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Silence Broken

True to his word, Hanbei gave his adoptive father's plan a try the next day. It was about twenty minutes since Gai and Hanbei had finished their training session and true to what Gai had said, Trey was now out in the yard throwing a few kicks and punches at a training dummy. Trey usually took his headphones off and put them around his neck while he practiced so they wouldn't fall off, it was the perfect time to try and talk with him.

"Mind if I join you?" Hanbei asked, smiling slightly at the startled Gaomon.

It had been three months since Hanbei had said a word to him. He was quite surprised, and somewhat annoyed, that he chose now to speak with him.

"He wants something, but what? Well whatever, he aint getting anything outta me." Trey thought to himself.

He gave a slight nod, and turned towards the training dummy again. Hanbei proceeded to go up to another one of the dummies and began preforming some far more advanced techniques.

"Wow, he really is good." Trey thought, glancing over to see the Wartortle go into a serious of rapid punches smoothly followed by a sharp roundhouse kick.

"You know," Hanbei started his back still to Trey, "watching is good and all, but if you wish to become skilled in this, you'll require proper instruction."

He turned around to see Trey attempting to hide that he was in fact trying to watch and mimic him.

"How about a little sparing session?" Hanbei asked, notice a slight pique in the Gaomon's interest. "This form of martial arts is much easier to effectively practice with a real target anyway. So, shall we?"

Trey stared at the grinning Wartortle for a moment thinking it over. "He wants us to actually fight each other? What is he getting out of this, is it really for the sake of practice for him?"

After mulling it over for a few moments, Trey nodded and raised his arms up into a fighting stance.

"Hmm, interesting." Hanbei chuckled, at the boy's stance. "Alright, you may have the first move. Show me what you can do."

A little confused as to why his opponent hadn't put up some type of guard, Trey eventually ran up and threw a punch at Hanbei. Instead of blocking it or moving out of the way, Hanbei grabbed Trey's arm, mid-punch, and spun around behind him, putting him in a chicken wing hold.

"First rule of ANY Martial Arts," He started, "never let your opponent get behind you."

Trey quickly broke free of the, intentionally, flimsy hold that he was in and tried to perform a roundhouse kick, in hopes of catching Hanbei off guard. However, it was a doomed attempt; he didn't even get his leg all the way up before Hanbei grabbed it and pushed it away, knocking him over.

"I could see what you were going for. However, your slow movements make it too easy to block." Hanbei shrugged.

"Ok...he's starting to get on my nerves." Trey thought, glaring at the grinning Wartortle.

With his anger beginning to flare up, he ran up trying to throw another punch without evening thinking about what happened last time. This time however, instead of catching his punch, Hanbei blocked it and then in the same motion went and put Trey through a body drop, pinning him on the ground.

"Let your anger get the better of you, and you are almost guaranteed to lose." Hanbei said sternly, releasing his grip on Trey. "You lack the form and technique. But if you wish it, I can teach you to become truly proficient with this."

Trey just stood there, glaring and gritting his teeth.

"Who does he think he is?!" He turned away putting his headphones back on and began making his way back to his room.

"I see..." Hanbei grinned.

Back in his room, Trey was still enraged. "Why, why can't they all just leave me alone?! I don't want to talk to any of them, yet they still push!" He thought to himself.

His anger was suddenly replaced by a sense of sadness and tears began rolling down his face that eventually turned into full blown crying.

"Why am I so angry about this? They're trying because they care, and all I do is return their kindness with disrespect... Gai took me in for crying out loud, and this is how I repay him?! And Hanbei...all he was trying to do was help me to better understand martial arts, and I got angry at him for it..."

Over the past few weeks, Trey had been finding it difficult to keep his vow of silence going. He truly felt terrible for what he was putting his uncle through and was mainly staying quiet out of guilt, which had been eating away at him ever since he moved in. His seclusion from the world around him had also caused him to develop a very negative attitude towards other people that he was not fond of in the least.

After several more minutes, his crying slowed as he tried to regain himself.

"I can't keep doing this, I have to apologize. But..."

He truly was conflicted on the matter. It wasn't fair to the people around him, who were only trying to love him, to have to put up with him this way. However, he still didn't feel comfortable letting people in, for fear of what may happen.

"I-I have to let them know I'm sorry." He spoke aloud, surprised to hear his own voice after so long.

His mind was made up; tomorrow he would apologize to Hanbei and then eventually his uncle.

He spent the whole next morning trying to figure out how he was going to go about this.

"I just don't know... maybe I, no... or I could..." he sighed. "I need to stop trying to find a way to rationalize this, and just do it."

He knew that Gai and Hanbei had already finished their daily training session and was happy to see that Hanbei was sill outside, most likely waiting to see if Trey would come out again, practicing on one of the dummies.

"...Good to see you came back. I was almost afraid I'd been too hard on you the other day. Would you like to take another try at this?" Hanbei asked with a smile.

"Come on, you can do this." Trey fought within himself, but could only nod.

"Excellent. Yesterday, I was able to get a feel for you offensively. So, how about today we see how well you can handle defense? After that, we can determine where we should begin your actual training."

Again Trey could only nod, still afraid to come forward.

"Very well, get ready. I will try not to be too rough." Hanbei said getting into his fighting stance.

Trey wasn't much better at defense than he was offense. And much like yesterday was easily defeated by his much more experienced mentor, who had taken Trey down with a series of several different locks and pins. After about twenty minutes, he let up, making his final decision as to where Trey stands.

"As I thought, you seem to understand the basic principles. If you'd like, we can start your official training tomorrow." Hanbei concluded.

Trey simply responded with a nod.

"Good. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go fix myself something to eat." Hanbei smiled as he turned to leave.

"It's now or never, say something!!!" Trey's conscience shouted from within. "Hanbei I..."

Hanbei paused and turned around, to the young Gaomon who was staring at the ground, trying to avoid eye contact.

"I-I'm sorry I was disrespectful yesterday..." Trey stammered.

"...It's quite alright." He responded, giving Trey a small smile.

Trey looked up at Hanbei. "N-No, not even just from yesterday, I'm sorry for how I've acted these past four months. You didn't do anything to me and I treated you and my uncle Gai like..." He trailed off.

Hanbei was quite taken back by the youth's sudden outburst. He walked up to Trey and rested his hands on his shoulders. "Again, it's quite all right." He said smiling down at Trey. "Would you...like to talk about it?"

"I, um, well." Trey stuttered. "...Yes."

They went and took a seat under the tree that was next to the pond.

"I don't know what you've been told already, so I'll just tell you everything." Trey began, going on to tell Hanbei what is mother was like and the things he put up with, and finally about the night he fled from his home. Like the previous time of when he told his uncle, he chose to disclose the part about the knife. "I don't know what I was thinking at the time, but the things my mother said, I believed them. I thought if I kept people from getting to know me that...funny, I don't even remember what I thought would happen." Trey finished.

"You thought if people didn't know the real you, that they'd be better off, is that it?" Hanbei guessed.

"Yeah, I guess so..."

"Trey, I know I haven't known you that long, and can't even begin to understand the horrid things you had to put up with. But I want you to know that I'm glad to know you. There is nothing wrong with who you are or what you do. All that matters is that you're happy." Hanbei smiled, patting Trey on the shoulder. "These things could not have been easy to come forward about, but I want you to know, that my opinion of you has not changed."

"Thank you, Hanbei." Trey smiled.

"Now, what about Gai?" Hanbei asked.

Almost instantly Trey's smile turned into a frown. "I don't know. I've been awful to him ever since I moved in here. I wouldn't even know where to begin apologizing to him..."

"Even so, he's worried about you because he cares about you, and much like with me, that feeling will never change." Hanbei reassured.

"I know and that only makes me feel worse about the whole situation."

"Would you like me to go with you?" Hanbei asked.

"No," Trey said standing up. "This is something that I've got to do myself."

Hanbei smiled at the Gaomon. "I believe he was heading into the kitchen."

"Thanks." Trey said as he went off to confront his uncle.