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Panda – err...like what chapter in the manga? *is freaking out*

Edit: ffdotnet's document manager isn't allowing me to give a question mark alongside an exclamation mark, one following the other. *pouts* so you people get to guess where the invisible exclamation mark is actually placed within the story...

Hiroki's Birthday – Part 7

Hiroki and Nowaki abruptly stiffened. With shock apparent on his features, Hiroki whirled to face his mother.

Nowaki, meanwhile, sat still and didn't dare move an inch or even flinch. He sat waiting for his lover's reaction. But when none came, Nowaki's world narrowed down so that all he could hear were Sayomi's words repeating in the background along with his own fluttering, pounding heartbeat. He clenched his hands in an effort to shake off the shock and get off the bench to give his lover and his mother some privacy. Forcing himself to walk some distance away took everything he had. But he couldn't make himself go so far away as out of his hearing range. He stood with his back to them, shoulders tensed and stiff, hands clenched into nail-digging, tight fists.

"It's not that we're trying to force you into an arranged marriage or anything, Hiroki-kun. We just want you to be happy and not so lonely while always being stressed with work. That's why we would like for you to attend an omiai next week." His mother's words seemed to reach him over a great distance and Hiroki could barely comprehend or digest them.

He couldn't believe that she was talking about this now or within such a short distance of Nowaki. Of course, Nowaki's presence was a searing heat against his back - even if he was some range away - and a constant, niggling remainder in his mind.

"An omiai?" Hiroki's disbelief made his exclamation burst out of him almost desperately. He laughed nervously and continued, "Please, mother, I'm not that sad and I'm quite content right now. Besides, I'm quite happy with continuing my life the way it is. An omiai is just too troublesome!" Hiroki waved his hand here in a passing motion. "Besides, I have, err, plans next week that I absolutely can't cancel and my schedule's pretty tight!" Hiroki said, hoping his excuses would thwart away his mother.

But that wasn't so. Sayomi continued steadfastly, "There you go again, Hiroki-kun. Obsessing over your work to the point of ignoring everything else. This is why we want you to attend an omiai. Please, Hiroki-kun?"

Hiroki didn't want to hear that begging tone in his mother's voice. He abruptly stood up and withdrew to some length near the trees. He couldn't face his mother. Nothing he could say would convince his mother, he knew. How he wished that the brief gap between where his mother sat and where he stood would allow him to not hear anything she said. He didn't know what to do. He didn't want to look behind him - he didn't want to see his mother nor Nowaki.

His mother continued talking, attempting to persuade him with promises that he could reject the women if they didn't satisfy him and just go to the next omiai. Or, he could introduce a lady himself, someone whom he knew and was friendly with and liked.

Hiroki turned around to face his mother when he felt that his back to her was no good and that her words were still piercing into him and cutting him into little pieces. As he opened his mouth to blurt out something - just anything to make her stop - his mouth abruptly snapped shut as his eyes were dragged to the sight of Nowaki with his back turned towards them, stiff and tense. And as if feeling his gaze, Nowaki turned minutely to stare at him from the corner of his eyes - eyes that were made sharp by an intense and slowly burning fire of anger.

Hiroki couldn't look away. He almost felt like crying. Nevertheless, his eyes pricked and there was a tightness in his throat. He knew. He understood. This wasn't even about him attending the omiai. It was simply about him coming out to his parents.

But there isn't anything simple about it! Hiroki thought despairingly, also curling his hands into a fist like that of his lover.

He understood Nowaki's feelings over this matter. The fact that he was an orphan made him be partial to receiving acceptance from Hiroki's family. And no matter that Nowaki hadn't said anything about it to Hiroki, he could still see it with Nowaki's expressions and postures and Hiroki felt the pressure. Nowaki probably thought, optimistically, that Hiroki's parents would get over their shock quick and still accept their son in the end. Because families were like that. They loved each other and accepted each other unconditionally. But what Nowaki refused to acknowledge, Hiroki thought, was that his parents might also be disgusted by his nature and spurn contact with him ever again. And Hiroki didn't want to invoke any chance of that kind of an event happening by all means. Call him a coward, but this was a matter that didn't have anything to do with his pride.

The sight of Nowaki standing like that, his tornado of emotions matching Hiroki's own turbulent ones, would be carved onto Hiroki's mind for a long time.

Sayomi's voice, even tuning in and out of the background of Hiroki's thoughts, was unbearable to take anymore. He looked on helplessly at his mother. A million things ran through his mind and he willed himself to say something - anything! - but his mouth refused to open. Hiroki only noticed that he was gritting his teeth with such force when they started aching so soon.

And when Nowaki turned back around, as if he couldn't take the sight of Hiroki being silent anymore, Hiroki clenched his hands all the more tighter, the veins in his wrist sticking out in stark hills against the plains of his skin.

This is torture! It was a mental scream as well as a telepathic plea - to whom, Hiroki didn't know.

Hiroki didn't know how long he stood there, despising himself and trying to stay calm and shut out the world around him. He couldn't endure this for much longer.

Hiroki's eyes were once again dragged to Nowaki as he noticed a movement from his lover. He was met with the slumped shoulders and bowed head of someone who had given up. Those fists - that had been clenched as tight as his - were now hanging loosely and shaking ever so lightly. He immediately felt a shiver of dread course through him and however much he attempted his mind from wondering if Nowaki was feeling as his posture belied in that moment, he was helpless as his vision climbed higher and encountered a sad, wry, and self-mocking smile, coupled with those glassy eyes, displayed on Nowaki's face.

And that was the breaking point. Something snapped - burst within Hiroki. It made him take a step forward and looking his mother in the eyes, he said, "Mother, I can't - I won't go." The thought that this was the explosion that he had been expecting earlier that afternoon, almost intuitively, registered faintly somewhere in Hiroki's mind.

Whatever his mother was saying, she abruptly broke off. In the pause after his words, Hiroki lost his confidence and forwardness. He couldn't maintain eye contact and looking off to the side, he continued in a faint voice during his mother's brief surprise at his vehemence, "Not unless the other side is a man…" Hiroki trailed off.

Nowaki whirled around, having heard his Hiro-san's outburst. He watched with wide eyes and just a hint of disbelief.

"...What?" From the expression on her face, it was evident that Sayomi didn't understand her son's response.

Darting a glance at his mother, Hiroki said, still with that hesitant but less faint of a tone, "I like men, mother."

Sayomi's reaction was a sharp gasp. She leapt off the bench and with an almost hysterical cry, she burst out with strangled words, "Don't be ridiculous, Hiroki! You don't need to go to such lengths to avoid marriage! It's -"

Hiroki interrupted his mother's cries. "No, mother! You don't understand. You're not trying to understand! I like men." He asserted. "I'm gay."

Sayomi took a step back and eyes wide and frozen with shock, she dropped suddenly. With a hard thump, she met contact with the wooden bench. Her eyes were sightless as her son's words rang again and again in her head. She was too simply shocked to make sense of anything, and for a brief moment, she felt cut off from all her senses. But her surroundings came rushing back in a sensory overload at the vision of her son's softly gazing face. Gazing not at her - but at something behind her. Her head slowly turned to follow that gaze and was met with a black-haired, blue-eyed fellow - Hiroki-kun's roommate.

Comprehension dawned on her and she paled. "Kusama-san," she whispered helplessly in overwhelming understanding. That Kusama-san was Hiroki's partner made the notion that her son was gay all the more real.

Sayomi looked up into the sky and tried to reason out and organize her thoughts. Only then did she notice that dusk had already passed and night had taken over, casting an inky darkness that didn't help the chaos of her thoughts at all.

Hiroki instantly noticed when Nowaki started moving towards them. He couldn't deny that his lover's stunned expression was somewhat endearing. And he had to admit that his confession brought upon unexpected and monumental realizations, hitting him like a truck at 100 miles per hour. But he put them aside, focussing on his mother before he let them overwhelm him.

Admitting to his mother was like being tied to Nowaki by strong steel cables and cutting off the ones tying him to his mother. He was revolving more around his lover than being pulled by his mother's gravity now. It made him scared, humble and he himself was somewhat shocked. If his eyes were on Nowaki, Hiroki used the excuse that he just couldn't face his mother yet.

As Sayomi whispered, Hiroki and Nowaki too absorbed in each other to catch the actual words, Nowaki's lips twitched. And Hiroki's eyes went wide in surprise and a blush invaded his cheeks as Nowaki revealed teeth in the most brilliant smile, completed with crinkled eyes - and were those twinkles in his eyes drops of moisture? - up-to-date. Hiroki would also carve a place in his memory for that smile and treasure it for a long, long time to come yet.

Sometime later, out of all her daunting thoughts, the one that left her lips as a reaction was, "Guess I'm not going to be receiving any grandchildren then…"

Hiroki averted his eyes away from Nowaki and gazed at his mother, who was looking up at the sky. She mumbled something to herself and with a sigh, brought her gaze back down to meet Hiroki's.

They stared at each other for a long time. Hiroki almost started shifting uneasily on his feet when Sayomi broke the silence.

"This...will take some time to cope with…" She trailed off. "And to also accept," she hurried to add at her son's downcast eyes and drooped shoulders.

With another sigh and her composure still not regained, a pale Sayomi made up a poor excuse of it being late at night and having to get back to the hotel she was staying at soon. (She forgot that some of her important luggage was still in her son's apartment.)

Hiroki watched her go and wondered if he should have walked her back to the hotel at this time of the evening. Yet his mother's posture said that she needed some time away from him for now. And that she needed solitude to get her mind around that evening's events.

TBC

Next update...maybe next week…?

Until then, looking forward to your thoughts and comments! Thanks!