Homeroom was a slow-motion disaster disguised as routine.
A roll call. A lecture about "setting goals." A reminder that uniforms were not optional, as if any student had ever shown up naked and claimed it was a misunderstanding. The teacher's voice blended with the scratch of pens and the low, constant murmur of people pretending they weren't already bored.
Kael sat by the window, posture relaxed in a way that would've horrified his adult self. His eyes were on the glass, watching a sparrow hop along the sill outside like it owned the place.
Inside, he was doing arithmetic.
Not the kind they taught in class. The kind life forced on you.
If this is real, then my father's accident hasn't happened yet.
If it hasn't happened yet, then I can prevent it.
His stomach tightened. Control instinct—the same one that had built a skyscraper—rose fast.
Then Mira's voice from earlier surfaced in his mind, warm and normal: Eat. You'll need energy. It's a long day.
A long day. Not a long war.
Kael exhaled and forced the instinct down. Prevention wasn't the same thing as obsession. He'd learn that. He had to.
A paper ball hit the back of his head.
He didn't flinch, but his eyes slid sideways.
Bram Kess sat behind him with an expression of innocent charity, as if he'd just donated to a worthy cause.
Kael spoke without turning. "If that was an attempt to communicate, you should know it failed academically."
Bram whispered loudly, "Look left."
Kael did, slowly, like he was humoring a toddler.
Lyra sat to his left, staring straight ahead with the intense focus of someone pretending she wasn't listening to anything happening around her. Her pen moved in perfectly neat strokes.
Next to Lyra, the seat was empty.
Bram whispered again, "Keep looking."
Kael's gaze drifted further left, toward the classroom door.
It opened.
And the temperature of the room changed—not literally, but socially. Conversations dipped. Postures adjusted. People's faces arranged themselves into expressions they thought looked normal.
Selene Arcos walked in.
She didn't rush. She didn't hesitate. She moved with the smooth certainty of someone who had never once opened a door and wondered if she belonged on the other side.
Uniform immaculate. Hair glossy, pinned with a small clip that looked simple until you realized it probably cost more than Kael's entire backpack. Her eyes swept the room with polite efficiency, taking inventory without making it obvious.
Kael felt an old, distant memory of her: the school's idea of perfect. Student council star. The kind of girl teachers praised and students feared and admired in equal measure.
She paused, noticing the empty seat beside Lyra, and stepped toward it.
Lyra's spine stiffened slightly. She didn't look up.
Selene sat down with controlled grace, setting her bag down like it had been trained. She pulled out her notebook and pen, then looked forward as if she'd been there all along.
A few boys in the room visibly forgot how to breathe.
Kael didn't.
He'd stood in rooms with heads of state and CEOs who smiled like sharks. Selene's aura was strong, but it was still teenage power—social gravity, not blood in the water.
Still… there was something familiar about it.
The performance.
Kael's eyes narrowed slightly.
He watched Selene's hand as she opened her notebook: the movement was precise, practiced. But her fingers tightened on the pen just a little too hard.
Like someone bracing.
The homeroom teacher, Mr. Vask, glanced up and smiled. "Ah, Arcos. Glad you could join us."
Selene returned a smile that was polite enough to be used as a weapon. "Thank you, sir."
Her voice was clear, steady, pleasant.
Kael's mind supplied a translation: I am in control.
Mr. Vask nodded, satisfied, and returned to his lecture about goals.
Bram's whisper returned. "Kael."
Kael didn't look back. "No."
"I didn't even say anything yet."
"You were going to."
Bram made an offended noise. "I was going to say—"
Kael cut him off. "Whatever it is, keep it inside your head where it can't hurt society."
Bram sighed dramatically. "Fine. I'll just let you live your boring life."
Kael murmured, "Thank you."
Bram's hand appeared in Kael's peripheral vision, sliding a flyer onto Kael's desk.
Kael glanced down.
CULINARY CLUB — MEMBERS WANTED
NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY
(YES, YOU CAN EAT YOUR RESULTS)
His pulse did something stupid.
He stared at the paper like it was a contract written in a language he'd always wanted to learn but never had time.
Cooking club.
In the first timeline, he'd seen this flyer. He remembered it now—how it had caught his eye for half a second, how he'd thought, That looks fun, and then immediately crushed the thought under the heel of responsibility.
Fun doesn't pay hospital bills.
Kael's throat tightened.
He held the flyer with two fingers, careful, like it might vanish if he touched it too honestly.
Lyra noticed the movement and finally looked sideways. Her eyes landed on the flyer.
Her expression shifted to confusion, then suspicion. "Is that… Culinary Club?"
Kael kept his voice neutral. "Yes."
Lyra blinked. "You can't even boil water."
Kael stared at her. "That's slander."
Lyra leaned closer, whispering, "Kael. Last year you tried to make noodles and almost set the pot on fire."
Kael said, deadpan, "It was a controlled experiment."
Lyra's eyes narrowed. "It was a disaster."
Kael wanted to tell her that in another life he'd stood in kitchens he paid professionals to build, that he'd watched cooking shows at three in the morning like they were therapy, that he'd carried a hunger for warmth he couldn't name.
Instead he shrugged. "People change."
Lyra stared at him like she was trying to locate the hidden camera.
Selene, who had been staring forward, spoke without looking at them. "People don't change that fast."
Her voice was still pleasant. But the words were sharp.
Lyra's posture stiffened. She turned slightly toward Selene. "What?"
Selene's pen moved across her notebook as if the conversation was irrelevant. "Nothing. Just an observation."
Kael watched Selene's hand again. The pen pressure increased. A faint tremor ran through her fingers and vanished.
Kael's mouth twitched.
Perfect girls didn't tremble. Not in public.
Unless they were human.
The bell rang.
The class surged to life instantly, chairs scraping, people standing, conversations exploding back into volume. The teacher dismissed them with the defeated air of a man who knew he was a background character in his own job.
Kael stood and slung his bag over one shoulder. Bram latched onto him immediately like a parasite with feelings.
"Okay," Bram said, walking backward in front of him. "We need to talk about your future. Specifically, your romantic future."
Kael stepped around him. "No."
Bram followed. "Your culinary future."
Kael paused half a beat.
Bram's grin sharpened. "Aha."
Kael sighed. "I'm considering joining a club."
Bram put a hand to his chest as if he'd been emotionally wounded. "Considering? Kael, you're a natural. You already have the face of a misunderstood chef."
"I have the face of someone who hasn't slept."
"Exactly," Bram said triumphantly. "Chef vibes."
Lyra walked alongside them, still suspiciously quiet. She kept glancing at Kael like he'd replaced himself with a slightly better-mannered clone.
As they turned down the hall, Selene exited the classroom behind them. A small group of students gravitated toward her immediately—student council members, maybe, or people who wanted to bask in her orbit.
Selene responded with flawless politeness, walking as if the hallway belonged to her.
Then, as she passed Kael, her gaze flicked to the flyer peeking out of his bag.
Her steps didn't falter. Her expression didn't change.
But Kael caught it: the smallest pause in her eyes.
Interest.
Or hunger.
Kael's stomach did a weird thing.
He shook it off. He had bigger priorities than noticing the microexpressions of school idols.
He told himself that.
It didn't work.
By lunchtime, Kael was sitting with Lyra and Bram at a table near the windows in the cafeteria. The place was loud and bright and smelled like fried food and spilled soda. Students clustered like flocks, trading snacks and gossip like currency.
Senn appeared briefly at the edge of the cafeteria, waved at Kael dramatically with his mouth full, then got dragged away by his middle-school friends. Kael watched him go with a soft, unfamiliar warmth in his chest.
Lyra unwrapped her lunch. Bram immediately leaned over like a starving bird.
"Is that meat roll?" Bram asked, eyes shining.
Lyra slapped his hand away. "Eat your own food."
Bram groaned. "Kael, tell her sharing is caring."
Kael opened his lunchbox.
It was… good.
Not fancy. But Mira had packed it like she was feeding someone she expected to see again. Rice, grilled vegetables, a small portion of meat with sauce. And, tucked in the corner, a little sweet bun.
Kael stared at it longer than necessary.
Bram snapped his fingers in front of Kael's face. "Hello? Earth to Kael."
Kael corrected automatically, because he was sarcastic and pedantic by nature. "Clearth."
Bram blinked. "What?"
"Nothing."
Lyra watched Kael eat like she was waiting for him to glitch again.
Kael took a bite, chewed, swallowed. Then—before he could stop himself—he said softly, "This is good."
Lyra's expression softened, just a fraction. "Your mom's cooking is always good."
Kael nodded once, eyes down. "Yeah."
For a moment, he almost forgot the future.
Then the cafeteria noise shifted. Not silence—nothing ever truly went silent in a cafeteria—but a ripple of attention moved across the room.
Kael looked up.
Selene Arcos stood near the serving line with a tray that held exactly one item: a small bowl of cafeteria soup.
That was it.
No side dish. No bread. No fruit. Nothing.
For someone who looked like she belonged on magazine covers and honor boards, it was the saddest lunch Kael had ever seen.
Selene walked with her usual composure and sat at a table—alone.
Alone, in a cafeteria full of people.
Not because she had no one. Because she had too many.
Kael understood that kind of loneliness intimately.
Bram leaned in, whispering with the enthusiasm of a man about to ruin someone's life. "Selene Arcos. Student council president-in-training. Feared by students, loved by teachers, rumored to have a secret underground fan club."
Lyra muttered, "It's not underground. They meet behind the library. It's embarrassing."
Bram continued, "Also rumored to eat only salad and sadness."
Kael's eyes stayed on Selene's tray.
Soup and sadness, indeed.
Selene lifted her spoon, took a single sip, and her expression flickered.
Just for a second.
Disgust.
Then she smoothed it away and took another sip, like she was punishing herself.
Kael's jaw tightened.
A thought rose, uninvited.
If I cooked for her… would she stop doing that to herself?
He almost laughed at the absurdity. He didn't even know her. He had no business thinking about her lunch preferences like it mattered.
But the flyer in his bag felt heavier again.
Cooking wasn't just food.
It was presence.
It was showing up.
Kael pushed his lunchbox lid closed and stood.
Lyra blinked. "Where are you going?"
Kael's mouth moved before his brain fully approved. "I'm going to fix a crime."
Bram's eyes widened. "What crime?"
Kael nodded toward Selene's table. "That soup."
Lyra stared. "Kael—don't—"
Bram grabbed Lyra's arm. "Let him. This is either going to be amazing or catastrophic."
Lyra hissed, "Bram!"
Kael walked toward Selene's table with the calm of a man who'd negotiated billion-credit deals.
This should be easy.
It wasn't.
Every step felt like he was walking toward something fragile. Like he was about to touch a part of his new life that could change everything if he wasn't careful.
Selene noticed him when he was a few steps away. Her eyes lifted, polite and guarded.
Kael stopped beside her table.
Selene's smile appeared instantly—perfect, automatic. "Veyrin. Can I help you?"
Her voice was smooth.
Her eyes weren't.
Kael glanced at her bowl, then back at her. "You're eating that on purpose?"
Selene's smile twitched. "Excuse me?"
Kael kept his tone flat, because sarcasm was safer than sincerity. "The soup. It tastes like someone boiled regret and called it broth."
Selene stared at him.
For the first time, her perfect mask cracked—not into anger, but into something like shock.
Then she let out a small, unwilling sound.
A laugh.
It was tiny. Barely there.
But it was real.
Selene coughed once to cover it, regaining composure. "That's… an odd description."
Kael nodded. "Accurate, though."
Selene's eyes narrowed slightly, studying him. "Why are you here?"
Kael held up the sweet bun from his lunchbox—he'd taken it without thinking.
It was a small thing, wrapped neatly.
He offered it to her.
Selene looked at it like it was a trap.
Kael said, "Trade."
Selene's brow lifted. "Trade?"
Kael gestured at the soup bowl. "You stop pretending this is edible, and you take something that doesn't taste like self-hatred."
Selene's expression went perfectly blank.
Then she said, very softly, "Do you always talk to people like this?"
Kael thought of his future self, alone on a rooftop, suffocating in silence.
Then he looked at the girl in front of him, perfect mask barely holding, eating sadness in public and calling it discipline.
Kael's mouth curved into something that looked like a smirk and felt like a promise.
"Only the ones who look like they need it," he said.
Selene stared at him for a long moment.
Then, slowly, she reached out and took the bun.
Her fingers brushed his for half a second—warm, careful, like she wasn't used to contact that wasn't formal.
Butterflies hit Selene's stomach so hard She almost felt offended.
Selene cleared her throat. "Fine. One bite."
Kael nodded. "Good. Because if you pretend you hate it, I'll call you a liar."
Selene's eyes flicked up, sharp. "You're very confident for someone offering unsolicited food."
Kael shrugged. "I have experience with bad decisions."
Selene paused.
Something unreadable passed through her gaze—like she'd heard a truth underneath the joke.
Then she took a bite.
Her eyes widened—just slightly.
Her shoulders lowered by a fraction, as if her body had been holding itself up by force and finally remembered it was allowed to relax.
Selene swallowed, stared at the bun, then took another bite faster.
Kael watched, satisfied.
Selene caught him watching and snapped her eyes up, cheeks barely coloring. "I'm not hungry."
Kael nodded gravely. "Of course not. You're just… aggressively not hungry."
Selene's lips pressed together.
Then she said, quietly, "Thank you."
Two words.
But they landed like a door opening.
Kael's chest warmed, surprising him.
He nodded once, as if he hadn't just been emotionally punched by basic human gratitude. "Try not to die from cafeteria soup tomorrow," he said, then turned to leave.
As he walked away, Bram's face was the picture of religious awe.
Lyra looked like she wanted to grab Kael by the collar and shake him until answers fell out.
Kael sat back down, pretending his heart wasn't doing acrobatics.
Bram leaned in, whispering, "Kael."
Kael sighed. "What."
Bram's eyes glittered. "You just fed Selene Arcos."
Kael deadpanned, "Yes. I am now officially employed as her food dealer."
Lyra hissed, "Kael, what are you doing?"
Kael opened his lunchbox again, the spot where the bun had been now empty.
He stared at it.
Then he looked across the cafeteria, where Selene sat alone, chewing slowly like she was savoring something she didn't allow herself to have.
Kael's voice came out quieter than his sarcasm usually allowed.
"I'm showing up," he said.
Lyra's expression softened, confusion mixing with something else—something almost tender.
Bram blinked, then grinned like a man witnessing the start of a legendary saga. "Okay," Bram said, voice reverent. "This year is going to be insane."
Kael didn't deny it.
Because for the first time in a lifetime, insane sounded like living.