CITY FIVE

City 5 school began with slurs—filthy hybrid—and fists.

Human Angel meant cast out of gatherings and beaten in corridors where teachers looked away. Val learned quickly that promotion had not rescued him from being seen as less.

Jacob arranged housing in the common angel ring and enrolled him anyway. Three months in, Val begged him to stay away. "Please. Stay away." Jacob respected it, though sneers had already landed on him for helping once. Val told himself he was protecting Jacob. The isolation was still his choice.

Roughly a year and a half after promotion, an inter-school competition brought City 2 students into the same arena.

Val saw Lateresa for the first time. Symmetry so precise it felt designed. Courage rose in his throat and died there. He did not ask her out. The regret seed planted itself where courage should have been.

She healed him when the match broke him—he passed out, woke shocked, and understood in his bones that someone like her existed on the other side of a distance he did not know how to cross.

The offer came after. Not romance. Relocation. A door he could not open alone.