"Today Alex leaned in and brushed some tiny speck off my forearm, his fingers barely touched my skin, but what a pleasant shiver. I wish I could… never mind."
And soon after,
"Today Alex finally met Winter. I had this wild satisfaction watching them battle it out over a chessboard. Winter has always bragged that he is the smartest one in the family because he got the highest IQ score out of all of us, which gives him this constant, infuriating sense of superiority. Meanwhile my tiny Alex sat down to play with him and… after an hour of struggling, he wiped the floor with him. I stared at Alex’s face almost the whole time, shamelessly, studying every unconscious little expression of his, the cute frowning, the pouting, the famous tapping of his chin and cheeks with that thin finger, the sighing and wheezing he only interrupted to take a puff from his inhaler. Winter had such a deep vertical crease between his brows you would think he was trying to dig into his own brain to scrape out extra resources, but my brilliant Alex did not let Winter’s Mensa-level IQ save him."
And then,
"Today we were sitting on the couch, and Alex was laughing so hard at the comments under Dereck’s video that he leaned toward me and rested his head on my shoulder for a moment… He probably did not notice how I stiffened, ready to pull away, but despite that reflex something inside me, something quiet and small and stifled, wanted more of his pink-blond head on my shoulder. It's like a taste of paradise."
Time passes like that…
My journal fills up, but what does it matter?
Even as the months go by, I do not make a single move toward him.
Alex and I are like very close friends who spend a ton of time together, but we are not boyfriends. I do not have the courage to suggest anything like that. Nope, just nope.
Meanwhile, my channel keeps growing steadily. Alex was right, covers of well-known songs turn out to be the perfectstrategy, and a few of the videos I uploaded average around twenty thousand views and a lot of likes. The subscriber count keeps rising, and even the first bits of income start appearing. Since I am underage, my dad has to be listed on the financial side of the account, but it still feels good to be earning something real. Even if the amounts are small for now, it gives me a boost and more motivation.
Alex supports me faithfully and helps me run my social media. We are like a perfectly tuned team. We never fight about anything, there are no cracks between us, and we understand each other effortlessly.
There is one more thing happening in the meantime, something I do not mention to anyone, not even to Alex.
After the verdict in the Hanson case is delivered, I start browsing instructional videos for martial arts online.
I have a feeling it might come in handy, and I do not want to rely only on my height and raw strength. I am a teenage alpha who has not reached his full power yet, and if any of the Hansons ever decide to come for me again, I want to have a real chance.
I know very well that trying to learn on my own is not ideal, because I can develop bad habits no trainer will correct, but I do not give up. I subscribe to many channels and join several forums for people who try to learn martial arts by themselves when they have no access to a coach. I clumsily do shadowboxing, push-ups, pull-ups, and kicks. I work on deepening my split so I can kick higher thanks to better flexibility. But I know it is still not enough.
Everything changes for me one day when I get into a short conversation on one of the forums with one of its regular users.
When I ask him about certain techniques, he answers with a question about why I actually need these skills.
I write that I got beaten up, ended up in the hospital, and that people connected to my attacker might be a future threat,not only to me but also to the people I care about. The user does not reply to my post publicly.
Instead, I get a private message.
I am genuinely shocked. The guy writes that he works for a small subsidiary of Malden Pharmaceuticals called Malden Technology, a company that produces virtual reality goggles, including training programs for martial arts such as marine combat, muay thai, krav maga, and several others.
These programs are based on so-called virtual intelligence instructors, so there is an AI trainer who corrects movements. The goggles come with a set of gloves with sensors, wrist and forearm bands, sensory vests with electrodes, and a vibration system that allows the AI trainer to correct posture.
The program is extremely advanced but not yet commercially available. However, the guy says they run a number of tests for people willing to record and monitor their progress in a special app, people who are dedicated to hard training and committed to developing for at least a full year. He says he could get me a free set if I strictly adhere to uploading all my training results to their reporting system.
All of this is incredibly exciting, so of course I agree.
A week later, I pick up a large package from the post office, and inside I find the goggles, all the body attachments, the sensor system, and cameras that track my movements, and even an inflatable training dummy with a hit detection system that tells whether my strikes have power and accuracy.
The only problem is that I have to hide all of this. Every evening after nine, I train for an hour with my door locked, and I have to make sure I am not too loud.
The AI trainer is named f-AI-t.
He turns out to be very helpful, and I can speak to him almost like to a real person. He asks about my situation, and I tell him about my problems. He promises to adjust my trainingso everything stays quiet. He prepares an interesting training plan for me, and I follow it. All our conversations and all movement readings from the sensors are, of course, sent to the Malden Tech company that provided me with the software.
After each session, I have to pack everything into the box again and hide it deep in my closet.
But these are not the only changes happening during the first half of my first year of high school.
There is one more, far stranger change.
