The final holographic cone dissolved into pixels of fading light. Leo collapsed onto the polished gym floor, his back hitting the hardwood with a thud that echoed in the cavernous silence of the P.E. centre.
A headache, sharp and insistent, pulsed behind his eyes. It was the price of pushing the system beyond its safety protocols for three hours straight.
He lay there for a moment, staring at the high rafters where dust motes danced in the late afternoon sun slanting through the high windows.
The phantom sting of King's slap still felt more real than the floor beneath him.
With a groan, he sat up and began the meticulous process of untying his Jaguar boots. The leather, once stiff and proud, was supple with sweat. He peeled them off, wincing as the cool air hit his feet.
Raw, blistered patches wept on his heels and the ball of his right foot. The badges of a desperate grind.
"Want some water?"
The voice came from the doorway, startling him. He turned, squinting against the glare.
It was Granger. He leaned against the doorframe in sleek black badminton shorts and a breathable polo. In one hand, he held his racket case. In the other, a chilled bottle of water.
The bottle's label featured a dynamic action shot of a badminton player, his form a blur of explosive grace.
Leo accepted the bottle, the condensation cold against his palm. "Thanks," he said, cracking it open and drinking deeply. The water was a blessing on his parched throat.
He wiped his lips. "Heard there's a badminton competition tomorrow," Leo said, recapping the bottle. "Against Northgate."
Granger's expression shifted, the casual smile fading into something more focused. He gave his racket case a gentle swing through the air, a whisper of motion. "Yeah. We're definitely losing. But Mr. Spencer says we should give it our all and not go down without a fight."
"Mr. Spencer?"
Granger gave him a look of pure, unadulterated disbelief. "You don't know Mr. Spencer?" He said the name as if it were a foundational law of the universe. "Dude, he's been around for ages. Coaches badminton, archery, runs the fitness club. He's even your assistant coach for football."
Leo blinked. The stern, clipboard-clutching man with the receding hairline and the voice like rusted metal. He'd only ever thought of him as 'the Assistant Coach.' A function, not a person.
"Oh," he said, feeling oddly ashamed. "I… never bothered with his name."
Granger nodded, as if this confirmed a sad but expected truth about football players. "The match is tomorrow. Think you can come? That is, if you're not too busy with…" he gestured vaguely at the empty gym, the ghost of Leo's solitary drills hanging in the air, "…training." He rolled his eyes. "Like King."
Leo pushed himself to his feet, his sore muscles protesting. He handed the empty bottle back. "I would love to come. But are you sure I'll be allowed?"
A genuine spark of pleasure lit Granger's face. "Yeah. You can ride with us on the team bus. I'm sure Mr. Spencer wouldn't mind." He tucked the bottle under his arm. "Well, good luck. With… whatever this is." He gave the vast, empty gym another skeptical glance and left, his footsteps fading down the tiled hall.
Silence seeped back in, deeper now. Leo was grabbing his boots, the decision to support Granger a small, warm stone in the cold pit of his anxiety, when the main doors swung open again.
King Vance walked in, already changed into his street clothes—dark jeans, a simple grey sweater, looking like he'd just stepped out of a casual photoshoot, not a brutal training session.
He didn't look at Leo. He was a force of nature passing through a barren landscape. He simply held up a single, crisp piece of paper between two fingers, offering it to the space behind him where Leo stood.
"Rin wanted you to have it," King said, his voice flat.
Leo walked over, took the paper. It was a ticket. High-quality stock. REGIONAL 7-A-SIDE FINALS. FRONT ROW. The date was tomorrow.
The memory was a physical blow: the chill of Hal's turf, the sound of their laughter, the phrase "free ticket to come watch."
Without a word, without a flicker of hesitation, Leo tore the ticket in half. Then again. The ripping sound was shockingly loud in the quiet gym, a series of sharp, deliberate executions.
He walked to a trash can by the equipment closet and let the pieces flutter from his fingers like confetti at a funeral.
"I'm not interested in going," Leo said, his voice calm, clearer than he felt. "Plus, I've got plans."
King's shoulders lifted in a barely perceptible shrug. He began walking out, his back a retreating wall of indifference.
"I don't get you!"
Leo's shout wasn't a scream; it was a release of pressurized confusion, sharp enough to make King stop a second time. The champion exhaled slowly, a sigh of profound annoyance, but he didn't turn.
Leo advanced a few steps, his sore feet forgotten. "At the 'Shots for Cash' place, you acted like a coach. Trying to help me concentrate. Then you introduce me to Maya like I'm some long-lost friend. We play together. I contribute. And then I'm not good enough for your tournament team. You're all proud during Arkady's drill, and then you slap me back to focus during the actual match."
He spread his hands, the frustration boiling over. "Just pick a personality. What do you actually have against me?"
Finally, King turned. His face was a mask of perfect, glacial plains. He chewed his gum slowly, the only movement in his still frame. His grey eyes, when they met Leo's, held no anger, no warmth—just an unsettling, analytical clarity.
"At the SFC place," King said, his words measured and cool, "I thought you might be the one. The variable sharp enough to finally challenge me. To help me become the perfect Egoist. I saw the glasses. I heard the name 'Reed.' I thought the legacy might mean something."
A flicker of something disdain, or perhaps the ghost of his own disappointment crossed his features. "Then Rin told me everything. How much of a disappointment you've become. The truth behind the legend."
He took out his phone, thumbed it awake with practiced ease, and opened a popular sports hub app. He scrolled, found a video, and began to read the caption aloud, his voice a dry, mocking monotone.
"'Captain of Apex High, King Vance, slaps panic out of his fellow player before scoring a marvelous equalizer in Griffin Cup thriller.'"
A low, humorless chuckle escaped him. He turned the screen toward Leo. It was a clip, already with tens of thousands of views.
The moment of his humiliation, his brain-freeze, King's intervention, and the glorious finish. The comments scrolled by: "KING IS A SAVAGE LEADER!", "That's how you handle a choke artist!", "Vance is HIM."
"You should read the comments," King said, the ghost of a cold smile touching his lips. He pocketed the phone. "Turns out, you are helping me after all. You're the perfect foil. The panic. The project. The thing I fixed." The smile vanished. "On the field, I wasn't helping you, Reed. I was recalibrating a malfunctioning tool in my system. Nothing more."
He turned on his heel, the conversation clearly terminated in his mind.
"So that's it?" Leo called after him, the anger gone, replaced by a cold, clarifying emptiness. "I'm just a prop in the King Vance story?"
King didn't break stride. He simply raised a hand in a dismissive, backward wave as he pushed through the double doors. They swung shut behind him, leaving Leo alone once more with the echo of his words.
A prop. A tool. A malfunction.
The headache was gone, burned away by a new, frigid understanding. The bigger picture Arkady had painted—the scouts, the professional gaze—now had a cruel, personal focus.
In that narrative, engineered by King and Rin, he was merely the shaky background character who made the hero look good.
Leo looked at the trash can, at the torn pieces of the ticket. A pity invitation to a party he was never meant to join. Then he looked at the door where Granger had left. A different competition. A different kind of fight. A friend who asked for his presence, not his utility.
The world snapped into hyper-clarity, but the usual tactical grids were absent. Instead, a single, simple directive glowed, stripped of all pretense, born from the cold exchange in the empty gym.
[PRIMARY OBJECTIVE REDEFINED.]
[CEASE BEING THE VARIABLE IN THEIR EQUATION.]
[BECOME THE UNIGNORABLE CONSTANT.]
He shouldered his bag, the weight of his boots a familiar anchor. Tomorrow, he would watch a badminton match. He would be a spectator, a friend in the stands.
But the next time he stood on a pitch under the glare of those scouts, under the eyes of King Vance, he would not be a tool to be calibrated. He would be the wrench thrown into the machine. The constant that refused to be solved for.