I really hope that I didn't make Kai too out of character in this chapter, but hey, a jerk with a heart of gold can have confusing romantic feelings too! Adolescence is a weird time no matter who you are.

Shout of to Sierra! Thanks for leaving me such kind reviews!

Shout out once again for Inyoface for keeping me entertained by debating what characters favorite drugs would be, haha.

Chapter 11

Wyatt didn't bring up what happened that night, carrying on like usual as though there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. In most circumstances I would be okay with this, preferring to keep myself out of the spotlight, but for some reason it bothered me… we had come close to doing something, even though I wasn't sure what that something would have been, and now we were pretending it didn't happen.

My thoughts were interrupted by my Maths teacher scolding me about paying attention, thankfully letting me off with a warning, and I made an attempt to keep my mind on track until classes ended. The attempt was cut short once we made it into the library, due to Wyatt's uncharacteristically quiet behavior, most of which involved him actually spending the time studying while ignoring the conversation the other three idiots were having. His eyes seemed heavy, like he hadn't slept well during the weekend, which added onto my paranoia that I had upset him.

Hoping to catch him once we went back to our dorms, he bolted quickly as the last bell rang, currently behaving more like you would expect from me than from his normally bubbly personality.

I touched Henri on the shoulder, hoping to keep the conversation quiet.

"Is Wyatt okay?" I asked, blushing a hint at the idea of asking about him.

"Since when are you worried about Wyatt?" He responded with a smirk, "I mean, at least when you're sober. You're all over that kid when there's something in your system."

"He's my friend." I grumbled, "Believe it or not I do notice when he's not acting himself."

A quick exhale in the form of false laughter escaped him, an eyebrow now raised up at me.

"It's not my place to be parading his personal life to people, I'm not Avery."

Now that he mentioned it, Avery probably was a better person to ask. It was well known that you didn't tell him anything that you don't want blabbed around. When he met Tyson and Max he was practically trying to convince our classmates that he was joining the team.

I shrugged, accepting his statement. I could just ask Wyatt on my own if something was bothering him and handle the shame of the problem being me.

"He's had a hard life, Kai." Henri continued as I was walking away, causing me to stop and turn back around. "I know he's kind of the kid brother in our group, the sweet and innocent one, but he's more like you than you realize. He looks on the bright side of life, but it's not where he was raised. You can't keep using him for your personal comfort."

My face blushed deeper, shame now making its way through me in the form of a lump in my stomach.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I said, hiding behind a false sense of annoyance.

"He likes you, Kai, a lot. If you don't like him back you can't lead him on like this. It's not fair."

This was coming from the same person who makes sex jokes whenever Wyatt and I are off somewhere alone for too long. Since when were any of them concerned about our relationship? Not that we were in a relationship.

"I like him as a friend," I lied, "I don't swing that way."

Nice, now even high school slang was wearing off on me. I sounded more like Tyson than like myself.

Henri practically snorted, a hand now on his hip and a sarcastic smirk covering his face, both eyebrows raised at me.

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that." He chuckled, "We've all seen the way you look at him."

Hang on, how exactly did I look at him? Was the entire school gossiping about whether or not a world champion Beyblader had a crush on Wyatt Smithwright?

I mean, I did, but that wasn't anyone's business.

I turned away, ending the conversation. All I did was ask if he knew whether or not he was okay. I didn't need the third degree.

I made my way to the computer lab to check my email, Kenny was keeping us up to date on some of the projects that Max's mom was working on and I had been lazy about staying in touch. Not to mention I needed something to clear my mind. Pulling up my lengthy list of unopened messages, something from Tyson caught my eye, the date indicating he had just sent it today.

Mostly consisting of several laughing emoticons and the words: 'Dude, what did you DO?' I found myself face to face with what looked like I significantly popular fan made blog, one which currently had my pictures plastered all over it, most of which I was either completely out of it or laughing like a lunatic, bordering a video that someone took of me higher than Mt. Fuji kicking a parked car and landing flat on my ass.

Fuck… I was about to be in so much trouble…

I emailed Tyson back, telling him I would try to make it over to his house later to talk and telling him that if he emailed that article to anyone else I was going to kill him.

Shutting the computer down, I ran upstairs to change clothes and quickly made my way to Wyatt's dorm room, hoping himself and one of the other guys would be able to help me sign out.

I knocked aggressively to no prevail, putting my ear up to the door to see if I could hear him and being met with only silence.

Fuck.

"You're boyfriend isn't here." I heard a giggle behind me, turning around to find Haru staring at me with a sly smirk. Next to him stood a disturbingly tall senior who I had seen on our floor a few times in the past as well.

"Can you guys sign out with me?" I asked, "It's an emergency."

"I take it you found the article where you're wasted and you and Smithwright are all over each other." He laughed. "How much did you have to drink that night?"

How did this happen so fast? We only went out two days ago.

"Will you sign out with me or not?" I grunted.

"Can't right now, Leadership Club, have fun though." He gave an unenthusiastic wave, turning down the hallways and away from me. "You know," He continued as he walked away, "There have been rumors regarding which way you swing since your first tournament. Now might be as good a time as any to introduce your boy toy."

I cussed under my breath, now forcing myself to make my way down to Emile's dorm. I felt weird talking to Henri again after what had happened and Avery was honestly the last person I wanted help from in a situation like this.

I knocked rather aggressively, stumbling back when he opened the door.

"Would you be able to help me sign out?" I asked, not paying much attention to the fact that he wasn't alone until I heard my name. Wyatt sat with Henri on Emile's bed, eyes red and puffy from crying.

"Now's not a good time..."

The adrenaline that had built up from my anxiety suddenly shut down when I saw them.

"What's going on?" I asked, walking into the room. Although there was a tension in the air, it didn't seem to be coming from my presence.

"He's just going through some stuff right now."

"It's alright, Emile." Wyatt said, drying his eyes with his shirt sleeve. "Kai can be here." His face held shame, like he was embarrassed that I hadn't been told what was happening.

Emile touched a hand to his shoulder and sat down next to him.

"Are you okay?" I asked awkwardly.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just have some personal stuff going on, it's no big deal."

Henri's words from earlier replayed in my head, bringing me to the sudden realization that I was an extremely shitty friend. My original goal of figuring out if Wyatt was okay was overthrown as soon as I found myself facing a problem, immediately looking out for my own well being and forgetting him. Now when I find him clearly in distress his immediate reaction is to shut me out of it, insisting that he's just fine.

"I'm sorry." I apologized, head now held down in shame. "Actually, I was looking for you. I wanted to make sure you were alright."

He smiled shyly at me.

"It's nothing. You have enough going on in you're life already, you don't need my problems on top of that." I wasn't sure what to say. If he didn't want to talk I wasn't going to make him. "What's going on? Why do you need to sign out all of a sudden?"

"I need to talk to Tyson and Kenny." I admitted. "I'm getting some unwanted media attention..."

It sounded like such a tiny problem now that I said it out loud. It's just some pictures and a short video clip, at the end of the day it isn't going to affect my blading ability, just my reputation.

"Yeah, Haru sent me that." Emile stated, "You guys should check your email, you probably got it too."

"Seriously?" I grunted, now more annoyed than embarrassed.

Wyatt perked up.

"Can I use your laptop?" He asked Emile, rubbing his eyes once more. Opening it up, he logged into his email, pulling up the same website I had been sent containing the weekends shenanigans that I hadn't planned on sharing with anyone. He bit his lip in an attempt to stop the small smirk that was making its way out.

"It's not funny."

"It's a little funny."

I hardly even looked like myself, I had been wearing Wyatt's clothes and was grinning ear to ear like a kid who was promised an extra piece of dessert, or like Tyson being promised an extra piece of dessert.

"I'm probably gonna have to get drug tested now." I sighed.

"You aren't currently competing; you're allowed to have your own life outside of the tournament season, besides it just looks like you're having fun with your friends. The fact that Kai Hiwitari is laughing and having a good time doesn't automatically mean drugs and alcohol were involved."

I mean, I wouldn't quote him on that.

Closing the laptop, he got up off of Emile's bed, brushing wrinkles out of his uniform. His smile had vanished but he no longer looked particularly sad. "Anyway, we can sign out with you. I could use a smoke break anyway."

I thought about telling him he didn't need to, clearly he was going through his own shit right now and was putting his own emotions on the back burner in order to help me.

Emile was right, I did rely on him too much.

Everything was easier before him.

Wyatt offered me a cigarette when we got outside, which I might have accepted a little too eagerly as we left school property, taking the bus into town.

"We'll be at the outdoor mall," He said, the three of them giving me the space to handle my current problem privately. Giving a silent nod of the head before doing the walk to shame toward Tyson's house, a task that quickly became even more humiliating when I realized it was not only him and Kenny currently at the dojo, but a brunette girl as well who was currently in the middle of scolding him for something. His girlfriend, possibly? Who in their right mind would date Tyson Granger?

Their argument was cut short at Kenny calling my name, causing all three of them to sprint over to me instead of waiting the twenty seconds it would have taken me to finish approaching them.

Tyson made absolutely zero attempt to hide the grin on his face, hardly even able to look me in the eyes without laughing.

"Well according to the internet it sure looks like you had a fun weekend." He giggled. "I gotta say, Kai, I never took you for the partying type."

"Shut up." I grumbled. "I just need to know if this is gonna bite me in the ass come tournament season and if there's anything I can do to get it taken down."

"That depends on what happened." Kenny explained, now sitting on the ground with his laptop open. "I mean, it does seem to be a popular blog, but it looks more like a school news site than an actual media page. I'm guessing its run by one of your classmates, the kid who you're with in the pictures is in a few other posts as well, mostly being called things I won't repeat."

Honestly I didn't look closely enough at it to realize it was a school blog, I shut everything down as soon as I emailed Tyson back, determined to get to the bottom of it as quickly as I could.

"Be honest, though." Tyson smirked, "How wasted are you in those pictures? I mean, damn, if I knew you liked to party I would invite you over more often."

I blushed, not dignifying that question with a response. I did have a question of my own though, now that Kenny mentioned something.

"What else does it say about Wyatt?" I asked, hardly able to get the question out before the brunette who I still wasn't sure was or wasn't Tyson's girlfriend loudly blurted out:

"That's how I know you!" Now pointing a finger in my face. "You're the guy from the tea shop! You're friends with that pervy kid who always hits on my cousin!"

Did she mean Avery and Tea Shop Girl?

"Huh?" Tyson cocked an eyebrow, swapping his dumb grin for his normal expression of stupidity. "Kai, you know Hillary?"

"Yeah," She continued. "The last time we went there you were there with your friends! You were being completely rude and that little blond kid kept hitting on Rin! That's why I recognized you when I was there, I've seen your picture before, but you didn't have your face painted then."

"I don't remember." I lied, turning my attention back to Kenny again. "Wyatt hasn't been himself lately, do you think it has something to do with that blog?"

"It's hard to say." He responded. "You're best bet would be to ask him and I don't want to embarrass either of you by reading the things it's saying. Regarding your question about the tournament season, you might be stuck taking a drug test but that should be it."

"Kenny," I made sure I sounded as serious as possible. "What does it say about Wyatt? I need you to tell me."

"Why don't you just read it?" Tyson asked, tilting his head to the side.

I blushed slightly.

"I don't read kanji very well." I admitted.

"It's pretty typical online harassment." Kenny continued. "Nothing I would view as out of the ordinary for high school drama, they do seem to pick on him in particular, though."

Tyson was reading over his shoulder, smirking every so often.

"There's also a poll you can answer regarding whether or not your friend is your stalker or your boyfriend. I should make an account."

The girl, Hillary, hit him relatively hard on the back of the head before I got a chance to.

"Honestly Tyson, of all the immature jokes in the world… Kai is your teammate and there's nothing wrong with him having a boyfriend. Last time I checked you're still single Mr. World Champ."

"He's not my boyfriend." I rolled my eyes, trying to ignore my face growing hotter, although that was hard to notice since Hillary was now staring at me awkwardly with a face significantly more embarrassed than mine.

"Sorry." She said shamefully, causing Tyson to fall backward laughing.

"Kai isn't gay, Hillary." He managed to say through giggles. She looked at me inquisitively, appearing unsure if she believed that statement or not, which in a way was understandable because I wasn't sure if I believed it or not either. "Although," Tyson continued, "You are locked arm in arm in a lot of these pictures. You look like you can hardly even stand up. I still wanna know what the hell you were doing."

"You didn't send this to anyone else, right?" I asked, avoiding eye contact.

"Only Max. Rei doesn't have a computer."

I gave an annoyed grunt before turning away.

"I need to get going." I muttered. I could kick Tyson's ass a different day, right now I needed to figure out what was going on with Wyatt. As they muttered a few awkward goodbyes, I heard Tyson giggling at Hillary once again regarding her referring to him as my boyfriend.

"In the picture you have of the four of you in your room he's wearing a crop top, what the hell was I supposed to think?" She whispered way too loudly.

Embarrassment clouded my brain once again.

I thought I looked good in a crop top…

Wyatt and the idiots weren't hard to find thankfully. They were sitting on a bench having a contest on who could deep throat the biggest ice cream cone and I was pretty sure the only person who was winning was the guy who took their money.

"It's not really a fair contest." Henri smirked, shoving Wyatt playfully on the shoulder. "You're the only one here who's actually had sex. You have an unfair advantage."

"Not for lack of trying, your boyfriend spent our entire freshman year trying to get into my pants. It's a shame for him that I have boundaries."

I kind of missed the first few weeks of school where Wyatt was self conscious about bringing his sex life up around me…

"We can go back now." I interrupted, keeping my gaze downward.

Emile and Henri got up, continuing their giggling while leaving Wyatt behind with me. They always seemed to assume I wanted to be alone with him and I had suddenly grown fearful about whether or not our classmates really were under the impression that we were in a relationship.

"Did you get everything figured out?" He asked, our fingers brushing together as we walked.

"The damage has already been done. Thankfully it's a blog made by one of our classmates and not an actual media scandal, but I might end up needing to take a drug test once competition season hits."

"That's not bad at all." He smiled. "Honestly it could have been worse, the blog was actually really easy on you. Besides, it's a pretty big boost to the self esteem having an online poll asking all of our classmates if they think we're dating." A small giggle slipped out as he continued, "The idea that people think I could ever get someone like you."

"Meaning what?" I asked shyly.

"Meaning that you're Kai Hiwitari. You're one of the best Beybladers in the entire world and could get anyone you wanted."

That wasn't true at all. I had a fan base but it was mostly teen girls who found me attractive, in regards to my actual personality I wasn't what you would call the most popular member of my team. Actually the last article I read about myself referred to me as being a team hopper whose commitment was based on who happened to be winning at the time along with being called a power hungry pretty boy.

"What does that blog say about you?" I asked, my mind now set on internet drama.

Wyatt's smile faded and he hung his head down a bit.

"Let's just say the time they called me a queer was probably the nicest thing they ever said about me. They usually choose different words. That blog is the same one that really set off the rumor that I was sucking dick in the staircases."

"Didn't you actually do that, though?" I elbowed him playfully.

"Only a handful of times." He smiled sadly. "I'm older and classier now, I would just use my room."

Although I was used to him talking about his sex life, I had never really taken in any of what he said. The talk of the school seemed to be that he got around, but I had never really asked him to separate fact from fiction.

"How many relationships have you been in?" I asked, surprising myself a bit.

"It depends on what you consider a relationship… I've had sex with two people and fooled around with maybe two or three more." He blushed. "It's not something I'm proud of, but it's not like I can change it. In regards to actual relationships there's been no one. Not for my lack of trying."

So he'd never had an actual boyfriend?

I took a moment to inspect my surroundings, making sure there weren't any people I knew walking the same path as us, before slipping my hand into his and lacing our fingers together. He smiled at me, taking a moment to nuzzle his head into my shoulder before we continued walking.

I felt my stomach flutter again, the same way it did every time he touched me.

I didn't really like the term boyfriend, it felt too set in stone, too serious. I had never thought about referring to myself as someones boyfriend. That being said, I also wasn't fond of the idea of him being with someone else… which made everything else I was feeling just that much more confusing.

My walls came down with him. He was probably the only person to ever see me just being myself.

I ended up walking Wyatt back up to my room, now sitting on my bed with my arm around his waist. His head rested on my shoulder and in the back of my head I wanted to kiss his temple, which I resisted.

"What aren't you telling me?" I asked quietly after the calmness of silence wore out its welcome.

"What do you mean?"

"You were in Emile's room crying and tried to just cover it up like it's no big deal."

"Kai, I'm fine."

I pulled away from him, looking to see if I could guess any of what was happening on his face. He looked ashamed, like he had been caught doing something bad.

"You told me last weekend that you got a letter from your parents. You haven't been yourself since."

Tears were welling up in his eyes and he brushed them away, lower lip quivering like a child.

"My parent's don't want me to come home during Winter Break." He admitted. "My father has a client he's working on making a big sale to and they're concerned about how… someone like me might make them look. They think it would be best for everyone if I stay here."

His words from the weekend replayed in my head.

You have a parent who wants to see you, Kai. Would it really hurt to try?

The emotions he had held inside were pouring out in the form of muffled sobbing, face hidden in his legs. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do in a situation like this. Do I leave him be? Do I hug him?

Silently cussing my extreme lack of normal social interaction, I pulled him into me, laying my head on his and not saying anything.

"My parents hate me." He continued. "I've always denied it, but they do."

Due to our opposite personalities, Wyatt was one of the last people I had ever expected to feel a personal connection to, but abandonment was one of the few things I actually understood.

I wanted to be able to tell him that it wasn't true, but I had never met his parents. I didn't really get an opinion in how they felt toward him.

Unsure if there was anything I could say to make him feel better, I went with the first thing that popped into my head.

"Tyson is friends with one of the girls who joined our table at the tea shop," I explained, fully aware that the statement seemed to come out of nowhere. "She thought you were my boyfriend."

His tears now combined with hysterical laughter, making it sound as though he was suffocating. Smiling, I lay down next to him, brushing his bangs out of his face.

After a moment he noticed my emotionless expression while I felt my heart pounding in my chest.

"Does that bother you?" He asked.

"It confuses me."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

Although I could say the words in my head, saying them out loud, especially to his face, felt impossible. I suddenly had become hyper aware of my surroundings, including how annoyingly cute he was.

"Because I like you." I admitted, pulling him into me. "And I don't really know what that means."

A small smile formed on his face, hand now resting on my cheek.

"You know," He said. "My thirteen year old self would never believe any of this was real." He pressed his lips to mine gently, keeping his face extremely close to mine even as we parted. "I've had a crush on you since the first time I saw you on TV. Could you imagine me telling my thirteen year old self that I would eventually make out with Kai Hiwitari?"

"If I remember correctly Emile and Henry referred to me as 'Your wet dream' my first day of school."

"They can't prove that." He winked. "Can I stay here tonight?"

"Since when do you ask permission?"

He shrugged, getting up for a moment and stripping down to his boxers before getting back into bed. Unsure of myself, I did the same, pulling his bare back into my chest and wrapping my arms around his torso while attempting to ignore that my crotch currently had a pulse.

If Wyatt noticed, he ignored it, sparing me some dignity.

We had shared a bed before, but this felt different, more intimate. The comfort caused my eyelids to become heavy quickly, dozing off comfortably with my face cuddled into his hair and neck.

I didn't have any nightmares that night.

I'm not sure if the drama seems a bit overdone to some people or not. This is actually pretty realistic to how I remember school being, but looking back at other chapters I've noticed that I've written in people crying a lot. Hopefully I'm not starting to accidentally write drama porn, but like I said I'm always open to criticism.

The idea of The Bladebreakers all partying together and getting wasted sounds like it would end with Kai having babysitting duty. Kenny would probably be the crazy one, after all he did tag a wall with spray paint during v force.