Chapter Text
“Y si veo a tu mamá (ey)
Yo le pregunto por ti
Pa’ ver si ya tienes a alguien (¿Uh?)
Alguien que te haga feliz”
"Si veo a tu mamá" by Bad Bunny
Rodolfo sighs once more before checking the yellow paper in his hand. Is a grocery list but the writing is so messy he can’t tell the letters apart.
Who thought it was a good idea to let Alejandro make the shopping list anyway?
And who thought it was a good idea to send him to shop it all?
He sighs again, this time heavier, before he puts the paper away to grab a shopping cart and start the hellish journey that was waiting for him.
He was not a fan of grocery shopping, but a barbacoa changed anyone’s mind, especially if his sister was cooking, so yes, maybe he only said yes because of that and because it was game weekend and that was exciting.
The security guard in the entrance greets him effusively and Rodolfo must stop to exchange brief words with him. Las Almas was a big city, but not that big because he always encountered knowing people, every time.
After a brief greeting of how each other’s families are, he enters the supermarket and hell starts.
He gets the yellow list out again and after letting himself be guided by the signs hanging from the ceiling he starts surfing through the aisles. He grabbed what he understood of the list (after five minutes of guessing what it meant) and kept going. He did take his time with some things because he didn’t know what brand his sister would want. After all, women always preferred some brands over others when it comes to food.
He stares at the wall of frijoles in front of him until he decides to take some random ones and wish for the best (praying his sister didn’t kill him when he got back home).
When he turned to put the cans on the shopping cart, his eyes met a familiar figure at the start of the aisle.
He panicked.
Rodolfo wants to believe that he never panics because he is a soldier and soldiers can’t panic on the job because they die fast, but bendito sea Cristo, he swears his heart got out of his chest and he didn’t know where to get himself into.
To his horror, the familiar person moves at that moment, and before he can turn around with or without the cart to flee, they make eye contact with him.
Time stops for a second until the woman on the other side of the aisle smiles and then grins, recognizing him. Before he can’t stop himself, he is smiling back at her, trying to play it chill while she approaches faster than she should.
“Ay, hola, Rudy, mijo!”, and then he grinned and to his utter surprise, she broke the distance between them to hug him tight.
Her perfume hits him and for a moment he doesn’t reciprocate the hug until he does, slowly and awkwardly. She then kissed him on the cheek and made some distance to look at him better.
He felt awkward, almost like he was a child at a Christmas party again and the aunts he only saw once a year decided that he was going to be their new entertainment by pulling his cheeks, asking stupid questions, and violating his nose with their horrible perfumes.
But well, that feeling lasted just a second, since he saw how the woman’s eyes softened while watching him and how she softly patted him in the chest.
“You look good, mijo, you are eating well? How has it been? I hope you aren’t being hard on yourself anymore”.
And well, for a moment, he just smiled shyly and stupidly at her, but then he softened a little and his heartbeat slowed, and he decided that he could do this.
He could talk to this woman in front of him, he could talk to his ex’s mother.
He chuckles.
“I’m fine, and I was never hard on myself, it was just part of the job”, she rolls her eyes, and he chuckles again.
For a moment he thinks that he missed her, not just because of her attitude, but also because she had adopted him in some way. He was an orphan, with a negligent guardian, his older sister raised him and their younger sister. When he met you, he was in a bad place and you got him out of it, the army helped, but nothing like pure love.
And this woman in front of him, who smelled familiar and motherly, also saved him, more than once, by admitting him in her house, by feeding him and helping him when he thought he was going to be like his parents: a dead policeman and a dead drug addict.
So, if he hadn’t been in the middle of the supermarket, he thinks he will cry.
She was the mother he didn’t remember anymore.
He gulps and she smiles at him again.
“Yes, yes, whatever you say. My child is just like you, you know? They haven’t changed, they are still hard on themselves, but now is worse because they are their boss”.
There is a moment of silence when your face comes to his mind.
He hasn’t seen you in…years. You didn’t break up on…good terms.
He still blames himself for it, to be honest. He was emotionally vulnerable, he was a mess, and he was trying to believe that the only way to save Las Almas was by selling his soul to the army. You didn’t agree but understood that that was the only way to be away from the cartel and do something substantial about it. But then, things went from bad to worse and love was the last thing he could find in your eyes when he looked at you.
You mutually agreed that breaking up was the best and the last thing he knew was that you went away, out of Las Almas and Mexico to study something you always wanted to do.
“H-how are they?”, he asks, shyly and a little bit insecure. If the woman in front of him notices, she doesn’t act like it.
“They are very good!”, she says, and he can see the light in her eyes. She is proud, he knows because she looked at him like that too…a long time ago. “They have been in Las Almas for the past two years. They recently opened their restaurant!”
He smiles when she grins.
So, you made it after all.
You always wanted to be a chef, open a restaurant in Las Almas, and try to bring hope and peace to the city through food. He knew firsthand that you were a great cook, he had been your guinea pig a lot of times and he had to admit that you may have a natural talent for it (or maybe the ancestry).
At that moment, he felt happy, and all the anxiety and panic were gone.
“Oh, that’s awesome”.
And she took it the perfect way because the next thing he knew, she was talking non-stop about the restaurant you recently opened and how they are going to have a special event this weekend and how it would be a nice idea if he came along to try the food and give her his opinion. He even tells him he can bring his sisters and friends and that she will make sure they have the best spot in the restaurant.
He must decline, saying that they are going to have barbacoa and that they can’t change the date. But of course, your mother doesn’t take a no for an answer, and she starts saying that they can all come the next day or the next weekend, that he can give her a call and she will solve the rest.
Somehow, fifteen minutes later, they are exchanging numbers, she is giving him directions to the restaurant and is making him promise he will go at some point. He says yes because he is an idiot and saying no to your mother was stupid anyway.
Soon enough, she is telling him bye and he is just there in the aisle, looking at the floor.
He then sighs and a part of him wants to think he just committed assisted suicide.