Dancing Delinquents

Chapter 2

"Angel, you little devil. Get back here," Angel's mom's voice called as she chased him through the streets of San Diego. Their car was in front of the mall they had been doing Angel's school shopping in but now with every step she took, she was getting farther and farther away from the car..... and the mall.

"Why couldn't I have a normal son?" she asked directing her glare to the sky.

"Would it have killed you to give me a less hyper child or maybe even a female child who would've definitely enjoyed her time at the mall," she groaned, this time stopping to throw her hands up in a dramatic I'm-fed-up-with-life gesture.

"What's wrong Mom? Praying to God once again to replace me?" Angel joked once he noticed that his mom had stopped running after him.

Manow internally cringed at Angel's theory. She could never replace Angel with anyone. It may come as a shock to most people who knew how Angel could be, but Manow loved him the way he was. She honestly couldn't ask for a better son, but of class, she'll never tell Angel that.

"You know, you are on point on this one," she said giving him a thumbs up that spoke different considering the slight smile on her face.

"Too bad mother, because you're stuck with this bad boy" Angel stated a wicked grin on his face as he once again bolted down the streets of San Diego, his dark blue hair swishing behind him in the afternoon breeze. Manow couldn't fathom what convinced Angel into thinking he was a bad boy. For one, he couldn't even pull off their signature leather jackets. Besides, Angel was too short to be considered harmful. The fact that he inherited Manow's features made it worse for him.

"Copy that son, where is God when you need him?" Manow mused in fake exasperation, causing Angel to slow down a little as he burst out laughing.

Eventually, he stopped running due to breathlessness which was unsurprisingly as a result of laughing and not of running. Angel could run a marathon if he was dedicated enough to it, running was something he had gotten used to over the years.

Manow seeing Angel's distraction as the perfect opportunity, walked silently towards him and when she was directly behind him, she put him in a choke hold strong enough so he couldn't get out of it.

Angel clawed at her hand, but it was no use. He hated to admit it, but his mom was stronger than him. The gym wasn't really Angel's sort of sanctuary. Despite him being an inch over Manow in height, the advantage was useless. They were both extremely short people, compared to the rest of the world. If you must, Angel blamed it all on his mother. It was her gene he inherited after all.

"Oh come on Mom, you used my weakness against me," Angel whined as his mom dragged him by his ear back to her car. He was trying the guilt tripping approach, since it seemed to walk on all mothers. It was almost comical how Manow's strength was by far above Angel's. Angel's excuse was this – Manow carried his ass around for nine months, of course she would be stronger than him.

"Since when was laughter a weakness of yours?"

"Since now?" Angel stated, more like asked.

"Seeing as that sounded more like a question and less like an affirmation, I'll take it that you're lying," Manow said, huffing when she could finally spot her car.

"You know I'm too old to be playing fetch with my seventeen year old son right?" She asked turning to glare at Angel once they had arrived the entrance of the mall, the formerly abandoned car, a few metres away.

"I'll be eighteen in less than a month Mom, you know, if age is the problem," Angel replied his signature I'm-the-son-of-the-devil's grin plastered on his innocent looking face.

"Whatever, now hand over the watch you stole from that antique store," Manow commanded wiggling her outstretched fingers, flexing her palm in the process.

"Mom, it's an antique store, they probably won't notice that it's missing," he whined. Angel had his mother where he wanted her, a little bit of acting, and he would get what he wanted.

"That wrist watch is made of pure gold Angel, they'll definitely notice that it's gone. A golden wrist watch, doesn't just up and disappear like that."

"Well, why the heck, do they even have a pure gold wrist watch in an antique store. I mean, it's called an antique store for a reason," Angel complained putting in an extra show of flailing his lanky hind limbs in the air, a sure sign of exasperation.

"Your opinions don't matter to them, now give me that wrist watch before I lose the rest of my mind," Manow huffed wondering once again why she had to cater for a seventeen year old toddler.

"Fine," Angel grumbled handing over the ugly gold wrist watch to his Mom. He didn't even like the stupid watch and only used it as a cover for the thing he actually wanted, the silver chain he was hiding behind his back.

When Angel was sure his mom had gone to hand back the wrist watch, he got the chain out from behind him and scanned it.

"All in one piece," he whispered to himself when he noticed no part was missing. The silver chain was just your regular boy chain except it had Angel's initials on it, can you believe that, it had literally been calling out to him while he was innocently passing by.

There were studded diamonds on the letters hanging from the chain but other than that, it was pretty plain, just how he liked it.

He quickly stuffed it into his back pockets when he heard the Mall's doors open.

"I literally had to plead with them not to place charges," Angel's mom said with an exasperated sigh as she looked at the boy who was sadly and undoubtedly her son.

They both got into the car before Angel started to speak.

"It's not like they would have gotten anything from it though, I'm already going to a school for delinquents, remember," Angel casually spoke although you could hear the slight tremble in his voice.

The mood in the car had shifted to a more gloomier one and so Mother and son stayed silent for the rest of the ride.

Angel Delgado was your very own self proclaimed delinquent, maybe not self proclaimed since he actually is a delinquent but you get the message.

Although Angel was as bad as they could come, he didn't look it. His chocolate brown eyes and cute face which housed a button nose and slightly pointy ears was nothing menacing, not in the slightest. His shoulder length midnight blue hair gave a more feminine look to his already soft features, something he didn't want to change. He liked it when people underestimated him just to get their ass beaten later on.

Angel exited the car, for once staying behind to help his mom gather the groceries and stuff. Maybe it's because of how guilty he feels, or how the dozen bags in backseats mostly contained stuffs for his new school.

Wordlessly, they both made the journey to and fro till the the car was completely empty.

"What do you want for dinner?" Manow asked trying to make small talk. She was after all –quite literally– the bigger person in this situation, she didn't want to plunge into a never ending silent treatment with her son when he was going to be crossing continents tommorow.

"I'm not really hungry," Angel mumbled failing to take the hint.

"Want to watch The Simpsons?" Manow tried again knowing how much her son loved the adult cartoon.

Angel seemed to have gotten the message because he made his way over to the living room and switched on the large flat screen TV.

The Simpsons was always playing at this time, mother and son, intentionally or not, had gotten the time frame stuck in their heads.

Manow went to make some popcorn, while Angel relaxed against the plush sofa trying not to let his mind wonder. He was going with the flow from this moment on.

Manow came back with a bowl of steaming popcorn and they curled up against the seats watching episodes of The Simpsons they had already watched a million times.

Laughter rang through out the usually gloomier house, except for moments like this when they were both lost in comedy, the laughter was a change from the clouds of sadness and anger that usually hung on both their heads.

It'd be a hell of a misinterpretation to assume that they lived in misery, because they didn't. The past came flashing it's neon lights once in a while but apart from that, they were content. The house just held much too painful memories that served as a reminder to them every single day. That and the fact that Angel was always somewhere causing trouble majority of the time.

"Suppasit, it's bed time," Manow whispered to the sleeping boy making him groan in annoyance.

"Don't call me that."

"It's a striking name, now stop complaining."

"Yeah, like anyone wants their name to sound like 'super-sit' ," Angel grumbled, a reaction his name always manged to get out of him.

"My name means Lemon, so you're not one to talk." Angel had to admit, she was kind of right.

"Besides, You're sleep raging, now go to bed," Manow chided.

"Good night, Mom," Angel kissed his mom's cheek before heading to his bedroom. It's a good thing he doesn't keep friends around, no one should know about his blazing love for his mom, it'll soil his reputation.

"Goodnight Sweetie," he heard his mom call, her Thailand accent still as thick as ever. It mildly worried him how somebody as sweets as his mom, was able to fall for the douchebag-ry that was his dad. Sure he had the intense Canadian swagger, but that was about it.

Angel swept the thought out of his mind. He didn't like thinking about his father. The man who left them five years ago. He wasn't given a place in Angel's mind, so Angel shut out thoughts of him quickly.

He and him mom were doing fine without him, Angel was content with that. Perhaps one day, he'd be in the position to reprimand his father for how he treated them. In the meantime, blocking him out was what Angel resorted to.

Brushing his teeth and changing into a large tee and some equally large boxers, Angel crawled under his covers, for once at peace with himself and the world.

That night, he dreamt of delinquent schools, a continent away. Even in his dream, Angel couldn't tell what Belgium held for a Thai-canadian like him.

Any thoughts? I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Thanks for reading,

Love Zi