"I thought you loved me; I thought you cared for me."
The night was cold, but the pain in his heart was burning hotter than a flame. The pain—the shock—made him forget the cold weather; he just couldn't think straight.
"You were just convenient."
As she said that, he just stared at her—the girl he once swore he'd die for—looking at him with eyes as if he were some trash.
Sumit's eyes turned blank. This situation was too much for him. The only two people he cared for, whom he thought were his, betrayed him. The girl he loved the most in the world and his best friend, with whom he spent his ups and downs.
Both betrayed him. The work he created together with his friend was launched today, but his name, his share, and his contribution were not there. He was used and thrown away.
"Babe, let's go. We have a lot of important things to do," Ray—his friend, or whom he considered his friend—said to Ava, the girl he loved.
Seeing them leaving him behind, Sumit couldn't do anything. He wanted to stop them. He wanted to ask why—why they did this to him. Were the time and memories they created together all fake?
But no voice left his mouth. He just stayed there like a statue.
After who knows how long, he moved. Slowly, he started walking toward his home, a simple, cheap studio apartment—the only thing he had left—as he spent everything on his business together with Ray.
KnockKnock
"Is anyone here? Hello?! Anyone home?!" A girl was knocking on the gate of an apartment.
And as if answering her call, the door slid open. A pungent smell hit the woman, causing her to pinch her nose.
When the door opened, a man was standing there. His looks caused the girl to actually get scared. A 190 cm man with messy, long hair and a beard. Clothes tinted with sauce and dirt looked like they hadn't been washed for ages. His physique was such that five or six girls like her could easily fit in his stomach alone.
"H-Hi! I am your n-new neighbor. I came to say h-hello!" Even though she shuddered, she still completed her sentence.
The man just stared at her blankly. A few seconds later, he closed the door and went inside.
"Ehh?!" The girl didn't understand what happened at first, but then realization hit her.
"That ugly fat guy... he... he... he just closed the door in my face!" She pouted in anger and went back to her apartment that was just beside the man's apartment.
After this strange encounter, their lives returned to normal, doing what they were supposed to. But whenever that girl passed by the door—which she never saw opening—she remembered what happened back then and grew angry.
Many days passed. The girl settled properly in her new place and got a job at a store nearby.
One day, Sophia, after returning from her work, was resting. But suddenly she heard something. It was slow, but when she focused, she understood it was coming from the next apartment.
She went to the common wall. As she was about to press her ear to listen, she remembered that day.
"Hmph! Serves him right. And why should I care about him?" She stopped herself from listening at first. But with time, her anger faded away, and she put her ear to listen.
"Why? Why? Why? What did I do wrong for that to happen to me?!"
The person next door was crying, as if asking what he did wrong to deserve what happened to him.
"Mr. Ray Reichard, the once-in-a-century genius, the creator of the NeuroCell, and the CEO of Nexus—the company that produces these NeuroCells—had finally become one of the top 10 richest people in the world. Today, he also announced his wedding with his girlfriend, Ms. Ava Seer."
Sophia could hear the news reporter telling the latest news about the wedding of Ray Reichard and his girlfriend Ava Seer.
"That should have been me there, not that backstabbing bastard."
And like that, sulking and crying, Sumit went to sleep, tired after crying.
Though Sophia didn't understand much, one thing was clear: this neighbor of hers was not just any random person. She felt sympathy toward him and made a decision—she would help him.
*Knock* *Knock*
Sophia started knocking on Sumit's door first thing in the morning. But even after a lot of calling, no one answered. Thinking he must be asleep, she went to work and decided to come back.
The same thing happened in the evening, but she didn't give up. This continued for one to two weeks. It became her daily routine to knock on the door once in the morning and once in the evening.
Finally, after 15 days, the door opened. What greeted her shocked her. The condition of the man was beyond what she could describe. But she didn't let that affect her goal.
"Hello, I am Sophia, your neighbor. Remember? We met some time ago. So, I was thinking if we could be friends."
Sumit had a blank look and was not paying attention to what the girl—who introduced herself as Sophia—was saying. But when the word "friend" was used, he remembered those two, and that made him angry.
"No! I don't want to! Now get lost." He shouted, much to Sophia's shock, and closed the door.
This scared Sophia, and tears started falling from her eyes.
"I just wanted to help," she muttered in a slow voice. She started crying and sprinted to her apartment.
Sumit was standing just behind the door and heard what she said.
"Help… Ha ha ha... I don't need anyone's help. I am already beyond that."
After laughing at his poor self, he started heading toward his bed.
As he was walking, he looked around his apartment. Trash bags had piled up and filled the space, but he didn't want to throw them away. Soon, he was beside the full-body mirror that was present in his apartment.
He saw himself, his reflection—a fat, ugly, broken man who had lost the drive to live. A man who had nothing in this world other than his sorry ass.
"What happened?! You really are a loser, aren't you? Where is that narcissistic, confident man? What happened to your cockiness now? All you're left with is a man buried in his own filth."
Sumit's reflection in the mirror spoke, but this reflected Sumit was different. He was the complete opposite of the current one. The reflection was his past self before betrayal.
*crack*
Sumit punched the mirror in anger, causing it to crack, and seeing this, the reflection laughed.
Sumit couldn't stand his own reflection because he himself knew that the reflection was right, and with the reflection still laughing, he left without saying anything, only the mockery and laughter in his ears.