Autumn is a second spring

59. Bully.

"The nearest auspicious date for the wedding is in eight months." The priest said calmly.

The Dechaphatthanakuns were hosting a prayer ceremony. The Guntachais, the Ritpraserts, and the Siripongthons were invited to join the prayer ceremony.

The main agenda of the ceremony was to find a perfect date for Kao and Earth's marriage. Their marriage was considered a big deal in the family because Kao was the new Master of the family and as his spouse, Earth would be taking on the position of the family's Mistress from that day on.

Mintra wanted everything to be perfect. That was why she had invited the esteemed priests to their residence to hold the prayer ceremony.

"Eight months? That would be too long, priest." She said in distress. "Is there no other date nearer than that?"

She wanted the marriage to happen as quickly as possible. Earth had been legally married to Kao for years. She felt that not holding a wedding ceremony to welcome Earth into the family was equal to being disrespectful to him.

"I am sorry, Khrab. There are not." The priest said firmly. 

Mintra was disheartened hearing that. Throughout the rest of the ceremony, she had been visibly stressed. 

"Khun Mintra, I don't think that eight months are that long," Thas said after the ceremonies were complete and they were all sitting down to have some tea.

He and his family were there as Earth's side of the family.

"Kha, Khun Mintra. Eight months isn't really long. Especially when it comes to making wedding preparations." Remi agreed with her husband.

"I feel the same, Mom. Just preparing the guest list and sending them over would take a while. Then finding a good venue and getting the kid's wedding dresses customized, all that is going to take a while." Ann added.

All the elders of the family were immersed in the discussion about the wedding and the related ceremonies other than Jane.

Jane was completely silent. She didn't say anything at all even though the marriage was that of her son. She was pretty happy that the marriage will happen eight months later. She still had time to come up with something and prevent the wedding from happening.

In her point of view, Kao marrying Earth as his spouse would stain her son's life forever and she couldn't let that happen. She had to do something to separate them.

The younger generation had headed to the west wing, the wing that was exclusively used by Kao, Boun and Ohm.

There was a central playground in the wing that was built after Art was born. Art and rest of the kids were playing in that playground while their parents watched.

Oreo and Yacht had to leave quicker, so they had left the twin girls under Ohm's care. It wasn't easy for all the kids to gather together. Oreo didn't want his daughters to miss out on the fun of playing with their cousin just because his and his husband's busy schedules.

"P' Kao, have you considered changing schools for Art?" Boun asked as looked outside the glass window that gave a view of the wide playground.

"Of course, we have. We don't want him to stay in boarding school anymore." Kao replied. "Why did you ask all of a sudden?"

Boun looked at his elder cousin with a serious expression. "Few days ago, I got a call from Bew's kinder garden." He proceeded to explain the conversation that he had with the teacher.

"Really? Why would Bew not tell you guys about this?" Ohm asked with a frown. He knew his nephew well. His nephew was a very talkative kid just like Boun. It felt weird to him that his nephew kept something like this a secret.

Even if Bew hadn't told Boun or Prem, he would have told Fluke. But Fluke too was surprised to hear this.

"P' Boun, did you or Prem talk to him about this? What did he say?" Fluke asked. He had a bad feeling about the whole thing.

He wasn't really happy with the fact that Boun had actually admitted to the Bew that he was his uncle and not his father. For a four-year-old, being aware that the people raising him wasn't actually his parents, would be something that could give birth to a lot of insecurities.

As someone who had been raised by someone else and not his parents his whole life, Fluke knew better than anyone how it felt when you have to watch everything you do and say, fearing that you might create a bad impression on the people raising you. 

As the saying goes, nobody would tolerate your actions as much as your mother and father would. It might not be applicable for all cases, but most of the time no one can treat a child better than their own parents.

The fear of being abandoned or treated as an outsider would always cloud the child's mind and make him walk on eggshells around his foster parents.

Fluke felt that Boun could have waited a bit longer, may be till Bew became a teenager, to tell him everything. He was afraid that the truth might end up impacting Bew's life more than it should, mostly psychologically.

One can't expect a four-year-old to be completely okay with the fact that his parents would never be with him for the rest of his life. The child might not be able to digest the complexity of the situation.

"I did talk to him, and he told me a lot of things that I personally was shocked to hear," Boun answered.

He initially thought of having Prem talk to Bew as the latter was better at making others feel comfortable enough to open up. But he decided against it as he saw how Prem was barely getting any rest because of his busy schedule.

"Bew told me that Art is being bullied in his school."

"Art is being bullied?" Earth and Kao exchanged looks. They regularly kept in touch with Art's school as well as communicated with their son well. They had heard nothing about bullying from any of them.

"Apparently, a bunch of kids had ganged upon Art in the school and had been targeting him because he has two Dads. Few of them used to be Art's old friends and knew that his parents were divorced. The problem raised when they saw Earth coming to pick Art from school and those kids saw him. They asked Art who Earth was, and he answered honesty, which became the reason for bullying."

"Why did my baby never tell me this?" Earth was asking himself. There was a hint of self-blame in his voice.

"What did those kids do to him, Boun? What did Bew say?" Kao was agitated. He wasn't the kind of doting father but he still loved his son. He couldn't sit still after hearing that his son was being bullied at school and the neither the school authorities nor the teachers cared enough to notify him of the matter.