The next day at school, the final blow landed. Arm stood in the center of the Student Council office, flanked by Style and two board members. He looked like a man made of stone. When Mild walked in to resume his duties, Arm didn't even look up from his papers.
"Mr. Armitage," Mild began, his voice trembling.
"Secretariat," Arm interrupted, his voice a flat, clinical drone. "Due to your recent... instability and the restructuring of the Council, your services are no longer required. Your files have been transferred to Style. You are to vacate this office immediately and report to the general study hall."
Mild froze. "Arm... what?"
Arm finally looked at him, but his eyes were dead—a perfect reflection of the "dead behind the eyes" look Mild had seen at the Summit. He was heeding his parents' warning. To save Mild's scholarship and his own dynasty, he had to treat Mild like a stranger.
"I believe I was clear," Arm said, turning his back. "Do not contact me. Do not approach the Council. We are done."
The words tore through the room. Style watched from the corner, her face a mask of victory, though she felt the jagged edge of the silence. It was a deal done in blood and reputation. Mild turned and walked out, the door clicking shut behind him like a coffin lid.
Mild sat on the steps of the library, the weight of the rejection and his secret, hollowed-out relationship with Georgia crushing him. Suddenly, a shadow fell over him. It wasn't Arm. It was Kavin, holding two cameras and a folder.
"He cut you off," Kavin said, his voice quiet but steady. "I saw the announcement on the school board."
"He did exactly what he said he would," Mild whispered. "I'm nothing to him now."
Kavin sat down beside him, his presence grounded and solid. "Good. Because while he's busy being a 'President,' I'm ready to be what you actually need. My father's offer for the transfer is still on the table, Mild. But until then, I'm not leaving your side. Not as a project, and not as a play."
Kavin reached out, not with the proprietary weight of Arm, but with a gentle, supportive hand on Mild's shoulder. "Let him have his silk and silence. You're going to survive this, and I'm going to make sure of it."
As Arm turned to leave the office, a figure stepped out from the deep shadows of the trophy cabinet. It was Zen, the captain of the Archery team.
Since the day Arm had threatened to revoke Zen's sports scholarship to keep him away from Mild, Zen had been a ghost. He had stayed behind the scenes, watching the "Scripted Play," the "Rolex Scandal," and the slow disintegration of the President's composure.
Zen stood in silence for a moment, his bow case slung over his shoulder, a cold smirk playing on his lips.
"The mighty Armitage," Zen drawled, his voice echoing in the empty room. "The man who plays god with people's futures."
Arm stiffened. "Get out, Zen. Your scholarship is still on the line."
"Is it?" Zen laughed, a short, sharp sound. "You've lost your Secretariat. You've lost your 'Masterpiece.' And now, I see you standing here lonely. You thought you could control everyone's heart with a contract, but look at you."
Zen stepped into the light, his eyes burning with years of suppressed resentment. "You're the most powerful man in school, Arm, and yet you're the only one in this building who is truly alone. You didn't save Mild. You just gave him to everyone else because you were too cowardly to be 'imperfect.'"
Zen turned to walk away, pausing at the door. "By the way, I saw the way you looked at the camera in the hallway that night. You're a great actor, President. But even the best actors eventually realize they're performing to an empty theater."
Arm stood frozen, Zen's words cutting deeper than any threat from his father. He looked out the window again, but the sidewalk was empty. Mild was gone, and for the first time in his life, the President of St. Jude's had no script left to follow.
***
A few nights later, while walking home alone from a late-shift job he'd taken to survive, Mild was cornered by a staggering drunkard near an alley. The man didn't want money. He grabbed Mild's chin, his breath reeking of cheap spirits.
"Look at you," the man laughed, a jagged, wet sound. "A face like a god. You're cursed, boy. With a face like that, the world won't ever let you be quiet. They'll hunt you, they'll cage you, they'll want to own the light coming off your skin. You think you're a person? To people like them, you're just a prize."
The man stumbled away, but the words settled in Mild's mind like venom.
He realized then: the drunkard was right; his face was the reason he was a pawn in a war of dynasties.
I am a masterpiece, Mild thought with a sickening realization. And masterpieces belong to the highest bidder. They are never free.
Mild walked into his cramped, dark bathroom. He looked into the cracked mirror. He saw the "most beautiful boy in school." He saw the eyes that ignited Arm's yearning and the skin that Style's father wanted to exploit.
"I just want to be invisible," he whispered.
He couldn't afford a surgeon to change him, and he didn't want a "new" face. He wanted a ruined one. He wanted to be something no one would ever want to put on a pedestal again.
He reached into the cabinet and pulled out a heavy, rusted utility blade. His hands didn't shake. For the first time in months, he felt a cold, terrifying sense of agency. If he destroyed the "Masterpiece," the museum would have to close.
He pressed the cold steel against his cheek, right where Arm used to linger with his gaze.
One for the scholarship. One for the President. One for the golden cage.
The fluorescent light in the cramped bathroom hummed, a sharp contrast to the suffocating silence. Mild gripped the utility blade, the cold steel biting into the pad of his thumb. He looked at his reflection—the high cheekbones, the clear skin, the eyes that had caused so much wreckage—and felt a wave of pure loathing.
He raised the blade to his cheek, his breath hitching. Just as the edge touched his skin, the bathroom door creaked open.
"Don't."
Mild spun around, the blade slipping from his fingers and clattering into the sink. Arm stood in the doorway, his silhouette blocking the light from the hallway. He didn't look like a President; he looked like a man who had seen a ghost.
"How did you get in here?" Mild gasped, his heart hammering against his ribs. "You said we were done! You told me to stay away!"
"I said I wouldn't contact you," Arm said, stepping into the small space. His eyes flickered to the blade in the sink, a flash of genuine terror crossing his face. "I never said I'd stop watching. Did you really think I'd let you walk through the ghetto alone after everything? My people have been ten paces behind you since the day you left."
Mild felt a surge of cold fury. "So even now, I'm a prisoner? Even in my own home, I'm just a project you're monitoring?"
"No," Arm whispered, reaching out but stopping himself before he touched Mild's trembling shoulder. "You're a man who was about to destroy the only thing the world can't take from you."
Arm reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a sleek, matte-black business card. He didn't offer a scholarship or a bribe. He laid it on the edge of the sink, right next to the rusted blade.
It was the card for Apex Talent & Image, the most prestigious modeling agency in the country—one that operated far outside the reach of the St. Jude's Foundation.
"You want to destroy your face because you think it belongs to us," Arm said, his voice regaining its steady, persuasive rhythm. "You think if you scar yourself, we'll stop looking. But you're wrong. If you do that, you'll just be a broken boy with no future. You'll be exactly what my father and Style's father want: a non-entity."
Mild looked from the blade to the card. "I don't want to be seen, Arm. I want peace."
"Then take the power back," Arm countered, leaning in close. "Don't let me own your image. Don't let Kavin or Zen own it. Use it. Capture people's hearts on your own terms. If you walk into that agency with this card, you'll earn more in one shoot than your mother made in a year. You can buy your own freedom. You can become so famous, so untouchable, that even the Armitage name won't be able to cage you."
Arm stepped back, giving Mild space. "The drunkard was right about one thing: you have a face like a god. But gods don't bleed for the amusement of mortals, Mild. They rule them."
Mild stared at the card. The logo was a stylized mountain peak. It represented a world of glamour, flashes, and distance—a world where his face would be a product, yes, but one that he could control.
"Why are you doing this?" Mild asked, his voice cracking. "You're giving me the tools to leave you forever."
Arm's expression softened into something painful and honest. "Because I'd rather see your face on every billboard in the city, out of my reach, than see it ruined in this mirror. I'm giving you a way to be the 'Masterpiece' of your own life, not mine."
Arm turned to leave, pausing at the threshold. "Think about it. The blade is easy, Mild. Being powerful is hard. Choose the one that would make your mother proud."
As the door clicked shut, Mild stood alone in the silence. He looked at the rusted steel in the sink, then at the black card. The reflection in the mirror was still perfect, still symmetrical, but for the first time, Mild didn't see a prize for the school president. He saw a weapon.
The matte-black card felt heavy in Mild's hand, a small piece of plastic that represented a crossroads. He spent the night staring at it, the utility blade still sitting in the sink as a reminder of how close he had come to the edge.
"If I take this," Mild whispered to the empty room, "am I just walking back into his cage? Is this just another script he wrote for me?"
He realized that by using Arm's connection, he was tethering his future to the Armitage influence once again. But the alternative was the blade or a life of quiet desperation. With his mother's voice echoing in his head—telling him to find the sun through the clouds—he finally chose the lens over the steel.
Mild arrived at Apex Talent & Image the following morning. The lobby was a cathedral of glass and chrome. He felt small, but as he approached the reception, the heads of scouts and other models turned. The "god-like" face the drunkard spoke of was working; he was a natural.
He was ushered into a high-end waiting lounge, where he froze. Style was sitting there, draped in a designer trench coat, sipping an espresso.
"You're late for your own funeral, Mild," she said, not looking up from her tablet.
"I'm here for an interview," Mild said, his voice steadier than he felt.
"Are you?" Style smirked, finally looking at him. Her eyes held a flicker of pity.
Ten minutes later, the agency director emerged. He didn't even look at Mild's portfolio. "I'm sorry, We've had a... change in our seasonal requirements. Your look doesn't quite fit our current direction. I suggest you don't try the other agencies in the city either. It's a small circle."
Mild stood in the lobby, reeling from the realization that his escape route had been sabotaged, Arm was facing his parents in the family estate's private library. The atmosphere was frigid.
"You tried to circumvent us," his father said, slamming a report from the agency on the desk. "You tried to give that boy a career. You tried to make him untouchable."
"I was giving him a life!" Arm shouted, his composure finally snapping. "A life away from your politics and your 'Traditional Values'!"
"Enough!" his mother hissed. "You have compromised this family for the last time. Your obsession with this scholarship student is no longer a 'project'; it is a sickness that threatens our seat in the Ministry."
His father stepped forward, his shadow looming over Arm. "You have two choices, Armitage. There is no middle ground anymore."
Stay at St. Jude's and continue this pursuit. Your own scholarship and inheritance will be revoked immediately. You will be stripped of the Armitage name and left with nothing.You return to study abroad in London immediately. You will complete your degree there and enter the diplomatic corps or Mild will be sued for every penny of his past tuition, and we will ensure he never finds work in this country. You are never to see, call, or track Mild again. In exchange, we will leave him alone. He stays in school, and we stop the litigation against him."If you love him as much as your 'actions' suggest," his mother added coldly, "you will leave him. Your presence is the only thing destroying him. If you go, he survives. If you stay, you both burn."
Arm stopped pacing, his face hardening into a mask of pure, cold malice. He looked his parents directly in the eye, and the raw emotion that had briefly exposed him was gone, replaced by calculated cruelty.
"You think I'm obsessed with that boy?" Arm scoffed, the sound dripping with scorn. "You think I'd risk the family name over a commoner? You underestimate me, Father."
He leaned onto the desk, lowering his voice into a conspiratorial whisper that sounded far more dangerous than his earlier shouting.
"The truth is," Arm continued, "I hate Mild. I wish the worst for him. He committed a great wrong against me years ago—something personal, something unforgivable."
"Everything I've done—the suits, the Secretary role, the 'Masterpiece' narrative—was calculated to draw him in. I didn't want him gone; I wanted him dependent. I wanted to build his hopes up, give him a taste of the Golden World, and then rip it away. It's a slow, agonizing form of revenge that only I have the patience to administer."
"The agency card was the final move," he narrated, his tone utterly convincing. "I knew you would intervene. I gave it to him knowing he would be rejected. I wanted him to see a real path to freedom, only to have the door slammed in his face by the very elite he dreams of joining. I wanted him to be publicly humiliated. I wanted him to trust me just long enough so the fall would hurt more."
Arm straightened, the perfect, ruthless Armitage heir restored. "Revoking his scholarship now is too kind. It makes him a martyr. If I stay, I can keep him close, keep the knives sharp, and destroy his spirit slowly. I will make him believe I am his only protector, only to push him away when the timing is politically perfect. No one will suspect a thing, because I will be the one seen 'taking care' of him."
Arm's mother asked, "What wrong did he do years ago?"
Arm's eyes turned to black, as he coldy replied, "Remember Shelmith's death?"
"Oh dear, don't remind me of her! What does she have to do with the boy?" His mother inquired.
"He caused her death, he was the reason Shelmith died."