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Warning; If you're just reading from boredom, this is kinda depressing and inappropriate. Fair warning.

“You won’t believe what he’s been lying to you about, either.”

“Kate, shut up!”

“He wouldn’t tell you in a million years, but I know. I have pictures.”

“Please stop it!”

“What is she talking about, Kevin?” Lee demanded, concern suddenly flooding his voice. The girl between them stood proudly, holding in her grasp a Polaroid photograph. Beyond Lee, Mariah rose from the sofa and Gary turned around curiously. Rei took a step forward, up beside Lee. Kevin looked like he was either going to start crying, or pass out from panic.

“This.” The blond said suddenly, shoving the picture forward, Kevin jumped for her arm, trying to grab the photo, but Lee was faster. Taking it into the light, he squinted down at it for several moments before it registered with him that he was really seeing what he was seeing. Kevin stood there, frozen in fear and shock, while Kate smiled at him with such an evil payback’s-a-b***h look that not even Kevin could pull it off on a regular day. A long, long moment passed while Rei and Mariah leaned over Lee’s shoulders to see it too. It wasn’t until Mariah snatched it from Lee’s fingers and gaped at it that Kevin turned to leave, only to have his hand caught by Rei’s. Turning to meet the eyes of the older, Kevin found nothing but fear and confusion, and Rei saw complete fear.

“Kevin, what the hell is this?” Lee almost breathed. An uncharacteristic blank stare had claimed his face.

“Please tell me it’s a birthmark, Kevin. Please.” Mariah said, closing in on tears. Kate smiled.

“Oh no, it’s not. I promise.”

“Kate, shut the ******** up!” Kevin sobbed, eyes misting. The girl blinked, suddenly not sure of herself.

“So you get beat up, so what?” She asked in a rude tone. Lee shook his head.

“Kevin doesn’t get beat up. We… He’s always with us, I thought. Chen hasn’t been near you, has he?”

Kevin bit his lip and tugged at Rei’s grip, which had since traveled to his wrist. He said nothing. Rei asked something similar and he shook his head, hesitate, and blurted that he didn’t know. Mariah’s eyes watered.

“Then how the hell did you get this? These… This bruise, it’s… it covers almost your whole back, Kevin!”

“I don’t know!” Kevin sobbed again, tugging hard at Rei’s grip. Kate stood, suddenly surprised. She had thought that Kevin had just been getting bullied, and when he acted like he didn’t want anyone to know, she didn’t think it was that big of a deal.

“It’s red, purple, and black! How the hell can you not know?!” Mariah cried, clenching the photograph so hard that it started to crinkle. Lee stepped forward.

“Is it still there?” Rei asked softly, trying to calm Kevin down. The youngest was only growing more frantic by the moment. Suddenly, Kevin lost hold of the judgment he had on his actions, and stopped thinking about what he was saying.

“Of course it’s still there!” He yelled, tears finally breaking free. “How does something like that ever go the ******** away?!”

“Kevin, calm down. Please. Just tell us what happened. You can trust us, we’re your friends. You’re family.” Lee said cautiously.

“God, don’t say that!” Kevin yelled back. He finally broke from Rei’s grip, but didn’t run. “I don’t want any more family, what I have is horrible enough!”

His friends all started, surprised at this outburst. Kevin was breathing fast now, nearing hyperventilation. Rei moved forward calmly so not to scare him into running away. He felt his eyes warming, as though he himself might show a tear, but he refused to let it out.

“Kevin, please…”

“No! K-Kate’s lying, th-that’s not m-me! I’m fine, leave me a-alone!” Kevin shouted before turning and rushing away, as fast as his legs could carry him. Lee made to follow before Rei caught his arm and shook his head. Together, completely shaken and petrified, his friends watched the direction he had run off in silently.

Kate had vanished.

-x-x-x-

Kevin closed the front door of his house behind him gently, exhaling despite the ache in his chest. He had collapsed a while back, pulled himself into a ball, and eventually over came the panic attack. It wasn’t an uncommon event for him; he knew to breathe deeply into his hands and watch that he didn’t hit his head, but that was only how to deal with the attacks, not prevent them. Lately, he had been getting more and more, and it was taking a toll on him. Dizzy and tired, the neko-jin slowly began to walk down the hall, whipping his eyes for the thousandth time; they had dried up long ago, but the feeling of the tears once being there bothered him.

As he reached the kitchen, the smell of alcohol hit his nose, and he froze. Please be mom, please be mom, oh god please let it be mom, he thought frantically. Stepping cautiously around the corner, tattered relief flooded his senses when he found his mother slumped against the counter, wine glass in her shaking hand.

“Hi mom.”

Jumping, Kevin’s mother turned suddenly and stiffened as if to defend herself. Spotting her son, however, a relief three times greater than Kevin’s swept over her. She ushered him toward her gently, still shivering.

“Hi there, sweet pea. You okay?”

“Yeah.” Kevin lied, crossing the kitchen and pressing against her. She set down the wine glass and hugged her small son, smiling pitifully to herself. She kissed the top of his head three times, gently. Before letting him step back, she made sure to check if he still flinched when she hugged him hard. He did.

“Oh my baby boy… Did he hurt you?”

“No, mummy.” Kevin lied again. His mother wasn’t capable of taking the news that he was still being hurt. She was enough of a wreck; two glasses of wine before bed, followed by shaking and crying into her pillow. Actually, she always shivered. She had shadows below her eyes and her once beautiful hair was dull. Her face, so beautiful if only she wasn’t so tormented by her life, was sinking and pale, with a bruise on the right side of her jaw line and a split lower lip. Still, she smiled weakly at him.

“You know I love it when you call me mummy.” She said quietly, stroking Kevin’s cheek. He tried to smile for her. He really, really tried. But it didn’t come out like he wanted it too, and it made his mother frown.

“How’s school, sweetie?”

“It’s good. I got an A on that science experiment.” There. It felt good to be honest sometimes. His mother smiled honestly to match the honest statement, and kissed his forehead.

“That’s my boy. You’re so smart, you know that?”

Kevin tried to chuckle and found that he was proud of how it came out. “You never let me leave for school without telling me.” He said, smiling gently. She returned it. It wasn’t always that simple, to answer the school question. Sometimes his projects would get destroyed during a war.

Or at least, that’s what he called it when his father rampaged around breaking everything. Because it was chaotic and scary when it was happening, and the aftermath was staggering. Science projects, art pieces, math homework, all burned or torn or used as something to throw across the room. Kevin knew all too well that his border-line average-poor grades at school were because of that.

“Want to read the next chapter of our book?” His mother asked hopefully. It was the best thing in the world, when she asked Kevin that. An old book, full of stories about good prevailing over evil, some with pirates and some with nights, some with wizards and some with regular people, was stored out of harm’s way. Whenever they had the chance, Kevin and his mother would find some safe place and she would read him a chapter while they both tried to escape life. Happily, Kevin opened his mouth to respond, but as his vocal cords began to assist him in speaking, the slam of a door flying shut caused both of them to jump. Had Kevin’s mother been holding her wine glass, it would have dropped and shattered on the floor. Spinning around to face the entrance of the kitchen, Kevin felt his heart rate speed up considerably.

“Go to bed.” His mother said suddenly, in a hushed voice. Kevin stood there, almost unable to move. His mother shoved him forward hurridly.

“Hurry, go to bed now.” She said, shoving him roughly along. Kevin bit his lip and stumbled forward before finally catching his footing and breaking into a run. He raced out of the kitchen, down the hall and around the corner, up the stairs and down another hall, into his room, and closed the door tightly. He closed his eyes, took five minutes to steady his breathing, and listened.

It took a few moments before the voices even reached him. He slid down his door and closed his eyes tightly.

“What do you mean he went to bed?”

“He said he was tired, so he went to bed. That’s all.”

“Well I want to talk to him.”

“You can’t, he’s sleeping.”

“Would you shut the ******** up? What, you think I didn’t get that? Why don’t you make yourself useful and make me something to eat, huh?”

“But he-”

A small, distant, and startled cry; his mother had been struck.

“I said shut the ******** up, you b***h.”

Kevin looked at his feet sadly. His father wasn’t going to come upstairs, and he knew it; he had heard that exchange a hundred times, and not once had his father gone up to find him. He only asked where Kevin was because he wanted to make sure that his son was home before he was. He wanted to come home to two servants, not just one he had already cracked.

“And make me something to eat, goddamnit!”

“Alright, dear…”

A thump; his father had dropped his bag on the floor. “Why the hell are you drinking? What, you’re not happy?”

“No, dear.”

Kevin looked toward his bed. A couple blankets, three pillows, an old stuffed bear from when he was young. He wanted so badly to climb among them and hide, but he told himself that he had to be strong; he had to grin and bear it, or people would find out that –

Kevin set his jaw. People already found out. The people. His friends. They saw that picture, that stupid picture Kate had take of him just after he slipped in the mud and pulled of his shirt to see the damage. He hadn’t known she was there, and he hadn’t the slightest clue that she was wielding a camera.

“What the hell is this?”

Kevin closed his eyes and half-listened to the conversation downstairs while contemplating how he was to approach his friends after that.

“It’s something to eat. I thought-”

“I want a meal, not a goddamn sandwich! And you’re job isn’t to think, it’s to do. My job is to think, and me alone!”

“Well maybe you should give your son a chance, he’s smarter then you!”

Kevin’s eyes snapped open. Rarely, oh so extremely rarely, did Kevin’s mother talk back to his father. It never ended well, either.

“What?! That little s**t is almost as dumb as you! And you dare say something like that?!”

Please mom, Kevin thought, please just apologize and run away. Please don’t fight back.

“Of course he’s smarter then you! If you didn’t ruin his homework all the time you’d see that!”

“Shut up!” Kevin’s father roared so loudly that Kevin could hear it clearly upstairs. He flinched an bit his lower lip, a shiver setting in.

“He’s failing school because he’d rather try and protect you, isn’t that right? That little runt would rather be with his mommy then away from me. That’s why he’s smarter then you, he knows where he belongs!”

“He’s petrified of you! He-”

“He’ll be doing what I say long after you die, you stupid ********!”

“What, are you going to kill me? Is that is Bernard?!”

“Just shut up you stupid whore!” The man roared again. By this time, Kevin’s face was pressed against his hands, and tears were flowing freely. His shoulders shook painfully as he sobbed. Why did they have to fight? Why couldn’t things be like they used too? Muffled thumps and short cries followed. Kevin looked at his feet through watering eyes and listened to his father beat his mother, cowering in a ball against his bedroom door. After a while things seemed to calm down, but then he heard his mother scream. It wasn’t a scream of pain, but rather a scream of shock and horror. And Kevin had heard it several times before; the strained pitch, the groaning echo, the sobbing at the end.

His father was raping his mother. Kevin’s heart frosted over with fear, petrified that he knew what was going on below his feet. It also sparked something else to arise in Kevin’s mind.

Just four days ago, Kevin’s father had come home drunk. His mother had suffered his wrath before Kevin had come out of his hiding place, thinking it was over. His father, sitting in his easy chair with yet another bear can in his hand, snagged Kevin by the arm and pulled his son into a deep kiss, tongue to tonsils. Choking on his father’s tongue, Kevin squirmed and whimpered and fought helplessly. The second his father pulled out, he slurred the following;

“You’ve got the same ********’ face as yer mother, only yers’ isn’t all pale. So wassa difference if I ******** you too? I like th’sounda that. Two bitches insteada one.”

And Kevin had run to his room, horrified, knowing that his father was being honest. Things only got worse with his father; from being yelled at when he was young to being beat up only a few years later, Kevin’s father had gotten physically abusive very quickly. The kiss was the red flag, screaming to Kevin that it was only a matter of time before his father acted on his drunken words. And that scared Kevin more than anything in the world.

Vibration. In his pocket, against his hip, Kevin’s phone began to shiver. He let it go for a few moments before pulling it out, trying to clear his voice. Maybe he still had time to cover over the picture his friends had seen.

“Hello?” Kevin whispered shakily. Closing his eyes, he inwardly scolded himself for not speaking more steadily, but if he made to much noise his father would hear him and come up.

‘Kevin? It’s Rei. Are you okay?’

Kevin wiped his eyes. “I… Um… No.” He said, surprising himself. What was he saying? What happened to covering it up? From downstairs, Kevin heard his father call his mother a b***h.

‘Kev, listen, I… If you’re hurt, we need to know. We can help, Kevin. We’re your friends.’

Thumping up the stairs. Kevin swallowed, preparing himself to hang up the phone and crawl under the bed. The feet grew louder and louder until they were directly outside the door, and then miraculously, they began to fade down the other side of the hallway.

“I… Rei, I… I don’t know… I just…”

Rei said nothing, waiting for Kevin to collect himself. This annoyed Kevin, who wished that Rei would take over so he wouldn’t have to risk his father hearing him.

“Can I talk to you tomorrow?”

Rei thought for a moment.

‘Yeah, sure. Of course. Um… How about you meet me at the park before school?’

“Too far.” Kevin said immediately, flinching at his tone. Rei must have been caught of guard, because it took him a second to respond.

‘Oh… Okay. The pond?’

“Yeah, okay. Um… okay. Sure. Um… B-bye Rei.” Kevin whispered, lower lip quivering. Rei seemed hesitant to hang up, but just after he muttered a reluctant goodbye, Kevin flipped his phone closed quickly.

-x-x-x-

The sun had just begun to peak over the hills when Kevin curled up against the base of a tree beside the pond. His back was beside him and his jacket was on, and his cheek was red from where his father had smacked him earlier. Rei approached after five minutes, smiling his most Rei-smile before noticing Kevin’s face. Faltering, he kneeled down before Kevin and looked at him worriedly.

“You okay?” He asked slowly. Kevin looked up at him.

“It’s my dad.” He said right off, startling Rei.

“W… what?”

“My dad. He’s the one hurting me. He hurts my mummy too.” Kevin said, too distraught to think of what he was saying. Rei’s eyes widened before narrowing.

“Your father hits you?”

“Uh-huh.” Kevin nodded pathetically, throat beginning to swell. “All the time.”

Rei was silent a moment before he leaned forward partially, unsure whether or not to lay a hand on Kevin’s shoulder.

“Kevin, why haven’t you told us?”

Kevin snapped his attention upwards. “Are you kidding? He… He would kill me! If I told anyone, he would get so mad that he would beat me to death!”

“It can’t be that bad, Kevin,-”

“You don’t know!” Kevin cried. Though he wasn’t crying, he felt like he might soon. “You don’t know, Rei, he’s horrible! He’s always angry, he… He’s always really angry.” Kevin said softly now, lowering his voice. “He’s possessive and thinks he’s the god in our lives. He wants me to be perfect and no matter what I do I’m not, so he gets mad. My mom is really scared of him even though she tried not to be, she always shakes and talks like she’s afraid he’ll hear her, and she’s really sick, Rei, she doesn’t eat or sleep and she’s really thin and I don’t want her to die but he might kill her anyway and he rapes her and-”

“He what?” Rei said, completely in shock as the news settled in. Kevin swallowed hard and bit his lower lip.

“I hear it. He rapes her. And a couple days ago, he… He kissed me. Like, I couldn’t breathe and his tongue was in my mouth. And he… Oh god, I look exactly like my mum, Rei, and he was drunk and he said that since we look the same it wouldn’t matter if he did bad things to me, and he will and I know it! I don’t want him to hurt me anymore, Rei, I want him to die and I want his body to go missing and never show up and I want my mom to get better and I want to be happy….” Kevin ended the slur of speech in a whisper, while Rei just knelt there, eyes wide. He hadn’t the slightest idea what to do, and had no idea that Kevin’s confession was going to be so huge. He just sat there while Kevin sobbed, petrified.

Eventually, he managed to pull himself together and hug Kevin, who couldn’t stop crying. His breathing was quick and shallow and it got worse as time went by, until Kevin’s shoulders started to jerk and his legs twitched. Rei shushed him and told him to calm down, but Kevin just pressed cupped hands to his face and tried to breath into them. To Rei, it didn’t look like it was going anything to help the panic attack, as Kevin continued to kick and twitch harder, gasping for breath.

Then, all at once, Kevin seemed to relax. His gasps stretched out and calmed down, and he fell limp in Rei’s arms.

“Kevin? Kevin?!” Rei gasped, shaking Kevin gently. No response. The younger had passed out, right there beside the park in Rei’s arms. Tears stained his flushed cheeks, and sweat matted his forehead. Rei looked down at him wide-eyed, not having the slightest clue of what to do. As Kevin breathed softer and seemed to sink in against Rei’s chest, the elder just stared at him.

‘What the ********’ was about the only legitimate thought running through Rei’s head. The sun was higher now, filling the sky.