"No! I'm done, this is bullshit!"

"Rafael, lower your voice." Yoshi strode across the mat the moment the shouts began.

Leo was already fisting his hands, though, ready to make things worse. "Stop being such a baby. Father already told you--"

"Eat shit, pendejo." Raf lunged forward, shoving Leo back onto the mat.

"Rafael!" Yoshi grabbed him even as he made to jump on the fallen boy. "What is the matter with you? You know that sort of conduct isn't allowed in my--"

"Why should I care what's allowed?" Raf jumped away from him, wrenching his arm free from Yoshi's grasp. His glare stayed on Leonardo. "I'm not gonna turn into some fucking maricon like him."

Yoshi pointed at the door. "Leave. Now. You know where to go."

Raf finally turned his glare onto Yoshi. "Screw you."

Yoshi's eyebrows rose. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me, cabron. Sacate a la chingada--"

"Raf, come on." Don crossed the mat fast, wide eyes on Yoshi's darkening face. "Come on!" He grabbed Raf's arm.

Raf turned on his heel and stormed off, Don pushing him the whole way.

There was an unused supply closet near the front doors. It was a horrible place to shut a boy inside of, small and dark and bare. But Yoshi was out of options. He had three other boys to think of. He had tried every disciplinary measure he could think of, but Raf…

Raf had been a complete horror the last few days. Worse than when he first started coming in for lessons so long ago. Suddenly he wasn't listening to a word Yoshi said, he was picking fights with the boys he'd become friends with. He had become the boy Prentiss described when she spoke of Rafael.

And Yoshi was getting worried very fast. If it kept up, there was no way Rafael would stay out of trouble until Yoshi could sign papers to get custody. Honestly, Yoshi was finding him a chore.

He sighed and looked over when Don came back in.

Don was frowning, worried. "He's in the closet."

It hurt him to hear that, to resort to that kind of punishment. Yoshi moved off the mat and sat, heavy. "Leonardo, are you alright?"

"Yeah." Leo had picked himself up. His mouth was a pucker, glowering after Raf. "I don't…"

"Finish your thought, Leonardo."

"I don't understand why he's still here!" Leo turned to Yoshi. "Why do you let him get away with that? You wouldn't ever let me call anyone a cabr…whatever."

Yoshi regarded his son. "No. I wouldn't. For you such behavior would be worse than your nature. Rafael is attempting to become better than he has been."

"You could have fooled me." Leo frowned, marching to the side of the mat to pick up a practice pad Raf had thrown.

Yoshi watched him for a moment, thoughtful. For Leonardo to speak against Rafael, he must have been brooding on the other boy for a while. Leonardo was a wise child.

Was Rafael disruptive? Too disruptive to his family to be brought in?

No. He couldn't even consider that thought. Rafael, whatever he was, was one of Yoshi's.

"Sensei?" Don spoke hesitantly.

He looked up, found the three boys there, wide-eyed, waiting.

He stood. "What is it, Don?"

"Raf can come back, can't he?"

"Of course he can."

Leo frowned.

"Of course," Yoshi said again. "I will not give up on a single child, particularly not…" One of his four, but he didn't give that thought voice.

"Maybe he shouldn't," Mike said suddenly.

All eyes turned to him.

Mike, thoughtful, was regarding the door with those wide, clear blue eyes. "Maybe it's mean. For him to come with the rest of us."

"Why mean, Michael?"

Mike hesitated. "Well. We're all family now. Donnie too, even if he hasn't come to live with us yet. But Raf's not. It's mean. When I lived at the home I wouldn't've wanted to spend all my time with a family that didn't want me."

Children, Yoshi said to himself with a sudden ease of worry. Children sometimes saw so much more clearly than adults.

Those simple words explained everything. The timing was right, the anger.

He hadn't mentioned wanting to adopt Rafael because it seemed cruel to dangle such an idea when he wasn't entirely sure he could. But if Rafael were suffering because of the belief that he wasn't wanted, that was even more cruel.

"Boys, please wait for me. Leonardo, could you lead them in the kata you learned last week?"

"Yes, father," came the quiet answer.

Yoshi left the dojo. He moved to the closet and opened the door. "Rafael."

The boy was standing there, breathing hard, his hands fists. The white plaster behind him was cracked in a small circle dotted with red.

Yoshi frowned. "Show me your hand."

Raf's face was hard. He held out a fist, scratched and bleeding.

Yoshi sighed. "Come with me."

Raf followed him up the stairs in sullen silence. Yoshi led him to the couch in the front room and had him sit. He went to the bathroom to find antiseptic and bandages.

When he returned, Raf sat staring stonily ahead, face flushed, eyes lit with anger.

Yoshi sat beside him. "Your hand."

Raf thrust it out.

Yoshi quietly, thoughtfully applied antiseptic to a strip of cotton. He wasn't sure what the best way to talk about this was. Rafael wasn't an optimistic sort of boy, but Yoshi didn't want to get his hopes up too far.

He dabbed the cotton against Raf's scratched knuckle.

Raf hissed in a breath and looked away.

"The sting will pass," Yoshi said softly, though he knew Raf had hurt himself before and was used to the bite of alcohol on an open wound. He lifted Raf's hand and lightly blew on his knuckles to fight the sting.

From out of nowhere, Raf began to shudder. He jerked his hand away.

Yoshi regarded him. "Are you alright, Rafael?"

"You…" Raf drew in a loud breath. "You're…"

"I'm what?"

"You're nice." Raf stood up suddenly. His shoulders were heaving.

Yoshi frowned. "Please sit. I need to bandage your--"

Raf turned to him, and Yoshi's voice cut off entirely. Startled by the sight of tears in the boy's dark eyes and streaking down his cheeks.

"Rafael?"

"You're nice." Raf's chin shook as he spoke, and his voice was stuffed and thick. "You're the only nice…why…" He wiped at his eyes with his scratched hand. "What do you want?"

Yoshi studied him.

Raf returned his look, something burning behind his expression, something that wasn't anger. "What?"

"I don't know what you're asking me, Rafael."

Raf sniffled loudly, trying to hold back the tears. "What can I do? Can I…?" His face changed suddenly, went pale. Fear clouded him. Something had come into his mind, Yoshi saw, that terrified him.

Yoshi nearly stood, but was afraid of undoing the boy further. "Rafael, please."

Raf spoke, his voice thin and small. Scared. "I'll let you…if you want..." He swallowed a wet breath. "I'll let you fuck me."

Yoshi sat up, his chest tight. He felt cold all over.

Rafael's chin came up, brave and determined despite his tears.

"Why would you even say a thing like that?" He hardly recognized his own voice.

"It's what they want." Raf took a blind step towards him, but faltered. "It's all they want from me. If you wanted…I wouldn't even fight. Just keep me here with you. It would be okay if it was you. You're…you're nice, you wouldn't…please. I know I'm trouble and I'm bad but I would try. I wouldn't fight. I would be good." He was sobbing by then, his body shivering.

Yoshi stood.

"I would be good. I promise. You could do whatever you wanted. Please let me stay with Donnie and Mike and Leo."

Horror took his voice away. Yoshi moved to Raf, so small and young and so convincing in his rages that it was hard to remember he was just a boy.

He moved to sit on the arm of the couch beside Raf, and he opened his arms. "I would never ask that of you. Ever."

Raf seemed undone by the softness of his words, as he had been undone by the simple act of blowing on his wounds to soothe a sting. He fell into Yoshi's grasp, shaking, grasping handfuls of Yoshi's shirt.

Yoshi curled his arms around the boy. He could feel the damp warmth of tears on his shoulder. His eyes shut, and he kept from thinking too hard about anything, in case his anger bled through and Raf thought it was directed at him.

"I'm sorry," he heard himself saying as he hugged Raf's thin body. "I'm sorry that you've been so hurt."

"No one believes me," Raf said, thick against his shirt. "No one ever listens."

"I'm listening." Yoshi let his hand curl through Raf's unruly dark hair. "Say whatever you need to. I promise I'll believe you."

"No one ever…"

"I will."

Raf sniffled and drew back. His face was red, glistening with moisture. "Promise?"

Yoshi's chest thumped, hard and uncomfortable. "I promise."

Raf's fists dug into his eyes to clear them. He was quiet for a few moments. "Anything I say?"

Yoshi swallowed, simply nodding.

Raf regained some measure of bravado in his voice. False, but how often had it been false before? "If I said that sai were way cooler than any stupid swords?"

Yoshi smiled, but only because Raf wanted it. "I believe you."

"I'm a better fighter than Leo."

A sad, more sincere smile. "I believe you."

Raf drew in a breath. His eyes dropped. "One of the doctors at the foster home hurts me."

Yoshi had to fight the urge to grab the boy, to hug him and promise him it would never happen again. "I believe you, Rafael."

Raf lifted his eyes, wary, and studied him. "I fight him. Every time."

Yoshi could still see the shadow of the black eye Raf had come to practice with days ago. Raf said he was in a fight, which was too easy to believe.

He kept himself still, feeling the dark heat rising in him and worried it would scare the boy. "He's done this for…for a long time?"

Raf nodded.

"Tell me. I promise I'll listen. I promise I'll help you."

Raf swallowed. His eyes were starting to swim again, the tears streaking down his cheeks. "This man who fostered me once, he did it. He was the first. And I fought him every minute after that and he brought me back to the orphanage, and they said I was lying when I told them. Doctor Kelleran said…he told them I was lying, and when no one believed me over him he…he did it himself. He…" Raf shivered. "This stupid doll he had. I was supposed to point to where my foster dad touched me. And then he said to point on him instead of the doll, and then he wanted to be sure so he did it to me."

Yoshi's anger cycloned inside him, a tornado growing in strength with every word. The name went through his mind. Kelleran. Again and again, like a chant. Kelleran. Kelleran.

Raf wiped at his eyes again. "I told on him. He said I was just mad and making things up. He kept doing it, because no one listened to me. But I wasn't making it up. I'm not, sensei. I promise I'm not." He looked up suddenly, his eyes wide and bright through the tears. "I don't want to stay there. Can't you adopt me too? I can do…I can be good."

Yoshi stood, though it was hard to pull away from Rafael. He went to the small desk where he kept his paperwork, and he pulled off the forms from the folder open on the desktop. He moved back to Raf and held them out.

Raf took them, his hands shaking, and he looked at the top sheet.

Yoshi reached out, running his hand through Raf's hair to straighten disheveled locks. "I plan to, Rafael. Whether you behave or not."

Rafael stared down at the paper for a long time.

In the pause, Yoshi studied his bowed head. It was so easy, he realized, so easy to believe that such a thing could happen to bright, happy, angel-faced Michael. Why was it harder to believe it in the angry form of a child too small to defend himself against an adult? How many clues had Raf given, that he had overlooked because Raf was bad-tempered and sullen?

He realized with a dark wave of self-loathing that it was for those very reasons, for Rafael's dark rebelliousness, that his doctor had chosen to hurt him over the other children. It was because he knew no one would ever believe Raf.

Yoshi had fallen into his trap for two years.

Two long years. How many times in the last two years…

Raf looked up suddenly. His eyes were wide. His finger was on the top sheet, tracing his own name.

Yoshi drew in a breath. "It might take time."

Raf relaxed, as if that warning helped make the news more understandable. He clutched the papers hard enough to wrinkle them.

Yoshi couldn't look into those wide, amazed eyes for very long. "If you'd go downstairs, I need to telephone Miss Prentiss."

"Okay." His voice was soft. He handed the papers back.

Yoshi took them, and watched Raf move slowly to the door and out.

The moment Raf was gone Yoshi's calm dissolved away entirely.