Arc 1 - Chapter 1: The World Behind the Door (1/3)

"#### ### ####### ###, ## ########"

"Understood."

As he spoke, he felt a sharp pain in his brain, like the sharp cold after suddenly biting into an ice cream. Rubbing his head, he ended the call.

He was worried that this was a harbinger of illness, so it would be better to be around people rather than staying at home alone.

He turned off the video he was watching before the phone rang and got out of bed. Even though it was the end of summer, it was still oppressively hot. He couldn't afford to buy a fan for his house, so going somewhere cool would be a relief.

It took him less than a minute to put on his clothes. He always preferred to dress up well because he wanted people to think he was charismatic and handsome, but since he was in a hurry, he made an exception this time and put on a few simple things and stood in front of the full-length mirror at the entrance of the house.

"Nineteen years in an hour and I still don't understand how the simplest thing I wear looks absolutely perfect on me!"

He was posing with one hand on the mirror and the other in his pocket. Although his clothes were simple, the smug young man admiring his reflection in the mirror was named Yu Valarfin. There was never a day when he did not praise himself. Especially when he was in front of the mirror, he would admire himself and vocalize his good qualities.

"I must be God's masterpiece, there is no other explanation for this marvel," he said as he took his hand away from the mirror and spun around. He abruptly stopped his spin and struck another pose, running his fingers through his neatly trimmed brown hair.

At eleven o'clock at night, it was a phone call that made Yu sit in front of the mirror. Usually his phone didn't ring much and he hadn't received any calls at this time of night.

But a phone call from the orphanage had just been the thing that brought Yu out just as the minute hand was turning eleven. If he had been called elsewhere, he probably would have refused because he didn't want to leave his home so late, but for some reason he couldn't refuse calls from the orphanage.

Yu didn't like being tied down or feeling indebted. Of course, there were people he couldn't repay, people he didn't mind being tied to and people he loved very much, but he hate being tied down places.

He didn't like being tied to a place from her past, so he wanted to cut ties with the orphanage and focus entirely on the future, but his older sisters wouldn't let him break the bond they had.

After he left the orphanage, he went to live with his older sisters, and since his sisters didn't want to cut ties with the orphanage and leave it, Yu couldn't either.

Occasionally, Yu and other former residents who had kept in touch with the orphanage after leaving were called, usually when they needed help with plays for the children, fundraising or chores. Usually it was his older sisters, and since they answered the call, Yu agreed to help for their sake.

"It's not normal for them to call at eleven o'clock at night. Maybe they are preparing a birthday party for me."

He was trying to make sense of the call at such a late hour. A birthday party was the first idea that came to his mind, but it was not convincing. August thirty was still an hour away and no one would organize a birthday party for someone at 00.00 at night. It was a bad idea to bother the birthday boy for a party in the middle of the night in the first place.

"If not for this, for what?" he thought. Yu could not find an answer as to why he had been called at this hour. Another idea that came to his mind was that he had been called because there was an emergency. 'Emergency,' was a valid reason to call someone in the middle of the night.

But if there was such a thing, they would have told him on the phone and told him to hurry up.

"Wait a minute, wasn't I already in a hurry?" he felt a tingle on his forehead.

Yu couldn't think of any emergency that would require him to be there. Besides, the voice on the phone was quite calm for someone in an emergency.

"Should I hurry?"

He was given no reason to hurry. He went along the corridor to get his backpack and entered his room at the end. He hadn't slept in his own room for a while. Or rather, he couldn't sleep in his room or anywhere else, even if he wanted to. At the end of endless nights, when he felt he could sleep in the morning, he threw himself on the canapé in the living room and used his own room only to put things away.

He didn't sleep in his room because his heart wouldn't let him sleep there. He had no bad memories of his room, it was the room right next to it that kept him from sleeping there. When Yu was next to that room, he felt empty, just like that room.

In fact, not only when he was near that room, but for a long time, he felt empty; the things that made his life beautiful had been taken away from him, leaving him an empty shell with no purpose and only appearances.

Of course, his pride would not admit that Yu Valarfin was an empty shell. Neither now nor ever before had Yu made any attempt to humiliate himself. It was impossible for Yu Valarfin to look down on himself, to swallow his pride and admit that he was a failure.

But no matter how much he denied the feeling of emptiness, there was no way to change the fact that it was there. It was a dark pit, a black hole in his chest, always there, never going away and always, always, always, always sucking something in, never satisfied.

Yu tried to fill the emptiness that had consumed his life with insatiable appetite. At the end of his attempts, when he subconsciously realized that there was no way to fill the void, he tried to forget it. Although his efforts were completely in vain. Everything he did, everything he tried, was ridiculed by the dark hole in his chest, and all his efforts were swallowed up by it.

Being diligent, working harder and coming home successful no longer made sense to Yu. His mind was in a terrible state and he had found a new way to get his mind out of the terrible state it was in.

His method was called arrogance. Yu's arrogance had always been there, but in the last few months it had become more pronounced. To escape the loneliness that surrounded him and to defend himself against the pain that clawed at his chest, he tried to believe that he didn't need others, that he was too perfect to be harmed. He wouldn't stop trying, but his efforts were futile.

As he put his bag on his back and left his partially used room, he took one last look at the room next door. It was still the same as it had been four months ago. Of course Yu always cleaned it once a week. The care he took in cleaning there was the same care he took in nothing else in the last period of his life. He didn't move things around when he cleaned, he kept them the same as the last time he left them.

He shook his head to prevent his heart, which was trembling with grief, from causing him more pain, and took quick steps to the front door of the house and looked in the mirror once more. He rubbed his sorrowful eyes and placed a haughty smile on his sullen face.

As he always did before leaving home, he turned on his phone and checked the date and battery.

22.53 - 29.08.2019 - %95

His phone was almost fully charged as it had just come out of the charger. Since there was no problem with the phone, it was time to check his wallet. He took out the wallet from his back pocket and confirmed that it contained some money and his ID.

After looking through the contents of his bag, he finally checked the key in his hand. After a few unfortunate incidents, he had always been able to confirm that he had the key in his hand before he left the house.

When he was sure that all the preparations were complete, he put on his shoes and checked his hair in the mirror one last time before opening the house door. His hair was fine, so there was nothing to stop him from opening the door and going out.

"Huh?"

Yu Valarfin closed the door as fast as he opened it.