School had been becoming a blur lately, mostly due to my inability to focus on anything other than the fact that I hadn't seen or spoken to Wyatt since he left my fathers house. My idiotic behavior had upset him and now I was stuck dealing with the consequences, which in this case meant being ignored by the one person I truly cared about.

I hated myself.

I hated how stupid I was.

Resting my head on the palm of my hand, I brought my gaze out the window, no longer attempting to pay attention to the lesson and instead allowing myself to get lost in my own world.

So much had happened this year… I wasn't the same person I had been when I started school and I still couldn't quite figure out how I was supposed to handle that. I had done something I never thought I could do, I had opened myself up to someone. I had let him in. Wyatt was the only person in my life who understood the real me and who saw the act that I put on for the rest of the world.

I wasn't tough; I never had been. If anything I was weak. I had such little control over myself or the life I had attempted to make and now it was slowly gaining up on me and knocking me to the ground.

"Hiwitari-"

I was jolted back to reality, my teacher now glaring at me and my classmates now snickering as I attempted to pretend I had heard a thing that he had said before angrily calling out my name.

"Sorry." I apologized, blushing slightly and looking down at my desk in shame. There was nothing like a bit of public humiliation to get your blood pumping.

"See me after school."

I nodded, not currently in the position to be arguing with authority. I was already in enough trouble with the school and didn't need it escalating to the point where I wouldn't be able to finish out the year, even though I was young enough to be held back a grade without it appearing unusual.

Flipping through my textbook in an attempt to figure out what page I was supposed to be on, I managed to ignore any whispers coming in my direction from my less than stealthy classmates, taking in only the giggles that ended any conversations that my name took place in up until a crumpled up wad of paper bounced off the back of my head.

I wasn't going to bother opening it, instead allowing it to hit the floor next to me.

"Kai is littering." One of the boys called out in the same tone you would hear from an elementary schooler tattling on a friend.

"No he isn't," Another chimed in, "He's trying to pass a note."

More giggling ensued as the teacher raised an eyebrow at me, arms now folded across his chest and his annoyance not at all hidden.

"One of them threw it at me." I grunted, not even sure why I was bothering standing up for myself. I knew that nothing would come of it.

Picking up the paper before he could suggest I read it out loud to the class, I opened the crumpled ball to a crude stick figure drawing paired with the word 'cocksucker', something I wish I hadn't seen before handing it off to my teachers outstretched palm. It would have been less humiliating to not know what it said.

"Kai was suspended for sucking Smithwrights dick." A boy I didn't know the name of blurted, clearly not caring whether or not he got in any trouble for the things he was saying.

"You can see me after school as well!"

Clearly our teacher had enough of the juvenile behavior, now attempting to put a stop to it before it got out of hand.

"Hiwitari," He called to me once more. "The distractions stop now."

"I didn't do anything!"

"I don't want to hear it. If this continues I'll send you to the Deans office."

I was sick of being blamed for the things my classmates did at my expense, as though my mere existence was something I needed to be punished for. No one cared what the other boys did to me, I had already been pegged as a bad kid and there was no coming back from that. Wyatt was a straight A student and his teachers still acted as though he was a burden in class.

"Sensei," A hand shot up, an evil grin filling the face of a brunette who I had seen in Haru's presence multiple times. "Hiwitari repeatedly flaunting his lifestyle on everyone has been making us all uncomfortable, should we really get blamed for that? I mean, you've seen whats being said about him in the media, right?"

He slammed his hands on his desk, hard.

"I said enough!"

The boys currently harassing me finally got the hint to stop talking, just in time for our teacher to finish the lesson and assign a good chunk of homework before the bell rang.

"Way to go, Kai." One of them said angrily. "Now we have twice as much homework because of you."

"Are you really surprised? This is what all of the queer kids do, they can't handle not being the center of attention as though being a fag makes them special."

I had been chewing on the inside of my lip in order to stable my emotional response, the copper taste of blood now filling my mouth as I attempted to hold myself together. One wrong outburst and I was finished.

I disgusted myself.

Xxx

Dmitri was the only familiar face at our usual lunch area, giving me an acknowledging nod before continuing to stuff his face. I wasn't sure if I wasn't hungry or if I didn't feel like I deserved to eat, but either way I had gone back to sipping on overly sugared tea and hoping that no one said anything about it.

"Where is everyone?" I asked, eventually deciding that I couldn't handle the awkward silence anymore. I still hadn't managed to catch a glimpse of Wyatt anywhere and was sure that lunch would be a time where I could talk to him, apologize for being such a jerk.

"Avoiding you, I think." He said bluntly. He had resorted to speaking to me in Russian again, something that we had dropped the habit of once he found himself comfortable in our circle, clearly he was trying to avoid eavesdroppers.

I put my head down in shame.

"I fucked up."

"Did that little posh brat break up with you?"

"You know all of our names, start using them."

He exhaled sharply in the form of an awkward laugh, ignoring my attitude and continuing to talk.

"Honestly, I kind of saw it coming. He doesn't get people like us."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He expects you to go with whatever he says, to trust him wholeheartedly as though that's ever gotten you anywhere in life."

"I've gotten farther in life with Wyatt than I ever have with anyone else. He cares about me."

"Not as much as he cares about himself."

I glared at him, he had no right to talk about Wyatt this way. He didn't know him and he didn't know my life. Maybe we were raised in the same Abbey, but he had no idea what I had been through.

"He isn't like that." I stated, making my annoyance clear.

"No, you both are."

"What are you talking about?"

"Neither of you can handle putting the other in front of yourselves. You claim that you love and care for one another but in the end you push to get your own way, even if it means hurting the other one in the process."

"I'm not who I used to be; Wyatt is the one who helped me break that wall down."

"The fact that you're willing to open up doesn't mean you've actually changed. Your trauma is still there, even if you let him in on it. You don't get over the shit that happened to us in eight months, you just don't have the balls to admit that you're selfish, just like everyone else is. You're the only person who you can depend on, even if you get really good at faking it."

"And I suppose you just depend on yourself too?"

"Sure do."

"Is that why you haven't told anyone you're gay?"

He actually laughed when I said it, not only that, but he laughed hard enough where the rest of the cafeteria began looking at us. You would think that he had just heard the funniest joke of his life.

"Where would that get me?" He continued laughing. "You think I want to deal with the shit that you do? I'm not a masochist."

"So you think I'm an idiot for coming out?"

"Of course I do."

"I'm not gonna fuck women just to feel better about myself."

I also knew what a vagina looked like, and to be completely honest, I wasn't impressed.

"Aren't you a virgin? I can't quite figure out how far you managed to get when we were in the city."

He was giggling as he spoke, as though my non existent sex life was something to joke about.

"I'm not having sex with you." I shot back.

"You couldn't handle it."

"I'm sure I can handle five centimeters just fine."

We were both trying to hide our smiles now, taking any pent up frustrations out on one another in a junior high level dissing contest.

"It took Haru an hour to warm up the first time and he'd had your boyfriend in his ass many times by that point."

I had been bringing my tea to my lips when he spoke, now paused with my cup in the air, the steam warming the skin of my upper lip.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I've never fucked Wyatt if that's what you're afraid of."

"You've had sex with Haru?"

"It's funny listening to the shit he says about you. I've never met someone so inclined to have their ass pounded before, for a homophobe the kid sure acts queer, just don't ask him to suck it. For some reason that freaks him out."

I was still partly in shock at what I was hearing.

"You're fucking Haru?" I asked more bluntly this time.

"Only when he wants me to. He likes to pretend he doesn't want it, tries to make it seem like it's my idea, but once his hormones become too much he needs a release. It's not hard to tell that he likes it, but I also know how to get him off at this point."

All I could do was continue staring, unable to figure out how the hell I was supposed to continue this conversation with this knowledge. Haru had made our lives miserable all year, hiding behind his identity as a homophobic asshole in order to avoid anyone knowing his truth.

"Is that why you used to hang out with him?" I asked. "For sex?"

"That crowd isn't messed with. Haru comes from a family with more money than someone like me will ever see in my life. His family has donated a lot to this school and that means he has power here… authority. He isn't the toughest kid around, though."

That was true. When we had fought it hadn't been difficult to take him out. I cringed while remembering the crunching sound his face made when my fist contacted it with every ounce of strength that I had.

"You protected him for that power." I stated.

"People at this school don't fuck with Haru… at least they didn't before you came along. You made yourself a target, though."

"I'm not gonna let some rich asshole make me his bitch."

He gave a small smirk, shrugging and nodding as though he didn't disagree with what I was saying.

"He changed after you went after him, he shit talks you a lot, but Wyatt is his real target. He's the one he wants to torture."

"It's not Wyatt's fault that his classmates found out he sucked his dick."

"Isn't it?"

I raised an eyebrow at him, not responding but instead allowing him to continue speaking.

"Wyatt suddenly had power over him, he would be stupid not to use that power, don't you think?"

"I'm not saying I would blame Wyatt for blackmailing him, but you're talking out your ass right now. He didn't do anything that Haru didn't deserve."

"It wasn't his place to out someone like that."

"I don't care, he's a jerk who had it coming."

"I'm not saying you're wrong, but something about those two changed that day. They had never been friends before getting together, they weren't open about their relationship, but Wyatt snapped after that. He told everyone."

"Haru is the one who made Wyatt's life miserable."

"Only after Wyatt went after him. If he would have just allowed them to break up they could have moved on from each other, but Wyatt wanted revenge. At the end of the day, Haru had to do what he could to protect his reputation."

I couldn't stop looking at him as the wheels turned within my head. A part of me understood what was happening, but it was easier to play dumb and allow the confusion to momentarily take over.

"You feel something for him." I stated.

"Definitely not."

"Why else would you be defending him? You don't hang around him at school anymore and he didn't lose a wink of sleep while replacing you, but you still see him when you aren't with us. That's what you were doing when we were at the hotel."

He didn't blush the way that I always did; in fact, his face held no expression at all. He wasn't ashamed of being caught or attempting to defend his actions. He wanted me to figure this out; that's why he was talking to me. Our entire group consisted of four gay boys, probably half the amount of queer teenagers within our entire school as a hole, and Dmitri not only wanted to be a part of it, but he wanted Haru to be there with him.

Peaking up at the clock, he sighed, giving a brief goodbye just as the bell rang and leaving me along once again.

Xxx

I resorted to merely picking tardily at my dinner that night, not taking part in conversation and trying my best to ignore my newfound family as much as possible. I couldn't stand how long Wyatt had continued to ignore me for, still not answering my messages or returning my phone calls. I had seen him only once in the halls at school and he had simply pretended not to notice me, keeping his head low and quickening his pace.

I could have skipped class.

I could have followed him.

I didn't, though…

Wyatt was making it clear that he didn't currently want to be around me and the least I could do was respect him for it. It wasn't just him, either. Henri, Emile and Avery had been avoiding me as well, saying little to me during classes we shared and avoiding Wyatt as a topic of discussion, something that was unusual for them as most of their banter involved ripping on one another. People were whispering about me in the halls, not giving the slightest shit if I could hear them or not, and the things they were saying were right.

I had no friends…

Standing up from the chabudai, I cleared my place silently and went to my room, not answering when my step mother asked if I was finished eating already. Closing the door behind me, I sat clumsily on the floor, wrapping my arms around myself and allowing the tears to flow.

None of my friends wanted anything to do with me anymore. I was a weight they didn't want to bear and I didn't blame them for that. I was nothing but baggage, it was the same reason that everyone else had left me. My mother would be alive had I not been born, my father was happier without me… I couldn't even in good conscience kill myself because someone else from the living world would have to clean up the mess that I left behind. It would be one last thing for me to do that would just end up inconveniencing someone else.

The vibration of my phone in my pocket startled me and I jumped up, hoping that maybe Wyatt had decided to speak to me again. All hope deflated as I read Tyson's name on the screen, a lump forming in the pit of my stomach. He had been trying to call me since the day the magazine came out and I was still ignoring him.

Staring contently at the phone, I let it ring, thankful that my inbox was full and that I didn't need to listen to any messages he might leave. Given, the fact that my inbox was full was proof that I didn't listen to any messages anyway. It made them easier to ignore.

Turning my phone off, I crawled into my bed, hardly having the energy to do much else. I wasn't tired and it was unlikely I would be able to sleep, my insomnia had been acting up again since everything happened, but the exhaustion that filled my physical body was something I could no longer ignore. Brushing the tears off my face, I managed to get my head on a pillow and close my eyes, hoping that silence would envelope enough of me where I could forget.

The creaking sound of my door opening suggested otherwise…

"Kai-nii?" Riku poked his head into my bedroom quietly, eyebrows raised in a look of concerned confusion. He had gotten to know me long enough where he had stopped being so proper when speaking to me, recently dropping the 'san' when addressing me and calling me by name instead.

I looked at him, secretly hoping he'd leave so that I could close my eyes once more. It would be rude to ask him to, though. He was a child; he didn't understand anything that was happening right now.

"You can just call me Kai, if you want." I said.

"Do we make you sad?"

I perked up slightly at his question, sitting up and watching him. Riku's hand still held loosely to the bedroom doorknob and he appeared nervous to actually step into the room, as though worried I would yell at him.

"My relationship with our dad is complicated." I admitted, too ashamed to look him in the eye. "You haven't done anything wrong, though, none of what's happened to me is your fault or involves you at all."

"Is it that you don't wanna live here?"

"Actually, nothing that's currently going wrong in my life involves any of you." I tried to fake a smile. "You shouldn't worry about things like that, though. It's boring adult stuff, I'll get past it."

I wasn't sure I believed a word that I was saying but it didn't matter, I only wanted to make him feel better. He was still my brother after all.

"Why did you kiss that boy? On that magazine, I mean."

Heat rose to my face as Riku stepped into the room, now looking at me questioningly as though the answer was written on my face even though he couldn't yet read.

"It's hard to explain. I'm not sure you're old enough to understand..."

"What's a faggot?"

Now he was the one looking shy, keeping his head down in shame as though he had just asked me if something was a swear word and he was worried I would strike him for saying it.

My own color drained and I felt sick…

"Did you hear someone call me that?" I asked.

He didn't answer, simply nodding awkwardly. Putting my hand out toward him, he took it, allowing me to pull him onto the bed with me so that we sat hip to hip.

"Is it a bad word?" He eventually asked.

"I kissed a boy because I loved him." I said, ignoring his question in lieu of starting at the beginning.

"You loved a boy?" He actually smiled now, like what I said was no more than a joke he was supposed to laugh at. He still didn't seem to understand any of this and I feared I was going beyond what was appropriate for me as a sibling to be doing by explaining it to him. "And you kissed him?"

I couldn't help but smile back now, sighing deeply.

"I guess."

"That's silly. Boys are supposed to love girls." He made a disgusted face at this statement, not in a way where I wondered if he could be queer as well, but in a typical six year old 'girls are gross' way.

"It doesn't always work out that way."

"Why?"

"Have you ever hear someone use the word 'gay' before?"

He had to think before responding, bringing his eyes up to the ceiling as though an answer would be found floating above his head.

"I think so." He said.

"It means that a boy likes another boy instead of a girl. A girl who loves another girl is called a lesbian, but some people just say gay for both, and someone who likes both boys and girls is bisexual."

"Mama said sex was a bad word."

"I wouldn't say it's bad, it's just more of an adult word."

"Are you gay or are you sexual?"

"Bisexual." I corrected, "And I'm gay. I'm not attracted to girl… Not in that way, at least." I attempted to find an easier way to explain this without discussing the difference between physical and sexual attraction. "I don't want to marry a girl."

"I'm not gonna marry anyone." He laughed, not appearing too bothered or confused by our current conversation. "I'm gonna get a dog instead. Papa says we can't have a dog."

It was hard not to smile at his response to everything I was throwing at him, causing me to find myself in a happier place than before he came into my room and sad that I was gonna have to pull the rug.

"Faggot is a very bad name to describe someone like me..." I murmured.

"Calling people names isn't nice. I called a girl at my school stupid once and I had to sit in time out."

"Has your school ever talked to you about how people with different skin colors are sometimes treated differently?"

"A little."

"There are people in the world who try and find reasons that they're better than other people. Sometimes they say that someones skin color is better than someone else."

"But we aren't supposed to say that."

"We aren't supposed to say it because it isn't true."

"Like how my classmates look Japanese and I don't?"

Putting an arm around him, I pulled Riku into me, holding onto him tightly.

"What we look like isn't supposed to matter and things like if we're a boy or a girl or if we like boys or girls isn't supposed to either, but there are always going to be bad people."

"Who don't like you?"

"Who don't like a lot of people." A memory of something my mother had once told me had flashed itself through my head, words that I hadn't thought about or spoken since I was a child. "You can be the sweetest apple on the tree, but there will always be people who don't like apples."

Riku giggled, nuzzling himself against me without saying anything more. It felt strange to say that I felt better after speaking to him, even if not every part of our conversation was happy. It was part of my job as an older sibling to make sure he didn't become one of those bitter people, even if we came from a family that didn't like or accept people like me.

Silently we sat, not interrupted until my fathers voice rang through the halls of the home I now shared with this family. My family.

"Kai," He called. "Someone is at the door for you."