Smile Like The Sun

CHAPTER 19🍂

(Third Person's POV)

Leon eventually pulled the knob and entered the study room, after an enternity of contemplating.

He could feel the tense atmosphere once he stepped inside. Even Nigan who was always so composed, hid his perplexed self underneath his calm demeanor.

Their father, a tall man in his early sixties, sat behind the majestic ebony desk, engrossed in a file in his hand.

His personal secretary was standing by his side, proffessionally.

Leon could not deny that his courage doused a considerable amount when he saw the man sitting before him.

He just stood in the middle of the room, waiting for his father to acknowlege his presence.

"Why do you ask for me?"

He grew impatient and slightly frustrated as his father deliberately continued to ignore him.

Nigan glared at him sharply, silently reprimanding him of his tone, but Leon noticed the concern beneath his severe eyes.

Though he refused to admit, he knew his brother love him.

"I want to talk to you." His father replied calmly, ignoring his impertinence.

"You are coming with me." It was not a statement, it was a command, with no choice but to follow.

"No. I won't." Leon replied calmly, his confidence suprising even himself.

His father eventually looked up, putting the file away, his expression unreadable.

The secretary remained calm but one could see the anxiety concealed underneath his professional self.

Nigan looked visibly perplexed as he ardently warned his brother without words.

"I won't come with you." Leon repeated obstinately, ignoring the warnings from Nigan.

"Leave." Came a cold and calm voice.

Leon, at first thought the word was meant for him. He realised he was wrong when he saw Nigan and the secretary exiting the room the next moment, with Nigan's gaze lingering on him for a few seconds.

He felt solitary, his confidences disappeared all of sudden, under the hard gaze of the person whom he feared the most. He clenched his fist, he knew it was now or never.

"I am not coming with you. I don't want to be in your business."

He took up the courage to utter the words that he wanted to say since the day he got separated from his mother.

"You are my son. You must obey me."

There was finality in his words, he had an invisible authority that nobody dared to question.

And it was the final blow.

"I don't want to live like this!"

The volcano finally erupted, all the emotions that were bottled up for eighteen years exploded in the moment.

"Doing what people tells you to do! Living the life that people directs for you! Being free but in chains!" Leon spat.

"You called me your son." He scoffed humorlessly, for some unknown reasons his fear dissipated, and it gave rise to an unexplainable emotion.

His eyes became a bit misty. "But do you even love me?"

His voice trembled a litte towards the end. Though he would never admit to a living soul, he too, like any other son, craved for his father's love.