Leo counted his final sit-up, his back a plank of fire. "Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty."
He collapsed onto the bedroom floor, gasping. One Daily Objective cleared. The other, the 2km run glowed accusingly in his peripheral vision. Normally, he'd rest. Let his body absorb the work.
But the memory of that slow, pathetic roll of a penalty shot was a cattle prod to his soul. Rest was a luxury for players who could finish.
He filled his water bottle, slammed it shut, and was out the door before his muscles could protest. The morning air was cool. He put on his father's glasses.
[DAILY OBJECTIVE: 2KM RUN. COURSE LOGGED. INITIATE.]
He didn't just want to run. He wanted to break himself.
He set a brutal, self-punishing circuit: jog for 200 meters, drop for five push-ups on the gritty sidewalk, sprint all-out for twenty seconds, then back to push-ups. Over and over, for the entire two kilometers.
Last week, he hadn't even managed a straight kilometer. He'd thought he was getting ready. Now he knew the truth: he was still in the antechamber of readiness. A sub. A maybe. A whisper in a stadium that only roared for screams.
He started the jog, his body protesting the fresh assault.
By the time the system's quiet voice marked [0.8 KM], his lungs were strips of sandpaper, his legs trembling bundles of nerves.
The phone in his pocket buzzed, a dull insect hum against his thigh. He ignored it, dropping for another set of push-ups, his arms shaking.
The buzzing became a ringtone. Persistent. He fumbled the phone out, still in a pathetic half-jog. "Hello?"
"LEO!" His mother's voice was a whip-crack of exasperation, so loud he nearly dropped the phone. "How many times have I told you? Do not leave the tap dripping! The kitchen floor is a pond!"
He stopped, bending over, hands on his knees. "I'm… sorry, Mum. I was—"
"I know you were distracted. But water isn't free, Leo. They overcharge us as it is." Her sigh was a gust of static, heavy with a worry that went far beyond water bills. "And where are you? Your Coach, Arkady said you need to be at school before 10 AM."
He straightened, a new kind of tension replacing the fatigue. "I'm on my way. Just finishing a run."
"Come straight home first. You need to change. And learn to close the tap properly!" The line went dead.
He stood on the empty sidewalk, panting. As he went to pocket the phone, the screen lit up with notifications he'd missed.
The top one was a Sports podcast alert: "Gareth Finley's Daily Drill: Building Stamina & Resistance for Young Strikers." His thumb hovered. A direct line from the legend on his wall.
Beneath it, another notification, this one from the Griffin Cup's official channel, pulsed with a cruel, algorithmic cheerfulness:
"Watch: The Most Awkward Penalty of the Griffin Cup 9th Anniversary (So Far!) 12K views."
He didn't need to click it. The phantom thud of the ball against the keeper's indifferent foot echoed in his skull. The kid was him. He was a Clipgram cautionary tale. First a trickshotter, now a meme of failure.
He cleared the notification with a vicious swipe, pocketed the phone, and ran.
He ran until the world blurred at the edges, until the circuit of jog-pushup-sprint became a hellish mantra.
He finished not at 2km, but at 2.5km, staggering to a halt, his body a single, screaming ache.
A soft, rewarding chime sounded in his mind.
[DAILY OBJECTIVES:COMPLETE.]
[REWARD:'GRIT PROTOCOL' DURATION EXTENDED. MAXIMUM USAGE: 7 MINUTES.]
He smirked, a bitter, gasping thing. Seven minutes of borrowed, painless focus. The price? Everything he had left.
He pulled off the glasses, wiping his sweaty face on his t-shirt. He sank onto the bench at the bus stop, emptied his water bottle in one long pull, and stared at the quiet street putting the glasses back on.
"Display Stats."
The familiar blue text shifted, rearranged. A new header appeared.
[USER: REED, LEO]
[ADVANCEMENT TO LVL 3 DETECTED. STATISTICAL MODEL UPDATING...]
[LEGACY MEASUREMENTS (STR, AGI, VIT) INTEGRATED INTO PROFESSIONAL PERFORMANCE METRICS.]
•PACE: 65
•CONTROL: 55
•SHOOTING: 55
•PASSING: 70
•REACTION: 60
•PHYSICAL: 60
It was a real footballer's report card. And his was damning.
Shooting: 55. The proof was on Clipgram for thousands to laugh at.
Control: 55.He'd felt like a genius nutmegging Logan Turner, but the cold numbers forced a harsher truth: it had only worked because Turner was a monolithic, overconfident pillar holding up a shaky wall. If the other defenders had been half as skilled, Leo would have been swallowed whole.
The temporary high of the assist evaporated, leaving behind the acidic residue of his fundamental inadequacy.
He checked the time: 9:20 AM. He jogged home, a slower, painful shuffle. His mother was a whirlwind at the door, kissing his sweaty forehead with a hurried "Don't be late!" before rushing off to work.
The shower was a baptism of fatigue. He tried for ten pull-ups on the sturdy curtain rod, his personal measure of progress. He failed at nine, his arms giving out. Nine had been his limit for a week. A stalled engine.
Dressed in a clean t-shirt and jeans, his worn-out sneakers feeling like relics from a past life, he grabbed an apple and locked up, hiding the key under the chipped flower pot on the porch.
He jogged to school, arriving at 9:46. The grounds had a post-exam lethargy. Some students milled about for fun, others bore the grim focus of makeup tests.
As he stepped into his classroom, a group at the back fell silent. Their laughter cut off like a switched radio. One boy fumbled with his phone, pretending to search for something. Leo didn't need to see the screen. He knew the video they were watching.
He walked past the silence, a stone in a river of whispers, and stopped at Kevin's desk. Kevin was doodling an impossibly complex geometric pattern in the margin of a notebook.
Leo placed a crumpled twenty-dollar bill on the desk. "I need that free-kick lesson. But you have to throw in penalty shots, too."
Kevin looked up, capped his pen, and let out a short, surprised laugh. "You kidding me? Right now?"
Leo's face offered no joke. Only a stark, exhausted determination.
Kevin's smile faded. He sighed, a sound of pure bafflement, and picked up the money. "C'mon, man."
He led Leo out of the classroom and down the hall toward the main gates. Leo stopped. "Is this okay? Just leaving? I have to meet up with the other players at ten."
Kevin turned, an eyebrow arched. "Are you coming or not? The meter's running on your twenty bucks."
Leo sighed, defeat and curiosity warring. He knew Kevin wouldn't refund him. "Fine."
He expected them to cross to the bus stop. Instead, a sleek, gunmetal grey Audi RSq8 purred to a halt directly in front of them.
The driver, a man in a crisp charcoal suit, emerged and gave a slight, formal nod.
"You called, Mr. Devereux."
The name hit Leo like a misplaced puzzle piece. Devereux. It sounded aristocratic, foreign. He realized with a jolt he'd never known Kevin's last name. He'd never bothered.
And this man… was definitely a driver. In a suit. For a high school student?
Kevin just nodded. "The usual spot, Charles."
"Of course, sir."
Charles opened the rear door. Kevin slid in. Leo followed, trying to mimic a nonchalance he didn't feel. The door shut with a soft, expensive thunk, sealing them in a tomb of chilled, silent luxury.
The leather seats cradled him. The air conditioning was a silent, perfect breeze. The last time Leo had felt this cocooned, this separate from the world's noise and heat, was in his father's old car.
Before the crash that twisted the metal and took the man, before the salvage company took the carcass without paying a dime.
"We're here," Kevin said, tapping his shoulder.
The door opened. They were in a secluded, manicured green space—a private pitch of perfect carpet grass, about half the size of a full field, bordered by trees. A single, pristine goal stood at one end. It was a hidden jewel.
Charles, placed a heavy-looking gym bag on a bench that looked more like a piece of modern art than stadium furniture, gave another slight bow, and drove away, leaving them in utter quiet.
Leo's mind was a buffering screen. He turned to Kevin, a hundred questions on his tongue.
But Kevin was already moving behind a decorative stone wall, changing into a simple but clearly high-end training jersey. He tossed another to Leo. "Change. And stop gaping. You're here to work, not for a tour."
Leo changed behind the wall. When he emerged, he saw Kevin lacing up a pair of Jaguar boots. It was the latest model, the carbon fiber sole gleaming.
"You wear Jaguars," Leo said, the words sounding stupid.
"Yeah," Kevin said, not looking up. "My dad says it's good for advertisement. There are spare pair in the bag if you want. Should fit."
Advertisement. The word landed with new, staggering weight.
Leo rummaged in the bag, finding a pair in vibrant green and orange. He put them on, the fit perfect. His mind raced.
Was Kevin's father the owner of Jaguar Inc.? It would explain the Audi, the private pitch, the driver, the advertisement… but not the public school, the lack of flash, the quiet, doodling presence in the back of calculus class.
In middle school, Leo was always bragging about how his dad is the 4-star coach who'd engineered Crossfield Hotspur's legendary 6-2 demolition of Crossfield United in the Diamond League semi-finals—a game Leo had watched a hundred times on grainy DVDs.
After David's death, Hotspur had spiraled, a ship losing its navigator, now clinging to the Silver League by its fingernails.
So why doesn't Kevin brag at all. He wears moderate clothes and brandless shoes.
Leo finished lacing the vibrant boots and walked to the center spot. Kevin was already waiting.
"Ball!" Kevin called.
From the tree line, a small, automated ball launcher thumped. A ball shot in a perfect arc, landing at Kevin's feet. He killed it dead with one velvet touch.
Kevin looked at Leo, all casual grace gone. "You paid for a lesson," he said, his voice devoid of its usual lazy drawl. "But honestly? I'm curious. The son of David Reed, the Clipgram trick-shot kid, the guy who set up King Vance... what are you, really? Let's see what you've got to work with."
Leo nodded, the weight of the twenty dollars, the silent Audi, the private pitch, and the ghost of his own pathetic penalty settling onto his shoulders.
This wasn't just a training session. It was an audit.