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3rd Person POV

The house had never seemed so vast before.

It wasn’t just the sheer size of Oakfield Mansion, with its lengthy corridors, soaring ceilings, and rooms that seemed to blend into one another without end.

Adrien had grown up here, memorizing every twist and turn, every staircase, and every quiet nook where he would retreat as a kid, seeking solitude. Back then, the space felt comforting, a sign of stability, something solid that couldn’t easily be shaken.

Now, it felt empty.

Every step echoed too loudly against the polished floors, the sound trailing behind him as if reluctant to let him slip away unnoticed.

These days, the staff kept their distance, their conversations falling silent as soon as he appeared, their eyes darting toward him with a mix of sympathy and discomfort. Adrien chose to ignore it. He didn’t acknowledge much of anything anymore.

It had been a week since everything fell apart, and during that time, he discovered that silence could be more deafening than any argument.

He moved through the house like a ghost, without reacting, without pausing, without letting anything linger long enough to take hold.

That was the only way he could cope.

The gym had turned into his sanctuary.

Tucked away in a quieter part of the mansion, far from the main living areas, it was the only place where Adrien could exist without overthinking.

The steady rhythm of exercise, the controlled burn of muscles working hard, the repetition of familiar routines gave him something to focus on that wasn’t the constant, creeping awareness of all that had changed.

He pushed himself harder than usual.

More than he needed to, really.

With the barbell resting on his shoulders, he lowered himself into another squat, his breath steady and measured, even as the strain tightened in his muscles. Sweat soaked the back of his shirt, his grip secure against the cold metal as he pushed upward again with sharp precision.

Count. Move. Breathe.

That worked better for him, easier than letting his mind drift easier than digging up memories of moments where it should have been obvious who killed his mother.

He racked the bar with a quiet clank, standing there for a moment, chest rising and falling steadily, his reflection staring back from the mirrored wall. He looked the same. That was the odd part. No visible change, nothing marking the shift that had taken place beneath his surface.

Same face, same posture and same controlled expression.

If someone didn’t know better, they’d think nothing had changed at all.

Adrien reached for the towel draped over the bench, wiping the sweat from his face, his motions automatic. He didn’t hang around. No time to think about how his hands felt a bit shaky or how the silence crept in the moment the weights stopped moving.

Instead, he moved on to the next exercise.

That’s how the days went by.

Gym. Practice. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

Basketball practice and school was the only time he willingly left the mansion, the only place where the outside world faded into something manageable. On the court, everything was straightforward. There were rules, structure, clear expectations. The game’s noise drowned out everything else, keeping his mind engaged in a way nothing else could.

No one asked him questions there.

Or if they did, they quickly learned he wouldn’t answer.

"Yo, you good?" one teammate asked a few days back, catching him after practice as the others trickled out of the locker room.

Adrien paused just long enough to meet his gaze.

"Yeah."

That was enough to close the conversation. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

People never pressed further when he used that tone even as curiosity was killing them. They hadn’t before.

Back at the mansion, it was a different story.

There were no distractions in the quiet hours between routines, no structured environment to keep his thoughts in check. The silence pressed in, patient and persistent, as if waiting for the exact moment he slipped up.

For a week, he hadn’t.

For a week, he managed to keep everything locked down, sealed off behind that same controlled exterior he’d always relied on.

Until the evening he found himself in the study.

He hadn’t planned on going in.

His steps led him there almost instinctively, the familiar path guiding him past the open doorway until something in his mind caught up and made him pause. The room was still chaotic despite the staff trying to restore order. The obvious mess had been cleaned up, but an uneasy energy lingered in the air.

A faint scent of burnt paper still hung around, blending with the trace of scotch that had soaked into the rug.

Adrien stepped inside slowly, his gaze sweeping over the room with a detached focus.

This was where it had all happened.

Where everything he thought he knew was stripped away piece by piece, revealing only the truth beneath.

He didn’t dwell on it.

Instead, he found his attention drawn to the bookshelf along the far wall, something inside him nudging him closer. Almost unconsciously, he reached out, his fingers brushing along the spines of the neatly arranged books.

He wasn’t looking for anything specific.

At least, that’s what he kept telling himself.

His hand paused at a small gap between the books, something slightly off in an otherwise perfect shelf. He frowned, shifting the surrounding books enough to uncover what had been tucked behind them.

Another journal.

It was simple and unpretentious, the cover worn at the edges as if it had been read often. There was nothing remarkable about it at first glance, nothing explaining why it had been hidden away.

But something about it felt oddly familiar.

Adrien’s fingers tightened around it as he pulled it out, his gaze falling to the cover as a faint wave of recognition washed over him.

He had seen it before.

A long time ago.

The realization came slowly, not as a clear memory but as a feeling, something ephemeral until he settled down in a nearby chair, the journal resting in his hands as he stared at it.

His mother had something like this.

He remembered that much.