HORNS (BoyXBoy)

Chapter 180

Chapter One Hundred and Eighty

Familiarity was strange sometimes. 

Most people don't really give the feeling a second thought, but for me, it's both a blessing and a curse thanks to my memory. I could find myself in completely new environments, surrounded by individuals I didn't know... and yet, somehow, I'd find myself calmly acknowledging the insanity with a nod, thinking, "Yep, it's fine, I've experienced something like this before."

Back when I was a little kid, I'd been locked in a mental shell, closed up tight. 

The screaming fits from Jak had finally started only two months prior, followed by the beatings whenever I'd failed to do chores properly or messed things up instead of fixing them the way he'd been ordering me to. Nobody had dared to intervene, of course--aside from Raph, who'd screamed on my behalf every single time. I'd heard him sticking up for me whenever I'd crawled into the dirty laundry piles to hide myself in the safety of everyone's scents since, back then, they'd stopped allowing me to snuggle up close because "Jak wouldn't like it." 

That phrase still rubbed me the wrong way. I hadn't heard it in years, but that had been the excuse for everything in those days. Toys? No, Jak wouldn't like it. Television? No, Jak wouldn't like it. Movies? No, Jak wouldn't like it. Books? No, Jak wouldn't like it unless it was educational. That particular comment had actually been the reason Raphael started homeschooling me. He'd overheard Max's response to me asking for a book and had gotten extremely pissed, because by that point I'd been eight and a half and there still hadn't been any talks about me getting an education. He'd used his own funds and, with Darryl's help, had begun teaching me the basics, starting with a first year's elementary school's curriculum. I'd flown through that, obviously, but because I'd had something to focus on outside of my misery... I'd buried myself in learning.

After all, it was something I'd actually been allowed to do, and plus, I'd enjoyed it since I'd gotten to spend hours and hours of time together with Raphael. We'd only ever stopped to eat or for bathroom breaks, and during the lulls in my lessons, we'd talked about the most random of shit, too, from why stars were stars to the absurd questions my childish mind had procured on a whim, like, "what would happen if all the gravity disappeared for a few seconds?" or "why is the sky black at night?"

Once he'd realized how interested I was in learning, the amount of time he'd started dedicating to teaching me things had become phenomenal. It was also the biggest reason why he'd wound up becoming more of a brother figure to me instead of just another pack uncle who kept an uneasy distance because of all the tension my sheer presence caused. 

Whenever he'd quizzed me, we'd had a pizza day, and he'd rewarded me with a warm, cheesy slice for every difficult question I'd answered correctly. With my memory, I'd always been right. As long as I'd studied, I couldn't fail.

Then, that day happened.  

It was two months before my eleventh birthday. We'd been sitting together in silence: I'd been doing math work and breezing through basic calculations while he'd tapped away on his phone, side-eying me now and again with a somewhat thoughtful expression lining his face.

"Hey, Lil' Man," he'd said, setting his phone down. "You've been acing almost every single test I've given you since the day I taught you how to study efficiently, and we've already worked up to problems that are far beyond your age group in only a year. That math paper you're working on is part of the ninth-grade curriculum, yet you seem to be cheesing it."

"Cheesing it?" I'd asked, lifting my head in confusion. "What's that mean?"

"It means you're burning through it," he'd chuckled, giving me a grin and lovingly reaching out to tug on the tips of my ears, tickling them. "You're doing a very good job, Fuzzy Bumps."