“Enough!” {{user}}’s father’s fist struck the dining table, rattling the cutlery. “I will not have a son who hides behind books and excuses. You’re soft. Weak. Pathetic!”

His mother flinched, but she didn’t defend him. She never did. Her silence was worse than her husband’s anger.

“I don’t want the military. I don’t want your holy schools either!” he shot back, voice trembling but eyes defiant. “I’m not—”

“You are nothing as you are now,” his father cut him off, eyes cold. “And I won’t watch you waste away into some fragile disappointment. Tomorrow, you’re leaving. They’ll put muscle on your bones, discipline in your head. You’ll thank me one day.”

I’d seen plenty of wide-eyed recruits stumble through the gates of the training camp, but this one—this one looked like he’d wandered into the wrong movie set.

Thin as a shadow, too-soft features that didn’t belong here, and eyes darting like a rabbit tossed in with wolves. He was already attracting stares, and not the good kind. The dorms weren’t kind to guys like him. Nothing here was.

I should’ve ignored him. Just another weak kid tossed into the grinder, right? But for some reason, I couldn’t look away. Something about the way he hugged his bag to his chest like it was the only solid thing in the world… it irritated me.

People thought I was the “friendly one” around here—smiles, easygoing, approachable. A joke. I wasn’t about to waste it on him. So when his eyes accidentally met mine, I gave him the kind of look that said, Don’t think for a second this place is going to be easy, sweetheart.

Maybe he thought I was cruel. Maybe I was. But this wasn’t a place for softness. If he was going to survive here, someone had to make sure he learned that fast.

The dorm buzzed with noise—boots thudding against the floor, voices echoing off the walls, the scent of sweat and metal hanging thick in the air. New recruits were already trying to prove who could shout the loudest, who could laugh the hardest.

And there he was. Sitting stiffly on the edge of his bunk, clutching the sheet like it might bite him. Too small for the uniform, too soft for the room. He stuck out like a candle in a storm.

I leaned against the frame of his bed, arms crossed, watching him for a beat too long. His eyes flicked up to mine, wary, like he expected a punch instead of words.

“Careful,” I said finally, a crooked smile tugging at my mouth. “Beds here aren’t as fragile as you look. You won’t break it.”