The Frozen Melody

17.Play.

Keith cursed under his breath as he woke up to an empty bed beside him, again. He had already assured the boy countless times that he can handle the nightmares, but the kid still insisted on sneaking out of the bed after he fell asleep. Damn boy!

Oh wait, the guy was a thousand years old; he can’t be called a kid. But he looked like a child. God this was so confusing.

In the end, Keith decided to screw the age difference as he stumbled out of his room to find the boy; anyone dumb enough to keep on handling those nightmares alone when someone was there to help deserved to be called a kid.

He followed the sounds of talking until he reached the main floor, looked like Tyson was with Hibie in the living room.

“It’s a d-dick?” Hibie asked, slightly awkward with the pronunciation.

Keith stopped dead in his tracks. What the fuck? Did he hear that right? The man paused in the hallway and listened to make sure he didn’t misunderstand.

After a moment of silence with only the sound of pencil on paper, Hibie asked again, this time even more confused sounding, “For sex? What’s sex?” The girl stumbled over the weird looking three lettered word.

Oh hell no. Keith stormed into the living room and snatched up the paper, skimmed through what it said and ripped it to pieces. Hibie does not need to know about penis and sex yet.

“Keith! What’re you doing?!” The girl protested loudly.

“Hibie, go wash up now.” Keith commanded, unable to suppress the slight anger in his voice. He thought of Hibie as his own daughter, and there was no way in hell he was going to let her lose her innocent mind so soon. She was only nine!

So absorbed was the man that he didn’t notice the reaction his words had on the boy beside them. Instead, he hurried Hibie upstairs into the washroom, and followed her to make sure she did as she was told.

Tyson trembled in fear as the man left without giving him a second glance. It was too similar to the way Joker disregarded him. The rejection felt like a knife through his chest.

The worst part was, Tyson had no idea what he did wrong. Hibie came to him asking about “the thing between his legs” because he had been naked when she found him. What was wrong with explaining that it wasn’t some abnormality? The only thing he thought odd was the fact that Hibie didn't even knowing what sex and penises were.

Maybe it was because they didn’t want him to play with Hibie? He had told them he was an experimental object and that he was almost a thousand years old.

Yeah, that must have been the reason. He was practically a pedophile to be talking to the girl about sex. Plus he was so tainted and dirty.

Tyson blinked back tears as the realization dawned on him.

Oh god, he shouldn’t have gone near the girl. He should be protecting her and help her live a happy childhood. Not ruining it. She doesn’t need a former sex toy from Hell as a friend.

What the fuck was he thinking? He needed to stop being so conceited.

Swallowing back the urge to break down and cry again like a weakling, the boy took a few deep breaths and stuffed his emotions back down.

When Keith came back downstairs, Tyson quickly apologized to him through writing and promised to never do that again. The man smiled and forgave him before heading to the kitchen to make them all breakfast. The unicorn didn’t touch the boy, so he never knew how he had hurt the boy without meaning to.

Willy came over soon afterwards with some hospital equipment. But before he brought them in, he had Tyson drink down a shot of sedative. It was the only way to check up on the boy’s throat without using needles and hospital things that might trigger another panic attack.