Chapter 16

Alright, I'm going to be completely honest… I don't really like this chapter, but I can't keep everyone waiting because of my writers block. Anyway, I really hope you don't hate this chapter. It was insanely hard to write…

After handing in the last of our midyear finals we were officially able to celebrate my first actual accomplishment since starting school here. This had been the largest amount of testing that I had ever done in one sitting and as much as I hated to admit it, I felt good about myself. I had finally gotten a decent study routine down, I wasn't behind on any of my homework and even my grades were moving slowly up from the high C's to the low B's.

"I swear," Wyatt laughed quietly. "I thought that Winter Break would never get here." He was laying on my bed, head resting on my lap and arms linked together around my lower waist like a human belt.

"Are you sure you're feeling alright about staying at school?" I asked. I was playing with his hair, brushing bits of his bangs behind his ear and watching it fall back into place. After he had opened up to me about his parents not wanting him to return home right now he had completely stopped talking about the subject, now putting on an emotionless face that I was quite confident he had learned from me and pretending that none of the situation that had previously had him crying on my shoulder bothered him anymore.

"It sucks being reminded that my family views me as an embarrassment." He admitted, "But I'm excited that I have you around to keep me company and not so many classmates around to interrupt us. We don't normally get this kind of alone time."

The same thing had gone through my head as well when I noticed just how many of our classmates were in the process of packing up and leaving. Without Wyatt I would have spent the entire week completely alone; most likely shut up in my room with only trace amounts of human contact. Since Wyatt was staying we would be able to spend that time together, maybe even without any sort of interruption…

Basically, I was having dirty thoughts about him and wondered if Winter Break would be a good time to debate acting upon them. The closer we got to sexual intimacy the more I found myself trapped in a state of arousal that I couldn't wank my way out of.

He got up, kissing me on the cheek and pulling me to my feet.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To say goodbye to everyone, dummy." He giggled. "Avery and Emile and Henri are all heading to the airport in a little bit and I'm not allowing you to be rude today."

"I'm not rude." I smiled. "I just have a low patience for idiots."

"Then don't hang out with idiots."

"Like anyone gives me a choice."

He pulled me into a hug before dragging me out the door. I wasn't going to protest saying goodbye to anyone, I would have done that on my own if I knew they were leaving at the same time. Walking through the hallway I no longer put any thought to the looks I got when we held hands publicly. Even though Wyatt wasn't my boyfriend per say, I liked him and he liked me; it's not like we were making out in front of everyone. It wasn't until someone coughed a certain word under their breath that I took my hand back, shamefully looking away from him before he had time to see the embarrassment my face held. I was getting better, I was almost ready to be public about us, but I wasn't completely there yet. I still questioned what my team would think if I were ever to introduce him officially as my boyfriend. Tyson had made gay jokes about people before but I think more in ignorance than in hate, and when I first started school here I wasn't the nicest to Wyatt either.

Still, there was one concern that I couldn't remove from my mind. What my team and I did could be extremely dangerous. Rei had ended up in the hospital last year and although it wasn't related to the actual game, I had come closer to dying than I would typically admit to. Even some of my memories that had come back to me involved the fact that no one had seen my mother since she had confronted my grandfather about his abusive ways.

If anything ever happened to Wyatt I would never forgive myself.

"Are you doing alright?" He asked me, causing me to bow my head in shame.

"Yeah…"

Getting into the elevator we stood in silence for a bit. I was the one who was trying to be more open, I was the one who thought maybe I was ready to bring two different lives together.

He kissed me on the cheek before the elevator door opened back up, running off toward the front doors where an exceptionally large amount of students were waiting with all of their luggage for a shuttle to come and take them to the airport.

"You promise you're gonna come back, right?" He laughed, hugging a few people goodbye.

"Only if you promise not to get pregnant while we're gone." Emile joked, putting Wyatt in a playful attempt at a headlock. After removing himself he came back to my side, slipping his hand back into mine and waving everyone off while they made their way outside and into the shuttle bus that had pulled in to pick them up.

It was official, we were alone.

The building felt eerily quiet with so many people gone. To be honest I had never noticed before how big this place actually was, I was so used to the crowd of teenagers flooding the hallways and break area. Now there was essentially no one, I wasn't even sure if a night guard was currently actually on duty or not. Given I was honestly never sure if a night guard was on duty, for the amount they warned us about them I don't think I had ever actually seen one. Wyatt spent more time in my room than in his own and I had never even been remotely worried about being caught.

"What should we do?" He asked, once again laying on my bed playing a handheld game.

"We're gonna have to stay here." I shrugged. "We don't even have enough people to sign out."

"Yeah, I wasn't planning on leaving. It's been freezing out the past few days and I'm not dealing with you getting sick and refusing to rest again. If you end up with a fever this week I'm just gonna steal Avery's fuzzy handcuffs and handcuff you to your bed." He looked up. "And not in a kinky way, I'm just gonna leave you there and go back to my room."

I chuckled quietly, sitting so that he was able to rest his head on my lap again.

"We don't need to do anything. Honestly just this is fine with me."

Pulling himself up, Wyatt turned his game off and faced me, a somewhat evil grin on his face.

"Play truth or dare with me." He said.

"Absolutely not."

"Why not?"

"Because I have dignity and I'm not a twelve year old girl."

He threw a pillow at my head, giggling playfully before pushing himself on top of me and pinning me down, his hands holding mine down on the mattress.

"I could just pin you down and drool on you until you agree, that's what my older brother used to do to me when we were kids."

"You aren't even close to holding me down against my will, I can free myself from this easily, I've seen you attempt to lift things and I'm not convinced you're even capable of doing a push up."

Still smiling, he let me go, sitting with his legs crossed as I pulled myself back up and mimicked him.

"We'll see about that. I have PE with you next quarter."

God dammit I had forgotten I had PE next quarter… the only thing more humiliating than being caught in a school uniform was being caught in a gym uniform.

"Can I just skip that?" I joked. "I have Geography with you too, we can just hang out there instead."

"Kai, you are terrible at Geography, no offense but if I wanted to fail a class I would just sit with Avery during Political Science."

"I'm not terrible at Geography."

"You still need to make an L with your thumb and pointer finger to figure out which way left is and you can't read a map when we take the bus places to save your life. I'm pretty sure you're dyslexic."

Now I threw the pillow at him. A bit ironic that I had just claimed truth or dare was for twelve year old girls and yet we were practically having a pillow fight.

"I know one more alphabet than you do and speak one more language than you." I reminded him.

"Half a language, your English has improved but you definitely aren't fluent. You're getting there, though. Actually, you could probably work as a translator someday if you wanted."

I had never actually thought about what I wanted to do once I retired from blading. Very few people in the adult league continued the game past thirty unless they were successfully able to stay in extremely good shape, I had heard on more than one occasion that once most people hit their late twenties it takes too much of a toll on them.

"I don't know what I want to do for a career yet." I admitted. "I'm not even really sure I want to go to college. I can hardly keep up with everyone else in high school."

"There, you already answered your first truth question. I'll pick truth too."

"This is stupid. I don't want to play."

"You're too late, I'm not gonna go away until you ask me a question and you already know how annoying I can be."

Rolling my eyes while trying to hide the slight smirk that was forming on my face, I took a moment to think. Don't think of it as a preteen girls sleepover game, just think of it as asking him a question. That wasn't so bad.

"How old were you when you first had sex?" I asked shyly, heat forming in my cheeks. That was absolutely none of my business, I don't know why I would ask something like that… it didn't help how quiet he got now, taking a moment to debate his response in his head before answering.

"Twelve." He admitted, choosing not to go into detail. "I'm guessing you won't ever pick dare, right?"

"Technically, I never even picked truth."

"Have you ever thought about studying abroad?" Wyatt asked. Although it was a question, he seemed to be going back to a typical conversation instead of a playful one. "I've thought about applying to Cecile's college in England once I graduate… She's told me before that the nice thing about boarding school is how similar it is to college life minus the freedom. We're already used to living in a dorm and caring for ourselves; we could even room together."

I blushed. Was he really suggesting that after high school we could essentially live together?

"We're only sophomores." I reminded him. "Isn't it a little early to be thinking so far ahead? If I'm not able to be emancipated I'm not even sure I would have enough time to apply. I would still have two months after high school graduation before I actually turned eighteen."

"August 2nd, right?" He asked.

"August 1st, my Wikipedia page got my birthday wrong. It also claimed for awhile that I was a year older than I actually am."

Wyatt giggled. He had an annoyingly cute giggle.

In an attempt to not think too hard about what I was doing, I put my hand on the back of his head and pulled him into me, kissing him.

"What was that for?" He smiled as our lips parted. I could tell that I was still blushing, a very common occurrence when I was around him. "I didn't even dare you."

"I need a reason to kiss you now?" I smirked.

Gently, he pulled me into a hug, holding me to his chest and falling backward onto the mattress. My stomach was fluttering as I listened to his heart beat in his chest. After all these months the sensations he made my body feel were still extremely new to me. I'd never had a crush on anyone before and as we continued through new territory I still felt lost on what I was supposed to call him. My friend? My boyfriend?

Did I love him?

My stomach jumped at that thought. It had only been three months, was it possible for me to love him?

My thoughts were interrupted by his phone pinging, causing him to loosen his grip on me and flip it open.

"Tyson texted me."

"Will you quit texting Tyson!?" I swear introducing those two was the worst mistake I ever made. Wyatt kept taking pictures of me sleeping and sending them to him, mostly after sticking chopsticks or silverware in my hair.

Looking up at him, I sat up with concern. "Are you okay?"

All of the color had drained from his face.

"Shit!" He yelled. "Kai, hand me my laptop."

"What's going on?"

"Just do it."

I obeyed, getting out of bed and grabbing his backpack off of the ground. I unzipped it and pulled his computer out, giving it to him. Something bad had just happened, I could tell. I probably had an email from Tyson about it, he had probably texted Wyatt because I didn't respond. I was terrible at checking my email.

"Wyatt, what's happening? You're acting like me right now."

He was typing away furiously, expression currently one of impending doom.

"My parents are going to kill me." He looked at me. "You are going to kill me."

No longer patient enough to wait for him to respond, I grabbed his computer off of his lap to see what in the absolute fuck he was looking at. He had several different tabs open, some in Japanese and some in English, but the main one that caught my attention was the same school blog that had given me trouble the night of our less than sober shenanigans.

Wyatt was right… this was bad… I pulled up the other tabs, none of them from what I would call any major news or gossip sites, but definitely not anything I would prefer my face plastered on.

Yet there I was, arm wrapped around Wyatt, his head on my shoulder, then another picture of me kissing him on the cheek.

The website with the biggest following was one in English, so I turned the computer back to him, my face now red with shame.

"Can you read this to me?" I asked. Actually, I more stated. It took absolutely everything I had inside of me to not completely flip the fuck out. My heart was racing and I could feel tears pooling up in my eyes. This was the exact opposite of not having attention on me. This was having attention on me, outside of the tournament season in two different languages. This was attention on me that Tyson had sent Wyatt. He was probably laughing at me… he had probably sent this to everyone and they were all laughing at me.

Knowing better than to try and talk me down right now, Wyatt simply read the article.

"Details uncovered about the BBA's most mysterious competitor and his possible love life. Pictures have surfaced recently via an anonymous blog run by a member of Whitney Prep School in Japan.

A well known academy, Whitney Prep houses the children of some of the most elite members of Japan, from the government to top notch CEO's, including Beyblading World Champion and heir to Hiwitari Enterprises, Kai Hiwitari. It seems that one of the most well respected schools in the country is not untouchable in regards to student gossip. The current question going around has been regarding Kai's relationship with Wyatt Smithwright, second in line heir of Smithwright Real Estate Corporations with locations in Aspen Colorado and Los Angeles California- okay what the fuck do my parents sell this website ad revenue or something- and whether or not the two are romantically involved. A possible answer to this question has now popped up as the blog reveals anonymously taken photographs of the two in an intimate embrace on the schools outdoor patio, an embrace which ends with Hiwitari kissing Smithwright on the cheek… Do I need to keep reading this…? It's really awkward..."

I stood up, pulling at my hair rather harshly and sticking myself in a time out in the corner.

"Has anyone else sent this to you?" I asked quietly. "Did you check your email?"

"It looks like it only went up about an hour ago. Honestly I don't even know how Tyson found it so fast. You should email him that you're alright, though, he's worried about you."

"I'm not fucking alright."

"Kai, I'm serious, Tyson texted me to make sure someone was with you because he's concerned you're going to jump off of a bridge."

Yeah, that was exactly what I thought. I knew he was making fun of me… I just hadn't realized he would stoop low enough to make a suicide joke at my expense.

"Tell him to go fuck himself." I wasn't sure if I was crying from anger or embarrassment or both. "When I find out who took those pictures I'm going to kill someone."

"How do you think I feel?" Wyatt asked. "My parents warned me that my father was in the process of a huge sale and that they didn't want me to fuck it up by being… well, me. Now I'm on the front page of a gossip website that I'm sure is eventually gonna get picked up by TMZ or something. I might as well just dig my grave now."

He didn't understand… he was thousands of miles away from his family. At school he was already out, no one here would care about what any news article said about him. Did he not understand what was going to happen to me now? My team was going to know, my caseworker was going to know, my therapist was going to force me to talk about this… what was going to happen if they made me see my father again? How was I going to show my face anywhere?

I had only been six years old when I was caught displaying affection toward another boy. All we did was hold hands, it was completely innocent. I was a child. He had pulled us off of one another and snapped my wrist. Then he had punched me in the face. I don't even know what had happened to the other boy. I can't remember if I ever saw him again.

Who had pulled us off of one another though? Who had broken my wrist? I couldn't see their face… I couldn't remember.

"Kai," Wyatt was on the floor with me now. I didn't remember sitting down. He held me like a child and rested his cheek on top of my head. "It's gonna be okay." He said quietly.

But he was wrong.

It wasn't going to be okay…