Hey Sunshine

Jesper Could Hear His Eyebrows Raise

"FATHER?" Wylan repeated once they were in the car. "W-w-what are you doing here?"

"I see you still have that horrific stutter," Jan said smoothly, his lip curling just the slightest at the end of the sentence. "And I believe I've already answered that question - I'm here because I haven't talked or heard from you all year long. A father does want to hear about their only son on occasion."

Wylan twitched with the urge to yell at him, but he knew he was in a bad position. The three men were right behind him and his father was right in front of him. The limo was large and spacious, but there was no way Wylan would be able to run or get out without his father or his men getting him first.

"You've never seemed interested before," he managed to get out weakly. "I didn't think this time would be any different."

His father doesn't react to that - in fact, he doesn't even seem to hear him - and right then Wylan's phone buzzed. Success, Wylan thought to himself as he pulled out his phone and earbud. The caption had the familiar lengths and curves he's managed to acquaint with Jesper's name. Just as he was about to unlock his phone, his father smoothly reached over and plucked it from his grasp.

"Father-" Wylan began in a strange tone, like the air has been punched out from him.

"Really Wylan?" his father asked calmly, arching an ice-cold eyebrow at him. "Who is Jesper, and why are you so eager to spend time with him when we could be catching up?"

Silently Wylan goggled at his father. Had he developed a sense of humour in the past couple of months?

"Until you leave our house to return to college," Jan decided with a smirk. "You don't get to have your phone. I'm keeping it until then."

His phone - worn, unremarkable, his - then slipped into Jan's deep coat pocket and a strange feeling rose in Wylan's chest.

Trashed apartment.

Threat letter.

Bribing Kuweii into keeping him for winter break.

Taking his phone.

Wylan's chest pumped rapidly as he took a faltering breath. His father had already gone so far, consequences be damned.

Where was the end? What did Jan even want from him?

#

Somehow, he ended up in his old room.

A part of his chest beat uneasily as he stared at it all. Everything was the same - science and math notes, all drawn out because he couldn't write for his life hung on the wall; drawings and various awards were hanging proudly on a shelf. Wylan scowled at the display of it all.

He really missed his under-heated, way too small, barely functional and now trashed apartment of his. He even missed the goddamn spider.

You know you've hit a sad point in life when you find yourself missing that spider you initially freaked out over, Wylan thought sadly.

What was he supposed to do now? He was stuck in his father's house - trapped, without a phone, under his father's constant gaze. But... Wylan trails off, thinking of the threat letter. What reason did his father have for basically kidnapping him? Why would his father send him the threat letter? What was the reason for the trashed apartment?

Shouldn't Jan Van Eck have been content to just do away with him to the rest of the world, while Wylan tried his hardest to disassociate himself from the family empire?