This chapter has been insanely hard to write, so I apologize if it's not very good. I eventually took a break and wrote the next chapter instead which forced me to come back and finish this one. Thankfully the next chapter was extremely fun to write and I was excited to post it, otherwise it would have still been awhile before I made the attempt to finally finish.

Anyway, I hope it doesn't suck too bad. I rewrote it twice.

Chapter 9

I had learned over the course of the past few months that Ono-San had a bad habit of tricking me into doing things I don't want to do, which clashed rather badly with my own habit of not doing things I didn't want to do. This meant that when I found my therapist, whom I had still rarely said I word to, sitting in her office my senses picked up the likelihood that it was not going to be a good day for me.

"Take a seat, Kai." Ono-San gestured.

"No thanks." I remained standing, arms folded to my chest and back pressed against the wall. She ignored me, now accustomed to the fact that I never claimed to be polite.

"We're going to be removing you from school grounds tomorrow." She continued, fidgeting with something on her laptop that was out of my view. "We've arranged a supervised visitation with your father."

My stomach dropped slightly, but I was able to remain composed, my face emotionless.

"I told you, I don't want to see my father." I said, making no attempt to hide my annoyance.

"Which is why I have Watanabe-San with us. We need to figure out if seeing your father is going to have a negative effect on your mental health."

It's going to have a negative effect on my attitude, I knew that much.

"Saying that I don't want to see him should be enough reason. I'm old enough to make my own decisions."

I had been reminded many times that in the eyes of the law this was not true, but I was tired of the constant bullshit I was being dragged through.

"You're choices," Ono-San stated just a tad too cocky for my liking, "Are going to be that you open up and give a genuine reason that you think it's a bad idea for you to see your father, or we assume that you're just upset you aren't getting your way. You can't get out of this just by throwing a tantrum."

My nails were now digging into the skin of my arms as I attempted not to lose my temper.

"I already told you, if he wanted me in his life he should have contacted me."

What happened to me in The Abbey after my father left was my own business. I had a right to my privacy, besides, I didn't even remember much about the abuse.

"We're going to need a better reason than you just not wanting to. I understand you have feelings of abandonment but your father has made it clear that he attempted to contact you while you were living with your grandfather and was denied with threats toward your well being. All evidence we've been able to gather show that you were in danger and that your fathers goal was to keep you safe."

Watanabe-San interrupted her, clearing her throat rather aggressively before turning her attention to me.

"Kai," She began. "Do you remember anything about your life before The Abbey?"

I wasn't sure she was even technically allowed to ask me questions like that. Weren't there rules regarding putting information in the heads of those with barricaded memories?

"Why does that matter?" I asked.

"We need to know what you remember regarding the abuse during your childhood. If your father was hurting you, we need you to tell us."

I fell silent briefly, thinking back to the limited memories I had from when I lived in The Abbey, none of which involved my father.

The memories I had of my parents took place in a rather typical home.

Those are the only memories I had from my childhood where I was happy; where I felt safe.

"I wasn't being abused at home." I answered honestly. "That shouldn't make a difference. He left me with my grandfather and I never saw him again. He didn't come back for me."

They both began writing something down, once again leaving me in the dark regarding anything that was happening to me. I had zero say in my own fucking life.

"I'm taking you to see your father in the morning." Ono-San remarked in a tone which made it clear that this was final.

I walked out of the room, childishly slamming the door behind me.

Although my original plan was to go back to my room, I now found myself standing at Wyatt's door, using the excuse that if someone tried to come and get me they wouldn't know where I was.

I knocked, not lightly I might add, and waited impatiently for him to open the door.

"Let me in." I mumbled when he peered at me through the chain locked slit.

"One minute." He closed the door again, fumbling around for a moment or two and muttering a few cuss words before opening the door fully.

He still wore his uniform pants but his tie and blazer were now hung up on the desk chair, his shirt part way unbuttoned. He had sprayed some kind of deodorizer in the air in an attempt to cover the smell of cigarette smoke.

I sat down on his bed, head slumped forward.

"What's wrong?" Wyatt asked, sitting next to me.

"I don't wanna talk about it." Really all I wanted was to not have to be alone right now, a relatively new feeling I had encountered.

Accepting my request, he fell silent, giving a brief sigh before standing back up and going over to his desk. He had all of his school supplies out and it appeared that I had actually interrupted his studies. Looking around me I noticed that his dorm was slowly becoming more and more cluttered.

"Sorry if I seem out of it." He said. "My parents sent me a letter regarding some family business, my mind is a little scattered right now."

"My case worker is taking me to see my father." I admitted, now gazing at nothing other than his open window. My mind felt blank.

"That must feel pretty shitty." Wyatt said. "I know you struggle with being told what to do."

I rolled my eyes. He was missing the point significantly.

"I'm not just some spoiled brat who didn't get my way." The annoyance in my voice was obvious. "I'm sick of constantly needing to explain my reasons to everyone."

"You don't need to take it out on me."

"I'm not."

That wasn't entirely true, I wasn't angry with him, but the way he was currently responding to me was annoying. Ono-San already thought I was over dramatic and based on our last conversation, most of my team seemed to feel the same way. It was hard for me to talk to people in the first place, let alone open up about my life. Wyatt was really the only person I felt comfortable enough with to tell anything to, he saw through the act I put on.

"You have a family member who wants to see you, Kai." He continued, "Would it really hurt to try?"

He was kidding right?

I got off of his bed, leaving his room and closing the door behind me. He was supposed to be the one person who seemed to actually care about me, to understand how my mind worked. Now I was back to square one, alone and angry in a world determined to make me fail.

I sat in the front seat of Ono-San's car, headphones on and music turned up in order to pretend I was literally anywhere else. I had told her repeatedly that I had no plans regarding coming with her and I had pouted the entire way to the car. Now I sat hunched toward the window and tuning out the sound of her telling me to get my feet off the dashboard.

Turning down one last street she pulled over on the side of the curb, putting the car in park. We were meeting at some kind of botanical garden/park, which had surprised me as I was under the impression we would be meeting in her office or something like that. No one had actually bothered explaining to me how any of this worked. I turned off the MP3 player and pulled my headphones around my neck.

"I was expecting this meeting to be a bit more formal. I could just run away from here if I wanted."

She ignored me, she was fully aware I wasn't going to run off. I may wander away sometimes, but out of boredom, not fear. Not that I was afraid.

I followed her out of the car and to a park bench where I lay my head on the table, attempting to ignore my surroundings as best I could. It was quiet here, most people my age were at school right now so the only noises I heard were those of birds and the leaves of the trees being blown by the wind. If it was spring the air likely would have smelled of cherry blossoms and I was a bit disappointed we had come here during such a cold time of year.

"Are you Kai?"

I picked myself up again, staring in confusion at a younger boy, barely school aged, who now sat next to me. He stood up on the bench, squinting at my face as though debating if I was a real person or some kind of lizard monster wearing a human suit.

"Who's asking?" I turned my head to see where Ono-San had gone and found her in the shade of a tree, speaking quietly to, you guessed it, my father.

"Are you my brother?" I wasn't sure how to respond to him, mostly because I wasn't even sure of the answer. Was I this kids brother?

He did somewhat resemble me, dark blue hair, almost black, with a patch of gray that had made a nice little home for itself in his untamed bangs. His hair would probably look similar to mine in the next few years.

"And you are?" I asked, holding my composer rather well. I wasn't gonna be rude to a little kid.

He continued standing on the bench in some sort of attempt to make himself appear threatening by looking tall. In reality I don't think he even came up to my waist.

"My name's Riku." He said as though that explained this entire situation. "I'm a Beyblader too."

"Rikuto," A voice called, "Give him room to breath."

Riku jumped off the bench, stumbling a bit.

I kept my head down in an attempt to ignore the fact that my father was now standing over me. He put a hand on my shoulder and I flinched, pulling away somewhat aggressively.

There was a brief silence as we waited simultaneously for the tension in the air to be cut, which my father did eventually.

"I can understand why you wouldn't want to see me." He began. "Especially since you seem to be doing well on your own. You've really grown."

Yeah, that's what happens when you age about six years.

"I'm only here because I didn't have a choice." I stated bluntly, breaking the promise I had made myself not to speak to him at all. "I don't want to see you."

More silence.

"I didn't want to leave you behind."

"I don't care."

Currently the only thing going through my head outside of my own anger was how stupid of a place this was to meet up with the parent who abandoned you. I normally would have liked to come to an area like this, especially in nice weather, and now I would just associate it with this shit day.

My father sighed briefly and attempted unsuccessfully to ease the tension.

"You look just like your mother." He said. "I'm not sure if you knew that or not."

Riku giggled, making his way in front of me.

"He said you look like a girl!" He laughed playfully.

"This is Rikuto," My father said, stating the obvious as he had already introduced himself to me. Riku ran off to our father and took hold of his hand. "He's your younger brother," He focused his attention on him now, "Rikuto, I've already told you plenty about Kai."

From the sounds of it Riku was well aware of my existence and likely had been for most of his life, the complete opposite of me who's life consisted of no one ever telling me anything and then acting shocked when I lost my temper.

"Hi." Riku said with a brief bow, ignoring our original introduction and instead starting anew.

He pulled a folded up photograph out of his pants pocket and handed it to me.

"See?" He said. "That's you and dad, and dad says that's your mom."

I unfolded the photograph, suddenly finding myself staring at a younger version of me, maybe three or four, nestled into my mothers lap with my fathers arm around her shoulder. My hair was quite a bit shorter and I didn't have any gray yet. I had never seen a picture of my mother before… it actually was accurate to say that I looked like her, mostly in bone structure, eyes too maybe.

"I didn't have a present to give you," Riku continued, "So you can have that. I'm not even in it."

I didn't say anything, but I did fold the photograph back up and pocketed it.

"You were only six when your mother disappeared." My father stated, "Not much older than your brother. That was the last picture we had taken together as a family." He paused, sighing sadly. "I wish I could say I knew where she was… but no one has heard from her."

I shrugged.

"Might as well get me used to people leaving me while young."

Although my comment seemed to sting a bit, he ignored it, clearly expecting me to have a negative opinion regarding this meeting.

"She loved you. You were her pride and joy." He sat down on the other side of the bench, Riku climbing onto the table top. "You were a very happy little boy, but when your grandfather took notice of you he felt it would be beneficial that you live under his roof, in The Abbey. Your mother was the one who tried to get you out, but when she disappeared, everything grew complicated."

I wasn't completely sure what he meant by that and to be honest I didn't care enough about his abandonment explanation to ask. There was no excuse for what he did.

More silence. I don't know why he kept expecting me to speak. I didn't have anything to say to him.

"Riku and I watched you on television last year, during the World Championship. It was amazing to see how much you excelled. I was proud." Of course, some peoples parents called them, some wrote letters, some watched them on television and made no attempt whatsoever to contact them. "I bragged about you to all my coworkers, Riku is just starting to get into the sport now, the same age you were when I taught you."

"Funny how everyone in your life knew where I was while no one in mine knew where you were."

He paused.

"Kai, I tried to contact you many times, my father wouldn't allow me to speak with you."

Memories were flooding back to me faster than I could take them in.

My father and grandfather were screaming at each other.

I was hiding.

My wrist had been broken again.

We had been up high.

Someone had pushed me.

I was weak.

I couldn't do anything right.

I needed to be punished.

I remembered coming out of my hiding place and yelling for my father, but he wasn't there… he had left. My grandfather had stopped me when I tried to go after him. I remembered I had to sleep outside that night.

My hands were trembling and when I tried to stand up I hit my knees, suddenly remembering I was sitting at a picnic table.

"Are you alright?" That was my father asking me but his voice sounded far away.

"What's going on?" That was Riku, he sounded nervous.

Punishment after punishment was flooding back to me. It made no difference who my grandfather was, if anything it caused them to be harder on me. I was expected to fight through all of it, to become a living weapon. Those who couldn't handle it didn't make it out.

Everything around me felt dark, clouded. I couldn't remember where I was.

Then just like that, it stopped.

I was back.

"Yeah." I said quietly. "I'm fine." Actually I was lightheaded and uncomfortable. Ono-San was next to us now as well and had her hand on my shoulder. "I wanna go back to school."

She nodded, saying something quietly to my father and brother and bringing me back to the car.

"Bye!" Riku yelled, waving rather aggressively. "I'll show you my moves next time!"

"I'm going to email your therapist and see if she can meet with you at sudden notice." Ono-San said, hand on my shoulder still and leading me to the car like a child.

"I'd really prefer to just be alone." I put my head down and turned away. I was suddenly noticing everything happening around me. The car motor was too loud, the radio was too loud, the sun was too bright. I wanted to be in silence and in the dark and not have to think about anything.

The more I was pushed the more I remembered.

I didn't want to remember…

Thanks to Ono-San I was now sitting in my therapists office, which was the absolute last place I wanted to be right now outside of back with my father again.

"Your case worker said you went into a state of disassociation when meeting with your dad." She began. "She explained it as your body staying where you were but your mind suddenly shutting down." I didn't answer her. "You were in that state for about ten minutes total before coming back to reality."

"No," I corrected her, "It was only for a few seconds. Maybe a minute total."

Similar to Ono-San, she wrote on a clip board that she held to her lap.

"You disagree with her statement, then?"

I thought about the other times I had lost track of time… I would insist that only minutes had gone by but clocks and people around me would be adamant that it had been several minutes at least, in some cases up to an hour.

I didn't answer the question, instead laying back down and closing my eyes.

I wanted to go back to before I had met with my father. I wanted to go back to the time where I didn't remember anything.

I hated remembering.

Sensing my annoyance she stopped asking me questions and allowed me to just lay there facing away from her until our time was finished and I was allowed to go back to my room. We had a new quarter starting Monday and I needed to make sure I had all of the correct books and papers, but even walking down the hallway was taking a toll on me. I felt absolutely exhausted and no matter what I did my hands seemed to not be able to stop shaking. I had never spent the night out in The Abbey before… of course I knew people who did, not everyone was allowed in the buildings, and outside was better than the dungeons. I continued walking silently, hoping to find a small hiding place I could curl up in. The older boys ran The Abbey at night and it was in your best interest to keep a low profile.

Keeping my footsteps as quiet as possible I made my way down a thin split that separated two buildings, not wide enough for most older kids to fit in without squeezing themselves to the wall.

I tried to sit down but it was hard to get comfortable in such a small area, especially with a cast on my arm. It was freezing out.

"Kai?" Jolting back to reality I flung myself upward, hitting the back of my head on a wall. Wyatt looked down at me with concern, giving me his hand and pulling me up. "Why are you sitting on the floor?" He asked, bringing me to the realization that I was, in fact, sitting on the floor in the middle of the hallway.

I didn't know how to respond, I didn't have an answer for him. Thankfully Wyatt broke the tension for me. "Odd place to take a nap." He giggled.

I followed him without any thought about where he was going, still struggling to focus on what was happening in front of me. Unlocking his door he brought me into his dorm where I immediately sat down on the bed. My head was spinning.

"Are you okay?" Wyatt asked, placing a hand on my shoulder. Although I flinched, I didn't pull away from him.

"Yeah." I sighed coldly, "I'm fine."

"Do you wanna lay down?" I nodded, letting him wrap his arms around me and pull me down so my head lay on his chest. The feeling of another person holding me seemed to relax my mind a bit and my breathing eased. "I take it today didn't go well?" He asked.

"I don't want to talk about it."

He left it at that, not asking any more questions. Wyatt seemed to be the only person who actually listened to me most of the time. Don't get me wrong, my team knew better than to ignore my directions, but Tyson would still fight me along the way sometimes, usually giving a snotty comment regarding me having a stick up my ass.

Right now all I wanted was silence. No one asking me questions or telling me what to do, and thankfully Wyatt was beginning to learn when he needed to keep his mouth shut.

"You know, I know why you're here, but I never really explained why I'm here." He said after the silence had drawn out too long.

"You told me you liked the culture and wanted to study abroad." I reminded him.

"I mean, yes, but I guess I more mean why I chose to Board. I know I sometimes seem like just a spoiled rich kid; maybe in some ways I am, but I might understand more about what you're going through than you realize."

"I highly doubt that." He stopped talking, causing me to feel bad… he wasn't trying to one up my life. "Sorry..." I said. "I didn't mean to shut you down. Today has kicked my ass."

He chuckled sadly, giving my body a small squeeze and nuzzling his chin into my head.

"Leaving my family was the only way I was going to be able to figure out who I was." He stated. "I'm not a part of the kind of family that wants a queer kid hanging out center stage. I know better than that, my mom would freak at the idea of what other people would be saying about her and our family." He ran his hand up and down my arm for a moment before interlacing his fingers with mine. "I mean, I'm pretty confident my parents know, I don't exactly fit into their mold of what a man should be. I'm nothing like my brothers."

"My brother is kind of a brat." I mentioned.

"What's his name?"

"Riku." I pulled the photograph he had given me out of my pocket, unfolding it and handing it to Wyatt. "That's me," I said, "When I was a kid, with my parents."

He smiled.

"You look like your mom."

Everyone seemed to agree with that.

"I'm remembering things..." I admitted. I wasn't sure if I subconsciously wanted him to know or if I was at the point where my body could no longer take keeping it bottled up. "I don't want to."

I don't know why everything changed suddenly when I had started school. I had always had nightmares, according to my team I would occasionally speak Russian in my sleep, but I could never remember anything. Suddenly everything seemed to be coming out into the open.

"It might be that your body and mind finally feel safe." Wyatt said. "Your subconscious isn't trying as hard to protect you anymore."

He rubbed his thumb gently along the back of my hand while he held it and kissed the side of my head, pulling me just a little closer to him. Discomfort made its way down my body and I pulled away from him, sitting upward.

"Sorry." I said. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"You aren't big on intimacy, huh?" He smiled.

I shrugged, avoiding looking him in the eyes.

"I guess not."

I still didn't understand what I was feeling. It wasn't that I was happier when I was with Wyatt, I don't know if happiness was an emotion I was even familiar with, but I found myself to be more relaxed. I had more emotional regulation and I didn't panic as much; when I did panic he knew how to calm me down without even doing anything.

"You really had no idea you liked guys?" Wyatt asked, leaning onto his shoulder and looking at me.

"I don't know if I do."

It wasn't a guy or girl thing at all, honestly. It was just… him. I wasn't sure if how I felt would change if he were a girl. All I knew for certain was that I still couldn't let him in all the way…

I wanted to, but I couldn't…