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Chapter 19- Questionable Quarrelling

"Jonah?" the teen heard from his doorway, spinning around in his desk chair to meet his father's face appearing from behind the door, "can I ask you something?"
The young man turned around fully, placing the pencil that he was scrawling biology notes with back down on his desk. So far, his attention hadn't been on his studies, his eyes drifting away from the page as his thought process had, eventually leading to him staring out the window beside him instead, and so, he had no problem with turning away from the revision he was supposed to be doing. He greeted Dominik with a smile, deciding that, due to his lack of focus on his studies and his father's lack of social skill, a conversation between them would probably do both of them good.
"Sure," he nodded, "what do you need?"

Hearing this invitation to carry on, Dominik stepped into his son's room, closing the door behind him with the same vacant expression he always wore, taking slow steps towards the boy. "I don't particularly need anything," he stated, "but I want to know; how many friends have you made at school? Since moving, have you been very social?"
His question received a somewhat delayed answer, the dark-haired student taking a moment to re-think about the friends he had. "Three minimum?" he shrugged again, "depending on what the hell's going on with the other two." A slight laugh escaped his lips as he remembered Mason and Millie, casting his mind back to their apology, his list consisting of Daniel, Christine Scott and Connor. Those three, it seemed, his friendship with was certain, despite still having little contact with the redhead girl since the incident that had occurred, now up to a month ago.
He'd returned to school after new years, feeling somewhat refreshed despite having to go back to school again. Although, this feeling did eventually shift to something much more like boredom as he was hurried straight into the assembly hall about the exams coming up that summer. He'd made the effort to not complain about this and, as the day pressed on, his happiness slowly returned to him, a form of optimism building in the pit of his stomach, enough for him to invite their ginger classmate to sit with them at lunch, despite her then choosing not to say anything. They were then joined by Daniel, who tried to speak to her casually, which seemed to be the only thing that got her to talk to anybody.

"I'm sorry for asking," Dominik continued, his voice low and quiet, "but I was just wondering. You only seem to have invited that boy around, I've not seen anybody else. Remind me of his name?"

"Connor," Jonah nodded, pursing his lips as he let his gaze meet the carpet, "do you not like the fact that he's the only one who comes over? Don't you like him?"

His father shook his head, momentarily glancing at the ground, taking a split-second to follow Jonah's gaze before looking back up to the boy, "no, he seems nice, from the little I've seen and know about him," he once again took a second to look away as he thought, trying to phrase the sentence just right in his head, cursing the lack of communication he shared with his son. In truth, he wanted to build a stronger relationship with the teenager, but it seemed that he would still struggle, regardless of the subject at hand. Finally , he continued, "but a lot of boys your age start bringing girlfriends home with them."
Dominik saw this as a successful attempt at subtly posing the question of whether or not his son had a girlfriend or not, but Jonah saw this as a golden opportunity. After waiting and waiting for a chance to finally tell his dad his biggest secret in a conversation that seemed like it would flow quite naturally and comfortably if he only put it right. It came to him immediately.

"No, I don't have one," Jonah admitted, "you see, uhm," he took another pause, taking a moment to think, bringing his hand to the back of his neck, scratching at his skin, nervously, "Connor's actually my boyfriend."
Hearing the words that his son had just said to him, Dominik's gaze fixed on the young man's face, for a moment staring blankly into his eyes, partially trying to figure out if this was just a joke. As both of them made eye contact, their expresions became mirrored, displaying a very serious look, although, the eye contact from his dad caused Jonah's face to shift first. Suddenly, he looked much more distressed, a hint of fear and embarassment in his eye