Whisper of the Heart (COMPLETED)

CHAPTER XLII

"You know what Edward? You're just like your father. Maybe, what you see now is a different man. But, the truth is, he was once like you. How you think, your dispositions... You resemble much of your father. And whenever I see you, you remind me of the young man your father once were. So it makes me to not lose hope, that one day, he'll forgive himself and he will come back to the old John I knew."

Edward raised his tear-stained face to look at his mother.

His father just used his connections to expel Janina from the university. But he can't do anything. He pathetically couldn't do anything. He's always the powerless, cry-baby Edward.

He should have not let himself drew close to Janina. Now poor Janina just lost her chance to finish college. She's poor. All she had was that hard-earned scholarship to keep her continue her studies. But he came. It was his fault. It has always been his fault from the very start.

When he heard Maymay's name,  it made his blood run cold.

It was like history repeating itself happening right his very eyes. This time, with Maymay. But there's a fire in his heart now that wasn't present that time.

Edward turns around and meets his father's gaze. He felt like he was close to being check-mate. One wrong move and he will get everything crush to the very ground.

DON'T YOU EVER TOUCH MAYMAY.

That's what he wanted to say.

But when he looks through his father's eyes, what he sees is the version of his father he talked with that one night, watered down, remorseful, and partly afraid. He felt his heart ache for him.

"..Why,  Dad...are you being like this..?" his words came out almost like a whisper.

"Because you need to wake up. Before it's too late." his words are calm.

"Wake up? Too late? What do you know about Maymay huh. Can't you see? Dad! She's just normal girl working for her family, earning money to MAKE ENDS MEET! How could you! And she has nothing but her siblings, and that small house she tried so hard to build with her HARD EARNED MONEY! how could you be this heartless?  How?? And WHAT I couldn't understand, is how you do that at the same time, despising the poor and doing your HYPOCRITICAL CHARITY!"

Edward couldn't believe he was hearing himself. He never thought he could raise his voice like this to his own father. But he felt relieved. Because he never went against his father. No matter how suffocating, he would just grit his teeth and and let the thing go.

"Maymay or whoever they're all the same! THIS is not a fairytale,  Edward. THIS is the REALITY. No king will LET his prince marry a MAID. AND I,  over my dead body, will never let you marry that MAID!"

"What made you a king, and what made her a maid? Aren't we all human? Breathing the same air?"

"I used to think that way. But i was wrong. One wrong choice and I had my life all messed up!"

"And because YOU MADE a wrong choice, IT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO MEDDLE ON MY OWN LIFE AND CHOICES?!"

"I'm just saving you my son..." his words are calm again, and Edward, seeing his drooped shoulders felt his father's sincerity.

"...from the worst nightmare you could ever have. I've been living in one, and i don't want to see you destroy yourself just because i just watched you make the wrong CHOICE."

"DAD, what wrong choice-"

"I KILLED YOUR GRANDAD! Because of that one mistake i lost my father, I KILLED HIM! YOU UNDERSTAND!?. " His father was beside himself with rage, screaming at Edward's face.

"W-what?.. "

Edward felt a nausea. He couldn't understand a thing. He slowly sat on the sofa, his knees became too weak to support him. He felt like he's going to faint.

"y-You killed..  G-granddad? Was he not killed in a car accident?" Tears start to appear in the corners of his eyes.

His father buried his face on his hands and sat on the couch.

"It's the same. It doesn't make a difference..."

Then Edward saw his father's shoulders shake.  His father is crying vehemently.

"I married the wrong woman, a wicked ambitious woman,  Edward. And she... k-killed my father.  It was my mistake. I should have listened.  But I followed my heart.. I-i never... I... My waywardness, it...  Had me killed my own father... And If i didn't find out about her evil plan soon enough, I might not be here standing before you, too..."

Edward shivered at his father's revelations. His dad married the wrong woman? Does that make her mom his second wife? And that woman.. Killed his grandpa?

Edward felt so widely confused. He felt like all his strength left him.

His father is weeping bitterly, his face buried in his hands. And Edward, sitting in that sofa, still connecting the dots of that untold story of the past that kept haunting his father. For a LONG time. That must be so hard to bear.

Edward finally grasped the meaning of everything. He had the clearer view of everything now. How things ended up like this. How his father ended up like this.

Because he knew what it feels like, to be mocked by your mistakes to the point you don't want to even hear your own thoughts.

"Have you, ever done something.. Something you can't.. ever forgive yourself for? Something, you can't hide yourself from.. It haunts you every single day.  Even in your dreams... That even if it happened years ago, it always felt like it happened just yesterday?And whenever you see your son, he reminds you of your younger self, of the passion you once have, your waywardness... and then you relive that dark past all over again, the past you've been trying so hard to put behind you?"

His father's mistake had been torturing him since his granddad died. And that was already decades ago.

DECADES AGO. But it still haunts him like it happened just yesterday.

He named the company in his father's namesake. Like doing so could make up for all the could-have-been but never will be.

He understands now. Why his father works so hard, to the point he forgets his own family. To the point he always sees him more as a CEO than a father. He's been living guilt. And he couldn't forgive himself.

And he is pushing Edward to never lose that chair. Never lose that chair at all cost. Use Gwen or whatever. He did not name the company EJB CORP for nothing.

Looking at his father now, without that lofty attitude, without his mask, he felt for him.

"It.. It wasn't your fault..  Dad."

His father speaks again after a long deafening silence. And when he speaks, his words are almost inaudible.

"If there is one thing... I can change.."

Edward met his father's gaze.

"...I will go back.. I will always go back to that time... And recreate everything.. "

His father stands. Like a wounded soldier. He walks to the door and soon Edward is alone, staring at the seat his father has just left. He stayed like that, motionless, for a long time, staring at that empty space.

Then he got up and found comfort in the darkened four corners of his room, under the warmth of the blanket. He's lying on his bed, his mind drifting. Wondering how in the world is he going to fix everything.

Because he realized, his father is not as bad as he seems. His doing charity, those are not just pretense.

He really has that soft side in him that made him even fell in love with that commoner in the first place. And recalling his mother's words, his father was just like him. After all.