The Adopted Son: Revenge

8

**Chapter 8**  

**What Cannot Be Postponed**

The episode came in the middle of a delivery.

Raka had just carried the last crate of cooking oil into a small shop near the river when his vision narrowed at the edges. The floor seemed to tilt. He set the crate down carefully, too carefully, and braced both hands against the counter. The shop owner—a woman in her sixties—looked up from her ledger.

“Young man?”

He tried to answer. The words did not come. A cold sweat spread across his back. For several long seconds the only sound he could hear was the uneven rhythm of his own breathing.

When the world finally steadied, the woman was standing in front of him with a plastic stool.

“Sit,” she ordered. “You look like death.”

He sat. She pressed a glass of warm water into his hands and watched him drink it in small sips. Only when the color began to return to his face did she speak again.

“You’re not well. Anyone can see that.”

“I’m fine now,” Raka said. The sentence sounded unconvincing even to himself.

She did not argue. She only said, “Tell Bu Endah to give you lighter loads for a few days. And see a proper doctor. Not the kind that just hands out pills and sends you away.”

He thanked her and left as soon as he could stand without swaying. The remaining deliveries were completed in a haze of careful movements and frequent pauses. By the time he returned the truck, Bu Endah took one look at him and pointed to the back room.

“Sit. You’re done for today.”

He did not protest.

---

At the orphanage the news of his early return traveled faster than he did. Nek Sum met him at the door with a damp cloth and the kind of silence that was more worried than any question. Mbah Darmo appeared from the yard, hammer still in hand, and simply said, “Go lie down.”

Ajeng was the one who followed him to his room. She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, watching him lower himself onto the mattress.

“You collapsed.”

“I didn’t collapse. I sat down.”

“That’s what people say when they almost collapse.”

Raka closed his eyes. The residual dizziness made the darkness behind his lids feel safer than the light. “I need to rest. That’s all.”

Ajeng remained where she was for a long moment. Then she left and returned with a basin of cool water and a clean washcloth. She set them on the small table without speaking, soaked the cloth, and placed it on his forehead with a roughness that did not quite hide the care behind it.

“If you get worse, I’m telling Nek Sum to drag you to the hospital,” she said. “I don’t care if you hate it.”

“I won’t hate it,” Raka murmured.

Ajeng’s hand paused. For a second the carefully maintained distance between them thinned. Then she withdrew, muttered something about checking the rice, and left him alone.

---

The call from Pak Hasan came in the late afternoon, while Raka was still lying in the half-dark of his room. He almost let it ring out. On the fourth tone he answered.

Pak Hasan’s voice was tight. “They had an emergency board discussion this morning. Closed doors. Even some of the older directors were called in. The shipping losses are worse than projected. One of the eastern distributors has suspended orders until the rates stabilize. Mbak Wulan looked… shaken.”

Raka stared at the ceiling. A thin crack ran across the plaster near the window, old and familiar.

“Bimo tried to take control of the meeting,” Pak Hasan continued. “He suggested they reach out to you directly. Mbak Wulan shut it down immediately. She said the company does not negotiate with people who are no longer part of it. But after the meeting I heard her on the phone with Mbak Prita. They were arguing.”

“About me?”

“About whether they made a mistake.”

Raka said nothing.

Pak Hasan lowered his voice. “Some of the staff are starting to say things they wouldn’t have dared say two weeks ago. Quietly. That the company ran on more than official titles. That certain people carried more than their share for years without recognition. It’s not open talk yet. But the ground is shifting.”

“Let it shift,” Raka said.

After the call he remained still for a long time. The cool cloth on his forehead had warmed. He removed it and set it aside. The nausea had receded, leaving behind a deep, bone-level exhaustion that felt different from ordinary tiredness. This was the kind that came with knowledge—the knowledge that the body was no longer willing to negotiate indefinitely.

---

That evening the orphanage ate earlier than usual. Nek Sum had prepared soft rice porridge with shredded chicken, the kind meant for people recovering from illness. No one commented on the menu, but every bowl was placed in front of Raka with quiet insistence. He ate slowly, aware of the eyes that occasionally glanced his way and then politely looked elsewhere.

After dinner Ajeng found him on the porch. She carried two glasses of warm milk and sat on the step below him, leaving a careful space between them.

“You’re going to have to tell them eventually,” she said, staring out at the dark yard. “Mbah and Nek. They already suspect something.”

“I know.”

“Are you dying?”

The question was blunt, almost harsh, the way Ajeng preferred most truths to be delivered. Raka considered lying. Then he decided against it.

“The doctors said three months. That was almost a month ago. It might be longer. It might not.”

Ajeng’s shoulders went rigid. She did not look at him.

“You’re telling me this like you’re talking about the weather.”

“Would you prefer I shouted?”

“No.” Her voice was smaller than usual. “I just… didn’t think it was that serious.”

They sat in silence while the night insects began their steady chorus. After a while Ajeng spoke again, still not facing him.

“If you need someone to go with you to the hospital or whatever, I can. I’m not good at soft words or any of that. But I can sit there and make sure the nurses don’t ignore you.”

Raka felt something in his chest loosen—not the physical pain, but a different kind of tightness that had lived there for years.

“Thank you,” he said.

Ajeng stood abruptly, as if the conversation had reached the limit of what she could tolerate. “Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t even gone. And if you die before the roof is fully finished, I’m going to be very annoyed.”

She went inside before he could answer. The door closed softly behind her.

Raka remained on the porch, the untouched glass of milk cooling beside him. The city beyond the orphanage walls continued its ordinary noise. Somewhere inside those walls, people who had once called him family were beginning to feel the absence he had chosen to leave behind. The knowledge brought no triumph. Only a quiet, steady certainty that the path he was walking—however short it might prove to be—was finally his own.

He finished the milk, rose carefully, and went inside to rest. The body would keep its own counsel. The days ahead would demand more honesty than he had given them so far. For tonight, it was enough to have spoken one true thing aloud and to have been met, not with panic, but with a rough and unexpected offer of company.

He slept more deeply than he had in weeks.