Haro Steiner was leaning on an old sofa, placed right beside the apartment door.
A short, narrow sofa, barely enough for his thin frame, covered with a heavy, faded blanket that carried a faint scent of old dampness.
The wall behind him was rough-textured, painted white, with the paint peeling off at the corners. To his left, a broken electrical socket was covered with gray duct tape.
The place was nearly dead.
Everything in the living room was frozen—no movement, no sound...
The only light came from the phone screen he held in his hand, reflecting on his weary face, revealing pale circles as if sleep had abandoned him for days.
The clock was nearing three in the morning.
The whole house was asleep.
His mother and younger brother in the adjacent room, and his older brother alone in his room—no one knew what he did behind the closed door.
But Haro was awake.
And his only sound in the place... was his breathing. It was broken, tense, and quick.
He was doing it again.
He was indulging in his secret habit, his mind wandering over what he watched, surrendering to that fleeting pleasure.
His eyes half-closed, breaths quickening, his body completely tense, unwilling for the moment to end.
He imagined himself in the place of those he saw—imagined having a perfect body, a beauty worthy of the camera, and a confidence unlike his reality.
He tried to prolong the pleasure as much as he could.
Sometimes slowing his movements, changing the scene, replaying a shot—just to stay there... in that moment where all the pleasure he wanted was.
All he wished was to freeze time exactly at that feeling because he knew what would come next.
He knew very well the pleasure would suddenly drop, silence would swell, and that sticky feeling in his chest would return...
The feeling that something inside him was breaking again.
When he finished, a feeling of disgust engulfed him... for himself, for those things he had watched moments before, and for having returned to it despite all previous decisions, despite all the times he said, "This is the last time."
He remained still, breathing slowly, trying to understand what pushed him to do it again.
He looked at the screen that had turned off automatically, then whispered:
"What do I even like about this?
What makes me repeat the same act—is it pleasure?
No real pleasure, just a fleeting moment...
A moment that ends, followed by the same hatred and guilt.
So... why?"
Then his inner voice began to speak with a terrifying clarity, as if he wasn't just talking to himself, but confessing in front of a merciless mirror:
"I knew what would happen afterward. I knew it well. This is not an impulse. Not a loss of mind.
It was a decision... cold, clear, premeditated.
I know how much it will hurt me. I know how much I'll hate myself after a minute, or less.
But the strange thing? Nothing stops me. No fear. No prior regret. Only silence.
That's the worst part: I see it coming, and I walk toward it, slowly... like returning to a bed I know is burning.
I said I wouldn't come back. I said I was done.
But nothing ended. I just... stopped pretending to deceive myself.
The truth?
I need this. I need to make mistakes, to break, to return to the point where I started, as if I deserve nothing else.
And maybe... maybe inside me there's something dirty, something that loves this ugliness, longs for it, feeds on it.
And now?
Now I will do it, and I won't stop myself. And I will pay the price later, like every time.
And maybe... maybe I don't want to stop.
I'm not seeking pleasure, but what follows it: reproach, hatred, the weight in the heart.
Because if I stopped... who would I be?"
He rose slowly, lazily, as if every movement required a superhuman effort, and grabbed his tired head with both hands, trying to squeeze his thoughts as if wanting to stop a storm inside him that would not calm.
He headed to the bathroom in total darkness, not turning on the light, as if he didn't want to face himself clearly.
He opened the tap, slowly washed his hands, trying to erase the trace of what he did, then dipped his palms in cold water and slapped his face with it, like trying to wake himself from a suffocating stupor.
But he wasn't always this effortful.
Often, he avoided washing his hands, just wiping them on his blanket or beside the sofa, as if trying to erase the act was just a mirage not even worth the effort of admitting.
And at the moment he was returning, a faint movement caught his attention through a narrow crack in the adjacent room's door.
His older brother, in the same way as Haro, was doing what Haro himself hated.
He saw his body tense, his breaths broken, the same silent addiction, the same isolation they both shared.
A lump filled his chest, followed by unbelievable hatred.
Hatred for his brother? No. Rather hatred for that deadly reflection he saw in him.
Hatred for himself embodied in his brother's body.
Despite all the criticisms he directed at his brother, he forgot that even he wasn't different.
His hatred was nothing but a harsh mirror forcing him to face his weakness.
But despite this hatred, a strange feeling of superiority replaced it.
He realized what he did was wrong, descending into a dark spiral,
while his brother was just a desire without awareness, unaware of the reality of what he did, seeing nothing but the fleeting moment he soon forgot as if it never happened.
This thought increased the pain's weight in his heart;
because he bore the awareness, the regret, the judgment of himself,
while his brother was free and ignorant, carrying none of this suffocating awareness.
He returned to the sofa, pulled his heavy blanket, and sat in heavy silence, lifted the glass of water from the table, sipped slowly, then lay on his left side, searching for sleep that refused to visit.
He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling as if something there would speak and grant him an excuse.
But he didn't need excuses now.
He knew what he did. And he knew that this momentary calm would devour him inside soon, as it always did.
But suddenly... fantasies and desires for change began to creep in.
Waking up energized, opening his eyes without heaviness, standing before the mirror with a face clean of sins.
A person who doesn't repeat mistakes.
A person who doesn't lie. Doesn't betray.
A different person, like him... but more beautiful, cleaner, more capable.
He watched the scene in his head, deliberately slow, like watching a favorite movie.
Everything looked neat, perfect, and calm...
Not because change was really coming, but because imagining it was easier than facing it.
He knew. He knew none of it was real.
But comfort began to creep in. His eyes grew heavy. Breaths slowed.
Then, just before his eyes fully closed, one last thought came:
"Nothing changes, because I don't really want to change.
I just want to believe a lie... so I can sleep in peace."