Arin paused, his gaze dropping to the dust at his feet, as if the ground itself carried the weight of his confession. "When everything fell apart," he continued, "I was pulled out of that world like a child ripped from a dream." The elite institution that had once celebrated him became a closed gate, its polished doors no longer opening to a boy without wealth. Friends vanished overnight, their smiles replaced by polite distance, as though poverty were contagious. Teachers who once spoke of his potential now spoke only of unpaid fees. Arin remembered the day he packed his books—volumes filled with formulas, designs, and futures that would never be built—and felt something inside him break. Knowledge, once his pride, became a reminder of what he could no longer reach. That was the day he learned that intelligence alone did not rule the world—money did.
Responsibility arrived soon after, uninvited and merciless. With his father gone and his mother weakening, Arin stepped into a role no child should inherit. He learned the language of survival—bargaining, repairing, enduring humiliation for scraps of work. He sold possessions piece by piece, watching fragments of his past disappear into strangers' hands. Each coin he earned felt heavier than gold, for it carried the cost of his childhood. At night, while others slept, Arin lay awake counting debts in his mind, planning meals, calculating futures that were smaller and darker than the ones he once imagined. Somewhere along the way, he stopped dreaming entirely. Dreams, he learned, were luxuries.
Blue's anger grew alongside this quiet sacrifice. Too young to understand the full story, he saw only outcomes: Arin was capable, admired, respected even in poverty, while he himself felt invisible, forgotten by fate and family alike. When Arin corrected him, Blue heard control. When Arin protected him, Blue felt suffocated. Their arguments became sharper, words turning into weapons neither knew how to put down. And yet, beneath the bitterness, there were moments—rare and fleeting—when Blue clung to Arin's sleeve in fear, when his anger melted into silent dependence. In those moments, Arin felt both needed and hated, bound to a brother who resented the very person keeping him alive.
Arin lifted his eyes back to the sky, his voice softer now, stripped of its earlier bitterness. "Crowns don't always shatter loudly," he said. "Sometimes they break inside you, piece by piece, until you no longer remember what it felt like to wear one." He had been a prince once—not of power alone, but of possibility. Now he was a guardian, a provider, a shield standing between his family and a world that showed no mercy. The fall had not only taken their wealth; it had rewritten who they were. And though he carried the loss with discipline and silence, the fracture remained, deep and aching, a reminder that some ruins are not made of stone.
As his words faded into the air, the broken home seemed quieter, heavier, as though it too had listened and remembered. Pema closed her eyes, tears tracing familiar paths down her cheeks, while Blue stared at the ground, unable to meet his brother's gaze. The past had been spoken aloud at last, its truth laid bare like shattered glass under the sun. And though nothing was healed in that moment, something shifted—an unspoken understanding settling between them. The crowns were gone, reduced to memory and pain, but the weight of them still shaped every step they took forward, into a future uncertain, unforgiving, and irrevocably changed.
Silence followed Arin's last words, thick and unmoving, as though the house itself was holding its breath. Outside, the wind scraped against the patched tin roof, producing a low, aching sound that blended with the distant noise of the city—a place that never stopped devouring the weak. Pema finally stirred, her frail fingers clutching the edge of her quilt as if anchoring herself to the present. She wanted to speak, to mend something with words, but decades of regret pressed her tongue still. Some truths, once spoken, did not invite comfort—they demanded endurance.
Blue shifted uneasily. The anger that usually burned bright in his chest felt different now, dulled by the weight of what he had heard. For the first time, he saw not just the brother who corrected him or silenced him, but the boy who had lost everything before learning how to grieve. The resentment did not vanish—it was too deeply rooted for that—but confusion crept in, tangled with guilt. Blue's fists clenched and unclenched, his eyes stinging as he fought the urge to cry. He hated weakness, especially his own, yet something inside him fractured quietly, making room for doubt.
Night crept in slowly, swallowing the last strips of daylight that slipped through the cracks in the walls. Arin rose without another word and lit the small oil lamp, its flame trembling like a nervous heart. Shadows stretched across the room, distorting their figures against the walls—three silhouettes bound together by blood and loss, yet standing miles apart. Arin's face was calm again, carefully composed, as though he had locked away the memories he had just released. Experience had taught him that vulnerability was dangerous; it distracted from survival.
As they prepared to sleep, Blue lay awake longer than usual, staring at the ceiling his mother had stared at so many nights before. Arin's words echoed in his mind, unwanted yet persistent. For the first time, Blue wondered what it would feel like to carry responsibility instead of rage, to protect instead of accuse. The thought frightened him more than hunger ever had. Somewhere beside him, Arin breathed steadily, already half-lost to exhaustion, his body trained to rest whenever peace briefly allowed it.
Above them, the broken roof revealed a sliver of sky, dark and endless. The stars looked distant, indifferent, like witnesses who never intervened. And beneath that uncaring sky, the brothers lay divided by more than space—by memories, by sacrifices, by wounds inherited from a fallen crown. What awaited them ahead was not redemption, nor immediate understanding, but something harsher and more demanding. The past had finished speaking. Now, slowly and relentlessly, the future was beginning to listen.
Arin did not sleep for long. Long before dawn, he sat up, his eyes open and alert, fixed on the faint outline of the door. The city outside was never truly quiet, but tonight its noises felt closer, sharper. Somewhere in the distance, a shout rose and fell, followed by hurried footsteps. Arin exhaled slowly, rubbing his face with both hands. "We can't stay like this forever," he whispered into the darkness, though he wasn't sure whether he was speaking to himself, to his sleeping brother, or to the memory of the life he had lost. The words carried no anger—only resolve. He had learned that survival demanded decisions, and decisions demanded sacrifice.
Pema stirred at the sound of his voice. "Arin," she murmured weakly, fear threading through her tone, "don't carry the whole world alone." He turned toward her, forcing a faint smile that did not reach his eyes. "Someone has to, Mother," he replied softly. Blue shifted between them, pretending to sleep, yet every word carved itself into his mind. For the first time, he did not interrupt, did not complain. He lay still, listening, feeling something unfamiliar tighten in his chest—a realization that his brother's silence had never been weakness, but armor.
As the first pale hint of morning brushed the sky, Arin rose and stepped outside, the cool air biting into his skin. He looked back once at the fragile house, at the two lives depending on him, and clenched his jaw. Whatever waited beyond this day—work, danger, humiliation, or something far worse—he would face it head-on. Behind him, Blue opened his eyes and watched his brother's retreating figure, a question burning where anger once lived. He did not know the answer yet, but he sensed it would change everything.