Archive of Our Own

i should have loved a thunderbird instead,

at least when spring comes, they roar back again.

i shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

i think i made you up inside my head.

Mad's Girl Love Song - Silvia Plath

On his twentieth birthday, Kun wishes for an apartment of his own.

Yesika looks at him from across the room, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, asking him what he's going to do to make it happen. He tells her that he will do it with hard work. She laughs at him from across the room and he does his best not to get mad at her, not to say something immature that would make him look like a child in front of his older sister. Yesika is older than him by only a few years, but sometimes it feels like a little more. Sometimes it seems like she has lived more lifetimes than her own parents. But Kun thinks that that's part of being the big sister, it's something that just comes with it.

His mother made a giant cake that his younger siblings eat by the load, while one of his aunts is smoking in the backyard with his father,  the barbecue still cooking. Yesika is now sitting next to him, a beer in her hand, looking at the children's pool in the middle of the patio, her three-year-old baby playing with the other children in the family while he laughs. She gazes up at them, her attention never waning for a moment. Kun is looking at his glass with fernet, seeing how the ice is almost completely melted.

"How is college?" Yesika asks, out of nowhere, without looking at him. Kun sighs, because it's his least favorite question of the night.

"It's alright."

"Just alright?"

"I don't know what you want me to tell you."

"You called me days ago in an anxiety crisis-"

“That was two weeks ago. I'm a new person now-"

"I know that mom can be so demanding and dad too-"

"It's not so bad, they have gotten better actually-"

"And I know that this house is very small and that you want to be a normal young adult-"

"I am a normal young adult."

"I just want my little brother to be happy!" She still doesn't look at him, but her hand around the beer bottle tightens her grip. Kun sighs once more and looks at her. He can see her profile perfectly. Her big nose and her strong jaw and her full lips. They look so alike that they were confused when they were children, because of Kun and his mania of having long hair growing up. Kun is so much like her, but never in the things that matter. Never in the decided future, in the planned life and the right decisions. Only in the way of walking, in the nose and the shape of the nails.

"I'm fine, Yes."

"Are you?" She finally looks at him. The glassy brown eyes of hers. Her voice trembling so slightly that Kun almost notices it. "I don't want you to feel lost, you're so young. You deserve to do something that makes you happy and allows you to feel fulfilled-"

"You don't have to worry about me, Yes." His hand ends up on her shoulder and she shakes her head. Kun starts to speak before she can interrupt him again, "It will get better. I can't back out now."

She looks like she wants to say something, but she doesn't say it. She just sighs and looks at him tenderly, her head tilted a little to the side. How she would look at him when he was a child, when he would do something as a little kid that would fill her with the pride of a big sister.

"Just promise you'll talk to me if anything ever happens, if you need help or support or whatever."

"Yes-"

"For God's sake! Promise it!"

"Alright! Alright!" She nods at that, and begins to drink from her beer, looking straight ahead. Kun sighs and does the same as her, raising the glass to his lips and looking towards the children's pool, where the kids are still playing. The fernet tastes bitter and hot in his mouth.

Leo is watching Antonella from the driver's seat, his hands gripping the steering wheel. She's looking back at him, her eyes are glistening with tears and she has an uncertain smile on her face, which disappears almost the moment she realizes Leo isn't going to say anything.

"You are not happy. " She says. There's an ugly pause that Leo doesn't break fast enough.

"No, don't say that. I'm very happy."

"You don't look happy." She impulsively squeezes the paper between her hands, then wails, trying to smooth it out. She looks at her hands with the paper between them and Leo looks at her, doubt and surprise still clouding his mind.

"I thought you'd be happy." She says. And Leo can hear her voice break, the desire to cry increasing. "I thought it was what you wanted. What we wanted-"

"I'm happy, Anto, it's not that-"

"Boludo, you look like you've seen a ghost. Not like you're happy." She looks at him, and she looks so angry. Leo can't remember when he last saw Antonella so angry. Her cheeks are flushed and tears fall from her eyes. "We're going to have a baby and you look like you've seen a ghost, Leo, what the fuck-"

"It's unexpected-"

"We have been married for fifteen years! More than twenty years knowing each other-"

"But we never talked about having a baby, Anto. You don't understand-"

"You don't want to have the baby, Leo? It's that what you're telling me?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying-"

"Then say something, dammit! Say something instead of putting that stupid face."

She looks at him for a long moment. An ugly pause replays. Leo sighs and releases the tight grip he has on the car's steering wheel. They are parked in the parking lot of Antonella's gynecologist, after Leo came to pick her up after work. Leo had a shitty day with thousands of exams to review and stupid students who hardly ever know what they're talking about. He is spending the summer with some students who have not been able to pass, and he is going to be starting the next semester in a couple of months.

Antonella got into the car so happy as soon as Leo parked. So happy she could die, a giant smile on her face, her eyes wide open.

Leo suspected the news before she told him.

"We didn't plan to have a baby. " Leo says, slowly, thinking about what he's going to say while Antonella watches him intently, tears frozen on the sides of her face, drying up. "We never talked about it. It's unexpected. And it's a lot at the same time. But I love you, Anto, we're going to be parents... That's very big and it's..." He sighs, and smiles too wide, trying to look happy. Probably looking like a mad man. "It's incredible."

It's enough. Antonella is not demanding. She doesn't demand much. Just the right words at the right times. And this is one of those cases. She smiles fondly at him, her head tilting to the side as she begins to cry again, this time from happiness. Her hands take Leo's face between them.

"We are going to be parents." she says, happy, softly. "We're going to be parents!" She repeats, happier, louder, hugging Leo by the neck, her body vibrating with joy.

Leo hugs her back. He doesn't say anything as Antonella talks more about the baby. Leo only hears her. It's the best he can do right now.

Javier looks at him from the counter. Kun tries not to feel nervous, but Javier Mascherano is terrifying even on good days. He's a senior in law school, he's student council president, he's had a long-standing reputation for being intimidating and difficult.

Nicolás told him that he could say that he was referring him and that would be enough for them to give him the job. But Kun doesn't think that's enough now.

“So... Sergio-”

“You can call me Kun, that's what everyone calls me.”

Javier looks at him. He looks directly at him for at least three seconds, saying nothing. Kun swallows slowly.

“Kun.” Javier says, savoring the nickname. It sounds so bad coming out of his mouth. Kun doesn't want to tell him to just call him Sergio instead.  “I know you are referred by Nicolás, and I know you're a good kid, really. But I need someone responsible for this job. My whole reputation is on it. If everything goes well, in a year, I will be the general manager of all the coffee shops throughout Buenos Aires, not just this one. And you... You have no experience in anything, dude, nothing at all. I can't risk hiring someone who will give me trouble.”

"I will not. I promise it!” He affirms, under Javier's gaze. “I need this job. I need the money. I don't want my parents to have to keep working like they do now, exploiting themselves to help me with college. I need this job, for them, my brothers and me.”

His mom is working overtime at the tailor shop, taking suits and clothes home so she can keep working and have more time to work in her shift, more time to make more money. His dad can't pay the bills on his soccer coach salary, so he's thinking about quitting the job he loves for a higher-paying one, where he can bring home more money and pay for Kun's college. Yesika has her own house near them along with her husband and the baby, but she still leaves food and money at home whenever she can, to help them.

Kun wants to help. He doesn't want anyone else to sacrifice themselves for him. His little siblings are still too young to do more than try to live a normal childhood, but Kun can help. He must help. He must be a man. It's time for him to be.

Javier continues to look at him and sighs.

“On Monday you have to be here at six in the morning, boludo, I don't want any excuses. The uniform will be given to you by Nicolás when you leave. Please, don't make me regret this...”

Kun isn't listening to him, he is jumping over the counter to kiss his bald head. Javier kicks him out of the office and outside is Nicolás, a smirk on his face when he sees Kun.

He will tell him in a big hug that he could do it, that he told him it was a piece of cake. He will give him the shop uniform, a sky blue shirt with brown and dark pants that are too tight for Kun. He will get up at four in the morning every day, make breakfast for everyone at home and buy cookies with his first salary to put in his little siblings’ bags for their snacks. He will leave work late, working as many overtime hours as he can alongside Javier and Nicolás, trying to earn as much money as he can before he starts college again in a few months.

He feels full in his work. He was able to buy some shoes for his dad. He was able to help his mother pay the children's tuition. He bought his little nephew a new bottle. They are very small things, Kun still does not know what it is to be a functional adult. But he is on the way to be. To be a better man.

At least a month after he starts working, he meets Leo. Two weeks before classes start.

Leo, actually, doesn't even like coffee.

Antonella loves it. But she is trying to drink it less now that the baby is a month old. Leo went to the appointment with the gynecologist last time, to see the ultrasound. The fetus looks so small and Leo can't believe it that exists yet, that it is real. But Antonella takes his hand every time, squeezes it hard, and brings him back to reality.

His mother had called days before telling him that she had bought a set of baby clothes, in unisex colors. His mom secretly wants a girl. Antonella wants a boy. Leo just wants it to be healthy.

When he meets Kun, he is walking aimlessly through the streets of Buenos Aires, his hands holding an endless amount of papers that he has to go through. Exams to grade. A thousand things to do that he doesn't want to do, because there isn't enough time at the office and at home he doesn't feel like he can even breathe. So he's taken all the papers he can, trying to find a place where it's easier to breathe, where there's enough time. He sees a coffee shop displaying cakes and donuts and bread in the window, lights hanging from the ceiling, empty tables. It's the best he'll see so far.

He sits at a table in the corner, letting the papers fall on top of it, hard. He takes out a book that Anto recommended him to read and that he hasn't even started, and leaves the exams aside, the ones he needs to grade. The girl sitting at the next table looks at him for a moment and then goes back to reading her book. He takes a pencil case with all his pens and markers out of his bag and it takes a long time before anyone approaches him, until Kun does.

The first impression he has of Kun when he sees him is that he looks too young. He has long hair and his cheeks are flushed from the heat in the city. The second impression of him will be, that he is very handsome. Leo finds Kun attractive from the first second he sees him. Raven hair and tanned skin and taller and stronger than him. The third impression will be that he has a beautiful and gigantic smile and very dark eyes.

(Looking back, when it's all over, Leo will understand that he was destined to fall into this vortex from the beginning. From the first time he saw him, even if he had met him a little earlier or later or somewhere else. It was simply written by the hands of God.)

“Sorry for waiting. We're short staffed.” he says, agitated, smiling sheepishly. Leo smiles at him, very slightly. “My name is Sergio, would you like something to drink?”

“Just a black coffee. Large.”

“Okay, okay. Do you want something to eat?”

Leo thinks about it for a moment. "A croissant would be nice."

“Perfect.” Sergio is ready to leave, but he looks at Leo's table, and smiles again, shyly. “That book is incredible.”

Leo looks at the book on the table. Antonella had lent it to him months ago, saying Leo would love it. But he hadn't brought himself to read it, he doesn't have much time for him to waste in the last few days, there isn't much time for him to waste really. He has never been a passionate reader. He has never been very passionate at anything.

“I haven't finished reading it.” Leo says. He doesn't want to say that he hasn't even started it. Sergio looks very excited about the book and dimples appear on his cheeks and Leo doesn't want him to stop smiling. “Is it worth it?”

“It is very good!” He says, and Leo can feel the youth in his voice. Filling his head, his chest and his veins with newness and serotonin. “My sister told me to read it and it's worth it. You should finish it!”

"I'll do it and I'll tell you what I think."

Sergio smiles at him and Leo can only hear loud, mechanical music in the background. Everything smells like dulce de leche, coffee and problems. Leo watches him go, sees his legs clenched in dark pants and, yeah. He doesn't quite know what he has awakened in him, but he can feel it inside his chest.

The book is about a young girl who moves to an island in the Caribbean and opens a restaurant, leaving behind a life that haunts her as the book progresses. Antonella is happy when she sees him reading and Leo reads the book whenever he can. In the mornings on the bus, between hours of administrative work at the college before classes start, in the waiting room when Antonella has to have another appointment with her gynecologist.

He ends up just three days after meeting Sergio.

And he goes back to the cafeteria.

Kun has always known that he can be impulsive, infatuated and too innocent. His sister says that it is normal, that he is just coming out into the real world. That he is so young and so vulnerable to everything around him. That with time he will learn and be more cautious, intelligent and confident. But that, for now, he should wear his youth with grace, for the few years that it may last him. Time is cruel and never waits for anyone. And it won't start doing it with Kun.

When he sees Leo for the second time, he smiles at him without thinking about it for a second.

“I finished it.” Leo says, without saying hello. He doesn't have to. Kun can feel his eyes light up.

“And…?”

“It’s incredible. It is wonderful”

“I told you!” Kun says, very happy. Leo smiles at him.

There's a line of people behind Leo who are complaining that he's taking too long. Kun tells him to wait for him, to talk in a few minutes when he is out for lunch. When it's his lunchtime, he sits at the same table as Leo to talk the entire hour about the book. Leo talks about the things he likes the most, Kun talks too much and Leo listens attentively, a smile on his lips all the time he does.

Javier approaches and looks at Leo curiously for a moment, before telling Kun to go back to work. Kun is sad to be leaving and looks at Leo for a moment, not knowing what to say.

“Come tomorrow. I will recommend another book by the same author.” Says Kun, because he wants to see him again, and he doesn't know what else to do for it. He hopes he doesn't sound dumb or childish. But Leo smiles at him and tells him that he will come at the same hour tomorrow.

Nicolás is looking at him strangely when they're closing the shop, when all the customers have left and there's only a week left before classes start. Javier is counting the money from the cash register. Kun is cleaning the tables and is singing some pop song under his breath.

"You look very happy." says Nicolás, his brows knitted, cleaning one of the local cups with a rag. It's pink and its handle is heart-shaped. “It has something to do with this guy who came today?”

"He's very handsome, isn't he?" Kun says, without thinking, laughing and sounding goofy. Nicolas rolls his eyes.

“He is… Fine.” Nicolás strengthens his gaze. “Too old for you.”

"He must not be more than thirty.”

"I'm pretty sure he's over thirty, for fuck’ sake."

"He looks familiar from somewhere." Javier says, without looking at any of them, concentrating on counting the money from the cash register. “But I don't remember where I've seen him.”

“Whatever.” Nicolás says, annoyed, and he sounds so silly with that tone of voice.

Kun continues cleaning. Javier keeps thinking about where he has seen that face before.

(Yes, Kun can be impulsive, infatuated and too innocent. He still doesn't know that all of that will blow up in his face. But he's on his way to find out.)

Leo comes the next day. And the next one. And the one after that.

Kun sits at the same table as him for lunch, while Leo goes through papers and they talk about books. They never talk about Leo's job, or the ring on his hand, or how old Kun is. They only talk about books and movies. Leo tells him that his favorite movie is Kramer vs. Kramer. Kun tells him that the last movie that made him cry was an animated one that he watched with his little siblings in the living room of the house, eating popcorn that Yesika burned while she was cooking it.

It's a time in the day when Kun doesn't have to think about college starting again, where he doesn’t have to prepare himself once again to pretend that he loves this career. That he does not regret every day in his life of choosing it.

Leo can forget that he is going to be a dad. That he has a nice house and a considerably new car and can live a quiet life and yet he has never felt more lost. As if someone is pulling him out of all the things he can do and achieve.

In the afternoon of that short lunch hour, it may just be the two of them. Neither of them seems to realize how strange their relationship can look from the outside, even when Nicolás leers at them in confusion and Javier keeps wondering where he's seen Leo before. Nicolás tells him to be careful, because Leo looks older than them and there is no explanation for him talking almost every day with someone who is barely an adult. Javier only tells him that this better not affect his performance as a worker.

Kun says there's nothing really going on. He will look ugly at Nicolás when he tells him to be careful and he will ignore how Yesika looks at him strangely every time he comes home from work with a big smile all over his face. Because there is nothing, not really. Just afternoon conversations with a man he doesn't know very well, but who looks at him carefully every time he has something to say.

Nothing really feels like it happens until school starts.

Kun has to take Monday, Wednesday and Friday off work to attend classes. He has five classes this semester and tries to have a positive attitude on the first day. Nicolás is in the cafe because his classes don't start the same day as Kun, but Javier is by his side most of the time. Where Javier is serious and controlling, he is also a good friend and partner who has become part of Kun's friend group without even trying. And Kun believes that Javier has taken a liking to him, although he never admits it out loud.

They are walking in the corridor of the university and Kun is talking non-stop about books, while Javier listens attentively, even though he is not looking at him.

“What's your next class?” Javier says, looking straight ahead, his eyebrows slightly furrowed. As if he was angry. Kun thinks that he is like this all the time.

“I have no idea. I know the teacher's name is Lionel. Chiquito told me that he is quite a difficult teacher.”

“Will we see each other when you leave? I don't have classes after this hour. I can wait for you to go together.” Kun smiles at him. Javier stops looking ahead to look back. His grimace grows stronger. “What?”

"I'm just saying that..." he begins to say, positioning himself in front of Javier, a smile on his face, "You like me. I think you should admit that you like me.”

“Please.”

"And that you love being my friend."

"You're fine, you're... Nice."

“You adore me.”

“What an idiot you are.” Kun continues talking in the background while Javier just looks at him, smiling a little. But at one point he looks over his shoulder. And everything in him tenses. “Kun.”

“What?”

“The guy. The guy from the cafeteria, the old one-”

"He's not that old."

"Isn't that him over there?"

Kun turns around. And yes. That it's him over there.

He has a brown leatherette coat and a white shirt underneath. He is fighting with one of Kun's classmates, Sara, who stands in front of him not letting him go. He has a grimace on his face and tired eyes and held in one of his hands, against his side, the last book Kun recommended him to read.

“I knew I had seen him somewhere.” Javier says. Kun is not paying attention to him. Not really. He has his eyes fixed on Sara's argument with Leo, until Leo seems to win and leaves Sara behind, talking to herself. “Kun?”

“Everything is fine.”

He doesn't know if everything is.

Leo is short for Lionel, Kun will learn the hard way, at least ten minutes later.

He wishes he didn’t lie back then. Saying that everything was fine and nothing is happening, not really. That there's nothing going on but lunchtimes shared with a total stranger. But maybe, there is something else going on.

He ends up next to Sara in class. She looks at him, her eyes green and so clear that she sometimes looks like a demon. She says that the teacher is a jerk. Kun has no voice to defend him.

Lionel introduces himself and Kun tries to calm down, because this is ridiculous. Nothing has happened. Nothing has ever been said or done. Leo has been nothing but friendly and respectful every time they've spoken. And he has never been inappropriate. Kun must stop acting like a child, that ends up in love with anyone who tells him the hour with a smile when doing so. He spends the entire initial class without saying anything, without talking to anyone. Sara looks at him strangely next to him, and asks him if he's okay at least twice during class. And one more time when it finishes.

"Are you sure you're okay? You are always so talkative. I know we're not that close, but I'm surprised to see you like this.” She says, with her thick Spanish accent. Kun smiles at her the best he can.

"All good, Sara. Thank you.”

She looks at him for the last time, approaches to kiss his cheek and leaves with the other girls, who are waiting for her at the door on the way out.

Kun looks towards the desk. Leo is standing up, erasing the blackboard. His classmates leave the room, one by one. Until it's just Kun inside the classroom. When Leo turns around, he's the first thing he sees. Kun smiles at him. And maybe it's the only normal smile he's given all day.

“Are you following me?” Leo says, instead of saying hello. His tone of voice is light, but calculated. Like he spent hours thinking about what to say.

“I could say the same.” Kun says, and he approaches little by little, not knowing how close he can be.

Leo smiles at him, toothless. Up close, Kun can see that his beard has grown even longer, reddish and brown hairs blending together. He smells of perfume and has the wedding ring on his hand that Kun ignores that he exists every time he sees it.

“I tried to make myself believe that I was seeing things when I saw you sitting there.”

"So you did see me. I thought you didn't recognize me.” says Kun. “Weren't you going to say hi if I didn't?”

"I didn't want to put you in an uncomfortable position.”

“Why would it be uncomfortable?” Leo stares at him. Kun tries to keep acting like nothing is happening. “We're just friends. It doesn't have to be weird if you don't make it weird.”

“Sergio-”

"Call me Kun. We are friends, that's what my friends call me.

Leo laughs. Kun feels his cheeks hot.

“Why do they call you that?”

“How was your first day?” Antonella asks when she lies down with him on the bed.

She smells like body lotion with a hint of strawberry and peach. She is wearing a robe and her hair is wet. She places half of her body on top of Leo's as he lies down next to her. She feels warm and fresh against his body.

“It was okay.”

“Did you make friends?” She says, laughing.

Leo tenses. And then he feels like a jerk for doing it. She's kidding, it's a joke. She knows nothing, and there is nothing to know. There is nothing to tell.

"Men my age don't make friends the way they used to."

"You sound like an old man." she says, before leaning in to kiss him.

(Sergio says that they nickname him that because of an anime he watched when he was a child, which his grandparents liked a lot. Leo doesn't recognize the name. Leo tells Sergio that he loved the book he lent him. None of them talk about the fact that Leo will be his teacher for the rest of the semester.)

(Nobody says anything either about the fact that Kun stays in the classroom when everyone is already leaving. Nothing ever happens. Kun will end up sitting on the desk and talking for hours about something that interests him while Leo watches him from the chair, from below, his eyes probably glowing. He'll blame the cold light in the office if the subject ever comes up.)

“I only say that the narrative is somewhat heavy at the beginning.” Kun says, sitting at the desk, while Leo picks up his things.

Leo laughs, not looking at him.

“You sound so young saying that.”

“It has nothing to do with it. I would be the same age as you and it would still hard to stomach.”

"I think it’s... Good. It is too condescending for me.”

“I think you're just looking for a far-fetched way to say that it's boring.”

Kun is smiling at him when Leo finally looks at him. He looks so young and so happy and sparkling for a moment. He has a sky blue sweater on. It makes his eyes look bigger. Leo swallows hard.

“Don't you have to work today?”

“No, I'm free on college days.” He says, moving his legs from the top of the desk, playing with them.

"It's getting late for you to go home."

"You can tell me if you want me to leave."

"I never want you to leave.” A marked pause. “But it's too late for you to be here”.

"I was waiting for you to finish so I could go."

Leo looks at him with a smile, which only spreads when Kun blushes.

"I won't be leaving until hours later. I have one class left.”

“Oh. Alright.”

“Please be careful going home. If you can, let me know when you arrive.”

“I don't think I can do it without your number.”

He is right. Leo looks at him for a moment, without actually saying anything.

"I don't think that would be correct.”

"My God, you're still with that. There's nothing to worry about.”

Leo considers that he is right. But his chest feels heavy when he gives him his number, his stomach churning in sheer anxiety and confusion. Kun will look at him with his giant eyes and give him one of his smiles that makes him look younger than he is and he will bat his eyelashes and think that he has everything under control. That Kun is right, that he doesn't have to make it weird when it is not. When they're just friends.

It's hot inside the car. It smells like mint because of the new air freshener pill that Antonella bought a few days ago. His jacket ends up in the back of the car, the air conditioning blowing hot at first from the car's fans, before turning cold. There's an abandoned maternity magazine on the passenger seat.

His cell phone rings somewhere inside his briefcase.

When he gets home, his mother is sitting in the living room, talking to Antonella about baby clothes and watching the ultrasound of the baby's second month over and over again. She swears to God that she can see that it is a girl, though it's literally impossible at this stage yet.

When Leo finally sees his cell phone, he sees a message from an unknown number.

"I made it home! Safe and sound."  

"Thank you for the class and talk today!"

Leo looks at his cell phone for a moment without doing anything.

"Thank you for letting me know."

Leo doesn't know it yet, but this is basically the beginning of the end.

(No. Actually, he does.)

"You know; I don't think this book is that bad. You're being too hard on it."  

"You are joking."

"No, I honestly think it's not bad!!! You're just too old and don't know how to have fun anymore."

"Now I'm the problem."

"..."

"...Ok. Maybe I could be the problem. (...) I'm glad you enjoy it."

"I'm just saying... Sara is a good girl."

"I've never said it isn't."

"I'm just saying you should give it a second chance."

"I know you love being the good guy and the hero, but I don't think Sara needs your help."

"Come on"

"(...) Uhm... Let me think about it."

"Thank you!"

"There is nothing to be thankful for."

"Exactly how many?"

"We are seven. The five youngest, Yesika the eldest and me, the one who comes after her."

"Woah... That's a lot."

"My parents started early."

"We are four. Two older brothers and the only girl who is younger than me."

"Are you the younger brother? My God, that explains so much"

"I'll take that as a compliment. I'm not even the youngest really-"

"Did you always want to be a teacher?"

"I think so, when I was your age I think everything was a bit more obvious. I don't think it is so much anymore."

"I think you are an amazing teacher!!!!!"

"Thank you, Sergio. I think you are amazing in general."

"I don't want you to take this as an insult..."

"Oh God"

"But why are you studying economics? I feel like... It doesn't have much to do with you. Or your character. Or who you are."

"I don't know. I took a test. They gave me three career options that I could study and this was the only one that my mom said would help me in the future. So that's what I decided to do."

"I think it's a waste in your life. You are so much more than this career. You go so much further. You are an artist by nature."

"Thank you, Leo. But I don't know. My dad followed his dreams and we can't pay the bills for it. My mom couldn't study. I'm thankful that I have at least a chance."

"I think you're amazing. And I think you underestimate yourself a lot."

"Please don't tell me I have a lot of potential..."

"...You have a lot of potential."

"Um."

"And I think you have a great life ahead of you."

"You sound like an old man."

"I am an old man."

"No, you're not. You're still very young, Leo. I don't know who makes you believe that you're not young anymore, but you still have plenty of time to be happy."

"You too. I hope you always know that. I feel like in the haze of being 20 and wanting to be somebody, you forget that you're still so young. And you have so much ahead of you."

"Thanks... I needed to read that today."

"There is nothing to be thankful for."

":)"

":)"

“What's their name?” Yesika asks, while her husband is sitting next to her, with his nephew in his hands, giving him ketchup with his finger.

Her younger siblings are sitting around him, eating like crazy, while his mom fights with them, so they can eat without making a mess. Gaby, the sister who comes after Kun, is sitting next to him, eating potatoes while she looks up to see what they are talking about.

Kun looks up from his cell phone. Yesika is looking at him. She has a little smeared makeup in the corners of her eyes and her eyebrows are outlined sharply. She looks so cute under this light, Kun told her as soon as she sat in front of him. She still looks beautiful now, even when she's glaring at him like that.

“What's the name of who?”

"Whoever you're talking to right now instead of paying attention to your little sister on her birthday."

"It doesn't bother me, Kun.” Gaby says quickly, smiling a little.

They are all at a McDonald's on the corner, where Yesika invited them to eat to celebrate Gaby's 17th birthday. Gaby is wearing a plastic crown with fake gems that Mayra, the youngest of the entire clan, forced her to wear to look like a princess on her birthday. Gaby is shy, perhaps the shyest of them all, and she has a lighter eye color than everyone else in the family, like their grandmother.

"Well, neither do I, but I want to know." Yesika says, sighing heavily, as if she were a horse. She leans a little over the table. “Do we know her?”

“Yesika!”

“I'll take that as a no.” She says, thoughtfully. "It's from college, I suspect, where you're going to meet girls the if the you're in that cafeteria all day."

“Nothing is happening. It's just someone I talk to.”

Yesika narrows her eyes. Gaby moves restlessly in the seat where she is.

“What's her name?” she asks, smiling sheepishly. Kun looks at her and softens a bit by doing it.

“Leo.”

“Leo? It's a weird name for a girl.” Yesika says, softly.

Kun looks at her: “Maybe because it is not a girl.”

Kun thinks he's imagining it, but he thinks everything at the table goes quiet for a moment. But then everything follows its normal course. Gastón and Mauricio are fighting with the toys on the table while mom scolds them and dad is singing a princess song with Mayra and Daiana.

Gaby, next to him, does not flinch for a moment. And Yesika just looks at him with even more narrowed eyes. The only ones who seem uncomfortable with the turn of this conversation are Yesika's husband and Kun himself. Yesika's husband proceeds to ignore the conversation and continue playing with his nephew while Yesika, with a motherly tone, tells him: “You know you can tell us anything, Kun.” She sounds a bit harsh when she says it, but Kun understands. It's Yesika. Yesika, that had to raise most of her siblings with her mother and father and that continues to care for them like a lioness. She doesn't know much about how to be soft. She learned everything she knows too fast and exposing herself to all sorts of meaningless situations to protect her siblings from all, so they wouldn't have to go through all the things she's been through.

“I know.” Kun just tells her, nodding. Yesika stares at him for a moment, and for a moment, she looks like she doesn't really know what to say.

“And is he handsome, Kun?” Gaby says, smiling brightly, bouncing a bit in the chair. "Let me see him!"

"Let us see him." Yesika says, smiling.

Kun doesn't show them a photo. Actually, he doesn't have a single photo of Leo to show. But they don't have to know that.

"I don't want to sound weird, but..."  

"Oh God"

Leo is sitting on the sofa in the living room. Antonella has a yoga video on low volume in the middle of the room. She is starting to see a small bulge on her stomach, according to her. Leo still doesn't see it visible. Perhaps because he hasn't been paying the attention he should have on her in recent weeks. But Antonella never complains or says anything, even when she sometimes seems about to say something.

"I don't have a single picture of you. My sister would like to see a picture of you."

"Why would your sister want that?"

"Because she wants to know who I talk to so much. She also wants to know if who I'm talking to is handsome. It's a girl thing, I think."

"You don't want a picture of me. It wouldn't be right."

"Leo!!!"

Leo believes that he can be a normal adult and not give in into this nonsense. Talking almost every day with one of your students is something that not teacher would approve, not even the most rebellious or disoriented of the.. He can't blame Kun for being the way he is and for being a part of this situation, he is too young and calm, moving without seeing social rules or pacemakers. Just now starting to discover that life is cruel and has no compassion. Leo should be a responsible adult and draw a line between the two of them.

But he won't. Not soon.

This is just one more night where he will cross the line.

His cell phone vibrates in his hand, and the first thing he sees is Kun, smiling, somewhere where the lights are too bright. His hair looks longer and he can see a gold necklace around his neck that brings out the white of his teeth. He is sitting between two girls. The one on the right, has dyed purple locks and wears a plastic crown and has flushed cheeks, a shy smile on her face. On Kun's left side, there is a girl who is identical to him in every detail. Her nose is identical and she has a giant smile like Kun's. She is standing up and wraps her arm around Kun's body against her, crouching down to her side to be on level with him.

"If you were embarrassed to do it, now we're both on the same page!

The one on the right is my sister Gaby, today was her birthday. She's the one who wants to know if you're cute.

The one on the left is Yesika, the oldest of all. She also wants to know if you're handsome."

Leo feels something move inside his chest. And he feels like crying while he smiles. He looks at the photo for too long before actually doing anything else; drinking in the sight of Kun so relaxed, so at peace, next to his family and the people who love him. So young and so calm, so little worried about everything that comes after him and everything that has come before.

Leo does not give a name to anything he feels at that moment.

He just opens the camera and takes several photos. None is perfect. He looks too stoic in some, too old in others, too tired in all of them. None is enough for him; none will ever be enough for Kun. But he takes one where the light hits his eyes and he feels a kind of deja-vu, from when he was a little younger and a little less tired.

And he just sends it.

Kun doesn't show the photo to his sisters. Because it is not their problem and because he does not have to. Inside him, he knows why he can't do it. But he never faces that reality and that truth, he's too into whatever it is he's feeling. Too tangled and holding on to branches. He doesn't have a name to use either, a meaning to give it, an adjective that can define it.

(He doesn't tell anyone, either, that he stares at the photo for hours. That he watches Leo's eyes glistening below the lights from the room and the strands of reddish hair in a too-long beard and the gray beginning to show in his hair. The little wrinkles on his cheeks and eyes from smiling for so many years. No one has to know how his heart moves like a railway inside his chest, wanting to be free from this omen of wanting too much and with so much power.)

It's a Thursday morning and Kun shouldn't be here to begin with.

He had to go to college early and look for a book that he left lying in one of the classrooms. Javier had looked at him as if he were a dumbass, and told him to hurry up and get back to his shift as soon as possible.

But then Kun saw Leo, and there's not much he can do with himself when it comes to Leo.

None of the students in Leo's class look at Kun for a moment, actually. Kun is sitting in a corner of the room, his chin resting on one of his hands, watching Leo dominate the class and how everyone pays attention to him without ever looking away. Kun is fascinated and maybe a little in love; maybe this is what it sums all up and this is the end of the road. Kun is impulsive, infatuated and too innocent, but he is not stupid. He never has been.

When the class ends, Kun is slow in his steps and thoughtful with his movements. He doesn't know where his new realization leaves him in this big college hall, where it's just him and Leo. Four walls painted white and a green blackboard that occupies the entire wall. Leo's books on the desk, Kun's things on a desk. The heat of the summer fluttering between them.

“Did you like the class?” It's the first thing Leo says. Kun is in front of the blackboard, looking at the giant amount of equations written on it. Leo looks at him for a moment when he takes too long to respond, and approaches, to stand next to him. “Are you okay?”

“I think I was wrong, Leo.” Kun says, ignoring the question. His hands are in two fists next to his body. His face is white, white as the chalk with which Leo writes his equations. Leo just looks at him, waiting for him to say something else. “I was wrong.”

“Kun, I don't understand what you're saying.”

“I don't think we should talk anymore.” Kun says, breathing slowly. He feels his heart in his throat and his chest tighten and his hands sweat. And he's only lived 20 years of life, but this is the hardest thing he's ever done. Kun looks at Leo, and seeing him makes everything worse. Leo looks lost and suddenly, so tired. “You were right, this is weird and inappropriate and I--”

He can see realization come to his face. As his eyes soften and embarrassment blurs his countenance for a moment. But then it disappears, replaced by something Kun can't quite name.

But later, he realizes what it is. Very late, when Leo is close to him, his hands on his face and his lips against his. Kun realizes how big his hands are when he kisses him, how much he has wanted this for so long. About how there's not much he can do for the blood that runs in his veins and that burns, that’s been burning voraciously for months for someone Kun can't have. Not really.

Leo's mouth tastes like mint and coffee, his hands take his face so strongly, but Kun doesn't care about that. His arms hug Leo against him, chest to chest, Leo raising himself a little on his toes to get to Kun's height so he can kiss him properly. Leo smells like vanilla and sweat and all the things Kun has ever wanted in life; freedom, passion and absolute surrender. He can ignore the cold he feels on his face, the ring in Leo's hand against his cheek, a life Kun is unaware of and of which he is no part of.

When Leo pulls away, his hands are still there, on either side of his face. Kun's hands taking his arms, hard. Leo has the brownest eyes Kun has ever seen, if such a thing exists. He's breathing against his face and then it's over as fast as it starts.

Kun's hands aren't holding him tight enough for him not to move away. As for him not to let him. Leo is so far away from him in a single second, adjusting the collar of his shirt and sighing too loudly, his throat completely dry. Kun feels the heaviness of twenty years of life wash over him like cold water over his head, cold enough to let him know that he must go.

Leo looks like he's about to say something he never has the guts to say, when Kun decides to take his stuff and leave.

When he arrives at the cafeteria, Javier scolds him for being late and Nicolás looks at him without saying anything. There are tears in his eyes that never end up falling.

"I'm so sorry, Sergio.

I hope you can forgive me.

It will never happen again. I swear."

Kun doesn't answer.

“You seem sad.” Her little sister will say at some point in the following week. When Kun has spent days without eating well and not paying attention to class and filling himself with more work than he should. Javier doesn't say anything, but he's looking at him with more concern than he wants to show, Nicolás will try to distract him every day with the dirtiest and most inappropriate jokes and he'll be sad when none of them work.

He hadn't realized until now how much Leo influences his life, in his moments and seconds. How much they talked, and interacted. Text messages that are too deep, voice notes singing or telling an endless story, photos taken hidden in a corner of a house where no one can fill them with questions. Stolen moments in an abandoned classroom when everyone leaves.

Kun hasn't even been able to go to his class in two weeks because the thought of seeing him destroys him from the inside.

"Did Leo do something to you?" Gaby says, and she sounds so small saying it. She settles on the sofa next to Kun, pinching her legs together, waiting for Kun to tell her a secret.

“It is so obvious?”

“You're not on your cell phone that much. And, well, you look sad.”

Kun looks at her, and she smiles a little at him.

"I'll tell you when you're older."

“We are only three years apart.” She says, in the mood to fight. But she seems to realize that Kun doesn't want to do that. She approaches him and gives her older brother a kiss on the cheek, merely, instead of saying something else. “I love you, Kuni.”

“I love you more.”

"You can't avoid me all your life.

And you can't just stop going to class.

Go to the next class, please.

Don't make me report your fouls."

Antonella is lying next to him in bed. Leo can now see how his belly has grown more, the first trimester of pregnancy completed. She has a hand on her belly and looks at Leo from the pillow, where her head is resting. She is getting some acne on her back and face because of the hormones and she goes to the bathroom all the time and feels nauseous after eating anything.

Leo is sitting on the bed, his back resting against the wooden headboard, a pillow in his lap where his laptop rests, an Excel open with a bunch of numbers with marks and assists and fouls. His screen cursor over a specific name.

Sergio Aguero del Castillo.

Next to him, two notable absences from the last two classes. Leo is trying to be kind to him, gentle, because Leo is the adult responsible for all of this. The one who should put an end to it and move on with the chapter of his life. He is nothing more than a blot on the next chapter in Kun's life, which he will soon be able to overcome.

His cell phone vibrates on the nightstand next to him. Antonella has her eyes closed and Leo is almost certain that she is falling asleep. He takes the cell phone carefully.

"Fine."

There are two emotions in his chest. The rational one, the one that he is grateful to have taken the step in the right direction. The irrational, that he expects much more, wants more, yearns for more. The one that moves stealthily between his ribs and fills his chest with warmth with the mere thought of Sergio, with raven hair and large age gaps and kisses in a classroom where anyone could see them.

Leo writes messages he doesn't send, as if he's clinging to an edge, as if he's been drifting for too long.

"I'm sorry about everything that happened. We can still be friends, if you want."

"I finished the last book you recommended. I didn't like it."

"Please talk to me again"

"Don't talk to me again, please, it's for the best."

"I miss you."

He doesn't send any of that.

Kun has a blue sweater on, tight black pants that Leo suspects are the ones he wears when he works at the coffee shop, and puffy eyes with dark circles under them. He walks too slowly and isn't talking to anyone, even though the entire room is happy to see him and greets him enthusiastically. Sara, next to him, pushes back her hair with her hand to smile at Kun over her shoulder, a smile on her face. Leo holds the chalk so tightly in his hand that it breaks.

The class is horrible. Leo is too lost in his thoughts about Kun and can't get the students’ attention so he gives up halfway through, letting them talk for the last few minutes of the class. The girls get up from their seats and pull their desks closer and start asking Leo questions he doesn't want to answer and ruffling their hairs while laughing at the jokes he makes that aren't funny. One of them is in front of his desk, and when she stands still, he can see Kun over her shoulder.

He looks so fragile and Leo wants to hold him in his arms. Give him a kiss, wrap him in a hug. Tell him that he is sorry and that he misses him. Tell him to give Leo ten days or ten years to fix his life so he can make him part of it.

When class is over, the girls smile at Leo and pick up their bags and Leo can't see him leave, so he turns his back to the doorway and waits for everyone to leave the room, handing over the eraser to remove all the debris on the board. Words that no longer make sense. His name in a corner. Lionel Messi. Bachelor of education. Future father and loving husband. Good son and better brother. Neither of those adjectives seems to matter in the footnotes of this story. Not anymore, not at this point.

Footsteps are heard behind him and the echo makes them sound louder than they should. Maybe it's just his mind, full of guilt and desire, making things bigger than they are. He has Kun next to him before he is ready for it. He doesn't even dare to look at him, not that close.

"I just wanted to ask you for my book." Kun says. His voice sounds so tired, but so sweet, like it always has been. Sweeter than Leo deserves it to be. “And to give you this other one back.”

“Alright.”

“Did you like the book?

"No... not much, really."

“Don't worry. I didn't finish yours either way.”

Kun moves behind him and places the book on his desk. His pace is not in a hurry and he moves delicately, not wanting to make anything worse than already is. Leo leaves the eraser in the clipboard to look at him, Kun with his back to him, playing with his hands.

Leo approaches, slowly, to then look inside his briefcase, take out the book and give it to him. Kun tries not to look at him, and succeeds, until his hand lightly touches his while handing the book. Leo looks at him and Kun looks back. He can see dark circles and his eyes are glassy. And Leo could cross countless lines that he has almost never crossed in his life, but the last few months crossed without thinking.

When he kisses Kun for the second time in his lifetime, his lips are dry and his face is cold when Leo touches it with his hands. But his body is warm when Leo presses it against his.

Leo tells Kun to wait for him and Kun does it.

Inside Leo's car, time passes little by little and at the same time, too fast. A car parked in some seedy bar parking lot where they would ask Kun for his ID to get in. His cheeks have warmed up; they feel hot when Leo's right hand is on his face. With his hands on the side of his face, Leo can only stare at him. His nose is reddish from the cold of the air conditioning inside the car and his hands shake as he lifts them to cup Leo's face back.

Kun smiles at him and Leo feels his heart pound too loudly inside his chest before kissing him.

The windows will be fogged up and his right hand will be inside Kun's pants and his left on his neck. Kun's eyes will be shining from the tears that Leo will kiss as they fall down his cheeks, his lips saying his name over and over again like some kind of mantra. Leo, Leo, Leo.

Leo will take him home when it's all over, when there are marks on his neck and his wrist is sore. Kun will smile at him with the innocence Leo put at edge all night and then he will give him the messiest kiss he's ever had in his life, with tongue and teeth meeting and the salty taste of sweat. Of Kun and his thick lips and cold hands and cheeks plump with youth.

Leo will then drive home, where his nauseating wife entering her second trimester of pregnancy awaits.

Constant messages every day will be back after that. The talks about books and recommendations and notes in the corners of old books. There are photos and there are calls and there are moments in abandoned classrooms in the middle of the afternoon and night and lunches in a coffee shop. There are looks of people who are worried about this situation that Leo and Kun don't consider for a moment, that they don't take into account. Leo can ignore that he may lose his job for this kid, Kun can ignore that his life is meaningless and he has thrown all his beliefs out the window for some man.

Javier and Nicolás? Not so much. They can’t ignore all of this.

The intervention takes place in the same McDonald's on the corner. Kun only ordered Nuggets to eat and Nicolás two Big Mac's because "one isn't going to be enough" and Javier is eating a salad that he hasn't touched all afternoon. The boys, in a desperate attempt to push ahead, have dragged Kun away as soon as they can, it's just his lunch hour and they have left Enzo, a new boy who is barely in high school and needs a summer job, in charge of the store when he has only been working there for two weeks.

“Can I know why we are here?” Kun says, a nugget in his mouth, BBQ sauce flooding his palate.

Javier is going to speak but he can’t, because Nicolás does it first, with his mouth full and mustard on his lips: “You're fucking the professor.”

Kun is unfazed, he can't even feign surprise or horror. He can't lie to his friends, even if he wanted to try. Javier looks at Nicolás out of the corner of his eye, as if he wanted to kill him, to later look at Kun, with a little more nobleness in his expression.

"We just want to know if you're okay." Javier says softly. No angry grimaces and faces hardened by the state of constant anger in which he is. He looks at him carefully, like his friend who loves him and is worried. “That you're not chewing more than you can swallow. That you're not getting into a mess.”

“I'm fine.” Kun says, calmly, without even raising his voice. His hands shake as he takes the next nugget. "There's nothing to worry about."

"So you are fucking him!" says Nicolás. Kun's silence is confirmation enough. Nicolás throws his hamburger on top of the wrapping paper and laughs, with such cruelty that Kun could cry. “My God, Kuni, of all the clichés in the world-”

“Nicolás.” Javier mutters, next to him, as a warning, looking at him angrily.

"You know he's married, don't you? His wife is very pretty. I think she is pregnant-”

“Nicolás-”

“But of course Mr. Professor didn't tell you shit about that because it's much less difficult to fuck you if he doesn't tell you the truth-”

“Nicolás!”

“It’s okay.” Kun says, looking at Javier that is about to jump on Nicolás. Nicolás continues to look at him with fury on his face, the kind that Kun believes exists when you're worried. Javier looks at him with shame, embarrassment. With pity. “I'm fine, that's what you guys wanted to know and yes, I'm in a mess, but I'm fine.”

“Kun-” Javier tries to intervene. Kun doesn’t let him.

He gets up and leaves. It is raining outside and he has no umbrella. The box of Nuggets in his right hand. He sits at the bus station, waiting for the bus to go home because he can't walk under all this rain.

His cell phone rings in his pocket.

"I went looking for you at the cafeteria and you weren't there.

Enzo told me that you went out with the boys.

I missed you.

Let's meet tomorrow."

There are tears in his eyes.

"Yes, please. Let's meet tomorrow."

Tomorrow, it's Saturday. Kun tells his mother that he is at Javier's house, doing something from college, that he will probably stay the night. His mom smiles at him and tells him to take care of himself and to call when he is at Javier’s house.

Leo picks him up in the car two blocks away from where he lives. When he gets in the car, it is cold and smells like lavender. Kun smiles shyly at him and leans in to kiss him on the face.

The hotel is nice and far enough away that no one would recognize them, not really. There is a girl with red hair at the lobby who looks at them and smiles and gives them the room key.

Kun talks a lot and sometimes Leo can only listen carefully and that's it, without much more to say. He just pays attention to him and looks for something to say to make him laugh. He will kiss him while he talks and hug him when he continues to do it. The thought comes to Leo like lightning that Kun is his within these four walls, not property of other people. Here it is just them and their mixed feelings and a thousand things to say that they never say, at least not with words.

“When I was a child, I wanted to be a footballer.” Kun looks at him with narrowed eyes, with his head on his chest. Leo smiles at him. “I don't know. My dad said that I was good, but my dad loves me, I don't believe much in his judgment.”

“My dad wanted me to be a soccer player.” Kun says, looking at him with a smile. “He has been training children to play football his entire life, in an academy. It is for low-income children. It is his life's work. He loves football too much.”

“And you do not?”

“Yes, I guess. I liked it a lot more as a kid. With the job and college, it's not like I have a lot of time to really relive football like before.” His eyes darken. "I don't have a lot of time for anything really." He looks at him carefully. “Just for you, lately.”

Leo tilts his head and looks at him, his eyes shining. There is a discomfort in his chest that he ignores when he speaks again.

“What did you want to be when you were a kid?”

"I don't think I know."

“No?"

“No.” Kun has that look on his face. That makes him look fragile and vulnerable and small and that he fills Leo with air in his lungs. “I liked a lot of things, I wanted to do a lot of things. I didn't end up doing anything that was completely what I wanted. I feel like I do everything by halves, one foot on one sidewalk and the other on the other.”

Leo looks at him cautiously. He's about to say something, something Kun won't like him to say. Kun stops him before he can.

"Don't say it, please."

You have so much potential. You have a life ahead of you. You are so young. You have so much to live for. Don't give up, you still have so much time.

Leo kisses him instead of saying any of those things.

Kun doesn't tell Leo that he's never done this with anyone else.

He has kissed people before. Girls and boys from college and high school. But he's never been that close to anyone, not really. He was busy thinking about what to do with his life, looking at the stars, spending time with his family and friends. He never thought that made him any less than all his friends who had done it before, who had been so close to other people.

But the first time he feels Leo's hand on his neck, the other on his thigh, lips against his neck. Yeah. Kun has never experienced anything like this, nothing close to this. Nothing that feels real and palpable and true.

Leo is gentle. He's gentle and doesn't say much, but he kisses Kun like he's never kissed anyone in his life, like he only has this lifetime to do that. And maybe yes, maybe they only have this life.

There are fingers at his entrance and fingers in his hair and his hands around his neck and his hands over his hip. Leo's chest against his chest. Kun can see freckles on his nose and on his neck clearly; more reddish-gray hair on his chest that barely exists. Leo says many things, he says "honey", and says "Kun", "Sergio", "sweetheart", "love" and Kun thinks that he is in love and that this man does not belong to him, and will never be his and at some point he will have to let him go.

When Leo is inside him, nothing really matters. Leo smells like sweat and vanilla and sex and Kun is in love with him, and he's never been in love in his life, and he's too young and doesn't know anything, but he knows this is love; hot love that runs through his veins and clouds his head and covers his ears and fucks his senses.

At one point, Leo looks at him. And Kun's heart stops.

And then, it starts to beat again.

“Have you ever been in love?

Leo laughs. “I think it's obvious.”

“To whom is it obvious?”

And well. In these circumstances, for whom is it?

Leo drops him off at his house, across the street, not caring much who might see them. Kun kisses his cheek, not his lips. He smells like Leo's cologne and the hotel soaps. Leo doesn't want him to go, he wants to turn the car around and take Kun far, far away, where no one can ever find them. Start a new life, create something new, love again and truly.

But he just starts the car to keep going.

Kun is not going home. He doesn't go straight. He walks aimlessly.

Well, not really aimlessly, he ends up on the doorstep of Yesika's building. And when he rings the bell, she is in front of the door, with his nephew in her arms, her hair disheveled.

Her husband is outside, buying something for breakfast. The children's channel is on and she has the bottle warming up in the kitchen. Yesika's face is clean and her mouth smells like mint and she looks at Kun with a smile that slowly disappears.

“Are you okay?”

Kun just starts crying.

Antonella’s pregnancy is hitting four months and it is the end of September, when the gynecologist tells them that they are having a boy.

Antonella talks all the way in the car. She talks about baby clothes in blues and greens and reds, boys' names with biblical meaning, cribs and toys. Leo listens to her, tries to hear her clearly most of the time, although it's hard and sometimes he loses track and doesn't know exactly what to say. But Antonella is too happy to notice.

“Do you like the name Thiago?” She asks him, in bed, wearing a satin robe. She smells like moisturizer and vanilla and roses and has the brightest smile Leo has ever seen on her. Her face shines from anti-aging creams and serums to eliminate wrinkles and Leo thinks of when they were a little younger, in love and crazy. Marrying too soon, they were barely out of high school. Antonella had black hair and Leo had no beard. Only 20 years have passed since then.

He trembles when he thinks that's more than half the life Kun has lived.

“I like that name.” Leo says, and he doesn't even know if what he says is true.

Antonella laughs and climbs on top of him, her leg over his abdomen, her arms around his neck.

“Thiago Messi. So beautiful.” she says, smiling. "It's so close, are you excited?"

There are still five months to go. Leo doesn't tell her that.

“I am.” One of Antonella's hands ends up on his scalp, and Leo suddenly feels nauseous. “Anto...”

“Leo.” she says, frowning. "Please, I'm tired of reaching out for you, of trying to get closer, I-"

“I'm not in the mood, seriously. I'm sorry. We can do it another day.”

Antonella wants to fight. She wants to say something else. But Antonella is too much like him, in a way, neither of them says the things they want to say. To get them off their chests. Before he thought that was a quality. He doesn't see it that way anymore.

When Kun meets Antonella, the cold of October is beginning.

They meet by chance. Kun and Leo in the classroom as they always are. Kun sitting at the desk, Leo in the teacher's chair, smiling as he looks up at him, his hand on Kun's thigh. Kun has just made a joke when Antonella walks in, Leo squeezing his eyes shut as he laughs.

Kun sees her first before Leo. And she smiles gently at him. Kun removes Leo's hand from his leg and when Leo stops laughing, he gets up from his chair, as if he just saw a ghost. In a way, he believes that he is doing it.

“Anto.” Leo says, sighing heavily. She smiles.

She's wearing a brown coat and a white shirt and her belly is visible, she looks a lot bigger at this point and it's the first thing Kun sees once she's near them. Then he sees the glass container she has with her, full of cookies. The smell of chocolate hits Kun's nose and makes him want to throw up.

“Hello. How are you guys?” She greets, cheerfully, her voice is more high-pitch than what Kun imagined it would be. She is taller, prettier, and nicer than Kun thought she would be. He took comfort in imagining her otherwise; with shadowed eyes and thin, cold hands, a woman he could fight over for Leo. But the truth is more painful than anything Kun could have imagined in his head. Kun gets up from the desk, almost tipping over, losing his balance. Antonella looks at him and smiles, her teeth so white that Kun feels they are blinding him. “And you are?”

“Sergio.”

“Sergio, it’s pleasure!” She approaches to give him two kisses on the cheeks, laughing softly against his ear. “I'm Antonella, Leo's wife. Nice to meet you.”

Kun can't say anything. He doesn't want to say anything. Antonella smells like vanilla and Kun realizes that the vanilla smell is not Leo's smell, but Leo's wife's smell. The smell given off by the life they share together, the son they will soon raise. How the walls of their house and their pillowcases smell. Kun can imagine her, coming out of the shower, fresh and feminine, applying the cologne that she will end up leaving all over Leo's body.

Yeah. Yeah, he's going to vomit.

He tells Antonella it's a pleasure and leaves the room, without even saying goodbye to her, bile in his throat.

(He reaches college men's room fast enough. He throws up his lunch. And after flushing the toilet, he sits on the floor. The smell of vanilla still in his nostrils, his mind clouded with jealousy.)

When Yesika meets Leo, it is mid-October.

They do not meet by chance. Yesika has been looking for him in all the classrooms, after begging Nicolás and Javier for help. Javier, who is always so stoic, refused to help. Nicolás, who is just crazy with worry like Yesika, told her everything she needed to know.

Yesika decided to carry out this ambush on a day when Kun had to work, so as not to have him as a witness. This conversation does not concern him. It's between the man who's going to ruin her brother's life and her, the woman who sacrificed everything to raise him with her parents.

Perhaps she could have left the baby at home. But Andrés, her baby, laughs against her chest and does not know the scene he is about to witness.

“Excuse me.” It's the first thing Yesika says when she enters the room, totally empty, Leo turning his back to her while he cleans the blackboard. Her voice shakes more than it should and she sounds so angry. He turns around. Yesika only feels even more anger when she sees him completely. “Are you Leo?”

He is smaller than she thought he would be. He has a freshly trimmed beard and somewhat long hair. He is attractive and he must be a little older than her. In fact, no. He looks a lot older than her. That only angers her more.

“Can I help you with something?” And Yesika can see how he looks at her closely, and how he seems to realize who she is. She suspects it's hard to ignore; she is very similar to the kid he has slept with for months.

"I want you to leave my brother alone.” she says. Leo takes a deep breath. Yesika strengthens her grip on Andrés' little body, while she approaches Leo. “Don't make me tell your wife or report you, don't make me tell my parents. Don't make me do something I don't want to do. Get away from him.” Leo just looks at her and says nothing, only making her angrier. “He's my little brother. He is so young. He's still a kid, he doesn't know what he's doing. You are the adult here, you must stop this. You must do the right thing.”

Leo knows that she is right. And yet, he doesn't know if he can promise her something like that.

When Kun calls him, it's the same day, but at night. Leo tries, tries as hard as he can to tell him this has to stop. That this is the end of everything. That they cannot see each other anymore and that they must put an end to it.

But then, he hears Kun's voice, on the other end of the line, locked in the bathroom while Antonella is in the kitchen, singing a low song, gently touching her belly.

Kun is talking about work today. At each beginning sentence, Leo is about to interrupt him, telling him that they should leave this here. That they should walk away and be friends or strangers again. Walking the sidewalks again and pretending not to know each other if they ever meet.

Leo thinks about it. A world where they have to do that. And his heart clenches inside his chest at the thought of pretending that he doesn't know Kun, that he doesn't know how his lips taste like and how his hands feel like and how his voice sounds like when he moans loudly, Leo inside him, in the back of a car.

“Sergio.” Leo says softly, his hand over his eyes, shielding himself from the bright bathroom light.

“Leo.” Kun says, with that voice that he has used a thousand times before. The voice he uses when he is about to get someone in trouble. Get Leo in trouble. “I missed you today, I couldn't see you-”

“I was busy…”

"Always so busy. Make a space in your busy calendar for me, Mr. Messi.”

Leo wakes up with that. Instantly. It’s embarrassing and it makes him feel more disgusting than he already does. But it's easy for it to awaken something deep down inside him that he can't explain.

“Sergio-”

"I'll be on my best behavior. I will behave up to the task. I'll be a good boy.”

“Sergio.” Everything feels warm around him. His voice doesn't come out well. He doesn't feel like a real person, he feels like he is seeing all this from the outside, from above. His hand inside his sleeping pants, Kun's voice against his ear, the clean, lavender smell coming from the shower he cleaned last weekend. “Sergio, please-”

“Please give me a chance. I will do everything you want me to do.”

And Leo graduated with honors from college and is a great son and a wonderful brother. He has helped his students pass exams and has given free classes and has worked extra hours that are not paid. But here, under the cold bathroom light and between the bathroom tiles, Leo is just a man.

“Tell me.” His voice is breathless and he hears Kun moan from the end of the line. He can imagine him, on the single bed in his room. A Diego Maradona’s poster on the wall, books on the floor of the room, his pants down his ankles, his shirt sticking to his chest from sweat. The jet-black hair falling into his eyes. “Tell me what you would do for me.”

Kun will say a lot of things, whispering against his ear, so many that Leo will forget what he was going to say. The speech he had prepared. The dignity he was willing to regain. Above is a God who sees everything. Leo will be ashamed of his actions, until he sees Kun again, red-cheeked from the cold sometime by the end of October and no longer cares in the least what God may think.

It's November, and the end is near.

Leo and Kun are in a hotel room. As almost all their stories begin.

Leo is on the bed and Kun is checking the TV channels and Leo just watches him do it. He has a towel around his waist and his hair is wet. It has grown too long and he refuses to cut it. Leo's beard is too long and Antonella has told him to trim it down, but he doesn't because Kun likes how it feels against his face when Leo kisses him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Kun looks over his shoulder and smiles at him, shyly from where he is standing. There's a drop of water running down his shoulder that Leo wants to lick it off.

When Kun goes back to bed, he smells like soap and tastes like mint. His skin is cold but Leo warms it with his hands. When the call comes in, at least two hours later, Kun has his head on his chest and is sleeping. Leo has his hand on the back of his neck, and he barely hears the sound of the cell phone, because it's too low on the nightstand.

“Leo!” It's the first thing he hears. His sister sounds desperate, restless, Leo sits up in the bed quickly, waking up Kun, who moves to his side of the bed, looking at him with half-open eyes, too sleepy to even react. “Leo, where are you? Please, you have to come right now-”

“Maria.” Leo says forcefully, trying to understand what's going on. His sister breathes heavily from the other side of the line, trying to calm down. “What's going on?”

“Anto fell, Leo. In the kitchen. I don't know what she was doing, there was blood everywhere- Leo, where the hell are you? Come to the hospital as soon as possible-”

Kun can feel how the tension is shaped in the room, and he gets up to start getting dressed, and pick up their things, while Leo is talking on the cell phone with his sister, asking for the address and how Antonella is. He listens as he lies to her saying that he is in a course with other teachers, that he would come home at night.

Kun doesn't say anything. He doesn't say anything in the hotel room and he doesn't say anything when they're in the car and Leo's hands are shaking and he's breaking thousands of traffic rules to get to the hospital as soon as possible. He doesn't say anything, doesn't ask if everything's alright, if Antonella's alright, if this could have been avoided if Leo had been home, instead of…of…

Kun doesn't even know how to finish that sentence, that thought. He doesn’t want to feel guilty, he doesn't want to dwell on it, he can't put the weight of the universe and all the funny things it does on his shoulders. But he does, he does it all the way home. He does it when Leo drops him off in front of his house, when he doesn't know how to say goodbye properly, when he just starts the car in a hurry and Kun has to see him leave as fast as possible.

(Thiago and Antonella are fine. Antonella was on her tiptoes in a chair that shifted and caused her to fall to the side, hurting her ribs. But Thiago is fine and Antonella is fine too, although she has bruised her ribs and head and her tummy is bruised and swollen. She smiles at Leo when she sees him, holding his head in her dainty hands as he begins to sob uncontrollably at the bedside.)

("Everything is fine, Lionel," she says. Leo doesn't have the heart to tell her that nothing is fine.)

Kun doesn't know if he should text Leo, so he doesn't.

Leo doesn't want to get away from Antonella even for a moment, so he doesn't text either.

By the time December comes, Kun has lost 22 pounds.

His mother is worried about him and his father has told him that he should go out more, that going from home to work to college is going to make him sick. Kun hadn't believed before, that it was possible to be lovesick, for his ribs to compress into his ribcage, trying to fill the void where his heart should be. But maybe now he does believe in that, in impossible love and giving his soul completely.

In fifteen years, he may be able to see this from the future, mature and being Leo’s age. Understand that he can survive a thousand other things. That this only feels bigger than it is because he's too young.

He comforts himself by thinking about it, that in the future he will be able to look back. Right now, looking straight ahead feels too scary anyway.

They're about to go on vacation for two weeks, due to Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and Kun and Leo haven't spoken to each other for weeks.

On the last day of school, Leo thinks he can go home. He can enjoy the next two weeks, with his wife, trying to make up for all the damage he did, the things he messed up.

But when he arrives at the college’s parking lot, Kun is leaning against his car, his arms crossed and shivering a little from the cold. From his mouth, steams comes out and his eyes are closed. Leo drinks in the sight of him for a moment; the simplicity of this moment and everything that awakens in it every time. Kun waiting for him near the car, smiling happily, his hands warm. Secretly kissing in hotel rooms and in the back of a car. He feels all those feelings in one fell swoop, and for the last time he can allow himself to do so.

"It's too cold to be here waiting for so long." Leo says, slowly, moving closer. Kun opens his eyes, there is not a single emotion on his face when he looks at him. Not at first. But Leo knows him so well. He can see the sadness inside, the confusion and retaliation for decisions made in fabricated moments within a fantasy.

Kun, the figment of all his bad intentions. Of all the things Leo has ever wanted and he never dared to possess or seek. Leo, an alternate life that Kun longs for, a peace, a tranquility and maturity that everyone says that at some point will arrive but that never does.

“I just wanted to confirm that Antonella is okay.” Kun says softly, detaching himself from the car. His arms continue to hug his body, trying to protect him from the cold. Leo approaches him, removing his jacket, Kun shakes his head as he reaches over to put it on.

“It's getting too cold; you can't get sick when there is so little left for Christmas.” Leo says. Being close to Kun after weeks so far away, without smelling him and without feeling his warmth, is too much suddenly, Leo feels dizzy. He puts the jacket around his shoulders, Kun breathes again and his breath hits Leo's face, cold and smelling like mint. Leo takes one last look at him: big, deep eyes, quivering lips, and a beard that's starting to grow on his face. Leo walks away, too slow. He proceeds to speak, when the silence is too pronounced and he feels his heart in his ears. “Antonella is fine. She is much better now.”

“And the baby?”

“He is fine too.” There are only two months left until he arrives. Antonella counts the days and takes photos of her pregnancy process that then she edits and uploads to Facebook. “Sergio-”

"I'm happy for you Leo. I really am.” Kun says and there are tears in his eyes. Leo would like to hug him, but he doesn't come one step closer. His hands close tightly on each side of his body. “I wanted you to know that.”

“Sergio-”

"And there's no grudge if this is all over now." Kun nods slowly. He brushes his nose back and walks forward, approaching Leo. “I'm glad it happened. I just wanted you to know that.”

Leo senses that there is something else he wants to tell him, but he doesn't. There's something on the tip of his lips. But Kun only looks at him for the last time and he walks a little quickly next to him, leaving him behind. Walking home. Leo wants to tell him that he can take him home, but Kun is too far away by the time Leo finally has the guts to do it.

(Kun will notice the jacket he did not return when he gets home. When the room around him is cold and his senses are too exhausted. He will sleep in his childhood bed, the same one he has slept in since he was four years old, wrapped up to his head, Leo's jacket smelling like vanilla and the consequences of his actions hugged to his chest. Leo has taken so much from him; his innocence, his virginity, his hopes for a happy, perfect, dreamy first love. Kun can keep even if it's just one thing about him.)

"Merry Christmas, Nico.”

Nicolás looks at him carefully.

"I'm not mad at you if you still think I am.” Nicolás says defensively. He has a Santa Claus hat on his head and is growing a beard. Kun smiles a little at him. Nicolás softens automatically. “I was never mad to begin with.”

“I know.”

“I was worried.”

“I know.”

"I love you so much, Kun, I-"

Kun approaches. They are inside the store, about to close. They have worked half a day. Javier is in the back, closing off the escape exit and the offices and kitchen. Enzo is finishing cleaning the tables.

Kun gets close and wraps Nicolás in a hug. “I know.”

Nicolás hugs him back, hard.

Kun, when the years go by and he looks back and thinks about this moment in his life, he will forever regret leaving his friends behind. Of abandoning them and leaving them with their words on their lips, all for going to cheap hotel rooms or for singing in the passenger seat of a car. Nicolás, in the future, will tell him that he is ridiculous and that these are things that happen and that he does not hold a grudge against him. Javier will say that he doesn't care.

Javier suddenly appears and approaches them, to say, with annoyance: “Can we finally go?”

“Oh, you bad-tempered bald bitch. Come join!” Nicolás says. He can hardly be heard because he has his face hidden in Kun's neck.

Javier joins in the hug, hugging Kun from behind. He feels Javier's face against his back and his hands hold him tight, expressing all the emotions that he almost never knows how to express well. But that Kun understands.

Enzo joins in the hug a minute later, when Kun invites him to do so.

“How is college?” Yesika asks him.

Kun swears that this conversation has happened before. Months before. At a time in his life where everything made a little more sense and he hadn't lived so much in so little.

Yesika has a red dress, and her lips are painted crimson. Kun is wearing a black shirt and Leo's jacket. But no one knows that’s Leo's jacket, only Kun. It hugs his shoulders and reminds him of Leo's hands, around his neck, behind his scalp.

His little siblings and his nephew are playing on the floor of the house. One of her aunts is screaming and his brother-in-law is happily chatting with his mom and his dad. It's New Year’s. Another year to come and another to go. Pages of a calendar that turn on their own, no matter how much Kun wanted to stop time, stop its passage. Pausing for a moment to take a deep breath before having to move on.

Yesika is sitting next to him. A glass of wine in her right hand. She looks at him when he takes too long to answer.

“It's horrible.” Kun says. The truth this time.

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“I want to leave college, Yesika. I want to quit this bachelor.”

Yesika is not surprised by this. “And what will you do?”

“Don't know.” She looks at him for a long time, thinking what to say. “I don't want you to think that this is about Leo.”

“No. In fact, I don't think it is.” She smiles at him, just a little. There is too much in her gaze, things that Kun still doesn't know how to name. “I think I already had an idea that this would happen. I think I knew it before you did. I think Leo just helped you realize that.”

“And of many things.” He says, though he doesn't want to say it. Kun takes a deep breath, bringing the glass of fernet that he is holding to his mouth, to take as much as he can in one gulp. He expects to see concern in Yesika's eyes, but there's none of it. There is affection and there is love and there is devotion, which Yesika has always dedicated to him. “I am in love with him. I love him, Yes-”

"I know, Kun."

"I don't think I'm going to love like this again."

“Maybe not.” She tilts his head, affection in her eyes, big sister's pride. “But you will love again, in a thousand different ways. You will see something else and you will feel something else. That is the wonderful thing about love; you will discover it with time. For now, I want you to know that it's okay to be sad. It’s okay that you are confused. I hope it comforts you to know that you won't feel like this forever, kiddo. I promise you.”

(When the new year arrives, Kun is a little bit drunk and wishes for Leo to be happy and for his baby to be healthy and for Antonella to be well. That his life can go on as normal. And that it never stops for anything. Not even him.)

January arrives and with it, Kun does not return.

Leo doesn't see him in the hallways or in classes, and when he asks about him, Sara tells him that he has dropped out of college. That she doesn't know more about him. That she misses him and that she always liked him and he was a good guy. Leo stops listening to her halfway through her speech.

He leaves work shot, in a moment of impulsiveness. When he arrives at the cafe, they are closing. Enzo is at the entrance, cleaning the windows, and he gets nervous when he sees him. He is telling Leo that they are already closing, when a slightly older and taller boy comes out of the kitchen. He has a slightly overgrown beard and looks like he wants to kill Leo.

“What are you doing here?” He says, very angry, stopping as close as he can to Leo, to breathe in his face. His eyes are small and dark, probably from anger. “Don't you really get tired of harassing him? You are insane. Someone should call your wife-”

"I have no idea who you are.” Leo says, because he doesn't know what else to say. He has no idea who this guy is, but he seems like Kun's friend. And he seems to hate him. It makes sense. “I'm looking for Sergio-”

“Nicolás!” Says someone else. When Leo looks up, he can see another boy, bald, with the most annoyed face Leo has ever seen in his life, reaching out to push the other boy away from him. Behind him, there is Kun, watching the scene, with his eyes wide open. “Leave him alone, for God’ sake, are you crazy?”

Leo ignores them, watching as the other guy leads him away, telling Enzo to leave them alone as well. The three of them enter the kitchen, Nicolás yelling a bit and Javier telling him to stop being an asshole.

In front of him, is Kun. He looks peaceful and he looks calm and he smiles at Leo a little, just a little. Leo slowly approaches him.

"Sergio, please."

“I didn't leave because of you, if that's what you're thinking.” Kun says, reading his mind. He keeps smiling at him. And Leo is envious of the calm that he shows, the tranquility. He looks just as young, but with a dash of something else. Of life. Of wisdom. “It was my decision.”

“Sergio, but what are you going to do now?”

“Don't know.” He says. “I'm still thinking about it. You were right, I have a whole life ahead of me."

And he has it, Leo knows that he has it. That he has on his way so many mouths to kiss and bodies to touch and moments to live and love to feel. And he seems sure of it this time, of all the time he has left, of the decisions that can be made from here on. Leo would like to take all the credit, and maybe if it's a bit of his authorship, but he can't be that arrogant; he has only been a witness to the beginning of his path. Kun doesn't know it yet, but he will find out soon.

Leo looks at him for a moment, and against all his promises, he leans in to kiss him.

The kiss is slow, but it's strong, Leo hugs him against his body with too much impetus and precision, because he knows that this is the end. He feels it in his fingertips and in the emptiness of his chest. He knows that after here, there is not much more to achieve or say. His hands are on his neck and Kun hugs him, kissing him back.

He doesn't pull away when the kiss ends. His lips kiss his nose, his cheek, and his forehead, and when he pulls back to look, Kun is smiling and has tears in his eyes.

“Sergio.” He begins to say, although he shouldn't. “Sergio, I-”

“It’s okay. You don't have to say it.” Sergio says, tears falling from his eyes. His heart in his throat. “I hope you know I do too.”

Thiago is born on February 5 at two in the morning.

Antonella is tired and she had to have a C-section because she didn't dilate fast enough. Leo is not next to her, he is outside with the others, his mother is praying and his father is in the bathroom and his siblings are moving all over the hall without stopping.

One of the nurses leaves the delivery room and Leo can see how her eyes shine, a smile hidden behind her face-mask.

"Congratulations, daddy."

When Leo sees Thiago for the first time, it's love at first sight. Leo felt doubts all the way to get here, but when he has him in front, everything is clear once again. Antonella is very tired and she smiles at him lying on the bed, her eyes swollen and her lips trembling. She gives him Thiago so they can meet, and everything is so clear for Leo at that moment.

Thiago has light eyes and flushed skin and brown hair. And he is his son. And Leo is a father and maybe he hasn't been the best man he could be these last few months. But if he has learned anything from it, it's how far he still has ahead, how far he still has to go. He can be a better man. There is still plenty of time.

_

The first time Kun sees the sign, he ignores it.

The second time, Gaby is the one that makes him stop.

The third time, he stops on his account.

He doesn't think it makes sense for him to do it, not really. He loves to read, he loves books and literature, since he was a child. But writing? It's ridiculous.

There's a poetry contest at some library in town. Gaby tells him that he loves books and reading, that he should write something and participate. Yesika pushes him further, so that he does something that he truly loves. Nicolás tells him that he should do it, Enzo tells him that it will be fun, and Javier tells him to write something interesting.

He tries at least three times, and fails miserably to write anything. To be able to formulate something. He always gives up in the middle of everything.

He is sitting at the old computer in the house. He is at least a month away from his twenty-first birthday. He doesn't have the apartment he wanted. But he is calmer. He is at peace. He begged for a life-changing something, and that something happened. Like waves crashing against the shore, and like a breeze against his face. He knows what love is. And he knows what it's like to lose it.

Leo's face, illuminated by the lights of cold rooms and headlights and the light of his cell phone. His hands, his beard and his chest. Kisses from him, hugs from him. All of this comes at once and everyone tells Kun that he will get over this, that he will move on and find another love. But maybe not. Maybe this is something he will never get over; something he doesn't want to get over. He wants to feel the memory sinking into his bones and his mind blurred by the longing for something that no longer exists. But that existed, and that Kun will protect forever.

He watches the screen.

And then, he starts to write.