Raka knew something had changed at home when his mother didn't ask about the accident.
He had just come through the front door, his right arm wrapped in bandages and his knee aching every time he bent it. The ride-share motorcycle he was riding had skidded that morning at an intersection near campus. The driver had only suffered a few scrapes, but Raka had been thrown hard enough for his head to hit the asphalt.
The doctor said he was lucky.
Raka didn't feel lucky.
In the living room, his mother stood by the window, holding her phone. She turned when she heard the door open, looked at Raka's bandages, then turned back to the screen.
“Why didn't you call Mom?”
“I did. Three times.”
His mother fell silent.
Raka pulled his phone from his pocket. The screen was cracked in the upper-right corner. The calls really had gone unanswered.
“I was at the hospital,” his mother said.
“It's okay.”
“You should've waited for Dad.”
“Dad wasn't here.”
This time, his mother looked at him. “He was.”
Raka frowned.
“In the study.”
“Was Dad asleep?”
“No.”
The answer was short, but it was enough to make the living room feel smaller.
From the hallway came the sound of a door closing. His father appeared, wearing the same shirt as yesterday. His face was rumpled, his eyes red. He looked at Raka, then at the bandage on his son's arm.
“An accident?”
“It's not serious.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“Bruises and minor injuries.”
His father nodded. “Good.”
There were no other questions. No hand patting his shoulder. No anger over Raka coming home late, or concern usually hidden inside a long lecture.
Just the word good.
Raka set his bag on a chair. Inside was a photocopy of Ardi's records that he'd taken from the old library. Since what happened yesterday, he and Naya hadn't talked about the figure between the bookshelves. They had only found themselves outside the library when the lights came back on, gasping for breath and still holding each other's hands.
Naya had said they needed to find out more.
Raka wasn't ready to say that that morning, right before the motorcycle skidded, he'd seen a student standing in the middle of the road.
A thin student with hair covering his face.
He hadn't moved as the vehicle approached. Raka had caught a glimpse of the glass ball atop the trophy reflecting light in his hand. After that, the motorcycle's tires had lost control.
“Sit down first,” his mother said.
Raka sat on the sofa. His mother took the medicine box from the cabinet, then began cleaning the cut on his temple. Her movements were careful, but her thoughts seemed to be somewhere else.
“Why didn't Dad come to the hospital?” Raka asked.
His mother stopped.
“Why would he?”
“To pick me up.”
“He had something to take care of.”
“What?”
“Raka.”
The single word sounded like a warning.
His father walked toward the study without saying anything. The room's door had been broken for a long time and couldn't be locked, but today he pulled it tightly shut.
Raka watched his mother.
“Are you and Dad fighting?”
The cotton in his mother's hand stopped just above the wound.
“Who told you that?”
“No one.”
“Don't jump to conclusions.”
“I heard a plate break.”
“I dropped it.”
“Last night?”
“Yes.”
“And Dad slept in the study?”
“He was dealing with work.”
“All night?”
His mother pressed the cotton a little harder than necessary. Raka winced.
“Don't get involved.”
Raka turned his face away.
“I live in this house.”
“That's exactly why I don't want you worrying about all of this.”
“Worrying about what?”
His mother opened her mouth, but didn't answer. From behind the study door came the sound of a chair scraping across the floor.
Then his father said, loudly enough to be heard from the living room, “If you want to talk about this, don't do it in front of Raka.”
His mother's face changed at once.
“Get out,” she said.
“There's no need to yell.”
“Get out of that room.”
Raka got up from the sofa.
“Mom—”
“Go to your room.”
“I just—”
“Go to your room, Raka!”
The voice struck harder than the pain in his knee.
He took his bag and walked to his room without arguing. Behind him, his parents' voices quickly rose.
Raka closed the door, but their conversation still seeped through the gap. The house had never really been soundproof. The walls were thin, and his parents' voices could always reach his room, even when they tried to whisper.
“I can't keep doing this,” his mother said.
“We've already talked about it.”
“You always say that.”
“Because nothing's changed.”
“Nothing's changed precisely because you never want to make a decision.”
Raka stood in the middle of his room.
The old trophy was still on his desk.
He was sure he'd left it in his bag before leaving that morning. After the accident, he'd even checked the bag because he was afraid the thing had broken. But now the trophy stood in its original place, tilted with the black nameplate facing the door.
Raka approached it.
Beneath the layer of paint, the name was clearer than it had been yesterday.
ARDI.
The next letters were still hidden beneath scratches, but Raka didn't need to see the whole thing to know the name was the same one they'd found in the campus records.
Ardi Pratama.
He picked up the trophy, then put it inside an empty shoebox. He sealed the box with duct tape and placed it beneath the bed.
“Don't come back,” he whispered.
From beyond the door, his mother began to cry.
Raka froze.
He rarely heard his mother cry. Even when his grandmother died, the woman had only sat in the kitchen for a long time, staring at her cup of tea until it went cold. The crying he heard now wasn't the quiet kind brought on by exhaustion. Something inside her had broken.
“I found the letter,” his mother said.
His father's voice was silent.
“Don't pretend you don't know.”
“I didn't take anything.”
“Your name is in it.”
“Anyone could've written my name.”
“He wrote everything down.”
Raka pressed his ear to the door.
His heart pounded.
He.
Who were they talking about?
“I've been paying for that mistake for years,” his father said.
“Mistake?”
“Then what do you want to call it?”
“Theft.”
The word made Raka take a step back.
From inside the sealed box beneath the bed came the sound of tapping.
Knock.
Raka stared at the floor.
Knock.
His parents' voices suddenly vanished outside. The house fell silent. Even his mother's sobbing stopped at the exact same moment.
Knock.
Raka crouched and reached for the edge of the box. The duct tape was still stuck in place. He didn't touch it any further.
“Raka,” his mother called from outside.
He didn't answer.
“Raka, open the door.”
Her voice sounded normal. Too normal.
Raka backed away until his back touched the desk. His eyes remained fixed on the box.
“Raka.”
The doorknob moved.
“I know you're in there.”
Raka swallowed. “Mom?”
“Open it.”
“Why?”
There was no answer.
The doorknob moved again. Slowly, up and down, as though the person outside were trying to figure out how to open a lock that wasn't there.
Beneath the bed, something touched the inside of the box.
Not tapping this time.
A scraping sound.
Like a fingernail scratching cardboard.
Raka covered his own mouth to keep from screaming.
Then his mother's voice came from the living room.
“Raka, where are you?”
Raka raised his head.
The voice behind the door was still there.
But his mother was also calling from farther away.
“Raka?”
The doorknob stopped moving.
Through the gap beneath the door, he could see the shadow of feet. They were too thin. The feet were bare, and one sole was turned the wrong way.
Raka backed away until he slammed into the desk.
The trophy on the desk—the one that should have been inside the box—suddenly stood beside his hand.
The glass ball was fogged over.
On the fogged surface, a sentence slowly appeared, as though it were being written from within.
DON'T TRUST THEM.
The bedroom door opened a crack.
Raka couldn't see anyone's face. Only darkness beyond it.
Then his father screamed from the study.
“Don't touch him!”
His mother's voice followed, filled with panic this time.
“Raka, run!”
Raka grabbed his phone and ran toward the window. Behind him, the bedroom door swung wide open. Something moved inside, too fast to see clearly.
He opened the window and lowered one leg onto the terrace roof. Before jumping, he glanced back once.
On the desk, the trophy had changed direction.
Its black nameplate was facing him directly.
The erased name appeared whole for the first time.
ARDI PRATAMA.
From the living room came the sound of something breaking.
Then his father said desperately,
“We didn't steal your victory.”
Raka stopped.
A whisper emerged from behind his shoulder.
“Then who did?”
He jumped onto the terrace roof.
Inside the room, something laughed softly.
And from the house he'd believed was safe for all these years came the sound of the first crack that could never be repaired again.