That night, the sky above the village seemed to mourn along with him. Distant thunder rumbled, splitting a pitch-black night void of a single star. Inside the decaying wooden house, the hands of the old wall clock pointed to ten. Firman lay on his thin floor mattress, pulling the blanket up to his chest, staring blankly at the ceiling. Sleep had become a luxury when his head kept echoing with the cruel whispers from the store that afternoon.

Illegitimate child... Born out of wedlock... Covering up the shame...

The words spun endlessly like a scratched record in his mind.

Suddenly, the harsh bang of the front door being shoved open startled him. It was Sister Rizka returning late from her overtime shift. Usually, the house would fall silent the moment she retreated to her room, but tonight was different. Firman heard her hasty footsteps rushing toward the kitchen, followed by a heavy thud—like a bag slammed onto the wooden table.

"Mother! What is the meaning of this?!"

Rizka’s screech shattered the night. Her voice trembled violently, choked with a rage long kept buried.

Firman sat up slowly in the dark, a cold knot of dread tightening around his chest. Stepping barefoot with cotton-soft movements, the nine-year-old approached the thin plywood wall separating his room from the kitchen.

He pressed his ear against a small crack in the rotting wood, holding his breath.

"What is it, Rizka? Why are you shouting at this hour? Firman is already asleep," Grandmother Sumarni’s raspy, exhausted voice chimed in, attempting to soothe her.

"Good if he’s sleeping! Then he won't have to listen to the stupidity you've committed!" Rizka shot back, her voice climbing higher and ignoring her mother's warning. "Why did you take savings from my vanity drawer? That money was meant for my motor installment this month, Mother!"

"I had no choice, Rizka..." Grandmother's voice shook on the edge of tears. "Firman... Firman has to pay his semester fees and textbook fees. If it’s not paid tomorrow, he can't sit for his exams. I don't have any money left—my pension doesn't come in until next week..."

"Always that kid! It’s always that kid ruining my life!" Rizka screamed in frustration. Firman heard the harsh scrape of a wooden chair. "Why do I have to keep sacrificing my future for him, Mother? I break my back every single day, enduring insults at work, just to feed a child I never wanted!"

Behind the plywood wall, Firman’s heart pounded so hard it hurt. Tears welled up in his eyes, cascading down his cheeks.

"Watch your tongue, Rizka! Whatever you say, he is your own flesh and blood!" Grandmother Sumarni snapped back, her voice sharp with wounded indignation. "I put his name on our Family Registry as my own child—I made him your brother just to save your face! To cover up your shame after that bastard ran off and left you before you were even married!"

THUD.

Firman’s world ground to a sudden halt.

The blood in his veins ran bone-chillingly cold. A piercing ring echoed in his ears. The nine-year-old boy clapped both shaking hands over his mouth, hot tears streaming uncontrollably over his fingers.

Your own flesh and blood... Save your face... Cover up your shame...

Grandma's words struck his consciousness like a sledgehammer, shattering his entire world into dust. The vicious gossip at the store had been right all along. The faded blue document was a giant, orchestrated lie.

The cold woman he had called "Sister"—the woman who had looked at him with nothing but disgust and resentment—was his biological mother. The woman who had birthed him into this world.

"Flesh and blood?" Rizka laughed, a sound so broken and laden with pain it barely sounded human. "You call him my flesh and blood? He is a curse, Mother! Every single time I look at his face, I am forced to remember the bastard who tricked me, stole my youth, and tossed me aside the moment he found out I was pregnant! He ran off to God knows where, and I was left holding this shame!"

Rizka’s sobs broke out in the kitchen, turning hysterical.

"I never asked for him to be born, Mother! You were the selfish one who stopped me from getting rid of him! You said you’d handle it, but look at us now! I'm the one trapped with everything! On my legal ID, I'm a single woman, but in reality, I'm the mother of an illegitimate child whose father abandoned him! I hate this fate, Mother! I hate looking at him!"

On the other side of the wall, Firman slowly slid down to the cold wooden floor, curling his small body into a ball as he trembled uncontrollably. He clutched his chest, gasping for air as if the room had run out of oxygen.

Every word Rizka uttered was a blade plunged straight into his innocent heart. He wasn't just a financial burden. He was a mistake—a living monument to his mother's greatest trauma and shame.

Mother... Firman’s soul screamed in silence.

He stared at his thin, trembling hands in the darkness as memories flashed through his head. It all made sense now. That was why Sister Rizka never hugged him. That was why she shrank away every time he tried to draw near. That was why there wasn't a single baby picture of him anywhere in the house. His very existence was an open wound to her.

In the kitchen, the screaming match gradually died down, replaced by Rizka’s quiet weeping and Grandmother Sumarni’s defeated sighs. But for Firman, the storm inside had only just begun.

Firman didn't return to his bed that night. He remained curled up in the corner of the cold floor until dawn broke. When morning light peeked through the wooden ventilation slates, he stood up and wiped the dried tear tracks from his face.

Something inside him had shifted permanently. The desperate longing for a mother's embrace that had burned in his chest for years was gone—extinguished into cold, lifeless ash. He knew who he was now, and he knew that this house was no longer a place where he could ever hope to be loved.