Mirage [n.h.]

twenty-four

When we arrived inside, they're all sitted except for my father who is standing up with a laptop on hand- the laptop Harry was using awhile ago. Louis and Zayn are now outside, sitting on the dining chair which is just behind the couch in the living room. They're both drinking liquor right now, judging the color of the liquid poured in the transparent cup. Harry and Ethan are sitting on the couch, Harry is on his phone while Ethan is making out with Abigail in the other couch. I looked at Ysabelle and mouthed an 'Are you okay?', which she replied with 'Positive' with a thumbs up. She then scurried to a vacant chair across Louis and sits down.

"There you are, son" my father acknowledges me and as if on cue, the couple making out not so long ago stopped on their business and sits down properly and Harry stopped scrolling to his phone and kept it in his pocket.

"Take a seat beside Styles" he points to the space beside Harry which I obligely accepted.

Once I sat down, I tried to be friendly with Harry,

"What's happening in here?" I ask.

"We're having a meeting" he curtly says.

"For?"

"Just fucking listen to Big Wig" he says and leans his elbow to the armrest with his head on his right hand.

I ignored his bad mood today-well everyday he's in bad mood, so I just shut my mouth and paid attention to my dad.

"Now, team, we now found a new company we'll work with. It's also a bigshot bank here in New York. Of course, our goal here is still the usual, to steal their money until they'll be bankrupt. And steps here of course won't change. Someone on each of you will apply for a position, act like a normal employee of them, know the secrets of the company, then we'll plan it all out how we'll drain their company. Got it? Most especially you, son?" he nods at me to look and he makes sure that i'm paying attention to his discussion at the moment. I nodded and an arm extends on my right side, from behind, holding a beer in can, I followed the arm, and saw Zayn.

"Have some" he offers me and I just shake my head.

"Huh? Why?" he curiously inquires me.

"I don't drink. I hate the taste of it" I say.

Laughters boom inside the place now, all of them, including my dad.

"Seriously, Neil?" Zayn says, I don't know if he's making fun of my name or he clearly doesn't know how to pronounce my name.

"It's Niall" I corrected him which he just laughs again.

"Whatever, Neil, Nail, Snail Mail. I don't care how your real name is pronounce" he chuckles and my dad is now behind me patting me on my shoulders.

"Malik, quit it. My son doesn't drink liquor because he still loves milk. Right?" he says and laughters again echoed the room. 

"Lionel, you have a boring son. Let me guess, he's still a virgin at his age" Louis asks and they all again laugh.

I hate my dad. Why did my mom give him another chance anyway? He's not worth that chance if he has this monkey business and making fun of his son in the public, I guess?

Zayn returns to his previous seat awhile ago and my dad goes infront again to continue the lecture.

"Back to the topic, the company's name is the Bank of New York. This is the first bank who got involved in foreign exchange here in this state. It's handled now by Bill Morrison..." he continues on giving us background of the company the following minutes. When he finished giving the background of it, he's looking on each of us, studying us, for I don't know the reason at all.