I had strange dreams that night… Not necessarily what one would call nightmares, but not what you would call typical either. Why had I been thinking about Yasha again lately? He hadn't lived in my head for years and until recently I had all but forgotten about the teenager who cared for me and the others. Our relationship was like that of brothers, he protected and cared for us until we left or disappeared; then he had disappeared as well. I mourned him like my own family and when he left I had closed myself off completely, vowing never to let anyone else in.

So why had I forgotten him so easily? How did I possibly not think of the person who essentially saved my life every moment of every day?

Between my inconsistent thoughts and the awakening of puberty, he had invaded my dream in a sick and twisted way that made me ashamed of myself. Dreams where he held me down and stuck his tongue down my throat, dreams where I touched him the same way I had touched Wyatt.

There was something wrong with me… I disgusted myself.

Now in the comfort of my own dorm and enveloped in the scent of fresh bed sheets, I covered my head with the duvet and forced my eyes open and my mind out of the terror that came from my own head.

I had been called feminine words in cruel taunts throughout my childhood, my wrist had been aggressively snapped when I had the audacity to touch the hand of another little boy. We were children, gender roles were not a concept we fully understood.

Was that a part I had denied as a kid? In a childish way had I felt something romantic toward him? I knew that some boys had crushes on the female adults we saw once in a blue moon coming through our facilities, craving the affections of a pinch on the cheek or a bosom to press against. They were simple crushes without meaning.

So what was this?

Accepting that I wasn't going back to sleep, I got out of bed and rummaged my dresser for comfortable clothing, settling on a long sleeved black shirt and a denim jacket that I had cut the sleeves off of. I also grabbed a pair of jeans I hoped no one realized were from the women's section… I filled them out nicely, though and I liked the way skinny jeans looked with my boots since I could tuck them in.

Leaving my room, I showered and dressed before heading down to breakfast and grabbing a cup of black tea before sitting down at our usual table.

"I swear you look gayer every time I see you." Avery smirked, clearly referring to my clothing choices which have always been a bit on the flashy side.

Wyatt smacked him on the back of the head before handing me a small bowl of rice and natto along with a pair of chopsticks.

"Eat something." He said with a glare.

He was being dramatic, he knew I rarely ate breakfast and that it didn't mean anything. He had seen me eat lunch and dinner many times. Still, I had agreed to attempt to be less defiant and took the small bowl.

"That smells absolutely disgusting..." Avery chimed in. "Wyatt, how can you stand to kiss him after he eats that?"

My face blushed a light shade of pink. I was used to the way they all spoke at this point, but I still didn't like it when they discussed our relationship. He was also correct that natto was not the greatest smelling food… I wasn't sure if Wyatt realized that I didn't even like it.

"I'm trying to make sure you don't get scurvy or something else like that." He glared at him. "Sugar and caffeine is not a diet."

"I'm sure you make sure he gets plenty of protein too." Avery winked, nudging him.

I ignored him, instead checking my phone. Tyson had texted me a few times yesterday asking if I was alright and I had ignored him because I'm an extremely shitty friend and that's what I do.

I won't tell anyone about the other day, I know you don't like people worrying about you.

It kind of drove me crazy how kind to me he was being, I missed when he used to tease and mock me, it was easier to be a jerk when he was being one right back to me.

Thanks.

It was all I said in return, hoping he would pick up that I didn't want to talk.

"Do we have an official plan for when we go into the city in a few weeks?" Henri chimed in, shoving a mix of rice and vegetables in his mouth that looked significantly more appetizing than the bowl that Wyatt had made me. I had resorted to picking at it with my chopsticks and hoping he wouldn't notice that I was only eating the rice.

"Kai asked Dmitri if he would room with us, so we'll be with an upperclassman instead of a chaperone." Wyatt remarked.

It was really the only option we had, besides, Dmitri's demeanor had changed since I had begun helping him with his pronunciation. I was confident at this point that I was the only person who understood I word that he said, which went out the window when he spoke Japanese most of the time. I had to really concentrate to figure out what he was saying.

"Isn't he one of Haru's guys?"

"He seems like he's gained a bit of confidence since Kai punched Haru in the face." He smirked when he said it. "I think he's just following whoever holds the cards, but since Kai speaks Russian he seems to have taken more of a liking to him."

"Why are all of our Russian kids orphans?"

"By all you mean 'two'?"

"For the last time, I'm not an orphan." I grunted, taking notice of his words. I hadn't realized that Dmitri was a part of the system as well. How did he end up here? It was clear he hadn't been in Japan for a very long time.

"Your dad is trying to get custody of you, isn't he?" Emile asked.

"He has a lot of shit to answer for." I remarked. "You can't just get custody back after being charged with abandonment. The only reason he's even allowed to see me is because the charges don't carry over to Japan, but the county wants him charged for child endangerment as well."

My grandfather had been charged with child abuse and endangerment along with several different war crimes. Even in the slim chance that he was able to get out of jail, he wasn't currently allowed to see me under any circumstances. In the blink of an eye I had lost everything that I had… my grandfather was not a good person, but he had raised me as his own, training me to be his successor as soon as I had turned ten. That was when the vast majority of the physical abuse had stopped. Boris had taken over The Abbey and my grandfather and I came to Japan; as years went by my memories were nearly all forgotten.

He was all I had ever had…

"Dmitri looks like he's about thirty." Henri smirked. "Do you think he could get us alcohol?"

Avery chimed in.

"We already have a decent booze stash." He said. "I'm more interested in the streets, I wanna try and get cocaine."

"You can't afford cocaine."

He rolled his eyes, mentally acknowledging the statement as correct before giving Wyatt a sly smile.

"Hey Wy," He grinned. "Wanna blow some rich married pedos in the back alley for drug money again?"

My head shot up and I cocked an eyebrow at him, he was kidding right? Turning my head, I was met with Wyatt's deeply blushing face.

"You know what, Avery?" He said quietly as he got out of his chair. "Fuck off."

It was true, then…? He had actually done that?

I had followed Wyatt up to his room fairly quickly after tidying up the table, now trying to get the courage to knock. I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing or if it would be better to give him space.

"Wyatt?" I called, tapping the door gently. "It's me."

He opened it, allowing me in without eye contact and sitting down on the mattress.

I didn't say anything to him, thinking back on how he had responded to the distress of my mother and sister being found. Without words I hugged him tightly, pulling his head into my shoulder.

"I'm not proud of who I was before I met you." He said sadly.

"Who you were doesn't matter. I don't know that version of you, I only know who you are now."

We embraced tightly, arms wrapped around each others torsos.

"I'm a hypocrite." He mumbled into my neck. "I do all of the same shit I accuse you of doing, I bottle everything up and then I explode when I can't handle it anymore."

"So don't bottle it up."

I really wasn't good at situations like this, I didn't know how to react or what to say, but I could listen. Sometimes the only thing you need is for someone to listen.

"It's complicated."

He didn't want to talk about it; I could respect that.

"I won't ask questions, then." I said, still embracing him tightly. "You don't need to talk about anything you aren't comfortable with."

Pulling back from me with caution, he set a hand on my leg gently, revealing the full extent of shame as his eyes locked with mine. He had such beautiful eyes.

"Do you remember how old I told you I was when I lost my virginity?" He asked sadly.

"You were twelve." I remembered feeling like it was exceptionally young, but it wasn't any of my business.

"She was almost eighteen."

Hang on… she?

"You had sex with a girl?" I asked. I think the question came out sounding more shocked than I had intended, a belief I picked up based on the muffled grunt of a non funny laugh that escaped his nose.

"She was my sisters best friend, she had always had an odd interest in me, even when I was a little kid. She used to come up to my room when she slept over and talk to me for hours. She didn't talk to me like I was a child, either."

I felt sick to my stomach as he spoke. This was wrong… it was so wrong.

"She groomed you." I didn't ask it, I stated it.

"I was eleven the first time she touched me… I knew it was wrong, I knew I was uncomfortable, but she was the only person who ever paid attention to me." He paused. "She was the first person I told that I was gay, or at least that I thought I was. She wanted to… make sure… she said that if I was gay I wouldn't have gotten hard all those other times."

Nothing that she had told him was true. I mean, I had gotten a boner during Maths class once, there wasn't always a reason for it.

His breathing was getting heavy, like he needed to put in extra effort to keep himself calm.

"I made her stop after that." He continued. "I didn't like it anymore, I didn't want her to do those things to me and I didn't want to do them to her. I think she felt bad, she asked me if there was anything she could do for me that might help. She was the one who always told me that you could get any guy you wanted if you knew how to give good oral… I thought… I mean, I already told you about how I had a crush on one of my classmates, the thought had been on my mind a lot."

I was still in shock from what I was hearing. None of this had been even remotely what I expected, my heart was racing, worried that I knew exactly what he was going to say next.

"You asked her to teach you." I whispered. "Didn't you..."

"She had done it to me before; it had felt good. I knew it was wrong. We didn't even know any of the guys, she took me to a bad part of town where everything could happen anonymously. I never even knew what any of them looked like, she walked me through what to do, though. I wasn't any good at first, but after awhile… I could feel how into it one of them was getting. He held my head down, he made me swallow it. I had never made another guy cum before."

He was causing images to run through my head of me in his place, of having my head forced down, being begged to just try it, being talked through what to do.

Put it in your mouth, it's okay, it's how adults say that they love each other. Do you love me?

My head was spinning and I couldn't remember where I was. What was going on?

"I'll be right back." I said before running out of the room and into the hallway. I couldn't breath, I couldn't keep my thought process straight. I had to get out of here now, into fresh air.

Breathing deeply, I opened the door to the patio, hoping to light a cigarette and instead dry heaving off the side of the balcony. I needed to stay here, I couldn't get lost in my head right now. If I got lost in my head I would regain memory and I didn't want that.

"What's up with you?"

I practically jumped out of my skin at Dmitri, cigarette in hand and eyebrow cocked in confusion.

"Nothing." I shot back annoyed. "I'm fine."

My hands were shaking, causing me to struggle with my lighter and needing him to help me. His eyes held pity, seeing through the act that I put on with ease. We didn't speak to one another much, mostly sticking with our own grades. I wasn't one to connect with other Russians, my old team now a vague memory that I only ever encountered the occasional online article about. We respected one another, but we had never been friends. Tala and Bryan were close with each other, but they had just begun training there around the time I left and Spencer was a few years older than us. Realistically speaking it had only been Ian who I had actually somewhat grown up with.

I didn't go to his funeral.

I'm not sure he had one.

"You really a fag?" Dmitri asked, catching me a bit off guard.

"I guess." I shrugged. There was no point in telling him not to use that term, at the end of the day it was just another word. As long as I stayed grounded I seldom cared about much else.

"They had always kinda had you pegged as one." He smirked slightly. "That's why they never liked you, isn't it?"

I didn't understand the question.

"I'm not sure what you mean. I don't follow much media on myself."

"In The Abbey. That's what they always said about you."

"I don't know what you've heard about me, but I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

I had put my cigarette out, choosing littering over throwing it in the trash can and turning to go back inside.

"You were one of Yasha's boys, weren't you?"

I stopped dead in my tracks, turning and looking at him wide-eyed. What the fuck was this guy talking about? How did he know about Yasha? I didn't talk about him, I had never told anyone about him.

"How do you know that name?" I asked. I was well within my right to punch him if he was gonna keep this up, he could kick my ass with ease but I didn't care. He needed to explain himself.

"I never trusted him when he started there, you could always tell something was off. He had always acted more like a kid himself than like a superior. He was Boris' nephew or something, wasn't he?"

Yasha wasn't any older than Dmitri was now, seventeen or so if I had to guess and had no relation to Boris. The thought relaxed me a bit as I concluded that he was thinking of someone else.

"I think you're confusing me with someone else you might know." I stated.

"I just assumed you didn't want any of that shit brought up."

"What are you talking about?"

"You really have no idea who I am."

This wasn't possible, I was a thousand miles away from The Abbey, I wasn't even on the same continent anymore. There was no way anyone here would know me from that place.

There was no way.

"You're an orphan." I stated rudely. "How did you end up here?"

"The Abbey was shut down when your grandfather was arrested, no one has seen or heard from Boris since then. This is where they sent me to stay until I outgrow the system, same as you I suppose."

"You're lying." I grunted. "You said something about Yasha being Boris' nephew, Yasha was just a teenager; an orphan like the rest of us. He wasn't related to anyone so you're either lying or confused."

"Dark hair and blue eyes, right?" He lit another cigarette. "Thin, not what one would call tough looking."

"He wasn't related to Boris. He was a kid, he's the reason I got out."

"Hiwitari, Yasha is the reason you're so fucked up." He looked at me, like he was trying to pick apart my brain through my mannerisms. "That freak wasn't a kid, he was in his twenties. He was a narc that Boris sent in to make sure we were all in line. Do you not remember him at all?"

"He helped us. He got us food and shelter and warmth, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't him. You're thinking of someone else."

"He would get you guys drunk, right?" He blew smoke at me. "You and your other teammate, Ian? I think there were a few more of you too."

Why was this guy trying to hard to make me angry? Why was he saying all this shit?

"We were young, all we knew was that it kept us warm, we didn't understand that it was a bad idea."

"He knew you were a fag. He didn't get many kids like you, he favored you, right? Did the freak sleep with you at night? Tell you he was gonna get you all out of there?"

None of this was true, it couldn't me. Until recently I had all but forgotten about him, lost somewhere in the back of my mind until he had pulled free sometime within the past few months. Why had I forgotten him? It made no sense, I shouldn't have forgotten him, he had helped me.

"He was seventeen."

"He was twenty five. One of my bunk mates figured it out, caught him and Boris talking and then disappeared the day after he ratted on him to us. The guy was a spy who used his role to make little kids touch his-"

I threw my weight at him with everything I had, bouncing off of his chest and onto the concrete floor of the patio. I didn't understand why he was doing this to me… I hadn't done anything to him, was it because of Haru? Had he put him up to this?

I ran out the door of the balcony and through the hallway, taking the stairs down to the first floor instead of the elevator. I needed to get out of here, now.

Finally making it outside I lost my footing, tumbling down the stoop that exited the building and catching myself on my hands. Although I wasn't physically in any pain, catching myself just fine, the sound of my wrist snapping rang in my ears the way I remembered it from when I was a child. Everything was coming back.

"What's got you so freaked out, Hiwitari?"

I looked up where Haru stood with his two most recent protectors, a broad shouldered Scott who was close to two meters tall with a mess of curly red hair and an abnormally hairy Austrian in my first quarter Maths class who always spoke as though his front teeth were missing and his tongue was too short.

"Find someone else to fuck with." I yelled, pushing him backward and out of my face.

His guys each grabbed one of my arms and pulled me down onto my knees, hardly even feeling my squirming as I attempted to release myself. Pulling his leg back, Haru's foot made hard contact with my stomach, forcing the rest of my torso to the ground as well.

"You need to learn your place around here." He smirked, kicking me hard in the face. The back of my head made contact with a concrete step and I bit my tongue, causing the copper taste of blood to fill my mouth. "This is only a warning."

They didn't stick around, leaving me at the bottom of the steps with a bloodied up face and what I hoped wasn't a concussion.

Reluctantly, I got up. I had freaked out again on Wyatt and had run off… I hadn't even asked him if he was okay, he had spilled his guts to me and I had responded by leaving.

This was everything that I deserved; Wyatt was everything that I didn't.

Walking up the steps, I wiped blood off of my face and went back inside, stopping in one of the bathrooms quickly in order to take a look at the damages. I had a small gash going across my temple and my eye was slightly swollen; there was also a split in my lower lip that trickled blood and stung to touch. Thankfully most of the blood was coming from my nose, meaning that I could at least somewhat clean myself up.

Washing my face as best as I could in a public bathroom sink, I spit out the remainder of the blood that was in my mouth and limped back up the stairs and to Wyatt's room, touching my hand to the door before pressing my weight to the wall and sliding down onto the floor slowly.

I didn't even deserve to see him.

"I found him, he's by your door."

Emile's voice filled the hallway, soon joined by Henri and Wyatt all rushing toward me.

"Where the fuck did you go?" Wyatt asked, kneeling down to my level and touching my cheek gently. I could sense his shock at what I looked like. "Kai… what happened?"

I hid my face.

"Don't touch me."

"Did someone beat you up?"

Avery had also shown up now, helping him pull me to my feet and into the room. There were too many people around; too much was happening at the same time and I couldn't focus or think. My head was spinning.

"Go away." I grunted. "Everyone go away!"

"Kai, you're at my dorm."

Wyatt kept touching his hand to me and it kept sending shock waves through my body. I didn't want anyone to touch me right now.

"I think you should get a teacher… he's shaking."

"I'm fine!" I punched the ground hand, clutching my hands to my face. Every memory that I had forgotten was flooding back to me. Either in my dreams, or pulling me into a dream like state while I was still awake, no control of what I was thinking or feeling. I kept remembering things that I didn't want to remember. Everything had been better before I remembered, everything had been better before my grandfather was arrested, before I came here, before Wyatt.

I didn't even know who I was anymore. Every positive piece of my childhood that I ever had was a lie. I was a shell of a person and I would never be healed, there was nothing about me that could be healed, my entire existence was due to horrors that most people couldn't imagine.

"You guys should go." Wyatt said quietly, shooing everyone or of the room and closing the door.

He turned the light off, opening the window enough to let a cool breeze brush across my face and sitting next to me, leaving enough space where no parts of our bodies touched.

"Do you have any alcohol?" I asked quietly. He was rolling a joint but I wanted something stronger, something to put me to sleep. "Or any more of the pills you gave me?"

"I'm not giving you pills anymore. Not until you get yourself under control."

The numbness was back, causing a hollow feeling within me. I couldn't even cry, I had to be able to feel in order to cry.

"I need something stronger."

"You need something that will relax you, not depress you." He looked like he wanted to touch a hand to me, deciding against it at the last minute. "I didn't know you would react that way." He said sadly. "I mean, when I told you what happened to me."

"I said I'm fine!"

I was having a hard time keeping my voice down, unable to remain in control of myself. He didn't seem to mind, though… looking at me the way he used to when I had first begun showing emotion around him. He wasn't upset that I was making his trauma about me, not this time. Right now he just watched me with pity before speaking.

"It happened to you too, huh?" He said sadly, quietly…

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"It wasn't our fault. We were children."

It wasn't about that, though. Based on talks I had with the psychiatrist I had already at least somewhat known that sexual abuse was possible. That wasn't the point.

He had been the only person as a child whom I had trusted.

He was the only one who cared about me during that time of my life, the only one who saw me. The only defense I had ever given myself was based on lies and false memories.

"I don't want to remember." I mumbled between shaken breaths. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Will you at least tell me who beat you up?"

I light jolt brought me back to the fuller extent of my reality. I had actually forgotten that my face was currently bleeding and bruised.

"Just some of Haru's guys." I admitted. "I'm alright, I can handle them. They caught me off guard."

Double checking my reaction as he moved toward me, Wyatt wrapped his arms around my torso and pulled me into his chest gently.

"I can feel your rib cage."

"If you're gonna make me talk I need you to stick to one problem at a time."

I couldn't handle any more than that right now.

"I want you to call your psychologist tomorrow and I don't want you to fight me on it." He pressed his cheek to the top of my head. Sometimes I hated how easily he was able to ground me, how little effort he had to put in to bring me back to reality and out of my disassociation. I was never gone long when I was with him. "We're gonna get you help."

For the first time in my life, I didn't argue…