When there was still no answer, something in him snapped. He stepped back and kicked the door with such force that the wood shuddered. The driver, startled, rushed forward but did not interfere. The second kick loosened the latch. The third broke it open entirely, the door slamming against the wall with a loud crack.
The little girl screamed. The adoptive father stood up abruptly, shock flooding his face. "Mr. Arden?" he exclaimed, recognizing him instantly. Everyone addressed him that way — with distance, with formality.
Kai stepped inside without invitation. The room suddenly felt smaller, suffocating under the weight of his presence. His face was flushed deep red now, anger radiating off him in waves. His chest rose and fell rapidly. The tendons in his neck were taut. His eyes looked almost unfamiliar — burning, wounded, furious.
"How?" he demanded, his voice low and trembling with restrained violence. "How are you laughing?"
"Mr. Arden, please calm down—" the man began, confusion and fear mingling in his tone.
Kai closed the distance between them in two strides and grabbed his collar, shoving him back against the wall. The impact made a heavy sound. The child cried louder, backing away in terror.
"Your daughter is dead," Kai said, his voice rising now, raw and sharp. "She's gone. And you are here playing like nothing happened?"
"Mr. Arden, you don't understand," the man tried to say, his hands trembling as he held Kai's wrist.
Kai's fist tightened. His arm flexed as he pulled it back, ready to strike. The veins along his forearm were stark and visible, his knuckles rigid. His entire body was shaking, not from weakness but from the sheer intensity of his rage.
Alina rushed forward then, unable to stand by any longer. "Kai!" she called out, grabbing his forearm firmly. He did not look at her at first. His gaze was locked onto the man in front of him.
"I need to teach him a lesson," Kai said through clenched teeth. "He replaced her. Look at him."
Alina stepped closer, placing herself partly between them. "Kai, listen to me." He finally glanced at her, and what she saw in his eyes was not just anger — it was devastation, helplessness twisted into fury.
"Let go," he warned softly, dangerously.
"No," she said, her voice steady despite the fear rising in her chest. "This is not the way."
"Not the way?" he repeated, almost laughing bitterly. "He smiles in his house while Anya—" His voice broke for half a second before hardening again. "He should feel something."
The man, still pressed against the wall, said shakily, "Mr. Arden, that child is my niece—"
Kai's grip tightened again. Alina squeezed his arm harder. "Kai, look at me." He hesitated. The little girl's sobs filled the room.
"You are scaring her," Alina said quietly. "This isn't about him. This is about you. Don't do something you will regret."
For a long moment, the tension in his raised fist remained. His entire body seemed poised between violence and restraint.
Then, slowly, painfully, his fingers loosened. He released the man's collar but did not step back immediately. His chest was still heaving, his face still burning red.
Alina gently pulled him toward the door. "Let's go."
He resisted for a second, his jaw tight, eyes still blazing. "He moved on," he muttered, almost to himself.
"Everyone grieves differently," she replied softly. "You don't get to decide how." He did not answer.
She guided him outside. The driver quickly opened the car door. Kai got inside abruptly, still seething. Alina followed without another word.
The drive home was heavy with silence, but it was not the silence of strangers ignoring each other. It was the silence of two people who understood that words, at that moment, would only make things worse.
Kai stared ahead, his reflection in the window still showing reddened eyes and a tight expression. His hands remained clenched on his knees. Alina sat beside him, watching him carefully, her own thoughts racing, but her mouth closed.
When they reached the house, Kai stepped out immediately and walked inside. Alina followed close behind. He did not storm off to a separate room. He went straight to the living area and stood there, pacing once, twice, his anger still simmering beneath the surface.
She walked up to him slowly. He stopped pacing but did not turn away from her.
"He replaced her," he said again, but this time the anger sounded thinner, layered over something fragile.
Alina met his gaze. "Or maybe he is trying to survive."
Kai's eyes were still red, the veins along his temple faintly visible. But now, beneath the fury, she could see something else — grief that had never been allowed to breathe properly. They stood there, facing each other, not ignoring, not distancing. The tension between them was thick, but so was the unspoken understanding. Furious Kai was terrifying — his presence overwhelming, his anger destructive.
But standing there in the quiet of their home, with his rage slowly giving way to pain, Alina realized that what frightened her most was not his fury. It was how deeply he was still hurting — and how little he knew what to do with it.
Kai retreated to his room in a silent fury, the kind of heat that burned so hot he didn't dare let it vent toward Alina. Rather than risk a word, he tore himself away from the living room and disappeared up the stairs, leaving the heavy silence of his anger behind him.
The sound of something shattering echoed through the house. Then another. And another. Alina froze for a split second in the hallway before rushing toward Kai's room. The crashes were violent, uncontrolled — glass breaking against walls, something heavy hitting the floor, wood scraping harshly.
She pushed his door open. The sight inside made her heart drop. The room looked like a storm had torn through it. Showpieces that once sat neatly on shelves were now scattered in pieces across the floor. Frames were cracked. A lamp lay broken near the corner. Every glass item that could shatter had already met its end. And in the middle of it all stood Kai.
His chest was rising and falling rapidly. His eyes were still red, darker now, swollen from unshed tears and fury. His hair had fallen messily over his forehead. The veins along his temple were pronounced again, his jaw tight as if he were holding back something larger than rage.
"Kai—" she started.
He grabbed the small mirror from the dresser and hurled it against the wall. It shattered instantly, fragments scattering everywhere. Then, before she could reach him, he stepped forward and punched what remained of the mirror frame still hanging there. The sound was sickening.
Glass cracked further. His fist collided hard with the surface, and shards sliced into his skin. For a second, he didn't react, didn't even flinch. Blood appeared slowly at first, then more vividly as tiny pieces of glass lodged into his palm.
"Kai!" she shouted, rushing toward him.
But he didn't look at his hand. He didn't look at the blood. It was as if physical pain was irrelevant compared to what was happening inside him. The rage that had kept him upright moments ago suddenly drained.
He staggered back and sank to the floor beside the bed. He sat there, legs stretched slightly forward, his back leaning against the side of the mattress. If he tilted his head back just a little, it could rest on the bed.
His injured hand lay open in his lap, streaked red. Alina walked carefully across the broken glass, not caring if it cut her feet. She reached him and sat down beside him without a word, close enough that their shoulders almost touched.
Silence filled the room. She didn't scold him. She didn't ask why; she simply sat there. Kai stared at nothing as he spoke after a long moment, his voice raw and uneven, like the words were being dragged out of him.
"How do people do it?" He let out a hollow laugh.
"How do they just… go back to normal?" His head tipped back against the bed.
"How do they bury someone… and then laugh the next day again?" Silence stretched between them.
"The cruellest part of grief isn't the loss," he continued quietly. "It's what comes after." His injured hand curled slightly in his lap.
"The world keeps moving." His voice cracked.
"You realize your heart has turned into a cemetery… a place you visit every day. But for everyone else…" He swallowed.
"…it's just a road they already walked past." His breathing became uneven.
"They forget." The word barely left his mouth.
"And I know forgetting is how people survive. I know that." His jaw tightened. "But when you're the one left behind… it feels like betrayal." He let out a slow, broken breath.
"It's strange, isn't it? How quickly the world cleans up after death." His gaze lowered to the floor.
"They wipe the blood from the pavement… close the hospital room… and life goes on." His voice dropped to a whisper.
"A few tears. A quote on a headstone." He laughed quietly, bitterly. "And then people go back to arguing about the weather." Silence again.
"They don't just forget the person," he said hoarsely. "They forget the hole that person left behind." His chest rose sharply.
"Grief has an expiration date for everyone except the one bleeding." His voice finally broke completely.
"For them, it's a tragedy." He closed his eyes.
"But for me…" A tear slid down his temple into his hair. "…it's the air I breathe."
"They wear their mourning like a coat they can take off when the sun comes out, but I'm still standing in the winter, wondering where everyone went."
Alina felt her own throat tighten painfully. He let his head fall back against the bed, staring at the ceiling.
"When my mother died," he said quietly, and the words themselves felt fragile, "my father didn't even cry."
Alina's breath caught. No one knew about this. No one.
"He went back to work in two weeks. Two weeks." His lips trembled. "The house still smelled like her perfume. Her cup was still in the kitchen cabinet. And he… he buried himself in meetings. Business trips. Expansion plans." His injured hand clenched slightly, making fresh blood slip down his wrist.
"It felt like she was erased. Like she was just a chapter that ended and everyone agreed not to reread it." His voice cracked.
"I used to sit in her room at night because I was scared I would forget the sound of her voice. And he was downstairs on calls like nothing had happened." He let out a broken breath.
"So when I saw him today… laughing… playing…" He shut his eyes tightly. "It felt the same. Like, Anya was just… replaceable. Like the world makes space for someone else and moves on."
Alina's vision blurred. She slowly reached for his injured hand, careful of the glass. She turned his palm gently upward, inspecting the cuts. Blood stained her fingers, but she didn't pull away.