Alexandre ignored his building's elevator and climbed the eight floors to his apartnt. For so reason, it felt sowhat comforting to be back in his building after the last few days, and he wanted to make the short visit last as long as possible.
Finally he reached his unit, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.
Everything was as he'd left it. Alexandre felt a wave of sadness wash over him as he realized this would be the last ti he ever set foot in this apartnt that had been his ho since he was 16. Sure, it was only a tiny place, barely 16 square ters, but he'd had a lot of good tis here. It felt strange to know he was about to move on to a new Chapter of his life.
Alexandre approached his work desk. He picked up a photo fra which held a picture of three people—Alexandre and both his parents, taken before the Great Wave. As Alexandre stared at the photo, his feelings of sadness beca hatred. He silently folded the leg on the back of the fra and put it into his bag.
"I can't let myself wallow in nostalgia and regret," said Alexandre firmly to the empty room. "I must learn from the past. I must not pretend the pain doesn't exist. To do so would be to deny what made who and what I am. It would be to deny my own existence."
Nobody answered, of course. Still, saying it out loud made Alexandre feel more determined. His usual cold determination had returned.
Alexandre efficiently tidied up his affairs in the apartnt, preparing for his stay on Hunter Island. Once he was a proper Hunter, Alexnadre wouldn't be free to just travel around Arica wherever he wanted. He certainly wouldn't have the opportunity to live in this apartnt again. Therefore, he would soon end his lease so he wasn't paying rent for no reason.
Alexandre picked up his phone and called the building manager, leaving a voicemail saying he was leaving and that he'd leave the early termination fee—a full two months' rent, what a load of wasted money—in the building manager's mailbox.
Then Alexandre packed his few remaining belongings: so clothes, his laptop, and the beautiful gold signet ring which his father had given him just before he was arrested.
Aside from the ring, Alexandre wouldn't have minded if he'd needed to leave everything else behind. He'd returned to this apartnt to retrieve one more very important thing, sothing hidden in the conduit that ran between his floor and the ceiling of his downstairs neighbor.
When Alexandre pulled the duffel bag from its hiding spot and unzipped it, he smiled at the sight of dozens of bundles of greenbacks—the equivalent of $80,000 in cash. This had been the result of nine years of hard work and many hardships.
With his cash and other belongings in hand, it was finally ti to say goodbye to this place he'd lived in for almost a decade. Alexandre took one last look inside the apartnt, then locked the door. As promised, when he returned to the ground floor, he left two months' rent in the building manager's mailbox, as well as the key to what was now his old apartnt.
Then Alexandre returned outside where the cab was waiting.
"Where to, boss?" asked the cabbie.
"Worst place in the world," Alexandre said with a grunt. "Brooklyn."
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