Delicate

Chapter Thirteen

"Sorry, it's a busy night," Jonah apologised as he poured Leo and Milan another drink.

"It's Friday and Halloween, I wasn't expecting you to be free, chill," Leo replied.

"How's Maya? I miss the little munchkin. Wait, did you not go trick or treating with her?" Jonah furrowed his eyebrows as he stared at Leo.

"I did, I took her around our neighborhood. Then Roan and Kai took over so that I could go to the dance," Leo clarified, "she made all of us dress up as DC superheroes. She's batman, Roan's Aquaman, and Kai is Flash."

"Please tell me there's a group picture of all of you, I'd honestly pay to see that," Jonah chuckled.

"There is, not in my phone so I'll send it to you later," Leo replied with a roll of his eyes.

Milan watched in silence as the two interacted. Milan had never seen Leo talk so freely about his home life and his family. It was a little weird listening about how his history teacher would throw tantrums after losing in board games— but Milan wasn't complaining.

A little part of Milan was jealous though. He wished that Leo could open up this much to him as well. But the rational part of his brain reminded him that he had grown up with Jonah, whereas the two of them only started being friends a few weeks ago.

Jonah was eventually pulled away by work again. Milan didn't realise that he was staring at Leo, quite intensely, until the older boy looked at him and raised a questioning brow.

"What?" Leo asked.

"I realised I don't really know a lot about you," Milan paused, "like your life and shit."

"There's not much to know," Leo replied with a frown.

"Doesn't seem that way." Maybe it was the alcohol, but Milan had a little bit more courage to speak what was on his mind.

"Well," Leo gulped down the drink in his hand, before continuing, "I grew up in the bad part of town. I think my mom OD'ed when I was just a baby. My dad started dating another woman when I was around eight and she had Maya a couple years later. She turned out to be... Not very reliable. So my dad got full custody of Maya—"

"I'm so sorry, you don't have to continue if you don't wa—"

"—then I was around eleven when my dad was shot dead in our living room. Apparently Maya's birth mom owed money to some guy and even though she didn't live with us anymore he still... Anyway, Maya and I lived in a few foster homes till we moved in with Roan and Kai. They were just fostering us in the start too but after a few months they adopted us. This was a little over three years ago, I think."

Milan was horrified, and at a loss for words. He figured that Leo probably didn't have the easiest life growing up, but he wasn't expecting this. He felt terrible about asking and making the older boy think about it all.

"My parents named me Milan because that's where I was conceived," the boy blurted out.

"Huh?" Leo asked, a blank expression on his face.

"There were in Milan for a vacation and then my mom got pregnant. They couldn't decide on a name so... Yeah."

Leo tilted his head slightly, staring at Milan who was looking right back at him. Milan couldn't help but panic. Leo had just opened up to him and told him about his past, and instead of responding appropriately— he just rambled on about the origins of his name.

Milan was ready to go bury himself in a hole and never face civilisation again. He parted his lips to apologise, but before he could utter out a single word— Leo started laughing.