At night, a man sat smoking, his eyes locked on a phone screen displaying a rising graph.
"Gambling sites... really are good business," he smiled.
His phone lit up—Dad.
He frowned. "Weird. He never calls," he muttered, standing up.
He exhaled, dropped the cigarette, stepped on it, and answered.
"Dad, what's going on?" he asked.
"David, I want to meet. There's something I need to say," his father replied.
A short, one-sided call.
David agreed. He drove to a nearby park, his eyes half-rolling.
"Don't tell me this is about some arranged marriage again," he thought.
When he arrived, his father was sitting beneath a dim park light, wearing a brown jacket, eyes weary and filled with worry.
"Dad," David called.
His father stood. And—
Slap.
A sharp sting burst across David's cheek.
Spit.
It landed on his expensive suit—still fresh with nicotine.
"What the hell, Dad?!" David snapped.
"You're a disgrace. A sinner!" his father shouted, fists clenched.
"You rob the poor with your damn loan scams!"
David scoffed.
No more fake respect. "Come on. It's just business."
"Business?! Booze? Gambling? You profit off filth!" his father roared.
David chuckled, then laughed.
"You dumb old man. Stop calling me a sinner. You think you're some saint?"
His father's body trembled with rage.
David stepped closer. "Stop being a pathetic old man. What have you ever done for this family? Just breed inside your little cage and let your kids suffer?"
His father's hand moved into his jacket.
David didn't flinch—blinded by wounds long buried. His awareness eaten away by emotions he'd suppressed for the sake of peace at home.
"What? You mad now? What the hell are you gonna do, huh?" He grinned, believing the wealth he earned was enough to back his strength.
That was the crack.
His final mistake.
His father pulled a knife—
Drove it straight into David's gut.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
David tried to fight back, but the pain spread too quickly.
His body weakened, his gaze tilted upward.
A sky without stars.
"Is this... the end?"
His father knelt down.
Hands soaked in blood, trembling.
The knife fell.
He clasped his hands, eyes shut tight, voice breaking into prayer:
"God... receive my son's soul. Cleanse his sins. If You must punish him first, then do so... but please, grant him a place in heaven."
David could still hear it—faintly.
Punish me?
I was the one who made them smile again…
A flash of his mother and younger sister's faces surfaced.
I was the one who freed them from poverty…
He remembered the day they moved into a real house—no more leaking roof, no more cold nights.
Ah… lucky me, I got to do that…
One last image rose—him sitting across a lawyer, signing the papers.
Ensuring that everything he earned—every sin-stained coin—would never fall into his father's blind kindness,
but into the hands of his mother and little sister—the only ones who still believed in him, even after learning the truth.
A final act of love, hidden beneath ambition.
A crooked redemption the world would never understand.
Even the prayer above… couldn't erase it.
A faint pride still lingered, even as that prayer tore through him.
His soul drifted...
Eyes still open—Ambition silenced.
Killed by the man who called it sin.
The awareness of a man who judged the world through legal and illegal, always sniffing for loopholes to justify his gains, now left its den.
The awareness of a man who judged the world through sin and virtue, believing he'd done enough just by avoiding the forbidden, now knelt and prayed—with pure sincerity.