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In a perfect world, Mondo would have been able to come out to his brother before he died.
... No, actually, in a perfect world, Daiya wouldn't have died in the first place. Obviously. And then Mondo would have come out when he naturally would have, and he would have found out all the things about Daiya relating to the subject of queerness that Mondo wondered about on occasion; the answers of said questions having died along with Daiya, in this world. Hell, maybe in that idealistic universe, Daiya would have later picked up on Mondo's first really intense crush, and teased him about it in that obnoxious but clearly affectionate way Mondo had seen him do with his gang members. He would have been around for Mondo to introduce his first significant other to him.
But it's not a perfect world, and Mondo had killed Daiya before they could do any of that shit Mondo saw in cheesy coming-of-age films that he loved to mock to his buds as he watched, but would remember late at night when he wasn't crying because he was over this, and strong people didn’t cry at into their pillows at 4am, dammit.
At the very least, Mondo could find a bit of comfort in the fact that Daiya had almost certainly figured it out by himself.
Daiya had seemed to know that Mondo liked boys for as long as Mondo could remember; which means he didn't remember what had actually tipped Daiya off to it in the first place, which was infinitely infuriating. Daiya showed he knew in the small ways; the earliest one that Mondo could remember being when he, Daiya and their mother (back when she was still in the picture) were chatting about something or other in the car, and, when their mother had said, "Your wife will love that," as a loving jab at Mondo's penchant for picky eating, Daiya had added on, "Or husband," then had quickly changed the subject so their mother couldn't correct him. Like he was almost... Protecting Mondo from any sort of expectations in regards to sexuality. (And as much as Mondo would absolutely love to laugh at the thought of needing protecting... To be fair to himself, this incident happened when he was around 8.)
Looking back on it, Mondo wondered if Daiya was like that just because he was an ally, unrelated to anything with Mondo, and he actually didn't know his brother was queer? Or if Daiya was actually queer in some way himself, which is not only why he was able to pick it up in Mondo so easily, but also why he cared so much about assumptions regarding sexuality and casual homophobia? Or did he only start to care about those sort of things after he realized his little brother liked boys? (Whenever that was.)
Mondo probably thought too much and too hard about the subject. It didn't matter Daiya's complete motivation, in the end. He likely just wanted to make sure Mondo's life wasn't any harder than it had to be. Because Daiya was just a good goddamn brother, and that's all that mattered.
... Fuck.
In the end, Daiya couldn't manage to protect Mondo from everything, even though he did try to.
Some time in either late elementary or early middle school, Mondo had gotten into a fistfight with another boy; which, by itself, wasn't a surprise. Mondo had been a feisty, short-tempered kid practically as soon as he could talk, and that, combined with God-awful impulse control, didn't leave much hope that he would be a ‘model student’.
At this point of the parent-teacher meeting, the teacher herself had her head in her hands, exhausted, while Daiya sat behind Mondo and the other boy's mother sat behind her child as the two boys shouted accusations at each other.
"He called me a wuss!" Mondo exclaimed, jabbing a finger in the direction of the kid.
"He called me ugly!" the other boy shot back.
"After he said my hair was stupid!"
"Well, he said my hair made me look like a faggot!"
All of the adults in the room jumped slightly at that, as if snapped to attention by that word. Mondo furrowed his brows at that response, looking from the teacher to the other kid's mother to Daiya, looking for someone to explain the reaction. When his eyes landed on Daiya's, his big brother put a hand on his shoulder.
"Where did'ja learn that word." Daiya said it like a statement, not a question.
Mondo could practically taste the fear and tension radiating off of the other boy, while Mondo himself simply kept making eye contact, expression unchanging. He wasn't scared of Daiya; not like a lot of kids are scared of their parents.
And he knew Daiya could make compromises. So Mondo tilted his head lazily towards the other boy. "Can I get my earful when we're not in front of the chump?"
Daiya lightly hit Mondo on the top of the head; not enough to hurt. More like a slightly strong, singular pat than anything. "Ay, what we're not gonna do 's start another fight. But yeah, whatever."
And unfortunately, Daiya did not forget about the subject over the course of the meeting, as Mondo had been half-hoping. As soon as they returned home, Mondo had tried to scamper off to his room, but Daiya grabbed his shoulder before he had gone too far. "Kid, you're not off the hook yet."
Mondo tilted his head back and groaned overdramatically, before turning to face Daiya, crossing his arms. "I didn't know that it was that bad of a word, okay?! I said that like, a bajillion times!"
Daiya rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I know that'cha didn't know, which is why I'm asking where ya got it from."
Mondo looked more so above Daiya's shoulder than at Daiya as he thought, furrowing his eyebrows. "Uhhhhhhh... One'a your friends."
"Which one." Again, Daiya said that more like a statement.
"The one with the hair like... Like..." He made a vague motion with his hands next to his head, signifying spiky hair. "Ya know?"
"Th'one with brown hair?"
"Nah, black and purple."
"Got it." Daiya did some quick finger guns at Mondo. "A'ight, that's it. You can go to yer room and pout now."
"I was not going to go pout!!" Mondo exclaimed, most certainly pouting as he said that. But still, he took Daiya up on the offer, going back to his own room.
Mondo never saw the gang member he described hanging out with Daiya after that, and he didn't know if he was kicked out of the gang, or just not allowed around Mondo anymore.
For the most part, Mondo grew up in an environment where being gay was a normal thing. Daiya and Daiya's company were all self-identified punks, which was a very queer community (apparently), so Mondo often heard phrases like, "Her girlfriend," or, "His boyfriend," tossed around regularly like there was nothing odd or taboo about it. In that sense, if Daiya's ultimate goal was protecting Mondo from the expectation for him to be straight, he'd succeeded. Mondo had managed to figure out he was queer by the time he was 13.
Queer in... Some sort of way.
Because for all the words Mondo heard being said like they were nothing out of place; gay, straight, girlfriends, boyfriends, queer, closeted, pride...
One word Mondo never heard was 'bisexual'.
That was probably why Mondo stayed in the closet for so damn long, even when he had figured out he wasn't straight at a young age, and even with the ridiculously accepting upbringing. Because he didn't know what the hell he was; some sort of weird, broken, confused something who couldn't chose a damn gender.
With the knowledge he had later, when he looked back on it all, he wanted to smack himself in the face, because he was ridiculous about how he went about it all. When he saw a pretty boy, he thought, Okay, got it, I'm gay. Then he'd go through the whole thing of getting used to the idea, getting comfortable with it, and then, sometimes, actually think about coming out. But always, before he'd started to properly plan it, he saw a pretty girl, and thought, Oh, wait, no, I definitely like girls. I'm not gay. And by the time the next pretty boy came around, it would have been long enough for Mondo to get used to identifying as straight, and he would have to start the whole damn process of getting used to calling himself gay all over again, in an endless, incredibly stupid loop.
Christ.
But the thing that was weird about it all was that, no matter if Mondo thought he was straight or gay at the moment, he never felt any different. His feelings for whatever gender he had currently decided he fancied versus the other gender felt the same. He felt gay but also straight. But also neither gay or straight, at the same time. His feelings were a mess, and he hated to think, much less talk, about his feelings. So he was left trying to untangle his whole mess of 'what the ever-loving fuck am I and what the fuck do I feel' by himself, in short intervals, so he wouldn't freak himself out.
Maybe if Mondo had gotten over his dumb something-or-other complex about masculinity and vulnerability and shit long enough to actually talk to someone ('someone', he thinks, as if he doesn’t know it wouldn't 100% be Daiya) about everything he felt, maybe Daiya could have been the one to introduce him to the word 'bisexual'.
But that was in that perfect world, and instead, Mondo found the word during a 3am Google search of 'gay and straight at the same time' in an Incognito tab, on a hot, restless summer night. After Daiya was long gone.
In the end, the closest Mondo came to telling Daiya was the day that he met the kid with shame in his eyes so intense that it overshadowed the red.
Mondo and Daiya were on their way to meet the other Crazy Diamonds in a different place than the usual; more far out from their house. After a short while, the two of them stopped by a convenience store, deciding to grab some sodas for no real reason other than they were thirsty and felt like it. When they were walking that short distance from where they'd parked their bikes at the side of the roads and the store, though, both of them immediately picked up on screaming from behind the corner; near what Mondo had so eloquently dubbed in his mind 'the poor kid school'. The second Mondo tuned in to try and understand what the kids were yelling about, he flinched in secondhand hurt, then immediately tuned back out.
Christ. He'd never even heard some of the words they were using in real life before (as stupidly nerdy as that sounds); just knew about 'em from what he thought were 'overdramatic' scenes that showed homophobia in movies. The ones that made Mondo roll his eyes at and scoff. Nobody actually cared about that shit anymore. Nobody got bullied for being gay nowadays.
Well... Apparently, judging by what he was hearing, he was pretty damn wrong. And this wasn't even that far from their apartment, too...
Daiya glanced at Mondo. "Ay, hol' up here for a sec, would ya? There ain't no teachers 'round here this time 'a day."
Mondo knew what Daiya was saying. If he didn't intervene, there were no other adults around to help whatever poor person the others were beating on. He shrugged loosely and vaguely waved Daiya along, feigning enough uncaring to, hopefully, not come across as someone overly-invested in this situation.
The second Daiya's back was turned to him as he stormed over to the groups of boys, Mondo peered around the corner, watching the confrontation with sick curiosity.
"AY, STUPIDHEADS! Get OFF the kid!" he heard Daiya snap, in that 'scary' tone that made practically everyone except for Mondo flinch. "Ay, ay, ay! Whadda HELL do you lot think yer doin'?!" He went to grabbing the other kids by the back of their shirts to pull them off the other boy on the ground. (Was the boy laying down covering his ears? Didn't he have more useful things to do with his hands when he was having the shit being beat out of him??) Judging by their size compared to Daiya, Mondo could loosely assume they were all around his own age, although he couldn't tell with the boy on the ground at the moment; he had his back to Mondo and was curled up tight.
When he had managed to get all the dumbass bullies off of the other kid, and to stay off the other kid, Daiya huffed. "Christ, ya kids got a lotta energy. Love the energy, not the homophobia. Go punch a punchin' bag or somethin', shit."
Mondo snorted.
The boy who the other kids who had been beating on finally, finally stood up, even though he shook. He looked so much smaller on the ground than he was when he stood up. Though that probably had to do with the fact that he stood up as straight as a ruler, even after going through being literally kicked while he was down. Resilient as all hell.
"So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna let Red Eyes get a head start on 'is way home, an' then you lot are going to go to yer homes. An' then, you lot are gonna fuck off an' leave this kid alone. Got it?"
'Red Eyes' was probably the victim, right? Mondo tilted his head, trying to get at an angle where he could see the kid's face, and he could easily pinpoint that the kid's eyes were extremely red the second he got a small glance. The color practically screamed at you, it was so intense.
The group said something, but Mondo could assume they agreed, judging by Daiya saying, "Good!" He slapped Red Eyes on the back, and Mondo flinched from secondhand pain, wondering if Red Eyes had been bruised there. "A'ight, on your way, then!"
This absolute dork fucking saluted his brother. "Yes, of course! Thank you very much, sir!" he exclaimed, in a loud voice and somewhat monotonous voice.
Mondo caught himself thinking, Christ, if he acts like that all the time, he's practically askin' to be bullied, but he shook his head slightly, dismissing the notion. That was a shitty thought to have.
When he saw Red Eyes turn to leave, he immediately dipped back over the corner before he could see Mondo watching his personal shit like a Saturday night drama. He practically stomped as he walked, though, so Mondo could hear him coming closer without even having to look.
He glanced over when Red Eyes passed him, expecting him to pay Mondo no mind, but the kid glanced back at Mondo, the parked bikes, then Mondo again. Then he came to a full stop.
Mondo stared at Red Eyes, expecting him to say something. Red Eyes stared back.
Now that Mondo could get a closer look at him... Fuck, he'd been beat up real bad. What he thought was just a pink-red pattern on his clothing was just... Blood soaking into his otherwise clean uniform. And, even though said (dorky) uniform covered most of his skin, what little Mondo could see had the beginnings of bruises.
Red Eyes stared, and Mondo stared back.
The shame in his expression was what struck Mondo the most about him. Shame too sharp and pained for those... Accusations (what the fuck do you call what they were screaming at this kid?) to not be true.
If it was a perfect world, Mondo would have said something, and told Red Eyes everything he needed to hear. Some sort of cheesy monologue to cheer up the hero after an equally cheesy, over-the-top scene of them being hurt. He would know what to say to Red Eyes because he knew he was bisexual, he was out to his brother, and knew what someone like Red Eyes would need to hear. He would have put a hand on Red Eyes' shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly, like the gang did for him sometimes.
But this wasn't a perfect world, and Mondo couldn't comfort people for shit. So when he locked eyes with this kid, with an aura of feeling ashamed and scared surrounding him so intensely Mondo almost choked on it, he just stayed silent, his train of thought stopping in its tracks.
So, Red Eyes, bruised and beaten for something that Mondo was all-too familiar with, ran off without a word.
Mondo considered following for about half of a second before he felt a big hand clap onto his shoulder, and he didn't even have to look to know it was Daiya. "So! We should pro'lly get those sodas, yeah?"
And they should. So they did.
They couldn't exactly drink soda while on the road, so they leaned on the wall outside of the store, sipping their respective favorite brands in comfortable silence.
Once again, it struck Mondo how this wasn’t that far from his and Daiya's apartment. And, for the first time, Mondo thought, Damn. Daiya protected me from... A lot of shit. His problems suddenly seemed so stupid, compared to whatever the hell Red Eyes was putting up with. The poor kid probably despised himself, and couldn't come out because he'd be in physical goddamn danger if he did, while Mondo was driving himself up the wall about being both gay and straight at the same time.
Not really thinking about it too hard, Mondo muttered out, "Thanks," to his brother, in between sips.
He could feel Daiya's eyes on him for a second, but he refused to look back, and he refused to explain what he was thanking Daiya for. Because he'd die before he admitted that not only had he allowed someone to protect him, but he was also thankful that they had.
He didn't know if Daiya got what he meant. He just said, "S'nothing!", before going back to drinking.
Immediately, Mondo's mind provided him with, It's everything!
He didn't say that.
He just took the last sip of his soda, and crushed the can in his hand.
If you notice that I struggle a bit attempting to convey Mondo growing up in a good environment, that would be because this is the chapter that is not based off of my own experiences. Kiyotaka's chapter was easy for me, because I grew up in a homophobic environment, but, for Mondo's chapter, I just had to ask my friends in more accepting places their experiences, and attempt to convey them here.
Like last time, expect the next chapter in a week!
Reticence (n.) A reluctance to express one's thoughts or feelings
In a perfect world, Mondo would have been able to come out to his brother before he died.
... No, actually, in a perfect world, Daiya wouldn't have died in the first place. Obviously. And then Mondo would have come out when he naturally would have, and he would have found out all the things about Daiya relating to the subject of queerness that Mondo wondered about on occasion; the answers of said questions having died along with Daiya, in this world. Hell, maybe in that idealistic universe, Daiya would have later picked up on Mondo's first really intense crush, and teased him about it in that obnoxious but clearly affectionate way Mondo had seen him do with his gang members. He would have been around for Mondo to introduce his first significant other to him.
But it's not a perfect world, and Mondo had killed Daiya before they could do any of that shit Mondo saw in cheesy coming-of-age films that he loved to mock to his buds as he watched, but would remember late at night when he wasn't crying because he was over this, and strong people didn’t cry at into their pillows at 4am, dammit.
At the very least, Mondo could find a bit of comfort in the fact that Daiya had almost certainly figured it out by himself.
Daiya had seemed to know that Mondo liked boys for as long as Mondo could remember; which means he didn't remember what had actually tipped Daiya off to it in the first place, which was infinitely infuriating. Daiya showed he knew in the small ways; the earliest one that Mondo could remember being when he, Daiya and their mother (back when she was still in the picture) were chatting about something or other in the car, and, when their mother had said, "Your wife will love that," as a loving jab at Mondo's penchant for picky eating, Daiya had added on, "Or husband," then had quickly changed the subject so their mother couldn't correct him. Like he was almost... Protecting Mondo from any sort of expectations in regards to sexuality. (And as much as Mondo would absolutely love to laugh at the thought of needing protecting... To be fair to himself, this incident happened when he was around 8.)
Looking back on it, Mondo wondered if Daiya was like that just because he was an ally, unrelated to anything with Mondo, and he actually didn't know his brother was queer? Or if Daiya was actually queer in some way himself, which is not only why he was able to pick it up in Mondo so easily, but also why he cared so much about assumptions regarding sexuality and casual homophobia? Or did he only start to care about those sort of things after he realized his little brother liked boys? (Whenever that was.)
Mondo probably thought too much and too hard about the subject. It didn't matter Daiya's complete motivation, in the end. He likely just wanted to make sure Mondo's life wasn't any harder than it had to be. Because Daiya was just a good goddamn brother, and that's all that mattered.
... Fuck.
In the end, Daiya couldn't manage to protect Mondo from everything, even though he did try to.
Some time in either late elementary or early middle school, Mondo had gotten into a fistfight with another boy; which, by itself, wasn't a surprise. Mondo had been a feisty, short-tempered kid practically as soon as he could talk, and that, combined with God-awful impulse control, didn't leave much hope that he would be a ‘model student’.
At this point of the parent-teacher meeting, the teacher herself had her head in her hands, exhausted, while Daiya sat behind Mondo and the other boy's mother sat behind her child as the two boys shouted accusations at each other.
"He called me a wuss!" Mondo exclaimed, jabbing a finger in the direction of the kid.
"He called me ugly!" the other boy shot back.
"After he said my hair was stupid!"
"Well, he said my hair made me look like a faggot!"
All of the adults in the room jumped slightly at that, as if snapped to attention by that word. Mondo furrowed his brows at that response, looking from the teacher to the other kid's mother to Daiya, looking for someone to explain the reaction. When his eyes landed on Daiya's, his big brother put a hand on his shoulder.
"Where did'ja learn that word." Daiya said it like a statement, not a question.
Mondo could practically taste the fear and tension radiating off of the other boy, while Mondo himself simply kept making eye contact, expression unchanging. He wasn't scared of Daiya; not like a lot of kids are scared of their parents.
And he knew Daiya could make compromises. So Mondo tilted his head lazily towards the other boy. "Can I get my earful when we're not in front of the chump?"
Daiya lightly hit Mondo on the top of the head; not enough to hurt. More like a slightly strong, singular pat than anything. "Ay, what we're not gonna do 's start another fight. But yeah, whatever."
And unfortunately, Daiya did not forget about the subject over the course of the meeting, as Mondo had been half-hoping. As soon as they returned home, Mondo had tried to scamper off to his room, but Daiya grabbed his shoulder before he had gone too far. "Kid, you're not off the hook yet."
Mondo tilted his head back and groaned overdramatically, before turning to face Daiya, crossing his arms. "I didn't know that it was that bad of a word, okay?! I said that like, a bajillion times!"
Daiya rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I know that'cha didn't know, which is why I'm asking where ya got it from."
Mondo looked more so above Daiya's shoulder than at Daiya as he thought, furrowing his eyebrows. "Uhhhhhhh... One'a your friends."
"Which one." Again, Daiya said that more like a statement.
"The one with the hair like... Like..." He made a vague motion with his hands next to his head, signifying spiky hair. "Ya know?"
"Th'one with brown hair?"
"Nah, black and purple."
"Got it." Daiya did some quick finger guns at Mondo. "A'ight, that's it. You can go to yer room and pout now."
"I was not going to go pout!!" Mondo exclaimed, most certainly pouting as he said that. But still, he took Daiya up on the offer, going back to his own room.
Mondo never saw the gang member he described hanging out with Daiya after that, and he didn't know if he was kicked out of the gang, or just not allowed around Mondo anymore.
For the most part, Mondo grew up in an environment where being gay was a normal thing. Daiya and Daiya's company were all self-identified punks, which was a very queer community (apparently), so Mondo often heard phrases like, "Her girlfriend," or, "His boyfriend," tossed around regularly like there was nothing odd or taboo about it. In that sense, if Daiya's ultimate goal was protecting Mondo from the expectation for him to be straight, he'd succeeded. Mondo had managed to figure out he was queer by the time he was 13.
Queer in... Some sort of way.
Because for all the words Mondo heard being said like they were nothing out of place; gay, straight, girlfriends, boyfriends, queer, closeted, pride...
One word Mondo never heard was 'bisexual'.
That was probably why Mondo stayed in the closet for so damn long, even when he had figured out he wasn't straight at a young age, and even with the ridiculously accepting upbringing. Because he didn't know what the hell he was; some sort of weird, broken, confused something who couldn't chose a damn gender.
With the knowledge he had later, when he looked back on it all, he wanted to smack himself in the face, because he was ridiculous about how he went about it all. When he saw a pretty boy, he thought, Okay, got it, I'm gay. Then he'd go through the whole thing of getting used to the idea, getting comfortable with it, and then, sometimes, actually think about coming out. But always, before he'd started to properly plan it, he saw a pretty girl, and thought, Oh, wait, no, I definitely like girls. I'm not gay. And by the time the next pretty boy came around, it would have been long enough for Mondo to get used to identifying as straight, and he would have to start the whole damn process of getting used to calling himself gay all over again, in an endless, incredibly stupid loop.
Christ.
But the thing that was weird about it all was that, no matter if Mondo thought he was straight or gay at the moment, he never felt any different. His feelings for whatever gender he had currently decided he fancied versus the other gender felt the same. He felt gay but also straight. But also neither gay or straight, at the same time. His feelings were a mess, and he hated to think, much less talk, about his feelings. So he was left trying to untangle his whole mess of 'what the ever-loving fuck am I and what the fuck do I feel' by himself, in short intervals, so he wouldn't freak himself out.
Maybe if Mondo had gotten over his dumb something-or-other complex about masculinity and vulnerability and shit long enough to actually talk to someone ('someone', he thinks, as if he doesn’t know it wouldn't 100% be Daiya) about everything he felt, maybe Daiya could have been the one to introduce him to the word 'bisexual'.
But that was in that perfect world, and instead, Mondo found the word during a 3am Google search of 'gay and straight at the same time' in an Incognito tab, on a hot, restless summer night. After Daiya was long gone.
In the end, the closest Mondo came to telling Daiya was the day that he met the kid with shame in his eyes so intense that it overshadowed the red.
Mondo and Daiya were on their way to meet the other Crazy Diamonds in a different place than the usual; more far out from their house. After a short while, the two of them stopped by a convenience store, deciding to grab some sodas for no real reason other than they were thirsty and felt like it. When they were walking that short distance from where they'd parked their bikes at the side of the roads and the store, though, both of them immediately picked up on screaming from behind the corner; near what Mondo had so eloquently dubbed in his mind 'the poor kid school'. The second Mondo tuned in to try and understand what the kids were yelling about, he flinched in secondhand hurt, then immediately tuned back out.
Christ. He'd never even heard some of the words they were using in real life before (as stupidly nerdy as that sounds); just knew about 'em from what he thought were 'overdramatic' scenes that showed homophobia in movies. The ones that made Mondo roll his eyes at and scoff. Nobody actually cared about that shit anymore. Nobody got bullied for being gay nowadays.
Well... Apparently, judging by what he was hearing, he was pretty damn wrong. And this wasn't even that far from their apartment, too...
Daiya glanced at Mondo. "Ay, hol' up here for a sec, would ya? There ain't no teachers 'round here this time 'a day."
Mondo knew what Daiya was saying. If he didn't intervene, there were no other adults around to help whatever poor person the others were beating on. He shrugged loosely and vaguely waved Daiya along, feigning enough uncaring to, hopefully, not come across as someone overly-invested in this situation.
The second Daiya's back was turned to him as he stormed over to the groups of boys, Mondo peered around the corner, watching the confrontation with sick curiosity.
"AY, STUPIDHEADS! Get OFF the kid!" he heard Daiya snap, in that 'scary' tone that made practically everyone except for Mondo flinch. "Ay, ay, ay! Whadda HELL do you lot think yer doin'?!" He went to grabbing the other kids by the back of their shirts to pull them off the other boy on the ground. (Was the boy laying down covering his ears? Didn't he have more useful things to do with his hands when he was having the shit being beat out of him??) Judging by their size compared to Daiya, Mondo could loosely assume they were all around his own age, although he couldn't tell with the boy on the ground at the moment; he had his back to Mondo and was curled up tight.
When he had managed to get all the dumbass bullies off of the other kid, and to stay off the other kid, Daiya huffed. "Christ, ya kids got a lotta energy. Love the energy, not the homophobia. Go punch a punchin' bag or somethin', shit."
Mondo snorted.
The boy who the other kids who had been beating on finally, finally stood up, even though he shook. He looked so much smaller on the ground than he was when he stood up. Though that probably had to do with the fact that he stood up as straight as a ruler, even after going through being literally kicked while he was down. Resilient as all hell.
"So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna let Red Eyes get a head start on 'is way home, an' then you lot are going to go to yer homes. An' then, you lot are gonna fuck off an' leave this kid alone. Got it?"
'Red Eyes' was probably the victim, right? Mondo tilted his head, trying to get at an angle where he could see the kid's face, and he could easily pinpoint that the kid's eyes were extremely red the second he got a small glance. The color practically screamed at you, it was so intense.
The group said something, but Mondo could assume they agreed, judging by Daiya saying, "Good!" He slapped Red Eyes on the back, and Mondo flinched from secondhand pain, wondering if Red Eyes had been bruised there. "A'ight, on your way, then!"
This absolute dork fucking saluted his brother. "Yes, of course! Thank you very much, sir!" he exclaimed, in a loud voice and somewhat monotonous voice.
Mondo caught himself thinking, Christ, if he acts like that all the time, he's practically askin' to be bullied, but he shook his head slightly, dismissing the notion. That was a shitty thought to have.
When he saw Red Eyes turn to leave, he immediately dipped back over the corner before he could see Mondo watching his personal shit like a Saturday night drama. He practically stomped as he walked, though, so Mondo could hear him coming closer without even having to look.
He glanced over when Red Eyes passed him, expecting him to pay Mondo no mind, but the kid glanced back at Mondo, the parked bikes, then Mondo again. Then he came to a full stop.
Mondo stared at Red Eyes, expecting him to say something. Red Eyes stared back.
Now that Mondo could get a closer look at him... Fuck, he'd been beat up real bad. What he thought was just a pink-red pattern on his clothing was just... Blood soaking into his otherwise clean uniform. And, even though said (dorky) uniform covered most of his skin, what little Mondo could see had the beginnings of bruises.
Red Eyes stared, and Mondo stared back.
The shame in his expression was what struck Mondo the most about him. Shame too sharp and pained for those... Accusations (what the fuck do you call what they were screaming at this kid?) to not be true.
If it was a perfect world, Mondo would have said something, and told Red Eyes everything he needed to hear. Some sort of cheesy monologue to cheer up the hero after an equally cheesy, over-the-top scene of them being hurt. He would know what to say to Red Eyes because he knew he was bisexual, he was out to his brother, and knew what someone like Red Eyes would need to hear. He would have put a hand on Red Eyes' shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly, like the gang did for him sometimes.
But this wasn't a perfect world, and Mondo couldn't comfort people for shit. So when he locked eyes with this kid, with an aura of feeling ashamed and scared surrounding him so intensely Mondo almost choked on it, he just stayed silent, his train of thought stopping in its tracks.
So, Red Eyes, bruised and beaten for something that Mondo was all-too familiar with, ran off without a word.
Mondo considered following for about half of a second before he felt a big hand clap onto his shoulder, and he didn't even have to look to know it was Daiya. "So! We should pro'lly get those sodas, yeah?"
And they should. So they did.
They couldn't exactly drink soda while on the road, so they leaned on the wall outside of the store, sipping their respective favorite brands in comfortable silence.
Once again, it struck Mondo how this wasn’t that far from his and Daiya's apartment. And, for the first time, Mondo thought, Damn. Daiya protected me from... A lot of shit. His problems suddenly seemed so stupid, compared to whatever the hell Red Eyes was putting up with. The poor kid probably despised himself, and couldn't come out because he'd be in physical goddamn danger if he did, while Mondo was driving himself up the wall about being both gay and straight at the same time.
Not really thinking about it too hard, Mondo muttered out, "Thanks," to his brother, in between sips.
He could feel Daiya's eyes on him for a second, but he refused to look back, and he refused to explain what he was thanking Daiya for. Because he'd die before he admitted that not only had he allowed someone to protect him, but he was also thankful that they had.
He didn't know if Daiya got what he meant. He just said, "S'nothing!", before going back to drinking.
Immediately, Mondo's mind provided him with, It's everything!
He didn't say that.
He just took the last sip of his soda, and crushed the can in his hand.
If you notice that I struggle a bit attempting to convey Mondo growing up in a good environment, that would be because this is the chapter that is not based off of my own experiences. Kiyotaka's chapter was easy for me, because I grew up in a homophobic environment, but, for Mondo's chapter, I just had to ask my friends in more accepting places their experiences, and attempt to convey them here.
Like last time, expect the next chapter in a week!
