TICK. TICK. TICK.

The cheap wall clock in Arif's boarding room kept ticking, crawling slowly yet steadily toward 11:50 PM. The night grew deeper, and the drizzle of Jakarta outside the window sounded like a sorrowful background hum. Yet inside the cramped, nine-square-meter room, the atmosphere had transformed completely. The stuffiness and chill that usually choked the air had melted away, replaced by the warmth radiating from the Room of Truth stretching across the islands.

On the screen of the brand-new smartphone propped against the cement floor, his mother's face still gazed back with an endless sparkle of affection. The elderly woman's tears had dried, leaving behind a serene smile that served as the sole guiding beacon for Arif's long-lost soul.

Witnessing such pure sincerity, an unstoppable wave of remorse once again crashed over Arif's chest. This was no longer about time efficiency, nor the three hundred million rupiah in severance, nor even about how to trap Pak Malik. This was about a redemption that needed to be completed before tonight's time ran out.

With very slow movements, Arif shifted his body. He slid down from his thin mattress, sliding forward until both knees touched the cold cement floor. Before the brightly lit phone screen, Arif knelt. He bowed his head parallel to the floor, folding his hands across his forehead—the reverent posture of traditional submission and repentance (sungkem) he used to practice during holiday celebrations back in his home village.

"Mom..." Arif's voice broke, his tears spilling once more to dampen the dusty cement floor. "Arif begs for your deepest forgiveness, Mom. Please forgive all of Arif's sins and arrogance..."

From across the video call, his mother startled. "Arif, son... get up, son. Why are you kneeling like that on the floor? It's cold, son..."

"Let Arif be, Mom. Let Arif speak," Arif wept, his shoulders shaking heavily. He lifted his tear-stained face, locking his gaze straight onto the camera lens with an expression loaded with the deepest regret of his life.

"I'm sorry because while I was in Jakarta, I became such a rebellious son. I remember, Mom... I remember in a loop—ah, what Arif means is, a few months ago, Arif yelled at Mom on the phone just because you asked if I had eaten. I ignored Mom's text messages for weeks because I felt too busy chasing this superficial corporate world. I always rejected Mom's six o'clock calls curtly, as if your care was a burden to me."

Arif struck his own chest, lamenting how blindly seduced he had been by the capital's false glow. "I was so arrogant, Mom. I thought I could conquer Jakarta alone with money and title, until I forgot that it was Mom's prayers keeping me breathing here. Forgive Arif's arrogance, Mom. Forgive all my snaps and neglect over the years..."

Through the digital screen, his mother watched her only son with a heart-wrenching gaze. Tears welled up once more, tracking through the wrinkles of her cheeks. Yet there was not a single trace of anger or bitterness on her face. There existed only boundless, unconditional forgiveness.

"Arif..." his mother whispered softly, her voice trembling under the weight of her emotion. "Mom has never held any hatred in her heart, son. A mother could never hate her own child, no matter how harsh the words that once left your mouth. Mom knows you were struggling, Mom knew you were exhausted from being crushed by that cruel city. Mom forgave you long ago, son. Even before you asked for forgiveness today, Mom had already forgiven everything."

Hearing those words, Arif felt as though his chest had been struck by an overwhelmingly massive wave of warmth. The burden of sin and karma that had locked him inside the Frost Circle time cage across hundreds of daily loops shattered completely, dissolving alongside his mother's forgiving tears.

Arif straightened his posture, glancing at the wall clock, which now read 11:57 PM. Time in this loop had only three minutes left. Three minutes before spatial distortion hurled him back to the starting point.

Yet this time, Arif felt no fear.

"Mom, Arif promises," Arif declared with a steady, sincere tone, gripping his phone tightly as if clasping his mother's calloused hands. "If... if time permits Arif to push past tonight, if the universe grants Arif a tangible tomorrow... Arif swears he will immediately book a ticket home. Arif doesn't care about Jakarta anymore. Arif will return to the village, accompany Mom in our stilt house, and look after you for the rest of your days. I promise, Mom."

His mother smiled—the most sincere, beautiful smile Arif had ever witnessed in his entire life. The rural evening breeze gently tossed a few strands of her white hair on the screen.

"Mom holds you to that promise, Arif," his mother said with a deep voice freighted with years of pent-up longing. "Come home, son... Mom misses you so much."

Right at 11:59 PM, coinciding with the completion of his mother's sentence, the Frost Circle ring on Arif's ring finger suddenly erupted in an extraordinarily brilliant wave of golden-white light. The radiance no longer emitted a freezing chill, but instead a cozy warmth spreading through all of Arif's blood vessels, granting him absolute, profound peace.

The smartphone screen in his hand slowly began to blur, distorted by the overflowing mystical glow flooding his boarding room. Arif closed his eyes, smiling peacefully, ready to let his soul be carried wherever time's destiny would guide him—because deep within his heart, he had finally grasped the true key to coming home.