Well, some heavy-hitting stuff ahead.
It was a Tuesday and Tala was bone-tired after having had double geography with asshat Jason. He had thankfully got off his case about the nail paint after Ray put on an entire production about his sexism and enforcement of gender roles a week or so ago outside the staffroom, but he never desisted from giving Tala a hard time in class, needlessly pointing him out over the smallest of mistakes and sneering in his direction. Before geography the redhead had had to struggle with English literature, the point of which he still had trouble grasping and complete with the fact that he got no sleep last night, thanks to the frankly disturbing dream he had had about Kai jumping ship to join the teachers in turning the lives of all students into a living hell, he was cranky, exhausted and ready to slap a bitch.
So when he entered the dorm room, hoping to catch a few hours of blissful sleep before dinner and instead saw the two walking banes of his existence wrapped around each other in an intimate, half-naked embrace, the first thoughts to register in his mind even before the burning jealousy had a chance to rear its head were something along the lines of:
'Do these two ever stop?'
'All day, every day?'
'Seriously, they only ever let go of each other for food and Ray's random bouts of Mariah stalking.'
'Where do they get all this stamina?'
'Are they on pills?'
… before his fatigued mind decided it didn't care and ignoring his owlishly blinking friends, he went and threw himself down on his own bed next to Kai's without even bothering to take off his shoes.
"Um… hi Tala." Ray, not the brightest crayon in the pack.
From the corner of his eye, he could see Kai rush to dress himself while his partner just sat there, unmindful of his MIA shirt. Considering how both the occupants of the room had seen him naked, Tala could see why, logically, he didn't care about his partial nudity but it still made the redhead uncomfortable, and very pleasantly so.
"I am not going to leave, so you two can go hole yourselves up in the junior washrooms or the principal's office. Remember how you said Kai quite liked doing it in places you aren't supposed to? If you start feeling like engaging in some steamy PDA you can always proceed to the football fields, but please, spare me either way."
He wanted one of them to snap at him, preferably Kai, because he could tell the Russian was too embarrassed to otherwise say a word to him and Tala couldn't quite bear that.
Instead of an angry retort though, a concerned inquiry reached and warmed him. "Are you feeling okay Tala? Did you eat lunch before coming up here at least?"
He didn't know whether to be mad at the fact that Kai didn't know how much his little affair with Ray annoyed Tala, or lose his shit over having gone soft enough to hold back his own displeasure so it would ensure their happiness. In the end, he settled for being flattered at Kai's concern. "Yes, mom." He rolled his eyes at the Russian.
Kai only snickered, but in one of his rare moments of good-humoredness decided to play along. "Someone has to look after you, you being a growing boy and all." He even put on a fake, high-pitched accent for the benefit of the joke and Tala realized that though Kai didn't understand why he was upset, the Russian was definitely worried and didn't want him to be so.
He grinned.
Ray chuckled. "How much more can he grow?" He shook his head. "He doesn't have to be a bloody giant like you and Bryan, and look at those guns or those humongous feet!"
A smirk on his lips, Tala shot back at Ray with, "You just don't want me to grow any taller because I am the only one in the room whom you can look in the eye without having to crane your neck. Also, you know what they say, the one with big feet…" he waggled his brows and licked his lips.
A neat black eyebrow rose. "Bragging about the size of your cock, Ivanov?"
"It's not bragging if it is true."
"And truth without proof is no more than a statement." With his hair down, and his coy smile being bitten into by his sharper than average canines, Ray only looked more seductive when he sauntered to Tala.
"What are you suggesting?"
Resting his fingers lightly on Tala's crotch, Ray grinned. "I am suggesting you let me test the credibility of what they say."
Before Tala could respond, a bark-like statement caused Ray to jump away from him. "Didn't you come up here to sleep, Tala?!"
With fire in his eyes, Kai threw Ray's shirt at him and then stalked out of the room, leaving the Chinese staring behind him in confusion. A single second later, he decided to shrug the garment on and follow behind his best friend, leaving Tala bitter and hurt about being forgotten again in a matter of seconds by the two of them.
…
When Tala woke up in the morning, his shoes had been removed, his tie loosened and he was properly tucked into bed. He knew Kai had done that because Ray was a little too clumsy to manage to do all of that without waking him up, and Bryan had recently left for his mother's because of the cancer scare she had had. It was all the apology he would ever get from the teen.
Sitting up he saw the slate-haired boy, dressed in his uniform and waiting patiently for him to get up. He registered the urge to hurl something at him. Ray was nowhere to be seen.
"Did you want to walk with me to class?"
Tala paused on his way to the washroom. For all his 'touch-me-not' fuckery, Kai loved the three of them and couldn't bear to see them hurt, much less because of him. He'd rather die, and while it endeared him to Tala, it also frustrated the shit out of him, the dynamics they were working on.
Kai was emotionally crippled, they just accepted that. He was insecure and doubtful of himself all the time, so he compensated by acting like a little people-hating shit. Naturally reserved, at his core, Kai was also brash and impulsive. Put that together with his compulsion to do right by his friends, his enormous ego and his complete inability to express emotions, dealing with him required a lot of reading between the lines that on his worst of days Tala just wasn't willing to do.
Ray was their personal in-dorm-living mother. He cared, obsessively and got on their cases over everything but he was hedonistic, narcissistic and just an overall nymphomaniac. The pleasures of the flesh meant more to him than to any average human. So they all just knew that while he loved them to bits, if you tried restraining him or dictating his life to him, he'd run for the hills and never look back and it'd be no water off his back because he made friends at the drop of a hat.
Bryan was amongst the four of them, the most aloof. He had a life outside of this circle, an uncomplicated home, a girlfriend a grade above with a pretty chill gang of friends that Bryan sometimes hung out with. He cared for the three, in his own silent ways and he always had their backs but they all knew and had accepted the fact that they played a smaller part in his life than he did in theirs.
That left Tala, Tala who had been overjoyed to have found friends for the first time in his life. Tala who would go to hell to keep them. Tala, who had, over the years, learned to put himself on the back burner for the sake of family, friends, work, society and everything else. Tala who could clearly see how complex their relationships with each other were and that if he stopped holding them together so tightly, they'd fall like dominoes and never feel the need to come back together again.
He couldn't lose them, he didn't know what he'd do if he did. He was sure nobody else would accept him and his past. He knew he would be alone, and out of that fear, he couldn't let go of them.
That didn't mean he didn't grow tired sometimes, of erasing differences and forgetting his own grievances to make sure he could sort out theirs. He got so tired. Sure, it was worth it. His friends loved him for the sarcastic, annoying little shit that he was but they didn't understand that he remained so largely non-combative for their benefits.
He knew he'd regret this later, but right about now, at this moment, he was so pissed.
"I don't think I stand the risk of being cornered in hallways anymore, Kai."
Kai sighed.
"By the way, here's a tip for you. If you keep acting so possessive over a slut who basically throws himself at everyone and anyone over the slightest, begrudging hint of reciprocal, you are only going to play yourself for the fool. If you haven't already, that is."
Whatever hint of remorse shone in the red eyes disappeared at that and Kai clenched his jaw.
"Oh, you would no all about sluts and how they should be treated, won't you?" A pause. "I thought you two were friends, Ivanov."
Regret washed over Tala and he stood mute, wondering how he could talk of Ray like that. He didn't know what he could say to make it better so he didn't bother trying and making it worse. Kai took his silence as the end of the conversation. Striding across the room, he made to walk out on Tala again, before pausing in the doorway to get the last dig in.
"Now for your sake, I am not going to mention anything to Ray, but you better not get too close to him, Tala. Consider this your last fucking warning."
'Why?! You afraid I will steal your bitch?!' He wanted to scream at his retreating back but all he could do was watch, and punch his bedpost a couple of seconds later.
…
They were a happy couple living in the quiet suburbs before Tala was born.
Or so they had believed. As soon as Tala's hair had started growing out, the suspicions began. He was not his father's, that was something they could tell right off the bat, but the husband loved the wife, and despite the initial misgivings, he loved his son too. So for nearly a year, they were a happy family living in the quiet suburbs too.
Till the mother's HIV was diagnosed and the series of affairs were brought to light, after which the father couldn't even bear to look at Tala at all.
They didn't know exactly who Tala's father was, they didn't know who she contacted the virus from, they didn't know if Tala had it. All they knew was Tala was a bastard.
The husband got him checked, of course, knowing whatever his wife got up to was no fault of the babe. He came out clear but the stigma had been attached to his name before he learned how to pronounce it and that was where it went downhill.
The fights started and the neighbors heard, and in typical fashion paid no mind to the privacy of others. Not only was Tala labeled a bastard, but also wrongly accused of having HIV, which could only translate into social exclusion later on. For now, it meant more stress on the mother, who stopped being repentant and became bitter towards her husband. The man could no longer bear slights from his unfaithful wife and decided to leave, owing nothing to the kid who wasn't even his.
The mother, predictably, dived off the deep end, causing monetary problems and inviting a string of lovers who exploited her for a night and forgot her in the morning. She had no stable job and lived off what her ex-husband graciously provided for Tala, who he could still find in his heart to love, and what her lovers sometimes threw in her face. She had turned into a high-priced drunk whore who didn't give a shit about her son and that was the environment of neglect and poverty he grew up in.
When he became of age to attend play-school, the ex-husband made sure he got into a fairly good one but a year in, the man went to jail for minor tax fraud and that was when it went bad.
With no good source of money at hand and no way to feed her child, the mother threw herself into her role as a prostitute. That wasn't the problem. Once he grew up, Tala would easily make peace with the fact that she did what she had to, and even if she had actively chosen to, that was her choice and he stood behind his mother, it was the abuse that got to him, and it wasn't outright abuse. It was mixed in with tender motherly love and her doing her best to provide for him. Yet, when it got bad, it got bad. She'd say stuff that his baby mind accepted for the truth and took to heart, convincing him of his lack of worth, and her lack of lovability, and what was a happy family living in the suburbs became one of a soap opera's grey-shaded lead.
The beatings, the abuse, the exclusion, and Tala's own temperament, caused him to lash out at times. So much so, that the police were called on him in the primary school a total of four times when he hit someone too hard or damaged property and then protected the ruins like a seething beast, confused, angry and unsure of what he was doing. As a child, he remained incorrigible and when he was of age to join a middle school, none in town were willing to accept him.
The ex-husband got out of jail around that time though and picked up the mess that was the mother's life. He took them to Russia and set them anew. Everything had gotten better after that. They sorted out their differences and got married again and Tala was shown hope that he could have a normal life.
He had told his friends about everything of his own volition. Nobody had snooped, or 'found out'. They had readily accepted him though, and nothing had changed amongst them. That was when Tala had known he found the best ones he could.
Apart from them, Mariah had been told too. They had first bonded in the library, where the pink-haired girl spent a lot of her time. Tala was seething that day, everything was pissing him off and when he had made to kick a bookshelf a strong hand on his shoulder had stopped him.
Mariah was short and delicate. Tala had a history of violence you could read in his icy eyes and she had not cowered, only politely asked him to talk about whatever was bothering him and if he didn't want to do that, ordered him to leave school property alone anyway.
He had stormed off, remembering how he had always been taught it was beneath a man to hit an unarmed girl but the next time their eyes met, she smiled and kept on doing so till he smiled back.
…
So all in all, Tala considered himself pretty blessed. So what if the romance wasn't coming out right? He had amazing friends, his family life was being sorted out and Mariah was just the little sister he had always felt he needed. He had good grades, was a damn good basketball player and hadn't had a single episode in seven years of middle and high schools now.
It had been a pretty uneventful day. The little spat between Tala and Kai had been resolved over a smoke break and Tala confirming that he didn't actually see Ray as a slut, admitting the entire term was just a social construct and apologizing for the shit that he said. Kai, in typical, non-verbal fashion, apologized for his own insinuation and the jibe about Tala's mother with skirting eyes and a slightly downturned chin, but the redhead knew what he meant. He just always did.
So everything was cool. Bryan had returned, Ray and Kai had smoothed over whatever if any, wrinkles came up between them and they were all getting dressed in the dorms to start another day at their so beloved school.
Only Tala's minutes ago shaped nails meant he ran the risk of chipping them if any loose threads caught on them and couldn't actually do his tie for himself.
With a sigh, Kai who had been looking for his shoes under everyone's beds straightened next to Tala and catching the end of his tie between his fingers, pulled the redhead closer. Without a word, he started on tying it for Tala.
Tugging on it experimentally one he was done, Kai muttered, "Makes for a nice leash, won't you say? Howl for me, cur."
"Don't try to project your weird, bestial fetishes on to me, asshole." Tala grinned before swatting the smirking Russian away, who just pulled him back against his own chest by his belt loops.
A shiver ran down Tala's spine as Kai's breath ghosted behind his ear where his little crescent moon tattoo was. The strong hands abandoned his waist and found a part of his shirt he had managed to leave untucked behind his back. Grabbing the fabric, Kai's hand slid inside his trousers, the warm fingertips brushing his naked ass before withdrawing and latching onto his waist again.
Twisting himself around in Kai's arms, Tala found himself gazing into burning red eyes. Once again, he had that scary feeling of not being able to understand what Kai wanted to say.
"Sometime today, fucking dimwits! Oh, don't tell me, RAY!" Bryan shouted from the doorway and as one the two turned to find their fully dressed and formerly awake and upright roommate had toppled over in bed and was now sound asleep. Tala groaned. This was nothing new, while Kai just went to shoulder his load. He would carry Ray all the way to the dining hall, and he would be biting back a dopey ass smile all through.
So, all things considered, nothing about their morning foreshadowed the horrific events of the afternoon at all.
…
When Tala entered the dorm room that evening, he appeared calm. The moment the door shut behind him, the shivering started.
Nobody was present in there and that was probably why he let himself fall apart like that. Back firm against the door, he tried to contain his wide eyes, or close his panting mouth, do something, anything to make him appear more put together, but the moment he focussed on one thing, he focussed on that which he wished to forget.
"No…", he pleaded with no-one and no-one heard him.
Thundering footsteps he could easily recognize running down the hallway, pause, pants and then the banging on the door began, Bryan and Ray. With a hard pinch to his wrist, he relaxed his expression, stood up and held the door open for them.
They were bewildered like he had been seconds ago and they brushed past him into the room, but their horror was detached. Somewhat disconnected himself, he wondered if their wonderful acceptance would exist anymore, now that everyone knew…
"They're all lying, Tala. It's bullshit and you know that." Was all Ray could say. There was a frown marring those carefree features and Tala decided it didn't quite look good. Ray could've told them, he'd do something like that, yes. He probably won't even realize how it would affect his life. Just like the Chinese said, it was all lies and he should know that. So why did it matter if Ray did end up spilling the beans?
"Tal, say something, please." Bryan took a step closer to him, to place a hand upon his shoulder and Tala unintentionally flinched away making the elder stop short. It definitely could've been Bryan. He had a life outside of them, he won't care what happened to them. He had other friends, a girlfriend, a family to go back to. He won't be affected by whatever Tala went through.
"Tala, do you have any idea who it was?"
No, he didn't. All he knew was they knew.
All those snickers, those glances, those whispered, belittling catcalls of 'five plus three', the slur he had had to endure all his life. Everything was back, his new beginning had been trashed and it was none of his faults this time.
That was when the name of the fourth person who knew rose unbidden in his mind. Of course, he smacked his head, turned on his heel and ran away, out of the dormitories, across the lawn and into the girls' one. All the way, he could hear his friends' frantic calls behind him, asking him to stop. Stop and do what? Wait for them all to gather around him and push his entire existence right into the ground, under the tag of a disease he didn't even have?
Kids could be such assholes.
The guard tried to stop him, took one look at his face and decided to let the warden deal with it. The warden tried to stop him, saw the fury in his eyes and rushed to call the guard. A random girl tried to block his path and Bryan had to pull her aside to save her from being trampled to the ground.
Tala threw her door open with a near savage cry of, "Mariah!"
The pink-haired girl barely had time to look up from where she sat at her study table before he was upon her, pushing her face into her geometry notebook. She let out a cry, angry and betrayed. He cackled, he was the one who had been betrayed, why would this cunt be trying to play the victim now?
"Tala, stop, you are hurting her!" Ray was at his side, trying to tug his arms away from where one rested twisting and tugging at her hair, and the other at the back of her neck, squeezing as she pathetically croaked for him to stop. There was a gaggle of gawping girls gathering outside the room and Bryan promptly shut the door before coming to help Ray.
"You fucking cunt!"
"Tala! Let her go, motherfucker!" Ray was screaming at him, Ray never screamed at anyone. He didn't scream at those idiots who had been calling Tala names and had only grown braver with the close of night, but he was screaming at Tala now, to spare his pathetic little sow who was only starting to get what her two-faced ass deserved.
"You shit-eating bitch I trusted you! I trusted you with my secrets and you tossed it away like filth at the bottom of your shoes! You just watch what I am going to do to you, you horrid slut! I am going to skin you alive and make you eat it, I am going to tie you down in the middle of the world, exposed, and let every mother fucking man, dog, and pig breed into you, I…-"
"Stop, bastard!" With a loud cry, Ray backhanded him across the face.
He was only deterred for a moment before he lunged at Ray, only to have someone latch onto him and drag him away from the black-haired boy who was now wrapped up in a very familiar pair of pale arms.
He hadn't registered when the Russian came in, and quite frankly was a tad apprehensive about letting Kai see him and Ray like this. Except Kai wasn't mad at him, he wasn't mad at Ray either. He wasn't even looking at anyone.
Ray jerked away from him and went to Mariah, who immediately collapsed into his arms, tears running down her eyes and fear clouding her mind a little too much for her to understand who she was latching on to. Belatedly, he realized, he had torn apart quite a number of her butt long curly strands, enough to create a bald spot at the side of her head. She was sobbing, scared and Tala finally registered that was not the face of someone who was getting what they had brought upon themselves. That was the face of someone who had just been abandoned by someone they trusted.
Out of the four people in the room, only one pair of eyes couldn't bear to lift to look into his.
"Kai…?"
At the sound of his name, he lifted his head and Tala saw the film of tears in his eyes. "I am sorry."
…
Kai had rushed to get his words out like Tala could find it in himself to move any time soon. He really couldn't have, he could barely breathe. Nothing had seemed to really make sense for a while and momentarily, he had been distracted by the picture of him and Mariah the girl had pinned to her tabletop, along with a bunch of others. He had remembered what he said to her and felt like crying.
The Russian had spoken of the shit he had been receiving from Boris, the fact that he was remotely related to Kai, and had been intentionally kept back last year so he could keep an eye on Kai. He had spoken of the letters his grandfather sent to him, of his father's fervent agreement with all that they said. He had spoken of how bad the beatings had gotten back home this year. He had spoken of the rumors people kept circulating about him and Ray and Tala had scoffed at that.
Ray, of course, it had to do with him.
Except nobody cared, everybody could tell they were fucking and nobody gave a shit. What was Kai expecting, carrying Ray around in his arms, always being up at his beck and call, what was he expecting…
He had spoken of how he got angry the last time Boris caught him alone, he had spoken of how in the heat of the moment, he had ended up saying, "Back off, before I get Tala to give you a blood transfusion."
It was clear how it went from thereon. Boris had invaluable information at hand, incomplete and yet invaluable, and he could do what he wanted with it, he had the entire underground network of Voltaire at hand when it came to making the life of his grandson a living hell.
He found out, no doubt he would know Tala wasn't actually infected, but he had clearly missed conveying that part to the student body.
All had been silent after Kai was done, all except Mariah's hiccuping sobs that drilled into Tala's head that he had suspected all the wrong people and he wanted to turn around and beg for her forgiveness, then run away before he killed the love of his life.
It was then that it became clear to him, it wasn't just a crush. He loved Kai.
"Tala, say something." The Russian was openly crying now. He had never cried before, not a single time, not even when Ray went off to hit on Mariah or hooked up with someone else and that gave Tala a lot of satisfaction.
He couldn't focus on anything for longer than a second. Everything was silent, nobody said a word, Mariah had quietened and nobody would dare knock on their door, and amidst all that silence and Kai's painful confessions all Tala could think of was that he wanted to hurt Kai, not his body. He wanted to make his very soul ache.
Ruthless, he always had been. His disoriented mind latched onto this vengeful thought process quickly. He knew the bastard could take a pounding. He knew, what he couldn't bear was his friends hurting, much less because of him.
Tala didn't have to pretend being hurt right now.
Gathering himself into his arms, he looked into Kai's eyes and had the pleasure of watching him flinch away from the pain he found in there. Now he knew this bastard and his shit was none of his own faults, but it'd surely tear him to think Tala believed so.
"It's okay. It was me, I was stupid, thinking…-"
"No!", Ray rushed over to him. "It's not your fault, you weren't stupid. It was this, this Hiwatari…" he trailed off, probably had no idea what to say or who to comfort. Tala saw him look over at Mariah in confusion. The girl only nodded at him and hesitantly, he reached out to hug Tala.
He didn't notice Bryan moving towards Kai, but Tala did. "No, Bryan!" He called out in time. "Let him be. He said it wasn't intentional. We don't even have to talk about it again."
The pain, guilt, and grief in those wide red orbs touched new heights. "No Tal, I fucked up…- "
"I said, let it be Kai. It's done. It's over. We can't change anything now."
"I can't sit with that Tala, you deserve…- "
"Nothing, I deserve exactly nothing." He wrestled himself away from Ray and his insides cooled at the twisting of Kai's features as Bryan and Ray protested vehemently against his statement. Their culprit shook his head but couldn't say a word, and even as the agony in those beautiful features burned Tala's heart with satisfaction, it also lacerated it with pain so deep, so intense he could almost love it for he had never felt anything so vibrantly before.
"Now if you three will leave me and please arrange for Mariah's roommates to sleep elsewhere tonight. I don't want to be disturbed." He got a sense of sick, self-deprecating satisfaction at seeing, how just like the dog Kai always seemed to call him, he rushed to obey Tala's commands. With a last torn glance at the redhead, he shooed their silent roommates out of the room and then left him alone with Mariah.
He couldn't look up at her. He simply took himself to sit on her bed. Upon second thought, he removed his shoes and went sprawling back, staring up at her ceiling with aching eyes.
After five minutes of silence, she came closer to him. He drew up his courage from reserves he didn't know his heart kept and faced her, to find her features being twisted into a grimace, her lips trembling and her eyes brimming. "You hurt me, Ivanov."
He couldn't help the sob that tore out of his chest. "I am sorry, Mars!" He cried and for the first time, he found himself so emotionally spent he couldn't find the energy to get mad at himself for crying in front of another.
For several minutes, (or was it hours?), they remained staring at each other and crying their hearts out before Mariah let out a lengthy curse and climbed into bed next to him. He immediately offered her his shoulder, on which she lay her head, still sobbing, clutching on to his shirt as he held on to her trembling body.
"I know, I am sorry too, Tala. I am so sorry."
He didn't know when she fell asleep, or when he did but when he woke up, he woke up with a stunning revelation stuck to the forefront of his mind. Kai Hiwatari wasn't emotionally crippled, he knew one pesky emotion so well it far outweighed his ignorance of any others. Selfishness.
So this chapter is basically my equivalent to Kai jumping ships all over the place and hurting everyone in the process. It had to happen for several other reasons too which will become clear in the next chapters.
Please don't forget to review and tell me how you felt about it!