I couldn’t actually believe my ears. I thanked her as I was about to leave but she invited me in. I told her there was no need but she insisted. I have nothing better to do anyway so maybe talking with his mother would make me feel less empty.

So I got in. His mother asked me to wait for a moment in a living room. They’ve got a medium sized living room and the walls were painted brown. The thing that caught my attention is the fluffy rug and pictures that were hung from the wall. I wanted to sit down but it wouldn’t hurt to stare at the pictures for a few seconds right?

Turning my head, I scanned whether she was around. I could hear her humming from the kitchen and figured she’d take enough time for me to look at the pictures. I walked to the pictures and scanned them one by one.

The first picture was a picture of Vic, I think. I knew it was Vic from his nose and lips. Mike had longer nose than Vic and their lips are different. I moved to the second picture; it was a picture of Mike and Vic hugging. They looked so cute. The next picture I wasn’t sure who, probably Vic. The next picture was my favourite because it was a picture of little Mike hugging a huge ass teddy bear and I found it to be so cute.

I imagined Mike (the Right-Now-Mike) half-naked (by then I was pretty sure I was blushing) hugging a fucking huge bear and even though I was giggling imagining it, I actually thought it was adorable.

But someone thought so too. “Adorable, isn’t he?”

Surprised, I turned around to see Mike’s mom, holding a tray of teacups and cookies. “Yeah,” I answered as I walked towards the sofa and sat on it, afraid that I made a bad impression on her.

She gave me a smile, placed down the tray, took a teacup from the tray and served it to me and in return, I thanked her and took a sip of the hot tea. She sat down and took a cup for herself. “I assumed that you are Michael’s new friend?”

“Yeah,” I answered nervously.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch your name. What is it, dear?”

“It’s Tony, Mrs. Fuentes.”

All of a sudden I was nervous about accepting her invitation to stay. I was being nervous and I didn’t even know why I was feeling nervous. I was scared that I might have given her a bad impression because I don’t usually talk a lot. What if I accidentally say something that might offend her? I tried to be careful and try to talk less. That was actually an easy task because she was the one who did the talking.

At first, she talked about school. Then she asked how Mike was at school.

“Mike, uh, well…” I couldn’t find any words to begin with. But truth be told, I could’ve talked a lot about Mike. How annoying and what a tease he was (although that was why I like him). But she was his mother for fuck’s sake! I can’t just badmouth him at his mother. But then again, I wasn’t a liar so…

“He’s a friendly person and he’s outgoing. He used to tease me a lot, and still is but maybe that was why we’re friends – or so he said. I know this sounds not good but we didn’t really ‘click’ at first but he had made me do things that make me happy so yeah,” I would’ve added more and all the time I was talking, I just stared at the ceramic cup and thought about how long it might take if I make a cup with my name carved on it.

“What about when he’s with you?”

Now that was a weird question coming from her and I didn’t actually saw that coming. “Excuse me?” I asked, pretending to not hear what she had said.

“Is he treating you badly? Does he ever bully you? Does he always put you in troubles??” she asked, full with curiosity.

(a) Yes – Sometimes (b) Yes (c) Yes

I uncomfortable shifted in my seat, I didn’t want to answer. But I eventually did because she just stared at me, waiting for me to respond.

“There are times when he put me into troubles but then he always come to make it all better,” I answered carefully. But it was true – when he got me into detention the first time, he was the one who ended up cleaning the toilet and the second time, he actually accompanied me to waste time. “And to be frank, he did treat me badly but we’re cool after that.” which was again, true.

Hearing my answers, she gave me a small smile and after God-knows-how-long, she finally got her eyes off me and stared at the cup she was holding. “Michael,” she began, sighing his name. “He’s different from Victor.”

‘Yeah, by a lot. Mike’s softer than Vic but Vic is the one who intimidated me most.’

“You can see that Victor is soft and gentle, while Mike is the opposite. But as a mother, I could see that Michael is just like Victor on the inside. I’m not saying this because Michael is my favourite but it’s true, Michael has a gentle soul. Not all can see the soft Michael because he’s a stubborn, even as a child he’s stubborn. He just needs someone to see that he’s not as bad as what people think he is.”

I found myself actually agreeing to the statement and wondered – have I actually seen this ‘Michael’ before?

Notes

hello lovelies!
this was supposed to be up yesterday but my battery died and i realized i haven't written a new chapter yet so here it is. i got nothing better to do at 3AM so this is what i came up with. short, but i promise i'll let you guys know what happened to mike.

so comment and let me know what you think about this chapter.
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thanks, love y'all ♡