ENYEOK
It is already past Ten when I decide to call off my angry walk on the street and get back home.
With a surging heart, I walk past the familiarity of my neighborhood and slip through the front gate of my white-painted House which is a little too big for only three people.
When I glance ahead, My dad's white car glistening under the porch lights stares right back at me with its non-existing severe eyes. I try to gulp down my unpleasant feelings and walk toward my home with measured steps, the sound of my uneven breathing is all I can hear until I stand at the doorstep of my home where the voices of my parents ripple out of the closed door in front of me.
The moment I open the door with my almost shaking fingers, I was met with my dad's arduous gaze. His jaw clenched tightly as he stand in the living room with Mom by his side. He is still in his work attire. The tie hanging loose on his neck.
"Why did you take the role, Enyeok?" He asks, His voice is cold as ice and dangerously calm. And I hate the way it makes me tremble. He didn't even bother asking me where was I. Well, I don't expect that either.
"I cannot let down David like that." I reasoned, but It was a lie. David would be okay with whatever decision I make. After all, he's the only one who makes me feel like my feelings do matter, unlike my parents.
"Oh? What does David do if you let him down?" Dad asks mockingly. He walks over to me with narrowed eyes, Now standing so close to me that I can smell the liquor he had in what I remember as a business event he mentioned to us yesterday.
I fix my eyes on my feet without uttering a word until his voice makes me jump out of my skin, "Answer me!" He shouts.
I forced myself to look him in the eye, "He won't do anything but— Dad, I can't refuse him like that." I stumbled upon my words like a fool.
"And why is that, Enyeok?" His voice was so loud that it start ringing in my ears a thousand times. "Why do you care about some faggot's feelings? Who is he to you, anyway? Just because you work for him doesn't mean you owe him anything, kid! Don't you realize that he's tryna turn you into one of them?"
As if I'm not one of them. As if I'm not already gay.
I sigh, "One of them? What are you even talking about, Dad?" I dared to push him back a little and take a few steps back, "I know what I am doing. You guys need to remember that I'm not a kid anymore. You just can't rule me like that. I'm fucking twenty-two—"
"Watch your mouth, Enyeok!" Mom shouted from where she was standing a few steps away from us. Her jaw clenched as she glared at me.
Dad closes the distance between us by taking two steps and places his hands on my shoulder, "You. You'll be going to David tomorrow and breaking the contract. You are not doing that kind of sickening movie."
"No," I say. My voice doesn't even crack.
"You are doing it," He says as if the world would end if I disobey him, and I'm afraid his teeth would break from the way he clenched his jaw so tightly.
"I'm not, Dad" I watch his face turn a shade of red before his hand on my shoulder closed around my throat. tightly. Chocking me.
"How dare you little shit talk back to me like that!" He screams at my face, his fingers around my throat tightening as each of the words flies past his lips.
"No!! Ewoon!" My mother's cry was heard before I felt dad being shoved away from me.
As soon as his fingers drifted away from my throat I gasp for air like a fish taken away from the water. I didn't even realize I was crying until I felt my mom wipe the tears away from my cheek.
"En, What has gotten to you son? You were never like this. Please, Obey your father and stop hurting like this" She sobbed as she held my face between her palm. I can barely see her face with the tears welling in my eyes.
But her words did not fail to strike my nerves.
"Obey?" A humorless chuckle left my mouth. "Isn't that what I've been doing all my life?" I shove her hands away from my face. More tears slid down my cheeks and I wipe them away aggressively.
"And what do I gain from that? From obeying you? Nothing! Absolutely nothing!" I scoff. Glaring back at my fuming father.
"ENOUGH!" Dad yells, holding up his hands, "Enough with you bullshits! You are doing what I have said you to do. You'll break the contract."
"BUT WHY?" I scream.
"Because I won't let my son do anything disgusting as this!"
"What is so disgusting about this, dad?" I felt my energy drifting out of my body with each passing second.
"You know what it is, Enyeok. Don't act like you don't." He sighed.
"No. I don't! Tell me what it is."
"If you don't know, then stay that way. The only thing I want to say was said." Dad turns around to go back to his room but I don't let him.
"I'm not breaking the contract. I won't sign it only to break it later. As I said. I know what I am doing. And I want to do it—" Before I can complete my words, Dad is scrambling to me like a madman and within seconds his palm made a streak on my left cheek.
I felt my ears ringing and my cheek burning.
"Ewoon! Please don't—" My mother's cry flew up to my ears with the thumping of my own heart.
I was yanked toward Dad by his fingers clutching the collar of my shirt as he shakes me furiously, "You heard me! Break the contract or get out of my home and never come back! I won't let faggots into my home."
My blood boiled at his words, "You heard me, I won't!"
Something flashes in his eyes and he leans his head toward my face as he says through his gritted teeth, "I'll disown you."
I felt the anger spreading through my veins and making me blind.
"I don't want you to own me." I laugh at his face, "And I'll be damned to be owned by you. I'll leave. I won't stay here any more damn minute."