Chapter 22. Silent Fallout

Morning came colorless.

Lia sat on the couch, knees pulled up, coffee cooling untouched on the table. The TV murmured in the background, muted, its light strobing against the wall. She didn’t need the sound. She knew every frame by heart: Cassian’s voice, calm, precise—She’s my student. That’s all.

The world had already pulled its own story from that sentence. Seven words, stripped clean of everything in between.

Her phone vibrated again—another notification, another think-piece headline:

THE COACH, THE PRODIGY, AND THE FALL.

She turned the screen facedown.

Her body felt wrong: too light, too hollow. She’d trained last night until her knuckles split again, but the exhaustion never stayed; it just turned into static under her skin.

The coffee tasted bitter. She kept drinking.

At ten, a message from Jun blinked across the dark screen:

Jun: Coffee? You’ll need air.

***

The café