-Luka-
"A-ah..um.. I'm...not supposed to be on the bed s-" the boy started out, before having a coughing fit. I was stunned, before crossing the room in large strides, quickly grabbing a bottle of water from the mini fridge in my bedroom and handing it to him. The hell? Not supposed to be on the bed?
He looked at the bottled water in shock, still coughing violently. I was bewildered, before grabbing the bottle from him, and opening it, the bowl of porridge hastily put on the side table. Handing back the opened water to him, I watched as he spilled some on his body, and some on the floor, from his coughing. His eyes widened in horror.
"I'm-i'm sorry! I'll clean it u-" he barely got those few words out before descending into a coughing fit again. By this point, I was on one knee in front of him. I grabbed the bottle from him, used one hand to tilt his head back, and used the other hand to pour the water into his mouth. He spluttered a little bit, before drinking down the water. Wow. What a fiasco.
After I repeated the drinking motion a few times, the boy turned his head away.
"I-i'm fine now. T-thank you for the water." The boy's voice was beautiful, just like him.
"What's your name?" I finally asked.
"Ah? Oh..! Um, i-its Blaine. Blaine Carter." He spluttered out. I chuckled softly at how cute he was.
"Blaine. What a pretty name." I mused mostly to myself, but Blaine heard it. His cheeks and ears reddened.
Wait, Carter? That sounds familiar. It was the same surname as one of my employees I wanted to fire. He looked like a sour old man and I just found out he's been embezzling money since last week so I plan to sue him, because fuck anyone who tries to mess with me. I also heard he's in cahoots with the Halli guy. How pathetic.
"Does your dad work at somewhere called Noir Inc?" I asked Blaine, not missing out on how he flinched when I said the word "dad".
"Um..yeah. How did you know?" He asked, scrunching up his eyebrows. Cute. I smiled gently. "Just a hunch." But then, he seemed to remember something, from how he stiffened up and started shaking.
"Sorry, but what's the time?" He shakingly said. I checked my watch. "Around 3:30pm." The way his eyes widened and relaxed, I knew something was wrong.
Relaxing, he yelped softly as the newly bandaged wounds tightened. I shot out a hand to steady him, but I didn't miss how he flinched and closed his eyes, bracing himself for a hit. Shit. He reminded me of myself when I was still in that hellhole.
I must've stared for too long, because Blaine was trying to pull himself away from my hand, it was evident I was clenching too hard. I quickly let go, earning a relieved gasp from him.
"Sorry, I just got...carried away." I murmured, turning my head away. But then I remembered why I came in here in the first place. I picked up the tray of porridge, and showed it to the boy. He looked shocked, and the rim of his eyes reddened.
"Food?" I asked him. He was about to say no, but his stomach said otherwise. The soft gurgling sound from his tummy gave me my answer. He reddened in embarrassment again. I smiled at his innocence.
Sitting down on the bed, I patted the space next to me, urging him to come sit down as well. He looked wary and scared, but slowly came closer, before plopping down as well, almost falling over. I chuckled softly, before placing the tray onto his lap. He yelped softly, almost spilling the porridge. I reached a hand behind him to steady him. He stiffened.
Blaine didn't know how to hold a spoon. What? He held it like he was eating cereal. I felt unimaginable anger rise up from within me. Who the hell could ever hurt Blaine? He was basically too precious for this world.
I'm visiting the gym later. Opting to cast my anger aside so as to not scare Blaine, I told him to scoot over, helped him hold his spoon, and basically fed him. He was seated in between my legs, and his stiff back was leaning slightly against my chest. My hand covering his, I helped him pick up another mouth of porridge, and he opened his mouth almost desperately.
"C-can I ask you a question?" Blaine suddenly asked. "That goes without saying." I replied, seeing the tip of his ears turn red.
"Why do you not wear glasses at home?" I chuckled at his innocent question. "I don't need glasses. I have perfect eyesight. I just wear them to stay low in school." Blaine let out a soft "oh", before we fell back into comfortable silence. I let my mind wander off to what I saw when Blair bandaged him up. Those wounds...
"Hey, who did this to you..?" I murmured into his ear. He stiffened up even more, somehow he made it possible to become as stiff as a piece of wood. He started quivering slightly. I quickly realised my mistake.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to ask such a sensitive question." I apologised, looking down at the little boy in my lap. Well, he wasn't a boy, not to me, at least. He just looked very scrawny. Blaine shook his head. "N-nothing happened. It's my fault. Sorry." He sounded as if he was going to cry.
We sat there in silence for a while, before I raised the spoon to his lips again. He turned away. "I-i'm full..." He whimpered softly, as if I was going to hit him for being too full. Sighing, I pushed the tray aside and tilted his head towards me.
"Um..?" Blaine sounded confused and scared. Fuck, what was wrong with me? I looked at his face carefully, imprinting his look into my mind. After a few seconds, I released his face, muttering out an apology. I suddenly remember what Blair said.
"Hey, you can go take a bath. Your hoodie's been washed." I said, noticing how his eyebrows scrunched up. "Im not allowed to.." He murmured.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
__________
After a very confusing series of events, I couldn't even get him to go into the water, so I gave him a cloth soaked in soap to wipe himself up, and gave him a clean towel to wipe himself dry. After a while, he came out, with the bandages wrapped sloppily around him. I pulled him towards me, and got to work tidying his bandages.
Blaine's originally blank face suddenly filled with horror. "What's the time now?" He suddenly asked. Looking at the clock, I muttered, "4:30pm." Immediately, he grabbed the hoodie I had in my hands and dashed out of the room, and I had to take a few seconds to register, before the alarms sounded in my head.
"Hey-!" I shouted at him. Not like he could hear. Rushing out of my room, I saw him looking around like a lost puppy, confused.
"Where- where is this..?" It's funny how he didn't ask this the moment he woke up. I guess he wasn't allowed to do so, just like staying on the bed.
"My house." I answered him. He saw the stairs, and bolted down them, almost slipping and falling. I quickly followed him. How the heck was he so fast..?
He soon reached the front door, and turned to me. "Thank you. For everything, I mean." And the next thing he said shocked me.
"Even though I know all your care will be in vain..." I was sure Blaine said it to himself, but it couldn't escape my ears. It confirmed my suspicion. Something horrible was happening. Before I had a chance to ask him what was wrong, he had disappeared.
____________
Blair finally arrived due to all the commotion.
"The fuck?" She asked. I drooped my head down, sighing.
"He ran off..." I murmured. Without asking anything else, she pulled me over to the living room, and sat me down.
"Luci, what I'm going to say next might be triggering." Blair looked at me dead in the eye. I was alarmed. I had never seen her this grim for a while.
Plopping down into the space next to me, she let out an exhale.
"About the boy, from what I've seen... Severe malnutrition, rope marks on his limbs, whip marks on his back. Broken ribs, twisted ankle. Cuts on his wrists, indicating self harm. Severely underweight. Jumpy nature. Pumped full of drugs. A few of many in the form of Levitra and Cialis or, what we'd call... Aphrodisiac."
My eyes widened at her words. Again, that unimaginable anger and violence. Wait, scratch that. This was incomparable to just now.
"I'm not sure about it, but if you could get him to Avy she should be able to give you a definite answer. But from what I've seen, this all points to one thing. Abuse, and worser, rape."
Fuck.
"Luci. Luka, listen to me." I heard Blair say. It had been a long time since she had used my real name. She took something out of her pocket, seemingly a fountain pen.
"One of Blanc's latest creations, but secret releases. Still been selling out like crazy to the Mafia and Yakuza, though. It actually comes with a chip that comes in 7 different shapes, but I've designed it to the extent that a mic can be fitted into the chip. The audio obviously isn't that good, but it should work." My eyes slowly widened, realising where she was going with this.
"I fitted a chip into the boy's hoodie. It's in the shape of a small badge, pinned in the pocket, so it won't be falling out anytime soon. Waterproofed as well. Everything heard in there, recorded in this." Blair held up the pen.
"Anyone gets suspicious," she clicked the top of the pen, and a tip popped out. "Easy." Rotating the pen, I saw a small protruding square.
"Custom wireless earpieces to listen in private. Little square here connects the earpieces by Bluetooth. To take out the recording in one piece," she twisted the pen several times, unscrewing it, before taking out a black cylindrical object, with a red dot blinking at the top.
"This. To replay it, press the small green button. Stop, the yellow. Delete, the red." I stared incredulously at her.
"How do you think up products like these?" I asked. Blair smiled. "Experience."
"Anyways," she continued. "This is for quick use. Can't slow down, or speed up, no fancy shit, so that's something this portable version can't do. Put it in a computer, and I should be able to do so. But it should be good enough to know what's happening to the boy." She sighed. I sighed as well, knowing what she was going to say.
"You're not there anymore." I nodded my head, and replied. "Yes, I know. I just...don't like seeing Blaine treated like that."
"Blaine. That's a nice name." Blair commented. I forced a small smile.
"I know."
I WILL CAUSE MURDER
my end of year exams are literally 3 days away and i haven't started revision kill me right now
anyways here's me appearing suddenly w a few chapters before disappearing into obscurity because I want to make my existence known
continuing on, my exams take 2 weeks to finish. There are almost two papers for each and more than one paper a day. I take 8 subjects. reallllll fun.
okay, bye now. time to regret all my choices and cry in a ditch.