Page 48 of Spoonful

Despite the distractions, the uncertainty of all the change still caught up to him. Hiro found him one evening after arriving home earlier than Jaylin expected while Jaylin was on his knees in the guest bathroom, furiously scrubbing at the tile as tears dripped down his cheeks.

Jaylin didn't want to talk about it. Didn’t want to have to vocalize how tired and frustrated and scared he was about what might happen tomorrow, in a week, in a month.

Hiro hadn’t asked though. All he had done was thank Jaylin for cleaning the bathroom and open his arms, an offering. Jaylin had fallen against Hiro’s chest and Hiro had held him for a while, until the tears had stopped.

So Jaylin found more things to do. He googled recipes and talked to Diego and then bought groceries with some of his tip money, making Hiro dinners to come home to. Hiro’s smile was always a mix of pleased and surprised and grateful.

He thanked Jaylin in ways that felt too heartfelt to be real. Hiro had given Jaylineverything, including the luxury of free time, and Jaylin didn't feel like he was doing enough. Could anything be enough?

Every so often Jaylin got out his sketchbook and colored pencils and doodled here and there. He tried some figure drawing and some sketches. He made more comics aboutThe Adventures of Captain Hirohito Miyazaki, Explorer of Deep Space.He still hadn’t shown them to Hiro yet, but the comic had gained a plot. The Captain was currently in the middle of a rescue mission. Kirah was an alien, an outcast, and everyone else had given up on him because he “wasn't worth saving,” but The Captain refused to give up.

Everyone told The Captain that it’d be a hard, thankless job to save Kirah, but The Captain was determined to succeed. He liked Kirah, and he couldn’t just stand by and watch someone struggle.

Jaylin hoped that one day he’d be brave enough to show Hiro the comic. He thought Hiro might like it.

***

“Hey, Hiro?” Jaylin asked tentatively, creeping into the dining room. Hiro had spent the last several days working on a big case and had it spread out all over the table. Jaylin hadn't wanted to interrupt him, but it was getting late and he'd been sitting on his news all day and if he didn't tell someone right now he might just burst from holding it inside. “Can I talk to you?”

Hiro looked up at him from where he was bent over pages of paper print outs and smiled. He looked tired though, and Jaylin immediately felt bad about bothering him. “Of course. What's up?”

“It can wait if you're still busy,” Jaylin hurried to say, clutching his phone in his hand.

“I'm never too busy for you,” Hiro said, so easily that Jaylin wanted to melt. “C’mere. Or do you want to move to the living room? Get more comfortable?” He started to get up.

“It's okay,” Jaylin said. “It's not um, anything big. I-I just wanted to, um, tell someone. My news.”

“Good news?” Hiro asked, standing up anyway.

Jaylin looked at the floor, fingers tightening around his phone. He'd played the email out loud three times just to make sure it was real. “Yeah, um. Yeah, good news.”

Hiro brightened and he stopped just in front of Jaylin. “Well hey,” he said gently, picking up on Jaylin's nerves. “I'm all for hearing your good news.”

Jaylin took a breath. He could do this. He wanted to. He wanted to tell Hiro.

Hiro would know some of why it mattered so much.

“I…” Jaylin glanced up at Hiro’s earnest, open expression and made himself keep talking. “I went and got tested a couple of days. Just in case he hadn’t been—just in case. I-I figured that now that I'm not… with him anymore I, you know, I um, I got to… care. About that.”

Hiro touched Jaylin's free hand, curling their fingers together. His voice was quiet when he said, “You said good news?”

“Yeah,” Jaylin said. He licked his lips. “All negative. So there's nothing–nothing left of him on me. I don't…”I don't have to worry anymore.

“I’d say that's great news, not just good,” Hiro said, giving Jaylin's hand a squeeze. “And I'm proud of you for going. Stuff like that can be really hard.”

“Thanks,” Jaylin whispered. “I'm… I'm proud of me too.”

***

A week after spring break was over, Jaylin packed up his stuff after his astronomy lab, opened the door to leave the classroom, and turned right back around to bolt back inside, heart pounding. He got a couple of looks from his classmates, but Jaylin was too busy getting as far away from the door as possible to care.

It had been two and a half weeks since Jaylin had last spoken to Brent, and Jaylin had almost stopped flinching every time his phone went off. He’d become lax and lazy and so, so stupid to not keep looking over his shoulder. Brent knew Jaylin's class schedule. It was only a matter of time before he sent someone to come looking.

He supposed he should consider himself lucky that it was Ernie out there, and not Brent himself. Either way, Jaylin didn't know what to do. Panic was overtaking him. Ernie couldn't just drag Jaylin to a waiting car and Jaylin wasn’t about to go quietly even if he tried, but even the thought of Brent trying to get him was enough to make it hard to breathe.

“Mr. West, is there a problem?”

Jaylin’s eyes snapped to Serena, standing a few feet in front of him. She had been a lot less frosty toward him sinceJaylin had aced the midterm. A part of Jaylin wondered if she’d thought that he was using his dyslexia as an excuse for easier work. He didn't care–refused to care–but it was nice that she wasn't, like, openly hostile anymore.

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