— So you all think it’s normal that I’m the one paying the mortgage on this apartment, and you moved my cousin and her boyfriend into my room without even asking? Great! They have three hours to get out! Or I’m calling the police!

— So are you going to tell him, Aunt Galya? Or should I? — Lera’s voice was sweet as an overripe peach, and just as sticky. She lazily stirred sugar into a cup of cheap instant coffee, leaving brown rings on the saucer.

— I’ll tell him, sweetheart, I will, — Galina, Kirill’s mother, waved her off with a plump hand. — Don’t worry. Kiryusha is an understanding boy. He can see the family’s having trouble. You don’t abandon your own. You’ll live here until you’re back on your feet. There’s room for everyone.

Anatoly, the father, sat at the table methodically crumbling cookies into his tea and grunted in agreement without looking up from the newspaper. His involvement in family matters had always been limited to that dull, approving sound—complete agreement with his wife and a complete lack of desire to get into the details.

The kitchen was filled with an atmosphere of relaxed, almost dacha-like calm. Outside, a November wind howled, but in here it was warm and smelled of yesterday’s borscht. Lera already felt like she had the upper hand. She knew her cousin Kirill was a man who couldn’t say no—a workhorse the whole family had been sitting on for a long time, quite comfortably.

He paid for this huge three-bedroom apartment bought on a mortgage, he sent his parents money, he solved their problems. Which meant he would solve hers too. The fact that she had moved into his personal room without warning along with her live-in boyfriend didn’t seem like audacity to her—just a minor family formality.

The key turned twice in the front door lock.

— Oh, speak of the devil, — Galina spread into a pleased smile. — Kiryusha is back.

Kirill came into the entryway, set a heavy suitcase and a laptop bag on the floor. Two weeks of constant travel to factories in the Urals had exhausted him to the limit. All he wanted was a hot shower and to collapse into his bed. He pulled off his boots and immediately caught sight of something that shouldn’t have been there. By the wall stood a pair of worn men’s sneakers, size forty-five, and on the hook hung someone else’s padded jacket with a greasy collar.

Without a word, he walked into the kitchen.

— Kiryush, hi, my dear! Welcome home! — his mother rushed to him, trying to hug him.

He gently stepped aside, his gaze sliding over Lera and stopping on his mother. He didn’t ask a single question. He just stared.

— We’re just… Lera’s in trouble, she was kicked out of her apartment, — Galina rattled on, feeling her cheerful confidence begin to crack under that cold, tired look. — Well, I thought your room’s empty most of the time anyway… She and Maxim will stay with you for now.

Kirill said nothing. He turned and walked down the hallway toward his room. The door was slightly open. He pushed it and froze in the doorway. The air in the room was stale, чужой—foreign. It smelled of unfamiliar women’s perfume and something sour.

On his bed, under his blanket, two people slept entwined. He recognized Lera. Beside her lay a big guy with the beginnings of a bald spot. His hairy arm lay proprietarily on Kirill’s pillow. Their things were piled on the chair; on Kirill’s desk stood an opened bottle of beer and a plate with scraps and gnawed-off bits.

Kirill looked at it for a few seconds. His face showed neither anger nor surprise. It looked like a mask carved from gray stone. He quietly pulled the door shut and just as silently returned to the kitchen.

His mother, father, and Lera watched him with tense anticipation. They were waiting for a reaction—outrage, shouting, pleading. Anything but this.

Without saying a word, Kirill walked to the utility cabinet in the corner. Opened it, pulled out a roll of large black trash bags—one hundred and twenty liters. Tore off two. And with those bags, he headed back to his room.

— Kiryush, what are you doing? — his mother’s voice trembled with a bad feeling.

He didn’t answer. He entered the room and snapped on the light. The sleeping pair on the bed stirred in irritation. Maxim cracked one eye open.

— Hey… who are you? — he mumbled sleepily.

Kirill ignored him. He walked to the chair and, with one motion, swept all the clothes into the first bag. Jeans, T-shirts, women’s underwear, socks—everything flew inside. Then he went to the desk. Laptop, chargers, makeup bag, beer bottle, plate—everything went into the second bag. He didn’t sort or separate anything. He worked quickly and methodically, like a санитар—an orderly.

— What the hell are you doing, you bastard?! — Maxim fully woke up and sat up in bed, trying to cover himself with the blanket. Lera stared at her cousin with eyes wide in horror.

Kirill cinched the bags shut. Took one in each hand, turned, and walked out of the room, leaving behind the stunned, half-naked couple. He dragged the bags across the entire apartment, past his frozen parents in the hallway. Opened the front door, then the door to the shared landing. And with force, he hurled both bags toward the elevator. They hit the floor with a dull thud.

He left the landing door open. Returned to the kitchen. Picked up a pack of cigarettes from the table, shook one out. Only then did he look at his relatives’ petrified faces. His voice was absolutely calm, without a single note of emotion.

— I pay sixty thousand a month for this apartment. I support all of you. And as long as I do, there will be my rules here.

Kirill’s last words fell onto the kitchen table like chunks of ice, instantly freezing the cozy atmosphere of the family tea. Galina stared at her son as if he had started speaking some foreign, threatening language. Her round, usually good-natured face elongated, and confusion froze in her eyes, quickly giving way to offense.

— What do you mean, your rules? — she was the first to come to her senses, her voice turning shrill and defensive. — We’re family! Lerochka is your sister, she needs help! Don’t you have a heart at all? Throwing your own blood out onto the street, at night!

At that moment Maxim materialized in the kitchen doorway. Wearing only sweatpants, bare-chested, he looked both sleepy and aggressive. He rubbed his groggy face and fixed his stare on Kirill.

— Listen, you “hero.” Give the stuff back. Who gave you the right to touch it?

Kirill didn’t even turn his head in his direction. He kept looking at his mother as if Maxim didn’t exist—in that room, in that apartment, in that universe. That total, absolute disregard hit the guy harder than any threat in return…

— My room is my room, — Kirill repeated, enunciating every word. His calm was scarier than any shouting. — This isn’t a flophouse or a charity. Especially not for people who didn’t even think to warn me.

— But where are we supposed to go?! — Lera screeched, springing up from her chair. The performance—playing the victim—began. — We got kicked out! We don’t have any money! You want us to spend the night at the train station?

— That’s what interests me, — Kirill slowly shifted his heavy gaze to her. — But how can I put it… I don’t care. You have a boyfriend. From the looks of it, able-bodied. Solve your problems yourselves. Not in my bedroom.

The father, who had been silent until now, decided to step in. He neatly folded the newspaper, took off his glasses, and looked at his son with the air of a wise patriarch—something he had never been.

— Son, let’s not act rashly. All right, tempers flared. The girl needs help. Let them stay a week or two, and then we’ll figure something out…

— A week won’t be enough here, Dad, — Kirill cut him off. — And you know that perfectly well. First it’ll be a week. Then a month. Then they’ll “find jobs—any day now they’ll get their first paycheck.” I’ve been through this. Enough.

He paused briefly, sweeping his gaze over all three of them: his mother, ready to erupt in righteous fury; his father, already regretting getting involved; and Lera, whose face twisted into the grimace of offended innocence.

— Rule number one, — he said coldly and distinctly. — My room is my territory. Your guest and her… gentleman friend, — he spat the word as if it tasted foul, — have exactly three hours to take their bags and disappear from this apartment. It’s 20:17 now. At 23:17 they must not be here.

— Have you lost your mind?! — his mother cried out. — You won’t dare! I won’t allow it!

— You will, — Kirill’s gaze turned hard as steel. — Because if at 23:18 they’re still here, I’m calling the police and filing a report for illegal entry. A bank statement is enough for me to prove it’s my apartment—and you’re all just living here.

He gave them a second to process what they’d heard. Then he delivered the second, decisive blow—aimed not at Lera, but straight at his parents’ heart.

— And one more thing. Since we’re talking about rules. Starting tomorrow, you’ll also begin paying to live here. Rent for your rooms. Yours, Mom—twenty thousand a month. Yours, Dad—twenty-five; it’s bigger. Transfer the money to my card by the fifth of every month. No money—then you’ll be looking for a place to live along with Lera. Am I clear enough? Three hours starts now.

He turned and left the kitchen, leaving behind a ringing, stunned silence. He wasn’t just throwing out an audacious relative. He had just blown up that cozy little world his family had built at his expense—and handed them the bill for the rubble.

Kirill went to his room not to hide, but to establish himself. He flung the window wide open, letting icy November air pour into the stale room, soaked with чужой sweat and cheap perfume. The wind immediately scattered some advertising flyers Lera had left on the desk. Kirill swept them up and threw them into the trash. Then he yanked the crumpled bedding off the bed, holding it with two fingers in disgust as if it were the hide of a sick animal, and tossed it into the corner. The bare mattress looked forlorn and filthy.

His mother was the first to enter the room. She didn’t burst in shouting—she seeped in like poisonous fog. Her face was crimson, and her hands trembled slightly.

— Do you even understand what you’ve done? — she began in a quiet, hissing voice that was more frightening than any scream. — You humiliated us. Your family. In front of that… Maxim. You made your own mother a laughingstock.

Without looking at her, Kirill took clean sheets out of the closet.

— I put the belongings of two strangers out in the hallway—people who were sleeping in my bed. That’s all I did.

— Strangers? Lerochka is a stranger to you?! — Galina raised her voice. — I remember how your father and I scraped together our last money so you could have your first computer. How your aunt—Lera’s mother—loaned us money when they stopped paying your father at the factory. And this is how you repay it? With your coldness? Has money blinded you?

He carefully spread a fresh sheet, smoothing every crease. His movements were precise and calm, as if he were a surgeon, not someone in the middle of a scandal.

— Money, Mom, hasn’t blinded me. It opened my eyes. I see that I’m paying for an apartment where I don’t even have my own room. I see that I’m supporting grown adults who treat it like a privilege. And I see that you all decided this would go on forever. You were wrong.

His father appeared in the doorway. He tried to put on authority, leaning against the frame.

— Kirill, stop it. Don’t push your mother. We understand—you’re tired from the road, your nerves are shot. Let the kids stay the night, and tomorrow we’ll all sit down and calmly discuss everything. Like adults. And about your money… you blurted that out in the heat of the moment. It’s not right, demanding payment from your parents for a roof over their heads.

— “Not right” is moving some strange man into the room of your son who pays for that roof, — Kirill slid a pillow into its case and fluffed it. — There’s nothing to discuss. You heard my terms. Time’s running.

Behind his father, Lera appeared with her “gentleman friend” Maxim, now dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He clearly felt humiliated and was looking for a way to get even.

— You out of your mind, “boss”? — he boomed, stepping forward. — Think you’re the smartest one here? We’re not going anywhere. We’ll see how you call the cops. They’ll sort out who’s right here.

Kirill finally turned to them. He looked straight through Maxim and into Lera’s eyes. There was no hatred in his gaze. Something worse—icy contempt.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced at the screen.

— Two hours and forty-three minutes left. You can start packing. Or you can keep standing here and waste your time. Your choice.

He walked past them, pushing through the stunned crowd of relatives the way an icebreaker crushes ice. He headed for the bathroom, shut the door behind him, and turned on the water. The loud roar of the shower became the sound of a timer being started—counting down the last minutes of their familiar, comfortable life. And for him, it was the first gulp of clean air in his own home.

Three hours passed. Exactly to the minute. The wall clock in the kitchen—a cheap plastic circle with painted fruit—showed 11:17 p.m. No one had left. Lera and Maxim sat at the table with a defiant air. They had dragged their bags back from the stairwell into the hallway and now waited to see what would happen next.

They were sure Kirill was bluffing. That it had been just an emotional outburst from a tired man—something that would pass if they pressed a little and waited it out. His parents sat beside them, forming a silent but solid alliance. Their postures radiated reproachful expectation. They were waiting for an apology.

The bathroom door opened. Kirill came out in a clean home T-shirt and pants. He didn’t look at the people gathered. He walked into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of filtered water, and drank it in slow, measured gulps. The air in the kitchen was thick, charged with unspoken reproaches—like before a storm.

— Well? — his mother asked with a venomous smirk when he set the glass down. — Time’s up. Where are your police, commander? Or did you change your mind about hauling your own blood to the station?

Kirill looked at the clock. 23:18. Then he looked at his mother.

— I didn’t change my mind.

He pulled his phone from his pocket. Everyone tensed. Lera instinctively shrank back into her chair. Maxim frowned, bracing himself for an unpleasant talk with a patrol officer. Anatoly let out a heavy sigh, anticipating disgrace.

Kirill scrolled through his contacts and tapped call. He put it on speaker. A brisk male voice came from the phone.

— Hello, Kir—hey! What’s up? Something happen?

— Hey, Seryoga. Am I catching you at a bad time? — Kirill’s voice was completely casual, businesslike.

— Nah, we’re not asleep yet. How’d you get in?

— Fine. Listen, I’ve got something for you. I’ve got two rooms freeing up here.

A puzzled silence fell over the kitchen. Galina looked at her husband in confusion. Two?

— Whoa! — the voice on the phone sounded surprised. — What rooms? You kicking your parents out or something? — he joked.

— Exactly, — Kirill answered without a trace of a smile. At that moment, his mother’s face turned into a gray mask. — Yes, in the same apartment. Starting tomorrow, you can move tenants in. Find decent people—solvent, reliable. A family is fine, but no kids and no animals. Two months up front. I’ll send you photos of the rooms right now. All right, talk soon.

He ended the call and set the phone on the table. Then he turned to his petrified relatives. His father stared at him as if he’d just been punched in the gut. Lera and Maxim sat with their mouths open, finally grasping the scale of the disaster they had triggered.

— I see you didn’t understand, — Kirill began calmly, addressing his parents. — You decided that if I’m paying the mortgage, then this is our shared apartment. No. This is my apartment. My asset and my burden. And since you don’t respect my rules, you’ll live by market rules. The mortgage won’t pay itself. So starting tomorrow, your rooms are being rented out.

He paused, letting them feel the full depth of the abyss they were falling into.

— You have a choice. You can, of course, go live with Lera. She needs help—she’s family. I’m sure she and Maxim will gladly take you in. Or, — he paused again, — there’s a second option. My room. As soon as Lera and her boyfriend clear their things out of there, you can move in. The two of you. You’ll live in one room, like in your youth. That’s romantic, isn’t it?

He looked at them without anger, without regret—only with the cold composure of someone who has made a final decision. He hadn’t just thrown out his cousin. He had crossed his parents out of his life—turning them from “owners” of the home into pathetic tenants on sufferance, completely dependent on his will. He left them nothing—no pride, no status, not even the illusion of control.

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked to his room. He didn’t slam the door. He simply closed it quietly behind him. The click of the lock sounded in the stunned kitchen like a gunshot, cutting off their former life. There at the table remained four people who had just lost everything—and the only ones they could blame were themselves…