"Of course both me and Olivia wanted partners, Kafi...You don't know how many nights we spent talking about the things we would do and the places we would go with the man of our dreams." My mother said as a matter of fact.
"...But in this world of ours, where every single man to ever exist treats women in a subservient way and looks at them like someone who was meant to be beneath them, it's really hard to find someone who you could fall for, who treats us with the respect we deserve and appreciates us for who we are, which was all we ever wanted, so we gave up looking for a partner long ago."
"I see..." I nodded my head as it made sense that they would much rather spend their lives together, knowing that they wouldn't experience true love or have a family, where they would at least have one another...Compared to a life where the love of their life treated them like garbage on the ground and treated them like servants, rather than as a loving girlfriend or wife.
"But don't feel sad now, Kafi, as the best part of the story is about to come where we meet you and where you become the catalyst for us to become one big family when we were hesitating so much before." My mother held my hand to reassure me, thinking that I was down in the dumps after hearing her story.
She then interlinked her hand with mine and looked up, like she was remembering that fateful day she and Olivia met me, and said with a gentle smile on her face,
"It had probably been 4 years since we started this fake relationship of ours where everything was going wrong and we were hesitating on what we should do in our lives as we really didn't want to leave one another, but at the same time we were losing the strength to persist on every second we spent out the door of our house."
"...By that time, our minds were full of unnecessary worries about the future, and one night me and Olivia thought that we needed a break from all those useless thoughts and decided that we needed to go on a late-night coffee date like we did back in high school and university since we loved coffee so much, to cool ourselves down and give ourselves a breather." My mother said and licked her lips like she wouldn't mind a coffee right now.
"But who would've thought that just as we were about to enter the cute little cafe that we always visited at night, we wouldn't be greeted by the sweet old granny who owns the store. But an adorable little baby who was in a white basket with pillows inside of it, right on the doorstep of the cafe..."
My mother's eyes glowed as she tightened the grip on my hand, unable to control the excitement that was brimming through her face.
"It was obvious that the baby had been abandoned by someone, seeing how he was left alone in the cold night in a street where no one really visited. And normally, anyone else would've quickly brought that baby to the police station so that they could handle the case because they didn't want to be involved in such a sensitive matter."
"...But do you know what we did, Kafi?" My mother looked at me with a playful look on her face while grinning from ear to ear.
"Y-You kidnapped the baby?" I gave a hesitant answer, seeing how avidly my mother was waiting for me to reply.
"Close...We didn't exactly kidnap him, but we actually brought him home with us." She said proudly, like she was doing the world a favour by taking that poor little baby back home.
My mother then looked at me with a loving gaze and an affectionate smile on her face as she held my hand and asked,
"Do you know what we named that baby, Kafi?~...Let me give you a hint, as it has something to do with the place where we found him~"
"Let me guess once again, mom." I said with a playful smile on my face as I went along with her act. "...Is the baby's name Kafka or Kafi, made from the words coffee and cafe, which are linked to the place you found me?"
"Ping-Pong!~"
My mother made a cute little noise for guessing correctly and then pulled me into her embrace to give me a hug, and then gave me a loving kiss on the forehead.
Chu!~
"That's right, Kafi!~ You were named after the cafe and coffee both me and Olivia love so much, which is the reason why both of us call you Kafi, even though you hated it so much in the past when we did so and wanted us to simply call you Kafka!~"
Chu!~ Chu!~
"To think that I got such a smart son who managed to answer such a difficult question, I truly am blessed to be your mother, Kafi!~ I truly am blessed!~"
My mother said jokingly and used it as an opportunity to lay two more kisses on my nose while she hugged me tighter, which I reluctantly accepted with a small smile on my face.
But at the same time, I also felt bitter that the Kafka in this world was lucky enough to be found by both my mothers who were such loving parents, while I was also found outside a cafe, the only difference being that I was picked up by a crack addict who wanted to sell me for drugs and was carelessly named in an orphanage on a whim with no thought in mind once they found out I was found near a cafe.
Life truly works in strange and cruel ways, doesn't it?...
It truly does...