8. The Embrace of Love and Resistance

1.9K 74 9
                                    

Canon divergence?

-

It actually is an accident.

Kongpob has never been one to have loose lips, and still, he's extremely sure he doesn't. Yet for some reason, whether it be because some higher power decided it was time or he just had a terrible lapse in judgement, when his mother asks him his plans for after university, and he says he's going to move in with someone, and she asks him who, he goes: "My boyfriend."

Time stops dead. Of course, time can't actually stop, and it most definitely can't stop dead. Yet Kongpob truly feels as if he's stuck between the moment prior to saying that and the moment after. His mother is still holding the knife she had been using to cut pork in her hands, and it's still in the air, poised just above the meat, as if she had been mid-cut when he admitted to not only being in a relationship, but being in a relationship with a man.

He rethinks his entire life—perhaps time truly has stopped—but then his mother sets down the knife, clearing her throat all the while, no longer looking in wide-eyed shock at her son, but rather staring timidly down at the cutting board, the raw pork only halfway cut. She clears her throat again and flicks her wrist, as if that perhaps will dispel the moment, then says, "I didn't know you were seeing someone."

"I...." He doesn't know what to say. It's a recent development? But that's not true, is it? He wouldn't call three (almost four) years recent. "I must have failed to mention it."

His mother does not look up, fingers now delicately resting against the edge of the counter. "Yes, you must have."

"Not because I didn't want to, but because of...." The other thing, the part about me dating a man goes unsaid.

"Yes," his mother repeats, "it must be because of that."

There passes a moment in which Kongpob worries perhaps his mother is about to pick up the knife and he'll be another statistic, another victim of a hate crime that will be on the news however briefly, just enough to say it was reported, or maybe..., his mind conjures an image of his mother ignoring him not only now, but for the rest of time, only breaking her silence to tell him to leave and never return.

She does neither of those things and instead says, "I won't tell your father about this."

Kongpob's breath gets stuck in his chest. "You—what?"

"I assumed you thought I'd tell your father without your permission or behind your back," his mother explains. She picks up the knife once more, though Kongpob notices the tremble in her hand this time. Carefully, she begins to cut the pork again, creating thin slices that fall back to the cutting board with a wet slap. "Well, I won't."

Kongpob licks his lips. His throat is dry, and his tongue feels extremely heavy when it comes to lie back in his mouth. Still, he tries his best: "Thank you."

"But," his mother continues suddenly, making Kongpob start and look to her with eyebrows raised, "I still want you to tell him. Whether it be today or some other time, I want you to tell him."

He's grateful she's even giving him the choice of when. "Yes," he says, voice brightening as he continues, "of course! Thank you. Really," he reaches out to place a hand upon her shoulder but thinks better of it, "thank you."

His mother does not respond.

When his father gets home, still dressed in a suit, though his hair looks like it's seen better days, Kongpob and his mother have fallen back into steady conversation, though the air still is heavy around them, thick with the uneasy tension that is released with any sharing of long-held secrets.

SOTUS Drabbles and One-ShotsWhere stories live. Discover now