@inssng: Â Â Â â
âmom,â Â he begins, carefully, deliberately, before he lets his unspoken concerns weigh between the spaces of his words,
( how are you? howâs dad? how are my siblings? how many siblings havenât i met yet? if i apologize for my absence, will i be forgiven? Â Â i feel lonely without all of you. )
but he ends the heavy silence in dry humor, Â "you wonât miss me if you think of me always. Â letâs meet up soon.â
   She wasnât in the mood for jokes, not after finally seeing him for after a long time passed. Usually, sheâd laugh. She was one to laugh easily, fill the room with loud noises upon every small thing that amused her but not today. Was it because she was upset that he didnât talk to her? Was it because she was sad about the fact that he didnât tell her heâd leave? Or was it because she was disappointed, knowing that it was once again her reaching out to others. Did he even miss her the way she did?Â
And while she didnât ask these questions, not a single one, they still lingered in her head as she flicked his forehead with tears in her eyes. â Youâre stupid. â It was all she could say for a moment, all that her usually big vocabulary let her mind find. All she could muster before her arms wrapped around his middle, the height difference of the two allowing her to hide her nose in his chest.Â
â I wouldnât have had to miss you if you didnât leave, too. Donât get smart on me or else Iâll punish you by grounding you⊠And Iâll make sure to feed you food you donât like, instead of noodles. â And now she was the one joking, trying to light up the situation. Because even after what he did, she couldnât stay mad at her â son â.














