crude acts of PDA and dressed up for an evening at the beach front. As they closed the door behind them, somehow managing to walk and make out at the same time, they failed to notice the absence of the automatic lock clicking, the door slowly opening back up just enough to not be noticeable.

I could see the wheels turning in Wyatt's mind.

"No way." I said. "That's way too risky, we would get caught and could be in a lot of trouble."

I had broken into my fair share of buildings when I was young, but that was my own problem, I had never brought anyone else down with me.

"They're going to the beach." He whispered. "They won't be back for hours and we don't need that much time, we're just talking. Besides if I were to be gone long my parents would get suspicious."

Hand still in mine, he waited for the couple to be out of sight before dragging me through the hallway, quietly opening the door to the empty hotel room and closing it behind him, setting the deadbolt as not to be disturbed.

The room was more or less trashed, bed sheets flung onto the floor along with clothing and damp towels. The dresser was littered with condom wrappers and an open bottle of lube hung sideways off the side, dripping a small puddle onto the floor.

"Probably honeymooners." Wyatt giggled.

It was nice to see him smiling again.

A thin shade of pink warmed my face as I took in the erotic intimacy of the bedroom, a lingering scent of sex was still in the air and being alone with him caused my pants to tighten slightly.

"This feels so wrong." I said.

"You wanted to talk." He sat down on the bed, not appearing to care that two people had recently had sex on it. "We're alone now, so talk."

His frown had returned as he remembered why I was here in the first place.

"I owe you a huge apology." I said. "You were hurting and I made you feel worse."

"Honestly, Kai, there's a lot more to it than that."

"What do you mean?"

"I feel like you're deliberately pushing me away from you, always keeping me at arms length in order to ensure I can't hurt you and not caring if you're hurting me."

"Of course I care."

"How would any of this work as we got older? How would we live together someday if you're so afraid of gaining an enemy and having them come after me?"

"I already have enemies. This isn't a false situation I put into my own head, my team and I face very real danger, I would never forgive myself if someone used you to get to me, if I were to put you in harms way."

"So where does that leave us when it comes to growing up? You would never feel comfortable living with me, if gay marriage is legalized you would never consider it due to fear that someone might use me to get to you. I'm not gonna live my life locked away in a broom closet because you can't handle anything happening to me, I need the freedom to live my own life, with or without you."

I sat down next to him now, touching my hand to his gently and avoiding looking at him.

"I don't want to lose you..." I said. "You're the only person I've ever felt this way about."

Wyatt leaned his head into my shoulder, the soft strands of his hair tickling my ear.

"You need to let me be my own person. If you can't do that, then I need to do it for myself, without you. Even if it destroys me."

Removing my hand from his, I touched his cheek gently, tilting his head toward mine and taking a moment to allow our gazes to come together, to truly look at him in a way I hadn't in a long time.

His eyes held such sadness… pain that I had put him through. Without giving myself time to think, I brought my lips to his, kissing him softly. I wouldn't have blamed him if he pulled back, but he didn't, instead touching a hand to the back of my head and parting his lips so that I could slip my tongue into his mouth.

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pulled him on top of me so we were laying down, the weight of his body now pressing against mine. What we were doing in a strangers hotel room was fucked, but at the moment it didn't matter. In a way it felt like it was meant to be, condoms and lubricant already at our disposal.

Trying to ignore the rapid beating of my heart, I pulled his shirt over his head, exposing his bare chest and touching a hand to the smooth skin that he rarely exposed.

"Do you want me to go down on you?" He asked, breathing slightly unsteady.

"No." I shook my head, gulping slightly as my nerves continued creeping up on me. "I want you to take my virginity."

He had taken off my tie and was in the process of unbuttoning my shirt when he froze, looking at me in stunned silence.

"Kai-"

"Please."

I didn't want to resort to begging, but I needed him to know I was serious, that this was what I wanted. I wanted it to be him.

"We're in a strangers hotel room." He giggled slightly now, trying to hide his nerves and causing my stomach to flutter.

"Kinky."

I had finished unbuttoning my shirt, taking it off and fiddling with my belt buckle. I wasn't allowing myself to chicken out, I wanted him to take him here and now.

A quivering hand touched my face as he looked deeply into my eyes, biting nervously at the inside of his lips.

"Are you absolutely sure this is what you want?"

"Yes."

"Even if we eventually need to part ways?"

"Yes."

"You're really tight, it might be uncomfortable."

"I don't care."

Cautiously, Wyatt pulled himself away from me, looking around the bedroom before taking a condom off of the nightstand along with the bottle of lube before slipping my out of my pants and bringing his own to the floor.

I watched as he fidgeted with the condom, eventually managing to get it on before squeezing a rather large puddle of lube onto his hand.

"You need to regulate your breathing." He said. "Relax your muscles, I'm gonna go slow, if I'm hurting you I need you to tell me."

I nodded, clutching tightly to the mattress and trying to regain control of my nerves. I was shaking and I could feel how fast my heart beat, doing everything in my power to keep myself relaxed and not clench.

It took time for my body to adjust to the discomfort, starting with the tip until he gradually worked his way there. If I had to guess it must have taken at least half an hour just for him to get all the way in, but he had done it. I had felt him inside my body.

After awhile the tingling sensation I felt when he thrusted made me concerned I was about to piss myself, but he assured me it would start to feel good, and it did. I had to put a pillow over my face to muffle my moaning, unsure of what he was even hitting that made the sensation so pleasurable.

It didn't last long, but it didn't matter.

I had a part of him I could hold onto forever.

You never forget your first time.