The Brutal Truth

[Trillian]

HAKO WAS GRINNING when he moved down the corridor past a group of students and was paid attention to, eyes following his movements as he walked past, carrying his books close to his chest ready for his next class which would take place in fifteen minutes time.  He had time to duck into the bathroom to relieve himself and freshen up.  It turned out that he wouldn\'t get that far.

The first stall was something he always walked past, choosing instead to use the second on the left, opposite the sinks and mirrors.  It was when he opened the hinged wooden door and saw what was scrawled on the wall that stopped him in his tracks.

It was indecent, it was offensive and it was about him.  There was a lewd stick figure diagram with his name scrawled beneath one of the drawn figures and a suggestive line about the sexual gratification he would make upon being offered something sweet.  A frown of betrayal marred his brow as his light blue eyes skipped over the insults of his character, his lips downturning in much more than a pout.

He reached a hand forward to brush his fingers over the thick lines, wanting to rub it off but found it was cut into the wall itself and then filled with black ink.  It would forever be scratched into the plastered surface amid pointless contemplations and crude drawings of genitalia.

His world could not have crashed down upon him any more heavily than it did upon such a discovery.

Detached from himself, his balance skewered and the walls closing in, he suddenly needed to get some space from the claustrophobic feeling of the male toilets - a place he was ashamed to have performed a gratuitously physical act in on the spur of the moment, and now he had a keepsake of the occassion upon the wall.

When he moved past the trio of friends again who\'d been watching him so closely before, he no longer received a sense of flirting.  His eyes met the sharp gaze of one he\'d been friendly with and intimate in the past and two of his buddies staring at him with unfriendly smiles.  There was a distinct impression of who the artist of the material on the toilet wall was but Hako was not in the mood for confrontation.  Blushing furiously he kept his head turned away as much as possible, ignoring the sniggers at his back, but couldn\'t help but run when the offer of a chocolate was made to him.

Tears fell upon his cheeks which he wiped away angrily with the heel of his palm.  He didn\'t know where his books had ended up, he only knew that once he was running through the maze of corridors that were the student quarters, they were no longer clutched to himself.  He had a vague memory of dropping them early into his fleeing but wasn\'t sure where.

He was passing students on the way, faces that he\'d never seen throwing him curious looks as he passed them in haste, going the same direction or differently from theirs.  Selecting a door at random he tried the handle to no avail before rounding a corner and trying the next with more success.  He flung it open and moved inside, slamming the door shut and pressing his forehead against it while taking huge gulps of air, mentally talking himself out of crying.

Once he believed he had his emotions in check he turned around and pressed his back to the door, his gaze finding that the occupant of the single bed room he\'d chosen was staring at him with surprise.  Having not yet said a word, Hako stared at him for a long moment and waited for him to break the silence first (after already breaking it himself with huge gulps of air previously and the whole slamming door thing to begin with).

[Fell]

Ravi\'s day had been pretty typical for him. He\'d helped out in the Infirmary for most of it, as Faris was gone. The demon liked to keep busy, though, so he\'d headed over to the sickbay. It was rare that there wasn\'t something that needed doing there, which made it a pleasant place to be for someone with busy hands. Well, so long as they didn\'t mind the smell of blood the place could be rife with. Today had been a rather slow day, though, so Ravi had spent much of it doing simply tasks.

Ravi yawned as he pushed open the door to his room, not bothering to put up the guards against intruders just yet. No one would be bursting in, and he was ready for a nap at the moment. Ravi pulled a bunch of books from his bed, stacking them haphazardly on the small desk beneath the mirror. It was a homey room, much, much larger than most of the student or apprentice rooms - Ravi had lucked out in that he\'d been the last of one too many apprentices, so he\'d gotten the room of an old master. He wasn\'t complaining.

It didn\'t take Ravi too long to clear the bed of books. He smiled in anticipation, then began to strip off the majority of his clothing. He always overheated if he stayed fully dressed while sleeping, which was precisely why he never did it. Ravi pulled his shirt over his head and was in the process of shaking it to the ground when the door burst open, then shut with a slam.

The noise made Ravi jump several feet into the air, his large wings flaring out. It was probably a good thing that his hands were currently tied up in his shirt or he might have thrown something at the intruder that he really wouldn\'t like. Ravi calmed down, though, when he saw that the intruder didn\'t seem to be threatening but... sad. The dry heaves tipped him off to that one.

Ravi waited a couple of minutes, still frozen where he was. It was rather shocking to have someone burst in on him like that - first time it had happened, roommates discounted. The demon figured he should give the boy some time to chill out, though - he didn\'t exactly look ready to talk at the moment.

It took some time, but the kid finally collected himself and turned around. Ravi just finished shaking his shirt to the floor (finally!), then raised a hand in greeting. "Hey. Uh, any reason you picked my room?" the demon asked good-naturedly. He didn\'t expect the student to have an answer to that one, but that was okay. Ravi had just wanted to break the silence, really, because it looked like the 5th level wasn\'t going to anytime soon.

[Trillian]

Hako, normally eloquent and gathered when it came to being questioned by his peers, no longer felt calm and collected when Ravi asked him of his choice of room.  Really, Hako should\'ve known that he\'d entered a Master\'s room, even if it was in use by a High Apprentice (and Ravi was someone he recognised, considering they were both of the same house - it made sense for students to know who was who in the pecking order, but doubted that Ravi would even know his name or even that he was a Level Five of his own house - there were hundreds of students per house, after all).  Currently Hako was not completely with it, the dramatic turn his life had just taken with the knowledge that his reputation was soiled, was still a shock to him.

"I didn\'t select your room on purpose," he answered truthfully.  "I... had to get away from someone, from something," he amended almost immediately, but he could still see the crass little diagram as though it had seared itself an impression into his brain.

He remained pressed against the closed door, not moving to leave, not wanting to leave even though he wasn\'t alone.  Those wings were beautiful but he hadn\'t really notice because he wasn\'t really in the mood to notice beautiful things.

[Fell]

Ravi smiled, the expression a little bit understanding. Sounds like the times I went to the infirmary, the demon thought, remembering how he\'d often fled to that place when distraught. Looked like this guy didn\'t really have a place he went yet, though if he\'d managed to not need one until 5th level, he was doing pretty well. "C\'mon in - the door\'s not that comfortable," Ravi said, gesturing to the window nook. It was a pretty nice place to sit, and probably the most comfortable seating in the room.

Ravi pulled the armchair over to the nook, not too close and a little offset to the side. That way it didn\'t look like he was closing the poor kid in there, just nearby. "So what\'s up?" he asked casually, drawing one leg up to his chest and putting an arm around it. Ravi figured the kid might want someone to talk to, and if he didn\'t he\'d probably have the balls to tell him to fuck off. The demon rather hoped he wouldn\'t pick that particular phrase, though, as he rather hated it.

[Trillian]

HAko watched the setup progress before his eyes as Ravi first gestured and then moved furniture in order to create a cosy space for them both to sit.  He looked at the other with a curious expression before sitting himself down at the nook and settling himself upon it to get himself comfortable.  He waited for Ravi to sit in the armchair and ask him a question before he spoke.

It took him a moment to think about how he wanted to phrase things but couldn\'t come up with anything he liked, and the silence between them expanded too much for him to think things through any longer.  The thought of telling his peer to mind his own business never even occured to him.  Ravi was a recognised superior, and Hako was an obediant student.

"I had sex with someone and now he\'s telling everyone I\'ll... do whatever they want."

It was easiest to spill everything in one line, to just blurt it out.  He couldn\'t quite say that a picture had been drawn to represent exactly what he\'d do (and it hadn\'t been accurate anyway).  He sat very still as he waited for Ravi\'s reaction, his hands at his sides, palms flat on the cushioned seat that he was on, knees mostly together, looking younger than his seventeen years.

[Fell]

It surprised Ravi just how vulnerable the kid looked... Here they were, being trained to kill as a profession, and the guy still managed to look so young, hurt and confused. It always made Ravi remember that, no matter what the profession or training, all sentient beings were basically the same when it came to emotion. Guess it\'s sticks and stones, but with egos, the demon thought, looking down for a moment before smiling up at the kid.

"I have no idea how you have the time for that," Ravi remarked with a laugh. He certainly hadn\'t! The apprentice often regretted that, too, because relationships looked like fun - well, save this one, perhaps. "But it\'s in the past, right? Just let it go... You\'ll earn back your reputation eventually," Ravi continued, trying to comfort the kid. He knew that most... well, the kid looked human anyway... humans wouldn\'t see things his way, but he wasn\'t sure what else to say. Most of the solutions he\'d seen people use didn\'t seem to be very good ones.

Ravi reached up to scratch his head, not really sure what he should be telling the boy. "Do you have any plans for what you\'re going to do about it?" the demon settled on asking. Plus, it would give him some hints about his nature, which would be helpful. Maybe he\'d turn out to be really violent, or maybe he\'d just want to talk it out... Ravi hoped it wasn\'t the former.

[Trillian]

Hako\'s brows lifted when Ravi questioned his ability to find the time for sex.  It wasn\'t like the act took that much time at all.  So far he\'d found nobody to have a romantic relationship with, but he was positive that he would be able to nurture such a thing if it happened.  If he found love here, in this academy, that would mean his partner was bound to understand the requirement for studies, and likely had a lot of work to do himself.  Hako was an optimist that he would manage such a thing, once he found it, but right now there was only sex, and it was sex that had burnt him.

The words of kindness didn\'t do much to console him, but Hako appreciated that the other believed that such things would pass.  He wasn\'t so sure, there was a taint to the drawing that he believed would never completely be dispelled from him, and it would be there to stay so that Hako would have to deal with it on a constant basis - but Ravi had been told it was things said, not things drawn, so he forgave his peer the misunderstanding.

"Plans?" he asked, for he hadn\'t been thinking of anything so far.  "I... is there something particular I should do in return?"  Funny, he usually did return the favour of revenge, but this was something that had hurt his heart and in his emotional state he couldn\'t think clearly about what was best.  Maybe later he\'d think of something nasty to do - unless Ravi had a suggestion for him now.  He was attentive.

[Fell]

Ravi just shrugged; how should he know? If it had been him, he would just let it blow over and not let it get him down. But then, that was easy when you were made for such things. Humans, it often seemed, weren\'t. "To be honest, I don\'t much like confrontation. I like to let things blow over. It\'s better that way," the demon said, though he chewed his tongue thoughtfully. "At least... better for us," he added, referring to the Air Demon race as a whole.

That wouldn\'t do this kid much good, though, and Ravi knew it. So what were some ways of fixing the problem? It wasn\'t as though he could just erase what had been said, so that was out. Revenge wasn\'t Ravi\'s specialty, nor were character assassinations. The student could try just laying low for a while, but the lack of action might gall him. In the end, Ravi just sighed. "What you\'ll do depends on what you\'re willing to do. I know a lot of people here who would start spreading rumors back, or just take whoever it was out back of a little \'talking to\'," he said, though from the tone of his voice it was clear he didn\'t much like such tactics. They were just the obvious two choices.

It struck Ravi suddenly that he didn\'t want to keep thinking of the other boy as just "kid". "What\'s your name?" he asked. It might have seemed an abrupt change of topic, but Ravi truly wanted to know. "Kid" was just so dissatisfying a placeholder.

[Trillian]

Hako said nothing as Ravi told him about the lack of response he should participate in.  It was disappointing, but it wasn\'t like a peer was going to tell him to assassinate a student.  Also, he was a level five and the one who\'d started the rumour was a four - only one level between them but it made a world of difference for there were many years of extra study.  Hako was also a Purifico student, and the other in House Cruori.  Hako was lucky the drawing had been just a drawing, instead of a pummelling for he would surely lose.  No, Hako couldn\'t give him a \'talking to\' unless it was an actual talking to.

"Hako Sol`Vair," he supplied his full name at the request, for even though Ravi didn\'t know him, it was likely he\'d seen his name on the student rollcall at some point, and a full name was more likely to jarr his memory than a first.  "I\'m a five in your house," he continued, connecting the dots for Ravi himself.  He couldn\'t remember if Ravi was apprentice to Master Jarden and if so, would he know that Hako sometimes performed sexual favours for him?  It seemed unlikely that Ravi would know, but now he was beginning to be paranoid, considering the reputation he was earning.

[Fell]

Hako Sol\'Vair... Ravi thought, wondering where he\'d heard the name before. It had come up in conversation at some point, hadn\'t it...? Hako supplied the missing link himself - they were in the same house. Still, Ravi couldn\'t shake the feeling that he\'d heard the name elsewhere. "Ah, a Purificio student?" Ravi said, ignoring the feeling. He sounded happy to hear that Hako shared his house. "How are you doing with all the work?" the demon asked, sounding as though he didn\'t remember it fondly in the slightest.

Where had he heard that name before? Ravi didn\'t think he\'d only ever seen it written, but spoken by.... By who? he wondered, gently nibbling the inside of his lip as he pondered the question. Maybe it had been from one of the students.... Ravi talked to students a lot more often than many Apprentices seemed to, so it would make sense for it to have come up there.

Ah! Ravi thought, suddenly remembering where he\'d heard it. He\'d been heading up to Faris\' room in the North Tower, as per normal. He\'d paused outside the door, though, having heard what sounded like raised voices from within. Faris had said something loudly about a "Hako" and how whoever else was inside had to start acting according to his station, but Ravi had never gotten to see who else was in the room. Probably wasn\'t even the same Hako, the demon thought with a mental shrug.

Ravi suddenly realised he\'d been silent for a little bit longer than was considered normal in most situations. He came to with a start, giving the student a sheepish grin. "Sorry about that - I thought I\'d heard your name before," he admitted. The demon still didn\'t know the context, though, or even how he would ask Hako if he wanted to. Ravi figured he\'d just let it be for now.

[Trillian]

"It\'s manageable," he said, seeing that the leap to Level Four was going to take time in order to cover everything, than be so difficult that he wouldn\'t make the grade.

When told his name was familiar, Hako nodded.  "You probably have.  I\'m the only Hako in the Academy," he said with a slight smile.  It wasn\'t a popular name, but then, there were many names from many different races and heritages that were a great deal more unique than his.

He was feeling a little better, now that he was talking with a peer who was helping calm things down with chit chat.

[Fell]

Ravi shrugged, a movement more in the shoulder blades than anywhere else, when Hako called it manageable. "Then you must be some kind of human," he said wryly. Or hell, maybe he wasn\'t human and only looked it. Maybe he was from some kind of race of geniuses. Or maybe he\'s just a better worker than you, Ravi whispered in his own mind, chuckling. That wouldn\'t be too difficult, though how anyone could call it "manageable"...

"Mm, maybe," Ravi admitted, though he knew there was more to it then that. Plus, that told him that whoever Faris had been talking to, he had been talking about this Hako. "Does it mean anything?" the demon asked, trying to both keep the conversation light and going. Hako seemed to be calming down a bit now, which was nice. It was certainly a trend Ravi would like to continue, if he could.

Too bad I don\'t have much to tell him, though, the Apprentice thought with a mental sigh. Comforting others wasn\'t his strong point. He wasn\'t sure anyone in the whole damn place was good at it, actually. And on this particular issue... Well, it just wasn\'t one Ravi had ever experienced. None of his relationships had gone on long enough for him to have actually gotten laid, and Ravi didn\'t want just a fling. So he\'d never been burned by sex, and he wasn\'t sure how he would deal with it, much less how to advise others to do so.

[Trillian]

"It means \'exalted son\'," he replied after a moment, remembering what his parents had told him before shipping him off to the Academy at the tender age of ten.  They\'d wanted him to be special, to prove to them that he was worthy of his elite name.  He\'d even been courted by the house of Erudito, superior intelligence, though the diplomatic charge of Purifico had won him over.  It had been more seductive, to use emotion instead of science to wile his way into an assassin\'s role.  He believed it suited him better.  "I\'m the only son, unless my parents had another after me."

He thought of his mother, who had been morose and detached after losing three of her children to various disease, and his father who had used Hako\'s acceptance into the Academy as a blessing.  Hako had been proud to hear his father\'s praise when he\'d last seen him standing at the dock when Hako had boarded the tall ship.

"It\'s a common name from my home, but I\'ve come almost all the way around the world," he declared, pensively.

[Fell]

Ravi took in the meaning with a nod. High expectations much? the demon thought. A lot of parents really expected their kids to live up to the names they gave them, which could be... hard. Especially if you were a human in an academy that was dominated by various kinds of supernaturals, like Hako seemed to be. Ravi kind of wondered if human parents knew what this place was like when they sent their kids over. Hell, did supernatural parents? Anyone who hadn\'t gone through the Academy themselves? Probably not, Ravi thought, answering his own question.

Hako had mentioned home, though. That seemed another safe, interesting topic that might help calm the boy down. "Halfway around the world?" Ravi asked, sounding curious. "Where are you from?" Halfway across the world was what, the Orient? Ravi thought that was right, though he\'d need a globe or a map to be sure.

Ravi wondered if Hako was from the same area Kalyan was. That would be interesting, if they shared a common origin. Of course, Ravi wasn\'t blood related to his sire, but he couldn\'t help but think of him as his father. And if he was father, wherever he came from was Ravi\'s home as well.

[Trillian]

"The Cold North," Hako explained, meaning the collection of countries near the very top of the globe, full of fjords and surrounded by great quantities of water.  It was a fishing village he\'d come from, on the outskirts of a large town, so he\'d had the best of both worlds - cosy home and with a small amount of travel, good education.  Such was his ability to enter this secret island community of assassins at ten years of age, advanced initially until the studies became so difficult he was now considered average.  Average, in a place filled with the elite from around the world wasn\'t so bad, but it was hard for him not to be outstanding.  He liked attention.