Amar froze at this. He didn't need to be explained whom she was referring to. His name always laid between them like a double-edged knife, damaging to both the weilder and the victim. "And more importantly, that he and Hillary were friends." She stressed on the word.

Amar sat up straighter at this. "I swear I didn't know that they knew each other either until a month ago. You-" "You knew about it for a month and didn't think telling me would be nice?" She scathingly demanded. Amar raised his hands in surrender. "Hey, you were in the hospital unconscious. I was talking on the phone with Tyson when he off handedly mentioned him." He defended himself. "How did you get to know of this? How long have you known?" He asked instead.

"I met Kai today. And last Friday. He was at the studio to get his new house furnished." Amar looked surprised at this. "I didn't know he had bought himself a house." "Apparently he has, is that even possible legally?" "I don't think it is." 

"And what were saying  about him living in Japan, has he been living here before?" She asked, her eyes clouded with confusion. "Have you been hiding things from me, Amar?" She further asked, looking unsure, as though she was afraid to know the answer herself.

"I-" he started, but the look in her eyes silenced him once more. Almost all his life, he had lived in a web of secrets, half-lies and half-truths. Every move of his was calculated and everyone had their own uses. Yet, he could never once make himself lie to her. She had been the small ray of sunshine, reserved only for himself, in his dark world that he himself didn't know he needed. She had thought him to live his life for the first time, she had built and shared her life along with him, he would never disrespect her by lieing. But  he couldn't think of how upset she would be if she knew the truth. The truth which would reveal how utterly he had failed her, and a lot of others whom he had loved dearly. 

The bell couldn't have ringed at a better time. He quickly pecked her on the lips, "I promise to tell you soon, just not today sweetheart. Please don't get mad with me when I finally tell you. I did try my best." He whispered, before going to the main door. Hillary looked damn tired, by every excited. When she told him of the new improvements, he felt very proud of his daughter. Natasha no longer looked upset, she was almost back to her normal self. The mother-daughter duo kept up a lively chat at dinner, while Amar couldn't help but fret. What had he gotten himself into this time?

******

Kai blindly stumbled across the hill. It was late into the evening that he couldn't see anything beyond a few metres ahead of him. The wind was raging against him, sending dust to his eyes. The night was a starless one and the clouds were heavy in the sky. He knew it wasn't right for him to be out in the open now, given that he had resently recovered from a bullet wound, but he didn't want to be near anyone he knew when this happened.  

He stumbled into the small clearing and retched into one of the bushes. He screamed loudly before his legs gave in and he crouched down, gathering his knees and legs into himself before starting to rock back and forth. His head was pounding rapidly and he was heavily sweating. He knew that this was a kind of breakdown his body was subjected to before an onslaught of suppressed memories resurfaced, having experienced it before. Memories of his time in biovolt, which were somehow curtained from him in his own mind and  memories of his time as the dark phoenix.

A heavy downpour had started by then. With a shudder, he realised that he was missing the one person who helped him pull through with the pain and misery it brought, his greatest ally, dranzer. She was always the soothing balm, his anchor to sanity and reality during these times. He wished he had taken it back from Hillary and soon as he had gotten the chance.

******

Kai didn't know how long he had been lying on the muddy floor, all curled up and shivering. Unsurprisingly, he had lost consciousness somewhere along the line. He tried blinking through the haze and still felt a bit addled. He noticed that he had clawed into his own hands, and even bitten himself at a place or two, leaving behind scars that had not fully clotted yet. Soon he realised that he wasn't just shivering due to the cold. Sobs wracked his entire body, making it harder for him to breathe. The muscles around his stomach seemed to have gone numb long ago due to continuous gasping. 

Yet, he couldn't reduce them, he couldn't even differentiate between the real pain he was feeling in his head, and the feeling of emptiness that seemed to be getting bigger and bigger in his chest. Because these weren't just the dreadful memories he usually remembered, but glimpses of sweet memories too. His first time at a fair, him being snuggled in bed between his parents, him holding his baby sister for the first time, wondering how could someone be smaller that him, beach days, all the time surrounded by his parents and their closest friends. The feeling of loneliness had never felt this overwhelming before. 

Kai gathered his senses after some time. The downpour had stopped long ago, but had left the way down muddy. Judging by the moon, it was around three in the morning. He slowly made his way down and back to the dojo. He silently slipped in through the back door using his set of keys and went straight to his room. Even though he had emptied his stomach hours ago, he didn't have an appetite. Furthermore, he didn't want to be caught out in the state he was in. 

As soon as he had locked his room door, he stripped down to his boxers. Thankfully, his bandage didn't have spots of red as he had feared, even though he had gotten it a bit wet. Other than that, he looked dreadful. His hair was matted with mud, his hands were a combination of red and brown, bloodshot eyes, sunken cheeks...he had surely seen better days. 

He quickly scrubbed away whatever dirt he could before redressing his wound. To hell with school, he thought, before slowly slipping into his bed, wrapping himself with layers of quilts, childishly hoping that the warmth would compensate for the growing hole of coldness in his heart and let him have a sound rest for once.

******

Max had always been expecting to be dragged into highschool teen drama one way or the other, given the fact that thousands of teens meet here everyday and the blade breakers fell into the famous category, but even he had not been expecting it to be this soon.

 Kai became the highschool sensation within three days and shockingly, he was indulging in the attention more than anyone would have expected of him. Whenever he would walk down a corridor, all the girls would become quiet, waiting with bathed breath. One smirk of his, and the girls would break into gushes and giggling. Max alone had been approached by eight girls to introduce them to each other. Max wasn't suisidal enough to try it yet.

Girls were quite uncertain about approaching Ray though, given the rumours that he was dating Mariah. But some girls who realised that they were never together and never speaking, thought that they could use the situation to their advantage. But anyone who really knew Ray knows that he has his eyes only for Mariah, long before they actually started dating.

Tyson and Max, being younger, caught the eyes of the girls in their year alone. Max was happy with this, but the same couldn't be said for Tyson. Tyson didn't like that he wasn't the most popular one, but more importantly, he didn't like that Kai was the one. One their way to the canteen in Tuesday, two girls had approached Tyson to help them get to know Ray. They had been rudely shooed away by moody Tyson like a litter of annoying kittens. 

Tyson was half-heartedly pushing his food around his table when Ray took a seat with them.  On noticing Tyson's grumpy mood, remarked "Why the long face?" If one more girl comes asking me to introduce them to any of you, I'm going to leave the blade breakers!" He testily mumbled. Ray laughed at this. "Yeah, yeah, laugh all you want. Today alone, four girls for Kai and three for you! As though you guys are a limited Christmas present. I mean, what do they even see in sourpuss anyway? And couldn't you just patch up with Mariah, it would save us all a lot of trouble." He rambled on. 

Ray laughed awkwardly before changing the subject. "Speaking of Kai, do you know where he is? He wasn't in the classes today." Ray asked him. Tyson scoffed, "Yeah Ray, of all the people in the world, why would Kai tell me anything of his plans!" he exasperated. Ray's lips twitched at this "Thought so too." he  sighed.

All the three of them were done with their lunch when Max noticed a growing crowd gathering at the notice board. "Why the sudden crowd?" thought Max as he pointed it to Ty and Ray. Curious as they were, they all headed towards it. It was a notice that the student council elections would be held after a month from now. Students who were interested in trying out had to submit their names to the vice principal. Funnily, the school followed the pattern of an anonymous election of three rounds. 

The candidates were supposed to create a poster on what changes they would like to bring in if they were elected, in a week's time. It would be posted on the notice board. The second week would contain an interaction week where the students and faculty members could question the way the candidate would take care of certain situations. Only the top two male and female candidates' name would be revealed, after which they were supposed to give a speech in front of the whole school. 

Max caught Hillary's eye when she was making her way out of the crowd after reading through the entire content. Instinctively, he smiled and gave her a thumbs up. He knew all about Hillary's track record of being class prefect and was sure that this wasn't any different. She would obviously contest and even win. Caught unaware by his gesture, she smiled back tentatively.

******

By the end of lunch break, the whole school was abuzz with the news. Hillary and her friends still had twenty minutes to spare before their classes started. Hence, they went back to their classroom to discuss about it. Luke had already declared that he would be taking part in the elections. He and Ahanaa were already discussing strategies. Aubrey was repramending the two of them, making it very clear that she would never waste her precious vote on Luke, no matter how many chocolate pastries he would buy for her. We all laugh at this. Aarushi and Drew were quietly discussing who they think may participate and who would win the faceoff. 

Hillary was just nodding her head whenever needed. Today, she was feeling more sleepy than usual, having slept for five hours only. She had hoped, a tiny-teeny part of her, that she would be able to get some well deserved rest yesterday night, after she had been cleared to skip the morning coaching for the day. But she had been woken up unceremoniously by her persistent nightmares.

 Today's nightmare had crossed a line. It was way more disturbing and bone-chilling that the usual ones. The attacker had repeatedly stabbed Kai in the abdomen, splashing his blood everywhere, while she screamed and begged him to stop. Then, to her shock, he had taken hold of of her hand and made her stab Kai. Again and again. Again and again. It was by her hands Kai died eventually while she cried on and on. In the end, the attacker had just pushed her out of the window. The fact that she hadn't seen kai with the blade breakers didn't help matters.

She was unwillingly made to voice out her opinion whether the blade breakers would bother to try their hand in the elections. The freshers could become prefects while the sophomores could become president's of their houses. The vice president and president roles were reserved for juniors and seniors respectively. Aarushi was absolutely certain that Kai would definitely stand and win the elections. Luke didn't look happy with her choice, more so because he was in the same house. 

"Don't worry Luke, I don't think Kai would bother with the elections. The last thing he would want to do would be urging the students to go in line and keep the washrooms clean. And it's not that he would need the title to win the students to his side, especially the females." She said, indicating Aarushi. Luke looked relieved with her perspective, while Aarushi couldn't completely agree nor comletely deny her thinking process.

Intrigued by her perspective, Aubrey and Drew started asking her questions about possible winners. According to her, the only person who had both the potential and chances to win among the blade breakers was Ray, who had a knack for leading. Max wouldn't be interested and Tyson would stand just for fun. They had also ventured into other students' chances too like Cassy, Laura and Isa among others. 

Aubrey bid them bye and went to her class as the bell rang. They all shuffled back to their places. None of them bothered to ask her if she would try, and hence, she hadn't answered. Even if they had, she wouldn't have answered them honestly anyway. She did like to stick to the rules as long as they were justifiable.

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Words: 2372

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A/N: Hey guys, long time no see! Anyway, it was a momentory urge to finish this chapter today. What do you think of it? Share your opinions on how the story is shaping up. Would love to answer your queries!!