FALLING | MxM (completed)

Chapter 74

Edited 

'Aiden is the luckiest artist ever.'

'The bravest male singer to come out of the closet.'

'The first gay artist to hit it so big worldwide so fast.'

'Is there even anything Aiden doesn't have?'

'Aiden on top 10 richest singers of the year again.'

'Many people saying: I wish I was Aiden.'

'The celebrity who has it all.'

The articles made him laugh. Every time an article came out, saying he was perfect and had such an amazing life, one they wrote about in fairy tales and assuming Aiden was living one, he wanted to laugh. Well, he really wanted to cry, but... laughing was always a better option. Especially in media conferences and interviews where they were cameras and people everywhere.

Was his life perfect as they said it was? No. It was far from that.

Going through his rough childhood, the amount of mental abuse he had to endure, he thought by becoming an adult, he would be okay. He thought wrong.

He had learned to hack as a joke. A way to prank his friends and teachers. One time, he hacked into the school's system and changed everyone's grades to A++. Grades didn't matter, anyway. He became the Robin Hood of the area that year, before he left the city to start working at that big company.

After the first time doing the dirty job for that disgusting old man who seemed to never want to die, he told him straight in the face that they wouldn't do any favors for them ever again. He was childish to think a big government mafia man would take him seriously, though.

Some 8 months later, he got kidnapped. The old man loved making scenes. The ones in those shitty mafia movies, with the head of the gang sitting with a fur coat hanging over the shoulders, a cigar between the lips, and a hand twirling the ridiculously expensive wine, all the while looking at the person who was tied to a chair with a gun over their head, terrified and clueless.

That was how he had felt the first time: terrified and clueless. He wasn't even 20, and he had somehow managed to upset one of the most powerful men in the country, enough for him to threaten him with a gun, with his life.

He said he didn't want to do anything for that old fuck, but the man had a different opinion. Upon seeing that he didn't really care if he was killed right at that moment, the strategy was changed. He was told if he didn't do what he was asked, Ian, the boy who was as bright as the sun, would be the replacement, if not in danger of dying. That was how he ended up being, as the mafia boss liked to call him, his 'bitch'.

After winning the dance competition and coming back to their works, he was contacted by them again. He couldn't keep doing this. He just couldn't. After a month of weighing everything in search of a way to both guarantee everyone's safety and being secure from the man himself, or rather being secure from not being forced to do something he really didn't want to be a part of, he came up with an idea. He had to become famous. Famous enough that no one could touch him.

Sure, he had really and honestly enjoyed being on the stage and all the applause he had received while dancing, but that wouldn't be enough for him to leave programming behind, the thing he was really passionate about. It was perhaps the only fortunate thing in his life, that he happened to really love being a singer and doing what he did from that point on as well. His original dream had been earning enough money for himself until 35 and then retiring, traveling the whole world, and then it didn't matter anymore. As long as he had seen every place, it didn't matter when and how he would die. Everyone died at some point, anyway. It wasn't like anybody really cared or loved him. His own parents didn't seem to care, so why would anybody else?