Marry The Heir
About the past

POV Sigit

No one ever thought that the past I buried deep must come back before my eyes. In my hand, I still held a photo of three teenagers with a middle-aged woman taking pictures in front of the parlour. Out of nowhere Marcel could get this photo, complete with a voice recording of his interview with a woman.

"Mas can destroy it if you want, but relax, I've saved a lot of copies." so the message that Marcel then sent me a moment ago.

Marcel does not play around with his threats because he is not the type who likes to play around.

Looking at this photo, instantly, the memory of the events of a few years ago was just present in my mind. Everything I thought had never happened again was now an increasingly real shadow and dancing in my eyes. Closing both my eyes did not remove the shadow, it became clearer and more frightening. Scared, yes I was very scared.

16 Years old when this photo was taken. Still fresh in memory this photo was taken by a journalist who interviewed me after becoming the first champion in the national Science olympiade.

“Vote one national sciene olympiade is won by a student who grew up in the orphanage.” The title of the news was so viral in his day and became a new beginning I met a reality that I never expected before.

When I was living in a parlor, I felt the lack of life and encountered many difficulties. Such a matter of life is the most solid friend to us. As hard as we were to get away he kept getting closer.

We lived with 23 people with me and my two oldest friends at the parlour. Not that no one wants to adopt us but every time someone will adopt us, we will certainly act to make our prospective adoptive parents feel lazy to raise us as their children. We kept doing it again and again until we grew up and no one separated us, as we promised.

Looking at the photo as well, it made me remember how hard the struggle was during the orphanage. I was weak and always a bulian of friends at school. My prestige is good but power-wise, I don't have it. Maybe because I was poor, I didn't have anything until they felt free to step on my pride, insult me, taking the hard-earned pocket money I collected from working part-time after school and no reluctance to hit me sprawled when I refused to give them what they asked for.

It's sad, yes, very sad. Until now I still feel the pain of the wounds on my body, the chest tightness they stepped on with football boots and the dizziness of the head they smashed against the wall. He said I was plain pretentious and they always tried to provoke my emotions until one day I was slapped by teacher BK for fighting them.

I poked the eye of one of the students who beat me up a lot. Honestly, it was self-defense because they always beat me up. But, my track record as an outstanding student seemed to be a hindrance so that I would not fight back and receive all of their ill-treatment. I have to look perfect as an example of an intelligent and well-ethical student, but I'm sick of just being silent about their treatment.

They recognized my brilliant brain but they never recognized me as a human being with a heart. For them, I do not deserve a heart. You must not feel sad, lonely, alone and there is no happiness that stops by other than when you are with my two friends.

For years I lived in hell. Sometimes I think about ending my fucking life. But my two best friends always encouraged me, reminding me to hang on and believe that there is always a rainbow after the rain, even with the lightning and thunder that shook us.

Until one day, there was a man who came to the orphanage. The man in full suit with his extraordinary charisma.

“What do you want danu?” asked the man, looking at my bruised face from fighting.

“Hem. What do you want?” I was always cynical when strangers came to the parlor and asked me.

Yeah, my name used to be Danu. Don't ask me who gave me that name, maybe a housewife or a stranger who found me on the street. I don't know exactly and don't want to know.

“There is someone who wants to meet. He's waiting for you in the living room.” Said the man who smiled faintly while bowing politely to me.

What the hell, since long ago no one has behaved like this to me.

“Just meet mommy. I have no business.” Ketus. I've been wanting to take a shower and clean my body from the smell of blood hitting my uniform.

I left the man without further ado.

“Heir father.” Those two words stopped my steps.

Like my heart stopped beating for a while and came back to chatter with a quick thump that I could not control. I don't know where the adrenaline suddenly rises.

I smiled sarcastically, the joking man behind me was too exaggerated I thought.

“Do not joke with me, I do not have time to laugh.” My heart doesn't believe. He thought I was so stupid that I would believe his words.

“You think, who can release you from prison other than him?” again, the man's words sounded provocative.

I noticed my relaxed face change to cold. I turned around and the man was still smiling calmly in front of me. Is a smile so cheap for her that she looks at me she's still smiling? Why is it so expensive for me?

“Meet him in the living room, he is waiting for you.” Strictly the man as he passed from before me.

I don't think this is a funny joke. I want to see what a man who claims to be my father looks like. Whether his face is similar to mine or his way of speaking or something can prove we have a biological connection as taught by biology teachers at school.

I put my bag near the room. Then I washed my bruised face. The pain of the previous blow still did not subside and this time even increased. For a moment I looked at my face in the mirror, indeed my look was annoying and cold. Maybe this is what makes my enemies at school feel entitled to do anything to me that will not be able to fight.

“Danu, here son.” The parlour ma'am who greeted me as I walked into the living room.

The neat man sitting next to the parlour maam immediately turned his head. My breath seemed choked, as I looked at her familiar face, similar to mine. One time just meet, maybe people will think we are relatives but doesn't everyone have 7 twins in this world? Maybe he's one of my twins. This is a denial that automatically comes to my mind.

The man smiled, looked as if he was very sincere and suddenly my feelings were warm. What kind of feeling is this, I'm so foreign and I've never felt it.

“Come.” The house called me to come closer. Suddenly my legs felt weak until almost fell. But quickly the man approached and held my body from collapsing.

“Sigit!” she hugged me suddenly.

What the fuck? He mentioned what name in my ear. Wait, why is her hug getting so tight that I can barely breathe. She even cried, a crying voice that I felt mixed between feeling haru and regret.

“Who are you?!” I immediately let go of her familiar embrace and pushed her body away. I looked at him and he looked at me carefully.

“Talk to him. He's your father.” Again the voice of the mother of the parlour with the words was exactly the same as the man standing at the end there.

I smiled faintly, staring at this man in disbelief. “Do not lie. Mom said mom found me in a garbage cart near the school park. How could I possibly have a father? It's possible that this great master would take me and sell my brain on the human trafficking market.”

I denied the words of the house mom excessively. But that's what came to my head. I am smart, of course it will be very expensive the price of my brain if sold and for me this man is just making it up.

They just fell silent and did not dare to chim in and this condition even made my feelings unreasonable. Am I really the son of this man?

In the living room there was only me and the man who introduced himself as Hardjoyo. A successful entrepreneur and has a sizable company.

Hardjoyo thrust a green envelope at me with a thick enough content and the name of the hospital there.

“Beauty years papah looking for you and finally papah can find you.” Hardjoyo.

Papa? Stranger once that call was in my ear.

“Open that envelope, that's proof you're a papah boy.” Hardjoyo hastens with confidence.

I took the envelope lying in front of me and opened it. Just two parts I read, the name checked and the conclusion. The result is, my DNA matches that of the great master beside me.

The paper just fell out of my hand. My hands are trembling and weak because it is still in shock, yes it is very shock.

Seeing me fixated, Hardjoyo took out a photo from his pocket. A picture of him with a woman who is no stranger to me. I've seen him.

“Mamahmu left papah while she was pregnant with you. And until now papah has not been able to find it. Whether he is alive or not.” It turned out that this man was not a man who could speak stale.

That sensitive sentence easily came out of his mouth making me unable to hide the tear that had turned mellow. I just glanced at the photo of the woman and exactly the same as the photo that was once shown by the mother of the home some know ago. Either I should be happy or not hear this news. One thing I do know, if a woman chooses to leave her man then it is no small matter that makes her have to give up and leave. Such is the thing called woman.

“Why did that woman leave you?” honestly, I was curious to hear the answer.

Hardjoyo only sighed harshly until then I knew the answer as I walked into Hardjoyo's mansion.

There was a woman there whom they called a great mistress. He looked at me cynically and seemed to reject my arrival in the midst of their happy family.

“He's my son and this house is his.” That fight I hear every night.

I started to figure out what really happened. I sneaked into the room of the man I started calling Papah and sometimes I eavesdropped on his conversations with his confidants. I think I understand the reason why that woman left this man.

In every corner there is only a photo of Hardjoyo with women who often argue in his room. There was no sign that my mother was ever a part of this family.

Of course because my mother was nobody. She was just a woman who was persuaded by love to give up all her life but could never be fought for. It would not be wrong if he finally chose to leave.

I felt like I was heartbroken to find all this reality. One more deep wound I felt after the treatment of strangers out there. No one ever wanted my existence. I was only looking for my papah who was married a dozen years but not yet blessed with children. That's the only reason my brain can accept.

The day changed and I became the proud son of Hardjoyo. Sigit's name which he later gave me as the identity of his son. He erased all my identities in the past and sent me out of school with new identities. I was placed as the first son of the successful Hardjoyo family in the business world at a young age with many subsidiaries.

That's how easily his life line changed. Either this is the truth or just a joke. What is clear, no matter what the circumstances, I was never the child this family expected me to be. I was wanted only to be a successor of the business empire. Should I thank him or pity my own poor self.

That's as great a manipulation that people like Hardjoyo can do. And maybe, all this is just manipulation.

*****

“Aargh!” Sigit groaned as his head throbbed in pain as he got up from his seat.

Everything was dark and his limp legs could not support his body until it collapsed on the floor. He was still trying with the rest of his consciousness, clutching his head which was painful and in great pain.

Recalling the past not only made his heart tired and sick but his body also felt the same way. The past he buried and left behind seemed to be the reality he had to face.

Marcel seemed so sure of what he said. Amongst her relaxed smile, apparently she harbored a lot of resentment towards the man who was forced to be her brother. They were born from different wombs. Marcel with a noble mother and Sigit born of a comforting woman. This also makes Marcel want to take everything from the hands of Sigit.

He always felt that what his late father did was unfair. Sigit has always been his pride while his presence is late after a dozen years of marriage, only complementary.

In his pain, Sigit was still trying to reach for his phone. But it's too far away on the table. He tried to crawl and endure the pain that was getting worse and worse. Until it was all dark, all silent. No one knew he was helpless.

Only a voice he then faintly heard as the door opened.

“DADY!!!” He knows that voice. With his eyes half closed he saw the beautiful girl supporting his body with her right arm.

“Sha, fi, ra..” his overexposure which was then unconscious.

****