Chương 23: Visit
"Mother, Neil is missing," Skylar spoke to his mother again this morning accompanied by the clink of a spoon as Renjana stirred a glass of milk on the table.
Renjana didn't move to respond, it didn't make Skylar feel like it was pinched right in the chest. Skylar only hopes that at least Renjana gives a little care to Neil, his flesh and blood. Skylar just never expected that time could change a person to be so different.
He clutched the bag hanging over his shoulder. "Don't you care about Neil?"
This time Renjana placed her focal point on Skylar who was standing across the table with his eyebrows raised. But his mother said something else that made Skylar's hand clench. "Breakfast first."
Skylar refrained from rolling his eyes and said a broken word would hurt his mother. Without saying anything he left Renjana at the dinner table.
***
Skylar took a detour, he abandoned his intention to go to school and rode his motorcycle on a motorway that was empty towards the house where he grew up first. Cloudy in the morning as the backdrop for Skylar's journey aligns with her atmosphere which is not at all okay.
Some days Skylar didn't see his father, he knew it was a mistake. Raihan is still looking for where Neil is, but what can Skylar do? He had no idea what to do next. What steps should he take?
Skylar's bad days before this was still able to live Skylar as long as he could still see Neil. But now that part of him can't see Skylar from his visibility, surely that makes him not okay? It was as if Skylar had lost his way.
Skylar put his bike into the gate after he got to the house, believing his father had not left for work with the car still parked safely.
He pressed the bell with his long finger and waited for his father to open the door for him. Skylar could hear footsteps from within that walked over. When the door opened, Skylar was immediately confronted by Raihan who was completely different from before Skylar met him last time.
"Skylar, you're not in school?" Raihan asked Skylar in a hoarse-sounding voice. Skylar noticed the dark circles under Raihan's eyes were darker than before, random hair and not wearing clothes to work at all as Skylar had previously thought.
Skylar shook his head, he observed how his father was leaning against the door and he involuntarily raised his forehead to massage his forehead briefly.
Not needing an answer to Skylar's rhetorical question, Raihan immediately took him to enter the lounge room and he walked into the kitchen and stayed there long enough just to offer him a glass of warm milk and toast.
"Dad why not work?" This time Skylar asked just a few pleasantries after he gulped down his drink. He also actually wondered what Raihan did afterward when he found out Neil had disappeared at the time.
His father sat on the floor on a furry carpet and leaned his body on a red sofa. He shook his head softly and smiled almost forced. Then turned to the television screen that featured the random broadcast, because Skylar knew Raihan wasn't watching it. "Dad took time off."
Skylar responded with a nod, his finger playing the end of the bag. He's at a loss as to how to drag the conversation around Neil now. The sound of the television was like a broken radio sound in his ear, but at least it was an interruption for him and an uncomfortable silence with Raihan.
"I can't find Neil." In the end, Raihan broke Skylar's mind. He turned to Raihan who was staring straight at the television.
"Me too, Dad," said Skylar, glancing upwards at Neil's closed room and imagining in his mind that Neil was getting out of there to stop him and Raihan from constantly worrying about him.
His father rubbed his face tired, Raihan looked older than he was. Until Skylar thought that the man who was here was not like his father whom Skylar knew.
"I've been looking for him everywhere but nil. Contacting the police was useless, because he was not 'here', right?" said Raihan this time staring at Skylar at a glance and turning his gaze back.
Skylar just silently waited for Raihan to speak again, he sat next to his father. It's been a long time for him, not talked like this to Raihan. But of course with small talk in those days and being aware so quickly time passed. When he and Neil used to sit on Raihan's lap listening to him tell stories then now Skylar and Neil have grown up no longer children.
"How is he now? Is he okay?" Raihan paused for a moment, then he continued, "How do I get Neil back?"
Skylar really couldn't hear Raihan sound like this for the second time in Skylar's life. He knew his father was very strong and a herald, but not for his children. With this how could Skylar possibly tell about what happened to Neil actually before he got into that 'world'.
"Dad, big brother is fine. He's not alone, there's Sain there," Skylar assured his father.
"Sain?"
Skylar nodded. "Our neighbor's son first, Dad. Who always followed my brother, we were friends as children. A few years ago he disappeared and it turns out he's in the same place as Neil now."
Skylar heard a rude breath from Raihan who was sitting beside him. Skylar raised his confused eyebrows and asked, "Why Daddy?"
Skylar saw a grim smile on Raihan's face that rose as he shook his head. "I'm very confident Neil will be fine with Sain. We just need to find a way to get them out of there."
Skylar's brows furrowed instead he was confused by the words and reactions from Raihan just now. "What happened to Sain, Dad?"
Raihan just didn't look towards Skylar which made him believe something was wrong. "How's your mother?"
Skylar straightened her legs and sighed with a sudden change in Raihan's topic. "Mother is good. Don't you want to see mom?"
"We have agreed not to meet again," Raihan said.
"Dad why make a promise that already knows it won't be able to be done?" asked Skylar to his father asking for clarity.
"What else could I do at that time? Your mother also wants to take Neil and Dad has no one else if Neil leaves too."
"Mum changed a lot, I didn't care about Neil's disappearance at all," Skylar said bluntly. He subconsciously saw That Raihan's hand had clenched behind his lap.
"Your mother cares, Skylar. No mother doesn't care about her child." Skylar did not attempt to comment on his words, instead, he prayed that what Raihan said was the truth. But the facts aren't like that. His mother didn't care at all.
***
Skylar opened the door of Neil's room which was immediately greeted by a cold that hit the front of his body. The dense citrus aroma filling the room that had been left behind by Neil was still clearly smelled by Skylar. A memory of the past leads him to a glimpse of the good times before a storm hits his life.
*
"The mint is cooler." An elementary school boy thrust a bottle of ash-colored perfume right in front of his brother's nose.
The older brother reminded Skylar's hand from the front of his face, the shady look Skylar received from Neil he had always liked. "Big brother likes it but if you wear it more suitable. You want that citrus smell, huh?"
"Don't, we're not the same." Skylar snatched the sight of his brother picking up a yellow perfume bottle on the shelf.
Neil laughed. "Our faces are the same, the perfume period must be the same. We have to have a special character."
"That's not the name of a compact. Mending Big Brother buy mint, I like it."
"What if we buy mint one citrus one. Let's try each other." Neil advises Skylar who still insists on buying two bottles of mint-scented perfume.
"You can't, we're buying mint. Come on, that's the mother who's been waiting outside." Skylar took the yellow bottle out of Neil's hand and was about to put it back where it was, but because he was slightly shorter than Neil the bottle in his hand slipped and fell with the lid open as the minimarket floor became wet and the citrus scent spread between them.
Skylar's eyes instantly watered back tears because of his actions, his eyes exploring the hallway of the timid shelf around them standing that turned out to be no one. He was truly sorry why he hadn't listened to Neil's words earlier. "Brother, sorry. I didn't intentionally, how can we get angry later."
Skylar was annoyed by Neil's last sentence so he rubbed his tearful face and snot on Neil's shirt firmly. Instead of feeling disgusted Neil instead laughed at Skylar's behavior to make Skylar become more upset and take off his brother's hug.
Neil just smiled and then he saw a puddle of perfume that was very dear if left alone, so he laid his body on the spill and began to roll over to make his fragrance stick to his clothes.
Skylar laughed at his brother's behavior like a child, even though they were still small. "What the hell, wake up. If the mint is spilled, I also want to roll like Big Brother."
"It's a shame that this spilled over."
"I love my brother too."
"What the hell."
**
Skylar smiled faintly as he remembered it. His feet stepped in bringing his body to a study table with neatly arranged items, typical of a Neil.
However, Skylar's eyes accidentally saw something under the table. Skylar lowered his head to see more clearly what turned out to be a spilled medicine tube with its contents scattered to and fro. Skylar's eyes widened when he knew what the drug was.
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