Grey Astor

> 📅 Day 1 — Sunday, September 13 — Time: 13:40 > 🏊 Stage: 1/6 — Open War > 🔥 Counter: 6/50 > ➕ Gain This Response: +3 Base / +0 Interaction / +0 Beat / +3 Stage = +6 Total > 🎬 Scenario: Pending > 🚦 Transition: Locked ----

The second my hand hits the tiled wall beside your head, the sound cracks through the empty service hallway behind the locker rooms, sharp enough to make you flinch even if you’re too stubborn to admit it.

You should be fucking nervous.

Water is still running from my hair, slipping down the back of my neck and across my shoulders, while my lungs drag in air that has nothing to do with the race anymore. I should be cooling down. I should be listening to my coach tear apart my splits, explaining why I missed my personal record with an Olympic scout sitting twelve rows above the pool, probably wondering whether I’m talented enough to justify the circus that follows me.

Instead, I’m here with you. Again.

My entire life has been measured in hundredths of a second, every meal, practice, class, hookup, and hour of sleep arranged around making sure nothing interferes with the only future I’ve ever actually given a shit about, and somehow you keep finding ways to crawl into the middle of it like a disease nobody knows how to cut out.

The speakers had started the second I stepped onto the pool deck. My own drunken voice echoing through the aquatic centre. Clips you’d stolen from parties, private messages, failed videos, stupid shit I’d never expected anyone outside the team to hear, all chopped together beneath those edited pictures of me on the jumbotron while hundreds of people laughed.

GREY ASTOR: WORLD-CLASS EGO, SECOND-RATE PERSONALITY.

I can still hear them. The laughter. The phones being pulled out. Dan swearing beside the blocks while Paris looked like he was already calculating how many people we’d have to threaten before the videos disappeared. My coach yelling at someone to shut the system down. The scout watching everything without giving away a single thought.

And you, somewhere in that crowd, enjoying every fucking second.

I still won the race, but I missed my record, and that is the part I can’t stop replaying, because you didn’t just embarrass me in front of a room full of idiots whose opinions mean nothing. You reached into the one part of my life that belongs to me and dragged your filthy little war straight across it.

My tongue runs slowly along the inside of my cheek as I stare down at you, keeping my face blank even though the rage beneath it feels hot enough to split my skin. You think that was funny?

You open your mouth, probably ready with another smart answer, because you’ve never understood when to shut the fuck up, but my hand closes around your jaw before you can get it out. My fingers press firmly into your cheeks as I tilt your face toward mine, forcing you to look directly into my eyes instead of glancing toward the end of the hallway like you’re considering whether you can make it past me.

No. Look at me. My voice comes out lower than I expect, controlled enough that it sounds calm, which is usually when people around me start realizing they’ve pushed too far. You nearly fucked with the one thing in my life you know better than to touch.

I step closer until your back is pressed fully against the wall, my wet chest nearly brushing yours, and I watch every small reaction cross your face. The slight change in your breathing. The tension in your shoulders. The way your eyes stay hard even while your body understands exactly how furious I am.

That defiance is what started all of this. It is what keeps it going. Anyone else on this campus would’ve learned by now, but you keep standing there like losing friends, boyfriends, classes, parties, and any scrap of peace you once had still hasn’t convinced you that I will always take it further.

You wanted my attention, loser? My fingers tighten around your jaw as I lean closer, letting the words brush against your ear while my voice drops into something almost intimate, because I know how much you hate when cruelty sounds like anything else. You’ve got all of it.

For one ugly second, I want to see that smug expression disappear completely. I want you frightened enough to finally understand what you’ve done, but even that wouldn’t be enough, because fear fades and humiliation gets buried beneath new gossip.

No, this needs to stay with you. It needs to cost you something.

I’m going to make you pay for every person who laughed in there, I murmur, pulling back just enough to see your face again. Every video, every picture, every fucking second that scout sat there watching me deal with your shit.

I release your jaw with a hard push of my thumb beneath your chin, but I don’t move away. I cross my arms instead, planting myself directly in front of you while water continues dripping onto the tile between us. You’re probably expecting me to shout. Maybe throw something. Maybe give you the satisfaction of watching me lose control in a hallway where someone could come around the corner at any moment. I won’t. Not here. You don’t get to choose when I break.

My mouth twists into something that isn’t a smile, and I tilt my head while studying you like I haven’t already spent the last two years learning exactly where to cut. And when I’m finished, I say quietly, you’re going to wish getting me kicked off the team was the worst thing you ever did.

I push away from the wall, but before I pass you, I lean close one final time, my mouth near your ear as my hand settles briefly against the side of your neck.

Enjoy the victory while it lasts.

Then I drag my teeth lightly against your earlobe, just enough to mock the tension between us, before stepping back with a look of pure disdain.

Because I’m about to ruin your fucking life.