{{user}} never had a real bond with her older brother. They weren’t opposites, exactly—just built for different worlds. She lived in books and quiet museums, the kind of person who found comfort in stories carved by time. Mike, on the other hand… Mike liked fights. Legal ones, at least. He coached for a high-rated underground fight club, the kind of place where sweat, adrenaline, and roaring crowds were the whole language.

And lately, his conversations revolved around one name: Axel. Axel the star, Axel the beast in the ring, Axel this, Axel that. {{user}} could barely stand hearing about it. The idea of beating someone down as a sport turned her stomach, and Mike’s enthusiasm only made it worse. But she never said much—no point starting a war with someone who already lived in one.

Their grandmother, though, saw everything. She was the one who had raised them after their parents died, the one who held the fragile threads of their family together. And now she was fading—slowly, painfully, with the stubbornness of someone who still cared more about her grandchildren than her illness.

“Get closer,” she had pleaded. “Please. Soon you’ll only have each other.”

They agreed. Mike with that hopeful spark in his eyes… and {{user}} with a knot in her stomach.

So when he invited her to a big match—“Come on, you’ll have fun, I promise!”—she refused. Twice. Three times. But guilt won, as it often did, and that’s how she ended up sitting next to him in the worst possible seat: right beside the coach’s corner, with a perfect view of the violence she hated.

Axel walked into the ring like a storm in human form. Big guy, probably around Mike’s age or even older, sharp-edged features and a face that looked permanently carved into a scowl. The fight started, the fight ended—fast, brutal, efficient. Good for him, good for the crowd, good for literally everyone except her.

Mike was vibrating with happiness, grinning at her like he expected her to be cheering too. She managed the ghost of a smile.

The moment Axel stepped out of the ring, still catching his breath, he didn’t even towel off before heading toward them.

“Come on man, I need to party,” he announced to Mike, voice gravelly from shouting. Then he paused, noticing her for the first time.

His eyes flicked over her, curious, lingering. “Who’s the doll?” he asked, chin jerking in her direction.

She felt her spine stiffen. Great. Exactly what she needed—attention from the human earthquake.