Thank you to everyone who has made it this far! It's weird to think that I've written 42 chapters and am still going strong. It will always be a goal of mine to make Kyatt a more genuine ship and I love knowing that there are other fans who feel the same way. There's a large part of me as I continue the manga and rewatch the series that feels strongly about the possibility of Kai being intended to be a queer character and I love how often he's shipped that way. Sadly I'm getting to the point where I may be wrapping this up within the next ten or so chapters (assuming I eventually run out of ideas) so if anyone has any plot ideas they would like me to consider you can always feel free to reach out to me. Hearing from you guys always gets me in the writing spirit.

We were able to find Max's hotel fairly easily, knocking on the door to his father already awake and waiting for us.

"What's the damage?" He asked, sighing in what was clearly disappointment. Just like a parent… they could never just tell you they were mad at you or that you fucked up. They always had to play the disappointed card.

"He just drank too much." Wyatt said, leaving out the part where he had also been hitting a bong most of the night. "I think he's just been under a lot of stress lately."

Thankfully, Max's dad was a pretty decent guy. I honestly wasn't sure he had a bad bone in his entire body; I'll never figure out how he possibly landed Judy, who was not only incredibly intelligent and made good money but was also what men typically refer to as 'a real piece of tail'.

They were both only in their mid thirties and had clearly worked their asses off to give him a good life, meaning that they weren't around as often as I think he would have liked.

I wanted to tell his father that we knew the truth regarding Charlotte's paternity, but right now I think he had more important things to worry about than figuring out how to respond to our newfound knowledge.

"Charlotte shouldn't wake up." He said. "But if she does then one of you can make her a bottle, she should fall right back asleep."

"I have a brother and sister who are five." Wyatt chimed in. "I've taken care of babies before."

He smiled at him as he turned on the charm, easily sweet talking him into trusting us. I wouldn't have been surprised if he didn't, realistically speaking I was probably just about the last person who he would ever expect to show up offering to babysit.

Okay, I was definitely the last person he would ever expect to show up offering to babysit.

He thanked us repeatedly, bowing politely and quickly getting himself out the door, closing it just a little too hard.

And cue crying baby…

Wyatt followed her noises into one of the hotel rooms, cooing quietly to her in English before making his way back out to me, arm resting under her bum and hand rubbing up and down her back. Her cheeks were still full and puffy like you would expect to see on a chipmunk and her bangs that were always pulled up into a bow in photographs now rested on her forehead, Wyatt brushing them gently out of her large and very blue eyes.

Max wasn't wrong in saying what he had said… I wouldn't be able to look at him the same way…

"Can you hold her while I make a bottle?" He asked.

"Do I have to?"

Babies made me a tad uncomfortable, it was rare that I was in close range of one and I had never held one before. To be completely honest I largely preferred tiny animals over tiny humans.

"She's your teammates kid, you might as well get acquainted with her."

He gestured for me to sit down on the couch, setting her on my lap so that her head rested in the fold of my arm.

"You're a happy little lady, aren't you?" He giggled, pinching her cheeks into a squished face and blowing a raspberry. "You look like your daddy."

"Don't say that, it's weird..."

"Why?" He smiled at me. "I look like my dad… and you look just like your mom."

"Her dad is my sixteen year old teammate."

"I mean, it is what it is. There's no point in pretending any differently. Do you think she knows he's her dad?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't, know one else seems to know."

Going into the kitchen, Wyatt grabbed a pitcher of water out of the fridge and began making her a bottle, warming it in the microwave for a moment before coming back to the sitting room, taking her gently from me and cradling her in a single arm.

"She's small for her age." He smiled.

"So is Max." I shrugged while I watched him. "How do you know how to do all of this?"

"I've always had a strong paternal instinct." He giggled. "I was ten when the twins were born and loved helping out with them. When you learned with twins, one baby feels like next to nothing."

"I'm not really sure if I want kids someday."

"Most people our age aren't. I think I'm more of an exception than a rule."

"Don't you think that kids should have both a mom and a dad?"

He looked up at me, raising an eyebrow somewhat judgmentally.

"Why?" He asked. "You don't."

"Exactly."

"Neither does Tyson."

"Exactly."

"Yet, Max and I both do, and last time I checked we aren't doing any better or worse than anyone else is. You're attached to the idea of a mother because she was the first person to truly love you."

"The only person…"

"You're attached to who she was as a person, not the fact that she was a woman. I always pegged you more as having daddy issues but you also have an extremely unrealistic expectation of what a mom is supposed to be."

"I don't understand what you mean."

"Mom's aren't perfect." He explained. "Max's mom doesn't strike me as what you would call the maternal type. He lives with her during the school year but nothing I know about him or her makes it seem like they have a close relationship, or that she's home very often."

"All Max ever talks about is his mom."

"Does that really strike you as normal? I saw last years tournament, remember? Don't you think it's a bit strange that your teammates own mother never even asked him if he wanted to be a part of the team that she put together?"

"He was already on our team when he realized that she was coaching."

"Shouldn't he have known that, though?"

I paused, taking a moment to think about what he was saying. Why was it that Max's mother didn't invite him along when she had made the decision to coach a team? He was right that it didn't make any sense.

Charlotte hiccuped, replacing her empty bottle with a tiny thumb and nuzzling herself into Wyatt's chest, eyes too heavy for her to keep open anymore.

"Maybe she underestimated him. I know I did in the beginning. Max isn't the easiest person to take seriously, he's immature and kind of a pipsqueak. Honestly the fact that he doesn't look worth fighting is one of his main advantage points."

"He has mommy issues, Kai." Wyatt said. "For someone who goes so out of his way to love others, I'm not sure Max feels loved himself."

The door to the hotel opened, entering Max, who looked significantly better than he had when we left, and his father, Tyson following awkwardly behind him. They were in for a strange morning, more than likely. Secrets had been revealed that couldn't just be brushed under the rug.

"She woke up?" The exceptionally young grandfather asked, brushing at her hair with his hand and prepping to take her.

"I can get her back in her crib." Wyatt said. "It isn't any trouble."

Max had gone onto the patio immediately when coming inside, hanging his head over the edge and clutching his hair like he had a migraine.

"Tyson said he told you." His father said, looking sadly at me while he spoke. "It wasn't our original intention to keep it a secret, he isn't ready for this, though."

"Is anyone?" I responded with a shrug of the shoulders. I had things that I wanted to say but none of it felt like my place. "You were young when he was born."

"We were about to go into college, almost nineteen. How were we supposed to react to the news that our fourteen year old was now caught in our same position? Fourteen."

"He's sixteen now. He's had time to grow."

You know, I had done a lot of things this year that I hadn't expected to do, but sitting here and having a heart to heart with Max's father was definitely not one I ever would have expected.

"You're all so young."

I stood up as Wyatt came back into the sitting room, Charlotte now tucked comfortably into her crib.

"I'm gonna see if he's alright." I said to the lot of them, Tyson standing in the doorway of the room he and Max were sharing. He nodded at me.

Somewhat reluctantly I opened the sliding glass door, wondering if it was normal for people to hang out on patios when they needed alone time, which was the exact opposite of what I was giving him right now.

"Thank you for watching her..." Max said, not looking at me this time. It was unusual to see him in this state, eyes glazed over and empty as though he was no more than an empty shell of himself.

"Wyatt is oddly good with children." I shrugged. "I think he secretly just wanted to hold a baby."

"I got lucky with her, honestly. She's pretty easy going, she really only cries when she needs something."

"Who's her mother?"

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

That was, of course, Maxie's polite way of telling me that it wasn't any of my business, which I suppose it wasn't. He wasn't wrong telling me off.

"Are you raising her as your daughter or your sister?"

The rocking sensation he had been making with his body halted itself, he stood still now, looking over the gate of the patio as the wind blew gently through his bright blond hair. He was thinking about what he should say.

"We haven't decided yet." He eventually answered. "Honestly, my mom doesn't really like kids… my dad is great with her but he wants me to learn how to be responsible." He paused. "She likes him more than me… sometimes it's easier to just let him take care of her. He wants me to step up more but he also wants me to be able to still be a teenager."

"Do you do a lot?"

"I try..."

He knew I could see through his excuses, even though I didn't know for fact that I wouldn't be using the same ones if I were in his shoes. At the end of the day it seemed like none of them had set anything in stone yet, something they really didn't have an excuse for given Charlotte's age.

"What do you want for her?" I asked.

He shrugged slightly, still not able to look me in the eye. In fact, he wasn't able to look at me at all.

"My parents can give her a better life than I can. They have good jobs; they aren't married anymore but that's better than nothing, right? If her mom is gonna be absent it would at least be best for her to have two parents."

I thought about what Wyatt had said to me, about how the amount of parents you had or what sex they were didn't change a home that was already broken.

"I don't want my dad back in my life." I said with a disappointing sigh, crossing my arms to my chest awkwardly. "He had decided a long time ago that he didn't want me. That's how I ended up in state custody… I didn't have anyone other than my grandfather who was willing to take me in. I had no family..." Max turned around, facing me but still only able to look at the ground in front of his feet. "My grandfather wasn't- isn't a good person." I continued, "He was there, though… He took care of me when my father decided I wasn't worth it anymore."

It was partly true… Around the time I turned ten we had left the Abbey, Boris taking over and us making a life for ourselves in Japan. I had become a pawn in his quest but at the end of the day it was better than a prisoner.

Gently I brought my hand to his shoulder, unsure if anything I said was sinking in. I was hoping he would think of his own mother, who raised him on the paycheck of nannies more than with her own hands. He was obsessed with the idea of pleasing her, of being the son who she wanted, of being enough. "At the end of the day," I continued. "She won't remember the money that was spent on her or whether she was able to go to an expensive school. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure she'll be up your ass about that when she's a teenager, but when she's grown it won't matter. She'll remember who was there for her, though..." I sighed, giving his arm the smallest squeeze. "You need to decide if that's who you want to be, though."

I turned around, hand touching the handle of the glass door just as Max spoke.

"Thank you, Kai." He mumbled.

Xxx

Wyatt and I held hands awkwardly as we walked, chain smoking a mix of nicotine and pot that he had rolled himself.

"I give him credit." He said. "It's a big responsibility at only sixteen. Kids are a lot more work than people realize; if his parents weren't helping to support him and Charlotte he would be saying good bye to competing or saying good bye to her."

"Not necessarily." I shrugged. "There are people who have made it work, Enrique from the European team has a kid, I've seen him in magazines before."

"That's a completely different form of luxury. Enrique has money."

"So do you."

"Okay, let's get one thing straight, my parents have money; I have nothing." He smiled at me, pulling me closer to his side. "Let me ask you this, you don't pay attention to media, correct?"

"Yeah."

"Yet you know one of the Europeans has a kid?"

"Just something I saw on a magazine cover."

"That's my point exactly. Every one of them is the next heir in line for a noble family that's been known and respected for centuries, if one of them knocks someone up at fourteen they have nothing to worry about except what the media is going to say. Enrique is doing just fine, but Max has a lot of shit to figure out."

I sighed, nodding slightly in agreement to what he was saying.

"Just one more reason the upper class has no fucking problems."

"Didn't you grow up in a mansion?"

"I lived in one, I didn't grow up there. I can't even get into my trust fund until I turn eighteen."

He smiled at me, acknowledging silently that at the end of the day, I was still a rich brat just like the rest of my classmates.

"Having that kind of status can have it's problems too. You heard what happened to Oliver Polanger, right? After he came out?"

I paused… In a stereotyping way I should have realized that Oliver was gay; to be honest I had never even thought about it, mostly because he wasn't a person to pop into my head very often.

"No, what happened?"

"His younger sister took his spot as next of kin for his family, I guess he's their only boy so now his parents are acting like he took their son away from them. He isn't disowned or anything, at least not that anything I read about him mentioned, but he's basically become their Rosemary Kennedy."

I raised an eyebrow but said nothing, choosing instead to just pretend I knew what he was talking about. In a way I understood, my grandfather would never have approved of the life I was currently living, and it didn't seem like Wyatt's parents were happy or supportive of his preferences.

"Have you told your parents yet?" I asked, changing the subject.

He blushed slightly as we continued walking, which was funny because he had absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. I was the one who had waited until just now to even bother asking him… I should have asked him a long time ago, when he told me that he wanted to tell his parents we were together.

He hadn't mentioned it since then.

I never even brought it up…

"It's not like I'm exactly hiding it, per say. They ask me sometimes if I have a girlfriend yet but deep down I feel like they have to know. When they put me in therapy after… everything… they pulled me back out because the therapist refused to tell me that I had been traumatized into hating women." He laughed sadly while he looked at me. "It's funny if you think about it. When it happens with a man they claim the male trauma turned you gay, yet when it happens with a woman they claim the opposite."

I thought about what my father had told me about my grandfathers offer, to raise me in the Abbey alongside the other boys, to harden me up, make a man out of me until I could be classified as a living weapon. He had sent me there to prevent the person I ended up becoming anyway, now he had to look me in the eye and see the damage he had done and know it changed nothing. He had allowed the trauma to destroy any innocence I had.

"Do you ever wonder how you would have turned out if the abuse didn't happen?" I asked sadly.

"There's no point in wondering. I can't change the past."

He looked over his shoulder awkwardly, taking his hand off of mine and stepping away from me just slightly.

"What are you doing?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in slight alarm.

"We're being followed."

A lump formed in my chest as I maneuvered my head in a similar fashion, trying to be stealthy as I looked behind myself at a young man with an expensive looking camera.

"We don't even have a world championship tournament this year." I groaned. "Just the charity event during the summer while the adult league is taking place."

"The juvenile league is the first BBA registered world tournament to even happen, you guys are a lot better known than the adult league."

That was true, up until this year Beyblade hadn't been taken seriously as a competitive sport, viewed instead as a game for children. That hadn't changed until Tyson's fathers archaeological team had gone world wide about the existence of the Sacred Beasts and the extreme physical tole the game could put on you. The adults wanted in, now.

"What's being said about me online right now?" I asked, pocketing my hands while we walked.

"That picture has been going around. The one of you kissing me on the cheek. It's hard for the media to learn much about you though, none of those people are allowed anywhere near schools attended by championship bladers and can't interview you without an adult present. Taking pictures is all they really have going for them right now."

Silently, I thought about his words. We had a press conference coming up in June and for every question we got regarding the tournament in Japan this year, there would be ten more regarding our personal lives. We were discouraged from answering them, it was likely that they would mostly involve my grandfathers prison sentence and why I was now attending a boarding school; if word got out about Charlotte, Max might also have his hands full in regards to unwanted media attention.

I could see why he wanted to keep her a secret.

I was done with secrets, though…

"Wyatt," I asked under my breath, not stopping the pace of our footsteps. "I'm gonna do something really out of character and I need you to just roll with it."

He said nothing, instead just looking at me with a face of confusion as I stopped myself in my tracks. Turning to where the man with the camera was, I made eye contact, frowning at him in clear annoyance before taking Wyatt by the shoulder and pulling him to face me.

The man had gotten his camera ready, understanding that I was about to do something.

Taking Wyatt by the back of the head, I pulled him into me.

Even after closing my eyes I could still make out the flash as I kissed him hard on the mouth.