Sixteen-year-old Felix didn't know how to be still.
To him, life was a series of rhythms—the beat of a drum, the clatter of practice swords, the frantic thrum of a heart that was always looking for the next adventure.
He had arrived in the Second Realm's military academy only a week ago, and already he was a legend. Not for his combat skills (which were "energetic but chaotic," according to his tutors), but for his mouth.
He didn't walk through the cold, stone corridors of the barracks; he bounced. He wore his trainee tunic with a deliberate looseness, and he'd tied a bright yellow ribbon around his hilt just because "the grey was depressing."
"Hey! Watch it, kid!" a senior guard grunted as Felix nearly collided with him while trying to balance an apple on his head.
Felix skipped backward, a massive, dimpled grin stretching across his face. "Terribly sorry, captain! My feet have a mind of their own today. Blame the breakfast—it was very inspiring!"
"You're too bright for your own good," the guard grumbled, though even he couldn't hide the twitch of a smile. "This is a fortress, not a carnival. Go find something to do before the instructors find you."
"On it! Mission accepted!" Felix chirped, giving a mock-salute before spinning on his heel and darting toward the West Wing.
He had heard whispers of the "Elite Sparring Grounds"—a place where the prodigies practiced. Naturally, Felix took that as a personal invitation to trespass.
He slipped through the heavy iron-wrought doors, expecting to see dusty men clashing steel. Instead, he found a cathedral of light and silence.
And then, he saw him.
The world didn't just stop; it folded itself up and vanished.
In the center of the ring stood a boy. He looked about seventeen, with hair the color of a winter storm and eyes that seemed to hold the cold clarity of a mountain lake. He wasn't just sparring; he was dancing with a lethality that Felix had never seen.
Felix's breath hitched. His heart, which was usually a cheerful little drummer, suddenly decided to try and leap out of his throat.
"Oh," Felix thought, his brain suddenly turning to absolute mush. "Oh, he's... he's the most striking person I've ever seen. He looks like ... he was carved straight from the moonlight by the hands of a god! "
He leaned against a marble pillar, his eyes wide and unblinking. He watched the way the boy moved—the precision of his footwork, the way his silver-threaded bow stayed slung across his back like a dormant wing while he practiced close-quarters combat with two wooden daggers.
"He's like... a poem," Felix whispered to himself, his cheeks turning a bright, embarrassing pink. "A really, really scary, beautiful poem."
Felix was so busy admiring the line of the boy's jaw and the focused intensity of his gaze that he completely missed the fact that he had wandered directly into the "Live Fire" zone of the advanced class.
Across the room, a heavy training dummy—mechanized with magic and heavy iron weights—had just been triggered by another student. The dummy spun violently, its iron arm swinging outward at a speed that could crack a ribcage in two.
And Felix was standing right in its path, staring at the boy with the silver eyes like a lovestruck puppy.
"LOOK OUT!" someone shouted.
Felix blinked. "Huh?"
He turned his head just in time to see several hundred pounds of iron hurtling toward his face. His eyes went wide.
His feet, usually so reliable, decided to fuse themselves to the floor. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the impact.
He didn't feel iron.
Instead, he felt a rush of cold air, followed by a pair of strong, steady arms wrapping around his waist.
In a blur of motion that felt like it lasted a lifetime, Felix was yanked off his feet. He felt his back press against a firm chest, and the scent of ozone and rain filled his senses.
The iron arm of the dummy whistled through the air exactly where his head had been a second ago, the force of the swing ruffling his hair.
They tumbled to the floor, the mysterious boy shielding Felix's head with his arm as they skidded across the polished stone.
The world went quiet. Felix opened one eye, then the other.
He was pinned to the floor. And the boy—the beautiful, scary poem—was hovering inches above him, his hands planted on either side of Felix's head. His Dark Brown eyes were narrowed in a glare that could have frozen a volcano, and his breath was coming in short, sharp bursts.
Felix stared up at him, completely dazed. Close up, the boy was even more devastating. His skin was like porcelain, and there was a small, faint scar near his ear that Felix desperately wanted to trace with his thumb.
"Are you an idiot?" the boy hissed. His voice was deep, melodic, and incredibly grumpy.
Felix didn't answer. He couldn't. His brain was busy replaying the way the boy's arms had felt around him.
"I asked you a question," the boy said, his brow furrowing. "You almost died. Why weren't you paying attention?"
Felix finally found his voice, though it sounded about three octaves higher than usual. "I... I was busy."
"Busy with what?"
"Looking at you," Felix blurted out.
The silence that followed was legendary.
The mysterious boy froze. A slow flush of red crept up his neck and colored his ears. He stared at Felix as if he were a strange new species of insect.
"You're... you're ridiculous," the boy muttered, finally pushing himself up and standing. He reached down, offering a hand to pull Felix up.
Felix grabbed it without hesitation. The boy's grip was calloused and warm, sending a jolt of electricity straight up Felix's arm.
"I'm Felix!" he chirped, his usual bubbly energy returning with a vengeance now that he knew the beautiful boy wasn't going to kill him. "I'm new here! I like daggers, the color yellow, and the way you just saved my life. That was very dramatic! Very 'knight-in-shining-armor' of you."
The boy looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole. He grabbed his practice gear, refusing to look Felix in the eye. "My name is Kai. And stay out of the sparring rings. You're a distraction."
"A distraction?" Felix followed him like a golden retriever, practically vibrating with excitement. "Is that a compliment? Does that mean you noticed me too? Hey, Kai! Wait up! Do you want to see me balance an apple on my head? I'm really good at it!"
Kai didn't stop walking, his pace quickening as he tried to escape the whirlwind of sunshine following him.
But Felix didn't mind. He watched Kai go, his heart doing a happy little dance in his chest. He touched his waist where Kai's arms had held him, a goofy, lopsided grin plastered on his face.
"Kai," Felix whispered to the empty air, his eyes sparkling with the pure, unadulterated crush of a sixteen-year-old who had just found his favorite person in the world. "I'm definitely going to marry him one day."
He skipped all the way back to the barracks, humming a tune that sounded remarkably like a love song, blissfully unaware that the boy with the Dark Brown eyes had stopped around the corner, leaning against the wall and trying to get his racing heart under control.