Sometimes one door closes.
And another opens for us.
But what slips through is not necessarily light.
...
Sometimes I find myself disgusting.
Every time I look in the mirror, a wave of exhaustion rises inside me.
I let out a sigh and put the hand mirror away.
My name is Ron Irus. Well, Ron, anyway. Irus is the surname I gave myself.
If I ever become wealthy and famous, I'll register Irus as my family name.
Probably.
...
I'm twelve years old, but the people at the Jinlus orphanage always call me "little brother."
Even the ones who are only ten, or already seventeen, all call me Brother Ron.
It's strange, but I usually do not think much about it.
Mostly because I'm treated as someone who needs more care than everyone else. Sometimes they say I'm stupid, mentally deficient, and need help.
I think that is wrong. The teacher said everyone has their own kind of intelligence, and everyone should follow it.
But I'm not smart. My grades are terrible. I'm not good at sports because I'm weak. I'm not good at art because I don't care for it.
I look at the sunlight spilling through the curtain by the window. I'm in a room full of color. Bright blocks of yellow and blue are stacked across the place in messy layers.
Toys surround me. More accurately, I put them there myself. I wanted the room to feel like a superhero standing against a horde of monsters.
"Brrrr."
"Bratu!~"
"Hey, Ron, come out and play."
Bratu, a boy from the orphanage, called to me from outside the window. How strange. How did he know I was on the second floor?
"Got it."
I shouted back and ran downstairs, though green, purple, and yellow kept blending together in my vision.
The ordinary staircase I walked every day, that dull brown-red thing, no longer stayed one boring color.
With every step I took, a ribbon of color wrapped around me like a cloak.
Then all those colors twisted together into black, and I was wearing a jet-black cape. That felt amazing.
But when I reached the last step, it turned snow-white, then tightened into a spotless white outfit.
I could see it, but once I stepped onto the floor, everything darkened again and returned to normal.
I did not mind it much, because I had already grown used to this.
"I'm here, I'm here!"
I ran all the way across the play area, then noticed Lunas. He was two years older than me, yet somehow 1.8 meters tall.
He and several other children were whispering with Bratu. When they heard me, they all turned around.
"…Oh, Ron."
Lunas scratched his head and looked at me, then at the paper in his hand.
"What is that?"
I asked. Lunas muttered a few things to the others, then shook his head at me.
"There's been a report about you. Remember those tests from a few days ago?"
I nodded furiously.
The others' expressions grew stranger and stranger as Lunas read aloud.
"IQ score: 112.
No psychological disorder detected.
No mental illness detected.
Body: normal, late-stage puberty."
Even though Bratu and the others had been prepared for this, it was still far too confusing.
"Vecic, what do you think? Did he cheat?"
"You think he's smart enough to do that? No, are you smart enough to say that, John?"
"Damn it, if cheating were enough, I'd be at 200 IQ and not stuck here."
The comments kept flying back and forth, while Lunas looked at me and said he would ask the director about it.
As for me, I jumped up and down with joy.
From now on, they would no longer be able to call me a fool.
...
Right now, I was reading a book called The Uncrowned Lord.
Broadly speaking, it was about the death and consequences of a king, and the decline of an entire generation.
I liked it a lot. I usually read it in the classroom when everyone else went out to play.
Then I noticed a strange silhouette near the classroom door.
The figure smelled strongly of guava and grape perfume, the kind you could still smell from ten meters away while covering your nose.
He had dark blue-black hair slicked straight back, and a kind of flamboyant arrogance hidden in his eyes.
His hands, though partly hidden in the dark, were clearly not rough or callused.
On the contrary, the soft curves of his fingers showed they had been carefully maintained.
He wore a simple suit, but the embroidery across the fabric, random as it seemed, formed a pale blue octagonal symbol in a way that felt unmistakably deliberate.
His stride was exaggerated, yet slow, unlike that of ordinary people. His eyebrows were neatly trimmed. His lips carried a glossy balm. Even the way his tie was knotted was arranged to display every elegant detail on purpose.
For a moment, the stranger even slipped a hand into his pocket, felt around, then pulled it back out, like he was checking something.
A nobleman, Ron thought.
The blue-black-haired figure looked at me and shook his head, with the expression of a Shisa dog the orphanage kept.
When he left, I stood up and followed him, because whenever I followed the teachers around, they would smile and give me candy.
I followed him down a long corridor.
I was a little tense, because that corridor was flooded with sunlight, and it led to the director's office.
I was always afraid of Mr. Haller, the director, because he would hit me whenever he had the chance.
But I told myself: don't be afraid. I'll stand back up, just like when I fell down the stairs.
I ran all the way to the office door, where a strip of light was leaking through the crack.
Inside, two different voices were arguing furiously, as if they were about to kill each other.
One voice belonged to old man Haller. The other belonged to the stranger.
I hid by the edge of the door and waited for something to happen.
Then a thunderous shout slammed into my ears and made me clutch my head.
"Bastard!! He's just a child, a CHILD who just awakened a core! Please, he'll die!"
"I never said he should die! I said I want him, Emma, adopted into my family, and he'll be protected under House Crystal!"
"What's the difference?! He'll be forced onto the battlefield and die anyway!"
"He'll die because of your stupidity first!!"
"You bastards are the ones handling the war at Agler City, so get the hell back there! The last time I served, you officers were still busy screwing whores and slaves in mansions in the middle of the army!"
"And without us, this country would have died long ago! So shut up!"
"You dog, you only see people as tools! The world would be so peaceful if trash like you Elite never existed. The Five Fingers, the Circle, all of you are just bastards who piss on the heads of the people!"
"It's because idiots like you can only use morality to define yourselves! Human beings like you don't have the intelligence or support to break free from that moral cage! Just drown in your ignorance, you orphanage director!"
"Ha! You always think etiquette means status, don't you?! THAT MORALITY IS THE RIGHT OF THE STRONG, YOU FUCKING DOG?!"
...
To celebrate someone leaving the orphanage, we would usually hold a farewell party for them.
The day they left would also be their birthday, separate from the day they were officially taken into the orphanage.
And in the orphanage dining hall, about thirty people were seated at a spotless white table, waiting for the two most important people to arrive.
Because it was only a small orphanage, there were only about five staff members serving as helpers, teachers, and caretakers, and they were all busily bringing out the food.
But even after the food had gone cold, there was still no sign of the director or Emma.
"...Sorry, I need to step out for a bit."
Lunas looked uneasy and stood up to use the bathroom, but I guessed that was not really what he was doing.
Still, I didn't think I should think about it.
Today was a happy day, right? We should focus on the candle on the cake instead of anything else.
And has anyone ever said that when you focus on a flame, it seems to grow that big?
...
That night, the moon looked strangely wrong.
It was like a human body curled up inside a blood-red eyeball, with nerves twisting around each other like a web.
Black, red, white.
It was crying, and its tears became thousands of snowflakes that blanketed the world in white.
And me? Did I cry?
Not really. I was too stupid for that.
Instead, I felt overwhelmed, because it was the first time in my life I had stared at the moon for that long.
And it was so beautiful.
I could not describe it.