"Starting a fight in the hallway? Pelham, what were you thinking?"

Both of Pelham's parents, particulary his mother, had been restless ever since they picked Pelham early from school - from the principal's office, to be precise. Pelham had to admit that he was adequately abashed, for he was normally the kind of student who always steered clear of trouble, just like how his parents had always taught him. But now, after watching the principal dial his mother's number, feeling two pairs of eyes burning holes into his back, Pelham became aware of the new sensation dominating his body; fear.

The rather comical thing about it was that the fear he felt made him feel ten years younger, back when all you had to worry about was whether stealing a cookie from the jar in the kitchen was considered a crime.

He was, after all, what might be regarded as an exemplary student. A scrupulous one with clean records, all prime with his certificates should he apply for a scholarship. But now he doubted his records were as reputable. So his disquietude was fairly intelligible.

It wasn't much like him to lose his temper and start lashing out, and his mother had made one aspect about him clear. Even Pelham knew that. What was I thinking? he thought as he watched his mother pace back and forth in front of him in the living room, wackily enough, while his father sat with his thumb and forefinger rested on his forehead, scrunching up his eyebrows. He couldn't blame them. After all, he did start the whole fracas.

He hadn't uttered a word at all ever since they got home, obliging his parents' instructions when they told him to take a seat on the couch and be still. They hadn't exactly told him to stay quiet, but Pelham knew enough to keep his mouth shut and let the words gush out of his parents' mouth. It was all on him, and he had to deal with it.

"Suspended now for five days. Five," his mother was shaking her head. "You're as good as being suspended for a week, Pelham. And your exams are coming up!"

Pelham hung his head, clasping his hands together. He fought the urge to press a thumb on his bruised temple. His head was throbbing, and he couldn't feel his lips. Everything on his face felt ten times bigger.

"Why?" Came his father's voice. Pelham finally locked gazes with the old man. "What happened, Pelham?"

Compared to Jody, his father was softer when it came to confrontations. So Pelham allowed himself to loosen up. "I don't know - I'm not sure," he finally said, his voice hoarse.

"Word has it you punched Roshon first," he said, frowning. "That's the biggest question; why Roshon? You two are best friends. What changed?"

Pelham could feel his mother's eyes on him. "We fought," he said, as though it wasn't already so obvious. "He, uh ... he said some things."

"But you two rarely ever fight," his mother was shaking her head that strands of her auburn hair had come loose from her ponytail. "I've been noticing that he hasn't come over for a while, but I guessed it was because of your assessment week coming up."

Pelham pressed his lips together. Was now the time? "He's been keeping his distant from me for a while," he began to explain. "Today he approached me - like for the first time since last week or so. And I became angry all of a sudden. He said ... stuff ... and I punced him."

"What kind of stuff?" his father leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees whilst intertwining his fingers.

Pelham swallowed the lump in his throat. "'Fag'," he murmured. "He said 'fag'."

His father tilted his head to the side, narrowing his eyes while doing so. His mother, on the contrary, had stopped pacing and was now regarding her son with an utmost curiosity.

"Why would-" his father began.

"Because it's true," Pelham breathed out, feeling his throat constrict. "I am a fag. Your son is a queer and his best friend doesn't like it, hence the fight."

Silence. His father was still staring at Pelham, unblinking. His mother's mouth, on the other hand, was opening and closing, though no words came out. The silence was starting to throttle Pelham in some way, and he couldn't take it.

"Well say something," he looked from his father to his mother, his voice strained that it cracked. The back of his eyelids stung, and his throat was constricted and hot.

"That," his father said at last, straightening up in the armchair, "took me by surprise."

Pelham didn't say anything. When he blinked, his vision was blurry. He couldn't read his father's expression; he looked more impassive than bewildered.

"I need to go," said his mother abruptly, waving her phone. "Book club meeting."

"Didn't you just-" his father began.

"Sandra just texted me. New member,"

With that, she turned on her heels and exited the living room. Pelham and his father were plunged into silence as soon as the front door was closed with what Pelham assumed to be unwarranted force. The muteness stretched, by which Pelham's father had both of his eyes closed while Pelham bit the inside of his cheeks. His head was still throbbing dully, yet he didn't feel like packing an ice to alleviate the pain - not when his father looked like he was about to lash out.

Or so Pelham thought.

"How long have you known?"

"What?"

"You're gay," his father repeated, his expression neutral. "How long have you known?"

"Since I was fifteen," But Pelham didn't feel right saying it. "Probably forever."

"Is that why you broke up with April?"

Pelham inhaled and held his breath. He nodded numbly. Hearing the words flow out of his father's mouth made him sound abominable, if not obnoxious. April had been fine with it, yet he felt like the biggest nitwit on the planet.

"Tell me you didn't date her just for 'experiment'," his father continued kindly. "You know, to explore your sexuality."

"I -" Pelham began to protest, but stopped himself. "I don't know."

"Pelham,"

"I don't know," he said, feeling himself tear up.

If he were honest with himself, he had been in denial with his sexual orientation when he and April first went out together, convinced that he liked girls, for he knew being drawn to someone of the same gender was simply abnormal, despite feeling the abnormality himself. But now he knew those were all fabrications that he cast upon himself, upon April, upon everyone around him; the people who he spent most of his time with; the people who watched him come off age and grow up. His love to April had merely been something platonic. Only back then, being fifteen and discovering the considerably heinous reality, he couldn't discern the difference between a platonic and an intimate relationship.

"Does she know about you?" asked Kenneth.

"Yes,"

"Did she take it well?"

"Oh, she's been supportive, Dad - and I'm not being sarcastic, believe it or not," said Pelham, finally looking up at his father. "Unlike other people. I don't suppose Mum is having another one of her book club meetings."

His father pressed his lips together as if conceding to Pelham's speculation. Pelham could only stay quiet, sensing that he was being rather audacious in some way.

"I think your mother needs time to process this whole information," his father said slowly. "Today is ... bizarre. But just so you know, I'm not gonna turn my back on you, Pel. To be frank, I don't really care who you go out with. Just don't break their hearts, thus don't break yourself. Your happiness matters, yeah?"

"You're not angry that I broke up with April?"

"S'long as she's okay," said his father, leaning back in the armchair. "If you break her, I'm gonna have to put you up for child custody."

The corners of his father's lips curled into a smile. Pelham couldn't help but chuckle.

"And Pelham,"

"Yeah?"

"Sorry," he said in a more serious tone, "for not being there for you when you were there."

Pelham stared. "What-"

"I can only imagine how hard it must be for you to realise that one truth about yourself," his father said. "Without anyone there to hear you out. So I'm sorry. Should've paid you more attention. Here I thought you were just ... doing so well in life. School. Friends. A girlfriend - an ex, in this case. I've been a teen once. The hardships were hell - can't deny that. But I thought the modern youth can manage themselves." He chuckled. "I guess I'm wrong."

Pelham felt a burst of reverence towards the man that was his father. At least there was the man who he had been looking up to ever since he was a child and could barely reach the sink to wash his hands without having to stand on top of a box. He could face his mother that evening. Right now, all he wanted was to feel all right. His father had a point; today was adequately bizarre. It felt as though he had only just woken up in the living room from a dream where he started a brawl and got suspended.

Pelham wanted to call April to check whether she was doing all right, but he held himself. How odd must it be, he thought, to call up your friend just to check on their mental and physical well-being when you were the one who was clearly in the need of a check-up.

Apart from that, Pelham could make a decent speculation that April was fairly cross with him at the moment. The looks she had been giving him in the hallway after stopping the brawl caused his skin to crawl. Again, he couldn't blame anyone for being nonplussed by his choice of actions. Had it not been for his prolonged dilemma, he wouldn't have had started the fracas. It just wasn't him.

Though, he supposed there was always a first time for everything.

Pelham knew he ought to talk to his father, especially now that he had come out and known that his father was actually fine with it. But he couldn't seem to figure out what to say. One at a time, Pelham, he told himself. Even if he did want to utter a word, nobody in the house would hear him, for his father had long since gotten up from the armchair to head upstairs after giving Pelham a fatherly pat on the back.

Talking to Roshon would be futile. Their friendship was undeniably hanging by a thread at the brink of a cliff at the moment. Each word spoken would wring the thread, causing it to narrow. Eventually it would snap, and that would be the end of their friendship. Clearly, as furious as Pelham was towards Roshon, he wouldn't want such thing to happen. Thinking about it, Pelham could just see how derisory it was to end a friendship just because of one appalling truth.

Perhaps that was how Pelham found himself walking down the pavement that evening, hands shoved in his pocket, hood pulled over his head. What he needed was serenity. And although he couldn't exactly provide such tranquility upon himself, he at least knew someone who could give it to him.

*

"I can't believe you punched the school's biggest bully," Lucio was saying, face alight with amusement as soon as Pelham had finished recalling the event.

Unlike most of the population of the school, Lucio hadn't been there to witness the brawl take place. So Lucio's befuddlement at seeing Pelham show up on his front porch - in all of his dishevelled state, not to mention his purple eye - was fairly explicable. Pelham had to recollect the whole affair yet again.

"Yeah, he called me 'fagissy'," Pelham sighed. "Who wouldn't be angry?"

"He calls everyone that," Lucio said nonchalantly, pressing a bundle of cloth filled with ice against Pelham's temple. "It's pretty original of him to conjure up nouns."

"I think he requires a tutor,"

"Maybe you should tutor him," Lucio suggested. "You and your wide range of vocabularies."

"You're actually complimenting me?" Pelham mocked flattery, earning an exagerrated eye-roll from Lucio.

"I get why you punched him," said Lucio in a more serious tone. "But Roshon?"

Pelham pursed his lips. "Yeah, he called me a fag as well,"

Both of Lucio's jet black eyebrows rose. "You two spent a week not talking to each other and he just showed up and called you that?"

"Right," Pelham said as realisation dawned on him. He started chuckling. "I haven't told you, have I?"

"Tell me what?"

"That I'm gay,"

Lucio blinked, his eyebrows still raised high above his forehead that they were at the verge of vanishing into his raven fringe. Then his eyes narrowed, drawing his eyebrows into a frown. "You sure?" was all he said.

"What do you mean 'you sure'?"

"I mean," Lucio shifted in his seat on the couch, his hand still pressing the towel against Pelham's temple, "it's not ... because of me, is it?"

It was Pelham's turn to frown now, trying to grasp Lucio's words. Then he started laughing when he finally understood what Lucio meant. "You thought I became gay because you kissed me?" he said between laughter, shaking his head. When Lucio nodded - this time quite covertly - Pelham doubled over. "My sweet boy Alves, no."

"But - April - you-" Lucio spluttered, shutting up only when Pelham held up his hand.

"That's a long story,"

"Would you mind if I pry?"

Pelham shrugged. It was up to Lucio to ask, and it was also up to Pelham to choose whether to answer or not. Though, he did admit that he was relatively fatigued.

Lucio removed the bundle of cloth from Pelham's temple, and cool air swept his bruised flesh at once. Pelham watched as Lucio spread the towel on top of the coffee table and added more ice from a bowl. He then tugged the edges of the towel together to tie them, long thin fingers working delicately over the knot. Upon watching this, Pelham was suddenly struck with nostalgia where his mother used to do the same thing to him, back when he was eight after hitting his forehead against a doorknob.

His breath hitched at the memory. He felt ridiculous. It wasn't as though his mother had simply bailed out on him. She's processing the news, he assured himself, just like his father had assured him. But he knew well enough that he couldn't bring reassurance upon himself. It was a futile attempt.

Besides this, Pelham remembered doing the same thing to Lucio less than a few weeks ago; tending to his injuries in the living room of his house, questioning Lucio's daring moves. The only difference was that back then, Lucio had put up a fight, whereas Pelham had started it.

Pelham didn't realise he was exhaling through his mouth until Lucio pressed the bundle lightly against his temple again and a look of concern fell onto his face.

"You okay?" Lucio asked, holding up his other hand to rest them against the side of Pelham's head to steady him. Inadvertently, Pelham leaned into the touch.

"Splendid,"

"You're gay all this time and you never told anyone?" If Pelham were correct, Lucio sounded fairly vexed.

"I told April first," he said. "No, wait - I came out to Oris a long time ago."

At that, Lucio chuckled. "Quite a surprise that she took it well," he nodded. "And Roshon-"

"I don't want to discuss this, please," said Pelham in a strained voice, his own hand going up to grasp Lucio's wrist. He could feel his throat constrict again, followed by the hot stinging sensation in his eyes. "About Roshon. Or my life. And there's Mum. I don't think she's handling the news well like Dad does. She left the room as soon as I said I was a fag. And April ... she's pretty mad at me for landing myself in trouble. Suspended for nearly a week and all-"

"Pelham-"

"It's horrible, Lu," Pelham was saying, feeling hot fat tears stain his cheeks, washing off what was left of serenity that had been pulling at his lips into a smile. They stung his bruises, but he ignored them. The ache in his gut was more intense. "Life's really horrible. Dunno how you handle it. Dunno how you do it. I just wanna feel okay again."

"Here I thought you have a pretty awesome life," Lucio said, laughing humourlessly. "Turns out we're even."

"I never knew your story," Pelham said, realising the truth behind the statement. The charm that radiated off Lucio; had that, after all, been a mirror of himself? To hear Lucio say that they were both even, who was Pelham seeing exactly apart from his own reflection?

Lucio smiled sadly. He wriggled his wrist free of Pelham's firm grasp to pull the older boy towards him into a tight embrace. Pelham was stunned for a moment, but he felt himself relax. This was exactly what he needed right now.

Neither of them exchanged anything to one another. Wrapped up in each other's arms, they let the silence wallow them up as they sat there on the couch with their legs tucked in, hearing and feeling each other's heartbeats. Pelham rested his chin on Lucio's shoulder, inhaling the boy's minty scent. Despite the younger boy's lean frame, his grip on him was fairly steady.

And Pelham had never felt so vulnerable.

He didn't realise that his eyes were pooled until he closed them. His tears streamed in small rivulets down his cheeks and onto the gray fabric of Lucio's sweater, staining it a darker shade of grey. His guts were still twisting and wrenching, nauseating him. But this silent embrace was enough. It was like turning off a television in the middle of a fighting scene, the black screen enveloping what was left of the battle, cutting off the raging sounds. He could stay like this forever and be done with it, forget that hardships ever existed.

After what felt like an eternity, Lucio spoke, "We all have our own stories, Pelham."

His voice sounded distant, as though Lucio was standing a few feet behind him. "So tell me," said Pelham against Lucio's shoulder, his voice muffled.

Lucio pulled back, but his arms lingered on Pelham's back, as though they were made to be chained there, bound to Pelham Nixon. The boy had to tilt his head back at a slight angle to look up at Pelham, particularly in a such close proximity. Pelham could feel melted ice dripping onto the back of his hoodie from where Lucio was still gripping the cloth. But he didn't mind the cold. He wanted Lucio to share his own background. He wanted to know how the boy got so strong. He wanted to get to know Lucio Alves.

Instead of answering Pelham, however, Lucio captured Pelham's lips into his.

Perhaps it was prolonged melancholy that drove Pelham to respond to the kiss; opening his mouth wider, allowing more room for Lucio's lips. It was tentative and soft, afraid that one small move would wind the other one up. Pelham could feel one of Lucio's hands rest on the nape of his neck, and he leaned forwards, pressing their lips together, as though their already close proximity wasn't enough. Here, their worlds were conjoined. Here, there was no mirror. No reflection. Just one tangible wreckage with history.

It was Lucio who pulled back. His eyes were indecipherable, though Pelham could see that his pupils had dilated and his cheeks were flushed deep crimson. Pelham couldn't comprehend any emotion that was passing through him. All he could feel was the adrenaline rushing in his veins - the adrenaline that had never seemed to stop flowing since the fracas.

"I'm sorry," Lucio whispered as he scooted back, eyes downcast.

"It's fine,"