Leon pulled Layla inside the house and closed the door before locking it.

“It seems this is still our house,” Leon stated.

Leon and Layla looked around the house once again to double-check and make sure there wasn’t anyone else in the house.

After confirming no one was in the house, Leon and Layla went to the living room.

Layla sat on the dirty couch while Leon tried to check if the water and electricity line was still available or not. But as expected, they weren’t working.

When Leon went back to the living room, he found Layla crying quietly while sobbing.

He sat beside Layla and said, “Come on, now. Even if she was your mother, she died ages ago. There is no way you are going to cry about that now, right?”

“Even my mother and brother and your father died ten years ago, and there is no point crying,” he added.

That was Leon’s peculiar way of comforting and reassuring Layla.

Whenever it came to human relations and interaction, Leon had no idea what to do.

He has never been loved, or at least, that’s what he thought. So he had no idea what love and feelings are, and even if he knew about it, he couldn’t care less.

Leon thought he had no need to understand human relationships as they were just a nuisance to him. However, Layla was a different case. His connection with Layla was something that couldn’t be described in words.

Leon placed his hand on Layla’s shoulder and said, “I am here for you.”

Layla embraced Leon in her arms and said while sobbing and sniffing: “That’s not what I am crying about.”

“Oh, you are not?” Leon wondered with a puzzled look on his face. “Now that’s embarrassing, even for me.”

“I was crying because I was happy. I was Crying because we were finally free. No more daily tortures. I don’t have to get beaten anymore. I don’t have to see you get beaten anymore. I don’t have to suffer anymore. I don’t have to see you suffer anymore.”

“We are free, and we are back home. Our old home where I grew up. Where I met you.”

Layla was having a mental breakdown. She started wailing on Leon’s chest and continued, “I can’t believe this is happening.”

She looked at Leon’s face with her teary eyes and asked, “This is happening, right? Everything is real and not a dream, right?!”

Leon finally hugged Layla back and replied, “Yeah. We are home.”

They stayed like that until Layla calmed down.

Leon glanced at Layla to find her asleep in his arms with tear marks around her eyes.

Leon couldn’t help but chuckle after seeing Layla’s sleeping face.

He had seen her sleeping thousands of times, but this was the first time she looked happy and relaxed.

Leon moved his hand from Layla’s back to her neck and rubbed his thumb on her nape. He furrowed his brows as he noticed his hand was trying to choke Layla.

“…what is happening to me?” he muttered.

He poked Layla’s cheek to wake her up and asked her to move away from him.

“Let’s go sleep on the bed,” Layla suggested.

Leon reluctantly agreed to go with her, and they went to their bedroom, where they slept when they were kids.

It was a bunk bed made of wood with metal stairs in between.

“Do you remember, me, you, and your brother used to fight all the time whenever your mother told us to sleep?” Layla asked with a distant smile on her face.

“Yeah.”

Leon’s brother— Liam, was one and half years younger than Leon and three years younger than Layla.

There were only two beds on the bunk bed, which was enough for even four kids to sleep. Two on the top bed and two on the bottom bed.

Liam, however, as the youngest kid, was spoiled. He always wanted the top bed for himself, and because of that, Leon would take the bottom one.

Layla, being the eldest daughter of the family, wasn’t so supportive of them. To her, it was like two random kids came into her house and took everything that once belonged to her. She wasn’t used to her father remarrying yet, and she fought with Liam and Leon all the time, although most of the time with Leon.

Layla looked at Leon and said, “This bed is too small for us to sleep. Let’s go to our parent’s bedroom.”

Leon and Layla went to their parent’s bedroom and sat on the bed. However, the house wasn’t cleaned in ten years, and all the dust was gathered everywhere around the house, including the bedsheets.

Leon pulled the bedsheet that revealed a clean white mattress with no sign of dust on it. Layla jumped on the bed and spread her arms as she yawned. She took pillows and removed the cover from them as well.

She tapped on the empty space beside her and asked Leon to sleep with her. Leon didn’t want to stay in the same room as Layla after what happened on the couch, but he couldn’t deny Layla.

He laid down beside Layla and closed his eyes, thinking if he fell asleep, it would be okay.

After a while, Leon heard a rustling sound, so he opened his eyes and saw Layla taking off her hoodie to sleep naked.

It was nothing unusual for Leon to see Layla’s naked body, as he had seen many times as they grew up. He closed his eyes again and focused on sleeping.

After a while, Layla moved closer to Leon and whispered in his ears: “Take off your clothes too.”

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Author’s note- This chapter was a little bit on the emotional side. I wanted to show the only nonexistent feelings and emotions Leon has left.

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