A gentle runaway

Chapter 10 - Dad talk

As soon as they all leave, Michelangelo and master Splinter were left alone on the dojo and Mikey is very visually nervous about this, the father and son share a moment of silence that felt more like hours until Splinter stood out his hand to his youngest child and asks to see his arms, Mikey is still a bit confused but he just does as he's told, not wanting to cause any more trouble, Splinter examines his arms one by one, looking and checking on his few scars, some were small and harmless but two other ones seemed serious, they were apperantely very deep and it was a miracle that none of them was infected during that time, Mikey was pretty uncomfortable with that because throught the whole inspection, Splinter was terrifyingly quiet and made no eye contact or direct interaction with him, so it was a very awkward and unpleasant, the dooming silence keeps going for a while, Mikey is sweating cold, feeling sick and dizzy, almost having a burnout because of the stress, until his father finally said something.

🐀 - "Can you tell me what exactly happened to you? How did you get these injuries?"

🟠 - "H-huh?! Oh, well.... y'know... concrete boulders, iron bars, glass shards, stuff like that...."

🐀 - "But do you remember how did it happened?"

🟠 - "Hummm... this small one in my leg was a glass cut, and.... uhhhh...... I... I don't know much else, there was a lot going on in my head so... I probably didn't pay that much attention to it in the moment so... yeah.... sorry, master."

🐀 - "No need to apologize, my son. I know it must have been quite painful for you."

🟠 - "Thanks, da_ I-I MEAN SENSEI!!!"

Splinter was surprised by his son's reaction, he wondered why did he hesitated to call or refer to him as father, to Michelangelo however, his reaction was a natural response, that's how he should refer to Splinter, right? It didn't really mattered to him.

After a hour, Splinter and Michelangelo menaged to reconciliate and mikey leaves the dojo, receiving a rub in the shoulder from Master Splinter before heading out, he sees his brothers and friends waiting for him, they all come to him and bring him in a big group hug, he feels like he might be off the hook for what he did, asking himself if that was it, if that was his punishment, did he just got away with doing something like that? he can't understand how is that possible, but he shoves this feeling aside and embraces what he has right now, so he puts on a smile, and prepares himself to go back to his usual life, later that day, he called miss Barbara and said it all went well, thanking her for everything and promissing to keep in touch.

THE END