It often felt as though Oren had only been born to be his family's financial support. And for years that was exactly what he did —earning money and handing it over without complaint.
So when a stranger approached him one day with a proposition to emotionally deceive a woman , his first reaction was rejection.
The request felt low, immoral—even for someone as numb as he had become.
But the stranger persisted.
He spoke of the woman's temperament— selfish, arrogant, unreasonable.
Then he mentioned the payment… a amount large enough to change Oren's future.
Oren didn't take long to consider, and finally agreed to the deal on the second day.
With the money in hand, he finally saw a glimmer of hope to his dull life, one where he could escape his mother's suffocating control.
Besides, that stranger had assured him he could file for divorce after five years. After that, he planned to go somewhere far away and start over. He wants to live like a human being, not merely a tool.
Before this, Oren had never intended to marry. Marriage, to him, meant dragging an innocent woman into the firepit.
But with such enticing benefit, he approached the girl named Mira.
Slowly, he built a carefully crafted persona in front of her—gentle, attentive, trustworthy.
Eventually, Mira fell for it. He married her and brought her home, leaving the two women to clash while he quietly watched from the sidelines.
He never expected things to escalate so far.
Yet as he stood outside the operating room, staring at the blinking emergency light, his chest didn't tighten with sorrow.
It loosened.
Relief washed through him—quiet, shameful, undeniable.
It felt as though a mountain had finally rolled off his shoulders.
Later at the police station, after questioning, the authorities suspected the perpetrator had not been in stable mental state.
Mira was sent for psychological evaluation and the final report confirmed it . Her diagnosis listed multiple conditions: Acute stress response, severe depression and complex-PTSD.
With that, the court ordered Mira to be admitted to a psychiatric institution, declaring she hadn't been fully in control of her mental state at the time of the incident.
Aeris watched all of this from the sidelines as Mira's suffering unfolded before him.
He was the stranger who had approached Oren. He had met him in disguise, carefully hiding his identity ensuring nothing could ever be traced back to him.
Now, with the day of his father's fatal car accident growing near, Aeris prepared to leave for abroad—disappearing from their reach.
This time, however, he had no intention of manipulating from the shadows.
Not because he felt differently about them than he did abput Mira—but because he was certain that even without his interference, they would fall apart.
After all, they are just a parasites, always leeching on someone. Without a suckers like his father, or himself, they would eventually consume themselves.
Before leaving, Aeris visited Mira at the institution.
The caretaker escorted him through the hallway and paused in front of an iron door.
"Mr. Aeris," he warned again,
"the patient can become violent. It isn't safe to go in alone. Why don't you reconsider?"
"No need," Aeris replied calmly. "It will be fine."
The iron door creaked open.
Mira sat on the narrow bed, staring blankly at the white wall, devoid of emotion.
Her once long black hair had been shaved down into a harsh buzz.
The oversized blue institutional dress hung loosely against her thin frame, making her appear even thinner.
This wasn't the woman who had once tried to manipulate him—who eyes were once filled with fierce hatred and ruthlessness toward him.
She was now just a hollow shell, a doll whose soul had slipped into a place only she could see.
Seeing her in such a state, Aeris felt a mixed of emotion.
He doesn't know if it was right to take revenge for something she did in her previous life.
Yet he also felt unwilling in his heart.
And somewhere deep inside, he had this strong intuition that if he doesn't follow his heart, it will have serious consequences for him in the future.
Aeris didn't say a word, just stood there for a long time before he turned and left.
There was no point in mocking someone who was already broken, it's pointless and tasteless.
Next, Aeris wanted to know how Mira's son, Adan, was coping in the orphanage.
After the divorce, all his dies ended with Oren's family.
With all his close relatives either died or gone insane, and his father unknown, he was eventually sent to the orphanage.
The children of the orphanage swarmed around Aeris as he handed out toys and small food packages.
But even after handing out the last toy, he still didn't see Adan.
Finally, he approached the dean.
"Do you have a boy named Adan?" He asked. " About one and a half years old. His mother was friend of mine. I am here to check on him."
"Yes. The boy caused a lot of trouble when he arrived here," the dean replied, her kind eyes tinged with sadness, a bitter smile on her lips.
"He even tried to run away several times. Thankfully, after the first attempt, we kept a close watch on him."
She paused before continuing.
"At the beginning, he insisted his father loved him very much and would come to pick him up soon."
A faint, bitter smile tugged on her lips.
"But as the wait stretched into months, he became silent and withdrawn. He doesn't play with the other children and keeps to himself. We feel helpless against him."
As they walked, they finally reached the back courtyard.
There, a little boy sat alone on a concrete step, his head buried between his knees.