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“Tio Bruno?”
Bruno could hear Mirabel knocking on his bedroom door. He didn’t respond to it, opting to instead bury himself deeper in the small pile of blankets on his bed.
The door creaked open, and Mirabel walked into Bruno’s room, which had become much smaller since the reconstruction of the Casita, and stood before the blanket fort on her tio’s bed.
“Tio, Miguel is at the front door asking for you. Don’t you think you should go down and say hello?”
“...No, I don’t want to see him…” said the muffled voice from under the blankets.
“Tio, we both know that’s not even remotely true”.
Curse that girl’s perceptiveness.
Bruno poked his head out from under the fort, hair somehow even messier than usual.
“Well, even if it isn’t, what’s the point? What if he’s just here to tell me he doesn’t want to see me again, o-or to make fun of me…?”
“Or what if he’s here to just talk?”, Mirabel suggested, deciding to take a seat right next to the blanket fort.
“Tio, you can’t keep hiding from him forever, eventually, you’re gonna need to talk to him.”
“I know, Mira, I know. I just…I’m terrified of hearing what he has to say. I don’t want to lose him…”
“Bruno…”, Mirabel gently took Bruno’s hand. “Miguel has been friends with you for a while, he’s not going to suddenly drop everything over something like this. I think he’s here to assure you that he still cares about you. And, no matter what happens, just know that we’re here to back you up, okay?”
“...Thanks, Mirabel…”
“No problem,” Mirabel said and got up from the bed.
“Oh, and before you come down, you might want to at least comb your hair a little. You need to make it look like you haven’t been lying in bed all day.”
“Ay, you’re awful! Fine, I’ll freshen up my hair, but that’s all I am going to do!”, Bruno said jokingly annoyed
“Ah, Brunito, you’re here! Miguel wanted to see you, so I invited him in!”
Bruno stood there like a deer in headlights, staring at Miguel and Abuela, who were sitting down at the dinner table. Miguel looked similarly at a loss for words, having abruptly got up out of his seat when Bruno walked in.
“Hey, Bruno…” Miguel smiled softly, weakly waving to him.
“Hi…” said Bruno, not daring to look at Miguel, in fear that he may burn up on the spot.
An awkward silence took hold of the dining room, before Abuela loudly cleared her throat.
“Well, Miguel, isn’t there something that you wanted to ask Bruno?”
“Huh? Oh yeah…”
“Um, Bruno…would you like to go on a walk with me?”, Miguel asked, clearly very nervous and hesitant.
“O-oh…really?”
“Yeah, there’s this really nice pond I found in the jungle the other day. I thought you would like to see it.”
Bruno turned his gaze over at his mama, who was giving him an expectant look, and Mirabel who was doing the same.
Well, unfortunately, no backing out now.
“Sure…I’d like to go.”
The walk to the pond was a moderate trek, as it was just outside of the village.
During the walk, Bruno stayed mostly silent, but he could see that Miguel kept awkwardly trying to break the silence by talking about random things.
Nothing about what Bruno said, nothing about Bruno running off, just chit-chat about how things had been.
And that made Bruno very confused. Why was he avoiding talking about it? Of course, Bruno wasn’t in any rush to discuss it himself, but he was expecting Miguel to at least bring it up in some way.
Did Miguel just want to pretend that it didn’t happen? Was Miguel taking him out here to tell him he doesn’t want to be friends anymore? Why wasn’t he saying anything about it?
“Well, we’re here!”
Bruno had been so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t notice they were at the pond. It was a nice little pond, with a small beach circling it.
“How about we take a little stroll around the pond?”, Miguel asked him. “See what nature has to offer and all that fun stuff.”
Miguel took a few steps forward, but turned halfway around when he noticed that Bruno hadn’t moved.
“Bruno?”
“...Can you please just get to the point of all this?”, Bruno asked, not daring to make eye contact with Miguel.
“Qué dices?”
“You know, all of ‘this’”, Bruno waved his hands around. “Just…just tell me upfront that you don’t like me anymore so that we can be done with it…”
Miguel was completely taken aback by this. “Bruno, what are you saying? I don’t understand…”
Bruno was starting to get irritated. “You know what I’m talking about. You’re…you’re just dragging me out here so that you can let me down more easily after I told you I…I…” Bruno couldn’t make himself say the words out loud, for fear of it making things even more real. “but you’re just avoiding it and acting like everything is fine! I don’t need to be babied to, I’m not a dumb kid.”
“Bruno…That’s not even remotely what’s happening! I came out here so I could talk to you!”, Miguel yelled, clearly hurt by what Bruno was saying. “I was trying to think of what I wanted to say! How could you think that I’d just drop you like that?! Do you really think so little of me?!.”
“N-no, Miguel, you mean a lot to me!” Bruno implored, holding his hands together as if he were praying. “I-it’s just…it’s because of…”
“What is it?”
“I SHOULDN’T LOVE YOU!”, Bruno exploded, wildly gesticulating his arms, making the sleeves of his ruana fly around with them. “I-I can’t love you as much as I do! I’m Bruno Madrigal! I bring bad luck wherever I go and I talk to rats and I throw salt over my shoulder! I’m not…made for love.”
“But you’re more than that to me, Bruno! You’re worth so much more to me! You’re…you’re more important to me than you’ll ever know…”,
“...Wait…what do you…?”, Bruno trailed off.
Miguel was silent. He turned around and sat down facing the pond. He padded down the spot next to him, offering it to Bruno, to which he obliged.
“Bruno, I…”, Miguel faltered, looking more flustered and embarrassed than Bruno had ever seen him.
“I…I never got to tell you that day that…I love you too…” he said, his entire face a shade of pink and his mouth a small smile.
Bruno’s brain completely shut down, having difficulty processing what he had just heard. What was his name again? Where was he? Miguel said what?
“I think I was in love with you since we met, but I didn’t really know, or maybe didn’t really want to admit, that it was love”, Miguel continued. “When you left, I think those feelings only increased, but I still couldn't admit that I had completely fallen head over heels for you. It was only until you came back that I realized I couldn't keep lying to myself. I've been wanting to tell you for a while now, but, I couldn't bring myself to do that. I mean, how could I tell Bruno Madrigal that I'm in love with him? You’re so…different that it's amazing, and I’m so…not amazing. I’m just an old carpenter with a temper. What could you ever see in-”
“Miguel, no!” Bruno interrupted him. “You are amazing, you are so incredibly amazing. Y-you’re so kind to everyone you meet and you aren’t afraid to stand up to those pendejos. You…you’re patient with me, you listen to my telenovela plots and you even help out with planning them! No one has ever done that for me…and it’s because of all that, that I love you…you love me for me…”
Miguel looked into Bruno’s eyes.
“Well…why wouldn’t I? After all, you’re the sweetest person I’ve ever met, you don’t have a mean bone in your body, even when you’re grumpy. You’re so awkward that’s it actually adorably endearing. You treat your rats as if they were your sobrinas y sobrinos…and not to mention that you’re pretty good looking if I do say so myself…”
Bruno felt himself go redder than a tomato when hearing that. He hadn’t realized how close he and Miguel had gotten to each other. He looked into Miguel’s handsome, lovestruck face and into his sea-blue eyes, thinking to himself he could drown in them without a care in the world.
“Fuck it”, Bruno thought to himself, and he pressed his lips into Miguel’s.
Miguel was taken by surprise at first, but leaned into the kiss rather quickly. Bruno felt like he was on top of the world, and reveled in how soft Miguel’s lips felt. Eyes closed, he wrapped his arms around Miguel’s neck, and he felt Miguel wrap his around his waist. He heard a pleased moan from deep within Miguel, and Bruno felt like his chest was full of butterflies. It was as if time had stood still for the two lovers.
Bruno pushed away from the kiss and from Miguel, gasping for breath, with his hands still on Miguel’s shoulders. Miguel’s face had gone from a light pink to practically strawberry red, and he looked dazed and dumbfounded. After a moment, he finally uttered; “Wow…”
“Wow what?”, Bruno asked.
“Nothing, I just…I wasn’t expecting that…”
“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, I should’ve asked you before I did that-”
“No, no, Bruno, it’s fine, I just…wasn’t expecting that from you”, Miguel chuckled.
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” Bruno said in mocked annoyance. “I’ll have you know that I can do a lot of things you wouldn’t expect from-”
Before Bruno could finish, Miguel pulled Bruno into another kiss, this time it was short, but it still felt like he was high above the clouds.
Miguel pulled back from the kiss, cupping Bruno’s chin with a warm and soft hand.
“Now we’re even, silly.”
The both of them stood up, and decided to head back to the casita, accepting the fact that Dolores has probably heard everything and told everyone.
“Hey, I don’t want to force this on you, but do you think that we’re…”Miguel lightly probed, though Bruno knew what he was saying.
“I guess so. Only if you’re comfortable with it, though.”
Miguel took Bruno’s hand, interlocking his fingers with his, and looked into his eyes. “Of course I am.”
As they started their walk back, Bruno took one last look at the pond, seeing the sunlight shimmering off of the surface of the pond.
And, for the first time in a while, he felt like the future held something fantastic.
"I'm sorry that I got so mad at you like that, by the way. It wasn't right of me to accuse you of thinking less than me, I know how your anxiety can get. I'm sorry, mi vida."
"Thank you, Miguel...I appreciate that, I know how "out of the blue" it was, to just accuse you of bringing you out here to reject me and I'm sorry too, about blowing up at you like that."
"Aw, you don't have to apologize...it was actually kind of hot."
"MIGUEL!"