Luca sat alone on the rooftop of an abandoned apartment complex, staring at the glowing streets of Milan below.
For the first time in his life, he was free.
No more lectures.
No more expectations.
No more pretending to be someone he wasn't.
His parents had made their choice. And so had he.
So why did it feel like a weight still pressed against his chest? The city moved on beneath him; cars honking, people laughing, neon lights flickering but up there, in the cold darkness, he was just a boy with paint-stained hands and nowhere to go.
He reached into his backpack, fingers brushing against the familiar cold metal of a spray can. Deep scarlet red. The color of his name. The color of his rebellion.
If his parents no longer cared about him, if he had no home left to return to, then there was only one thing left to do. Paint.
Luca stood before a massive, untouched wall on the rooftop. No rules. No limits. No one telling him he was wasting his time.
He had nothing left to lose. He pressed the nozzle and began. This wasn't just any mural. This was his first piece as a free man.
His hands moved faster than ever before, his mind racing ahead of his body. He didn't stop to think. Didn't pause. Didn't hold back.
The image poured out of him like something that had been trapped for years, clawing its way to the surface.
And when he finally stepped back, his breath caught. It was him.
Not a traditional self-portrait but a figure standing on the edge of something vast and endless, staring out into the unknown. One step away from falling. One step away from flying.
And across the bottom, in bold and defiant letters, SCARLET.
Luca dropped his arms, exhaustion crashing into him all at once. This was it. His first masterpiece. And the whole city would see it.
The next morning, Luca sat in a crowded café, hood pulled low over his face. People were talking. Not about Lucian Varela. About Scarlet.
"Did you see the new one?" someone whispered. "Yeah, near Corso Buenos Aires. It's… insane. Like something out of a dream."
"Who do you think they are?"No clue. But whoever they are, they're brilliant." Luca sipped his coffee, fighting back a smirk. It was working. People were starting to care.
That evening, Luca was walking through the narrow streets of Brera when a familiar car pulled up beside him. Sleek. Black. Expensive. His father's car. Luca's stomach twisted.
The window rolled down. His mother sat in the back seat, staring at him through the tinted glass. "Lucian," she said. "Get in." Luca hesitated.
Every instinct screamed at him to walk away. But something in his mother's expression made him stop. Not anger. Not disgust. Something else.
He sighed, pulling the door open and sliding into the seat. The second the door shut, he regretted it.
His mother's gaze swept over him. The hoodie. The paint-stained hands. She exhaled. "You've been staying with that… artist, haven't you?" Luca crossed his arms. "His name is Santi."
His father, sitting beside her, shook his head. "We're trying to help you, Lucian." Luca let out a bitter laugh. "Help me?" His father nodded. "Come home. We'll fix this."
Luca's chest tightened. Fix. Like he was broken. His mother reached into her purse and pulled out a white envelope. She placed it on the seat between them. Luca stared at it. "What's this?"
"A fresh start," she said smoothly. "Money. Enough for you to enroll in a proper art school abroad. If you want to paint, fine. But do it the right way."
Luca's breath hitched. An art school. A real chance. For a split second, something inside him wavered. Then he remembered the way they had looked at him in that alley. Like he was nothing.
He shoved the envelope back at her. "You don't care about my art. You just want me out of Milan so I stop embarrassing you." His mother's lips thinned.
His father's expression hardened. "Lucian. Don't be foolish. This is your future." Luca shook his head.
"No," he said. "This is your way of controlling me." Silence.
Then his mother spoke the words that cut the deepest. "If you walk away now, Lucian, you walk away from this family." Luca's throat tightened.
But when he spoke, his voice was steady. "I think you already made that choice for me." Then he opened the door, stepped out and never looked back.
Luca wandered the streets for hours. At first, he walked fast like he could outrun the weight in his chest if he just kept moving. But the further he went, the heavier it became.
He had burned the last bridge to his past. And now… he had nothing.
He stopped in the middle of an empty street, hands shaking as he shoved them into his hoodie pockets. The air felt thicker, colder and pressing in from all sides.
He tried to tell himself he didn't care. That this was what he wanted. That he had chosen this. But deep down, some part of him, some stupid and fragile part had still wanted them to fight for him.
Had still wanted them to say, We love you anyway. But they hadn't. His mother's words echoed in his head.
"If you walk away now, Lucian, you walk away from this family." Luca squeezed his eyes shut, jaw tightening as a burning pressure rose in his chest. Fine. If they didn't want him, then he didn't need them either.
He forced himself to take a slow, shaky breath, pressing a hand to his chest as if that would stop the ache.
His fingers brushed against something. The can of deep scarlet paint in his pocket. His name. His identity. His real family.
The pressure inside him shifted, turning into something else. Not sadness. Not fear. Fire. He wasn't going to cry over them. He wasn't going to waste another second begging for love they were never going to give him.
Instead, he pulled out the spray can, shaking it as the familiar rattle filled the air. Then, without a second thought, he started painting. Not just a mural. A message.
"I AM NOT YOURS TO FIX." Each letter was bold. Sharp. Unbreakable. And beneath it, SCARLET. His final goodbye. And his first step forward.