P.E in Valecrest wasn't the average jog-around-the-field ordeal. It lived up to the full weight of Physical Education. No shortcuts. No abilities. Just raw muscle, balance, stamina, and whatever grit a student had left after lunch. This was also where Silas became something of a campus campfire story, whispered about, dreaded, and watched with the same caution people used when approaching a wolf that pretends to be napping.
Imagine a lion that has always hunted antelopes with ease, fangs sharp, claws ready, muscles lined with confidence, suddenly stripped of all its natural weapons. Now place it across from an antelope that had already given it a decent scare earlier, even with those fangs and claws intact.
How would the lion feel?
The answer hung heavy and simple: unease sliding into fear. Because in this stripped-down arena, ability meant nothing. Only pure physical skill mattered… and Silas had far more of it than anyone wanted to admit.
The person in question, though, had absolutely no time to care about the confused whispers or pitying looks from his classmates. All he could do was focus on the ground beneath him and grind through his assigned workout: fifty push-ups, clean form, no shortcuts, no mercy. And who was responsible for this delightful suffering?
The P.E master himself, Mr. Ryan Fatars.
Anyone hearing the name would automatically picture a round, booming, jolly man. Reality, however, had a twisted sense of humor. Ryan Fatars was neither round nor jolly. He was a stiff-jawed, broad-shouldered bully of a teacher, determined to break Silas the way some people tried to break in new shoes. He'd started this crusade back in 10th Grade, and every year since, he'd sharpened the intensity of his sessions like a weapon.
Ryan always said it was "discipline." Silas knew it was hate. A pointless, sour, personal hate aimed at him for reasons that remained as mysterious as the socks disappearing from dorm laundry rooms. The teacher thought pushing Silas past his limits would make him quit… or at least crack.
What he didn't know was that his ridiculous agenda had backfired beautifully.
Those intense drills, the long sprints, the push-ups until Silas' arms trembled, every bit of it had turned him into one of the strongest, fastest bodies on campus. A physical force built out of petty spite. Silas wasn't grateful, not in the emotional sense, but he acknowledged the irony with a quiet, private satisfaction.
Mr. Fatars couldn't lay a hand on him until he turned twenty, so this was his workaround. His loophole. His attempt to "beat the system." But instead, he'd just helped Silas evolve.
Today, though… Silas did look like he was struggling.
And Ryan was practically glowing. His grin stretched so wide it might have needed its own zip code. He stood with his arms folded, chin lifted like he was about to receive a gold medal for Most Petty Educator of the Year.
His ego was so inflated that he didn't notice the real problem.
Silas' breath hitched, sweat tracing a path down his temple, but not because the workout was too much. His body was reacting in a way he definitely did not want during push-ups in the middle of P.E., and every attempt he made to steady himself only made his pulse race faster.
He clenched his jaw and focused on the rhythm; down, up, down, up, silently begging his body to calm itself before anyone noticed. It wasn't exhaustion. It was something more ridiculous, more humiliating, the kind of thing only a teenage body could betray him with at the worst possible moment.
And that was when Mr. Fatars finally stepped closer, boots crunching against the field grass.
"Well, well," Ryan drawled, hands behind his back like some smug drill sergeant. "Looks like the great Silas is finally learning his limits."
Silas didn't lift his head. He couldn't. He forced his arms through another push-up, then another, muscles trembling for reasons that had nothing to do with weakness.
"I'm… fine," he muttered through clenched teeth.
Ryan smirked, circling him like a shark testing a cage. "We'll see about that. Everyone has a breaking point."
Silas' fingers dug into the dirt. He refused to break, not from pain, not from pressure, and definitely not from this mortifying betrayal by his own hormones.
A faint breeze moved across the field, carrying the sound of muted chatter from the rest of the class. They were watching. Ryan was watching. And Silas could feel time squeezing around him like a vice.
Then a voice cut across the field, calm, sharp, and unmistakably female.
"Mr. Fatars," called Ms. Garnet, the Vice-Principal, striding toward them with a clipboard tucked under her arm, "a word."
Ryan's jaw twitched. He cast one last look at Silas, trying to memorize the moment like a trophy, then strode off with the reluctant obedience of a dog being called inside.
Silas exhaled shakily, shoulders dropping as the pressure finally eased.
For the first time in minutes, he let his forehead touch the ground, whispering to himself, "Thank you… whatever cosmic force decided to save me."
And just like that, he pushed himself up again, because P.E wasn't over, and neither was the day's chaos.
...
The day had wrung Silas dry, leaving him somewhere between exhausted and existentially offended. Hell would've sent him a sympathy card. He kept his pace brisk as he cut across the courtyard toward the dorms, clutching his backpack against his front like a shield. Anyone watching might've thought he was guarding state secrets. In truth, he was desperately trying to hide the traitorous problem, still refusing to calm down in his trousers.
His mind was so consumed with willing his anatomy to behave that he drifted through the world on autopilot. The sun was lowering, the courtyard buzzing with students changing classes, and Silas moved among them like a ghost with one mission: get to his room, get these cursed hormones under control, and forget P.E ever existed.
But fate, that chaotic playwright, had other plans.
He snapped back to awareness when something crashed into his legs, a body, light but solid. A gasp, then a squeak. He stumbled, steadying himself just in time to look down and see a girl sprawled at his feet. Wide eyes, shocked expression, a hand pressed to her chest as if she'd nearly been hit by a truck.
Behind her stood a boy Silas recognized instantly. A boy he hated as naturally as breathing.
Damien Crowhurst.
The academy's golden tyrant, the smirking prince of arrogance, and the one person who could turn Silas' mood from bad to catastrophic simply by existing within a five-meter radius.
From the way Damien's eyebrow arched, it was clear he'd either shoved her lightly toward Silas or taken advantage of Silas' distracted state to orchestrate this collision. Whichever it was, the damage was done.
A hush fell. Students in the courtyard paused mid-step, mid-sentence, mid-breath.
They all knew what this meant.
The long-anticipated clash. The inevitable storm. Two titans of the academy who'd circled each other for years, each winning and dominating in different arenas. Damien ruled socially and academically; Silas ruled physically and in reputation. Their rivalry was the kind that sparked rumors in the dorms and bets under the cafeteria tables.
A fight between them had been predicted for so long it had become legend.
And now they were facing each other.
Silas felt his pulse spike, annoyingly, unhelpfully, and not because of fear. His body still hadn't calmed down from earlier, which meant he was standing on the edge of a showdown with the academy's most aggravating bastard while still dealing with the worst possible… physical disadvantage.
Damien smirked, stepping forward with a lazy swagger that made the watching crowd lean in unconsciously.
"Well, well," Damien drawled, "look at that. Silas playing bulldozer again. Shouldn't you at least watch where you're going?"
Silas' jaw tightened. "Back off, Damien. She fell."
"Uh-huh." Damien cocked his head like a predator inspecting fresh meat. "Sure she did."
The girl scrambled up, embarrassed and apologizing under her breath, but neither boy's attention wavered.
The courtyard grew silent, tension crackling in the air like invisible lightning.
The two strongest students, two opposing forces, two reputations on the line, and at the center of it all stood Silas, sweating, scowling, and very aware he'd yet to win even one fight with his rebellious "little brother."
He exhaled through clenched teeth.
Of all the days for this to happen. The universe was definitely laughing.