Alvalar’s gaze lowered and felt his grip on his laces weaken. Alvalar knew it was futile lying to her. She always saw right through him, so he relented instead and gave a nod. His hands suddenly felt weak and the bootlace fell onto the floor while he hung his head. “It’s hard, mamá,” he sighed. “I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m still in love with him. Every time I think of him, my heart hurts. Heck, every time I try to get over him and preoccupy myself with something else, it still hurts.”

  The bed suddenly creaked and the rough bristles of a brush started to run its little fingers from his scalp all the way down to his split ends. Ever since he was a kid, his mother would start to do his hair whenever he was stressed, saying that he’ll feel better in the end due to it being a calming, bonding moment. It might be weird and out of the blue, but it was indeed a soothing and relaxing experience. “I know, hijo,” she said, collecting his tight curls as much as she could and continued to comb her son’s hair in layers. “I know getting over someone is hard. You two have been together for four years, so it’s going to take longer than half a season, but maybe this break up is only temporary. Maybe you’ll get back together once you see him today and you two talk it out!”

  “That’s just what you want,” he grumbled.

  “But isn’t it what you want too?” she quickly replied. Her tone was playful and somewhat cheeky.

  Not expecting his mother’s response, Alvalar’s face suddenly felt hot and he smiled despite himself. He tried to produce an answer, any answer, whether it went against his real feelings or not, but right when he felt like they were on the tip of his tongue, his ability to speak suddenly disappeared, reducing him to having his mouth open and surely looking like a fool. He hated when this happened. He rammed his boot onto the floor and slammed a steaming fist on the mattress, the only other way he could voice his frustration about this humiliating situation.

  Eventually arranging her son’s hair into a tight top-knot, Mérida climbed over the mattress and sat beside Alvalar. With his mother leaning his head against her bosom and rubbing his shoulder, Misu walked over and placed her heavy head in his lap. She looked concerned, or was she laughing at him? Alvalar wasn’t sure.

  “It’s okay,” Mérida whispered into her son’s ear. “Relax. Take a deep breath and clear your head. It’s okay. I won’t leave.”

  Alvalar wanted to shout at her. Of course, he knew what he wanted to say. His words didn’t escape him. They didn’t leave his mind either. They were right there on the tip of his tongue, right within reach, but not being able to vocalize them made him feel all the more frustrated. It was like he was blocked from assessing those words even though they were his own. He must’ve looked foolish with his mouth hanging open accompanied with a frozen expression. Despite vigorously patting his thigh to hurry himself to speak, the words still didn’t come and the memory of the bullying he endured began to resurface.

  “What’s wrong, mute? If you want your comic book back, then just say so,” Jorge would snicker out, holding up Alvalar’s Mugiwara volume high in the air, while Alvalar would be in the middle of his speech block. He stood there, mouth open with a frozen expression. His mind was yelling him to speak and to be quick with it, but his lips just stood there as ridged as a corpse.

  “Oh, you can’t? Well, then I guess it belongs to us now,” Alexi added, pulling and yanking Alvalar’s hair, and a whole flurry of laughter would ignite. The twins Levy and Biembe wandered over to Alvalar’s maleta and dumped everything that was inside. Paper flew as freely as a bird while books crashed to the floor.

  “These too,” Levy continued, picking up the design book that housed the weapons and other metal work that Smoke’s clients wanted. Biembe took the book from his twin brother and roughly turned the pages. He peered at pages as though mildly impressed, but suddenly, without any sort of warning, began to tear up the pages that Alvalar worked so hard on.

  “And this too.” Biembe continued to tear out pages while Levy turned them into flakes that he threw up into the air and had them fall like snow. “If only you could speak, mute.”

  Tears began to swell. Alvalar had enough of this; if he couldn’t speak then he just had to act. He pushed Alexi’s hand away and gave him a headbutt. Alvalar’s head ached but not as much as Alexi’s; he was holding his head, groaning in pain. The other two, the twins Levy and Biembe, were so surprised that they were frozen stiff, dropping the book. Taking advantage of this moment, Alvalar rushed past them and toward Jorge, getting ready to throw a punch, putting all of his weight into it as possible, but his punch didn’t connect. Jeorge was just so fast that he simply cocked his head to the side, missing the punch entirely and returned with a punch of his own. It was so fast that Alvalar couldn’t even see it, let alone dodge it; he fell to the floor and found that a stream of blood rushing down his nose. It stung and ached, but by the time he wiped away the scarlet stream and got back on his feet, the pain simply vanished and the blood had hardened.

  Alvalar shifted, emulating the way Karollus would keep his legs bent with his fists close to his body whenever he got into fights, but it felt strange. He wasn’t used to this. He had never been in a fight before, something that Jorge could sense very well and threw the Mugiwara volume in the trash can. The four men began to close in like they were a pack of snake-wolves readying their forces to ambush an adult ground sloth. It was hard to keep an eye on them. First, they were here and then they were there and now they are over ther–

  Suddenly, a strong kick resonated at Alvalar’s side. Before he could even turn, he received another swift punch to the face, pushing him down once again. The pummeling to his face was relentless. They came like pounding rain, one after another, but then it stopped suddenly. Thankful, Alvalar was finally able to catch his breath and slowly turned his head. His vision was out of focus, however, when it cleared up, Alvalar saw Karollus had arrive and was delivering justice. He was sweaty and his Academy doublet was messy by the time he was done, but Karollus didn’t care; he helped Alvalar up and gave him a kiss. Everything ached, yet with Karollus’s strong arms wrapped around him, he never felt safer.

  Remembering those days, as well as the days when the pair would go on dates to the book store on the other side of town, pouring over the beautifully illustrated Guardian Beast cards and Mugiwara comics; the times Karollus would encourage him and give him confidence whenever Alvalar was feeling low; or the fun times they had battling one another in the living room while mamá was preparing an old Leal family recipe that dated back to their distant Kéké ancestors, Karollus would slam either The Bombs of the Phoenix or The Thunderous roar of the Lion-Hawk down and Alvalar would be nervously shuffling his cards, searching for The Hungry Zahrah or The Impregnable World Turtle Shell to control the effects and maintain his army, all left Alvalar teary-eyed. He just wanted those days to come back, to return to the way things used to be.

  Misu suddenly began to lick away her owner’s tears one by one like they were raindrops rolling down the windowsill. When she was done, he looked at her once more and she, indeed, wasn’t patronizing him. She gently licked his nose. Mérida let go of her hold on her son and Misu immediately rested her chin onto his shoulder. She even began to sing a symphony of softly-tuned wheeks into his ear. Unlike before, he didn’t find them annoying. They were comforting, and it didn’t take long before Alvalar found himself smiling again. When he wrapped his arms around his calibress’ neck and held her close, Misu was just overjoyed; her long, slender tail wouldn’t stop wagging!

  When he was done giving her a hug, Alvalar scratched his caliber’s cheek and began to pat the mattress, using the rhythm to help him produce speech once again. “O-o-of course,” he stammered. He hated it when he stammered as well, but he wasn’t going to complain now. “I want to get back t-t-t-together with him, but…” he stopped on purpose, not wanting to voice the thought that was wiggling in his head.

  " 'But you aren’t so sure that Karollus wants to, so you don’t want to put your hopes up’. Is that it?” Mérida voiced his thought out loud.

  Hearing his mother say it, however, eased the pain slightly. It was cathartic even. “You hit it right on the head.”

  Mérida let out a deep sigh. “That’s how it is in the beginning. All those feelings of uncertainty, regret and pining circling around— everyone experiences that. It’s normal. Getting over someone isn’t as easy as many people like to think, especially when you’ve been with someone for as long as you’ve been with Karollus… but like I said, you never know. Maybe he regrets it and he want to get back together too but just doesn’t know how to say it.”

  Alvalar turned to his mother. “Don’t you think your being overly optimistic?”

  “Don’t you think your being overly pessimistic?” she quipped back with her hands on her hips.

  Alvalar let out a chuckle and gave a quick shrug of his shoulders. “That’s how I always am, if you haven’t noticed.”

  Mérida smiled. “I’m very well aware of that.” She laughed and tapped his nose. “Pessimistic and low self-esteem, that’s you, but don’t worry. You won’t be like that forever, Alvalar. One day, you’ll be as confident as a lion, you’ll see.”

  Alvalar snickered. That lion must be as small as ant then, he thought, but he didn’t voice it. If he did, she’ll just start complaining again; “Stop putting yourself down,” she will say. “Your capable of so much more.” They were beyond annoying. Whatever she saw in him, he didn’t and always ascribed those words to that fact that she was his mother. Despite her words being utterly biased, that didn’t mean all of them were. Some were wise, giving him some rays of hope and for that, he was grateful. “Thank you, mamá,” he told her.

  Mérida cupped her son’s face and looked him in the eyes. Her blue eyes moved from side to side like they always did, looking as though they were reading him like a book. Knowing his mother, she probably was, but that didn’t bother him in the slightest. His book was probably boring anyway. “Por nada, mi niño,” she replied softly with a smile. “I’m sorry for getting mad at you earlier.”

  Looking at the way she forgave him just like that with such a caring expression on her face made Alvalar feel like a horrible son. He shook his head in disagreement and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. “No. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I… just woke up with Misu trying to smother me, so I wasn’t in the greatest of moods. I’m sorry too, for talking back and being disrespectful. You don’t deserve that.” He gave his mother a kiss.

  Mérida kissed her son too. “No matter what, Alvalar, I’ll always forgive you.” She then patted his side and gestured toward the door. “Go on. Your going to be late.”

  “I know. I should be getting a move on. Coronation Day is bound to make everyone busy.” Alvalar turned to his caliber. “You ready, Misu?” he called, patting his thighs all excitedly. “You ready, girl? You ready?”

  Misu chirped happily as a bird and ran towards the door. Alvalar laughed and ran after her. He heard his mother yell at them from upstairs, warning them that they’ll fall down the stairs if they go too fast. She can get too overprotective at times.