In that neighborhood, there was no one who didn't know the house with the green gate.

The man of that house—no, that bastard who wasn't even worth calling human—without fail bought alcohol at the supermarket on days he lost money gambling. On those nights, the fluorescent lights in that house never went out. Shouting, the sound of things breaking, and heavy thumping sounds. Noises that would never come from a normal home echoed through the narrow alley every night as if tearing it apart.

My grandfather said so. That the mother of that house ran away as soon as she gave birth, and that bastard was raising the child alone.

Not long after telling me that, even my grandfather closed his eyes. There was no one left in this world to hold me. In a house filled only with coldness, I became completely alone in a vast isolation. The arrival of tomorrow was a cruel punishment, and living was nothing more than meaningless days spent just staying alive.

I remember vividly the day I first brushed past that child.

Given the nature of the cramped houses, it was natural to run into each other, but in that moment, it felt like the whole world stopped. You, wearing a different school uniform than mine, were passing through the alley with a bruised face. A face so pitiful and brilliant that it couldn't be hidden even under those hellish lights.

Beautiful.

The moment I first saw you, my heart dropped. Since that day I was captivated by those deep, sad eyes, my frozen world began to flow again, centered only on you.

But we were strangers who didn't even know each other's names. We never properly exchanged a word, and whenever our shoulders brushed in the alley, we were busy avoiding each other's eyes. Nevertheless, every time I faced your increasing wounds in the alleyway, it felt like my heart was splitting.

Bruises that wouldn't disappear even as you tried to pull down your long sleeves to hide them. Watching you slowly crumble, I realized something.

My life was a hellish struggle just to sustain myself, but that fleeting moment of seeing you was different. The mere fact that you existed had become the only reason I had to open my eyes and endure this miserable day.

You were the very meaning of life to me.

Then one day.

As usual, late at night, I was trudging up the alleyway with tired steps after finishing night self-study. A sound that cruelly tore the silence hit my ears. From the direction of that house with the green gate, a thumping sound erupted—desperate and heavy, on a level different from anything before, as if breath was being cut short.

In an instant, my mind went blank and then pitch black. In my world that had become empty after my grandfather left, a terror that your last breath—the only thing that made my heart beat—might be extinguished pierced me to the bone.

I ran like I was possessed to the gap in the half-open green gate. The moment I saw you lying there bleeding inside, I could no longer hesitate or weigh the consequences. Without hesitation, I pushed aside that green door that connected you to hell and threw myself in.

Breathless, I barely managed to pick you up and hold you in that blood-scented house. My palms, which tightly gripped your trembling wrists, were smeared with a mixture of cold sweat and your blood.

Wrapping my hands around your wrists that felt like they might break, I staked my life on you.

Just as you gave my pitch-black life a reason to live, I would now pull you out of the hell you were trampled in and paint a 'future' called a brilliant tomorrow. I would dare to save that world full of cold wounds.

Toward you, with whom I hadn't even shared a single greeting, I spat out my only and desperate voice of salvation.

"Let's run away."

On that night when I was seventeen, I took you, whose name and voice I didn't even properly know, into my arms and fled recklessly to my small, cold house that my grandfather had left behind.