Abuse

Actually, this fic is a bit older, but I thought that someone still might be interested.

Enjoy :)

1

Miss Elena collected herself, drawing in a deep breath and straightening her jacket. Then she opened the green door. The day had started to actually become a nice one, the sun was shining brightly through the halls and outside the birds were chirping their happy little songs, but the moment she entered the classroom she had the unpleasant feeling that it would end horrible.

For now everything seemed to be normal though. She was greeted by the usual madness and noises her thirth class pupils produced with their extremely voluminous organs. Laughter, giggling, talking and the sound of papers unfolded engulfed the room and it seemed that children at this particular age were either collectively deaf, or just enjoyed it to torture their poor teacher with random, ear piercing screaming.

Since they were all busy being loud no one acknowledged her presence and continued being nerve-racking.

Just now the most bratty one, a boy of 9 years with silver hair who listened -or rather not- to the name Kadaj, screamed at some older and bigger brat, also known as ‘Denzel’, and jumped up and down in annoyance, trying to catch some sheets of papers the bigger held smirking above his head.

Elena sighed, withstood the urge to rub her temple and tried her best to ignore the upcoming headache.

She decided that it was high time for her to interrupt this farce and start with her lectures by shutting the door roughly with a bang and ripping the papers out of Denzels hand who just happened to stay next to her.

The classroom became silent in an instant, every of her 21 students frozen in their actions and then quickly taking their seats.

"Good morning all together".

Ignoring the muffled response the teacher sternly looked down at the two boys in front of her.

"Now what is going on here?"

The brown haired boy stared at the ground, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and looking very uncomfortable now.

Kadaj looked up at her stubbornly, arms folded over his chest and explained angrily "This assho-… Denzel has taken my homework and won’t give it back to me!"

Elena arched an eyebrow.

Kadaj doing homework? Maybe this was why she had felt somewhat awkward earlier before, because the kid was one of her main problems. He wasn’t stupid, really, but even at his young age he seemed to have some serious issues with authorities and caused her one or another migraine.

He was just... strange.

Apart from his unusual appearance, namely silver hair and green cat like eyes, he behaved rather abnormal. As far as she knew he had no friends and his classmates avoided him if he was lucky.

Sometimes they teased him, but mostly they simply ignored him. It had never been bad enough that she had to send for his parents, no real problems. Probably it was out of sympathy that she worried for him. But maybe he was just at a difficult age and a bit hyperactive…

With another sigh, Elena waved her hand in dismissal, releasing the two to sit down and turned to walk to her own desk. Denzel sat down as quickly as he could and looked rather relieved, but Kadaj still stood next to his desk, now with slitted pupils which always indicated that he was upset.

"Can I get my papers back now?" he demanded to know in a provokingly bold manner.

Elena looked back at him in surprise since he normally behaved rather polite towards her, his antisocial behaviour only showing exclusively to his classmates.

"Well, I thought since you actually made it, it should be honoured and shared with the class, don’t you think so?" she asked softly and smiled at him. Obviously he didn’t think so since he shook his head rather violently.

"No! I don’t want them to hear it. I hate them."

He glared daggers at the others who had turned their little heads to face him, curiously following the interesting conversation and glaring back at the boy with no less loathing.

Elena frowned and carefully lay the sheets on her desk.

"Kadaj, it won’t be that bad. No one will laugh at you, it would help your grades and I guess everyone wants to hear it, mh?" she tried to assure him. The class nodded in collective, not because they wanted to hear his essay but more so to upset the boy and show him where his place was. Outside their group.

"See? Now sit down please," the teacher ordered still friendly and watched Kadaj as he bit his lips and stared at the ground, but finally giving in and sitting down.

Behind him someone giggled but he just tried to ignore it. Stupid assholes!

"Well then, let’s start. Your homework for today was to write an essay about ´The person, I love most.´ We will begin with Kadaj´s homework, so please make some notes and take attention." She made a brief pause and looked at the youth again.

"You want to read it yourself?"

He shook his head again and pouted, gracing her with an unhappy scowl.

"Fine, I will read it then."

The blond haired teacher walked around her desk, leaned in front of it and started to read out loud.

"´The person I love most´ by Kadaj."

To tell the truth she was quite curious about which person her student had picked since she didn’t know much about him apart from the fact that he had two older brothers, who visited the same school and some general facts. He had become one of her students just two months ago and since then she hadn’t even met his parents...

"´The person I love most is my brother Yazoo. That’s because he´s the nicest out of my two brothers. I have another one, Loz, but he´s a stupid, big oaf and a cry baby.´"

Elena shot a look at Kadaj, who just shrugged as if to say ´But he is...´ and continued reading.

"´He always acts like the big brother, tries to commandeer me around to do his work for him and calls me a brat, but in fact he is. Of course I refuse to work for him, he´s just so dumb and doesn´t have a clue about anything! Normally I’m yelling at him and then he ends up crying in some corner like a baby. Pretty pathetic.

Whatever.

My other brother Yazoo is the second oldest and he´s really nice. He’s always on my side and I suppose he also thinks that Loz is stupid. Yazzy -I´m the only one who’s allowed to call him so- has long hair which is really cool and I let mine grow too. He´s the only one I can talk to and who actually understands me. When we were younger he always played with me and took me to the park. We spend very much time together and I told him about everything. He even let me sleep in his bed when I had nightmares-´"

Giggles could be heard, that died very quickly after a dead glare from Elena through the classroom.

"´- and he always made me feel better. I think he’s been very strong and stuff, I was never afraid any longer when I was with him.

But since we are with father he has changed.

He doesn’t talk much now.

And I´m not allowed to sleep in his room anymore because father forbid it, but Yazoo has to sleep in father´s bed now anyways.

I hate father.

Actually he isn´t our real father, he´s adopted us. I don’t know why. We have to call him ‘sir’ all the time. He´s the person I hate most. Because he hurts Yazzy.´"

Elena’s mouth became very dry all of a sudden and there was this strange feeling again. Hiding the shaking of her hands and laying the papers aside she looked up at the class again.

This was nothing they should hear. This was nothing ANYONE should be forced to listen to! But it seemed that they didn’t even understand what was going on. They just watched their teacher in slight confusion, wondering why she had stopped reading.

God, they were all so innocent! Well, all except one...

Kadaj was sitting with his arms crossed over his chest, chin raised and staring at her defensively, just as if he had done something wrong and expected to be punished.

In his eyes Elena thought she could make out a somewhat helpless and... hurt expression.

Pushing herself away from the desk she cleared her throat and explained in a soft voice:

"Well, Kadaj I think this was enough from your homework for now. It was very good, really."

Out of the corner of her eyes she saw how his eyes widened a fraction in disbelief and continued as if she hadn’t noticed. "But since we only have thirty minutes left I will take it home with me and read the rest there."

With that she threw her attention to the rest of the class and ordered "Please take out your books, open page 45 and work on questions five to seven. In silence."

Grunting and murmuring the children opened their books and stuck their little noses into them, whispering here and there. After a second even the silver haired boy followed her instruction and Elena sat down, the homework vanishing in her bag.

*

"´I know that he´s doing terrible things to my brother, although he´s always nice to him. Father is not nice to Loz and me, but that’s maybe because we are not his ´good boys´.

Father calls Yazzy his ´good boy´ or ´sweet little kitten´ all the time. He never gets angry with him and he even allowes Yazoo to eat with him. Father buys my brother presents and new clothes all the time, because he must look good. I´m a bit worried because every time he comes up with something new Yazzy behaves so odd.

I don’t think he wants this shit or to be a ‘good boy’. But he doesn’t want to tell me what happens.

When I ask him, he’s always smiling and tells me that I worry too much and that he is ok, but I know he’s lying. I know because he sometimes just sits on the bed for hours.

He doesn’t do anything, just staring. He doesn’t want to be touched anymore and most of the time he’s hiding in his room. I once asked Loz if he knew something, but he just gave me that stupid look of his and murmured that I´d be too young to understand anyway.

As if he would!

I hate Loz! I hate father! But I promise that I´ll keep on training and one day I´ll kill him for what ever he does to my brother!´"

The last sentences had been written so roughly that she could hardly decipher them. The kid must have been in a very upset mood, the pencil had nearly cut through the paper.

No wonder, really.

Elena dropped the papers and swallowed the bitter liquid that filled her mouth. At the moment she was sitting in her classroom, alone. All pupils had left, including the author of the essay, going to the cafeteria and eat their lunch.

She could have gone with her colleagues , but she hadn’t felt hungry at all. After reading this she even felt sick.

In front of her class she had managed to keep her worries and the shock to herself, away from the children. Now that she had no one to observe Elena burried her head in her hands, trying to understand in what she had accidentally stumbled here.

Obviously Kadaj had no idea what he was exactly talking about and she thanked god for that! But as she always had suspected he was clever, and even if he didn’t understand what was going on in detail he knew it was something bad.

It was out of question that she had to do something about this, but right now Elena didn´t even know what to do.

Before he had left the class with the others Kadaj had come to her, asking her to not tell his father about what he had written. His face was so worried, so afraid, that she hadn’t had a choice but to promise that she wouldn’t tell anyone if he didn’t want her to do so. He had left in relief, as if an incredibly heavy burden had been put away from his shoulders.

This didn’t make it easier.

If she wanted to help him she needed the boy´s trust and yet she had no proof for her suspicion. It was unwise to confront the father of the brothers with this homework since he would, of course, deny all accusations and she had nothing in hands, no evidence at all.
All she could do at the moment was holding her eyes open and gather information.

Although it was obvious to her: Yazoo was being abused by his father.

*

With still weak legs Miss Elena walked slowly into the teacher’s room and poured herself a glass of water at the sink. Holding it tightly to her chest she went over to the window and let her confused gaze wander over the court.

Everything seemed so peaceful...

The students were standing around in little groups or sat on the grass talking, laughing, copying homework and eating their lunch. The sun was still shining, it was nearly summer vacation and the girls wore had rolled up their uniform sleeves and knotted the ends together above their bellies to let their still pale skin become brown or to impress their secret loves and boyfriends.

Everything seemed so normal...

But it wasn’t for at least three of them and it seriously gave her the creeps.

Shuddering she turned around to nearly crash into one of the other teachers, spilling some water onto his jacket in the process.

"Oh, I´m sorry!" she stuttered and mechanically made a step back.

"No problem. That’s ok, just water." Tseng smiled at her reassuringly, but it faded when he noticed in what bad condition Elena was. Letting herself fall onto the next chair she put the glass on the tabe and rubbed her temple.

"Are you alright?"

Tseng came over to her and knelt beside the other teacher with a worried expression. She first wanted to tell him that she was alright, but then shrugged instead.

Because, no, she wasn’t ok. Not a bit.

"I... don’t know... Just a headache, I think..."

He patiently waited for her to continue, when an idea hit her.

"Tseng, you are the liaison teacher this year, aren’t you?"

The man nodded in slight astonishment, not knowing why she was asking and what this had to do with her obvious migraine.

Without any further explanation she pulled some papers out of her bag, holding them towards him.

The teacher wanted to take them, but before she let him Elena leaned over, whispering in a serious tone. "This has to be kept between us, ok?"

After he gave his consent with a short nod Elena let go, and Tseng sat on a free chair next to her, taking care that no one else of the few other teachers was looking at the contents.

Everyone was busy with something so there was no reason to worry about any possible intruder and the man started reading. Frowning he went through the text, his face darkening the more the further he got. When he was finished Tseng let the paper sink down and looked back at his fellow teacher with an unreadable face.

"This is..." He paused and let his gaze drift of, lacking for words.
Elena took a sip of her water, nodding slowly. "I know. It’s serious."

Tseng looked back at her and affirmed quietly. "It’s deadly serious. You know we cannot ignore this. It is our duty to take action."

Elena wrapped her arms around her slim waist, feeling utterly helpless. "But I don’t know what to do! I promised the boy to not tell his father, and I won’t break a promise! I think I’m the only one he trusts, otherwise he wouldn’t have written this as a homework. I think he wanted me to know. And to help."

Tseng was quiet for a while, thinking, then he looked down at the paper again. "Alright, let’s see what we have: Yazoo is one of my students, I teach him maths. He seems to be a rather mature and sensible person to me, although he isn´t at school very often."

"I didn’t know you have him," Elena interrupted, surprised. "I thought you were only teaching the higher-"

"I do. He skipped two years and is in class with his older brother now, who lost a year. However, I think it is best if we talk to him. Maybe we can get him to tell us. This would be the best way, without his confession we can’t do anything. Maybe he can clear things up. We just need to be very careful and sensitive, this is a difficult topic. And I think it’s best if for now it’s just the two of us who know until we are certain about what is really going on."

Elena nodded, relieved that the other knew what to do and had taken the subject out of her hands.

"When will we talk to him?"

"It is best after school, I think. I will see if he is here today and ask him to visit us after classes in room 129."

"I will be there," the blonde promised, drinking the rest of her water and preparing herself for her next lesson.

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Sooo, what do you think? Anyone interested on this?