Chapter 404: Let’s see how well you handle the future
Aether’s dark eyes watched in silent torment as his past self sat before his mother, the warmth of her smile….. She fed him the tainted food as if it were a loving act, her hands tender, her gaze soft.
He wanted to know just one thing.
“Why?” Aether’s voice trembled, a mixture of eagerness and pain, the question hovering on the edge of desperation.
His heart, though hardened, felt the weight of it crashing into him again.
[Why?… Why would she do that to her own son?]
The words appeared
[Maybe you hurt someone she cherished… Maybe you frightened her, her beloved child… Or maybe she saw something in you, something that made her fear for herself. Who knows?]
As the words faded, the scene shifted slowly, painfully.
His surroundings melted away, revealing the cold, dilapidated walls of a run-down apartment. Aether, his younger self, was alone there… exhausted, hollow, struggling even to secure the simplest of jobs.
Aether’s past self had tried, time and time again, to visit Penelope’s house. The woman he once thought could save him. But the guards barred his way, their faces stone-like, unmoved by his pleas. Her house was a fortress now, guarded as if she were a queen…. and he, a beggar at the gates.
He had waited outside for days. Days turned into weeks.
But none of the cars leaving the estate ever stopped for him. Not once!!
He had stood there in the rain, in the blistering sun, waiting—hoping she would come out, acknowledge him, give him a chance.
But nothing.
Just an endless stream of cars that came and went without a glance in his direction.
When he had lost almost everything—his pride, his dignity—he realized he couldn’t stand there anymore. He had nothing left to lose, nothing but the faint glimmer of shame that still clung to the edges of his heart. If he lost that, he might lose himself entirely.
[Inferiority…]
The word appeared before him, stark and cold.
Current Aether stared blankly at it… He had once believed he could rise above it.
That he could move on. But the truth had always been that no matter what he tried, no matter how many nights he spent drowning in someone else’s arms, he couldn’t escape it. Every woman he tried to connect with, every fleeting encounter… it all ended the same.
They left him, walking away without a second thought, leaving him in the wreckage of his own shattered self-esteem… His relationship with other women was mostly like longing for a week or two.
Physical closeness, emotional vulnerability…. none of it worked… No one could able to fill the gap she left.
He was nothing but a hollow man…
Then one day, a call came. A voice from the past…. His stepfather.
“I heard you’re still searching for a job,” the man’s voice was smooth, dripping with condescension.
“….”
“Still stubborn, aren’t you?” There was a pause as if the man was savouring the moment. “Anyway, my son—your brother—just landed a position at a prestigious company. Thought you should know.”
Aether’s fingers clenched around the phone.
He didn’t respond.
Didn’t need to.
He hung up without a word, his hand shaking as he discarded the SIM card.
He wasn’t going to beg for scraps from that man.
But just days later, the phone rang again. His voice cut through Aether’s silence.
“Not bad, Aether. You’ve still got some spirit, I see.”
“What do you want?” Aether asked his voice void of emotion, almost dead.
He had no energy left to care.
“Nothing much. I’ve got a job for you, a real opportunity this time.”
“I don’t—”
“Are you sure about that?” His stepfather’s voice turned sharp, knowing, “From where I’m standing, it looks like you’re not doing so well. You’re getting older, and you know as well as I do that the world doesn’t wait. The clock is ticking. Any more delays and you’ll be left behind. Completely.”
“…..”
Aether remained silent, but his jaw tightened.
“Think about it. This is your last chance. Meet with my son… your brother. You know the address.”
The call ended, and Aether stared at his phone.
He wanted to scream, to shatter something, but the energy escaped him, leaving him hollow.
Shouting wasn’t going to change anything…. he was trapped and nothing he did could break him free.
He ignored the so-called offer, throwing himself into the job search with renewed desperation…. but it was futile, now not even they allowed him to a trial.
A call from a friend,
“Yo, man… listen, I’ve got some bad news,” his friend said, voice hesitant, apologetic. “I’ve been digging into why you’ve been losing your jobs and… sorry for not doing it behind your ba–”
“Just tell me what you found,” Aether asked, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
“Well, it’s your stepfather. He’s been pulling strings behind the scenes. He’s the reason everyone pushed you out of the jobs and some even paid to cause chaos to the jobs that tried to keep you against his words”
Aether didn’t flinch. “I see…” he replied, voice numb.
There was no shock, no surprise. He had suspected it all along, but admitting it would have made the nightmare real. Now it was.
His stepfather was exacting his revenge, taking away any chance Aether had at climbing out of the hole he’d been shoved into.
An amused, bitter smile crossed Aether’s lips, ‘If only killing him were legal,’ he thought darkly, his eyes gleaming with suppressed anger. But the thought vanished just as quickly as it came.
He had no choice. His back was against the wall.
After everything he had been through, after every humiliation, working under his little brother didn’t even matter anymore.
This wasn’t a story where he could become a mysterious VIP overnight, where he could rise from the ashes…. It’s a damn reality!
Aether was just a grain of sand, barely noticeable in the shadow of a mountain built on filth.
People had always given him advice, told him he could have done better.
But they didn’t know.
They couldn’t understand.
Only Aether knew the truth… because he was Aether!!
Not just anybody. No one else could understand the weight he carried, the battles he fought alone.
Current Aether stood, watching his past self as he slowly resigned to fate. He could see the moment his younger self stopped caring and stopped fighting.
There was no pity in his eyes, no sympathy.
Because he knew that without the ‘Log,’ without the mysterious powers he now possessed, he was just another lost soul.
A fucking nobody!!
And the truth was, everyone was nobody in their own life.
You needed either a family that held you up, or you had to make damn sure you never made an enemy of someone who could crush you. Especially when you were weak and soft inside like he had been.
That was life…. Not about the right choices or the perfect timing.
It was about surviving and snatching other’s opportunities… About knowing your place.
Aether had learned that lesson the hard way, and it had taken everything from him.
In the end, he was just a pathetic bastard, clinging to the hope that one day, he could control his own life.
[….]
Sensing something off, the words appeared before him, teasing:
[You’re calm?]
Aether smiled faintly, his eyes distant as he watched the reels of his past flicker to their inevitable end…. “Me?… Calm?… I don’t know… Maybe because at that point, I had nothing left to care about.”
The truth was, he had been horrified by his mother’s betrayal.
The rage had burned deep, seething within him. There had been a time when he wanted nothing more than to destroy her for what she had done…. destroying his future, his hope, his trust!!
But as he stared at the scenes from his past, something inside him shifted. At that point, there was nothing left. Even if he had the power to go back and change it all—what would be the point?
To win back a girl who had left him without a second thought?
Sure, there were lingering feelings for her…. That much was undeniable!
She had imprinted herself on him so deeply that no matter how much he tried to move forward, her face remained etched in his heart. It was hard to let go of something, or someone, that had changed the course of your life.
And Penelope had certainly done that.
But his mother? He realized now, he didn’t care about her anymore. Whether she lived or died, it meant nothing to him.
He wouldn’t shed a single tear.
The bond they once had was severed beyond repair.
Perhaps, in some ways, he was still that same pathetic loser…
Yet,
His level bar was almost at its peak… marked with a devilish grin ‘😈’—just one small push away from releasing the storm of emotions he had locked away for so long.
[….]
Suddenly, the vision flickered to a halt, freezing just before he would have been killed by organ traffickers in one of the darker memories.
Two doors materialized before him. One was pristine, pure white like before. The other… even more darker than before…
Without hesitation, Aether casually stepped through the white door, as if he had always known which path to take.
[Indeed… He’s a better actor than either his mother or father ever imagined. What they hoped for! He’s so good at holding back… Fu~Fu~ but here, he must face himself. You can’t hide forever, Aether…]
The words in the pitch-black void appeared briefly before fading away into the darkness once more.
Aether blinked, surprised when the space around him changed, no longer an empty void. Instead, he stood in a space bathed in soft light…. white, sterile, peaceful.
“Where am I?” he wondered aloud, his voice sounding hollow in the vast space. He reached out, his hand barely brushing the smooth white walls when a words appeared, written in deep black letters:
[The glass is already full… all it needs is a single drop.]
“What…?”
Suddenly, a voice pierced the silence, trembling with emotion.
“A-Aether… H-How could you betray my love?”
Aether froze. He recognized that voice all too well. Slowly, he looked up—and there she was. Aqualina, tears streaming down her face, her expression filled with pain and confusion.
“W-What…?” Aether stammered, but before he could utter another word, the space around him shifted once again. He was surrounded— by visions or reels of all the women…. Aqualina, Aria, Helena, Stella, Delphine… and Maelona appeared.
[If you think you can handle your past… then let’s see how well you handle the future~]
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