Forget Me Not

Chapter Seven

Mew picked up his cell phone with trepidation when he noticed the caller ID. This was happening a little too often. He hated not being able to pinpoint exactly how he felt about it.

"Hello. Where are you?"

No preamble. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? "Korn? Uhm...I wasn't expecting..."

"Is this a bad time?"

"No...I just... What's up?"

"Do you know what it is like to know I was right all those years ago? To know I was hiding—and it was the right thing to do—because there was nothing I could have done about it?" Korn asked.

It took a moment for Mew to figure out what Korn was talking about. He didn't know what to say. He had so many of his own feelings about their past to unpack. He wasn't ready for this. But Korn was. He couldn't turn him away. Sighing heavily, he gathered himself but he still had to clear his throat before he spoke.

"I used to hate you for that," He started softly. "For keeping us a secret. For acting like I wasn't good enough to introduce to your parents as more than a friend. I know you tried to explain it, but I thought it was an excuse. Your way of letting me know I wasn't that important.

"I understood a little better in college. My parent's reaction was so different, so accepting. I thought that was normal for everyone, but it wasn't."

"I remember." Korn chuckled and the sound was a relief to Mew. "Other than being embarrassed enough to wish the ground would swallow me whole, your mum was the best."

"I was probably a lot less sensitive to other people who struggled with it. I'm sorry if I added to the stress of it," Mew apologized sincerely, hoping Korn would hear it for what it was.

"You didn't. You made me want to tell them." Mew didn't know that. "But everything fell apart and I was so glad I hadn't. Only now, I wish I had just done it. Just so it would have been out of the way, instead of a weight on my shoulders for so long."

Mew didn't know that he'd contributed to Korn feeling like that. It made sense that he would keep him at arm's length. But would he ever be able to trust him again? Was there any point in them talking about this when it would never mean anything?

"You didn't know what was going to happen," Mew excused. "I thought it was cowardice because that's what made sense to me at the time. But after seeing what it did to some of my friends...I wouldn't wish that kind of thing on anyone."

"I wanted to be wrong."

"But you were right...and you were safe. You did what was right for you. There is no faulting that."

Mew had a new understanding of what Korn had tried to protect them from. A burden he'd carried on his own.

The understanding created clarity. Leaving him with the awareness that perhaps he'd never stopped loving Korn. That was scarier than anything else he'd done since meeting up with his childhood friend again. There was no way it ended well unless he was smart enough to cut ties now.

It's a pity he wasn't smart enough when it came to Korn.

~

CYZ Fabricators, like most of the engineering companies, hosted a batch of engineering students from the local universities for their third-year internship. They had a highly competitive program and received applications from the entire country. With such a wide selection pool, they always ended up with the cream of the crop.

To match the candidate's skills and capacity, they didn't have an average internship. The interns didn't just shadow individuals from each department and learn how the company worked from the ground up. They had to do an inter-departmental report connecting different aspects of the company to the design, production and marketing of at least one product.