Edian lay awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling of his small room. The distant hum of the ship’s engines was the only sound that filled the quiet, but his mind was far from peaceful. His thoughts wandered back to a time he tried so hard to bury. A time before everything became complicated.

He was just three years old when his father took him by the hand, the cold metal of the orphanage doors looming ahead. His tiny fingers trembled as his father’s grip tightened, though it wasn’t from fear. No, his father was just as scared as he was, but of something else—something unspoken. The door opened, and a few stray voices echoed from within.

“I can’t,” his father had said, voice hoarse, trembling. “I can’t leave you here. I’m your father. I should be enough for you.”

But his mother… she was gone. Gone before he even had a chance to remember her face. Gone, and leaving his father alone to fend for them both.

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They couldn’t afford help. They couldn’t ask anyone. Not after everything that happened. His father had tried. He really had. But somewhere along the way, their pride won out. The weight of the world pushed them to retreat inside themselves.

And when his father collapsed, heart giving out in a flash, Edian was left standing in that same spot. Alone. Scared.

A gentle knock on the door broke through the memory, and Edian snapped back to the present, his chest tight with that old, familiar feeling. He had learned that day—no one would help them. No one would ask for help. And because of that, Edian had learned not to ask either. Not for anything. Not for help, not for comfort, not for love. It would only end in disappointment.

His gaze flickered to the door, the tension from the flashback still clinging to him like a shadow.

He had inherited his parents’ fear—the fear of relying on others, the fear of being abandoned. And that fear? It made him avoid people, made him retreat even when they offered help. It kept him from reaching out. It kept him from trusting.

But as Lilia’s image flashed in his mind, he couldn’t help but wonder… Was it really too late for him to change? But even if he could, he decided not to. He was too used to how he had been doing it already, changing it was just too far away, it didn’t seem possible.