The Departure and the Rebirth
"You went outside?!"
The front door had barely clicked shut before her mother's voice pierced the air, sharp and hysterical.
"What would we do if a neighbor had seen you?!" her father chimed in, his face contorted in a mixture of anger and embarrassment. "People around here have been hearing singing coming from a house that's supposed to be empty! You're being a complete bother to everyone!"
The air in the living room grew thick, suffocating. They paced around me, their words sharp weapons meant to cut down whatever spirit I had left.
"We can't have you singing anymore!"
They kept rambling, their voices blurring into a dull roar about property values, neighbor complaints, and the sheer embarrassment of my existence.
I stood perfectly still beneath my mask, but inside, something broke.
They wouldn't let me go to school... I endured it.
They wouldn't let me see Ishu... I endured it.
But now? Now they were trying to take my music away from me as well. The one thread keeping me tethered to this life. The only thing that kept me alive until today.
A strange, freezing clarity washed over me.
I get it now... I thought, my mind cementing into a final, unshakeable decision.
It's time for me to leave this house.
"Do what you want!" her father snapped, throwing his hands up in dismissal when I told them I was leaving. "But stay away from Ishita!!"
I didn't answer. I turned on my heel and walked up to my room for the last time.
That same day, I gathered the few fragments of my past that still mattered: my dad's old weathered wallet, our family photo album, my mom's gold bangles, and finally, the heavy ceramic urns containing their ashes.
I had been planning to find a small apartment and live alone using the secret income I made from ELEVEN STUDIOS.
But fate had other plans.
Just as I stepped out of the front gates, a familiar figure was standing by the curb.
The trunk lid closed with a hollow, metallic thud that echoed down the quiet street, sealing away the only remnants of my past.
In my arms, I held a single cardboard box.
It wasn't heavy, yet it felt like it weighed a thousand tons.
Inside was my dad's old, weathered leather wallet, a family photo album with frayed edges, my mom's gold bangles that clinked softly against each other, and, resting at the very bottom, the ceramic urns containing their ashes.
I was sixteen, completely disfigured, and officially homeless.
My plan had been to slide into the cracks of the city, to find a cheap, windowless room somewhere and survive on the secret income from ELEVEN STUDIOS.
I thought I was ready to be alone.
I thought I had hardened my heart enough to handle it.
But as I dragged my feet toward the front gate—
He wore a heavy winter coat, his hands tucked into his pockets, breathing out faint plumes of mist into the freezing air. He had come over the moment Leo told him the situation at the Bansal house was reaching a breaking point.
I froze on the pavement.
I expected questions.
I expected him to tell me I was being reckless, or to ask if I had truly thought this through.
Instead, he just looked at me.
His eyes didn't dart away from my masked face, nor did they hold that suffocating, clinical pity I had grown to despise.
There was only a calm, unwavering warmth in his gaze.
He took a single step toward me.
Then he reached out, his large, calloused hand gently gripping the edge of the heavy cardboard box, taking the physical weight of my past away from my arms and setting it safely on the ground.
With my hands suddenly empty, the sheer reality of what was happening crashed over me like a tidal wave.
The cold air cut through my jacket, but the chill inside my chest was worse.
I didn't know why, but my legs gave out.
I stumbled forward, my forehead hitting his shoulder, and my hands desperately clawed into the thick fabric of his coat.
A choked, ragged sob ripped from my throat.
Once the first tear fell, the dam broke completely.
Three years of sitting alone in a dark room.
Three years of listening to a family wish I didn't exist.
Three years of hiding a ruined face.
It all came pouring out.
I cried so hard my chest ached, my shoulders shaking violently as I buried my face into his jacket. I was ruining his coat with my tears, acting like a broken child, but I couldn't stop.
Leo's father didn't say a single word.
He didn't tell me to be strong.
He didn't tell me it would be okay.
Instead, he wrapped his arms entirely around me, pulling me into a firm, grounding embrace that shielded me from the rest of the street.
One of his large hands rested flat against the back of my head, holding me close, letting me lean the entire weight of my existence against him.
He just stood there, unmoving, acting as a solid wall between me and the world that had rejected me.
In that quiet, agonizingly beautiful moment, no words were needed.
Through the simple, fierce protective weight of his arms, an unspoken vow was made.
He wasn't just my manager's dad.
He was claiming me.
He was adopting the boy the world had discarded.
As my heavy sobbing slowly subsided into weak, trembling breaths, he gently patted my back. He didn't pull away until he knew I could stand on my own two feet.
"Wait here," he said softly, his voice a deep, comforting rumble in the winter quiet. He gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze before walking down the block to hail a taxi so we could load the rest of my gear.
I stood by the car, wiping my damp eyes beneath my bangs, feeling a strange, unfamiliar sensation blooming in my chest.
For the first time since the accident seven years ago, the suffocating loneliness was gone.
I was still terrified, and my face was still hidden behind a mask—
but as I watched him wave down a car in the distance, I knew I wasn't walking into the dark alone anymore.
I had a father again.
I waited by the gate, holding my bags.
That's when I heard the frantic, uneven footsteps behind me.
"Why do you have to leave...?!"
I turned around.
Ishita was running toward me, her eyes red and teary, her voice raspy from crying.
The sight of her pulled at my heart, but I forced my expression to remain cold beneath my mask.
"I'm sorry, Ishita Bansal. Take care of yourself..."
The taxi pulled up to the curb.
I turned away from her, loading my belongings into the trunk one by one before stepping into the backseat beside my godfather.
"No, don't go! Abhimanyu! Abhimanyu!"
Her cries echoed through the winter air, but I closed the door.
As the taxi pulled away, I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead.
I left the Bansal house for good without looking back.
With that choice, I knew I had lost the last remnants of my childhood, and the dearest person I had left to lose.
So the only thing I can do now... is pick myself back up and take my life into my own hands.
"You're agreeing to show your face to the public?!" Leo's voice echoed through the studio, his eyes wide with shock.
"I am," I replied, sitting across from him. "Is that okay?"
Leo leaned back, studying my newly healed features.
"I mean... you're incredibly good-looking, so I don't see any technical problem with it. But are you really sure? After everything?"
"Yes," I said firmly. "But I'll make sure to style myself differently. I won't expose my true identity to the people immediately around me in daily life."
From that day forward, my second life began.
I was no longer just a ghost in a bedroom.
I was the mysterious, rising singer known to the masses simply as L.
I moved into the house with Leo's parents, and over time, Leo naturally became like an older brother to me.
We trained together, practiced vocals, and pushed each other constantly.
Slowly, I began to realize that Leo wasn't an ordinary teenager. He belonged to a highly influential background, surrounded by a tight-knit circle of friends who were all uniquely exceptional in their own fields.
They became my shield, and Leo's parents became my true family.
They loved me as if I were their own flesh and blood.
Which brings me to today.
I stood on the balcony of my apartment, staring up at the dark, sprawling night sky.
High above, a pale white moon was playing hide-and-seek behind a heavy blanket of running clouds, appearing for a brief, brilliant instant before being swallowed by darkness once more.
I never could have anticipated that Ishita would transfer to my college.
My face had healed a long time ago, leaving no trace of the monster they hated.
But as a famous singer whose face was easily recognizable to millions of fans, I couldn't risk the students at college finding out who I really was.
Up until now, I had kept everyone at arm's length, maintaining a cold, flawless boundary.
But Ishita...
Ishita was steadily breaking down my defenses just by being near.
A familiar knot of anxiety tightened in my chest.
The constant fear of exposure was dizzying.
For a fleeting second, staring at the moon, a weak thought crossed my mind:
If it's Ishita... maybe I should just let her in on the secret.
But then the cold, judgmental faces of the Bansals flashed through my memory.
Even if I wanted to trust her, the real problem lay with her parents.
Why did they allow her to transfer to this specific college in the first place?
And what am I supposed to do now that she's found me?
After a long time spent staring into the dark, only one logical solution came to mind.
It would be jumping the gun to tell her everything right now. The risks were far too high.
Let's just keep my distance.
It wasn't that I hated Ishita.
Far from it.
But there were simply too many secrets wrapped around my life right now—secrets involving ELEVEN STUDIOS and Leo's world—that I couldn't allow her to catch wind of.
Maybe I was overthinking, but letting Ishita back into my life would undoubtedly fracture the steady, normal existence I had fought so hard to build.
My new parents would worry.
My big brother, Leo, would inevitably be dragged into the Bansals' mess.
If Ishita's parents ever found out where I was and came arguing to my new family's doorstep, it would be the end of everything.
After losing everything once, I had finally been given a real mother, a father, and a brother.
I wanted to cherish and protect them for the rest of my life.
Even if it meant breaking Ishita's heart all over again.