Sound of the Untold Secret

👀 an epilogue 👀

My name is Hali. And my life is not always the best.

My hand opens, revealing the long thing my mom has been using to clean her ears. I sit by the front of my window, contemplating the remaining minutes I might have as a normal person. The confusion is tiring, and the decision, exhausting to make. I wish to cry, but I'm a man.

===

Being summoned to Ice's secret quarters, I've already been told what to expect. His place is spacious, flanked with security personnel as usual. As the eldest, he's always been the boss, and I walk up his carpet-laid aisle with ease and with one deadly pace. Call it a silent protest, if you must. But to detest him is one thing you might suffer from doing.

His legs are crossed, eyes half open while he sits on that stupid chair of his again. He's always liked playing with his fingers, and now I can't dare to unsee it. His lips are pouted, his fingers playing with the zipper of his black jacket. He stares to the guard on his right. "You. Get out. I don't want you here."

I glare at the guard in shades and his clean tuxedo. He emotionlessly walks off in an instant, without a bow, leaving Ice alone in front.

Even with that one man gone, there's still, like, eight more standing in each corner.

"Hal, you can come stand here, with me."

Heck no.

But it's not like I had a choice.

That was the day I knew he wanted me in. He told me many things, many subjects that soon blanked out of my brain immediately. Still, there were topics left untouched. Things he said that remain unforgettable to this day.

He called me the boy with black blood.

He called me capable of things like him. He called Blaze weak, the more foolish twin. He wanted me like him, to be desired by Mom. He was wrong. He can't be loved by only sheer power.

===

He called me the boy of bad blood. The nightmare that brought me hate returns.

Curse this blasted life.

I take the metal close to my ear, staring at the morning sky.

===

Mom continues her painful yells behind me, even if I try to just calmly brush her off while I get my crackers from the fridge. "I'm talking to you, Hali! Don't you dare turn your back on me, fool!"

First she wants me to stop moping like a baby. Now, she wants me to just stare at her swearing lips to death and have her phrases carved on my head.

She traps my hand on the kitchen counter, slamming it under her palms to keep me still. Her quiet anger boils hotter than her loud one. "You listen to me, Halilintar, because I don't think you listen to me enough to remember, huh!"

She points another finger at me. "You...don't dare try to replace your brothers 'cause you're just a pest...in my life! You dare have the audacity to TRY and be part of this family when all you've been was a burden, and don't you DARE tell that to your father!"

Her eyes heat with fury, almost sore from just looking at me.

That was the day she reminded me...for almost the hundredth time...of who I was. An animal of an unwanted mix of her blood and someone else's. I'm a boy meant to take that to heart, but to never tell to others. I'm the boy she never wanted. The unhelpful addition to her family.