TORPEDO ✓

caught on candid cam HELP

"UGH, WHAT NOW?" GROANS DORIAN as he turns to the other side in bed, wrapping the blanket over his head.

Although, he falls back asleep rather too quick, he is in that sleepless state where there is background noise and when a lucid dream is about to surface, the noise is mixed with it; but he sails across the limbo.

He was up too late last night, facetiming Giovanni: well, he now can use FaceTime just because his boyfriend bought him an iPhone 14 barely hours after they became boyfriends. Whether Gio has been anticipating this, Dorian can't care less.

But the juicy tea is how the word "boyfriend" still feels weird on his tongue. He could've never imagined last year he'd be gay. Okay, maybe bi but still gay nonetheless. Or should he call himself queer? Is choosing a label compulsory to fit in the community? Wait, he just became gay so at least he will be excused, right? No: has he always been gay? What did WikiHow say again?

Smiling and snuggling into his pillow, imagining it to be Giovanni's flat chest, he has already forgotten about the ruckus going on in his room till another pillow pummels him awake.

Dorian burst out of the covers, ears fuming. "What now?!"

"What now? Me, Dorian."

He rolls his eyes. It's just his mom. She's probably going through one of her episodes again. Like, look at her; eyes bulging, arms flailing, hair sticking out like a hedgehog. For a trainwreck at thirty, she looks eerily young enough to be his twin sister.

"Ugh, better get the Valium," Dorian mutters under his breath before clicking the on switch of his auditory systems.

"Dorian, your mother is talking to you."

"Good morning ma," he says boredly, shuffling his legs out of the thick blanket and on the cold tiles.

"Is it really a good morning? Is it, Dorian??" Mercy Ayuba screams into his ears.

"Why wouldn't it be? I have my biggest game in highschool today and--"

Mercy slaps him. A direct hit; struck across his muscled face. He blinks twice, trying to process what happens. His mom barely touches him, despite her episodes.

"Give me a good reason why I should believe my eyes didn't just see gay porn on the home computer."

Wait—

Cold sweat drowns Dorian at that moment and he stares. He stares and stares; through the bookshelf standing all regal and presumptuous adjacent his bed; through his Siamese cat chewing on his already worn sneakers; through his mom, draped in a wrapper and scarf, looking down on him with an ambivalent mixture of sadness and scorn lathering her youthful face.

Dorian may try to be like Gio, carefree and straight to the point. But he can never be the blonde. He will always try to make and probably fake a good impression in front of everyone, including his mother who has sacrificed so much for him.

"Mom, I have my final football game today and would like you to--"

"I don't give a flying fuck about your football!" She whacks his reading lamp across the room with the pillow suffocating in her fist.

Scooby, his cat, springs out of the room upon hearing the loud crash.

Her statement is the icebreaker for Dorian who gets up; jaws clenched and voice icily calm. "Oh is that so?"

"Please tell me you're not a faggot."

"Maybe if you'd ever spent a second to know me instead of being invested in some mental paradise your scum husband traumatized you with, meanwhile I'm busy changing your diapers--"