When Henry marches away, he steadies his irregular breathing, though he doesn't know where it has come from.
He walks with measured steps until he reaches the living room.
The moment he enters, the conversation that had been going on ends instantly, cut short as though someone pulled a plug.
The silence that follows is thick and awkward. They all look like they had been busy with other things the second before he walked in, as if they want him to believe they hadn't been speaking about him.
Some reach for their phones, scrolling idly without interest, thumbs moving just to avoid eye contact.
Henry has grown used to that reaction by now. It no longer stings the way it once did. He simply stands there, his hands slipping into his pockets, posture calm and composed, expression unreadable.
On the surface, he looks indifferent, almost detached, but inside he feels the weight of that silence pressing on him.
"I thought you guys were here for dinner," He says finally, his tone steady. "One that you didn't even inform me about, just storming into my house like you belong. And now that it's over, why are you still lingering around? I hope you are not planning to stay, because I don't have guest rooms."
His voice carries no sharpness, no raised pitch. He doesn't sound rude, harsh, or arrogant.
He leaves no trace of emotion in his tone, keeping it blank.
"Hugh.. brother, I would suffocate if I had to stay for the night in here…" Adrian- his second-born brother replies.
His voice comes across as casual, but Henry knows him too well to miss what's hidden beneath.
He's making it sound light, but the undertone is deliberate. "And… about not telling you we were coming for dinner..." Adrian adds with a smirk that almost feels rehearsed, "...even if we had told you we were coming, would you have prepared some home-cooked food? Or you would have just ordered like always. I mean… can your wife even boil water?" His words drip with mockery, veiled as humor but meant to cut deep.
Henry's jaw tightens, though his face doesn't betray it. "Since you knew we were going to order food anyway," he answers, voice still calm, still collected, "then why didn't you just go to a hotel instead of coming here?"
His father cuts in before the exchange escalates. "Okay, enough. We're here because you won't come to any family dinner we plan."
Henry exhales softly, steadying himself, though there's an edge beneath his calm that only he feels. "That's only because I'm so busy making your branch company even better than your main company that I don't even have time for my own family," he replies.
The words leave his lips evenly, but inside he knows it isn't the entire truth. It's only one part of it, one layer among many others he never says out loud.
He never joins them because when he is around them, he always feels out of place.
It is as though strangers have taken over his family, displacing him in a home that was once his.
That feeling has haunted him ever since his mother died, back when he was barely six years old.
His father had remarried almost immediately, so fast that Henry hadn't even had time to grieve.
To Henry, it had felt like his father was waiting for the chance, like he had always been in that relationship on the side, and even if Henry's mother hadn't died, the man would have married the woman anyway.
That realization had crushed him, leaving scars too deep to fade.
And... Growing up, Henry had always believed that one day he would take over his father's main company.
It was what he worked toward, what he had shaped his ambitions around. But that dream dissolved once new siblings came into the picture, siblings his father openly treasured more.
They also had their mother beside them, a woman who defended them fiercely and demanded everything on their behalf.
For them, doors opened easily. For Henry, they slammed shut. Instead of the main company, his father handed him the neglected branch in another town, a place in chaos with nothing under control.
But Henry didn't refuse, he even thought it was a perfect chance to get away from them.
He poured himself into the work, rebuilt it piece by piece, and now that branch company was thriving... rising even higher than his father's main company.
Yet sometimes, late at night, Henry couldn't help wondering if that assignment had been punishment.
If being sent away had been less about responsibility and more about being exiled because of what had happened years ago.
Maybe his father believed that what had happened years ago would damage the company's reputation if he handed it over to him.
Back then, his father wasn't just a businessman with powerful companies. He was also the mayor of their city, a man under constant scrutiny.
And in a country where same-gender relationships weren't legal and were heavily frowned upon, the mayor's son being spotted secretly with another boy was scandal enough to set everything on fire.
The news had spread like wildfire. The public questioned whether the mayor was fit to lead the city when he couldn't even "control" his own son.
The press had stalked him, followed his every move, demanding the truth. They had asked if it was real, if the whispers were more than gossip.
And Henry could never forget what his father had said then. His words had carved themselves into Henry's mind, ringing louder every time he looked at him, echoing with relentless cruelty.
It traumatized Henry.
Those words followed him into adulthood, shaping the way he saw himself, the way he viewed every part of who he was.
They made him hate himself.
They made him hate his own sexuality, something he had once felt certain about.
He swore to himself he would never let it define him again. He would never look at a man that way, never allow himself to slip back into the person he had been.
He buried that part of himself so deeply he tried to forget it existed.
When his father demanded answers, Henry had sworn it was all a misunderstanding. He had denied it with all the desperation of someone trying to survive.
His father had used his influence and power to smother the gossip, to silence it until it died down.
And since then... Henry forced himself to change forever.
By the time he was twenty-three, he was desperate. All he wanted was to prove he wasn't what people said about him.
He wanted to show everyone and himself that he was "normal," that he could live the way his father expected.
So he rushed into marriage, not because he loved her, but because he needed it. He hoped for a child, something that would prove he had built the life he was supposed to.
He wanted nothing to do with his past. He wished it could disappear, erased completely, nothing more than a rumor no one remembered.