******“Lorraine. Sophia,” he said, greeting them by name with the kind of familiarity one might use when running into old friends after years apart.His voice was smooth, even welcoming, as though this was a pleasant reunion rather than the confrontation it had already become.The two women stiffened further. Their brows shot upward in surprise at hearing their names spoken so naturally by a stranger.“You still haven’t answered my question,” Lorraine said quickly, her suspicion sharpening. She kept her guard firmly in place, unwilling to be disarmed by his calm and gentle demeanor.Sophia, meanwhile, had gone unnervingly quiet. Her eyes narrowed as she studied Glenn’s face intently, as though searching her memory for a puzzle piece that suddenly seemed to fit.Then suddenly, like a thunderclap, recognition struck. In the next second, her eyes widened, her pupils constricting.“Wait… aren’t you… Glenn?” she blurted, her voice tight with disbelief.

******Glenn wasn’t originally from Jay City.That’s right.A decade ago, he had arrived in this bustling city as a ten-year-old nobody… no family, no friends, no relatives, and no nothing.He had just been a skeletal-thin little boy with empty, lifeless eyes and clothes so dirty and tattered that they clung to him like his second skin, making him appear like an asylum seeker.Back then, Glenn was the kind of child people looked past.He was just another nameless and homeless soul under the bridge, who shivered through nights so cold that they ate away at his bones and tore through dumpsters by the day, fighting stray dogs for scraps that barely counted as food.His clothes were little more than damp, clinging to his skeletal frame with a stench so… well, that he had grown used to it.Back then, he had tried seeking refuge in different homeless shelters, but each time he was turned away… because, as a minor, it was illegal for them to take him in unless he had a legal guardian

******“Did… did you two just hear that voice?”Jonathan’s words cracked softly, sounding like splintering old wood. But Lorraine and Sofia didn’t answer.Instead, their faces turned away, their expressions stiff with deliberate silence.However, Jonathan was too oblivious or simply too shaken to notice. Instead, he stammered again, his voice trembling on the edge of disbelief.“The voice… it… It sounds like little Glenn, doesn’t it?”And that was it.In the next second, something in Glenn eased… just slightly, and the faintest warmth flickered under his ribs, subtle but there.So he spoke again, louder this time, his voice carrying across the yard with quiet steadiness.“Because it is me, Jonathan.”The man froze immediately… but only for a second. In the next moment, a powerful tremor ripped through him… harder this time.His shoulders shuddered as though bracing against a storm. Then, slowly, almost as if dragged by invisible

******Currently inside the Woods’ living room... a space that was neither lavish nor pitifully humble, just the sort of modest comfort that belonged to someone neither poor nor rich, two opposing worlds seemed to collide.On one side, Jonathan and Glenn sat facing each other across the coffee table, Jonathan’s posture leaning forward with concern, while Glenn lounged back with complete calmness, as though he weren’t the one Jonathan was filled with concern toward.On the other side, perched together like twin vipers sharing the same coil were Lorraine and Sophia, who were seated shoulder to shoulder with scowls twisting their faces, appearing as though merely breathing the same oxygen as Glenn was a great offense to their very existence.The two women glared openly at him, their hatred and revulsion so unrestrained that it practically filled the air. They looked at Glenn the way executioners might look at someone already bound to the stake.Jonathan, as usual, was completely bli

******Jonathan’s words cut the air with brutal force, causing Lorraine and Sophia to jolt in their seats, utterly startled by the sudden outburst.In the following moment, their mocking smirks faltered, replaced by wide-eyed shock.Jonathan’s face flushed a dangerous shade of red, his chest rising and falling in quick, angry breaths. “How could you…” His voice trembled, thick with rage and disbelief. “How could you be so filled with… with such spite and so much cruelty for him? What has he ever done to deserve this from you?”The room went utterly silent, the only sound the faint hum of the air conditioning.Lorraine’s lips parted, but no words came.Ultimately, she lowered her gaze, her cheeks heating with something dangerously close to shame. Sophia, on the other hand, shifted uncomfortably in her seat, crossing her arms tighter.Jonathan sat there, his chest still heaving, trying to steady himself.Finally, with a deep breath and a sharp,