Clifton POV
Clifton's wrist was already screaming when he pushed open the training room door.
It was a familiar pain now—bone grinding against bone, tendons frayed like old rope. The doctors had used words like irreversible and degenerative and manage expectations. Clifton had stopped listening after the third diagnosis.
He stood in the second-floor hallway, letting the air conditioning hit his face. Through the gap in the basement door at the end of the corridor, he could hear them. The new trainees. Dozens of mechanical keyboards clattering like hailstones on a tin roof. Young hands. Healthy hands. Hands that didn't need to be iced after every scrim.
Clifton shoved his right hand into his hoodie pocket and dug his left fingers into the joint of his wrist. The pain sharpened. Good. Pain meant he was still here. Pain meant he hadn't lost yet.
Delmus appeared from around the corner, clutching a stack of evaluation reports. "The electric bill this month is astronomical. These kids never turn off their rigs." He flipped a page. "You should go down there. Put some fear into them. Captain's presence and all that."
Clifton opened his mouth to refuse. Then his wrist pulsed—a sharp, glass-splintering throb—and he thought about fresh blood. New hands. Someone younger, faster, healthier, sitting in his chair.
He nodded once. Cold. Sharp.
They walked toward the stairs. Clifton descended into the noise, the frantic keyboard clatter growing louder with each step. He stopped outside the half-open double doors.
The basement was a warehouse of fluorescent light and gray-uniformed boys. But Clifton's eyes slid past the main pit, toward the corner by the server racks. A small alcove sat in perpetual shadow—a graveyard of broken chairs and obsolete equipment.
A single monitor glowed in that darkness.
Someone was sitting there. Back facing the door. Faded black baseball cap pulled low.
Clifton's stomach dropped before his brain caught up.
He knew those shoulders. That rigid, pulled-tight posture. The way the mouse moved—microscopic adjustments, terrifying frequency. He'd studied that movement for months, rewatching old VODs in hotel rooms, trying to understand what he'd done wrong.
The boy in the cap hit his enter key. Then, slowly, he turned around.
Under the brim was a face Clifton had tried to forget. Pale. Gaunt. Deep, dark eyes that had once looked at him like he was the sun.
Now those eyes were wide with naked terror.
Justice Terry.
The man who had taken Clifton's heart, thrown it on the ground, and vanished into a Chicago rainstorm eighteen months ago.
Justice's lips parted. His throat bobbed. He tried to speak and failed.
Clifton expected him to flinch. To look away. To run. Instead, Justice just sat there—frozen in his chair, bony hands gripping his jeans, knuckles white. He looked like a man bracing for a blow.
The trainees in the main pit had stopped moving. They stared at their legendary captain with a mix of awe and fear.
Clifton's voice came out cold. Razor-sharp. Loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Their mental fortitude looks pathetic."
Justice's shoulders jerked. He pulled his head down, hiding his face under the cap.
Clifton spun on his heel and walked out. He didn't stop until he reached the first-floor kitchen, his back pressed against the cold wall, his chest heaving.
He pulled out his phone. Stared at the blocked number in his contacts.
Eighteen months. Eighteen months of silence, and now Justice was here, in his basement, wearing a cheap hoodie and acting like a kicked dog.
Clifton didn't unblock the number.
He opened the rookie evaluation file instead.
He was going to find out exactly what Justice Terry wanted. And then he was going to make him regret crawling back.
CliftonPOV
The espresso machine screamed. Clifton watched the dark liquid drip and tried to remember how to breathe.
Buster Williamson shuffled into the kitchen holding a mug printed with an anime girl. He took one look at Clifton's face and stopped dead.
"Sponsors on your ass again?"
"No." Clifton drank the espresso black. It scalded his throat. He didn't care.
Buster leaned against the fridge. "I just saw Delmus looking pale. Did you go rage at the rookies?"
Clifton set the cup down. The ceramic clinked against marble. "Do you remember the Fire Cup in Chicago? About a year and a half ago."
"Hell yeah. That was our peak. Why?"
"That trainee in the corner. The one with the cap." Clifton's voice was flat. Dead. "That's Justice Terry."
Buster's mug slipped. It cracked against the counter. "Wait. The guy who vanished after finals? The one you—" He stopped himself.
"The one I went crazy looking for," Clifton finished. "Yeah."
"Holy shit." Buster looked around, checking the hallway. "Why is he here? Is he trying to get you back?"
The words hit Clifton like a blade between the ribs.
Get you back.
He saw the alley again. The rain. Justice's hands shoving him away. The dry heaving. The look of pure, visceral revulsion in those dark eyes.
"He told me it wasn't real," Clifton said. His voice was barely above a whisper. "That night. Everything. Said it was a mistake."
Buster sucked in a breath. "But… the way he used to look at you. Like you were his whole world."
"An act." Clifton ran a hand through his hair. "He's a liar."
The words tasted like ash. They were safer than the alternative—that Justice had meant it, and Clifton had somehow destroyed it anyway.
A metallic clank sounded from the hallway.
Clifton moved. Three strides, the sliding door shoved open, his eyes scanning the empty corridor.
Nothing. Just a trash can, swaying back and forth.
Someone had been there. Someone had run.
Clifton stared at the swaying metal. His chest tightened. Justice had heard everything. The liar, the opportunist, the mistake—he'd heard it all.
Good.
Clifton turned back to Buster. "Not a word. To anyone."
Buster nodded frantically and fled.
Alone in the kitchen, Clifton pressed his right hand against the cold marble. The pain pulsed up his arm like a heartbeat. He closed his eyes, and the memory swallowed him whole.
Chicago. October. Rain.
CliftonPOV
The rain was cold. It always was in Chicago in October.
Clifton's memory dragged him back to that narrow brick alley behind the stadium. The Fire Cup MVP trophy was heavy in his right hand. His veins were still singing with adrenaline from the championship victory.
He had Justice by the wrist. Justice—just an amateur then, a nobody Clifton had found in solo queue and decided to keep. They'd ducked into the alley to escape the screaming fans and flashing cameras.
The alley smelled like wet garbage and stale beer. A single rusted streetlamp flickered above them, casting long shadows across the puddles.
Clifton pushed his back against the wet brick wall. His chest heaved. He turned his head and looked at Justice.
Justice was panting too. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead. Rain dripped down his pale cheeks. His deep, dark eyes were locked onto Clifton, filled with something that looked like magnetic attraction—or maybe Clifton had just wanted to see that. Maybe he'd been seeing what he wanted to see all along.
The trophy hit the ground with a splash. Muddy water sprayed onto Clifton's shoes. He didn't care.
He reached out. Cupped Justice's freezing face with both hands. Tilted his head down. Kissed him.
It was forceful. Desperate. Driven by months of suppressed desire and the sheer ecstasy of winning.
The second his lips pressed against Justice's, everything went wrong.
Justice's body seized. Not a flinch—a spasm. Like a high-voltage wire had been jammed into his spine. Before Clifton could deepen the kiss, two hands slammed into his chest and shoved.
Clifton stumbled backward. His spine hit the brick wall. Pain radiated across his shoulder blades.
He looked up.
Justice was staring at him like he was a monster. His hands were clamped over his own mouth, knuckles bone-white. His chest heaved erratically. His eyes were wide—filled with naked terror and a visceral, physical revulsion that couldn't be faked.
Justice stumbled backward. His foot splashed into a deep puddle. A harsh, dry-heaving sound tore from his throat.
Clifton froze. His hand—still reaching out—hung suspended in the cold air. Rain soaked his sleeve. His heart felt like it had been crushed in an icy fist.
To a man as proud as Clifton, the message was crystal clear. This was raw. Unfakeable. Rejection in its purest, most primal form.
He ground his teeth together. "If I disgust you so much, why did you spend six months playing duos with me every day? Why did you look at me like that?"
Justice leaned against a rusted dumpster, gasping for air, shaking his head frantically. He tried to speak. His jaw locked. No sound came out.
To Clifton, that silence was an answer.
Default. Guilt. A liar whose scam had just been exposed.
He bent down. Picked up the muddy trophy. Looked at Justice one last time.
"Get out."
He didn't look back. He walked out of that alley, leaving the violently shaking figure behind in the rain.
That night, in his hotel room, burning with humiliation, Clifton blocked Justice's number. His Discord. His Twitter. He erased him completely.
Justice POV
Two hours later, in a cheap motel room that smelled of cigarette smoke and stale disinfectant, Justice sat on the edge of a stained mattress. His hands were still shaking. His chest still felt like it was caving in.
He typed the message four times. Deleted it three.
Finally, he sent it.
I'm sorry. It's not you. Please let me explain.
The screen showed the word he dreaded and hoped for in equal measure:
Delivered.
Justice stared at that single word until his eyes burned. He refreshed obsessively, each empty notification a small death. Clifton had seen it. He had read it. And he had chosen silence.
By the time his phone battery died, Justice had convinced himself of the narrative that would haunt him for the next eighteen months:
He's better off without someone so broken.
