Well… shit. Maybe Chester is the pin and Robbie is the bubble because he didn’t expect to see the man so broken. Chester and crying is a complicated relationship. SMA Ryu always told him as a little boy to stop blubbering. ‘You can cloud but, you can’t rain,’ his father said void of compassion after disciplining his only son. Chester wasn’t allowed to cry, not when he got spankings or when he scrapped his knee. As he got older, it was just something permanent.
All his sadness and frustration and no outlet for it resulted in shoe scuffs on the walls from kicking. Two year old pain killer prescriptions being stolen from medicine cabinets. It was self-deprecating jokes, laugh at his misfortune with him, don’t try and find a solution. And if it wasn’t his father, Tanner’s father spewing all this ‘man up nonsense’ into his ear it was the white kids he went to school with. Not fitting the mold of their idea of what a kid like him looks like, Chester’s only way of surviving was not being a ‘punk ass bitch’ since he wasn’t academically gifted. Don’t let them see you weak, perpetuate the idea that you’re better than everyone else, that you don’t care when you care more than you could ever let out. It was pranking, it was making everyone else laugh at the kid with the lisp so they wouldn’t laugh at Chester for failing algebra one, it was showing off all the material things he had from spending his parents hard earned money.
After a while, Chester didn’t need his wit, he got taller and broad, the white girls noticed that – inexplicably confused. ‘You’re kinda cute for an Asian guy.’ Everything he learned about being cool he learned watching BET because none of the Asian guys on TV he could relate to – PROBABLY because they were virtually nonexistent. This isn’t the first time he’s made a guy a cry but it’s been so long he can’t remember or understand why he went out of his way to be cruel at times in the past. Chester doesn’t even recognize Robbie at his point, glancing out of the alleyway, people walking past completely oblivious to this man’s breakdown. “Rob, dude – “ what the fuck is Chester supposed to do now? He started this mess, he has to clean it up. “It’s fine man, I promise –” he can’t let his brother go out like this, he’s got too much heart for Chester to watch him break. Biting his tongue, his own face feeling warm, all clouds - no rain, Chester puts his hand on Robbie’s shoulder, pulling the older guy into a hold, not a hug. He feels so awkward but he doesn’t know what else to do, his own emotions unpredictable.
“ FUCK. ’ A STRING OF EXPLETIVES follows, muffled into the other’s shirt as he lets himself just sit there in a not-quite hug. no doubt the other wants nothing to do with him now. nobody’s ever seen him at his worst ---- is robbie himself even aware that he’s hit rock bottom? ---- so it’s not like he knows what to expect. but no, he can’t think this way. chester just told him he cared, right? he didn’t make that part up. that was real. it was fucking real, and there’s somebody in the world who would actually care if robbie lam dropped dead. well. maybe kyle would care. fala might look for him. but god damn it if CHESTER RYU hasn’t torn him to fucking pieces. he’s in tatters in the boy’s hands. they’re a hard cocoon as he struggles to put himself back together. it’s hard to slip the mask back on when it’s in a thousand tiny shards on the floor, but he tries. it’s all he can do.
robbie sobers as best he can. he smothers the hiccups to the best of his ability, wiping his nose on his sleeve ( gross! ). this has to stop ; he has to get a fuckin’ grip and move the fuck on. he slaps his own face, more to bring him back down to earth than any actual self-harm. they’re pretty hard slaps, too, the noise echoing through the relatively empty alleyway. he’s sure if anyone tried to peek in, they’d get the wrong idea. so he quickly parts himself from the other, stepping back in almost a rough, jerky manner.
he’s still discombobulated. he clears his throat, an awkward noise for an awkward situation. his eyes are probably red-ringed and he more than likely looks like shit. oh well. there’s no take-backsies, but it’s not like he can’t pretend that none of this happened. it did. now he just has to ignore it. “ i should’ve said something, ’ he admits eventually. he twists his lips, a grotesque half-smile. ‘ i didn’t really think any of this shit through, to be honest i don’t ever think anything through. ... do you wanna hit up a bar and catch up? its five o’clock somewhere, right? ’ this is a hard left. but he needs his throat to burn for a reason other than sobbing his eyes out.
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