Chapter Twelve

One foot off the bus, followed by the other. Chihiro considered bringing another student with to calm his nerves. But Mondo's mother never mentioned bringing a companion. And if his mother didn't tell him to, Chihiro didn't do it. But now as he stared up the dirt covered road leading towards the quaint home in the distance, he wished he at least had someone's hand to hold. The bus pulled away, leaving him standing alone at the foot of the path. He stared at the home in the middle of nowhere. It was no wonder Mondo drove a motorcycle. The bus ride from the city was a miserable one. At least out here, he was free to speed about in the back woods before zipping onto the highways. With a long inhale, Chihiro pushed off towards his destination. His well packed rolling suitcase dug into the dirt behind him.

One uneasy step after the other. Each inch up that road got much heavier. His suitcase began to feel like he was collecting rocks on the way to his destination. He couldn't wait to see his boyfriend. Hold him in his arms. Tell him he loved him. But the thought of Mondo no longer being with him terrified him. That the biker realized he wasn't strong enough for the pressure and criticism that the world had to offer. That running away at that crucial moment gave him the perfect scapegoat right out of this relationship. Chihiro clenched the handle of his rolling suitcase. If he wanted out, Mondo wouldn't have told his mother about Chihiro.

The boy had faith the request to visit wasn't just to make up homework but because Mondo wanted him there.

Finally, he arrived at the front step of the small home. It looked old, built generations ago. Some of the side paneling cracked off and there were weeds growing in what used to be a garden by the porch. There were a few flowers, some that had just bloomed. Only a little, though. The back yard was humongous, a small, beaten down swing set perched in the grass. It was weather worn, the swing dangling lopsided by one chain. Chihiro imagined the rowdy Crazy Diamond brothers destroyed it as children doing something unnecessary. The photograph Mondo showed him popped into the boy's head. Mondo standing at a pitiful height, a wide somewhat toothless grin plastered on his face. Thinking of that rascal tearing through this back yard made Chihiro wish he shared their childhood.

He lifted his hand, laying into the doorbell. And then he waited for what felt like centuries. Who would come to the door? His mother, ready to glare down on him with the look of a fierce amazon tribe? Or Mondo, who may slam that door in his face and cower back to his room. Was this even the right house? Would this be the day he died? Either by the hand of his potential mother in law, or from the ever increasing beating of his heart. Just when he was about to whip around and high tail it back down that dusty road, the door jerked open.

There he was, half hunched in the door frame with both a shocked and uneasy expressing masking his features. Mondo frowned, silence and disappointment wracking his body. Chihiro couldn't tell if his sudden appearance upset his boyfriend, but Mondo looked taken aback. His hair was a slicked back in a tangled mess, revealing his blackened right eye. Fresh skin was reforming over the raw scrapes that tore into his forehead. It looked like he had a pretty nasty meeting with the pavement. "Oh, Mondo," he breathed, outstretching his tiny hand. The other one let go of the suitcase, fleeing to his own agape mouth. For a moment, his tender fingers rested against Mondo's healing skin and a familiar warmth filled his body. Mondo leaned his cheek into his boyfriend's palm, but remained silent. An expression of guilt washed over his intense eyes. "Are you alright...?"

Heavy silence lingered between them and Mondo closed his eyes as Chihiro's tiny fingers grazed his temple. They traveled into his hair, avoiding the bruises spattered around his eye. And then, all the sudden, Chihiro gathered into his boyfriend's strong arms. Mondo swept him up, lifting his heels an inch from the ground. The embrace was tight and Chihiro could just feel the fear pouring from the man's body. Chihiro felt as though he should be angry. After all, his partner had fled when he needed him the most. Left him in the aftermath of their decision to open up to their fellow students. Abandoned him with the nagging, incessant lies of the beautiful model. He had every right not to be here and completely ditch his boyfriend out of hatred. But now, standing here wrapped in his lovers strong embrace, he understood that Mondo just wasn't as strong as him at the moment. He was scared. Leaving him would only make it worse.

The silence was still thick and Chihiro could feel warm tears dripping against his cheek. But they weren't falling from his eyes. He wanted to say something, whisper that everything would be alright as he usually did. But saying that almost felt like a lie. Sure, if Mondo were to head back to the academy and be honest, things would be alright. But he just couldn't trust him to do that. So letting his boyfriend hold him so close was the only thing he could do for a moment. The embrace felt good. Needed after his lonely week of crying in his bed, staring at a phone screen void of messages.

"Mondo," came a sharp and now familiar voice from the lobby of the home. The biker immediately let go, Chihiro's tiny feet resting against the concrete of the front step. He backed up a few inches, dropping his hands and head in embarrassment. Mondo straightened his back, glancing over his shoulder to the women who must have been his mother. The tiny boy waiting outside leaned to the left to gaze past his boyfriend to catch a glimpse of the woman who was sure to murder him soon. Even though she had invited him there, Chihiro was sure no good was going to come of this. After all, she hadn't seen her son in a while. The reason him coming back being that he wrecked his bike while intoxicated and ended up in jail was means for punishment. The both of them.

His mother was a taller woman, although many inches shorter than her son. Dark hair framed her tired face and she stood perfect and straight, her shoulders tight like the frown across her face. It was obvious she spent many years struggling with boisterous boys as their devious acts drew wrinkles into her skin. And her eyes. Narrowed, and intense, like Mondo's. But hers didn't put on an act like his did sometimes. Mondo's face would read rugged and aggressive, but Chihiro had seen him break down. She looked like someone who couldn't break. Chihiro shivered and took another cautious step back. Closer to the end of the road, the better. "Who are you, young lady?" His heart clenched inside his chest. Mondo didn't mention everything about his boyfriend.

"Fujisaki Chihiro, ma'm," he breathed, pressing his nervous hands against his uneasy stomach. His foot slid to the right to keep his balance, kicking over his suitcase. It fumbled from the front step, tumbling into the small patch of flowers that were growing around the concrete. Great, kill the only flowers that had blossomed. Chihiro reached out and swept up the handle of his suitcase, heaving it onto the step by his side.

Mondo's mother gave her son a firm look. Without a single word, Mondo grabbed the suitcase from his partner and stormed back into the house. Leaving the two standing in the doorway, many feet apart. "Some how I thought you would be taller," she mentioned. Taller? How about not dressed like a girl? Chihiro shivered again, not sure if he should step inside or keep his careful distance. She wasn't within arms reach, which was a pretty safe length for him. She couldn't strangle him from here. "Won't you step inside?" She was so formal as she lifted her hand, offering him entry into the front door. He took her invitation with hesitant steps, his feet brushing against the plush carpet as he shuffled inside. The woman slammed the door and the boy jumped, immediately coming to a halt. He wasn't sure where he should go as Mondo had disappeared deeper into the house. To his left was the family room, with a sofa, a small television, and a curio cabinet filled with lots of adorable knick knacks. To his right was the stairs leading up, and behind her was a long narrow hallway that lead to the kitchen and other rooms. But he stood silent, waiting for instruction. "Thank you for coming. Mondo is putting your things into your room and then he will be down. Because he will talk to you."

It wasn't that Mondo wanted to talk to him. It was that he would talk to him, or else his mother would beat him. "The dining room is this way. You can wait there." Her voice was so sharp and it seemed that everything was irritating to her. Her son being home. Her son's boyfriend being here. Then again, Mondo did end up in the hospital and jail because of their decision. So she had a right to anger. But something told Chihiro she was always like this. He followed without hesitance, careful to keep a foot or so behind her to not step on her heels. She led him to the dining room and offered her hand towards the table where he took a seat with urgency. And in a moment, she was gone. No other introduction, no other comment. He was now sitting alone in a new home, staring at the hard wood of the dining room table.

That's when panic began to set it. It was obvious by the strong embrace that Mondo had missed him. These days spent in a hospital bed and then locked behind bars had to be hell alone. And once he got home, it sounded like his mother put him right to work. But did he avoid contact once he arrived home because his mother wouldn't let him, or because of fear? This conversation they were about to have was going to be a hard one. Even if Mondo couldn't come up with the words, Chihiro knew the second he gathered his own thoughts, they wouldn't stop coming. He had so much he wanted to say to his boyfriend. To yell, to scream, to cry. So many things had been building up and he needed to get them off his chest. This entire ordeal just wasn't fair because Mondo knew going in what would need to happen somewhere down the road. They couldn't hide forever.

Glancing up, he took note of all the photographs that adorned the walls. Many of them were of Mondo and his brother when they were those adorable, dirt covered, toothless little children. One of them playing on that decrepit swing set outside. A couple of them chasing each other in the street. Even a few of them dressed in nice suits, ready for some family event. His mother was in a few. She was beautiful when she smiled, but even in the pictures, tired lines covered her face. Circled her eyes. She just looked like a tired, worn woman, but at least she looked happy in the pictures. There wasn't a single picture where Mondo looked older than sixteen. Maybe because of his brother's passing. This was the first time since then that Mondo had left the academy.

Heavy feet raced down the steps from down the hall, and Chihiro sat upright in his chair. From somewhere else in the house, he could hear the clamoring of pots and pans. A fan clicked on the kitchen. Perhaps his mother was making dinner. "Could you give us like a minute?" Mondo's hushed, angry voice sounded from around the corner of the dining room. "Don't listen in on us, alright, mom?"

"You best be honest with him, boy, and clean this mess up," his mother scolded him much louder than a whisper. There was the sound of a tiny smack against skin, and Mondo grunting in return. Her voice was in the kind of tone that let Mondo know he should never speak to his mother like that. Chihiro hunched his shoulders down. He had never talked back to his parents. Well, once when he was a small child. But the smallest hint of anger in his father's eyes was enough to make him cry out any thought of being deviant. He was lucky his parents weren't that strict. That would have made life much harder than it already had been. Mondo rounded the corner. His attention dropped towards the floor as he took a cumbersome seat in the chair catty corner to Chihiro. He stared down at the wood, licking at his bottom lip. Chihiro noticed there was a sore there, too, but it was healing over at this point. He thanked the heavens that Mondo didn't die in that accident.

The silence. It fled between them like a swarm of bees. It was so irritating and terrifying that he couldn't bring himself to utter a word to the man he used to tell everything to. After days of no contact, waiting with anxious thoughts to give him a piece of his mind, not a single word escaped his lips. It was obvious Mondo wasn't going to speak first, either. So to break the silence, Chihiro slipped his hand beneath the table and placed it against his partner's knee. The sigh that fled from Mondo's lips was a long one, filled with self doubt and anxiety. "Love you," he muttered like a battered child, his hand lacing with Chihiro's beneath the table. His voice was low so his mother couldn't hear him. Not because confessing his love was embarrassing, but because he didn't want her to hear anything at all.

"I love you," Chihiro stated, his voice well below a murmur as he stared towards the door frame of the dining room. There was another clank of metal from the kitchen and a cabinet slamming shut. She was far enough away that she couldn't hear anything. Which was good, because Chihiro was sure his voice wouldn't stay below a whisper for long. Not when he had so much emotion building in him like a time bomb.

"I wish we could go somewhere else and talk... I don't wanna-"

"Talk in front of your mom, I know," Chihiro breathed. Or talk in front of anyone. That's what got them in this mess. It was like he didn't want to be honest about his feelings in front of anyone but Chihiro. The thought felt special and it was nice knowing Mondo trusted him with his secrets. But they couldn't continue in a healthy relationship without being honest to everyone, too. "We don't have a choice... so please... say whatever it is you need to say."

Mondo narrowed his eyes and Chihiro could feel his hand retreat from his beneath the table. The boy's words spilled out a little harsh, but expected. It hurt. Tired of talking. Or at least being the one to do the talking. "I've said everything... I can say about all this." His breaths were short, forcing out the sentence with as much hardness as he could muster. "I've said everything to you. I've said everything to them. I can't be the one to do the talking on our behalf any longer, Mondo." He bit down on his lip the second he let those words slide, fearing that he may be too hard on his boyfriend. It wasn't in his nature to be cruel, or even tough, but recently he had built up such a thick skin that he couldn't help it. With all the teasing words Junko had thrown his way, and all the internal comebacks he had stored, his thoughts had turned to steel. He couldn't let anyone push him around any longer. "So please... tell me... everything you're thinking. Be... honest."

That painstaking silence enveloped the room again. Chihiro squeezed his boyfriend's thigh against his fingertips. Why wouldn't he say anything? It was obvious he must have explained the situation to his mother, otherwise she wouldn't have told him to fix it. Unless she wasn't talking about making it right. Unless she wanted them to break up. But how could he discuss things with his mother... and even Junko, in private, but couldn't do it sitting right next to his boyfriend. Pulling his hand away, he instead bunched his balled fists within his lap. He took the silence as a notion that Mondo just couldn't speak up first. He needed prodding. But Chihiro had run out of things to say. "Just tell me... tell me why you confide so much in Junko. And why... you just can't tell everyone the truth..."

There it was. The words he had bundled up in his mind all week. The thoughts that had gathered for months in the back of his mind while they were dating. Things he wished he had said sooner to help this process along. Words that were now backed by anger and abandonment. And because his boyfriend couldn't speak up, they weren't going to stop. And they just got louder, and louder. "Why did you do that?" he breathed through a thick, heavy sob that could be hear well across the room. "Why did you run away? And get hurt?! Why did you think getting in an accident was worth not telling the truth?!"

"Chi," Mondo grunted, tossing a worried glance towards the open doorway of the dining room. Chihiro caught his hesitance and cried harder, knowing his boyfriend didn't want to talk about them in front of anyone. He wasn't worth risking an embarrassing conversation. Even if meant burying their relationship in a deeper hole. His heart fluttered and he pressed his hand against it, that familiar feeling of anxiety gathering in his chest. His breath was fast and he didn't mean for the emotion to take over like it was. Especially as this was the first impression that Mondo's mother got of him.

But if he walked out of this house single, it wasn't going to matter what she thought of him from this day forward. "You could have died, Mondo," he choked through tears, his chest heaving as he sucked in a huge breath. "You would rather risk your life than telling everyone the truth! You couldn't stand beside me and just be honest to a group of people who are your friends. They don't even care!" The boy's knees shook beneath the table. That terrible prickling sensation crept over his cheeks as the tears burned his skin.

"Chi..."

"Everyone's been so worried about you! Don't you understand how much everyone cares about you!" His voice picked up to a near yell, and he would have been screaming if it weren't for the tears wracking his sobs. He jolted in his chair, his little feet threatening a stand. Mondo stared at his emotional boyfriend. The fear zapped from his expression, replaced with unbearable guilt. Behind the fresh scars and the thick bruises was a mask of regret. "How much I care about you?!" The taller man reached out, his hands hovering around Chihiro's shoulders. But the boy was shaking so violently, he was hesitant to hold him. "I know this is all scary, and you think everyone's just going to hate you, but they won't! They don't! And it wasn't worth you running away! Why did you run away from me?!"

His voice sounded throughout the home and all the clamoring in the kitchen came to an end. The only sound was the kitchen fan and the heavy breathing spilling from Chihiro's lips. His little body trembled and his cheeks were a painful red. His hands bunched tight in his lap. He thought he was going to throw up from letting his emotion run out. But it was the last thing he could do to make Mondo be honest. To make Mondo realize there was a reason he should be speaking. Silence had only brought them no where. The bigger of the two began to scoot his chair around to the same side of his partner's. His strong arms reached out, embracing his loved one tight against his chest. Chihiro just sobbed. Crying loud against his boyfriend's chest, his little fingers wrapping tight into the fabric of his shirt. The thought that they could not be having this conversation frightened him. Mondo could have died. Because he wasn't strong enough to face his classmates. "I'm sorry," he muttered, but it wasn't heard over his boyfriend's loud cries.

Chihiro felt a warm kiss lay against his forehead, and then another on the top of his head. Fingers coursed through his hair and another hand rubbed down his back. Being in his boyfriend's arms felt so soothing. He let his own arms snake around his lover's torso, never wanting to let go for fear that he would never have this chance again. He had taken advantage of all the times before when they would be cuddling in their bedroom. He enjoyed every second of their embraces without a second thought that he wouldn't share them again. The more Mondo held him, the less tears fell. "I'm sorry, okay..." the biker stated again in a hushed whisper, his warm voice reverberating into the boy's body. "I acted like an idiot... I got scared."

The smaller boy wanted to shout out because although he wanted to finish with his words, there was plenty more he wanted to say. Nothing that would fix the situation. Only things that would make it much, much worse and make his boyfriend that much more guilty. It wasn't fair to pour everything on Mondo like that, though, so he kept quiet. The biker still needed to say so much himself. "I didn't know what else to do..." he stated, his grasp growing firm around his small partner. He would squeeze tighter if it weren't for the fact that his body still ached from his accident. He had recovered well enough, but everything was sore. Especially his ego. "I had built myself up all day, you know... like, yeah, this was going to be the day. And everyone was going to be cool with it! And then it was time to tell everyone... and I wasn't okay anymore."

"Why do you let them scare you?"

"You let them scare you for years," Mondo grunted in return. Chihiro reminded himself that Mondo just hadn't experienced this struggle as long as he had. Chihiro had been hiding his secret since he was a child, which might make others believe that he has had it harder growing up. Yes, life was difficult growing up. But imagine living your life one way, and then meeting someone who changes your entire thought process. Makes you something you were lead to believe was vile and disgusting. Chihiro assumed his fellow gang members weren't too kind to those boys attracted to other boys. And Mondo could have grown up with the same hateful notion. "You've had longer to think about it, and accept what you don't like about yourself..."

His voice was so quiet. And so broken. It wasn't picking up in anger like it always did when he tried to explain himself. He must have spent a lot of time alone in jail practicing what he wanted to say. "There was already so much shit I hated about myself before you came along." He never let off that he disliked anything about himself. But if anyone insulted him, he was quick to anger. In a matter of seconds, he was ready to ring someone's neck. Attempted fist fights were the reason he was in detention for almost half of the first semester. Over stupid things. He may have taken anything someone said as a personal attack. Chihiro often felt that way when people would comment about his frail stature and quiet nature. They didn't mean to be insulting, and to perhaps a high school girl, comments like that seemed normal. Maybe if Chihiro's gut instinct was to punch someone instead of cry, this situation wouldn't even be happening. "You've spent all your life knowing you want to be stronger. I've had... like... six months... to know I need to be stronger for new reasons."

There was another long pause of silence, not because he lacked something to say. But because he couldn't quite form his words. Chihiro could feel his shaking, not out of anger, but still fear. So much fear dwelling in his large body. He didn't have anyone to be scared of right now. Not here when they were alone in the dining room. Sure, his mother had returned to slamming cabinet doors and throwing about kitchen utensils. But he didn't need to be scared of her. Chihiro did. "It's okay," the boy whispered, placing a kiss along his lover's collar bone. Everyone at school was alright with the news. No one had teased him. They didn't even ask him questions. Everything went on as normal. Perhaps it was because everyone was so worried about Mondo.

"I just love you so much," the biker huffed, grunting again as if the mere thought of sobbing would hurt. But he choked it back and Chihiro felt the man's fingers grip his shoulders. Sometimes those words felt a little forced. He never said it in front of the fellow classmates. And if he did, it was quiet. A whisper in his ear. Aside from the first time he uttered it outside in the rain, his love profession just sounded like a response to Chihiro's. A simple response. But this time, it was so deliberate. So full of the emotion that Chihiro had been dying to hear for a while. Purposeful, desperate emotion. The man's chest heaved as he took in a heavy breath, drawing his boyfriend closer to his chest. Despite the ache in his arms, he clung tighter, nearly taking Chihiro's breath away.

"I love you, too..." the boy mumbled with his cheek pressed just beneath Mondo's collar bone. "It's okay..." It wasn't. Things weren't okay. They would be if Mondo just continued to open up, but it seemed that now he had resolved to stifled crying into his partner's bangs. They sat like that for another few minutes and the smaller of the two let out a defeated sigh. He had all weekend to get the words out of him. Perhaps tonight wasn't the best time for it.