128 CEO

Vixen stood for a second and shuddered, shivering all his unsettled nerves away before pressing a button next to the door. 

A tune rang in the air and a voice called out from inside the room, "Come in," to which Vixen flinched, his nerves coming back. 

It had been a while since he had heard that voice. Maybe days, maybe weeks but most likely months. It had been a while since he heard it's coldness, straightforwardness, and calm voice of his mother. 

It wasn't like he hadn't seen her in the last months but he hadn't spoken to her. They met once, in which they had locked eyes with each other before she turned around and left. He remembered calling her name and running to her side, just to be blocked by her bodyguards before reaching her. He shoved and pushed to get to her but nothing worked. 

The worst part was that she didn't seem to care. She heard his screaming, she heard his begging but didn't stop her steady stride once. He remembered asking if he was being punished, if he did something wrong for her to just walk away but she didn't stop and continued to walk down the hallway to the elevator. 

Quietly, she had gotten in the elevator and stood there, her eyes facing forward. The bodyguards finally gave in and he ran down the hallway to the elevator but was seconds late as the elevator door slammed shut before he could reach her. 

He had stood there in front of the elevator, his distressed face slowly melting away into a blank expression. He didn't cry, he didn't get angry. He just turned around and walked away from the elevator. It was not a nice memory to recall.

Vixen looked up at the door before him and pushed down on the handle, pulling the door open. 

He's almost immediately met with a cold blast. The feeling of desertness just hang in the air but yet the room was not empty. There in the front of the room was his mother, her eyes glued to her books. 

"Mrs. Cloud, you summoned me?" Vixen asked, bowing in front of Mrs. Cloud.

The woman's hand does stop moving for a second and Vixen looked at his position in the room. He was far too close to the door for her to acknowledge him. Vixen stepped closer, stopping beside the cushion to the right of his mother's desk in the middle of the room. In front of the cushion was another, a long, short table separating them from each other.

"Forgive my manners, ma'am," Vixen bowed his head again in apology. 

There was silence after. He couldn't tell if she even heard him.

Moments after her hand stops moving and she looks up at Vixen. He nearly walked a step backward for her sudden movement. 

"Take a seat," Mrs. Cloud smiled. 

Vixen continued forward. He knew that smile was a fake, simply a formality that she had learned to build over time. He knew that what she said was an order rather than a simple suggestion. But even though he could read through her movements, they felt so foreign and distant, like a mere worker being summoned to the CEO's room rather than a mother meeting her son.

Vixen took a seat on one of the cushions, sitting on the left one at the edge of its seat closest to Mrs. Cloud's desk. 

Quietly, Mrs. Cloud stood up from her seat and walked over to the chair placed in front of the long, short table, directly in front of her desk. 

"I'm sure you know why I have called you here," Mrs. Cloud continued, her heels making an unnerving click against her marble floors as she neared Vixen. Ever so quietly, she took a seat at the head chair and picked up the tea seated on the table, raising it to her lips for a taste. 

She placed the tea down and looked up at Vixen, their blank eyes meeting with each other. "Care to explain?" 

Vixen didn't flinch and didn't move for the time of eye contact with his mother. He was suddenly reminded of where the violet shine came from. In her piercing cat-like eyes were a deep violet shade in a stare so harsh and stiff that it felt like he was looking straight into the eyes of an emotionless stone. 

The familiarity in her eyes was so frank and frightening. No wonder she was his mother, it felt like he was looking straight into a mirror, like he was looking into the eyes of himself. 

"Where should I begin?" Vixen asked, not daring to pull away from their eye contact first. 

"From the beginning, if you will," Mrs. Cloud ordered, taking a sip of her tea again. "I'm quite interested to hear about the incident in the morning."

Vixen nodded his head in reply. "This morning started with a simple mistake on my part."

"Really now?" Mrs. Cloud commented. 

Never had he heard such a sarcasm-filled comment. It was like every word that came out of her mouth was rather a rain of ice crystals, piercing into his skin than a simple back and forth conversation. 

He had seen it coming, but he never expected it to be so real. For her to be able to pull off such a demeaning stare into the eyes of a son she praised outside of the walls. His punishment wasn't yet to be assigned, it started from the moment he walked into the room, from the moment he stood beside the cushion. 

From that moment, nothing was set to go smoothly for him. It was hell and it's madam sitting in front of him with such a dark aura that he felt belittled without her even having to say a thing. His punishment began from the moment he locked eyes with her, she was set to denigrate his entire being from there. To reduce him to simply another employee in the asylum. 

He held back a chuckle, finally realizing where he went wrong and the reason why he would fall harder to the ground from simply her gaze and why he would bow before her with simply one word. Vixen looked down at the tea on the table seated in front of him and quietly took a sip. 

He wondered how much he'd have shrunk by the time he left the room. 

"I woke up at a later time needed to start off the company affairs and ended up forgetting to set off the morning alarm for everyone and therefore set the morning back by an hour," Vixen explained. 

"Why exactly did you wake up at a later time?" Mrs. Cloud asked.

Vixen flinched, not wanting to answer the question. He looked up to find her piercing violet gaze peering down at him. He didn't have a choice.

"I simply went to sleep late at night with a lot of thoughts on my mind. I must have been unable to wake with the rising sun due to this," Vixen replied. 

"You're mistaken there. Fix your error," Mrs. Cloud ordered.

Vixen immediately ran through the list of words he had said. He only had 5 seconds to fix himself before she would move on and that 5 seconds of not replying would be added to his time he would spend in punishment. 

"I meant to say, to rise before the rising sun," Vixen corrected. He didn't need to look up Mrs. Cloud to know he had corrected correctly. He knew by the way she sipped her tea.

"I seem to remember that we have a bedtime set for all the servers and workers in the building. Did you go against that order?" Mrs. Cloud asked, her voice growing colder by the second. 

Vixen shook his head. "No ma'am. I followed the rule and got to my location for bedtime but simply couldn't sleep."

"Sleeping pills?" Mrs. Cloud asked, locking eyes with Vixen.

There was a thud in Vixen's heart as his eyes met with her frigid gaze again. 'She forgot...' Vixen thought to himself. His head lowered a bit before he looked up at her again. 

"No ma'am," he replied. 

"Make sure to take them next time," Mrs. Cloud advised going back to her tea. 

"Yes ma'am," Vixen replied, his voice growing colder the more he talked to her. There was this sickening feeling in his gut when he looked up at her. It was one that was allowing him to change the look he gave her. 

Vixen never took sleeping pills only because of one reason. Someone advised him not to because it might cause health problems. That person was his mother. 

He looked up at Mrs. Cloud as he drank his tea. Whoever he was looking at now was not his mother. There was no trace of her in her eyes and it didn't seem like there would be. 

He had fallen headfirst into her trap. It was time for him to wake up.