#kind of mixing what both Mr H & Joshua reamed Bito over bc to her it was all the same event & she wouldn't differentiate when telling Beat

[skater-brain]

Beat had expected to come home to an argument. After what little Mr Hanekoma had told him about his conversation with her, all he knew was that when he faced his mother, there was going to be shouting -- and somehow he was going to have to keep a lid on it and calmly persuade her to back down from the legal threats she had made. As if diplomacy was a skill he possessed, and didn't have a long history of opening his mouth and making things worse.

But... there had been no shouting. Despite being alone in the house, Mum had quietly called him into the privacy of her room, closed the door, and had barely started to explain how she had run into some of his 'friends' -- when she crumbled. Distraught like Beat could never remember seeing her before, hysterical but not angry. Confused and hurt.

Something Hanekoma said had hurt his mother, and that realization suddenly flipped all of his priorities on their head. He had been worried about losing the wrong person in all of this.

And when she managed to communicate the cause, Beat's whole body went cold with guilt, and dread, and mortification. She had been accused of harming him, her own son, and convincing him he wasn't cared about -- and naturally those things could have only been construed from things that Beat himself had confided. But no matter how he fought with her, Mum was family, and he had never intended for the things he had privately vented to Mr Hanekoma to make him appear mistreated... much less to have them revealed to and weaponized against her.

So rather a shouting match, the discussion wound up with Beat consoling his mother, desperate to impress on her that she hadn't been betrayed. That he hadn't been spreading lies behind her back about imaginary abuse he had endured (he couldn't possibly make up something so grave), that he hadn't secretly believed that his own mother wouldn't mourn if he died (he had seen the flowers; he knew she would). That she was absolutely right: Mr Hanekoma was crazy and Beat was going to bash his head in for meddling with his family.

That reaction succeeded in allaying Mrs Bito's fears that such an evil person was exerting undue influence on her children and could lure them away from her, and calmed her down enough to reconsider legally branding the man such a danger as to be barred from seeing them. Beat was easily the more dangerous one when his righteous anger was ignited, and it was so rarely sparked in her defence that she could only allow it.

But, unlike usual, Beat didn't allow his indignation to carry him to Wildkat immediately. He didn't report the outcome of the long, emotionally-draining discussion with his mother like he was likely expected to. Mr Hanekoma had warned him to really think about it before coming to see him again, and for once, he would. Being impulsive in sharing details about his home life was the mistake that had snowballed into this, so he had to be careful with what he said going forward -- and he couldn't do that until he had calmed down and let the pain he had caused his mother sink in.

Though, no one would ever guess that had calmed down when he finally arrived at Wildkat the next day, timed like he was showing up for his café shift but with the door exploding open and voice on full blast.

"Yo, Hanekoma! I gotta talk to ya!" With a fist raised, like it was going to be doing all the talking. "WHAT THE FUCK?"

@strawberry-barista