Calico couldn't even stop the throbbing from piercing his skull like a drummer beating against his temple.
He knew he told Kade to knock him out- but he had underestimated the small boy's strength.
The fact Kade had been able to knock him unconscious with one hit- even with a crowbar- only pushed the idea into Calico's mind that maybe his father hadn't been entirely lying about the memories that had been manipulated into Calico's mind.
While Calico was pretty good at figuring out which memories were lies seeing the memories themselves projected from Kade's mind- there were others that weren't even tampered with that still disturbed him.
Yes, he knew at this point that he had chose to save Kade during the crowbar accident- but what bothered him was how someone so small could kill four people before needing to be saved in the first place.
And another thing that bothered him- he couldn't remember what memory it was that made Calico actually like Kade the way he found out he used too, even if he did kiss him after he saw the memories as what they were from Kade's point of view. Even then though, Calico struggled to find what it was that he felt for Kade from his own perspective.
At the moment however- Calico laid down on his bed, tenderly massaging the part of his temple where Kade had hit him a couple days ago.
His father had been furious with him for Kade being able to make it past him- but there wasn't anything Calico was willing to reveal about the situation where Calico let Kade escape to his father- so he merely took the brunt of his father's anger instead of talking about it.
Calico had known for quite some time that his father wasn't all he was cracked up to be- even if he had tried to become a better person- all it took for Mr. Choi to fall eradic again was for someone to disrupt his growth in power and money.
From what Calico could scrape from his memories- pretty much since the first time Kade had showed up in his life- Mr. Choi slowly spiraled out of control- falling into his old habits of mistreating those close to him everytime something went wrong.
Calico hadn't realized he had fallen asleep until he woke up again and Cyril was standing there in his room.
For no reason- Calico scrambled upright and pulled a nearby blanket over his chest as if to hide his fully clothed person.
"What are you doing here?!" Calico hissed, "if dad catches you- you're dead- you know that!"
Cyril shrugged as though he didn't really care- and to Calico- it was a shrug as if he didn't care whether he lived or died- which did not settle with him for a reason Calico was having a hard time remembering.
It was almost like he had witnessed someone who died- or had almost died- and hadn't cared about living before said death- or almost death.
And he had a sneaking suspicion that had something to do with Kade- which made Calico wonder if Kade at one point had tried to kill himself- or almost died- since his mind wouldn't point him to a memory.
Until his mind fixated on a memory Calico saw when Kade was hooked up in the machine. It fit the timeframe of when Derek and Calico were dating- and Kade was watching them after running into them. His face withdrawn, blank, exhausted, his mind's thoughts like subtitles for that memory specifically saying- what is the point anymore. Then Calico's memory quickly flashed to Kade sitting underneath a bridge, sobbing into the fur of his cat. This memory was one of his own, and he could even hear Kade's broken voice uttering- how does one learn to live once their point in living is gone.
"He's in the hospital right now." Cyril said after a moment- refusing to hold Calico's gaze- instead fixating on the roof of his bedroom where Calico and his little sister had hand painted swirls of autumn leaves dancing across the ceiling.
"The wounds got infected with blood poisoning and there's a high chance he could loose one or both of his legs if he doesn't die first."
