So far I was making it a personal mission to leave my dorm as little as humanly possible, ignoring the fact that there were probably less that 100 boys currently on campus. I wasn't checking my email and I seldom answered my door for anyone outside of Wyatt, which worked out well in my favor seeing as for the most part he was the only one who even knocked on my door in the first place.

In most circumstances I probably would have ignored him as well, but he was already currently in the process of being abandoned by his family… I couldn't in good conscious abandon him too. He didn't seem offended that I had begun pulling back though, once again retreating to my sanctuary of loneliness and not wanting to be touched. To be completely honest I was lucky that he was so patient with me, most people probably wouldn't be.

"You know that you need to leave your dorm eventually, right?" Wyatt asked, laying on his stomach on my bed while I sat at my desk. "You're close to going 48 hours without showering. If you want me to leave you alone you can honestly just ask me, you don't need to just refuse to bathe until I get grossed out and leave."

He did make a fair point, I would need to take a shower eventually if I didn't want my skin to break out. Also I should probably brush my teeth.

"I don't want to deal with everyone staring at me..." I admitted, laying my head down on my desk. Although I was used to media attention, I had never actually been publicly humiliated before, mostly only dealing with run of the mill rumors which were easy enough to ignore. Although what was currently happening was technically a rumor, it was true and it had a picture to prove it.

Minus the actual label, I was still more or less in a relationship with him.

"I'm not claiming it's going to be easy," Wyatt said with a sigh, "But think about it for a minute, if you close yourself off to the world and disappear, they win."

I picked my head up to look at him, attempting to hide the anger that I was currently feeling. This wasn't his fault and I wasn't going to lash out at him for it. If anything it was my own fault for getting too comfortable with him. I was the one who kissed him where someone could see us. Still, that didn't stop the feeling that rose up due to him completely missing the point.

"Are you really suggesting that being publicly outed without my knowledge or permission is just a game I can choose to win or lose? I'm not even sure I can call it being outed because I'm still not even sure what the fuck I am. None of this is what I wanted, it just happened."

Based on his face, he looked hurt, now keeping his gaze focused on the floor.

"I knew you were shy," He said, "But I never realized that you were embarrassed by me."

That wasn't the problem at all…

"I'm not embarrassed by you, Wyatt..." I explained. "I just can't handle any of this."

"No offense, Kai, but you've handled a lot worse in your life than being called gay by a gossip website. Like I said, I'm not claiming that it's going to be easy to get through and I'm not claiming it doesn't suck to be outed by someone, but you have friends who love and care about you and they don't care if you like guys or not. Your team is worried about you."

I didn't respond, instead sulking like a child in time out who knew they were in the wrong but didn't want to admit it.

"I'm not ready to face my team."

Getting up off of my bed, Wyatt approached me with caution, gently putting his hand on my shoulder.

"You have to eventually."

I had never been the kind of person to confide in my team, or anyone else for that matter, when something was wrong. I was much better at hiding out in the shadows until training began and then disappearing again. I was a private person, that was common knowledge.

Still, I wrapped my arm around him, pulling him into me gently.

"To be completely honest," I said. "I'm not even sure what I would do without you. You're the entire reason I've even made it this far, normally I would probably end up kicked out of school or something, I'm already pretty sure that my case worker doesn't like me being here; I think she would rather I live in a foster home."

He paused for a moment, seeming to be debating what he should say next.

"You've started talking to a psychologist, right?" He eventually asked. Now it made sense why he had paused, it wasn't typical for him to butt into things that weren't his business, at least not when it involved my life.

"Probably not as much as they would like me to. I don't like talking about the past, there's no point."

"It can help a lot with your anxiety because they can get you medicated if need be."

"I don't use medications."

Another pause, longer this time.

"Kai," Wyatt said, walking to where I sat and putting a hand on top of mine. "What the hell did they do to you that made you this way?"

I raised an eyebrow at him, not sure what he was referring to. It was true that I didn't like being forced to talk to all of these different people but I wouldn't say they were doing me any harm outside of annoying me.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"In The Abbey… The way you toss and turn in your sleep, some of the things you say, the fear that lives inside of you… I've always known that there was abuse, you've always been open about that, but you still scare the hell out of me sometimes." He was squeezing my hand now. "What the fuck did those monsters do to you…?"

My body had gone stiff when he spoke, hands shaking just slightly.

"I don't remember."

"Yes you do, Kai. You wish you didn't remember, you shove it as far back into your subconscious as you can, you pretend none of it happened so that you don't need to talk about it, but you remember."

I got up.

"I'm not talking about this."

"I knew you were abused; I knew you had a rough childhood, but the more I catch glimpses of what you desperately try to hide the more I realize that it was so much worse than you let people know. I see the pain and the fear that you hide, I see the quirks that you've picked up in order to protect yourself. You don't talk about the scars and cigarette burns that cover parts of your body or the world that you disappear into when you can't handle the stress anymore. You refuse to explain why having attention on you triggers a panic attack and why you're so protective about your personal life vs. your competitive life. Things have happened to you that you refuse to talk about but you need to let someone in, you can't live this way."

I pulled my hand away, his words made my skin crawl and I couldn't listen to it anymore. It was no ones business what I had been through. If I didn't want to talk about it I shouldn't have to. The more I thought about it, the more my trauma pulled me back in, wrapping me tightly in the darkness that I desperately wanted to be away from.

There was so much fear when awaking to silence; not so much as a mumble from the other boys you sat huddled together with. As much as they hated me, they hated the cold more… we used one another for body warmth in hopes that we could gain some form of protection from the frigid air. Sometimes it felt like we had been awake for days, maybe weeks. Who knows, maybe we had been… maybe I had just passed out from exhaustion and that was why the air around me felt so stiff and silent. We didn't even shake anymore, our bodies instead chose to conserve the energy. Sometimes alcohol was used to achieve a false warmth, not that our bodies knew the difference.

All of those years I had hidden away from myself, building a mental block as high as I could muster using tools I never even had. Your mind was your only escape.

I've been to this place before… I saw it in my dreams, forcing myself to forget by the time I awoke. I didn't want it to be real, but I came back night after night. Dream after dream it was always the same.

My grandfather had a goal: To raise the ultimate human weapons. Yet human wasn't even the way he saw us. We were tools and when we broke we could be replaced. He would find someone else who could handle what the rest of us couldn't, breaking that barrier between human and machine, break us down until we were nothing but a shell of our former selves. Compassion, empathy, love… they were all things that made one weak. If those traits could be ripped out of us at an early age we would instead learn to tolerate the pain we endured and to fight only for one goal.

For me, there was only one way for him to make me into what he wanted. Cut ties with those who cared about me. My mother was easy enough to dispose of in a country where she had no family residing. She would vanish and nobody would ask questions, everyone knew better than to ask questions.

My father proved to be more difficult… the son who he failed to manipulate into continuing his plan and the one person who saw through him. He wasn't afraid of my grandfather, he would stand up to him, continuing to hold me tightly onto the line that separated light from darkness.

"I won't let you continue to treat your grandson this way! None of this is what you promised us when you took him, he comes home covered in bruises and cuts, he seldom walks without limping and the night terrors are nearly a daily occurrence! He refuses affection, flinches when touched-"

"He succeeds where you failed, son. Kai has the abilities you lacked, the stigma to get back up when he's knocked down."

"He's a child!"

"A child who came from you, just like you came from me. I can take away what I gave and you can live the rest of your life alone, knowing you're the reason he's gone. I have the power here, I can guarantee his safety, can you?"

My grandfather had become obsessed with gaining more and more power, obsessed with what he could turn The Abbey into and without compassion regarding how he got there.

My father left and for years I accepted a reality where he would never return, a reality where I was never wanted. To come back with open arms and expect me to allow him back into the life that he helped choose for me, the life that he sentenced me to when he didn't take me with him… did he truly see his act as one of my best interest? Of protecting me?

Maybe we're both idiots… living in a world where our past is nothing but a deluded memory that will gradually fade away.

My grandfather took care of me, giving me everything I needed to become the best. I was praised when I did well, punished for when I didn't. Yet I was punished for even existing in the first place. Had my father stayed out of it I would have been no different than any other boy, trained to the best of my ability and disregarded if I didn't have what it took. After my father left I became no more than a tool to dangle in front of him, to prove that my grandfather could raise me to be everything my father couldn't.

I went through some of the harshest training regiments to exist, training of which an eight year old child should never be subjected to. Day in and day out I fought to keep myself alive, believing that by listening to his words I would become unstoppable.

I wished so badly that my father had never allowed my grandfather back into his life, had never chosen to allow him into mine. We could have been a normal family. We would have had no money, no power… but we'd have had each other, we'd have had love.

Visits turned into training, training turned into me being ripped from the arms of those who cared about me and plunged into the nightmare that I still can't awaken from.

This is my home now…

Yet I survived what so many of the others didn't, taking refuge under the wing of Yasha, one of the only boys there to continue the program from within the inside, who told me he would change it someday, take over those who currently ruled and show the next generation that we could continue my grandfathers plan without the use of force.

He was going to take care of us someday, he was going to protect us. Sometimes I felt like he was the only person I had ever met to display a conscience. Without him I would have turned out exactly like the rest of them. Cold, uncaring and without empathy.

I would have been the person that Tala to this day still wishes he was. If anything it was the only difference between the two of us… I kept moving forward due to him, creating my own space within my head that held onto the traits which made me human. Tala preferred to pretend he didn't display the same traits and he hated that I saw through him.

He's exactly like me, something that caused both our respect and our hatred for one another.

If Yasha couldn't take The Abbey over from the inside, then he would take the rest of us out. We would run away and start a new life where we would be safe and protect one another. We would run far away where no one would ever find us.

Those were the only good dreams I ever had. Dreams of leaving the horror of which I had spent nearly five years of my life and finding a sanctuary where we could be free without living in fear. I used to use those dreams to make it through another day… if you can make it through today, you can sleep… then you can dream… but every time, I woke up within the personal hell that I was trapped.

Those dreams had been shattered long ago.

Now I simply sighed uncomfortably.

"I can't..." I explained.

Pulling himself upright from my bed he gazed at me with an expression of uncertainty.

"Huh?" Was all he said.

"The more I talk, the more I remember… No one ever seems to understand that when they ask me about what happened."

He stood up and approached me, causing me to suddenly realize that he had just been standing next to me, not sitting on my bed. Why was he back on my bed now?

"Kai," Wyatt said, "Do you remember what we were just talking about?"

"You were trying to make me talk about when I was a kid."

"That was over an hour ago."

It felt like I had just woken up from an extremely restless sleep. I was groggy and struggling to focus. Running my hands through my hair the realization hit me that my bangs were damp. I was also wearing different clothes.

What the fuck?

"Did I take a shower…?"

"Do you not remember anything that's happened in the last hour?"

Reluctantly, I shook my head. My discomfort was turning into fear as the full realization hit that I had been lost in my head for so long. I had been here the entire time, yet I wasn't here. It was like I had been dreaming while I was still awake.

Wyatt knelt in front of me now, his hand cupping my cheek. I didn't even recognize what his current expression was to be honest, it wasn't a look I had ever seen from him before. Almost a mix of fascination and absolute terror.

"I'm alright." I tried to insist, knowing he wouldn't take my word for it. Wyatt had an annoying habit of worrying about me and I had an even more annoying habit of hating it when people worried about me. "Wanna get me drunk?" I asked expressionless.

"Probably not when you're like this. My goal this year has been to teach you to have fun, not to turn you into an alcoholic. I could get you high if you promise to take it easy and not kick any parked cars."

He brushed my hair out of my face, looking into my eyes cautiously.

Sighing slightly, I shrugged. It was true that I had become a bit dependent on alcohol when I was feeling depressed, something I had sworn to myself I wouldn't do.

"I guess."

"How about you come to my room. That way if we get caught it'll be on me, not you. The last thing you need right now is to get in trouble."

Taking my hand, he pulled me onto my feet, not reacting much when I pulled away as we went into the hall. He was surprisingly understanding of how distant I was becoming lately.

Still, I followed him, shoving my hands in my pockets and keeping my eyes on the floor. I wasn't really sure who was still here during the winter holiday and honestly I didn't want to know. I already knew that people were talking about me.

"I should probably tell the housemasters that you two are sneaking off into each others rooms." The snide comment caused me to stop in my tracks, turning around to see who was talking to us. "I don't think the school tolerates sneaking off to have sex, haven't you learned your lesson yet, Smithwright?"

Haru was hovering over Wyatt, standing on the tips of his toes to make it appear as though he was taller than he actually was. The absurdly large upperclassman who normally hung around him laughed at his antics but I wasn't sure he understood a word he was saying. It hadn't taken me long to realize he was one of the rich assholes who had bought his way into school and was absolutely dumber than a box of rocks.

Rolling his eyes, Wyatt attempted to ignore him, pulling out his key to unlock the door.

"I'm talking to you." Haru continued, shoving him into the wall. "You have a lot of nerve thinking you can just ignore me after what you did to me last year, slut."

Ignoring my own discomfort that I felt, I pushed myself in front of him. I was taller than Haru and had made it clear earlier in the year that I wasn't afraid to hit him back.

"Just go away." I attempted to say calmly. "Leave him alone and mind your own business."

He crossed his arms to his chest now and large bulky dude stood ground next to him, yelling something at me in what I would hardly refer to as Japanese.

"I would listen to Dmitri." Haru laughed. "Don't start something you can't finish. Just because you're a world class Beyblader doesn't mean you're above getting your ass kicked."

"I'm not afraid of either of you."

"You should be. You've already fucked up your reputation by getting too close to our school slutbag. Do you really want to make things worse for yourself?"

Dmitri yelled something else I still couldn't understand. Recognizing the absolute pointlessness of attempting to speak Japanese to him I instead resorted to just yelling at him in Russian, causing mass confusion on both Wyatt and Haru's faces as they watched us begin have a screaming match in a language that neither of them understood and that Wyatt had never actually heard me speak before outside of very small sentences; usually on accident.

I wasn't going to allow myself to be harassed by two assholes based only on the fact that one of them was larger than me. Still, a midst our yelling Haru found the time to gather his confidence, successfully punching me in the face while I continued to squabble with Dmitri.

That did it. I wasn't taking this shit lying down.

If you would have walked into the hallway at that exact time you would have seen one of the strangest physical fights of your entire life, consisting of Haru and me acting like idiots while Dmitri, who most people appeared afraid of, stood not actually fighting but instead standing in the middle of the hall like the dimwitted idiot he clearly was and watching us with an expression which read 'I have never been in a situation like this and have no idea what to do'.

I had immediately punched him back after being hit, knocking him to the ground rather effortlessly. Having the current upper hand in the situation I threw myself at him, allowing the anger that had been boiling up inside me come pouring out. I was done with this shit. If I was going to stay here, I wasn't sitting around and watching my best friend get repeatedly assaulted just because Haru didn't want to come out of the closet. When I lived in The Abbey I had learned how to defend myself, you had to if you wanted to last. I had felt this anger before and as I found myself unable to stop hitting him I also found memory after memory flooding back again and again. I wasn't even in this world anymore, instead lost within the labyrinth of my own head.

"Kai, stop!" Wyatt yelled out to me, merely an echo residing outside of my current realm of consciousness. I wasn't sucked into reality again until someone grabbed a hold of me, attempting to pull me off of him. I didn't want to get off of him though, he deserved to have the shit beat out of him.

Pulling forcefully away from the hold that currently had me, I turned toward whoever was pulling at me and shared my pent up blind rage with their face.

Only I wish it hadn't been blind rage… because I was forced back to reality at the realization that I had just struck Wyatt right on the cheek with every ounce of strength that I could muster.

Shit…