Hello, it is Wednesday and after some time I am back with a new update! And we are back with a bit of a bang :D I am pleased to say that during my break I was able to tackle lots of new subjects and even revisit some old dynamics that I will always hold dear, but for this one, we are heading back to learn some more about Jorginho. And it's quite a lot that we learn! Before in The One With Truth And Reflection, I wrote about Jorginho has a son that he doesn't have a relationship with besides paying child support. This chapter shows the day that they meet for the first time in over a decade. It's certainly a dramatic one! I hope you enjoy learning about that side of Jorginho, his past, and certainly getting to know his son, Samuelo :)

I own the story and the OCs mentioned!

Out of all the reactions that Jorginho had conjured up for when he finally laid eyes on his son in the flesh once more, the last he expected was to see the snarl of his teeth and feel his fists colliding with his chest. Jorginho just took it. After all, who could blame him, really?

If anyone was suited to taking a pummeling then it was him after years and years of practiced combat. However, I know even now in far retrospect that he wished he could have come adorned – no, caged up – in the armor that he had laid to rest the year prior. If anything, it might have been helpful to protect his heart.

Jorginho couldn't stand to see Samuelo's pointed canines digging into his own full lower lip as he shoved him some more, tears pricking with anguish as not only his fists did the talking.

"I don't get you! I don't get you at all!" he raged barely five seconds after laying his gaze on his father for the first time in over a decade. Switching his tactic but not his attitude, his palms collided with the sturdiness of his father's chest rather than his closed fists taking one for the team. "You've had forever to talk to me! Why now?!"

In the same way that Jorginho did not have the time to silently ponder to himself, wondering what his son did not get, he shut his mind down from thinking other things and got to speaking his mind in return. Jorginho did not want silence to be between them for long after it had been the only thing present while his son grew up.

"Samuelo…" Jorginho spoke aloud a name rather than addressing both the fact that he would have to be more specific with what he didn't get and refrained from pointing out that there was one reason and one reason alone that they were even in the same room as each other.

After all those years, Samuelo had finally given up asking his mother for information and sought it himself, resulting him in locating the father he barely had enough fragments of good memories surrounding to make even a fraction of a parental picture.

"Don't!" Samuelo suddenly spat with one final blow of the angry bone of his hand towards the center of Jorginho's chest. It was lucky his heart probably couldn't be broken anymore. Samuelo couldn't stand someone who had walked out on him speaking his name as if he deserved to even whisper it. "I want to know where you've been all of these years!"

And with those words, the hands of Samuelo which had been dictating a lot of his demeanor finally fell away from his father and he took a step backwards as well, finger flicking underneath his nose as if he had been the one to receive any sort of punch.

Samuelo panted down towards his shoes, his shoulders rising and falling close to his ears and in these few seconds, it gave Jorginho a proper moment to not only consider his next move but to look at the shape that was his now seventeen-year-old son, his hand running over and soothing his chest.

God, he had never expected that their energies would feel so alike.

He could hardly feel it when he was around for him but funnily enough, the distance had somehow morphed him into a chip off the old family block. Whoever they all were.

While those earth-bound eyes in which they both shared were melting in the sockets of Jorginho, within Samuelo they were hardening, like a bar of chocolate that had spent so much time in the freezer it was hard to tell if they were more treat or more ice.

Samuelo took another step back, looking down to the side and at the carpet rather than his own shoes. He refused to look at his father anymore. He wasn't a true father anyway.

It was this wordless message that got sent to Jorginho without being spoken that encouraged him to find his voice after a good minute or two.

"Those are some pretty big questions and I do intend to get into them." He began and despite their estrangement, Samuelo could sense but from the get-go, even if that word didn't come. "Why don't we start with some simpler things first and build our way up?"

If that wasn't a risk, then his next move certainly was. But if anybody had been watching then it would have been clear that Jorginho was not naïve to this from the way that in between breaking the distance with his son, his right shoulder moved closer to his ear. He moved round the side of him, closer to the sofas in the room and taking footsteps like he was avoiding a king of the jungle hungry to feast on anything.

Anyone.

Jorginho's hand moved away from his body and tentatively gestured towards the sofas in the waiting area of the tattoo studio, already preparing for Samuelo to not even see what he was offering from the way that he refused to look at him.

He waited to be rejected either way.

To his surprise, after a few ticking noises of the clock hands clinging onto the wall for dear life, Samuelo copied a similar sort of stance and retired to one of the dark green suede sofas, plopping himself down with no regard to what sort of noise or impression he made.

Jorginho of course knew it was not because he felt at home. But he could at least sense his son's head facing straight ahead even if his pupils were still dropped down when he quietly seated himself on the sofa opposite, not smothering him by plopping down next to him.

Jorginho waited for Samuelo to speak and didn't care how long it took, wanting him to find his voice again and not just because, as far as politeness was, he had been the last one to speak. It wouldn't have been a major issue had he yelled at him again either.

Unlike the shoving and the enclosed fists colliding with his chest, he had anticipated quite a lot of that when reuniting with his son.

"Suppose you don't have any questions for me?" Samuelo suddenly cut the silence with his words and attempted to slice his father's demeanor with them as well. In the second after they hit the air, his eyes locked firmly onto him, even if they flickered from left to right in the width of a hair. "You might have prepared some."

Struggling to make himself comfy on a sofa that was usually like coming home to fresh flowers and bed linen at the end of a long day, Jorginho had one foot flat on the floor and his other leg was beginning to cross over it in a wide stance, one of his hands clutching onto his own canvas shoe.

He managed to ignore the dig, even if his soft brown eyes that told a very different tale appeared very round inside sockets of white. Jorginho had to be careful that his natural enticing gaze wasn't misconstrued and Samuelo believed that he was trying to act all harmless and innocent.

"How's Mom?" he asked, his own stare twitching between the sole of his shoe and the presence of his son, thinking this was a reasonable question to ask. And when he did consider changing his inquiry, he second guessed whether he should have added a your in front of the word Mom, before thinking it was fine how it was.

Samuelo deemed this question neither reasonable nor fine. He suddenly looked as though Jorginho had stolen one of the incense sticks from James' office and shoved them inside his ears from the way that smoke practically oozed from them. His nostrils flared as if this same smoke needed another avenue to escape from.

Jorginho's eyes travelled upwards as Samuelo was back on his feet once more.

"What's it to you?!" he snapped yet again, causing his father's eyes to momentarily fan shut and begin to see his ex-wife in the full formation of his son rather than just streaks of himself. "What gives you the right to ask after her?! You left her!" Jorginho's eyes were back open, so he watched Samuelo sink back down to his sofa after these words bulleted from him before other, softer words breezed out once his bottom hit the forest suede. "You left me…"

Jorginho was changing his stance all over again. The balls of both of his feet inside his boots were planted on the floor below and his spine was no longer wedged against the back of the sofa, curving it forward instead and clasping both of his hands together in his lap.

That hurt more than any shove Samuelo could have mustered up.

His brown eyed gaze shone but like the last few hours of daylight at the end of summer rather than the beginning of a new morning.

"I never forgot you…" Jorginho disagreed, as if this made the world of difference. Fortunately, he twigged his mistake quicker this time and before Samuelo's eyes could burn into him and wish him out of existence. But the truth was, he had snuffed his own fire out with the last words that had tumbled out of him. "I did what I believed was right at the time."

It seemed from that moment on and, in hindsight, that from the second that they interlocked eyes for the first time in more than a decade, they were never going to be able to keep it short and simple. They were never going to be able to bond over a random football team or a song on the radio. They were never going to comment on the weather, and for Jorginho to ask Samuelo how his flight was.

They were always going to end up throttling headfirst into the nitty gritty.

This time as Samuelo asked the question, he spoke it rather than yelled it. And maybe therefore he at least got an answer rather than silence.

"What about all the years between back then and now…?" he asked a brand-new question before the old desire for knowledge crept back into his taut throat and the same one came back around again. "Why now? Why talk to me now when you've had forever?"

For a reoccurring occasion, Jorginho had the chance to speak out that it was Samuelo who had got in contact with him and it was him who had wanted to meet. But it wasn't even fortunate that Jorginho avoided speaking of this, it was plain common sense to zip his lip.

Jorginho might have had enough common sense as well as self-control to keep this quiet, but he couldn't hold back the truth even if it had done the opposite of set him free for all the years before.

The hairs at the back of his neck felt the tufting motion of a hand that was clad in two rings, one on the pinky finger and one on the finger right next to it.

Samuelo tried to ignore that the answer to his question might have something to do with the new life his father led as well as that wedding band of his. He doubly tried to ignore that that life of his could have very well been why he had left his life of him and his mother behind.

"Well, because you asked me to see you." At first, Jorginho spoke his truth as if it was as easy as saying one more shot, please when he ordered his expresso coffee in the morning. But then, as the hairs closest to the nape of his neck experienced a continual tugging motion of the hand, his words elaborated, and his own eyes dropped down for the first time. "And for as long as I can remember, I told myself that no matter how nauseous it made me feel, that I had to absolutely not turn you down when and if you were ever ready to see me again…"

Samuelo could feel something itching to tug at the corner of his own mouth and even he couldn't tell if it was anger, or it was… slight amusement?

Hurt. In the end, he told himself that it was hurt. Of course, it was that. Why would it make a father so sick to see a child?

Oh wait.

Jorginho had never wanted him, had he? He had never said that and not even his mother had said that. But it was kind of obvious from growing up without him and him only accepting the chance to see him once he was on the cusp of adulthood.

Samuelo voiced exactly this. His own version of level-headed truth seeped out of him.

"There was certainly a time in my life when the last thing I wanted was to connect with you…" he began and instead of presenting himself in any other way, Jorginho's mouth wordlessly pressed together, showing a dimple like a rotting piece of fruit and his eyebrows twitching above his round eyes. "But when I was very young, I asked to see you all the time. Mom said she would ask you. And she said she never heard back."

Jorginho began to suddenly feel like a sofa that might as well been his own was suddenly turning on him. It had become a monster, swallowing him down and down to the pits of its stomach in between the cushions.

Despite, however, what he may have been feeling on the inside, from the exterior, he seemed cool as a cucumber. That was something that he had drummed into himself on that morning regarding how he needed to come across every second of his interactions with his son. And certainly not to score any sort of points with him.

His hand reconnecting with the other one across his lap for comfort, Jorginho briefly licked his upper lip beneath where the moustache part of his beard clung to his skin before it even had the opportunity to glisten with sweat.

He considered not speaking the truth that time so as not to paint his ex-wife badly given how Samuelo had reacted towards him being thoughtful. But then, words burst out from his throat.

His nostrils inside his strong nose quivered.

"This is news to me, Samuelo…" he said, and he felt the heavy clamminess of regret settling inside his stomach from the second that he risked a similar reaction as before from saying his son's name, let alone having even more to process on that day. Jorginho's prominent Adam's apple bobbed like a lost buoy on the waves. "My contact with your mother has been just for bank transfers since we got divorced and all I've been able to say to you through her is a simple wish of wellness."

Jorginho realized that these messages surely must've been lost in the ether if communications from Samuelo to him rang out between them even if the actual words could not be heard.

He had read so much within his son's face during the barely fifteen minutes that they had been in one and other's company. The nauseated anxiety which had turned to silence. The inability to find words that had become able to find every word under the sun and all of them fueled with rage and despair!

And now, the processing of it all.

Along with that became of course sheer shock.

Jorginho prepared that rejection would now follow. He could tolerate being painted as somewhat of a monster just about. But he did not know if he could handle Samuelo wondering if there was something wrong with him if not only his father had walked out of his life, but his mother had decided some massive things for him before he was old enough to make the decisions himself.

"Why…?" Samuelo wondered as his own back was dragged towards the hungry opening of the two sofa cushions, leaving Jorginho with the bitter realization at the back of his throat that their interactions and his answers were only going to get more complicated and more complicated still.

Jorginho's beard felt the swiping motion of his entire hand smothering it and even engulfed part of his nose as he portrayed this gesture to not only soothe himself but to find some answers as if the truth was somehow located in between the greying tufts of his facial hair.

He knew at once that, while he couldn't possibly know what possessed his ex-wife to betray him in this way, he also had once cared for her enough to have a bit of an idea. All the same, as many answers as he had, he hoped that it all boiled down to the same thing.

After all, he trusted that he had left Samuelo in the greatest hands of all by handing the full custody of him over to his mother.

"I would imagine that it was to protect you." Jorginho suggested, surprised at himself when the curved dip of his lower lip managed to speak the word imagine rather than hope. Now that his hand was no longer occupied with his beard and was resting his wrist on his kneecap, it dawned on him how much he wished he had a cigarette there, even if he had given that up with the birth of his twin daughters.

That, however, was something Samuelo didn't need to know straight away, and he would have to play that conversation equally as gently as all the others.

Jorginho with no cigarette in hand, watched as, although this was certainly the last thing he wanted to do and his was a portrayal of sudden apprehension rather than cooling that fluttering heartbeat down, Samuelo moved his spine away from the back of his sofa and sat with his own legs spread in a wide stance.

All his front teeth rather than just his canines were digging into his lower lip this time and, though he didn't have the same dimples as his father in the slightest, his jaw was practically a complete copy of the man who came before him as it contorted, not only processing all he had heard before but these words coming from his father.

The lines on the palms of his hands threatened to shed tears and Jorginho knew why. This had the potential to shatter his heart more than anything before.

"Protect me…?" he repeated, and all his father could do was nod gravely. This caused an already misunderstanding Samuelo to feel his hands moistening further still. "Why would she need to protect me…?"

Had Samuelo uttered the words protect me from you, Jorginho might've been more likely to defend himself, doing everything in his power to make sure that he knew what kind of man he was, even if he hadn't had the chance to grow up knowing him because of a natural bond that same with being father and son.

But even if it jumped to his mind and his heart too so very vehemently that, despite how it might have looked, Samuelo's best interests were always at the forefront of every part of him, there was something inside him that made him reconsider his stance, playing ignorant instead.

After all, wasn't it better to lose a father who might have posed as a threat than to lose a father that loved you with every intermittent beat of his distanced heart?

"I don't know…" Jorginho's head twitched from side to side and then, out of nowhere he was standing, and it was Samuelo's turn to be encouraged to follow the movement upwards. His son didn't catch sight of him reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a full wad of envelopes until he was sat back down again. "Probably the same reason that all of these never made their way to you either..."

And with that, Jorginho ran the biggest risk in his life since agreeing to meet with Samuelo. Heck, it was bigger than the day that the divorce papers were completed and all he was to be for the lad was a provider of cheques without proper contact.

It was probably one of the biggest risks of his life. And that was saying something!

Jorginho moved towards Samuelo, and this made him jump but he needn't have worried. No matter how much that there was pretty much only a single shard of Jorginho's heart left thanks to several things as well as him wondering if he was someone to fear, he did not show that he noticed his son's reaction.

He merely focused on placing the wad of envelopes upon the coffee table that broke the distance between their two sofas. Samuelo's earthy eyes dropped down. Immediately, it became apparent to him that there were easily more of them than birthdays than he had had since he last saw his father in the flesh so that was why he told himself that they couldn't be any sort of card inside

This confidence in his own ignorance caused his hand to rather quickly reach out and take hold of them all. However, that certainty began to melt like winter snow on the edge of a windowsill when he took in the dates written on the flap that sealed the envelopes shut.

January 22nd appeared over and over as well as a few other repeating dates.

Some first day of school. Other's Christmas Day. One of them had been rather recent, in fact, citing an estimated guess for a last day of a school year.

Jorginho didn't even know if Samuelo was still in school, or had dropped out like he had.

This onslaught of knowledge as well as the fact that the address had been scribbled out from the front with return to sender glaring from each one of them caused Samuelo to rid himself of the wad.

It was as if they were diseased and he needed to half clutch at his throat instead.

He could barely speak through the barbed wire trapped inside there. It was funny how he had tried to bitterly encourage Jorginho to ask him things and now it was him who wanted the answers.

"I don't understand…" Was his initial uttering though, of course, Jorginho could see as clear as the day that they were having outside of the window if either of them bothered to look that Samuelo was piecing together a different side rather quickly. He just had to hope that he could absorb it rather than rejecting it like could sometimes be the case when undiluted honesty burned. "Why… Why would she do that?" his eyes locked onto his father in such a way that Jorginho's own throat contorted, unable to guess where his son's gaze ended and his own one began. "She… She told me that you hadn't ever wanted to know, not even when you were around."

Ouch.

Jorginho's own hand raised to his throat as that time, he could have sworn that not only were thorns creeping up close to his tonsils, but they had managed to vine their way onto the outside to, choking him more than he had ever been choked before.

He tried to tell himself that he had been prepared for something like this because why else would he have not heard anything back after attempts to all meet since he had given up quite a long time ago? He had always tried to tell himself that Caira would have been reasonable to people about him, just like he was nonchalant about her during the few times he opened up to people about that time in his life.

Nothing malicious needed to prevail even if things had once taken a bitter turn.

As Jorginho preferred to remember it, the two of them had just discovered themselves expecting a baby while not really being ready to commit to each other and that in itself had been the start to a lot of problems.

He didn't encourage torturous memories surrounding his ex-wife to linger. Sure, her fiery demeanor was something he had tried and failed to reign in and he knew that had been a mistake. It had always been either her way or the highway.

Well, that was evidently still the case from what Samuelo had told him about her.

There was nearly a small part of him that wished his son was lying. That Caira had not said anything about him at all and this was Samuelo's way of getting answers for himself, this was his way of goading his father into finding out more.

Jorginho couldn't tell either way. But one thing he could do was tell Samuelo things the way that he saw them.

God, his fingers had never been so itching for that familiar brown and white paper in between them!

"Love makes you do the most unimaginable things sometimes." Jorginho told his son, for a brief moment his pointer finger and middle finger making their way to the front of his parted lips like he really was inhaling a cigarette, taking answers into his lungs as well as smoke. "And if there's anything I know about your mother, then it's that love can give her the strength to do a lot of things."

Jorginho did not add the words good and bad at the end of his sentence. Instead, he allowed images to fill his mind of his ex-wife, as he was sure that Samuelo was experiencing with visions of that same woman that was his mother.

While quite fond memories of their time together made their way from the back crevices of his mind up towards the light of day in Jorginho's head – their summer romance together where there was nothing but passion and heat and discovery which ended in the discovery of her being pregnant – very different flashes were crackling through Samuelo's mind.

What once was a mother who showed up for him no matter what was the breeding hot and sticky fear that he only had her unfaltering loyalty because she had made him trust in her and only her. What normally filled his mind when he thought of the woman who screamed at the top of her lungs at concerts with him was the flashforward that she might use her vocal cords to scream in a different way when she found out that his trip over to Kanto was to see his father rather than a long-distance friend.

Samuelo suddenly wondered if her hesitance to speak any detail of the man that was his father was because she didn't really know him. Hadn't even bothered to get to know him and his heart even if she had birthed their child with him by her side.

He did not know why he chose to ask; he knew these words would come out sounding like a croaky creature caught in a thunderstorm.

"Did you love her…?" Samuelo asked Jorginho in as a coherent voice as he could, his palm roaming to his throat for a different reason as the front of it ached so very much before he even heard the words coming from his father.

He had always imagined that there was no way that he possibly could have. He had run out on her, hadn't he? If there was any sort of continual love, then it was shown by flaunting cash rather than offering something real, something tangible, something… heartfelt.

Samuelo did not know whether he should have been relieved or cut open all over again when Jorginho offered him an answer he was not expecting.

"I… I cared for Caira so very much." Jorginho began, his spine seeking the comfort of the back of the sofa all over again now it was no longer a monster and even if it was, there was nothing he could fear more than the realization that he had made an even graver mistake that he had once believed. Samuelo looked down when he heard his mother's name escaping from Jorginho for the first time. "But I never knew of love until…" This was the first time the truth would have to wait. One step at a time, Jorginho reminded himself. Samuelo's eyes were dry again when he looked back over at Jorginho. "This is no reflection on your mother. Love in that way wasn't discovered truly by me until rather recently."

Samuelo's eyes were dropping down again from only just managing to look ahead and this time, they flicked down once again to the ring upon his father's finger. Whether or not he predicted that his son was aware of the truth or not, Jorginho didn't change his behavior and still massaged both of his hands together, inadvertently hiding and then revealing the ring back to his son over and over again.

Jorginho had chosen his words purposefully for a reason. He, however, was not entirely shocked when Samuelo chose to ask him this next question too, his voice no longer like it didn't belong to him and sounding instead like a creature whose gift of a voice had been taken from him entirely.

Samuelo's canines momentarily dug back into his lower lip, but he could not hide the tremble of an unwanted leaf.

"Did you love me…?" he asked, and this was the question that had the power to shatter the last shard of Jorginho's for good.

Fortunately, he did not allow that to happen and even if it threatened to, he turned that twitch into adrenaline.

Jorginho was suddenly standing. His hands were no longer clasping together and were down by his sides not clenching there either. They were free for the first time in a long time.

"I loved you more than the number of breaths I've taken in my lifetime." He told his son, the brightness of the yellow linen shirt he was wearing for the occasion appearing very sallow in comparison to the tomato flush that captured hold of and blotched the skin of his thick neck. "And I know I could love you even more if I was given the opportunity to know you again now that you understand that you don't need to choose sides.

In hindsight, I was wrong. Jorginho took the greatest risk next.

I gather that even he knew what he was risking even if his body didn't as it was that that controlled the rest of him and marched him – well, he still approached like a jungle cat could eat him alive at any moment – but before either of them knew it, Samuelo was no longer alone on the sofa and his father was sat right next to him, peering at him.

Jorginho wasn't expecting anything. Or if he was, he was expecting a reaction like this next one. That meant that he probably should have prevented it but then again, his body was leading the rest of him there and then, wasn't it?

The sides of Samuelo's rich neck were suddenly held by both of his own hands and then he was not exactly on his own feet, but he was scooting away from Jorginho.

Even if he anticipated something like this, the older male could not stop his eyes of the same hue as his son's skin from looking even more like discs inside white sockets.

"I-I'm still processing suddenly seeing my mom very differently, so I don't need…" Samuelo trailed off, feeling the flush of his neck through the skin of his hands but it not being visible on the outside even as those hands of his moved away, flapping towards his father. Jorginho twitched and was back on his feet again. "Can we not do this right now?"

Obediently, Jorginho retook his seat back on his sofa and he folded his arms over his chest as he nodded his head, both at himself for suspecting this kind of reaction as well as in response to his son's words.

In addition to their likeness being unable to stop Jorginho from wondering where his gaze ended and his sons began, he could not ignore the strange parallels of their lives and, whether Samuelo wanted to hear it or not, he touched a little bit on what.

"Sure." Jorginho spoke and this was his way of an apology. His strong arms remained wrapped around the sunshine of his shirt even while the color popped all over again now that the flush of his own neck had calmed down. "The lessons surrounding learning of your parent as a parent as well as an individual are tricky ones to navigate. I know that."

And catching Jorginho off guard, instead of Samuelo wordlessly snarling at him, telling him that he barely felt that he knew him so why he would wish to know his parents as well, he felt his son's brown eyes searching for his, willing him – no, wanting him - to share a little more.

And so, Jorginho complied.

After all, whether he liked it or not, it was his blood as well. And way back then probably heavily influenced not only the path in life that he would go on to take, but his choices surrounding fatherhood too.

Samuelo heard all about Jorginho's birth mother, Jennifer, as well as his father, Javier or, Javi, as he was known to everybody else. Javi was the love of her life. They had been only teenagers when they met and fell in love and fell further still as she became pregnant with Jorginho. Javi vowed to marry her and support her and love until the end of his day.

Life had other plans. But he did love her until the end of his days.

Team Aqua and fleeing to the Hoenn Region amid crises in his home region was meant to be the promise of their future together with their little baby but it resulted in his death. Heartbroken, Jennifer felt there was no way she could continue to raise baby Jorginho without the love of her life and went back to Paldea with her parents, and Jorginho was eventually put up for adoption in a whole other region.

He was happy enough. He found his way into the life of a frowny older gentleman and although because of his age he was more like a grandparent than a parent, he can't say that he didn't flourish. That was until his adoptive parent passed away as well.

But that wasn't the end of his story.

Somehow, fate intervened when Jennifer's mind searched for the memory of that child that she had decided to give up all those years ago from the moment that she birthed another baby boy with her new partner in life, Peter. Those haunting brown eyes had catapulted both the past and the present towards her when her own father, Makoa, had managed to hunt her first born down who was then a teenager.

Jorginho was to be raised by his birth mother once more. But because he was not the son of Peter, unlike their new son, Sammy, who was to be raised under the influence that they were an idyllic family, Jennifer had to pretend to be Jorginho's aunt rather than his mother.

He knew the truth almost immediately. He always sensed the truth. Eventually, Jennifer knew that he knew the truth. Sammy knew something. He didn't know what he knew. But he knew something was going on.

That was why Jorginho related to Samuelo in a way, and he spoke of this in those few words of his.

He still did not know why Jennifer had chosen to go along with all of this. It was hard for him to fathom what kind of mother could brush aside their maternal urges to simply put food on the table for a teenager and to provide a room.

But then again, he had grown up to behave similarly, hadn't he?

Even at the age he was then, each day he learned more that life wasn't black and white in the slightest. It was a whole array of color. Sometimes it could bring sunshine hues like his shirt. But others, blueness like the veins connecting both him and Samuelo could befall in a single second.

Blackness risked presenting itself when Jorginho finally finished filling his son in and it seemed that Samuelo had just a few words for him, and those few words had the potential to cut deep.

"Is all this one of the reasons that you never felt ready to be a father? That's one of the things that my mother did tell me about you." Samuelo left Jorginho merely nodding his head with his hand back against his beard rather than wondering if his son's imagination had got the better of him at times. "That's no excuse."

The bobbing motion of Jorginho's dome of a head faltered for a minute as he instinctively considered but then with a breath tumbling out from his nostrils, he didn't hesitate to continue, having made peace the year before that he didn't have many excuses. In fact, he hadn't had any and didn't intend to use any.

Like he had said before, he had done what he felt right at the time. They both had done what they felt had been right at the time. And despite what he had heard as well, he still felt that it wasn't entirely wrong. And he wished to express that.

"I'm not offering you excuses." Jorginho said from partially behind a hand as it massaged his own beard before that hand trickled away, his wrist resting back against the bone of his knee and this time not wishing for a cigarette. He wished only to speak from his heart which had been an equally long time coming. "I've had a lot of turmoil over my choices in life over the years but one thing I've been able to make peace with is that I know I left you in the best care." Jorginho's words sounded, and they sounded convincingly. He wasn't merely trying to convince himself as much as his son. "You have one of the best mothers in the world in Caira and I'm not sure how much I would have really added to your life."

Samuelo had always believed that it didn't matter how much or little a father could offer, and despite his upbringing, it had nestled inside his heart that it was always better to have two present parents no matter the situation.

Jorginho had never been able to provide with what he wished. From the barriers of his own heart when he was actually present to the terms in which he felt he needed to agree to during the divorce of him and Caira. In the most recent of years, obedience was all that had been expected of him. And so, all that he had offered came out of his wallet.

Until that moment there and then. Not that either of them knew it, but that was a bit of a turning point.

Samuelo was drawing backwards all over again, however, this time, it wasn't as far back as the back cushions of the sofa. He added merely a couple of added inches extra distance between him and his father. And then, as the words came to his mind, he couldn't help but say them.

He said even more with the diamond that Jorginho caught clinging to his pupil and the way that his head moved from side to side.

"It's funny… It sounds like you did love her." Samuelo observed and, not that either of them realized it, but it was this realization that would encourage Samuelo to figure out that, because he had been wrong about this, there were also a lot of other things that he had been mistaken about.

Jorginho did not know what it was at first – whether it was the words themselves or the sheer adrenaline at seeing something in his son's eyes that wasn't merely hatred – but something washed over him that gave him the urge to chuckle.

It started with the smallest puffs of air escaping from his lips before following on with his mouth stretching as wide as he would allow given the circumstances. While his dimples didn't fully appear as much as they normally would, they were no longer sad pieces of rotten fruit. Two lines appeared between Jorginho's eyebrows, and his shoulders shook at the last parts of his giggle before restraining himself.

So very thankfully, Samuelo was not offended by the laughter. He wasn't exactly magnetized like a lot of people were when Jorginho's full nature was shared. But he himself didn't close up in the same way that his father often could.

And it was this in which allowed him to hear.

"I suppose in the only feeble way that I knew how, I must have loved her more than I allowed myself to conceive back then." Jorginho conceded and as Samuelo's mouth pressed together, he could have sworn that the tiniest fragment of a dimple had been passed there. "Even with all the time that has passed, one thing has always remained true." His broad chest elevated outwards and the gap in between his citrus hued shirt felt the company of an unravelling palm. Samuelo watched his every move and so saw that hand stretch out towards him in the very next second. "Whatever Caira did or she didn't do, I trust that she did more than I ever could have done and has raised quite the well-rounded young man."

And with that as Jorginho allowed himself to have a couple of breaths to reflect, gone was the image of all of the tense versions of his son that he had seen, and he instead took note of the more open person that he had allowed himself to be during their meeting.

The kid with curious eyes as he actually had wanted to hear about his father's family and upbringing. That same person who, while he made it clear there was no room for excuses, had wanted to hear Jorginho out anyway. And then he had become the kid with the diamond in his eye.

Jorginho still did not know why it had been there. But it had been there. And that was everything.

That was a glimmer of hope. He didn't mind if they went back to being strangers from that day forward. He just knew they both needed to know each other better. So, they could decide what role they could play in each other's lives without it being decided for them.

Samuelo did not quite know how to react to compliments! Unlike his father, his expression did not become a ray of sunshine and he certainly did not hide behind flamboyant gestures and by showing off crow's feet that indicated pure joy. He did not even show any of this after receiving compliments from that same father.

However, like the glint in his eye, there was something there and it caused his nose to scrunch before he was suddenly on his feet for the first time in a little while.

For another breath, Jorginho this time felt as if his breath was going to falter. For a horrible single second, he feared that it was finally compliments as well as his previously gesticulating outstretched hand that had made Samuelo decide that the meeting should then be over.

"If it's all the same to you," he began, and Jorginho's eyes followed his son upwards like he was suddenly the one in control. It was probably time seeing as both of his parent's shortcomings had dictated so much of his life! "I'd quite like to hear about you and Mom and how you met and all of that."

And with that, Samuelo was sitting again but this time, he had chosen to sit down on a different sofa. He was right next to his father.

Jorginho only seconds before had been so very certain that if his son had wanted to walk out of there that, despite him preparing to make peace with not seeing one and other after that day, what he wanted was for that day not to end so his eyes could have surely sprung tears.

Once he heard these words coming from Samuelo, he blinked as if the waterfalls had already presented themselves and then it was sheer relief rather than anything else that stretched his mouth wide.

Amusingly, he hadn't barely taken a single glance around the room that they were in but it was words belonging to his best friend that owned that tattoo parlor that formed on the tip of his tongue.

"Sure." He agreed and even though he should have been jumping for joy at this wisp of acceptance from his son, he suddenly was very shy about it all and it was his turn to be on his feet all over again. However, his grin still didn't falter down at Samuelo even if his knees were twitching inside his blue linen trousers. "Let's go for a walk and I'll fill you in."

And with that, among everything that Jorginho could not have anticipated on that day, it was the way that, while Samuelo did not break a smile up at him, the eyes that they shared fixed up at him while he stood, and he was caught off guard by his son sharing something else with him instead.

It was amazing how words travelled from person to person, connecting them all.

"Sure." Samuelo mirrored that word back to Jorginho and then he too chose to stand and, unlike his father who was apparently comfortable the way that he was, moved over to the hook on the door to retrieve his light jacket that he had discarded when he first was invited in. He wasn't used to the Kanto weather like Jorginho was! "But after that and showing me the sights of the grounds too, you have to give me a tour of this room as well." Samuelo's hand that was not reaching for his jacket waved, gesturing around the tattoo parlor. "It's wizard in here!"

And you might have believed that Jorginho would have been caught off guard, dumfounded at how on earth his sort of language had made way into his son with their level of zero contact. While it was true that he stood there, taking in all that Samuelo had to offer, it was when he turned to his side to dress himself in his jacket that everything hit him like a tsunami.

It was funny how it was observing how unlike from the side they were that made Jorginho realize that there would be similarities that he could not wait to notice. And furthermore, there was differences that he was excited to learn as well.

Because, like he had said, whatever was there and whatever wasn't had made quite the character. Feisty to be sure and that could present problems! He would have to be careful that his desire to choose sides didn't villainize either his ex-wife or himself. But at least Samuelo stood up for what he believed in. And at least whatever kind of person he was, he had been given a chance.

He was touched more than you might think that he wanted to know the stories of the room that they were in as well. He supposed when he looked back that he had no idea that the neutral ground would end up capturing his attention, and that too gave him the hope that they could at least bond as friends if nothing else.

Jorginho knew he might be able to finally crack a grin with some of the tales of that office! But, for the time being as that same man grabbed his keys and opened the door for his son, it was to be stories of his first ever relationship that would be given the light of day next.

He had already heard way back into his past and the ring on his finger gave him a glimpse of what had occurred after they departed each other's lives. But next was the life in which had intertwined both of theirs from Samuelo's first breath.

But for us all, that's for another day!

After all, things are best taken one day at a time, aren't they? You can never have too much too quickly. And, to tell you the truth, there are some things that need to be spaced out. Otherwise, you can scarcely see the full picture!

The End.

There you go! Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed :) So yes, Mr I've-Never-Had-A-Serious-Relationship aka Jorginho used to be married and very much has a son! He is full of secrets :D I actually wrote this one a year ago now and it was partially inspired by a book I was reading at the time called Conditional Love. I certainly don't want to make Jorginho out to be a saint - and his ex-wife, Caira, to be the villain. They both had their faults in the relationship. It's hard to imagine that someone as caring as Jorginho would be willing to give up his son and only provide money. But he had his reasons. We'll learn more about them one day I'm sure, aside from the effect that his upbringing had on him. Samuelo is certainly a fiery spirit! He's one of those characters that is so clear in my mind and I hope to tackle him more one day. This occasion is the first step in a long journey for both father and son. And like Jorginho muses, it won't be plain sailing :D Thanks again for reading and I will be back again on Wedesday with another chapter! Thanks if you've picked up with me again after the hiatus, I appreciate it :)

Amy signing out!