Morning light used to enter through the eastern window of their small house, thin and golden, slipping through the cracked wooden frame as if it had memorized the way inside. Lucas remembered it clearly. The sunlight always found Gabriel first.
Gabriel slept facing the window, as though even in his dreams he chased warmth. His hair stuck out in every direction, rebellious and impossible to tame. Almost every morning, before his eyes even opened, he would mumble into his pillow with the same lazy defiance.
"…Five more minutes, bro…"
Lucas would already be awake by then, dressed for work, boots tied, gloves pulled on. He would glance at the narrow bed across the room and shake his head.
"You said that ten minutes ago."
"I'm negotiating."
Back then, mornings felt ordinary. The creaking floorboards, the faint chill in the air, the smell of leftover broth from the night before none of it seemed remarkable.
And that was the miracle of it.
In the present, Lucas stood alone on a rain-soaked rooftop overlooking Bouten City. Lanterns burned along the streets below, their light trembling in puddles gathered on stone. The city shimmered, alive and indifferent, as though it had never stolen anything from him.
But his mind was elsewhere.
It drifted back to that small house. To the cracked wooden table that had to be balanced with folded scraps of paper beneath one leg. To two bowls of thin soup, more broth than substance. To evenings where silence felt peaceful instead of heavy.
To Gabriel.
"Do you think Mom can see us?" Gabriel once asked in the middle of dinner, spoon hovering uncertainly above his bowl.
Lucas paused mid-bite. "Why?"
Gabriel shrugged, trying to look casual. "If she can, I don't want her seeing my math scores."
Lucas almost laughed despite himself. "She'd care more about whether you're trying."
Gabriel lowered his gaze to the shimmering surface of his soup. "Trying doesn't always make things right."
Lucas reached across the table and lightly flicked his forehead. "But giving up makes them wrong for sure."
Gabriel pouted for a moment, rubbing his head, then broke into a grin. The lamplight softened his features, turning that fragile room into something warmer than it had any right to be.
At the time, Lucas did not understand how precious those small conversations were. They felt replaceable, like there would always be another dinner, another joke, another chance to say the right thing.
Now they were everything.
There had been a day when rain fell gently over the rooftops, tapping against stone like a restless rhythm. Gabriel insisted on running outside anyway.
"You'll get sick," Lucas warned from the doorway, arms folded.
"I'm already fast. The cold can't catch me."
He darted into the narrow alley, laughter ringing as raindrops struck his face. Lucas remained under the awning, pretending to be annoyed while keeping a careful eye on him.
Gabriel slipped on the wet stone and fell hard.
For a single terrifying second, Lucas's heart stopped.
Then Gabriel burst into laughter from the ground, water splashing around him. "You looked scared!"
Lucas strode over, grabbed him by the collar, and pulled him upright. "You're an idiot."
"You love this idiot."
Lucas exhaled slowly, trying to suppress the tremor in his chest. "…Yeah."
He did.
More than anything.
On the rooftop, rain slid down Lucas's coat, soaking into fabric that no longer felt cold. The present seemed distant, muted beneath the weight of memory.
One memory always returned more slowly than the others the night before everything changed.
Gabriel hadn't fallen asleep yet. He sat cross-legged on his mattress, watching Lucas mend a torn glove beneath dim lamplight. The room was quiet except for the faint scrape of needle through fabric.
"Big bro," Gabriel said softly, "when I get stronger, I can help you work, right?"
Lucas kept his eyes on the stitching. "You're helping by studying."
"But you look tired."
Lucas was tired. Not just from labor or hunger. The exhaustion ran deeper, woven into responsibility and fear. He carried the weight of survival like an invisible armor.
"I'm fine," he answered at last.
Gabriel straightened. "When I grow up, I'll protect you."
Lucas's lips curved faintly. "That's my job."
"Then we'll protect each other."
Lucas looked up then. Gabriel's eyes were steady, far too serious for someone his age. For a moment, the room felt too small to contain the quiet intensity between them.
"Go to sleep," Lucas said gently.
But something warm stirred in his chest pride, fear, love intertwined so tightly he could not separate them.
Another memory surfaced.
A crowded marketplace. Voices overlapping. The smell of dust and sweat heavy in the air. Gabriel clung to the back of Lucas's shirt so they wouldn't be separated.
"Big bro," he whispered as two uniformed officers passed by, metal emblems gleaming under the sun, "why don't you ever argue with them?"
Lucas kept walking, eyes forward. "Because arguing doesn't change anything."
"It should."
Lucas stopped and crouched until they were eye level. Around them, the marketplace buzzed with forced normalcy.
"In this city," Lucas said quietly, "staying alive matters more than being right."
Gabriel frowned, confusion and stubbornness flickering across his face. "But if everyone stays quiet, they'll keep doing bad things."
Lucas had no answer.
So he stood and told him to keep walking.
That question would echo inside him long after Gabriel's voice was gone.
The final peaceful memory came without warning, softer than the rest. Gabriel had fallen asleep at the table while pretending to study. A pencil still rested in his hand. A half-finished math problem lingered on the page.
Lucas lifted him carefully and carried him to bed. Gabriel stirred faintly.
"…Big bro?"
"Yeah."
"Don't disappear."
Lucas adjusted the blanket around his shoulders. "I won't."
It had been a promise spoken without hesitation.
And somehow, he still failed to keep it.
Rainwater streamed off the edge of the rooftop, vanishing into darkness below. Bouten City glowed as if untouched by loss, its towers standing tall and merciless.
Gabriel had believed in effort. In fairness. In protecting one another.
Lucas had believed in silence.
One of them had been wrong.
Or maybe both of them were.
He stepped closer to the edge, boots scraping against wet stone. The drop below did not frighten him.
"If I had fought sooner…" he murmured into the rain.
Would anything have changed? Would Gabriel still be alive?
There were no answers waiting in the wind.
Only memory.
Only regret, sharpened slowly into something harder.
Gabriel's laughter. His stubborn questions. His small hand gripping Lucas's shirt in crowded streets. Those were not weaknesses.
They were reasons.
Lucas closed his eyes briefly, letting the rain wash across his face. The boy who once chose silence no longer existed. The city that had taken everything from him did not yet understand that truth.
He was not fighting for abstract justice. He was not seeking redemption from a system already corrupted.
He was fighting for a promise made beneath dim lamplight.
Then we'll protect each other.
Lucas inhaled deeply, steady and controlled.
"Rest, Gabriel," he whispered.
The lanterns flickered in the distance like scattered stars. For the first time in years, Lucas allowed himself to remember not just the blood and the loss, but the warmth that had come before it—the laughter in the rain, the shared soup, the quiet vows spoken between brothers.
That warmth no longer broke him.
It strengthened him.
Because memory, when sharpened by grief, could become something far more dangerous than hatred.
It could become purpose.
And Lucas had finally found his.