Chapter [3]: [FRICTION COSTS]
The next morning arrived with rain.
Not the cinematic kind—no thunder, no drama—just a steady, gray drizzle that blurred the edges of the city and soaked through cheap jackets. Ethan stood at the bus stop, hood pulled low, watching water pool along the curb and carry cigarette butts downstream like tiny wrecks.
He felt… steadier.
Not better. Steadier was the right word. Like something unstable had settled into a configuration that wouldn't immediately collapse.
The meetup replayed in his mind, not as a highlight reel but as data. The way people talked past one another. The unspoken hierarchy—who others deferred to, whose opinions were tolerated rather than respected. Maya's questions, sharp but restrained. The subtle skepticism in her smile.
Connection scared him because it created leverage. Emotional leverage, reputational leverage. Variables you couldn't hedge with math.
At work, the copy shop hummed with damp customers shaking rain from umbrellas and complaining about toner prices. Ethan operated the machines with practiced ease, hands moving while his mind stayed elsewhere.
During a lull, his manager—Carl, late forties, thinning hair, perpetual look of irritation—leaned against the counter.
"You've been… different lately," Carl said.
Ethan looked up. "Different how?"
"Quieter. Focused." Carl squinted. "Not worse. Just—like you're planning something."
Ethan forced a neutral smile. "Is that a problem?"
Carl shrugged. "Only if it involves stealing paper. Inventory's already a mess."
As Carl walked away, Ethan felt a familiar tension coil in his chest. Authority figures had always unsettled him—not out of fear, but resentment. In his previous life, he'd answered to boards and investors who spoke the language of risk while outsourcing it to people like him.
This time, he reminded himself, Carl wasn't the enemy. He was friction. A cost of operating in the real world.
That evening, Ethan skipped the forums and went to the gym instead—a small, underfunded place that smelled like rubber mats and disinfectant. He lifted lightly, more interested in routine than progress. Physical exertion anchored him in the present in a way screens never did.
In the locker room, he caught his reflection again. Sweat-soaked hair, flushed skin, eyes that looked… alive.
Don't confuse momentum with healing, he told himself.
Back at the apartment, Noah was pacing, phone pressed to his ear, voice tight.
"No, that's not what I said," Noah snapped. "I said it's feasible, not guaranteed. Those are different words."
He ended the call and groaned, dragging a hand through his hair. "Startup interview," he explained without prompting. "They want a unicorn yesterday."
"Did it go badly?" Ethan asked.
Noah snorted. "Define badly. They loved my ideas and hate my salary expectations."
"Sounds familiar."
Noah eyed him. "You ever think about doing more than the copy shop?"
"All the time," Ethan said honestly.
"Then why don't you?"
Ethan paused. The easy answer—that he was planning something bigger—would raise questions. The true answer—that he was terrified of repeating the same cycle—wasn't something he was ready to share.
"I'm building a base," he said finally.
Noah blinked. "A base for what?"
Ethan smiled thinly. "Survival."
Noah laughed, assuming it was a joke. "Man, you're weird lately."
That night, Ethan opened his laptop and did something he'd been putting off.
He searched his own name.
Ethan Cole. Twenty years old. Nothing remarkable. A sparse social media presence. A Facebook profile with photos from parties he didn't remember attending. Tagged pictures with people whose names meant nothing to him.
This body's past life wasn't empty—it was just shallow.
Good, he thought. Less cleanup.
He deactivated the accounts one by one, citing "privacy concerns." It felt surgical, deliberate. A small act of control.
Then he drafted another document.
Threat Model.
He listed risks the way he used to in pitch decks—methodical, unsentimental.
Technical risk.
Counterparty risk.
Regulatory risk.
Social risk.
Under social risk, he hesitated, then typed:
Exposure through relationships.
He closed the document without elaborating.
Two days later, he saw Maya again.
It was unplanned—an accident of geography and timing. He was leaving the library when he spotted her at a nearby café, laptop open, papers spread out around her like defensive fortifications. She looked up as he passed, recognition flickering across her face.
"Hey," she called.
He hesitated, then stepped inside.
"Didn't expect to see you here," she said.
"Public spaces," Ethan replied. "I'm a fan."
She smiled. "You look like someone who doesn't own a printer."
"Guilty."
He ordered coffee and joined her. Up close, he noticed the faint circles under her eyes, the way she tapped her pen against the table when thinking.
"What are you working on?" he asked.
"Paper," she said. "Financial regulation post-crisis. How institutions adapt when public trust collapses."
He raised an eyebrow. "Optimistically?"
She laughed. "Cautiously cynical."
They talked—carefully at first, then with growing ease. Not about Bitcoin directly, but about incentives, power structures, unintended consequences. Ethan chose his words like stepping stones, avoiding predictions that would sound prophetic.
"You speak like someone who's been burned," Maya observed at one point.
Ethan met her gaze. "I pay attention to patterns."
"Patterns can lie," she said.
"So can people."
That earned him a long look. Not judgmental. Assessing.
When they parted, she scribbled her number on a napkin. "In case you want to argue policy again," she said lightly.
Ethan pocketed it like contraband.
That night, he didn't sleep.
Not because of excitement—because of calculation. He replayed the conversation, mapping outcomes. Friendship. Romance. Complication. He knew where this could lead, and the knowledge didn't comfort him.
Markets punished emotional blind spots. So did life.
The following weeks passed in incremental steps.
Ethan found a seller willing to trade a small amount of Bitcoin for cash—an engineer who treated the transaction like an academic exercise rather than a gamble. They met in a public place, exchanged envelopes, double-checked addresses. The amount was laughably small by future standards.
It felt enormous.
When the transaction confirmed, Ethan stared at the screen until the numbers stopped feeling abstract. He transferred the coins to a wallet he controlled, backed up the keys in triplicate, and locked the paper copies away.
No celebration. No dopamine rush.
Just a quiet acknowledgment: position opened.
Then, almost immediately, doubt crept in.
What if this timeline diverged? What if Bitcoin failed early, smothered by regulation or apathy? What if his certainty was nothing more than narrative bias?
He forced himself to hold the discomfort. This was part of the cost.
At work, Carl announced reduced hours. "Temporary," he insisted, eyes darting. "Business is slow."
Ethan recalculated his spreadsheet that night, trimming expenses further. He cooked more. Walked more. Deferred everything that wasn't essential.
Scarcity sharpened his focus.
Maya texted him sporadically—articles, questions, the occasional dry joke. He responded, but never immediately. Space created balance.
One evening, as rain gave way to clear skies, Noah tossed him a beer and flopped onto the couch.
"You ever get the feeling," Noah said, staring at the ceiling, "that we're all just… waiting for something to break?"
Ethan took a sip. "Something already did."
Noah frowned. "That's not comforting."
"It's not meant to be."
They sat in silence, the hum of the refrigerator filling the space between them.
Ethan thought about the future again—not the charts and cycles, but the quieter moments. The conversations that nudged decisions off-course. The relationships that made risk feel heavier.
In his previous life, he'd believed success would insulate him from that weight.
He'd been wrong.
This time, he was building something slower. Something with friction. Something that acknowledged the cost of every move—not just in dollars, but in nights like this, where the world felt fragile and unfinished.
Outside, the city kept breathing.
And somewhere beneath the noise, a system was being born—messy, volatile, indifferent to intention.
Ethan watched it from the edge, hands steady, knowing that stepping fully into it would demand more than foresight.
It would demand restraint.
And restraint, he was learning, was the most expensive asset of all.