Chapter 87: [HEART BREAK]

Earlier…

“Is… is this a joke?” Eli whispered, his voice trembling as his eyes locked onto the glowing panel before him.

His throat felt dry, constricted, like something heavy had settled there. “Tell me this is a joke. A punishment of sorts. Right?”

But no matter how much he willed it, the system didn’t flicker away. The words remained.

If this was a punishment, it was crueler than anything the system had thrown at him before.

This wasn’t a night of forced overstimulation. This wasn’t some humiliating task shoved at him at the worst possible time.

This was worse.

Finally, after days of being yanked along by this cursed system, after days of begging for crumbs of insight about Lucien Kim’s family, about the family he left behind—finally, it gave him information.

But not the kind he wanted.

Not the kind he could stomach.

His chest squeezed painfully as his gaze darted across the words again, desperate for a mistake. A misprint. Anything.

The information was pulled from a fundraising site—a public post. FundForACause.com. A place where artists scraped for supplies, students pleaded for tuition, small-time dreamers begged strangers to fund their visions.

But that wasn’t what this was.

Most of the posts were from people clinging to survival. Sick people. Desperate people. People with family they couldn’t bear to lose.

And the post on his screen was from Lucas Kim.

Lucien’s little brother.

His little brother.

Eli’s fingers trembled as though the words themselves might cut him if he touched them. The boy’s name sat there like a weight, stark and heavy.

And what Lucas was asking for…

Eli’s eyes dragged down the glowing screen, each word carving deeper into him like glass shards.

“Hello, my name is Lucas Kim. I’m fundraising for my mom, Anna Kim. She has been diagnosed with severe dilated cardiomyopathy, and the doctors said she needs a heart transplant as soon as possible. Without it… she won’t have much time.”

His throat seized. Air caught sharp and jagged in his lungs. The words swam, blurred by the sudden burn of tears, but his hand still jerked down the page, frantic, desperate to see more.

’No. Please no. Don’t—don’t let this be real.’

“My dad hasn’t been able to work. He lost his job because he stopped showing up due to depression… he hasn’t been the same since my older brother went missing.”

Eli’s gut twisted violently, a sick mix of rage and guilt clawing at him. His chest burned so hot he thought it might split open.

Lucas’s words scrolled on, shaky but clear, carrying the weight of someone far too young forced to act like an adult.

“I’m still in high school. I can’t work yet. We don’t have enough savings for the surgery, or even the medications. Please… please, anyone who can, we really need help. Even just a share would mean the world.”

Then the photos hit him like a sledgehammer.

And Eli—no, Lucien—saw her.

His mom.

Anna Kim.

She was thinner than he remembered, almost unrecognizable. Her cheeks hollow, skin pale and stretched too tight. Her eyes—once so full of warmth—were sunken, dulled by exhaustion.

She lay in a hospital bed with tubes running into her arms, an oxygen line under her nose.

And even then—even when she looked like she had been eaten alive by sickness—she smiled for the camera. A frail, trembling smile, as if she could still shield Lucas from how bad things truly were.

Eli’s breath hitched. A soundless sob clawed at his throat, his vision shaking.

’No… Mom… oh, God, Mom…’

“My mommy.”

She looked fragile, like glass—one wrong touch and she would break.

And Lucas. His baby brother. Alone. Writing all this. Carrying all this.

Eli’s trembling hand scrolled lower, desperate, until he saw the bottom.

₱0 raised.

Bright red and bold.

The fundraiser had been up for twenty-four hours.

And not a single donation.

Eli’s whole body went cold, then hot, shaking violently as tears blurred his sight.

He clamped a hand over his mouth, trying to hold back the noise, but it was useless—sobs pressed against his chest like they wanted to tear him apart from the inside.

’She’s sick. She’s really sick and I… I was wasting time. Complaining. Avoiding tasks. Thinking I could pace myself. While Lucas is begging strangers, while Mom’s dying, while Dad…’

His legs buckled and he collapsed onto the bed’s edge, knuckles white as he clutched the sheets. His breath came in ragged, uneven gasps, his chest caving in with every sob.

’Because of me. Because Lucien Kim is gone. Because I wasn’t there.’

“No…” His voice cracked, breaking raw and ugly. “No, no, no…”

The walls spun around him, pressing in, suffocating. His chest hurt in a way no punishment, no monster, no fight ever could. It was sharp, crushing, relentless—like his own heart was punishing him.

And then—through the blur—he saw it.

The hospital name.

Right there, under “Proof & Updates.”

Eli froze. His vision tunneled, his breath shallow, sharp.

He knew where she was.

His heart slammed back into rhythm, violent and thunderous. His body moved before his brain could catch up.

He shoved himself off the bed, nearly stumbling as his legs carried him forward. His hands fumbled clumsily, shoving his phone into his pocket.

The apartment spun, the walls tilting, but he didn’t care. His chest was a storm, his pulse a drumbeat of desperation.

“I’m going to see her.”

The words ripped out of him, hoarse and absolute.

He didn’t even realize he was saying them as he shoved the bathroom door wide open. His footsteps thundered against the floor, too fast, too reckless.

His movements were wild—half panicked, half possessed.

He didn’t think about shoes. Didn’t think about a plan. Didn’t think about what would happen if someone saw him.

His body was a blur of motion, carrying him toward the door like gravity itself was pulling him.

’I have to see her.’

Presently…

The taxi screeched to a halt at the curb. Eli shoved bills into the driver’s hand without even counting, his fingers shaking too badly to care if he overpaid.

The door swung open, and he practically stumbled out, his shoes slapping against the pavement as the humid evening air hit his face.

The hospital loomed in front of him—white walls glowing faintly under the fluorescent lights that lined the entrance. Sterile.

Yet to Eli, it felt like the gates of salvation and hell all at once.

His chest rose and fell violently as he stood frozen on the sidewalk, the rush of the city fading into static.

His palms were slick with sweat, his heart a caged animal hammering against his ribs.

He tilted his face up, staring at the sign above the doors.

’She’s here. Right now. Just a few floors away. Mom is here.’

His knees nearly buckled with the weight of it. He clutched at his shirt, dragging in air like a drowning man.

“Deep breaths… deep… deep breaths,” he muttered to himself, forcing the words past a trembling throat. But every inhale only made the burn sharper, his body screaming at him to move, to run.

The revolving glass doors gleamed ahead, reflecting his own pale, panicked face back at him. He looked like someone sprinting straight toward the edge of a cliff.

“I’m coming, Mom,” Eli whispered, voice breaking as his hand curled into a fist.

And then he moved.

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