Chapter 51 - Dinner Without a Mask

The sound of the front door opening was followed by the thud of a gym bag dropped carelessly onto the marble floor of the hallway. Heavy footsteps echoed closer toward the dining room, each step landing with the unhurried confidence of someone who owned the place, before a tall, slightly dark-skinned young man—still wearing a basketball jersey soaked with sweat—appeared in the doorway.

Bayu Naoki Suryokusumo paused for a moment in the doorway, letting the smell of dinner and the low hum of conversation reach him before he moved another step. His eyes swept across the dining room, from his father and mother already seated, to his sister smiling awkwardly, before finally stopping right on Rimba's face, standing uncomfortably beside Michi's chair.

There was no shock on that face. Only an assessing silence, as though he had already guessed this moment would arrive sooner or later.

"Swara," he greeted briefly, flat, pulling out the empty chair across the table without any hurry to sit down. "Didn't expect you to be brave enough to set foot in this house this soon."

"Bayu," Akari admonished gently, though her tone held back a smile more than an actual warning, the kind of half-hearted scolding a mother gives when she secretly agrees with the question being asked.

"I'm just saying hi, Bu." Bayu finally sat down, draping a small towel around his neck. "Besides, last time we met in the campus basement studio, I gave him time to reconsider how serious he actually was about Kak Michi. Only fair I'm curious how that turned out."

Rimba swallowed, trying to maintain the composure he usually showed on any stage, no matter how big, though it felt far heavier now, facing the sharp stare of his own girlfriend's little brother across a dinner table instead of a crowd.

"Still serious," Rimba answered finally, his voice steady even as his heart pounded faster than usual, faster than it had during any performance he could remember.

Bayu didn't reply right away. He took a bowl of rice, pouring it slowly, as if time weren't something he needed to rush. "Serious is an easy word to say, Swara. I'm more interested in your definition of serious. Whether we're on the same page or not."

Seno chuckled softly from the end of the table, sipping his tea before stepping in with a relaxed tone. "All right, all right. Dinner hasn't even started and this kid's already turning it into a thesis defense."

"I'm just making sure, Pa." Bayu stayed calm, his eyes not yet leaving Rimba's face. "Kak Michi's already sacrificed plenty for both sides of her life. I don't want her to have to sacrifice any more of it for someone who might not even know where he wants this relationship to go."

The dining room fell quiet for a moment. Michi reached for Rimba's hand under the table, squeezing it gently as a signal—you're not facing this alone.

Rimba drew a deep breath, feeling every pair of eyes at the table settle on him at once. "I'm not going to lie, Bayu. I'm still learning what a healthy commitment even looks like, because the example I grew up with... wasn't a very good one." He paused for a moment, choosing his words carefully. "But there's one thing I know for certain—I don't want to repeat the same mistakes the people before me made. And that's not an empty promise. It's a decision I choose to make every single day."

For the first time that night, something in Bayu's expression shifted—not fully softening, but enough to make Akari and Seno exchange a meaningful glance.

"Decent answer," Bayu murmured, finally starting to eat. "But words are easy to say over a formal dinner like this. Let's see how you answer when I ask again once things get messy."

"Bayu," Michi hissed, half-warning, half-holding back a nervous laugh.

"What? I'm just being honest." Bayu shrugged, scooping up some vegetables casually as though the interrogation moments earlier had never happened. "Besides, Kak, you're the one who said I could be tough as long as I don't go overboard."

A small laugh finally broke out across the dinner table, breaking apart the tension that had briefly hung in the air. Seno started telling stories about his youth, about how protective he himself had been toward Akari in front of her own parents, bringing the mood back to something warm and light. Akari occasionally chimed in with funny details that made Seno's face flush with embarrassment, while Michi laughed freely watching her own father get thoroughly teased at his own dinner table, the sound of it easing something in her chest that had been tight since the moment Bayu walked in.

Rimba sat in the middle of all of it, slowly letting his shoulders truly relax for the first time that night. There was something both foreign and calming about this atmosphere—a dinner table full of laughter, criticism wrapped in affection, sharp questions that were actually a form of protection rather than hostility. So far removed from the grand dinner table at his old house, which had always been cold and full of political small talk, the kind of table where a raised voice meant something was already breaking rather than simply being tested.

In the middle of that laughter, he caught Bayu glancing over at him occasionally—no longer with full suspicion, but with something closer to honest curiosity. As though Michi's brother were, slowly, starting to make room for the possibility that the young man in front of him was genuinely different from what he'd assumed before, back in that cold basement studio months ago.

But deep beneath the thin smile beginning to appear on Rimba's face, one of Bayu's lines kept echoing in his head, refusing to be swept away by the warmth of the table around him. Let's see how you answer when things get messy.

He didn't yet know, that night, just how soon that line would be put to the test.