In that distant corner of the room, where shadows clung to the walls.
Aya had sat silently until now.
A final portion of food remained in the old vessel before her.
She broke the last piece of her dry bread, but instead of bringing it to her mouth, she paused.
The tension filling the room and the sound of Luka's angry voice had reached her ears.
Aya rose slowly.
The sound of her footsteps was like something crawling over dry wood.
She approached Luka and Lane.
Who were still holding each other's tiny hands, staring at that blue-bruised wound.
Aya extended the remaining piece of bread in her trembling hands.
There was a strange mix of maternal warmth and exhaustion in her eyes.
"Lane Bhaiya..."
Aya's voice was very soft and moist.
As she offered the bread to Lane, she glanced at Luka as well.
"You and Luka Bhaiya haven't eaten anything for a long time."
"Please... please eat this."
She placed the piece of bread before them as if it were a precious treasure.
The lines of hunger were clear on Aya's own face.
Yet she had saved the last morsel of her share for the two of them.
Lane looked at the bread and then at Aya.
His steady smile was still the same.
But Aya's small gesture momentarily calmed Luka's anger.
In the heavy air of the room.
The scent of that bread crust awakened both hunger and an unspoken fear at the same time.
The crust of bread still trembled in Aya's palms.
She looked at Lane with hopeful eyes.
But Lane maintained his steady, unchanging smile.
"I'm not hungry, Aya," Lane said softly. "You eat it."
Luka didn't reach for the bread either.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall.
"I don't need it right now either, Aya. You fill your stomach."
Luka knew he was lying.
Hunger was cramping his stomach.
But seeing Lane's condition made his own appetite vanish.
Luka had known for a long time that Lane was very different when it came to eating and drinking.
He had noticed many times that Lane would barely eat one or two morsels in an entire day.
While other children would cry for food.
Lane seemed to have no sense of hunger at all.
Luka often wondered where such a small body got its energy from.
But today, Lane's detachment from both 'pain' and 'hunger' was terrifying him instead of comforting him.
Aya stood there for a few moments.
Then took a deep breath and stepped back.
She realized that her maternal care had lost against the stubbornness of these two.
From the other corner of the room, the sound of Yuki's heavy breathing could be heard.
Luka opened his eyes and looked back at Lane's swollen ankle.
"Lane," Luka whispered, "Are you truly not even thirsty?"
Lane stroked Luka's thumb with his fingers and said without blinking.
"No Luka, I just want to sit by you."
Aya pulled her palms back.
She took a deep, cold breath and retraced her steps silently toward the dark corner she had come from.
The piece of bread was still in her hands, but her hunger had now turned into fear.
She sat quietly among the shadows.
Where only her glistening eyes could see Lane and Luka.
Luka's entire focus remained on Lane's swollen ankle.
He stroked the blue-bruised area with his fingers.
As if his warmth could melt away that frozen pain.
Suddenly, Lane pulled Luka's hands toward himself.
There was a strange glint in his eyes, as if he were dreaming of another world.
"Luka..." Lane chirped, "Will you go outside with me?"
"I want to go out with you again. We'll play the same game we were playing before!"
Luka's hands froze.
He looked at Lane's face in disbelief.
"That same game..."
Lane waved his small arms in the air.
"When I was just being mischievous and you were running behind me to catch me."
"It was so much fun, wasn't it?"
A lump formed in Luka's throat.
He couldn't forget the desolation of that field and the horror of that 'black door.'
Yet Lane saw it as a mere game.
Luka steadied his voice and pushed back the messy hair on Lane's forehead.
"We will definitely play, Lane," Luka said in a very low, heavy voice.
"But not right now. When this pain in your foot is gone and the swelling goes down..."
"Then I will take you outside myself. Then you run, and I will catch you."
Luka knew he was merely comforting Lane.
He feared that if Lane stood up on this foot, he might never be able to walk again.
But Lane, hearing Luka's words, smiled as if he had gained all the happiness in the world.
He went back to playing with Luka's palms.
Entirely unaware of how his 'friend' was trembling deep inside.
Luka remained seated on the floor.
His eyes fixed on Lane's blue-bruised foot.
Just then, Lane pulled Luka's hand a bit firmer.
"Luka... why are you just staring at it?"
"Why don't you sit properly beside me? I don't feel any pain anyway."
There was such ease in Lane's voice that a strange conflict arose in Luka's mind.
He remembered Yuki's brutal act of pressing the wound while Lane had simply continued to smile.
'Does he truly feel nothing?'
This question pricked Luka's mind like a thorn.
To settle his own doubt, Luka placed his tiny fingers onto the swollen wound.
Very carefully, yet with a bit of deliberate pressure.
He pressed down on Lane's raw, scraped skin.
"Aaah! Luka!"
A sharp, piercing scream from Lane tore through the silence of the room.
He winced in agony, instinctively trying to jerk his leg away.
Tears suddenly welled up in his eyes.
And he looked at Luka with a mix of pain and innocent anger.
"Why... why are you pressing it? It hurts so much!" Lane said, gasping.
Luka's face turned bone-white with shock and horror.
He froze where he sat, his hands suspended in mid-air.
Even Yuki, sitting in the dark corner, bolted upright upon hearing that scream.
A storm erupted in Luka's mind.
He couldn't comprehend how, moments ago, when Yuki had crushed the wound with all his might, Lane hadn't even flinched.
He had been as numb as stone.
But now, when Luka applied only slight pressure, he felt such excruciating pain?
Was Lane's body only responding to Luka's touch?
Or did that 'vow' have some deep and dangerous connection specifically to Luka?