Betrayal [Ayando]

Family...

The walk home was short and quiet, but not necessarily in an awkward way. For both teens, it was a refective kind of silence, though it goes without saying the topics they were thinking of were entirely different.
Ayano looked up at her favorite cover up and smiled slightly. Budo looked down and smiled back, obviously still shaken up from the events that had gone down earlier.
As they neared the house, Budo felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. When he looked at the caller ID, his face flushed a deep red and he abruptly stopped walking.
"Hey, you ok?" Ayano peered over her shoulder as Budo put the phone up to his ear, his face still scarlet.
"... hey mom." Ayano couldn't help but snicker a little bit, causing Budo to turn even more red than he already was.
"Um, yeah I'm ok, I'm just walking with Ayano-" Budo stuttered in response, but was cut off by some very loud, excited chatter.
"W-wait what? You mean now?" There was a short pause, followed by a sigh. "Alright, alright. We're on our way."
He hung up with another exasperated sigh.
"So... my mom wants to meet you." He stated awkwardly. Ayano froze up slightly, but then nodded a bit. It was one thing to keep up her act with Budo... but it's another to act in front of an experienced adult. But if she wanted to keep up this charade, she had to try.
The pair slowly made their way to Budo's house, both nervous for different reasons. Budo began to warn Ayano about his mother. Likes, dislikes, pet peeves, ect. Ayano began to imagine a tall, burly woman who could crush her skull with one hand. Her fears only heightened when Budo mentioned that she had also run the martial arts club when she was in school.
So you can imagine her surprise when an entirely normal looking woman was waiting at the door to greet them.
Initially, the woman and Budo looked nothing alike. Her hair was a light brown, matching her light caramel eyes perfectly. She was also a bit shorter, a lot paler, and a bit thinner. Judging by how tightly she hugged the both of them, she might have even been a little bit stronger than her son.
The only way the two looked anything alike was their smiles. Both had a warm, soft smile that just seemed to calm everything around them. From the moment that the older woman smiled at her, her fears for the most part ceased. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad.
"It's so nice to finally meet you!" She squeezed both of Ayano's hands with the same amount of forced she had hugged her with. It took all of Ayano's willpower not to wince at the pain.
"It's nice to meet you too, Mrs-" she began.
"Oh, please! Call me mom!" She squeezed even tighter, a glint of giddiness in her light brown eyes.
"Mom..." the word felt almost foreign to her, but somehow still natural.
"Hey, sorry to cut it short, but if we want to get to Ayano's house before dark, we need to get going." Budo gently motioned at the setting sun in the distance. His mother finally let go of Ayano's hands, which now felt painfully numb
"Are you sure you two don't want to just stay here?" She asked, gently putting her hand on her son's shoulder.
"No, I think we'll be ok." Budo laughed a little bit. His mother's eyes lightened up as she leaned over and whispered something to Budo that Ayano couldn't hear. Whatever it was made Budo look bright red.
"N-no! Nothing like that! W-we're just gonna watch some movies!" He stammered. His mother giggled and turned back to Ayano.
"Come see me again soon dear, you're always welcome." Her warm smile comforted the dark haired girl enough to make her smile back.
"I will, thank you."
A quick goodbye followed soon after, and the couple was once again on their way.
"Sorry about the detour..." Budo apologized sheepishly.
"It's fine, your mom is nice." Ayano said softly.
Budo smiled.
"Yeah, she really is... she seemed to like you a lot." He encouraged.
They spent the rest of the night talking and laughing in their pjs, blissfully unaware of the hell that was unleashing around them.