December, 2019

Michael rubbed at his watering eyes. Fuck. It's after 8:30 already. Aaron and Jack, two of Matthew's friends, had arrived shortly after six the night before with four large pizzas and six grocery bags filled with bottles of soda and bags of junk food. The four boys had spent the whole night pig-piled up on the sagging couch in the basement, munching on chips, and playing video games. "Lemme out," Michael whined; Aaron was practically sitting on his lap while Mathew was sitting on the backrest of the couch with his legs braced around his twin's shoulders.

A few wiggles and more than one loud, "What the fuck, man?" later, Michael was freed from the couch and free to hunt down his phone amid the refuse of their empty chip bags and soda cups. There were no texts and no important social media updates. Ming Lim must be at his engagement party already. That thought hurt. Really fucking hurt. He rubbed at his chest hoping to force what felt like a watermelon sized lump there to go away.

"You okay?" Jake slurred.

"I'm fine," Michael lied. "Heartburn from all the junk you guys brought over."

"No one forced it down your throat," Matthew reminded him.

Michael smirked evilly at his brother and flipped him off. "Wicked tired. Going to bed. Nighty-night."

"Sleepy tight, don't let the bedbugs bite!" the other boys chorused. Michael flipped them off again as he trudged up the stairs.

"Dude? I thought your brother was into bros. But I sat on his lap and nada," he heard Aaron whisper loudly.

"You asshole!" Matthew whisper-shouted back. "Did you want him to get hard for you?"

"No. That's ugh." Michael could well imagine Aaron shivering as he said that. Jack and Aaron weren't homophobes; they had been remarkably chill about the whole thing when Michael came out as bi. But just because they weren't opposed to hanging out with an out of the closet gay didn't mean they were eager to experience the thrill of a hard cock poking their asses.

"Have you looked in a mirror lately? Have you seen my brother's roommate? Even I think he's hot as fuck, and I'm straight! If Èrgē doesn't get a hard-on over that guy, there's no way he's going to get it up for you!" Michael wanted to laugh at that. Aaron was approximately the color, shape, and consistency of a pile of mashed potatoes with pale, watery, blue eyes and an upturned nose that looked slightly like a pig's snout. But he was the best type of friend. Always up for clean, nerdy fun. Unlike Jake, who was a more earthy, rude kind of guy as evidenced by being the recipient of Eleanor's knee-to-the-nuts punishment after trash-talking his ex.

Michael shut the basement door behind him and inhaled the scent of fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies. "No," Mary Yang ordered as his hand reached out to grab one from the cooling rack.

"I wasn't gonna eat it!" he protested. 'I was just gonna taste it'. He finished the quote in his head. Seeing as how he was no longer a child, admitting to still liking watching Pooh Bear get stuck in Rabbit's doorway was not going to happen. He wasn't hungry by any stretch of the imagination, but there was always room in his stomach for fresh-baked cookies. And then he took a good look at his mother. "Oh my god, Mom. What the f-uh, what are you wearing?" He stumbled over not saying the swear word, but then burst into laughter.

Mary stood up to her full height and placed her hands on her hips. "You have a problem with what I'm wearing?"

Still chortling, Michael waved his hands in negation. "Bù, bù, bù. Hǎokàn. Hěn hǎokàn. Fēicháng kě'ài. You look… amazing."

Mary peered at her reflection in the microwave. A Chinese Mrs. Claus peered back. She was wearing a poofy red and white dress that reached to her ankles, a snowy white ruffled apron, a matching cap on her head, and silver-rimmed half-moon glasses. "You should see your father; he was so certain he'd lose this one. At least he only has to wear the costume for a half day at work."

Charles Wu's accounting firm was full of playful gamblers. They'd bet on anything: from who would be the last person to enter the office on a given day to sports to weather. It was all in good fun, and there was never a monetary value placed on the bets. Instead, the 'winner' (spouses and significant others were encouraged to play along) was expected to dress up in a costume for the day. So it wasn't unusual to see an elf or Hello Kitty or a superhero walking through the building.

At the mental image of his stick thin and oh-so-proper father soberly discussing budgets with his clients while dressed up as Santa, Michael's laughter increased. Bending over to hold his now really hurting stomach, he managed to successfully snatch a still hot cookie from the rack. "I'm going to bed, Mom. I'm exhausted," he finally managed to spit out.

To his surprise, Mary shut off the oven and followed him upstairs. Fluffing her dress she sat carefully on Matthew's bed. "Since it's just the two of us, now…" she started, fiddling with her glasses. "How are you holding up with Ming Lim's engagement becoming official."

"I'm fine, Mom. Friends get engaged all the time. You should be more concerned about them. They really don't have anything in common, and it's not a case of 'opposites attract', so if they actually do have to get married someday…. It'll be a disaster."

"Háizi," she sighed. "It's your mom. You don't have to lie."

Michael stared at his mom. "Not lying," he lied. "Wǒ méishì." When Mary didn't change expression, he insisted, "Zhēn de méishì. Can I go to sleep, please? I've been awake for over a full day now."

His attempt to change the conversation didn't work. "Nǐ shì wǒ de érzi, Michael Gabriel Wu. I know when you're hurting. And I know when you're in love. Don't give me that look. I'm not stupid. I knew he meant something special to you the first time I saw you together; that was how I knew you weren't exactly… straight. You were only sixteen, but I still remember the way you looked at him with such hope in your eyes. And I knew you meant something special to him, too, because he'd look at you out of the corner of his eye with that same look."

"You never said anything."

Mary sighed and fluffed at her dress. "I had my own demons to wrestle. It was very hard for me to try to accept that your… preferences… weren't what I had wanted for you. Although, I must say that I would not mind having your Lim as my son-in-law. He's a very nice young man, and…." Her voice trailed off as she remembered that this 'very nice young man' was probably, at that moment, still in the middle of celebrating his engagement to a woman. "Anyways…. If you ever need to talk… or cry… I'm here for you. I can talk or just listen or just hold you…. Whatever you need to get through this."

"I'm fine, Mom. He's been engaged for two years already. It's not like this is something new. Can you leave now? I really am tired…." Tired and missing a warm body holding him tightly. Tired and missing hands caressing his body, those intoxicating kisses, being skin-to-skin, being filled…. Oh fuck. And now he was getting aroused with his mother sitting five feet away. He curled up in bed and pulled his blankets up over his waist. "G'night, Mom."

"Wǎn'ān, érzi."

No sooner had the door shut behind his mother than one hand slid into his sweatpants to grip his cock tightly enough to cause pain, while the other pulled the blankets over his head. "Not now, asshole," he grumbled at it. "Get down." There was no guarantee that one of the guys in the basement wouldn't decide to take a nap on Matthew's bed, so there was no way he would take the time to jerk off.

His phone pinging an incoming text woke him up a few hours later. He opened his eyes to a blurry, pain filled world. Fuck. I forgot to take my contacts out! He fumbled for the phone and looked, uncomprehending, at the picture on his text message screen. The words underneath the picture were gibberish. For the first time in his life, he had no idea how to process the information coming into his brain. He had no idea how long he stared at the screen, thumb tapping every once in a while to keep it from going dark. No matter how he looked, the picture was a garbled mess, the letters made no sense. And then another text came in.

Eleanor came running into the room, "Is everything all right? I heard a crash."

"It's fine. Well, my phone isn't…. I think I drop-kicked it in my sleep." Michael looked ruefully across the room at the shattered electronics spewed on the floor. "Do you think it's too late to tell the parents I want a new phone for Christmas instead of whatever they got me?"

"Michael? Nǐ hái hǎo ma?" Eleanor sat on the edge of the bed and carefully tilted his face to hers.

"Méishì. Why?"

"You've been crying?"

Michael swiped at a wet cheek and laughed. "I'm an idiot. I fell asleep with my contacts in. I guess my eyes really went overboard this time." He tugged at the blankets. "Lemme up so I can change 'em out. It smells so good! Is mom making jam filled cookies? Smells like raspberries…."

"Michael…" Eleanor warned in her big sister voice. "What's going on? Sleeping with your contacts in does not make you cry."

"Well, then I must have cried in my sleep. All I know is the phone crashed and woke me up, and you told me my cheeks were wet. Can I go now?"

The parents were understandably not thrilled to see the cell phone's guts in the trash bag. If he had only cracked the screen, there was the possibility of getting it repaired. But this… it would cost more to get it put back together than it would cost to buy a new one. Charles' demands to know exactly how this happened were met with "I honestly don't know! I was asleep, okay?" Happily, there were still sales going on, most of the Christmas Eve shoppers avoided the cell phone stores, and Michael's stipend was rarely spent, so he had enough money to purchase a new one. Reinstalling his apps was easy. And the memory card was not damaged, so most of his pictures were saved. He was just missing his text messages, but there was nothing there that was incredibly important.

January, 2020

Michael walked into his bedroom after helping his mom out with the groceries and wrinkled his nose. "Oh for fuck's sake," he grumbled. The room reeked of sex. And a used condom was leaking into the trash bucket. "It's totally not fair that my younger brother is getting some and I'm getting nothing," he whined to the ceiling. Nineteen and still a virgin. Ugh. "Mom?" he yelled, peeking his head out of the room. "I'm moving into the guest room."

Mary's head appeared at the bottom of the stairway. "And why do you think I'm going to allow that?"

"Mom," he whined, drawing the single syllable out like a four year old. "We're nineteen and sharing a room! It's not like you have a lot of overnight guests." Under his breath, he added, "And I don't want to sleep in a room with a guy who doesn't even know how to dispose of a condom properly."

Matthew's head appeared on the other side of the staircase. "Why should you get the guest room? Mom? I'm the one who lives here! I should get that room!"

Michael stuck his tongue out at his sibling. "I'm older and I don't live here like you do. I deserve the bigger bed. Oh, and dude? Use air freshener once in a while? It fucking stinks in there."

"Language!" Mary scolded. But as she didn't explicitly say no, Michael took her silence as assent. There wasn't a lot to pack since most of his belongings were in Cambridge.

Matthew stomped into the room and slumped on his bed. "It isn't fair that you get the guest room."

"It isn't fair that I come home to a used condom in the trash, either. That's disgusting. Tie it up and wrap it in tissue or something if you're not going to flush it."

"Jealous?" the younger brother smirked.

"Of you getting laid? Fuck you."

"No thanks. Incest isn't my thing. Oh! Speaking of getting laid…. When are Lim and Lina coming back?"

Michael gave a puzzled look at his brother. "Who?"

Matthew's look was equally puzzled. "Your roommate, asshole."

"Oh, yeah. Ummm…." All of a sudden Michael's head started pounding, making it hard to think. He winced in pain. "Fuck. Headache. I haven't heard from them in a while. No idea when they're coming back."

"Dude…" the younger boy sounded very concerned. "Your nose is bleeding…. Are you all right?"

"Shit, yeah I'm fine." Michael swiped a bunch of tissues and held it to his nose. "It must be too dry or something."

"You haven't heard from Lim since he left? Weird. I thought the two of you were more attached at the hip than newlyweds."

"Just because I'm bi does not mean my roommate is. He's engaged to Lina. Why would he need to keep me informed of his travel plans. We're just roommates." That sounds wrong…. A fuzzy picture flashed into his head making the headache worse.

Now Matthew looked hurt. "He's your best fucking friend and he hasn't bothered to let you know when he's coming back?"

Michael tried to snort in derision. It didn't go quite as planned, what with the wad of tissues pressed against his still bleeding nose. "I don't even know if he's going to come back. That new virus over there seems pretty serious. There's talk about shutting down the airports or only allowing US citizens to enter the country." The headache was getting worse. Michael slid into his bed and clutched at his head with one hand and his nose with the other until he mercifully fell asleep.

So he wasn't awake to hear his brother talking to Eleanor. "Jiě… there's something wrong with Èrgē. I asked him about Lim and he said 'who'. Like he didn't know who I was talking about."

Later that night, Eleanor snuggled up to her younger brother on the couch and playfully flicked at his earrings. "I love how Ming Lim combined his love for music with your love for engineering in this cuff. And I think it's sweet that you bought him a bracelet. It's nice to see men showing affection for each other."

Michael gently elbowed his sister. "One bum per cushion, Jiě. I bought the cuff and I didn't buy him a bracelet." Eyes concentrating on his phone and willing away yet another headache, he missed the other four sets of eyes looking at each other in concern. "And he's just my roommate. We're not affectionate in any way."

"Érzi," Mary gently called out. "I was in Boston with you when you picked up the bracelet. You were so excited to give it to him…."

"You were with me when I bought the cuff," he corrected his mother. "Why the fuck would I buy a bracelet for a guy I barely know? Just because we happened to share the same room doesn't mean we're BFFs or anything. Or sit around and giggle over girls while painting our toenails!" He squirmed out of his sister's embrace and clutched at his head. "Now you've made my fucking head hurt again. I'm going back to bed! And for god's sake, can you please stop fucking talking to me about my fucking roommate!"

Mary called out a belated, "Language."

Eleanor leaned back into the couch cushions and sighed. "I think he needs to see a shrink. He's in a psychotic state or fugue state or something. Mom… do you know…. Are they more than just friends? I thought for a while they might be, but…."

Mary sighed. "If they are, that is their secret to keep or reveal. Why? Did something happen?"

Eleanor turned on her phone and passed it over. "Ming Lim and Wang Lina didn't have an engagement party on Christmas Eve: they got married."

"You're shitting me!" Matthew grabbed the phone from his mother and skimmed the wedding announcement.

"Language."

"If they were more than friends, then his forgetting how much Lim meant to him might make sense…. Our brains can do a lot when trying to minimize psychological damage. And it might explain how his phone got destroyed. He maybe saw the wedding announcement and threw the phone across the room in a rage. Because we all know he doesn't sleep with his phone in his bed, so that 'I drop kicked it in my sleep' story was bogus."

"Sorry, Mom," Matthew apologized for the swear. "Miss Psych major, you're acting like Michael's some fragile little guh," Matthew jumped to avoid his sister's kick at the near misogynistic comment. "Thing," he amended. "Even if they were dating, so what? Break-ups happen. It doesn't mean he went cuckoo for cocoa puffs."

Mary frowned. "I recall you breaking stuff after some of your break-ups. And the longest you've dated someone was, what, four months? They've been roommates for three years. That's a long time to be in love when you're only nineteen."

Eleanor shook her head. "It wasn't that long, but close. A bit less than two and a half, I think. Lim said something to me, I think it was that first March? It was during a basketball game, I think, and that first spring I usually only watched basketball during the March Madness games, so March sounds about right. He was asking me if Michael was gay, and he said…. Shit. What did he say?'

"Language."

"Sorry. A duì. He said something like 'Michael hasn't done anything', but it sounded like he kind of wished he would. And then the next summer, after I brought Michael back home, Lim kept texting me asking when Michael was going back. So I texted Michael, and he said that Lim had ignored him since that night, and basically said he wouldn't mind if Lim went and played in traffic. But then when I got back to school in September, they were like BFFs or something. So if they started dating, it wasn't until probably that fall."

Mary pressed her hands to her knees, hard. Her baby was hurting so much he forced himself to forget his lover, and she hadn't even noticed. She had been more concerned over a broken phone than a broken heart. More upset that the twins wanted separate rooms than upset that her baby was separated from his love. Charles squeezed her hand, with a gentle look that showed all of his love, and understanding. 'You're not a bad mother,' the look said. 'You didn't do anything wrong.' She turned her hand up to hold his. "This psychosis thing…. Does it go away on its own or do we need to send him to a psychiatrist?"