Morning light used to enter through the eastern window.
Lucas remembered it clearly.
The sunlight always found Gabriel first.
The boy slept facing the window, as if even in his dreams he chased warmth. His hair would stick out in every direction, and almost every morning he would mumble before fully waking.
"…Five more minutes, Kak…"
Lucas would already be dressed for work.
"You said that ten minutes ago."
"I'm negotiating."
Back then, mornings felt ordinary.
And that was the miracle of it.
In the present, Lucas stood on a rain-soaked rooftop overlooking Bouten City. The streets below shimmered under lantern light, alive and indifferent.
But his mind was elsewhere.
It drifted back to their small house.
To the cracked wooden table that had to be balanced with folded paper beneath one leg.
To two bowls of thin soup, more broth than substance.
To Gabriel.
"Do you think Mom can see us?" Gabriel once asked in the middle of dinner.
Lucas paused mid-spoon.
"Why?"
Gabriel shrugged. "If she can, I don't want her seeing my math scores."
Lucas almost laughed.
"She'd care more about whether you're trying."
Gabriel stared into his bowl. "Trying doesn't always make things right."
Lucas reached across the table and lightly flicked his forehead.
"But giving up makes them wrong for sure."
Gabriel pouted for a second then smiled.
At the time, Lucas didn't realize how precious those small conversations were.
Now they were everything.
There was a day when it rained softly, and Gabriel insisted on running outside anyway.
"You'll get sick," Lucas warned from the doorway.
"I'm already fast. The cold can't catch me."
He ran into the narrow alley, laughing as raindrops hit his face. Lucas stood beneath the awning, pretending to be annoyed.
Gabriel slipped on the wet stone and fell hard.
For a single terrifying second, Lucas's heart stopped.
Then Gabriel burst into laughter from the ground.
"You looked scared!"
Lucas walked over, grabbed him by the collar, and pulled him up.
"You're an idiot."
"You love this idiot."
Lucas exhaled softly.
"…Yeah."
He did.
More than anything.
On the rooftop, Lucas's fingers curled slightly.
The rain no longer felt cold.
Only distant.
One memory always returned more slowly than the others.
The night before everything changed.
Gabriel hadn't fallen asleep yet. He sat on his mattress, watching Lucas mend a torn glove under dim lamplight.
"Kak," he said quietly, "when I get stronger, I can help you work, right?"
Lucas didn't answer right away.
"You're helping by studying."
"But you look tired."
Lucas was tired. Not just physically. The exhaustion went deeper than muscle or bone.
"I'm fine," he said at last.
Gabriel sat up straighter. "When I grow up, I'll protect you."
Lucas gave a faint smile. "That's my job."
"Then we'll protect each other."
Lucas looked at him then.
Gabriel's eyes were steady too serious for someone his age.
"Go to sleep," Lucas said gently.
But inside his chest, something warm stirred.
Pride.
Fear.
Love.
Another memory followed.
A crowded marketplace. Gabriel holding onto the back of Lucas's shirt so they wouldn't get separated.
"Kak, why don't you ever argue with them?" he whispered as two uniformed officers passed by.
Lucas kept walking.
"Because arguing doesn't change anything."
"It should."
Lucas stopped and crouched so they were eye level.
"In this city," he said quietly, "staying alive matters more than being right."
Gabriel frowned.
"But if everyone stays quiet, they'll keep doing bad things."
Lucas had no answer.
So he stood up and told him to keep walking.
That question would echo in his mind for years.
The final peaceful memory came without warning.
Gabriel had fallen asleep at the table while pretending to study. A pencil still in his hand. A half-finished math problem on the page.
Lucas lifted him carefully and carried him to bed.
Gabriel stirred faintly.
"…Kak?"
"Yeah."
"Don't disappear."
Lucas adjusted the blanket around him.
"I won't."
It had been a promise.
And somehow, he still failed to keep it.
Rainwater streamed down the edge of the rooftop.
Bouten City glowed below, indifferent as ever.
Gabriel had believed in effort.
In fairness.
In protecting one another.
Lucas had believed in silence.
One of them had been wrong.
Or maybe both of them were.
Lucas stepped closer to the edge, boots scraping against wet stone.
"If I had fought sooner…" he murmured.
Would anything have changed?
Would Gabriel still be alive?
There were no answers.
Only memory.
Only regret sharpened into resolve.
Gabriel's laughter.
His stubborn questions.
His small hand gripping Lucas's shirt in crowded streets.
Those weren't weaknesses.
They were reasons.
Lucas opened his eyes.
The city that had taken everything from him still stood tall unaware that the boy who once chose silence had grown into something else.
He wasn't fighting for justice.
He wasn't seeking redemption.
He was fighting for a promise made beneath dim lamplight.
Then we'll protect each other.
Lucas inhaled slowly.
"Rest, Gabriel," he whispered into the rain.
The city lights flickered in the distance.
And for the first time in years, Lucas allowed himself to remember not just the blood and the loss—
but the warmth that came before it.
Because that warmth was no longer a weakness.
It was fuel.