ENEMY?

Rita, Nirvana's grandmother, was once a fierce woman. The kind who could silence someone with a single glance. Before she fell ill, she worked practically her entire life: cleaning houses, sewing other people's clothes, and doing anything that would bring in enough money to keep her family afloat. She has a tough, proud, and rather bitter personality; she hates feeling like a burden, which is why she often argues with Nirvana when she discovers money is missing or that he's come back bruised. She knows perfectly well where those bruises came from, even though he's never confessed it to her directly. And that destroys her inside.

Rita is an extremely observant woman. Although her illness leaves her weak and tired, she still retains the ability to easily read emotions. She watches Nirvana slowly wither away trying to hold everything together, and often cries silently when he leaves the house, believing no one can hear her. Even so, she never says "thank you." Instead, she straightens the collar of her sweatshirt before she leaves or saves food for her even if she's not hungry herself. That's her way of showing love.

And then there's Lilia.

Lilia is the complete opposite of Nirvana. She is light where he seems to be darkness. She is eight years old and still retains that sweet innocence that he has desperately tried to protect from the world. She is talkative, curious, and overly affectionate; she is always glued to him when he is at home, asking him questions or telling him absurd stories from school while he pretends not to hear her.

She adores her brother almost blindly. She believes Nirvana can fix anything: monsters under the bed, nightmares, cuts on her knees, even bad days. When he comes home late at night, she usually falls asleep on the couch waiting for him. And Nirvana… can never stand to see her sad.

With Lilia, it's different. Gentler. More human. He brushes her hair before bed, buys her cheap candy when he wins money fighting, and always finds a way to make her laugh, even if she comes home bleeding or can barely stand. He even learned to cook just because she once said she liked breakfasts "like the ones in the movies."

But Lilia is not completely naive. She's started noticing too many things: the bandages hidden in the bathroom, the crumpled money in Nirvana's pockets, the days he can barely walk. Sometimes she looks at him silently, as if she wants to ask something… though she never dares.

And that's precisely what scares Nirvana the most. May she one day understand exactly what kind of person she had to become to keep them alive.

Nirvana grew up too fast.

He never really knew his parents. His father disappeared before he could even remember him, and his mother died when he was barely ten, leaving him with a broken house, a sick grandmother, and a little sister who still believed monsters disappeared if you left the light on. From then on, everything fell on his shoulders.

They lived in an old, damp apartment, tucked away among forgotten buildings in the city. His grandmother Rita spent most of her time in bed, consumed by an illness that required expensive medications they could never fully afford. And his sister Lilia… his sister was the only truly good thing in his life. She combed his hair before school, made him breakfast even though he wouldn't eat, and learned to lie to her with a smile so she would never notice how desperate he was.

At first, she tried to do things "right." Small jobs: carrying boxes, cleaning shops, delivering food after school. But the money was never enough. Never. The bills kept piling up, the medications kept running out, and it became more and more common to hear her grandmother coughing up blood in the middle of the night.

Then underground fights appeared.

He was thirteen the first time he stepped into an illegal ring. A hidden place beneath a mechanic's workshop, filled with smoke, gambling, and adults yelling like animals. They saw him as thin, tired, with the face of a troubled kid… and yet he won. Because Nirvana learned quickly that he didn't fight for pride: he fought because he needed to survive.

From then on, it became a regular thing. He'd enter illegal fights several nights a week using fake names, letting older men beat him up while he returned the favor twice over. He'd end up with bruised ribs, split lips, and bleeding knuckles, but he'd go home with enough money to fill the refrigerator for a few more days.

No one at school really knew what he did. They only saw the bruises, the absences, the explosive temper, and the tired eyes. The teachers assumed he was a troublemaker; other students preferred to keep their distance. And Nirvana let everyone believe the worst. It was easier that way.

Lilith, his girlfriend, knew only fragments of his life. He never told her everything. He never spoke of the nights he vomited blood in the bathroom after a fight or the times he thought about throwing the fight just to avoid ever having to step into a ring again.

The only thing that kept him going was his sister. Because every time she smiled, sleepily hugging him while telling him he was "the best brother in the world," Nirvana felt it was still worth destroying himself a little more.

Nirvana is the kind of person who's impossible to figure out. Cold, sarcastic, and provocative by nature, he enjoys getting under people's skin just to see how they react. He has a sharp tongue and an irritating knack for finding exactly what to say to hurt. He seems to take nothing seriously, as if he's constantly bored with the world. However, beneath that insolent attitude lies something far more broken. He is extremely reserved; he never speaks of himself and avoids any conversation that might become personal. He has strange habits: disappearing for days at a time, returning with fresh injuries, constantly looking over his shoulder. Although he appears to feel nothing, he actually observes everything. He remembers minute details, detects mood changes immediately, and carries an emotional intensity that he represses to the point of self-harm. When he becomes attached to someone, he becomes dangerously protective, even self-destructive. And the worst part is that he smiles just when he's at his worst.

Tall, with broad shoulders and a slender but almost dangerously muscular build. His black hair is disheveled, falling over his eyes as if he never bothered to fix it. His gaze is heavy, tired; dark eyes that always seem to observe too closely, even when he's silent. The dark circles under his eyes give him an exhausted look, as if he sleeps little or carries burdens no one else knows about. His face is absurdly attractive in a raw way: a defined jawline, full lips, and a perpetually indifferent, almost mocking expression. He has small scars and poorly healed bruises scattered across his skin, especially near his cheekbones and neck, marks he tries to hide under dark clothing and oversized sweatshirts. He smells of smoke, rain, and something metallic that's hard to identify.