Chapter 34 – What Remains Unsaid
The bus ride back to the academy was quiet.
Jota sat by the window, forehead resting against the cool glass. Outside, the world blurred—olive trees, crumbling walls, small towns still asleep under spring mist.
Bruno dozed beside him, arms folded tight. Tiago listened to music through one earbud, the other dangling loose. No one said much.
But the silence wasn't empty.
It was full—with memory, effort, doubt, and a strange kind of pride.
They hadn't won a trophy. There were no medals. But something had shifted inside all of them.
Jota traced his finger against the window fog.
He wrote an invisible word: Forward.
---
Back at the academy, routines resumed like the world hadn't noticed they'd left.
Laundry on hooks. Training schedules updated. Cafeteria lines.
Leonel greeted them with a grin. "How was fame?"
Tiago rolled his eyes. "We didn't die. That's the report."
Bruno tossed his duffel onto his bed with a thud. "We survived, barely."
