IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE/WARNING: This fanfic contains themes and possible future descriptions of physical and emotional abuse. If you are triggered or generally upset by reading about abuse, reader's discretion is advised.

Chapter 1: Too Easy; But I'm Really Scared

He was scary, and he knew it.

He terrified people with just a glance, and he, although he found it quite unpleasant, accepted that.

What most failed to realize, however, was that he, most of all, had most reason to be very, very, quite, extremely afraid.

Yes, he scared his classmates, so much so that no one dared talk to him.

And to that, to make up for such a fact, Ivan's parents absolutely, positively, undoubtedly terrorized him.

Indeed, Mother and Father scared Ivan to the very core.

They always will.

Ivan, admittedly, hid it well. Too well, in fact.

Bruises on his neck, he'd cover with his scarf. The tears on his face, they wiped away so easy. Too easy. It was so much easier to hide it than it should have been. Black eyes could be explained away no problem. No teacher even turned back their head in concern. Fuck. This is too easy. Far, far too easy for what it's worth. Someone, please, just give a damn.

. . .

Hiding abuse is too easy for Ivan's tastes.

. . .

Be it physical, or emotional, or other forms he did not even want to think of, Ivan found hiding the fact that his parents abused him - actually, no; they didn't abuse him; they pummeled him, and belittled him, and told him that he was a waste of space and air and time and life, which, by the way, got to Ivan more than it should've - far, far too easy.

Ivan's a waste of good air.

Ivan wanted to cry, but he did not.

Ivan wanted to scream to the world that his own damn parents abused and hit and neglected and hurt him - hurt him in so many ways that he didn't dare list them all - yet he could not.

Ivan wanted for everyone, wanted for the world to know, that Mr. Braginsky is a monster; however, they don't know that.

Quiet, quiet; hush, hush.

Hushed, and quieted, and silent Ivan's secret remained, and as much as it pained him, Ivan kept it that way. Whether for the protection of the two people he hated the most, or for his own safety, he did not know.

Stay at school for as long as possible; hide from Father when he's drunk as quickly as possible. Ivan lived by that motto, for such a saying had saved his life, multiple times over.

Fists hurt more when the person punching you, uninhibitedly, is drunk off their ass. Ivan's father is a big man; a big, scary man who can knock the life out of his own son with a single blow, and Ivan held the vague awareness that one day, a punch too hard could off him.

Stay out of the way; stay quiet; don't tell anyone; quiet, quiet; hush, hush.

Silently, quietly, terrifyingly, Ivan sat after school hours in the art room, pencil grating his paper and equations struggling to hit the page. After all, Ivan found worrying about Calculus quite difficult, and found his mind quite hazy, when he had not eaten breakfast or lunch; hopefully that half pack of ramen would still be there in the evening. Hopefully Mama and Papa would be out, or unconscious on the couch, or far, far, far away from the house so that Ivan did not have to smell the disgusting vodka on his way through the front door.

However, for the meanwhile, Ivan stared half-heartedly at his math paper, and he continued, albeit hesitantly, his Calculus.

Since, you know, being scolded at by your teacher for not finishing your homework makes everything drunk Father said about you true, as a form of sick, twisted validation, and now Ivan was here, sitting in a damn art room during his Junior year of high school, miserable as can be and not even a friend to confide in.

Scarf; check.

Jacket; check.

Gloves; check.

Boots; cheek.

A scarf to hide the hand-shaped strangle-marks around Ivan's neck.

A jacket to hide the new gashes on his arms.

A pair of gloves to hide his thin, bony fingers.

Boots to hide the fact that he was in desperate need for a new pair of shoes.

Boots last longer than shoes, so why wear shoes when your parents haven't bought you any for a solid two years?

As Ivan went out the front door, into the winter outside, Ivan mentally ran through his checklist, his checklist more for other people than for himself, to make sure that everything seemed fine and dandy and swell at home. He almost hoped that if he pretended that his parents didn't regularly beat the shit out of him, perhaps they actually didn't. Perhaps they wouldn't. Perhaps they'd stop. Perhaps it would just all be a bad dream, and Ivan would eventually wake up, in a safe, warm bed, and realize that he had parents who actually loved him.

Gosh, Ivan realized. He realized that he was looking kind of thin now. His backpack pressed against his shoulder bones more than they used to. He felt his face. He cheeks were kind of hollow, and the ridge of his nose was more pronounced than it ought to be, and he hiked his scarf further up his face, to his nose, when he realized that he had a busted lip.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Wobbly feet crunched through the snow with great uncertainty.

It was cold.

It's cold when you're wearing only a jacket, with not even a shirt underneath, in the snow.

Ivan crossed and rubbed his arms, and his head bowed slightly as a chill ran up his spine. He would have worn a wool hat, but his had so many holes that wearing it would attract more concern than not. The last thing Ivan needed was a concerned adult over his shoulder. He could take care of himself; he was sure of it.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

The crunching of snow made Ivan cringe, for to Ivan's ears, they sounded like the crunching of beer bottles.

Smash. Crash. Plunk.

Ivan almost screamed when he heard a ball being tossed then caught. It sounded like heavy fists pounding the door. Over and over and over the ball would go, thrown, like how mindlessly the house decorations were tossed around and smashed and knocked over and thrown. At Ivan.

It must have looked strange. He must have looked crazy. But Ivan ran, ran like a madman to school.

With snow being kicked up behind his battered boots and his hands clamped around the straps of his backpack, Ivan ran, ran as hard as he could through the snow.

Too much was the sound of that ball being half-haphazardly tossed by children who, hopefully, knew not the horrors of being punched for just existing.

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry. You better not cry, goddammit! Fuck, fuck, fuck, you're sobbing your eyes out! Goddammit! Crying your eyes out while you run through a snowfield because of a fucking ball! Dammit! Dammit! Goddammit! Christ! Running through a fucking snowfield, because of a fucking ball, because Ivan's fucking parents don't even care enough to not beat the shit out of their actual son. Their only son and only child.

Running and heaving and crying, Ivan, in a frantic frenzy, ran all the damn way to school, and all the while he heard his heart in his ears, and his head pounded with all sorts of unpleasantness, and his lungs felt so strained that Ivan feared that they'd burst.

Finally, finally, finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he neared the school's entrance and almost painfully, he skidded to a stop, his eyes still red and puffy. With a rough, severely worn glove, he gave his face a harsh, single wipe. He wiped away the tears easy. Too easy.

Whispers. And stares. And fear. He didn't know why; he didn't know what he'd done; but for one reason or another, his mere presence, in an instant, mortified just about everyone in the room. Maybe he was insulting them, or maybe the Americans found Russians intimidating, or maybe the small smile he always wore on his face was actually far creepier than he'd initially anticipated. For whatever reason, the school had decided for Ivan to be their black sheep, and for whatever reason, everyone had decided to give Ivan a hard time making friends.

Ivan presumed his lack of friends to be for the best, though. With friends, comes secrets to confide with each other in, and the secret within Ivan's heart, the secret pain and isolation and heartache, Ivan kept under strict lock and key. That was why he hid. That was why he hid the fact that he was abused at home so damn well. No one could know, for Ivan was scared for someone to know, more so than he feared anything his parents could ever dream of doing to him.

Down the hallway Ivan walked.

Someone screamed, and fainted another, and a petrified student jumped out of Ivan's way, but no one, no one in the room except for Ivan, knew that Ivan, most of all, had the greatest, grandest reason to be afraid.

Knees shaking. Hands trembling. Bottom lip quivering out of pure terror. All eyes on Ivan, and he had accepted it, but that didn't mean that he liked it. Stares and stares and more stares bore into his soul, bore into him deeper than he was capable of handling.

A tenseness in his chest, and Ivan took it as the cue to leave. Ivan didn't like the fact that he gave practically every person he interacted with a fright, but honestly, he didn't know how scared shit-less he'd be if someone had actually given him a chance.

. . .

Ivan scared everyone.

. . .

But everyone scared Ivan more.

. . .

Then, it happened.

It happened during lunch break, a lunch break Ivan spent in the library because he had no lunch.

Ivan sat, a book under his gaze, which did not prove to be an unusual sight. The librarian always questioned Ivan on why he was always at the library rather than eating lunch, but he simply smiled, and told her that he had lunch later during the day at home. Listen, okay? He wasn't telling a complete lie, but, dear reader, one could say that his explanation had wandered quite a bit from the truth. In all honesty he wanted so, so, so badly to just tell the nosy yet perceptive librarian, and to have his parents locked away so that they couldn't hurt anyone else for at least a while, and then he'd actually have some peace for once. But, however tempting, he didn't. He wouldn't; he couldn't; but he would, for now, agree to the keeping of his mouth shut.

"Allo?"

Ivan jumped and nearly fell out of his chair from the voice.

Ivan turned around. He was used to turning around because at home, turning around was usually what saved him from getting smashed in the face with a flower vase.

Fighting the urge to close his eyes, put his hands over his ears, and dive groundhog-style underneath the table, Ivan forced himself to look at the person who had decided to say hello.

"Is this seat taken?" the person asked.

Said person - said admittedly mildly handsome person - had long black hair tied into a ponytail, brown eyes, and pale skin, and he wore a red t-shirt and jeans. Ivan took note of the the long sleeves that this black-haired person didn't have to wear, because this person in front of Ivan had no bruises or scars or scratches to hide. It sounded, maybe, kind of messed up, but Ivan felt jealous.

"Allo? Is this seat taken?" the person asked again, this time with an edge of irritation to his voice.

Ivan didn't allow himself to react to an irritation which normally meant more harm to his being, mostly at the hands of Dad, but Ivan, as difficult as it was, pushed a, "No," from his mouth.

"Mind if I sit here?" This mildly handsome person also spoke with a mild Chinese accent.

Ivan shook his head.

And so, this black-haired, bruise-free, pale-skinned person pulled out a seat next to Ivan, a Mandarin textbook in his small yet not dangerously thin hand, and plopped down next to him.

"Pork bun?" the Mandarin-textbook-wielding-mildly-handsome-black-haired-bruise-free teenager offered.

Tempting, but Ivan shook his head no. He didn't want to be a bother.

"Alright. They're there if you want some."

Silence, before the person next to Ivan turned to him and asked, "What's your name?"

Ivan almost didn't know how to react. In fact, he almost didn't react at all. He almost just turned away and reburied his head into the book he was pretending to read.

However, the powers that be somehow, someway, kicked Ivan's name out of his lips before he even had time to react.

"Ivan. And yours?" Out came the three words.

"I'm Yao."

And holy shit, when Ivan looks back on this very moment, he's so, so fucking glad that somehow, someway, that day, he had said three fucking words. Because those three simple fucking words changed his life.