(AN: First I want to say thank you to those who have taken the time to read my story.
I will be releasing 10 chapters today and then 10 again next week to make up for the week of Christmas and New Years I will be preoccupied.
Ok thanks again more at the end but for now lets get to it. Sixth of 10)
Age 13
By mid-September, campus heat had settled into something steady, less fire, more weight.
Mornings carried the hum of air conditioners and the smell of paper coffee cups.
Routine had taken root.
I liked routine.
It was measurable.
Predictable.
Safe.
The announcement board outside Welch Hall was crowded with flyers, but the one everyone stopped to read that day wasn't paper.
It was a grade-distribution chart pinned up by Professor Holloway.
Students clustered close, whispering as they traced the bars and numbers.
Two perfect scores.
No names.
Just the number 100 written twice at the top, above the curve.
"Whoever did that," someone muttered, "just nuked the average."
Paige stood beside me, hands in her pockets, eyes bright with mischief.
"Well," she said softly, "I guess we broke the curve again."
I didn't answer immediately.
I watched the shifting group, the glances that flicked between us and the paper, the quick calculation spreading through the crowd.
Admiration mixed with irritation, the same equation every time.
"Statistically inevitable," I murmured.
Paige smirked. "You say that like we didn't both study till midnight."
"You mean you talked till midnight."
"I was brainstorming," she said, feigning offense. "You just solved everything before the lecture started."
Her banter drew a few side-eyes, and she fell quiet.
I folded the strap of my bag across my chest and stepped away from the board.
I didn't gloat.
I never did.
But I felt the weight of being noticed, light, thin, and uncomfortable.
As we walked down the hall, Paige whispered, "You'd think they'd be happy the test was fair."
"People don't like fair when they lose."
She snorted. "You should print that on a T-shirt."
Office Hours
Holloway's office smelled like chalk and pipe tobacco, the kind of scent that never really left the wood.
Two chairs waited in front of the desk; Paige and I took them like a pair of defendants.
Holloway adjusted his glasses. "You've both done excellent work. Too excellent, according to my teaching assistant."
Paige raised an eyebrow. "Is that a complaint?"
"Observation," he said. "When two first-year students raise the mean by three points, it catches attention. You've become the subject of hallway folklore."
I stayed still. "Folklore rarely checks its sources."
That earned the faintest smile. "Indeed. But it does create expectations. The administration keeps a close eye on exceptional minors. You're part of an experiment, whether you like it or not."
Paige leaned forward. "We didn't ask to be one."
"No," Holloway said gently, "but brilliance doesn't ask permission. It just is. And that's why I worry about balance."
He gestured to the clock on the wall. "You're both still under curfew?"
"Nine p.m.," I said.
"Imagine that," he mused. "Able to compute multidimensional limits but still required to turn in early. That's the world reminding you you're young."
"Constraint helps control," I said.
He studied me for a moment, then nodded. "Perhaps. But control can become a habit that outlives its purpose."
He opened a folder and slid two envelopes across the desk. "Supplementary assignments. Optional, but I suspect you'll find them irresistible, small research prompts to keep you challenged."
Paige grinned. "Homework for fun. Finally, someone speaks my language."
Holloway's smile faded just a little. "Be careful, both of you. Talent draws light. And attention isn't always friendly."
Outside, sunlight hit the marble floor in bright rectangles.
Paige tucked her envelope under her arm. "He sounds like a fortune cookie."
"Accurate ones are rare," I said.
The Library Rift
We met in our usual corner of the Perry-Castañeda Library, where the ceiling fans spun lazily and the tables were scarred with decades of initials.
Stacks of books surrounded us, Paige's laptop whirring softly, my pencil moving in quiet arcs.
For an hour we worked in companionable silence. Then she pushed her chair back, exhaling sharply.
"Okay, tell me you don't think this proof is dull."
"It's elegant," I said without looking up.
"Elegant," she repeated, incredulous. "It's boring."
I glanced up. "Then you're misreading the problem."
"No," she shot back. "You're under-reading life."
That earned her a raised eyebrow.
She leaned forward, tapping the page with her pencil. "Everything with you is precision. Straight lines, right answers. Doesn't it ever bother you that some problems don't want to be solved?"
I paused, pencil hovering above the margin. "Everything worth doing deserves accuracy."
She laughed once, not cruelly, but tiredly. "You sound like my dad."
Silence stretched.
Between us, the air felt charged, not anger, just static from two frequencies that didn't line up.
Finally she sighed and closed her notebook. "Forget it. I'm just cranky."
I nodded but didn't move.
I wrote another line of notation, more carefully than necessary, letting the rhythm of pencil on paper pull the tension apart.
A librarian passed behind us; I looked up just long enough to stretch my shoulders, the quiet roll of muscle under my shirt almost subconscious.
Paige caught it out of the corner of her eye, the way I did that sometimes, small, controlled movements like a metronome resetting itself.
"You've been doing that a lot," she said finally.
"Doing what?"
"Those stretches. You training for something?"
"Focus exercise," I said.
She smiled faintly. "Of course it is."
We went back to work.
It wasn't forgiveness, but it was normal again.
Evening Light
By eight-forty-five, campus had quieted.
Most students were just heading out, coffee runs, study groups, late dinners, but my day was already folding closed.
Paige walked with me toward my dorm, her envelope of research notes tucked under one arm.
The Tower glowed above us, soft gold against the sky.
"You ever wonder," she asked, "what we'd be like if we weren't us?"
"Less tired, probably."
She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Sometimes I think we keep trying to prove we belong, and the joke is we already do."
I didn't answer right away.
The sidewalk clicked under our steps.
"Maybe proving it's part of staying sharp," I said.
"Or part of never resting," she countered.
When we reached my dorm, the hall lights spilled through the open door.
Ben, our RA, was stationed at his desk with a clipboard and a half-finished soda.
"Clock's ticking, Cooper," he said lightly.
I glanced at my watch. "Two minutes to spare."
"Overachiever."
Paige grinned. "He can't help it."
Ben nodded toward her. "Walk her back, too, Cooper?"
"Different building," she said quickly. "I'll manage."
"Alright then. Night, prodigies."
We exchanged a look, half amusement, half exhaustion, and I disappeared inside.
After Curfew
My room was dim, the air still warm from the day.
I closed the door, set my books in their precise stack, and crouched beside the bed.
Ten push-ups, slow and silent.
Fifteen sit-ups.
It wasn't rebellion; it was ritual.
The movement quieted the noise that thinking left behind.
I switched off the light at nine-oh-one.
The dark was full of small sounds, pipes ticking, a radio faint through the wall, footsteps retreating down the hall.
I lay still, feeling my pulse settle.
In the dark, Holloway's words returned. Talent draws light.
So did Paige's. Not everything wants to be solved.
I didn't know which one bothered me more.
Saturday Morning
The next day started like the last, sun already high, cafeteria coffee lukewarm.
Paige found me at a corner table, a newspaper folded beside my plate.
"You're reading the news?" she asked, surprised.
"Patterns," I said. "Every story's a dataset."
She laughed softly. "Only you could make headlines sound like homework."
I folded the paper, eyes lingering for a second on a small local piece, a series of burglaries on the west side, no suspects yet.
Then I let it go.
Just information.
Not a puzzle.
Not yet.
Paige sat across from me and unwrapped a muffin. "I'm sorry about yesterday. I shouldn't have snapped."
"You weren't wrong," I said.
"About what?"
"Some problems don't want to be solved."
She blinked, surprised, then smiled. "So you do listen."
"Occasionally."
We ate in companionable quiet.
Outside the window, students crossed the quad carrying books, guitars, laundry baskets, all the small proofs of ordinary life.
For a moment, I let myself feel ordinary too.
That night, I worked through Holloway's extra assignment until eight-thirty.
When I finished, I rolled my shoulders, stood, and began the quiet routine that had become my own equation for peace.
Movement.
Breath.
Silence.
Control.
I didn't need to tell anyone about it.
Some things worked better unseen.
And somewhere beneath the ordered rhythm of campus life, a faint unease began to hum, like static waiting for a signal.
Thanks for reading, feel free to write a comment, leave a review, and Power Stones are always appreciated.
I have two other stories I am currently working on and I want to assure that it will not effect this story I have every thing planed out story wise.
The first story is called Naruto: Crimson Reaper
The story of a soul reincarnated into the naruto universe half Uzamaki half Chinoike
The second story has a work in progress name but it is a story a sould reincarnated as Cain (Bible) in the world of TVD/Originals.