In a voice hoarse with suppressed collapse, he said: "Why did you come here?... I thought my connection with you was over."
His father's voice emerged from a dark corner of the room, sarcastic, calm, and disturbingly at ease: "Aed... this blood on the floor... wait, don't tell me you hurt someone?"
Aiden looked at him, unmoving, his eyes half-closed, not with fear but with a silent burn: "What if I did?"
But the father smiled sideways, stepping lightly into the room with strange agility, his eyes searching for some confirmation. Then he said in a reassuring, comfortable tone, as if he had received good news: "Ah, no... it's your blood, isn't it?"
Aiden didn't reply, only slowly raised his hand, not to confirm, but as if his body was admitting on his behalf. The trace of the medical solution was still clear.
The father sighed, as if relieved of a heavy burden: "If you were in the hospital... well, at least you didn't do another foolish thing."
Aiden scoffed, closing his eyes: "It seems I still meet your expectations."
The father added, ignoring his sarcasm: "The psychiatrist called me. He said you suddenly stopped your appointments. Have you decided that madness is enough?"
Aiden opened his eyes and gave him an empty look, then said in a dead tone: "Still better than silence with you."
The father's voice, steady but laden with unspoken words: "Aiden... you must remember. There's a part of your past... you can't escape it forever."
Aiden didn't respond.
He sat on a sofa, his body slightly hunched forward, as if a weight on his chest prevented him from breathing. His black-blue hair hung over his forehead, covering his eyes like a heavy shadow. But he looked from behind the strands, his gaze like an ember under ash, holding what was unspoken.
His voice finally emerged, disturbingly calm: "And you didn't care? You came from across the city just... to tell me something I already know? Strange... how loyal you are."
The father approached, each step tapping the ground as if hammering a nail into Aiden's memory. Aiden didn't lift his head, didn't look at his father's face... he just stared at his shoes. Aiden's eyes followed his steps... his gaze like a loaded gun.
The father, with a sarcastic smile devoid of warmth: "Because you're my son... that's why I'm here."
Aiden finally lifted his head. A twisted smile appeared on half of his mouth, but it didn't touch his eyes.
Aiden: "Don't use that word... it no longer suits you. You don't want me. You just want the chain of coffee shops I built with my own hands."
The father laughed a soft laugh, a mixture of malice and contempt: "Oh, dear... I love you. Believe me, you just don't know how to use what you have." He let out his laugh and continued pacing the room, as if every tap of his shoe fed his sadism.
Aiden, suddenly, pointed his finger without moving his body, as if his finger alone was enough to stop an earthquake: "Stop."
The father slowed his steps, but his voice came out as if trying to provoke: "What did you say?"
Aiden lifted his face. Only one of his eyes was visible from behind his hair strands, and in it was a deadly flicker... a mixture of winter sky blue and night black. His hand rose to his face, covering it, as if preventing himself from exploding.
Aiden, in a voice trembling but polished with anger: "I said... I don't want to hear the sound of your shoes. Nor your voice. You create a buzzing in my head... as if you're knocking on a fragile wall inside me."
The father laughed loudly: "That's why I said... you need a psychiatrist. And quickly." He took out his phone, looked at the time, as if counting how many minutes remained until he left this place.
Aiden laughed... a broken laugh, as if it came from a deep well inside him: "Perhaps... but if I'm crazy, then you're the maker."
He rose slowly. He stood up like storms do, without a sound, but with clear danger. He took one step closer, then whispered clearly: "I know. I know what you hide behind your neat facade... your dirty dealings, your secret agreements... everything."
The father, deliberately turning to make more noise, replied coldly: "You won't do anything. Everything you have, I made it."
Aiden lowered his hand, but his eyes burned. His black earrings gleamed in the darkness... like a declaration of war. In a choked voice, he exploded as if his vocal cords themselves trembled: "Get out... before I explode. Now."
A moment of silence. The father stopped. The room froze.
Then, slowly, he bent down. He took off his shoes. He carried them in his hand. He walked barefoot to the door, his steps quiet this time... but laden with danger.
Before he left, he whispered as he crossed the threshold: "Aiden... I'll destroy you. You and your madness."
The door slammed shut behind him.
The breath of the place stopped.
Aiden sat back down. A short, pale laugh began to emerge from his throat... but it broke before it was complete. His eyes were now calm, but not with peace... rather like the calm of a volcano before an eruption. He stared at nothing, as if the world was outside his perception.
Then in a faint voice, barely audible, as if his soul was bleeding: "How long? How long will I keep... bleeding internally without anyone seeing me?"
In Sara's room, she was slowly pulling the ladder, her eyebrows raised in surprise. She asked, bewildered: "Sara, what's with this ladder? Why is it placed between our balcony and the neighbors' balcony?"
Sara stammered, trying to hide her confusion: "To hang clothes... you know, I just want to hang my clothes."
On the opposite side, Aiden heard the friction of the ladder as it moved slowly, so he stood up. He put his hands in his jacket pockets, then advanced with calm steps towards the balcony. It was as if the volcano inside his eyes had suddenly extinguished... His black eyes, mixed with the blueness of the sky, no longer burned with anger, but now held a strange, deep warmth, almost burning. The breeze caressed his hair strands, and he smiled a warm, light smile... as if something inside him had been reminded of love — that love he hadn't received in childhood, but he... found it now. Somehow, as if his soul had known the way to it from the beginning.
In that ordinary moment, when the heart expects nothing, Sara turned. Her hair moved with her slight turn, and the faint evening light reflected in her eyes, then she saw him. Aiden. Standing there on the opposite balcony, the breeze playing with his black-blue hair strands, his hands in his jacket pockets, but his body was not still. He was smiling, a warm smile she hadn't seen on his cold features. It was as if that volcano that used to reside in his eyes... had extinguished.
Sara, without realizing it, smiled with pure warmth and waved gently, but something... something in the way he stood, in the tilt of his body, in that pale smile... disturbed her heart. Her vision began to blur before her... No, not because the distance was far, but because he... began to lose his balance. His feet were no longer steady. His hand searched for something to cling to. Then he grasped the balcony glass, his fingers trembling. Sara's gaze changed. Worry rose to her face like tears to the eyes.
Rina, her voice exploding from her throat in terror: "He's going to fall!! Sara, look at him!"
Sara didn't answer. She moved quickly. She ran towards her table, grabbed her phone, opened it, searched through messages, stopped at one message, her eyes widening as if it held the truth she didn't want to see.
Rina, terrified, tried to catch up with her: "Where are you going?"
Sara, in a voice unlike her own, a mixture of fear and determination, typed the code: "Rina, I swear... I'll explain everything, just let time help me."
She rushed towards the balcony, the smell of the evening air hitting her face, her steps quickening, her heart preceding her by two steps. And there, across the edge, Aiden was still standing... as if life was about to abandon him. His body leaned forward, his right arm gradually weakening, and the blood she had previously stitched on his arm began to slowly flow, like patience draining from a weary soul.
Sara ran towards him, knelt before him, and held his hand with a tenderness that wasn't panic but love. Her voice came out faint, broken, like a plea: "Aiden... I'm here, hold me... don't fall, not now... not after all this."
Aiden didn't say anything at first. He just looked at her. His eyes were weary... as if they held a thousand wars that had just ended, all of them lost.
Then... he closed his eyes, rested his head on her shoulder, and whispered in a voice she had never heard before, a voice from deep within him, from a depth she hadn't touched yet: "The brink of collapse... Sara, I've reached rock bottom."
Sara, her eyes filled with tears, hugged his head to her chest, her hand behind his head, holding onto him as if trying to keep his soul from collapsing. Her voice didn't come out... but it was clear in her embrace, in her trembling fingers, in the beat of her heart.
The night had settled over the city like a velvet cloak, and gentle summer breezes passed between the skyscrapers, softly caressing faces. The lights of the towers sparkled below like scattered jewels on a black velvet cloth, shimmering and fading, while the stars in the sky appeared like luminous spheres, some still and some suddenly shining as if wanting to say something.
On the spacious balcony of Aiden's apartment, Sara sat on the cold marble floor, hugging his body to hers. His head rested on her chest, his eyes semi-closed from fatigue and dizziness. She embraced him as if protecting him from an invisible abyss, and gently ran her hand behind his head in a tender, almost pleading gesture.
The silence of the night was broken by the distant sound of the city, a faint, hazy noise, while in this high corner... only their hearts beat.
Sara whispered, her voice choked behind a tear that had not yet fallen: "Should... we go back to the hospital?" Her whisper carried a tremor, as if she knew the answer beforehand, but hoped for the opposite.
Aiden didn't answer immediately. His chest rose and fell slowly, and a red stain spread on his bandage, touching the sleeve of his white shirt. He slowly raised his eyes and looked into her brown eyes, whose edges were red from crying.
"Sara..." he said in a hoarse voice, then fell silent. He swallowed the pain, as if tasting it, before speaking again. "There is no doctor who can heal a soul... that has been torn apart." He looked at the city sparkling beneath him, as if it were a distant world that didn't belong to him. "And no one... can restore a memory that has escaped itself." His words came out slowly, as if each sentence was being extracted from a deep wound.
Then he looked at her again, his gaze full of burning honesty, and his eyes shining as if both bidding her farewell and clinging to her at the same time.
"And yet..." he whispered, and a faint smile appeared on his lips. "At the end of every tunnel... even if it's as dark as my heart... there's a small flame of hope." He paused for a moment, then added in a whispered voice like a breeze: "I... I've begun to see it, that faint flame... in your eyes."