“No one goes outside,” I said, trying to keep my own voice from trembling.
Ghea stared at me with wide, terrified eyes, while Gastan buried his face even deeper between his knees. Mom hugged Dad, who was still coughing lightly on the mattress. As the second child, I had always lived in the shadows. I wasn’t the eldest everyone relied on, nor the youngest everyone spoiled.
But this afternoon, seeing Dad’s frail back and Mom trembling, I knew there was no one else who could stand in front of that door but me.
I stepped into the cramped living room. After taking a deep breath, I slid back the lock on our creaking wooden door.
The moment it opened, the hot afternoon air hit my face, along with the cold stare of the man in the black leather jacket standing at the front. He was almost as tall as our doorframe. Behind him, his two companions stood with their arms crossed near the fence.
“You’re Ghani Alamsyah?” the man asked. His voice was deep and straight to the point.
“Yes, I’m Ghani,” I answered, trying to keep my voice flat even though my palms felt cold and clammy with sweat. “Please don’t speak too loudly. My dad is sick inside.”
The man snorted, a cynical smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a sheet of paper folded in half, and waved it in front of my face.
“Sick? Your little brother should’ve thought twice before using your name to cause trouble with us,” he said, extending the paper toward me.
“This is your loan information. The net principal is fifteen million rupiah. But since last week’s due date passed without any good-faith effort from you, the total is now twenty-five million. That includes penalties and field collection fees.”
Twenty-five million?
The number buzzed in my ears like a bee sting. I only made four and a half million rupiah a month. After setting aside money for Mom’s groceries, our mortgage payments, and Dad’s medicine, I didn’t even have three million rupiah left in my savings. Where was I supposed to get that much money on such short notice?
“That isn’t my signature,” I said after looking at the careless scribble above the stamp on the paper. “My ID card and digital pay stub were stolen by my little brother.”
“We don’t care who signed it, Mr. Ghani,” the man cut in, his voice beginning to sound impatient. “The information submitted to our system is under your name. Your ID photo, your pay stub from PT Logistik Nusantara—everything checks out. Legally, you’re responsible.”
“But this is fraud—”
“If you want to call it fraud, go ahead and report it to the police. But this contract is still in effect. And just so you know, our boss doesn’t like waiting around.” He stepped one foot closer to the porch, narrowing the distance between us. The sharp smell of tobacco wafted from his breath.
“We’re giving you three days. Thursday afternoon, we’ll come back here. If the money isn’t ready, we’ll seize the sport bike out front as an initial form of collateral, and we’ll visit your office at that logistics warehouse to speak directly with your supervisor. How does that sound?”
The threat hit its mark. If they went to my office, my job would be over. The logistics company I worked for was extremely strict about its employees’ reputations. I could be fired that very day without severance pay.
“Three days,” I murmured, clenching my fists inside my pants pockets.
“Thursday afternoon. Don’t turn off your phone,” the man said. He signaled to his two companions, and they walked away, leaving our alley.
I closed the door slowly, then leaned my back against the cold wooden panel. It felt as though all my strength had evaporated in an instant.
“Ghan... what happened?” Ghea suddenly appeared from behind the divider in the living room. Her face was anxious.
Before I could answer, Gastan emerged from the bedroom with unsteady steps. The moment Ghea saw her little brother, she lost control. She stepped forward and shoved Gastan hard in the shoulder.
“You’re so selfish, Gas! Do you even think?! Your brother works himself to the bone for us, so how could you ruin his life?!” Ghea shouted, tears spilling down her face again. “What are you going to become, huh?!”
“I didn’t know it would turn out like this, Ghea! I just wanted to pay off my gambling debt!” Gastan shot back, his voice hoarse from crying but still defensive.
“Stop! Ghea, stop!” I intervened, catching Ghea’s hand as she tried to hit Gastan again. “Hitting Gastan now isn’t going to make twenty-five million rupiah fall from the sky!”
The house suddenly fell silent. All we could hear was our ragged breathing and Dad’s faint coughing from the next room. Ghea covered her face with both hands and sobbed, while Gastan hung his head, realizing the huge mess he had created.
I walked into my cramped bedroom, closed the door, and sat on the edge of my thinning foam mattress.
My phone vibrated. A message from Letta came in.
Letta: “Ghani, I made it home safely. How are you? Is everything okay now? If you need anything at all, just tell me, okay?”
I stared at the screen for a long time. My thumb hovered over the keyboard.
Letta was the daughter of a wealthy family. Twenty-five million rupiah might be no more than her monthly allowance or the cost of her standard upkeep. To her dad, it wasn’t an amount worth thinking twice about. If I asked her for help, this problem would be over in a matter of minutes.
But deep in my chest, an intensely bitter feeling began to rise into my throat.
How could I walk into her luxurious home next Sunday to accept her dad’s dinner invitation if I begged his daughter for money today?
The pride I had fought tooth and nail to protect in front of a world so unequal to Letta’s was now hanging by a thread.