Chapter - 19
Morning came too fast.
Nani stood at the mansion entrance with his bag hanging from one shoulder.
"I should go."
Sky stood opposite him, hands in his pockets.
"You said that ten minutes ago."
"Because you're not letting me leave."
"I'm not stopping you."
"You've been standing in front of the door."
Sky glanced behind himself.
"...Coincidence."
Nani rolled his eyes.
"You're so annoying."
"And you're leaving."
"Yes."
A beat.
"...Unfortunately."
Sky's mouth twitched.
Nani adjusted his bag and turned toward the door.
He made it two steps.
Then Sky caught his wrist.
Nani looked back.
"What?"
Sky pulled him closer-not enough to trap him, just enough to stop the dramatic escape.
"You forgot something."
"I did?"
"Yeah."
"What?"
Sky leaned down and kissed him.
A quick, soft kiss.
Nani froze.
His brain completely abandoned him.
Sky pulled back with a faint smirk.
"That."
Nani's ears turned red.
"You-"
Sky raised an eyebrow.
"Problem?"
"You absolute bastard."
"That's not an answer."
Nani covered his mouth.
"...I'm leaving."
"You are."
"Now."
"Alright."
Nani walked toward the car at twice his normal speed.
The driver looked at him.
"Young Master, are you alright?"
Nani stared straight ahead.
"Drive."
"...Yes, sir."
Behind them, Sky stood at the entrance.
Watching.
A quiet smile remained on his face.
Tee appeared beside him.
"Boss."
"What?"
"You look happy."
Sky's expression instantly flattened.
"I don't."
Tee nodded.
"Of course."
"..."
"Your face is terrible at lying."
Sky glared.
"Go work."
"Yes, Boss."
Tee walked away grinning.
---
Later - Nani's Home
The moment Nani entered the house...
He heard Dew laughing.
Nani stopped.
Dew was sitting on the couch, talking to someone through his phone.
"Yeah, Tee, I'm telling you-"
Nani slowly narrowed his eyes.
"...Hmm."
Dew looked up.
His expression changed.
"Oh."
Nani crossed his arms.
"Hmm."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Hmm."
Dew stared at him.
"Why are you making that sound?"
"I'm not."
"You literally are."
Nani walked past him.
"Something something..."
Dew frowned.
"What does that even mean?"
Nani looked over his shoulder.
"Nothing."
Then he disappeared upstairs.
Dew stared after him.
"...Did Sky do something?"
He looked at his phone.
"Tee."
Tee answered.
"What?"
"Your boss did something."
There was a pause.
"...What did he do?"
"I don't know."
"Then how do you know?"
"Because Nani is doing the suspicious 'hmm hmm' thing."
Tee laughed.
"Oh."
"What?"
"He's definitely hiding something."
Dew sighed.
"Those two are exhausting."
---
Upstairs...
Nani changed into fresh clothes.
He threw his bag onto the chair and flopped onto his bed.
Laptop open.
Music playing softly.
For several minutes, everything felt normal.
Safe.
Ordinary.
He opened his messages.
Scrolled through Dew's nonsense.
Ignored three advertisements.
Then-
Ping.
A new message appeared.
Unknown number.
Nani frowned.
He opened it.
?Nani.?
He stared.
Another message arrived.
?Don't you want to know??
His fingers stopped moving.
Another.
?What happened on October 8th, 2021??
The room seemed to lose all sound.
Nani's smile disappeared.
His breathing caught.
The laptop screen blurred.
"No..."
He whispered.
Another message.
?You remember that night, don't you??
Nani's hand started shaking.
His phone nearly slipped from his fingers.
October 8th.
2021.
Five years ago.
The date he never talked about.
The date his family pretended didn't exist.
The date that had turned his childhood into something he couldn't explain.
---
The memory came back in fragments.
Rain against the windows.
A door slamming.
His mother's scream.
His father's footsteps.
And then-
The front door opening.
His father standing there.
Covered in blood.
Not his own clothes.
Not his own blood.
And the smell.
That strange, expensive perfume clinging to his coat.
Nani remembered hiding behind the staircase.
He remembered staring at his father's hands.
He remembered the blood dripping onto the floor.
He remembered asking-
"Dad...?"
His father had looked at him.
Not angry.
Not scared.
Terrified.
Then he'd said something Nani could never forget.
Something he'd never understood.
"You didn't see anything."
And the next morning...
Nobody spoke about it.
No explanation.
No police report that Nani ever saw.
No answers.
Just silence.
Years of it.
---
Nani slowly returned to the present.
His phone buzzed again.
?He lied to you.?
Nani's eyes widened.
Another message appeared.
?Your father wasn't the victim that night.?
Nani's stomach dropped.
"No..."
His thumb hovered over the keyboard.
He typed:
Who are you?
He stared at the message.
Deleted it.
Typed again.
What do you want?
Deleted that too.
His hands were shaking harder now.
Finally, he typed:
Tell me what happened.
The reply came almost instantly.
?I think you already know more than you remember.?
Nani froze.
Then another message.
?Ask your father why there was blood on his hands.?
His heart hammered.
Nani stood abruptly.
The chair scraped across the floor.
"No."
He paced toward the window.
"No, no, no..."
His mind raced through every memory.
Every lie.
Every strange reaction whenever October came around.
His father's sudden silence.
His mother's refusal to discuss that night.
The locked room upstairs.
The perfume.
The blood.
Why had he never questioned it harder?
Because he had been a child.
Because everyone told him to forget.
Because forgetting was easier than knowing.
---
His phone buzzed again.
Nani flinched.
He looked down.
This message was different.
?And Nani...?
A pause.
Then-
?Sky doesn't know what happened either.?
Nani's blood ran cold.
He stared at the screen.
For the first time since the messages began...
His fear turned into anger.
"Who the hell are you?"
He typed it.
Sent it.
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Then-
?Someone who was there.?
Nani stopped breathing.
The room suddenly felt too small.
He looked toward the bedroom door.
His voice came out barely above a whisper.
"...Someone was there?"
His phone buzzed one final time.
?October 8th wasn't the night your family lost everything.
It was the night someone decided you were worth protecting.?
Nani stared at the words.
His fingers went cold.
He didn't know why...
But somewhere deep inside him-
Something clicked.
Something he'd forgotten.
Something he'd been forced to forget.
And suddenly...
The nightmare from five years ago didn't feel like a nightmare anymore.
It felt like a warning.
A warning that had finally found its way back to him.
-----------
Nani hadn't slept properly.
Not at Dew's villa.
Not anywhere.
He sat cross-legged on the giant pink bed in his room, staring at his phone.
The messages were still there.
October 8th, 2021.
His stomach twisted every time he saw the date.
He remembered that night.
His father's blood-covered clothes.
That strange perfume.
The terrified look on his face.
And those words.
You didn't see anything.
Nani rubbed his arms.
"What the hell happened that night...?"
He looked around the pink room Dew had made for him.
For the first time, even this beautiful place couldn't distract him.
Then he grabbed his phone.
"Dew."
---
Dew was downstairs, sitting in the living room and talking to Tee over the phone.
"Yeah, Tee, I'm telling you-"
"Nani?"
Dew turned.
Nani stood at the staircase.
His face looked pale.
Dew immediately ended the call.
"What happened?"
Nani walked toward him.
"Can we talk?"
Dew's expression changed.
"Of course."
They sat together on the sofa.
Nani unlocked his phone and handed it over.
Dew read the messages.
His eyebrows pulled together.
"What the fuck?"
Nani swallowed.
"You knew about this?"
"About October 8th?"
Dew shook his head.
"No."
"Nobody told me anything."
Nani stared at him.
"But you were there, weren't you?"
Dew shook his head again.
"I wasn't."
"I was in Bangkok."
Nani blinked.
"Bangkok?"
"College study program."
"I was away when everything happened."
"When I came back..."
He paused.
"...everything had changed."
Nani's voice dropped.
"The money."
Dew looked at him.
"Yeah."
"Our family suddenly had money."
"New house."
"New cars."
"Dad's business suddenly exploded."
Nani stared at the floor.
"And now..."
"This year..."
"The company started losing again."
Dew nodded slowly.
"And Dad suddenly started pushing you toward Niran."
Nani's face tightened.
"Exactly."
"Why?"
Dew didn't answer immediately.
Because neither of them had a good answer.
Finally, Nani whispered,
"Do you think the marriage had something to do with it?"
Dew's jaw tightened.
"I don't know."
"But I'm starting to hate how many things connect."
---
Nani leaned back against the sofa.
"I remember Dad coming home that night."
Dew turned toward him.
"Covered in blood."
Dew's eyes widened.
"You never told me that."
"I was scared."
"I was a kid."
Nani's fingers tightened around his sleeve.
"And there was perfume."
"Really strong."
"I'd never smelled it before."
"He looked at me and told me I hadn't seen anything."
Dew went quiet.
"...That's fucked up."
"Yeah."
"And you carried that alone?"
Nani shrugged weakly.
"I thought maybe I'd remembered it wrong."
Dew shook his head.
"No."
"You didn't."
---
Dew grabbed a notebook from the coffee table.
Nani stared at him.
"What are you doing?"
"Making a list."
"A list?"
"Everything we know."
He wrote:
October 8, 2021.
Dad returned covered in blood.
Unknown perfume.
Family wealth increased afterward.
Dad never explained it.
Business recently suffered losses.
Niran's marriage proposal suddenly became urgent.
Unknown person knows about October 8th.
Dew stared at the list.
"...That's way too many coincidences."
Nani hugged a pillow.
"So what do we do?"
Dew looked at him.
"We investigate."
"How?"
"Old company records."
"Bank accounts."
"People who worked for Dad in 2021."
"Anyone who disappeared afterward."
"And..."
He tapped the phone.
"...Whoever sent these messages."
Nani's eyes widened.
"What if they're dangerous?"
Dew snorted.
"Then we don't meet them alone."
"What if Dad finds out?"
"Then we deal with Dad."
Nani stared at him.
Dew gave him a firm look.
"You're not doing this alone."
Nani's expression softened.
"...Okay."
---
Dew's phone suddenly vibrated.
He glanced down.
A message from Tee.
?Everything okay? Nani looked pale earlier.?
Dew typed:
?We're fine. Just family stuff.?
He hesitated.
Then deleted it.
Typed again.
?Something happened in 2021. We're looking into it. Don't tell Sky yet.?
He sent it.
Nani noticed.
"You told Tee?"
"Only enough to get help."
Nani sighed.
"...Sky is going to find out eventually."
Dew gave him a look.
"That man finds out when you sneeze three rooms away."
Nani snorted despite himself.
"True."
For a moment, the fear loosened.
Then-
Ping.
Nani's phone lit up.
Another message.
Both brothers stared.
?You're asking the right questions.?
Nani's smile disappeared.
Another message appeared.
?But you're looking in the wrong place.?
Dew's expression hardened.
"Who the hell is this?"
One final message arrived.
?Ask your father about the woman wearing the perfume.?
Nani froze.
"The woman..."
Dew looked at him.
"What woman?"
Nani slowly shook his head.
"I don't know."
But somewhere inside his memory...
A blurred figure stood beneath a streetlight.
Long dark hair.
A pale coat.
And that perfume.
Nani suddenly remembered something he'd forgotten for five years.
He had seen her.
And she had been looking directly at him.