SEX AND THE BOY ✓

ROSES ARE RED AND SO ARE MY PIMPLES

DISGUST IS WRITTEN ALL OVER Leroi's face like fonts of a poster in an anti-gay parade

Reason that is the whitish-yellow cargoes of all dead white blood cells and pyogenic bacteria slowly looted on his face by karma's pirates. Beyond the reason that all the honey, tumeric, lemon, aspirin and DIY whatnot YouTube lectured him on on almost every video are a scam.

His mirror reflection is going to lose the staring contest against a teary-eyed Leroi whose lips are in a viciously overturned C. The bottom one is trembling, making ripply waves.

Swallowing his oral momentum, he vomits it into a ballistic "mommy!" that has Robyn bursting into his room, it is more or less like she teleported before the door even though a star halo of confusion at whether her son means Onika or she still crowns her head.

"Leroi, what happened?!" Robyn throttles to her son with heels that can literally slaughter. The little crocodile sobs soak the woman's suit while it pillows his face. Robyn is hugging him, patting him on the back and from the background, Richmond's wheelchair can be heard browsing the room.

"The-the..."

Robyn pats her edges in distress, flips her ebony bob behind her ear and wraps her hands around her son's face. "Talk to me baby, what is it?"

"Pimples! That's what it is. Pimples." His bottom lip subconsciously curls into a dense pout.

The self-hatred sizzling through his veins will surely melt a diamond. His cheeks have suddenly gotten puffy too and now does he take notice of the folds sleeping on the edges of his waistband. On top of it all, his face is a freaking braille board.

"Oh." Robyn basically shatters. "So this is what you almost gave an heart attack for."

"Is this what you call a child, Robinnisia?" Richmond shoots the rhetorical question with stark disinterest and less sarcasm that pinches a scare at Leroi's conscience. "Because I'm pretty sure you haven't gotten one yet."

Leroi sneers at the old man with eyes swollen red. "You speak an unhealthy amount of parables."

"I'm being literal."

But Leroi doesn't pay him mind, his mental debt is yet to be paid by the "treacherous things" on his face. "Mommy, why do they have to come now. For Goodness sake, I'm eighteen--"

"--and still acting like eight--" Richmond snaps in, twirling a framed polaroid of Leroi with his first ever basketball. The little monster mushroom was chubby and stout for his eyes to appear in full view and his afro wilder with all sorts candies and dirt nesting in the jungle.

"--and they decided to appear now in the most important time of my life."

Robyn sweatdrops, already checking her wristwatch before she's late for her third meeting today. In her own perspective, nothing is harder than handling a whole million dollar investment and babysitting the same child for eighteen years. "Cool down now, sweetie. We will see the dermatologist this week--"

"Dude, where's your concealer?"

Richmond shakes his head and wheels out of the room. Robyn follows her father but stops by the door. "Don't do that ever again."

"Do what?" But she is gone. What did he ever do wrong?

Sighing, he slips his jalamiya on and this fancy silver ring crested with the face of Baphomet he got on Black Friday into his left index. His eyes have been getting worse too so he has to put on his glasses most of the time. They make his eyes so large and nerdy and he hates them bitterly. Running his hands through his hair one last time, Leroi jogs down the stairs and to the kitchen.