It Is Not Good That Man Should Be Alone
It Is Not Good That Man Should Be Alone
By Mushroom
A/N: Inspired by a friend’s story. Song by Sharon Cuneta. Title by God. Birthday fic for my sweetheart, followthecor.
It takes a man and a woman
One magic moment
To know they're in heaven
It takes a man and a woman
To feel what we're feelin'
And ain't it a miracle that
You'd take a woman like me
To love a man like you.
He holds his lover’s slim hips firmly and slides inside him, slowly, gradually, a deceptive slayer whose love was strict and rough. Feeling the walls tighten around him in near-suffocation makes him close his eyes tightly and push. Deep. Hot and wet. Like a reckless tongue searching for sweetness. His lover’s hands grip the sides of the white, pristine sink, and they tremble in silence. Freedom swells inside him-it’s like the first day of school. It’s like Christmas. It’s just like his first time on a bicycle, after scarred knees and aching elbows, zooming through the streets as houses transform into messy, colourful lines.
It was Nathan’s idea. For fun, he chuckles, before pulling down his pants in excitement.
Both men watch themselves in the mirror, fascinated. Nathan’s mouth is attached to the portion between Daniel’s neck and shoulder while he bites his lips, and the sight drives them both mad. Soon they move against each other like crazed men; they push, back and forth, and the noises they make are completely filthy. Daniel, in particular, gives out a loud groan that glues itself to his lover’s lips.
A single, final thrust brings out an unceremonious gasp from Daniel, and Nathan falls forward, body against his back.
“Mmm. Get off. Heavy.”
The sound of panting rules the bathroom for several minutes, and when Daniel finally relaxes Nathan reaches for the towels to clean them up. Daniel twitches when Nathan rubs his back, but his touches are gentle so he relaxes again, falling for the gesture.
Nathan zips up his trousers, damp and sexed-up and beautiful. “Can you walk?”
“Of course I can!” retorts Daniel, but when he tries to step backward he falls towards the taller man’s chest. Before he tries to get away, Nathan scoops him up easily and walks to the bed, where they cuddle and rub noses beneath the blankets.
After an hour of dirty jokes and tickles, Nathan becomes contemplative. Which always means something. Daniel looks out the window while his boyfriend broods, observing the party lights in the neighbour’s house-red, yellow and orange, like twinkling suns.
“Hey, I was thinking…”
“What is it?” Daniel urges, snuggling beside Nathan in post-coital contentment.
“It’s been a year since we’ve gotten together, and there have been a lot of developments over the past several months, so…”
“Nathan…”
“Let’s break up.”
A pause. Daniel tears his gaze away from the window and tries to stop himself from running. He knew this would come, sooner or later, like a birthday gift just waiting to be unwrapped. Except today isn’t his birthday, and it seems like there will never be one.
Then he sighs and looks into Nathan’s determined eyes. “What brought this on?”
He nods. “This…whole thing is getting pretty risky. We should stop having dates and stuff. Remember Charles Alcid, the student council treasurer? He spotted us making out in the classroom. And Angie, she-she saw the marks on my neck, and they weren’t there before and appeared only when I emerged from the music room where you were practicing and,” He buries his head under the sheets and pulls his lover towards him, “I think my step mom knows.”
“That’s impossible,” Daniel says. “We’ve been so careful around her. I don’t even hold your hand in your house!”
“She saw your picture in my wallet.” Nathan whispers.
“Oh shit. Why the fuck did you place my picture in your wallet?!”
“It was your grad photo. You were cute.” Suddenly Nathan is a whiny ten-year-old, so unlike his reserved appearance. “And that’s why I have to break up with you. I know it hurts, but-“
“This is all your fault, then.” Daniel folds his arms and looks totally miffed. Stress on the totally, because his eyes are narrow with displeasure. “So! You’re dumping me after you’ve fucked me against the bathroom sink. Well, fuck you, Nathan. I never want to see you again.” He reaches for his trousers, but Nathan grabs his arm before he could run away.
“We can still be buddies,” Nathan says soothingly, still quite horny. “Drinking buddies. Think of this night as our farewell night. But it doesn’t mean we won’t see each other. We can still have sex if you want to. Just, you know. No strings attached.”
Never did Nathan seem so ugly; he was always so handsome, with his large hands and cocky grin, but now his hands are coarse, like rocky soil, and his grin a little too intense.
“Y-You’re such a coward, Nathan!” Daniel seethes, fighting the urge to cry because this is. Not. Happening.
“As if you can tell your own parents!” Nathan shoots back, glaring at him.
“It’s my mother.” Daniel has a hard-working father, a loving mom, and three other brothers. They are a picture-perfect family, always eating together when they had free time, always having picnics and get-togethers. “And I think she knows, too. What with all those things-stains on my bed. Shit, why aren’t you ever careful, Nathan? If you weren’t so enthusiastic about things then this, THIS would’ve worked out fine!”
“Hey, that wasn’t my fault-“
“You insisted on me sitting on your lap,” Daniel points out, voice rising, “It was bound to happen, being the…I don’t know, sex monster that you are!”
It’s quite difficult to explain, but Daniel is hurting badly; there is a creature within him, feasting on his innards, making him bleed on in the inside, and the blood threatens to gush out his mouth and nose.
“You were screaming for it!” protests Nathan, stung. “You were wearing leather pants! Who wears leather pants if not for fucking?!”
“You perverted shit!” Daniel gets up, ass still a little sore, but he manages to dress himself before bolting out the door and blocking Nathan’s indignant shouts from his ears.
He definitely did not expect bathroom sex to hurt so much.
It’s not that he’s ashamed of his love for Nathan. They’ve been going steady for a year now, a relationship instigated by flirtatious eye-blinking and wet dreams and bathroom cubicle sessions. They’ve only begun holding hands after three months, an awkward and memorable moment, yet they’ve grown obsessed with it in an instant.
So when Daniel stares at his hands and sees dry, lonely fingers, he can’t help but remember.
The next week, Nathan is spotted holding hands with a girl. She’s a Nursing student; perfect and fragile with her immaculate white dress and pretty ponytail.
Nathan introduces her to him.
“This is Daniel. He’s my best friend. Dan, this is my girl…”
He forgets her name a few seconds later.
“We’re drinking buddies.” Nathan explains, eyes looking everywhere but him. Daniel is the exact opposite. He notices his former lover’s arm around her waist, and it seems thinner, somehow. The cuffs are rumpled round his wrists, while his fingers are quiet and uninviting. Nathan is wearing tight pants-he’s so thin-and his shoes are unpolished and untied, a picture of gloom.
The girl says hello. She is quite sweet, really-so sweet and petite that he wants to break her.
“Hello,” Daniel nods once, busy looking at the silver ring on his finger.
After that significant exchange Daniel runs home crying and whines to his younger brother, a thirteen-year-old who plans on ruling the world with an army of little assembled robots. Jason is engrossed with the X-box but listens to his brother as he rants about the world’s end.
“Is it my fault, Jason?” Daniel asks, voice all croaky and pitiful. “Is it because I’m ugly? Is it because of my goatee?”
“Well, your goatee is kinda fugly.”
“JASON.”
“Listen, he obviously values his family. He’s scared to tell them, just like you. I think he’s hurt that you can’t tell your parents, and at the same time you’re hurt because he can’t tell his parents, and it all goes shitty from there. And because he’s trying to cope with the pain, he gets a girlfriend. To make himself feel good. And to build his straight image.” Jason finally defeats his opponent with one swift kick and grins at the screen in triumph.
Daniel picks up the other controller and selects a character, settling for an orange-haired girl in a schoolgirl outfit. “So what do I do?”
Jason raises an eyebrow at him. “You see…it’s a game. You get hit, you hit back.” He demonstrates by beating Daniel’s character into a pulp.
Daniel stares at the dead schoolgirl on the screen until their mother calls from downstairs, merrily announcing dinner.
Daniel gets himself a girlfriend.
She isn’t bad, really. In fact, she’s really cool in his standards. She isn’t afraid to run around screaming, and likes to have dates in arcades. However, she is smart. So after introducing her to Nathan, she slaps him outright and demands for damage charges.
“He’s my drinking buddy.” He says lamely. The day is bright and cheery, and it’s an awesome time for a stroll at the park, but they are standing in the middle of nowhere, and his girlfriend is crying like hell. People are looking at them, pointing and gasping loudly, and Daniel feels like he’s done something illegal.
“T-The way he touched your hand…“ she begins, then sobs all over again, pressing her handkerchief on her nose.
Daniel moves forward and embraces her. “You won’t tell, right? You won’t tell my mom.” All the while he feels the bulge of her breasts, and it feels so wrong, but he doesn’t push back because he really, really likes her.
“Of course I wouldn’t, you idiot.” She chokes, tears running down her cheeks, and Daniel wants to do the same, but he’s the bastard in this scenario.
Daniel’s mother is a religious woman. She has all these meetings with other middle-aged women in cramped shrines that forever smell of incense that make eyelids heavy and children rowdy, and they belt out songs of praise at the top of their lungs like possessed creatures. She heads the choir and composes most of the music, and sometimes Daniel helps her by playing the guitar during important events.
Once there was a wedding, and Daniel played for the wedding band. “Isn’t it romantic?” his mother gushed, eyes shining with adoration at the blooming couple. “Do you remember when your brothers got married? Their wives were such darlings in their wonderful wedding gowns, weren’t they? Isn’t it just lovely when a man and a woman are joined together in happiness?”
“I think weddings are troublesome. Think of all the expenses.” He answered automatically, and his mother disapproved of his unpleasant attitude and scolded him.
They both walk home together one evening, gaily chatting about their previous performances. Daniel’s mother is singing another song, another upbeat one, when they notice Nathan standing by their doorway clad in pale, green pyjamas.
Daniel freezes.
“Isn’t that your best friend?” His mother asks quietly.
“What’re you up to, Nathan?” Daniel calls out, unmoving.
“I just want to return some of your stuff.” Nathan answers. His hands are empty, fumbling with the buttons of his dress shirt.
“Oh.” Daniel looks down and imagines specks of blood on the pavement. Daniel’s mother clears her throat and makes her way inside their home before giving Nathan a curious look.
Before they know it they’re in Nathan’s car, making frantic love in the backseat like those horny teenagers you see in movies. Now that they're satisfied-tangled limbs and bleeding lips and hesitant smiles-Nathan informs him that he told his stepmother about them, and she threw a fit but recovered a few hours later; she needed him to drive her to work. They snort in unison, agreeing that women are so weird. A comfortable silence follows, and Daniel takes the opportunity to dive into the other man’s eyes.
"Why are you a guy..."
He releases the question in the air, waiting for an answer, but blood reaches his groin and suddenly it isn’t important anymore. Nathan is aware of this, because he replies by giving him a sloppy kiss that turns into something more serious.
“Would you like me to wear a wedding gown?” Daniel says aloud after another round of sex.
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing.” He wraps his arms round his lover’s neck and inhales. The car smells like him and Nathan and sex, something he missed dearly during the past months without him.
“See, you’re wearing leather pants.” Nathan jokes, all smiles and warmth.
Daniel laughs. “Go on, take me somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. Somewhere fun.”
Nathan crawls to the driver’s seat and takes him to the stars.
Breakfast is sunny side-ups and ketchup and sausages. Daniel wolfs down his food hurriedly, in a happy mood, and his mother admonishes him. His father is busy with the newspaper, reading the comics, while young Jason pokes at his food with interest.
“He’s going to be here any minute now,” Daniel reasons. Then he feels it. He feels the gale of bliss and his heart pounds, sending a rush of signals to every part of his body. There is a deafening noise plaguing his ears, like a telephone ringing, and his brain feeds him not images but words uttered by urgent, pleading voices, an offering of chance and time and eternity. It is breakfast, and it is time, now that his lover is waiting outside like how it should be when someone takes you away. He is in another world now, and nobody will truly understand.
It falls out, resembling restrained laughter.
“I’m gay, mother.”
He announces.
“I know.”
She answers. Then she looks at his other son sharply.
“Is there something you want to tell me as well?”
“I want a new laptop.” Jason answers obediently.
Their mother ignores him, and stares at her bare plate. “He’s that guy, huh? I’ve seen the, uhm, the..." She clears her throat, face red. "Nevertheless, Nathan’s a nice kid. Move along, then. You might be late for class.”
“Okay,” Daniel glances at his father for acknowledgement, but his face is unreadable, absorbed in the newspaper. “So I’ll see you guys later...?”
“Later,” his mother agrees. “Later we’ll go to church and-“
She breaks. The tears fall this time, like a stubborn typhoon, and this time their father puts down the newspaper and holds her hand, and it almost looks like he is about to dissolve into chuckles.
“Look at it this way. You said you’ve always wanted a daughter. So! Here you go.”
“But the grandchildren.” She moans. Daniel’s father allows her to sob on his chest, smoothing her hair, and tells Daniel to leave and arrive home early after school.
Daniel laughs. He ruffles Jason’s hair, slings his bag around his shoulder, and skips out the door to greet his boyfriend.
By Mushroom
A/N: Inspired by a friend’s story. Song by Sharon Cuneta. Title by God. Birthday fic for my sweetheart, followthecor.
It takes a man and a woman
One magic moment
To know they're in heaven
It takes a man and a woman
To feel what we're feelin'
And ain't it a miracle that
You'd take a woman like me
To love a man like you.
He holds his lover’s slim hips firmly and slides inside him, slowly, gradually, a deceptive slayer whose love was strict and rough. Feeling the walls tighten around him in near-suffocation makes him close his eyes tightly and push. Deep. Hot and wet. Like a reckless tongue searching for sweetness. His lover’s hands grip the sides of the white, pristine sink, and they tremble in silence. Freedom swells inside him-it’s like the first day of school. It’s like Christmas. It’s just like his first time on a bicycle, after scarred knees and aching elbows, zooming through the streets as houses transform into messy, colourful lines.
It was Nathan’s idea. For fun, he chuckles, before pulling down his pants in excitement.
Both men watch themselves in the mirror, fascinated. Nathan’s mouth is attached to the portion between Daniel’s neck and shoulder while he bites his lips, and the sight drives them both mad. Soon they move against each other like crazed men; they push, back and forth, and the noises they make are completely filthy. Daniel, in particular, gives out a loud groan that glues itself to his lover’s lips.
A single, final thrust brings out an unceremonious gasp from Daniel, and Nathan falls forward, body against his back.
“Mmm. Get off. Heavy.”
The sound of panting rules the bathroom for several minutes, and when Daniel finally relaxes Nathan reaches for the towels to clean them up. Daniel twitches when Nathan rubs his back, but his touches are gentle so he relaxes again, falling for the gesture.
Nathan zips up his trousers, damp and sexed-up and beautiful. “Can you walk?”
“Of course I can!” retorts Daniel, but when he tries to step backward he falls towards the taller man’s chest. Before he tries to get away, Nathan scoops him up easily and walks to the bed, where they cuddle and rub noses beneath the blankets.
After an hour of dirty jokes and tickles, Nathan becomes contemplative. Which always means something. Daniel looks out the window while his boyfriend broods, observing the party lights in the neighbour’s house-red, yellow and orange, like twinkling suns.
“Hey, I was thinking…”
“What is it?” Daniel urges, snuggling beside Nathan in post-coital contentment.
“It’s been a year since we’ve gotten together, and there have been a lot of developments over the past several months, so…”
“Nathan…”
“Let’s break up.”
A pause. Daniel tears his gaze away from the window and tries to stop himself from running. He knew this would come, sooner or later, like a birthday gift just waiting to be unwrapped. Except today isn’t his birthday, and it seems like there will never be one.
Then he sighs and looks into Nathan’s determined eyes. “What brought this on?”
He nods. “This…whole thing is getting pretty risky. We should stop having dates and stuff. Remember Charles Alcid, the student council treasurer? He spotted us making out in the classroom. And Angie, she-she saw the marks on my neck, and they weren’t there before and appeared only when I emerged from the music room where you were practicing and,” He buries his head under the sheets and pulls his lover towards him, “I think my step mom knows.”
“That’s impossible,” Daniel says. “We’ve been so careful around her. I don’t even hold your hand in your house!”
“She saw your picture in my wallet.” Nathan whispers.
“Oh shit. Why the fuck did you place my picture in your wallet?!”
“It was your grad photo. You were cute.” Suddenly Nathan is a whiny ten-year-old, so unlike his reserved appearance. “And that’s why I have to break up with you. I know it hurts, but-“
“This is all your fault, then.” Daniel folds his arms and looks totally miffed. Stress on the totally, because his eyes are narrow with displeasure. “So! You’re dumping me after you’ve fucked me against the bathroom sink. Well, fuck you, Nathan. I never want to see you again.” He reaches for his trousers, but Nathan grabs his arm before he could run away.
“We can still be buddies,” Nathan says soothingly, still quite horny. “Drinking buddies. Think of this night as our farewell night. But it doesn’t mean we won’t see each other. We can still have sex if you want to. Just, you know. No strings attached.”
Never did Nathan seem so ugly; he was always so handsome, with his large hands and cocky grin, but now his hands are coarse, like rocky soil, and his grin a little too intense.
“Y-You’re such a coward, Nathan!” Daniel seethes, fighting the urge to cry because this is. Not. Happening.
“As if you can tell your own parents!” Nathan shoots back, glaring at him.
“It’s my mother.” Daniel has a hard-working father, a loving mom, and three other brothers. They are a picture-perfect family, always eating together when they had free time, always having picnics and get-togethers. “And I think she knows, too. What with all those things-stains on my bed. Shit, why aren’t you ever careful, Nathan? If you weren’t so enthusiastic about things then this, THIS would’ve worked out fine!”
“Hey, that wasn’t my fault-“
“You insisted on me sitting on your lap,” Daniel points out, voice rising, “It was bound to happen, being the…I don’t know, sex monster that you are!”
It’s quite difficult to explain, but Daniel is hurting badly; there is a creature within him, feasting on his innards, making him bleed on in the inside, and the blood threatens to gush out his mouth and nose.
“You were screaming for it!” protests Nathan, stung. “You were wearing leather pants! Who wears leather pants if not for fucking?!”
“You perverted shit!” Daniel gets up, ass still a little sore, but he manages to dress himself before bolting out the door and blocking Nathan’s indignant shouts from his ears.
He definitely did not expect bathroom sex to hurt so much.
It’s not that he’s ashamed of his love for Nathan. They’ve been going steady for a year now, a relationship instigated by flirtatious eye-blinking and wet dreams and bathroom cubicle sessions. They’ve only begun holding hands after three months, an awkward and memorable moment, yet they’ve grown obsessed with it in an instant.
So when Daniel stares at his hands and sees dry, lonely fingers, he can’t help but remember.
The next week, Nathan is spotted holding hands with a girl. She’s a Nursing student; perfect and fragile with her immaculate white dress and pretty ponytail.
Nathan introduces her to him.
“This is Daniel. He’s my best friend. Dan, this is my girl…”
He forgets her name a few seconds later.
“We’re drinking buddies.” Nathan explains, eyes looking everywhere but him. Daniel is the exact opposite. He notices his former lover’s arm around her waist, and it seems thinner, somehow. The cuffs are rumpled round his wrists, while his fingers are quiet and uninviting. Nathan is wearing tight pants-he’s so thin-and his shoes are unpolished and untied, a picture of gloom.
The girl says hello. She is quite sweet, really-so sweet and petite that he wants to break her.
“Hello,” Daniel nods once, busy looking at the silver ring on his finger.
After that significant exchange Daniel runs home crying and whines to his younger brother, a thirteen-year-old who plans on ruling the world with an army of little assembled robots. Jason is engrossed with the X-box but listens to his brother as he rants about the world’s end.
“Is it my fault, Jason?” Daniel asks, voice all croaky and pitiful. “Is it because I’m ugly? Is it because of my goatee?”
“Well, your goatee is kinda fugly.”
“JASON.”
“Listen, he obviously values his family. He’s scared to tell them, just like you. I think he’s hurt that you can’t tell your parents, and at the same time you’re hurt because he can’t tell his parents, and it all goes shitty from there. And because he’s trying to cope with the pain, he gets a girlfriend. To make himself feel good. And to build his straight image.” Jason finally defeats his opponent with one swift kick and grins at the screen in triumph.
Daniel picks up the other controller and selects a character, settling for an orange-haired girl in a schoolgirl outfit. “So what do I do?”
Jason raises an eyebrow at him. “You see…it’s a game. You get hit, you hit back.” He demonstrates by beating Daniel’s character into a pulp.
Daniel stares at the dead schoolgirl on the screen until their mother calls from downstairs, merrily announcing dinner.
Daniel gets himself a girlfriend.
She isn’t bad, really. In fact, she’s really cool in his standards. She isn’t afraid to run around screaming, and likes to have dates in arcades. However, she is smart. So after introducing her to Nathan, she slaps him outright and demands for damage charges.
“He’s my drinking buddy.” He says lamely. The day is bright and cheery, and it’s an awesome time for a stroll at the park, but they are standing in the middle of nowhere, and his girlfriend is crying like hell. People are looking at them, pointing and gasping loudly, and Daniel feels like he’s done something illegal.
“T-The way he touched your hand…“ she begins, then sobs all over again, pressing her handkerchief on her nose.
Daniel moves forward and embraces her. “You won’t tell, right? You won’t tell my mom.” All the while he feels the bulge of her breasts, and it feels so wrong, but he doesn’t push back because he really, really likes her.
“Of course I wouldn’t, you idiot.” She chokes, tears running down her cheeks, and Daniel wants to do the same, but he’s the bastard in this scenario.
Daniel’s mother is a religious woman. She has all these meetings with other middle-aged women in cramped shrines that forever smell of incense that make eyelids heavy and children rowdy, and they belt out songs of praise at the top of their lungs like possessed creatures. She heads the choir and composes most of the music, and sometimes Daniel helps her by playing the guitar during important events.
Once there was a wedding, and Daniel played for the wedding band. “Isn’t it romantic?” his mother gushed, eyes shining with adoration at the blooming couple. “Do you remember when your brothers got married? Their wives were such darlings in their wonderful wedding gowns, weren’t they? Isn’t it just lovely when a man and a woman are joined together in happiness?”
“I think weddings are troublesome. Think of all the expenses.” He answered automatically, and his mother disapproved of his unpleasant attitude and scolded him.
They both walk home together one evening, gaily chatting about their previous performances. Daniel’s mother is singing another song, another upbeat one, when they notice Nathan standing by their doorway clad in pale, green pyjamas.
Daniel freezes.
“Isn’t that your best friend?” His mother asks quietly.
“What’re you up to, Nathan?” Daniel calls out, unmoving.
“I just want to return some of your stuff.” Nathan answers. His hands are empty, fumbling with the buttons of his dress shirt.
“Oh.” Daniel looks down and imagines specks of blood on the pavement. Daniel’s mother clears her throat and makes her way inside their home before giving Nathan a curious look.
Before they know it they’re in Nathan’s car, making frantic love in the backseat like those horny teenagers you see in movies. Now that they're satisfied-tangled limbs and bleeding lips and hesitant smiles-Nathan informs him that he told his stepmother about them, and she threw a fit but recovered a few hours later; she needed him to drive her to work. They snort in unison, agreeing that women are so weird. A comfortable silence follows, and Daniel takes the opportunity to dive into the other man’s eyes.
"Why are you a guy..."
He releases the question in the air, waiting for an answer, but blood reaches his groin and suddenly it isn’t important anymore. Nathan is aware of this, because he replies by giving him a sloppy kiss that turns into something more serious.
“Would you like me to wear a wedding gown?” Daniel says aloud after another round of sex.
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing.” He wraps his arms round his lover’s neck and inhales. The car smells like him and Nathan and sex, something he missed dearly during the past months without him.
“See, you’re wearing leather pants.” Nathan jokes, all smiles and warmth.
Daniel laughs. “Go on, take me somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. Somewhere fun.”
Nathan crawls to the driver’s seat and takes him to the stars.
Breakfast is sunny side-ups and ketchup and sausages. Daniel wolfs down his food hurriedly, in a happy mood, and his mother admonishes him. His father is busy with the newspaper, reading the comics, while young Jason pokes at his food with interest.
“He’s going to be here any minute now,” Daniel reasons. Then he feels it. He feels the gale of bliss and his heart pounds, sending a rush of signals to every part of his body. There is a deafening noise plaguing his ears, like a telephone ringing, and his brain feeds him not images but words uttered by urgent, pleading voices, an offering of chance and time and eternity. It is breakfast, and it is time, now that his lover is waiting outside like how it should be when someone takes you away. He is in another world now, and nobody will truly understand.
It falls out, resembling restrained laughter.
“I’m gay, mother.”
He announces.
“I know.”
She answers. Then she looks at his other son sharply.
“Is there something you want to tell me as well?”
“I want a new laptop.” Jason answers obediently.
Their mother ignores him, and stares at her bare plate. “He’s that guy, huh? I’ve seen the, uhm, the..." She clears her throat, face red. "Nevertheless, Nathan’s a nice kid. Move along, then. You might be late for class.”
“Okay,” Daniel glances at his father for acknowledgement, but his face is unreadable, absorbed in the newspaper. “So I’ll see you guys later...?”
“Later,” his mother agrees. “Later we’ll go to church and-“
She breaks. The tears fall this time, like a stubborn typhoon, and this time their father puts down the newspaper and holds her hand, and it almost looks like he is about to dissolve into chuckles.
“Look at it this way. You said you’ve always wanted a daughter. So! Here you go.”
“But the grandchildren.” She moans. Daniel’s father allows her to sob on his chest, smoothing her hair, and tells Daniel to leave and arrive home early after school.
Daniel laughs. He ruffles Jason’s hair, slings his bag around his shoulder, and skips out the door to greet his boyfriend.